Zehnaseeb ✓

e l e v e n

[First of all, I'm extremely sorry.
Second of all, Enjoy!]

"Sawera," I hear the echo of his words, "how do you feel?"

With a gasp, I startle awake into the darkness of our bedroom.

A low ache in my belly builds up, fear and excitement buried in the same belly. I don't move, I feel him right behind me.

I think of everything that happened last night and I feel his hand still on my bare waist. My back touching his bare chest. The curtains are closed, but I know it's not morning yet. It's too blue for it to be morning.

The warmth of the silky sheets tickles my skin and I notice sweat on my heated body.

Someone please tell me it was a dream.

"Sawera?" He kisses my head and questions.

"-Yeah, y-yeah, I'm fine." I speak into the darkness. I don't think it has been much time to the act, I think I just dozed off. But I want my guess to be incorrect, I want it to be Fajr, I want him to not be in the apartment.

I want to figure out why I did this when I wasn't ready for it.

In spite of acknowledging how beautifully it turned out, I'm angry at myself because I wasn't ready. I did it out of adamance. I don't have to think much before affirming that I want to go back in time and hit myself with a brick and tell myself that Abeer's thoughts on me were not to decide this.

This was to be my moment. My moment.

I regret being stubborn. I think of how it happened, how my pulse was rioting; how he asked me whether I was sure I wanted to do this, this early in our marriage; how I hesitated for a second and thought about it twice, but went ahead determined. All because I was angry at Abeer.

Because I wanted that tag to be removed.

Azaan pulls me closer under the sheet and I can feel how exposed we have been to each other in the previous few hours.

I hear his steady breaths and wish someone knocks on the door and frees me out of this, but there's nobody except us in the apartment. And that makes me even more nervous.

My breath hitches as I feel his lips on my neck, "-Azaan!" escapes my lips and I instantly regret it.

It would have been easier to pretend asleep.

"Is it Fajr, yet?" I ask the first question that comes to my mind.

I hear a grunt and some shifting behind me. He's about to get up when I pull his hand on my waist back on its place, feeling the coldness of the room.

He answers the question and shifts back down but I'm suddenly more indulged in the beautiful feeling than in preoccupying myself thinking what the time is.

The low ache in my belly intensifies with each passing second. My pulse riots again at the intimacy we're sharing.

The- the intimacy we're sharing.

It's the first time he is with me.

Like, really, with me.

Without his phone, without his worry for the office-chaos, without his books. It's just me and him. Him and me. Together.

I guide the hand on my waist to where it aches on my belly, where -in contrast of the sudden tranquility in my head- the butterflies don't seem to be at peace.

I feel better. Better than yesterday. Better than the day before yesterday. Better than ever.

I take a hundred and eighty's turn and look at him with a big grin, genuinely happy. He opens his eyes while the movement happens and I freeze there. My elbow dipping the linen below us, my hair falling on one side, my smile slowly fading as my eyes pin on him.