The Governess and the Sheikh (14 page)

‘You are sorry! It is I who should apologise to you. I took advantage of your innocence and of your situation. It was wrong of me.'

‘You didn't take advantage.'

‘I would have,' Jamil said harshly, ‘if you had not asked me to stop.'

‘But you did stop, Jamil. Immediately. I'm such a stupid fool, I didn't realise that a kiss could lead to such—because I have never…' Cassie faltered to a halt, sensing, rather than seeing, Jamil's intense gaze upon her. She had been rehearsing her apology over and over while huddling in the shelter of the rocks, for it kept her from panicking about the possibility that no one would find her and she would perish in the desert, but what had seemed so clear was now hopelessly muddled. Jamil did not blame her, but himself. Had she not, then, behaved wantonly?

‘Do you regret what happened?' She blurted the words out without thinking. The question hung in the air between them, heavy with implications. ‘I should not have asked you that, you don't need to…'

‘No.'

‘What?'

‘No, I do not regret it.' The truth, but was it wise to have spoken it? His anger had fled, sped on its way by
Cassie's unexpected and wholly disarming honesty. His own honour dictated a matching of the truth with the truth, no matter that it revealed more of himself than he intended. In the dark of the cave, such revelations were, in any case, somehow easier. Jamil found her hand and clasped it between his. ‘I cannot regret it, though honour decrees that I should, for you were in my care.'

She thought about this for some moments. ‘You were not shocked by my behaviour?'

Jamil laughed softly. ‘On the contrary. I thought it was obvious that I was excited by it. As you were by mine at first, were you not?'

The conversation had taken off into wholly unchartered territory. It was not a conversation Cassie could ever have imagined. Such intimate feelings were the domain of the great poets, but she had never encountered a poem that came close to expressing what she was experiencing at this moment. Aunt Sophia would be utterly appalled. But Aunt Sophia was thousands of miles away in England and Cassie was in the middle of a desert, quite alone with a desert prince, and what precedent was there for that situation? None. So…

‘It frightened me a little,' she confessed in a whisper.

‘What did?'

‘The strength of feeling it evoked in me. It was as if—as if I were caught in a whirlpool and could do nothing to escape.'

‘And yet you wanted it to overwhelm you?'

Cassie nodded, then realised he probably couldn't see her doing so. ‘Yes,' she admitted. ‘Was that wrong?'

‘On the contrary, it was very right. In my country,
Cassie, it is not only permissible but expected that women enjoy the sharing of passion as much as men.'

‘Oh.'

‘They can, you know, I promise you.'

‘Can they?' A new idea. An exciting one. Illicit? In England maybe, but not here. Jamil was still holding her hand. Somehow, Cassie didn't know how, she had edged so close to him that they were sitting with their legs touching, thigh to thigh. She felt safe. Jamil had already proved himself entirely honourable. But in another sense she wasn't safe at all, because she didn't want to be.

‘In my country,' Jamil continued, ‘it is in fact expected that women experience pleasure. It is a man's responsibility to ensure that she does.'

This statement, so loaded with unimaginable possibilities, was also entirely contrary to the little Cassie knew about intimate relations. Aunt Sophia had quite clearly implied that such duties were unpleasant. Celia, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy hers. Pleasure was not a word that Cassie had given much thought to. She found reading pleasurable, and walking in the countryside, and dancing, but she hadn't ever associated it with love-making before. Did this mean then, that pleasure and love-making were actually quite separate things? Could one take pleasure without first giving one's heart? Was
not
giving one's heart perhaps a prerequisite? With only Augustus as an example, Cassie was forced to conclude that this might well be true. She had foresworn love, but Jamil was not talking about love and seemed to be implying that she need not fore-swear pleasure.
What did he mean?

‘Can one—can a woman, then—are there different ways of taking pleasure?' she asked, shocking herself and throwing caution to the winds at the same time. If she did not ask, she would never know, and it was not likely that there would ever be anyone she could ask again, under cover of the dark, cut off from the disapproving glances of society.

Jamil smiled in the darkness. ‘There are infinite ways of taking pleasure, and infinite ways of giving it.'

‘Oh.' In truth, she was already beyond reason. Last night Jamil had opened a door for her. She had taken a step over the portal and what she had seen had awed her, tempted her, thrilled her, but frightened her a little with its very newness. An unknown world was not, after all, to be entered without a little trepidation. She had turned her back on it last night with one word. No. But today? Today she wanted to experience that forbidden world, for if she did not, it would not exist tomorrow.

She was under no illusions about that. Jamil would not tolerate the blurring of the two worlds if she were to return to look after Linah, nor would she wish it. Though he had not actually said he would show her, she knew from the sound of his voice, from the tension in his body, touching but not touching hers, that he would if she asked him to. He had not said so, but he did not need to. All she had to do was ask. Her throat was dry, though not from thirst. She moistened her lips. ‘Jamil, would you show me…?'

