Hands sure, she slammed the door shut again and reached for him.
Chapter Six
Ayesha didn’t know how she had lived outside herself for seven years. The way Emmitt and she fit made her feel like she’d fallen back in her own body. She was home.
The tasting table was still the perfect height for them—perfect for the length of Emmitt’s endless legs, perfect for them to fit together just so.
“How can you be thinking about the table right now?” His erratic breath kissed into the crook of her neck, aftershocks from his release shuddering through his body in waves.
Her legs were still wrapped around him, and she gave him a squeeze. “Stop reading my thoughts!”
“You still think really loudly.” He nipped her jaw, then dropped a kiss on her lips.
It was a miracle she could still think at all.
The thought of never being with him again slashed through her. But she had this, she reminded herself. She had this.
The way he frowned, she might as well have spoken that out loud too.
“Can you also hear me thinking that we need to get upstairs before someone comes looking for us?” And that she didn’t know how she was going to go back to living without the harbor of his arms.
She was sure he heard that, too, because eyes still bright with release darkened with something too much like panic.
Great, now she had him to worry about on top of Amma, and she was so tired.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he said, clutching her arms as she tried to pull away again.
Words stuck in her throat.
“Say it, Ayesha.”
She slipped out of his arms and started adjusting her clothes—pulling her blouse back over flushed breasts, pinning her dupatta scarf over her shoulder. The fabric brushed against skin saturated with sensation. She memorized the intense pleasure of giving her body what it craved.
“Ayesha, please. I need to know what you want.”
“Just for this weekend, can we think of nothing else? Just the fact that you’re here and Bela is getting married?” The words slipped out.
Relief flooded his face. Relief that she’d acknowledged their connection. Relief that they had time to reclaim it.
They didn’t, but she couldn’t think about that yet.
“Yes.” Just that one word.
Then he dropped a kiss on her forehead, on the tip of her nose, and opened the door.
“Oh, and can we please not lock people in bathrooms?” she said as they got to the top of the stairs, where she made sure no one noticed them coming up together before rejoining the party.
“What’s that grin?” Bela pressed a hand to her heart as she handed Ayesha a glass of wine.
“It’s an ‘I’m about to kill my traitorous best friend’ grin.” Ayesha had stopped by the powder room, but apparently her efforts at wiping away the evidence of earth-tilting sex had failed.
“Looks like an ‘I should thank my best friend because I just had my brains fucked out of me’ grin to me.”
Ayesha choked on her wine. Because, seriously, she had no chill left.
Bela looked thrilled enough to levitate. “Don’t worry, Mom and Dad pay someone good money to clean that table any time any of us visit.”
The laugh started in the pit of Ayesha’s belly and exploded out of her.
Bela pressed a dramatic hand to her chest. “Uff. A real Ayesha Shetty laugh. How long has it been?”
Before Ayesha could respond, Sarita Auntie bustled over, Eddie and Emmitt in tow.
“The dance performances are about to start. Are you girls ready?” She turned to Ayesha. “It’s your best friend’s wedding. Haven’t you been practicing your dance?”
Ayesha was really going to kill Bela. “When were you going to tell me I’m performing?” And yet, how had she not spent the past months practicing? Bela and she had dreamed of dancing at each other’s weddings. Before Ayesha had forgotten how to dream.
“After I saw that face!” Bela pointed a finger at Ayesha’s face and slipped a glance at Emmitt.
He winked at Bela.
“Fine,” Ayesha said. “But it’s going to have to be one of our old numbers.” Because it had been seven years since she’d done this.
“How about that Devdas one?” Emmitt suggested. And yes, Ayesha’s heart did the most brutally happy squeeze, because it made those seven years vanish in an instant.
Eddie and Bela grinned at each other like proud parents.
“‘Dola Re.’ That’s perfect,” Bela said. “Do you remember the choreography?”
“Is that a question?” Ayesha asked, her arrogance feeling like power reclaimed. “And the eighteen-year-olds are going to make us look terrible anyway, the way we did to our didis. So we might as well have fun, right?”
And they did.
Samrat decided to join them halfway through the dance and was a good sport when Ayesha outdanced him. He really was perfectly nice—even though Ayesha was close to giving up on losing the rat-in-scrubs image. He was obviously kind and personable enough to have slid into the Auntie Circle of Trust so quickly. She might even be able to ignore the cervical stories.
Then she caught Emmitt watching her, and she knew she was a liar. No one was ever going to be Emmitt. Nothing was ever going to feel like this.
Panic and sadness started to grip her again.
But she’d asked Emmitt to stay in the moment for her, and she’d be damned if she didn’t give him the same thing in return. So, for the rest of the night, she shoved away her fears and let her feet dance and her heart feel.
Chapter Seven
Bela had opted for the short three-hour wedding ceremony. She had also opted for a bridal outfit so elaborate that it took three people and four hours to get her into it. As the best friend, Ayesha had spent the entire morning managing Bela’s perfectionism.
By the time Ayesha was standing behind Bela at the altar with the rest of the wedding party, all in shades of blue, everything inside her was desperate for one glimpse of Emmitt. It was such a throwback to her teen years that she had to pinch herself to ground her in this moment. Sunshine filtered through the tree-lined grounds of the old mansion that had been turned into a wedding wonderland draped in silk and marigolds.
For years Ayesha had planned her days so she could spy on Emmitt and Ajay. As she searched the crowd of five hundred guests for him, the dissonance between Old Ayesha and New Ayesha dissolved like watercolors on wet paper.
Instead of finding Emmitt, her eyes landed on Amma. Her mother’s smile hit Ayesha like a hammer to the heart, or maybe like a hug, something with weight and texture. Sitting there in her thick kanjivaram silk, her hair pulled into a regal bun, Amma looked so much like the aunties surrounding her that it dragged Ayesha back in time. The dissonance inside her came back into sharp focus.
Amma blew Ayesha a kiss. Ayesha smiled back, hope crushing every other feeling inside her. Amma looked happy.
Three hours passed in slow motion. The rituals and vows were as beautiful and heartfelt as Bela and Eddie themselves. Through it all, Emmitt remained gone. She told herself it was a good thing.
They hadn’t exchanged numbers. They hadn’t made plans. But the way he’d kissed her when they parted last night had been filled with promises. The possibility that he might not be here today hadn’t entered her mind. She tried to feel relief, but all she felt was panic too large to breathe around.