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The sight of him, his sheer physicality and grace, affected her as it always did, with simple, trembling desire. He must have seen it in her face for he coloured, just a little. That was another thing that she loved about Nick, the fact that he seemed surprised that she found him so desirable, that she wanted to look at him. He was so handsome and so masculine and yet he never seemed aware of it.
‘What?’ He lifted an eyebrow.
‘It is so unfair that European men can lounge about in Indian clothes and yet I am trussed up like a fowl in these things.’ She waved a hand at her chintz skirts and tight bodice.
‘There is no reason why you cannot relax in your Indian clothes in private,’ Nick said. ‘You will just have to scramble into your corsets if someone comes to call.’ His fingers were working on the long row of buttons down her back, his mouth kissing each inch of skin as it was exposed.
‘No one scrambles into a corset!’ Anusha protested, trying to stand still as he slipped her bodice free and undid the ties of her skirts. They pooled around her feet, followed by her petticoats, leaving her in her corset, chemise and very little else.
Her breath came out with a whoosh as he freed the laces: partly the loosening of the constriction, partly tension that was building too fast. ‘Poor darling,’ he said, rubbing her ribs lightly with the palms of his hands. Darling, not love. ‘I’ll kiss it better.’
He held her between his hands while he caressed each red crease on her skin with his lips, trailing down each side of her rib cage in turn until he reached her navel, then twirling inside it with the point of his tongue. ‘Nick!’ She wriggled, but his hands were firm on her hips as he knelt and kissed across her belly to the right, then down to her groin, his lips brushing the tangled curls. ‘Nick.’
She knew about this, of course. But the reality, the intimacy, was shocking. He trailed back up, across, down the other side, and her hands twitched with the effort not to take his head, press him close to where she ached and pulsed.
Nick came forwards on his knees, pushing her before him until her legs hit the pile of rugs and she toppled backwards, sprawled open to him on the soft silken platform.
His hands pushed at her thighs until she parted them, stiff with nerves for a moment. Then, when his tongue flicked out and found her, she collapsed back and abandoned herself to whatever he chose to do to her.
He chose to drive her to the edge of madness with slow, slow licks and kisses, each probing deeper and deeper into her quivering intimate heat until she was sobbing, pleading, for release. Then, as her hands grasped at the pile of the carpets and her back arched up, he parted her gently with his fingers, bent and stroked just one tiny spot with his tongue, again and again and she shuddered and cried out, reaching for him.
* * *
Nick lay with Anusha in his arms, and watched while she drifted back into reality as his frustrated body began to calm down. She was beautiful in the throes of passion: uninhibited, trusting, utterly sensual. Eighteen more days seemed an eternity to wait to make her his. But he would wait because she trusted him and because he wanted to do this properly for her. In this, at least, his second marriage would not be like his first.
Anusha desired him. Now she must abandon her dreams, and, he hoped, most of her fears, and marry him with only that unpredictable thread of mutual passion to bind her to him.
He had been right not to protest that he loved her, try to romance her. Anusha would have seen right through lies and he knew she did not want emotional involvement. He had heard the alarm in her voice when he had casually called her love just now. She needed to be herself, not emotionally tied to a man she did not love, he understood that.
It was a relief, of course. He could not cope with the clinging, needy, love of a woman. He had hurt Miranda by not being what she wanted in that way and he did not want to hurt this woman. At least he would try never to be cruel. His mother’s sobs echoed down the years to the man who was once a small boy standing outside her bedchamber in the dark night listening, helpless. Why can’t you love me, Francis? All I want is for you to love me...
‘Nick?’ The real woman in his arms stirred and smiled up at him, her eyes a little unfocused. Then Anusha’s gaze sharpened and she lifted her hand to touch his cheek. ‘What is it? What is wrong?’
‘Nothing. Just an old memory from long ago.’
There was a knock at the inner door. ‘Nicholas sahib?’ The door handle rattled. ‘Laurens sahib asks if you can come to his study to speak to him.’
