‘You have everything a man wants. Money, women fawning over you, the work you love…’

‘Everything, except you.’ He put his hand on hers, gripping it on the rail. He felt her jerk in shock. Contact rapidly evoked what time hadn’t sufficiently buried.

‘I have missed you. A lot more than you think.’ His whisper grated the air close to her.

‘Don’t let’s go there, Revath.’

His fist curled even more strongly on hers. He wished he could heed her words. They were sanity. A timely warning. But the storm inside was let loose. He took away his hand but only to grasp her upper arms to draw her close.

‘Revath!’

‘Do you think any woman could be what you were to me?’ Her eyes widened as the words registered and he felt her relax slightly, the tension ebbing from her.

‘I mean it, Stuti.’

She didn’t resist as he brought his head close to hers. His mouth touched her cheek and then irresistibly, inevitably, her mouth.

Time seem to dissolve. His head swam with the rush of feeling. He realized he had been only half alive as a surge of sensation invaded his body, rushing through his veins with the speed of storm winds.

He didn’t care if her mother in law saw them. He didn’t care if the staff did. He didn’t care if the whole of Rajasthan became a witness to the kiss. All he knew was he needed it. Needed her surrender to the rage of emotions swirling inside both of them. He was sure of that. She felt it too. He could feel the trembling in her, the shiver of anticipation as the initial shock of the kiss dissolved into insidious acceptance.

He was intoxicated by the scent of flowers, the sweetness of nectar. Her mouth parted and he deepened the kiss, not able to tell her but needing to show the emotion that was alive and tingling in his every fiber. She clung to him, fingers digging in his shirt and the vortex intensified to a sucking maelstrom.

This was what he wanted. Needed. The woman in his arms was all softness and desire. The hunger spread more quickly than he had thought possible. Her mouth fused to his, clung, parted and clung again and the flame of wanting became a fire. Her fingers tugged at fistfuls of his shirt. She moaned, the sound heady, hitting his gut and evoking a fierce possessiveness that made him catch her to him with force.

A wail came from somewhere distant and the next moment Stuti pushed against him and backed away to the railing. Widened eyes looked at him, a flush on her skin.

‘Don’t do that again, Revath. We can’t go back. Not now.’

She was gone.