And he did so, with his mouth and his hands and his words, until she was mindless with pleasure and desperate with spiralling tension. Soothed and provoked, kissed and teased, she moaned his name and arched under him, begging for him in Hindi and English and soft, incoherent murmurs.
Anusha had no inhibition or fear left in her by the time Nick settled himself over her. She cradled him in her thighs, curled her legs around him and opened her body and her heart to him as he thrust, slow and strong, and made her his.
‘Nick,’ she said and opened her eyes on to his as he looked down at her, every strong line in his face refined by tension, his eyes full of love and desire.
‘I am here,’ he said, as if she could doubt it, and began to move, gentle at first and then with a rhythm that swept her with him, up and up until everything exploded and they were one and indistinguishable and she did not know where her body ended and his began, nor her mind either.
* * *
‘Anusha,’ Nick murmured and rolled over with her still tight in his arms. The bed swung wildly and she clutched at him and laughed, her wicked laugh that never failed to make him smile.
‘I am here.’
‘Are you happy?’ It was a brave question to ask of a new bride who had just lain with her husband for the first time, he thought with a wry smile. What if she said no?
‘I think perhaps it is not permitted to be this happy,’ she said and came up on her elbows to smile at him. ‘Are future marchionesses allowed to be so?’
‘I have no idea,’ he confessed. ‘But we will make new rules and do as we will and I predict that we will laugh more than any other lord and lady in the whole of England.’
She curled down beside him and her hands began to explore. She was brave, a little tentative, and he realised she was putting her theoretical learning to the test.
‘I also predict,’ he said, trying not to gasp, ‘that you will be the only aristocratic lady in England with an understanding of the Indian classical erotic texts. I am not sure what I have done to deserve it, but please, my love, do not stop!’
Anusha rested her arms on his chest and kissed along his collarbone. ‘Oh, I do love you, Nicholas!’
‘For ever.’ He drew her up for his kiss and the two words that were a question and an answer and a vow all at the same time. ‘For ever.’