Page 34 of Until I’m Safe in Your Arms

Her husband had only to touch her and she was ready for him. “Yes, exactly like that.” With a little effort, she lifted her right leg until her ankle rested on his broad shoulder. “Now enter me.”

Eyes dark as jet, Alex leaned forward then thrust inside her. Deep inside her. The intensity of his stare as he started to move within her made this the most intimate thing she’d ever experienced. Like they were actually becoming one with each other.

The rhythm he set was slow, but it built in minute increments until Emma wanted to explode from within. “Oh, Alex,” she moaned, at last unable to keep silent. “I didn’t realize how good this would feel.” She throbbed and ached each time he thrust into her. And all she wanted was more. Gazing into his face, she was alarmed to see his jaw clenched and sweat popping out on his forehead. “Are you all right?”

“Holding back,” he ground out. “Waiting for your pleasure.” He thrust even deeper and Emma gasped as her body wound itself tighter within. “Don’t hold back.” She panted as he immediately sped up. “Let go now.”

With a loud cry, Alex plunged into her deeply, then thrust sharply several times. Emma arched her back and shrieked as she shattered around him, the pleasure more intense than ever before. Her cry was joined by Alex bellowing her name. Her toes curled as he gave a final thrust and spent himself, straining against her for what seemed an age.

Both sated, Alex gently lowered her leg, then collapsed onto the bed.

Emma lay back panting and staring up at the blue brocade canopy, lost in a love-induced haze. Never had she experienced such a joining with her husband. Nor been so exhausted by their lovemaking. She closed her eyes, about to drift off to sleep, when Alex’s voice came to her as from a long way off.

“Emma?”

“Hmmm?”

“What did you do?”

“What?” She was too sleepy to talk.

“How did you know what to do just then? Putting your leg up like that?” His voice was hushed, yet his tone was…suspicious.

Wide awake now, Emma rolled over to find him watching her intently.

“I know you were a virgin when we married. There was blood on the sheets.” His gaze never wavered from her face. “However, what we just did…I’ve never felt such a powerful release in my life. How did you know how to do that?”

Emma smiled and stroked his cheek. “Remember I told you all of my memories of India weren’t bad?”

He nodded, still wary.

“Well, when my uncle and aunt and I first arrived in India, we traveled for something like a week to visit Wajid Ali Shah, the then ruler of Oudh. Uncle Washer had been sent by the East India Company to tour India and check up on their business interests, I suppose. I was fourteen at the time, so I didn’t pay much attention to those conversations. But we were in Oudh for a month or more, going each day to the palace for my uncle to meet with the king. While the men talked and ate, my aunt and I were welcomed into the zenana, the part of the palace where all the women lived, including Wajid Shah’s wives.”

Emma propped her head up on her hand and glanced away, unsure how her husband would take some parts of this tale. Still, she needed to tell him to keep him from mistrusting her. “My aunt spoke each day with the older women and wives, but I found a young girl my exact same age, and we became good friends.”

“But how did you understand one another? You hadn’t learned Hindi, had you?” At least Alex seemed interested in the story. That would be helpful.

“No, although I eventually picked up a smattering of the language as we traveled around the country. But no, at that time, I knew nothing of Hindi. The girl, whose name was Lakshmi, had learned some English from missionaries who had visited the zenana. And she taught me my first words and phrases in Hindi, so we managed to speak quite well after a time.”

“What does Lakshmi have to do with your…knowledge of what we just did?” That suspicious tone was back in Alex’s voice.

“Because she was the newest of Wajid Shah’s wives.”

“What?” Alex shot up in the bed. “At fourteen?”

“Yes, fourteen is a perfectly acceptable age for marriage in India.” Emma bit back a smile and patted the bed. “Lay back down, please. I’d have thought the idea of multiple wives would have given you more concern.”

“Well, but I’ve known about that for ages.” Alex settled back into the mattress. “But to marry at fourteen?”

“Have you forgotten your history lessons? Queen Katherine Howard, one of Henry VIII’s wives, married him when she was fifteen.” Emma stroked Alex’s cheek. “Here in England, we marry at eighteen without a qualm, sometimes seventeen.”

“Well, fourteen and eighteen or even seventeen are vastly different.” Her husband did not seem inclined to let this go.

“Despite your objections, Lakshmi was indeed married to the Shah, and I’m sure her parents were thrilled for her to marry a king. She herself was all starry-eyed at the time because she had, as she put it, ‘found favor with her husband.’ I wasn’t quite sure what that meant until the last day before we were to leave when she told me.” Emma recalled being quite shocked, but also very interested in what Lakshmi had explained to her.

“So this girl told you how to…” Alex winced, as though he might have to avoid a blow.

“She called it ‘splitting the bamboo.’” Emma giggled. She’d thought it funny when Lakshmi told her about it. “She is the one who told me about what goes on in the marriage bed.”