Falling in Love - A Shivika Romance ✔

54. My Annika

One of the faculty members was on stage calling for students and their partners to dance the last dance of the night. Shivaay and Annika stopped kissing, now aware of what they were supposed to do. They were attending a party. Shivaay heaved a loud sigh while Annika struggled to make friends with the real world. The kiss was too dreamy. Not that she was complaining.

"Dance with me," he pulled her along. They passed through the narrow passage, walked up to the dance floor, and began swaying with the flow of the rhythm.

"I thought you did not like to dance," Annika remarked recalling the last time they danced during their reception party. He pulled her closer.

"Maybe I do now."

"What should I make out of this reply?"

He shrugged his shoulders, "I want to dance with you. Is it too much to ask?" Annika shook her head. She loved having him so close no matter how much it bothered her heart by beating unnaturally fast.

His hands reached slightly lower than they should. He couldn't help the feelings. He never felt like that for any other person. The desire to touch her seemed so wrong yet felt so right at the same time. He didn't know how to introduce Annika to intimacy in any other way. She didn't seem to mind. She continued dancing the way she was. He took it as an encouragement.

"I don't like the song," he mumbled under his breath.

"We can stop dancing if you want," she offered.

She tried pulling out of his arms only to be pulled back in closer, "I never said we should stop dancing."

"What do you want?"

He looked at her intently. He wanted her. In all ways. But he couldn't risk putting her in an uncomfortable scene either. He did not know how to answer her question.

"I just want us to dance no matter what music is being played in the background," he replied. They moved in a circular motion causing Annika to be where he was earlier and him where she was. She figured out Dev and Mallika dancing behind Shivaay uncaring of his presence. She realized they were no longer dancing. They were rather hugging on the dance floor. Besides a few movements of their feet, whatever they were doing couldn't be called a dance.

"Are you doing this to show Mallika?" a hurt Annika asked.

Shivaay's face turned sour. His jaw clenched. His arms were wrapped around Annika in a more protective embrace. He had stopped the slow movements of his feet. He was just hugging Annika in the middle of the dance floor.

"I forbid you from bringing a third person into our relationship. Don't spoil our evening by taking her name," he said in a rather angry tone. He didn't want to be angry tonight. Only if Annika wasn't so stubborn. All he wanted was to spend good times with Annika after a week of trying to chase all of Annika's distress away from them yet being partly unsuccessful. Is that how she planned to reward him after his tries?

"So you aren't?"

Shivaay broke the hug. He cupped her face, "Why would I?"

Annika's eyes traveled from Shivaay to Dev, then to Mallika. She was surprised how neither of the three reacted bitterly to one another's presence. 

"Why are you acting as if you don't know?" she asked.

"What are you saying?"

She never knew she would spoil her own evening yet she continued, "You mean you don't know that Dev and Mallika are behind us when all four of us have been in this party for almost three hours now?"

That came as a shock to Shivaay. His eyes only noticed two people tonight: one was Annika and the second one was the dunce called Arjun. Did Annika really think he would be calmly dancing with her when the cause of her troubled mind was literally behind them?