Page 41 of Tiger's Dream
“Why not?” she pushed, bracing her fists on her hips.
I groaned and closed my eyes.
“Is the color…unattractive?”
“No, the color is… It’s fine,” I said. “It’s very…” I paused and my eyes drifted to her full lips. “Attractive,” I finished.
“Then tell me what is wrong with it so that I can correct it in the future,” she said quietly. “I need to learn.”
Her innocent comment undid me and I was able to regain my self-assurance. This was why she needed me. I was her guide in a world she didn’t understand. “Ana, you are a very beautiful woman. Surely you know this.”
“I,” she stammered, taking a step back, suddenly hesitant. “I am a goddess.”
“Yes, but you’re also a woman. You were a beautiful woman before you were a goddess.”
“But I am disguised here. They do not know me.”
“These people might not see the goddess Durga when they look upon you, but they will see a goddess all the same.” I cupped her shoulder with my palm and squeezed reassuringly, giving her a brotherly smile. “In this time, as in many other centuries, there are some who see beauty and desire to possess it, even if the beauty does not wish to be possessed. Do you understand?”
She cocked her head to study me. “So you wish for me to be old and ugly like you,” she said and then gasped. “Is there a woman here who desires to possess you? Show me where she is and I will tell her you are not hers for possessing!”
“No, Ana. There’s no one here who desires me.”
Her frown turned into a half smile. “I suppose not. No woman wants to spoon-feed her enfeebled mate.”
The corners of my mouth lifted, and I was about to refute her remark when her eyes widened and she gasped. I turned and cursed under my breath when I saw Nilima on the arm of Sunil. He escorted her to the elevator and pushed a button. Nilima made some remark about how he’d finally learned how to push buttons, and was securing a section of her dark hair behind her ear, when his eyes lit.
Narrowing the distance between them, Sunil slid his hand around the curve of her neck and lowered his mouth to hers, tentatively at first, and then he pulled her against him, angling his lips more fully against hers. Nilima’s arms slipped around his waist, and neither of them noticed when the elevator dinged, opened, and then closed again.
“Sunil,” Anamika mumbled brokenly, and before she could step around me and approach her brother, I wrapped her in my arms and made us invisible. With her luscious curves pressed tightly against my body, I swept us away in time, her tears wetting my shirt.
Chapter 9
Fasting and Famine
When we rematerialized in what I’d come to think of as our time, Anamika wrenched her body away from me so violently that she stumbled and nearly fell. I frowned. Surely I hadn’t hurt her. Ana’s chest heaved, her eyes were bright, and she stared at me as if I were a stranger—a stranger who’d betrayed her.
“Who was she?” Anamika demanded. “Tell me, Kishan. Did you know of this…this relationship?”
“I… No. I didn’t know Sunil and Nilima were falling in love.”
“Nilima?” She spat the name. “Who is that girl?”
Holding up a hand and quieting my demeanor, I said, “You’d like her, Ana. She’s my…my sister in a way. Nilima is Kadam’s great-great-granddaughter. I’m not sure how many generations removed she is, but she knows our secret. I trust her. You should too.”
“And how can I do that?” she said, her lips quivering. “You never even mentioned her. Kadam didn’t either.”
“I’m sorry. I suppose neither of us thought the two of you would have occasion to meet.”
“Does she even care for him?”
“She must. Nilima doesn’t date many men. She doesn’t let them get close. Obviously, that wasn’t true regarding Sunil. I watched them at the reception. They danced together like a planet and its moon.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “You don’t know planets,” I mumbled, then continued, explaining, “They chase one another like birds in the spring.”
She folded her arms across her chest and scoffed. “Sunil has never behaved like a springtime bird and he refuses to dance.”
“He dances now,” I said. “That’s what love does. It muddies a man’s thinking.”
“Then what does it do to women?”