Her voice did not sound like her own, it was too husky, almost croaky, but he understood her all the same. ‘Do you want me to?' he asked.

‘Yes. Do you want to?'

‘Very much.'

Very much.
It was that, his wanting her, rather than the promise of what he would show her, that swayed Cassie. She had never been wanted in such a way. Not for her looks or for her family, but just for herself. The words, spoken in a soft growl, gave her delicious shivers. He wanted her. Just her. Though what he wanted to do to her—and what she was to do in return—she had no idea.

‘You need do nothing, but enjoy,' Jamil said, as if he had read her thoughts. ‘My pleasure will be in pleasuring you; I ask nothing in return. What I really want, my lovely Cassie, I cannot have. What I can have must suffice instead.' It was no lie. Though he ached to possess her, to do so would be a transitory relief compared to the guilt such dishonourable behaviour would inflict upon his soul. He would give, and she would receive, and he would therefore always be her first. That, no one could ever take from him.

‘I don't understand.'

‘But you will,' Jamil said confidently.

Then he kissed her, and the flames that had been subdued last night flickered immediately into life. The touch of his lips upon hers kindled a fire, the tangle of his tongue with hers stoked it, the stroking, soothing, rousing feel of his hands on her neck, her arms, her back, made a furnace of her. Cassie took no persuading to abandon all maidenly modesty. Jamil kissed her and she stepped boldly into the palace of pleasure.

He kissed her deeply, but with restraint. She sensed the leashing of his passion in the tension in
his shoulders. His kisses roused and enticed, but did not savage. He set her free, with his tongue and his hands and his lips, but he did not permit himself the same liberties. The pins were tugged from her hair, his fingers running through it, fanning it out over her shoulders. He helped her shrug free of her jacket, untied the fall of lace at her throat and kissed the rise and fall of her breasts. The sensation of his mouth on her flesh made her sigh and moan as her hands roamed over the muscles of his arms, his shoulders, his chest, until he stilled them, reminding her that this was about her pleasure, entreating her to be still.

So she was. He eased her back onto the sandy floor of the cave, careful of her bandaged ankle. He kissed her neck, soft plucking kisses that raised little bumps of sensation. He kissed the valley between her breasts and the knot in her belly began to tighten. Cursing softly under his breath, he freed her from the restraints of her corset and took her nipples in his mouth, one then the other, sucking and licking, circling, causing such sweet shards of delight to pierce her that another knot, different in tension, tingling and aching, began to tighten between her legs, as Jamil suckled and sucked and she began to feel herself unravel.

He kissed her mouth again, her breasts again, and then he eased up her skirts and kissed her knees, her thighs. She tensed, uncertain, unsure, not frightened, but she had never thought—kissing there? He touched her, stroking from her knee to her thigh, her thigh to her knee, up, down, up, down, and she relaxed. He kissed the crease at the top of her thigh and she tensed in quite a different way. His fingers now, stroking into
the crease, then fluttering over a more intimate fold, and she understood then, that this was the centre of her tension, and she wanted him to release it, needed him to ease it, couldn't bear for him not to as his fingers stroked and then he kissed her there again—or at least it felt like kissing—his tongue just easing a tiny fraction into her, making her clench her fists, arch up, making her call out
please
,
please
,
please
, because if she didn't he might not and then she would surely die.

‘Please,' she said again as he braced her, his hands on her thighs. ‘Please,' she panted as he kissed her intimately, his mouth on her moist core and then finally, deliciously, his tongue flicked inside, and the pleasure was unendurable, but she endured it because she knew that there was more to come. He licked her again, slowly, as she arched under him until her whole body was a knot of tension screaming for release.

It came so suddenly that she gasped and bucked and gasped again. A violent explosion that shattered her as if she were glass, sparkling diamond fragments of pleasure-like crystal, flying, floating, soaring, until she was engulfed by it, coated in it, lying panting, mindless and oblivious on the sandy floor of a dark cave in the middle of the desert.

Jamil held her, pulling her into his arms to cradle her, to stroke her hair, to kiss her neck, relishing the shivering, pulsing, shaking aftermath of her climax, deeply satisfied on one level that he had given her this gift, struggling on quite another with the unexpectedly primal urge to give her more. His shaft was hard and heavily aching. His entire body was rigid with need, pulsing with anticipation, aching with pleasure denied.
Cassie, slumberous and soft and infinitely desirable, was also, in her current state, infinitely compliant. Her fingers plucked at his tunic, her body nestled closer into his. His erection pressed demandingly against her. Her mouth, her lips, were soft on his neck. He longed to feel her skin on his. He knew she wanted it, too.

But she wanted it because of what he had done. And he had promised himself, as well as her, to keep her safe. It was enough. It would have to be. Jamil tried to ease himself away, but Cassie mumbled a soft protest, snuggling agonisingly closer. He could not bring himself to make the final break, not yet. ‘Sleep,' he said, hushing her, soothing her hair, ‘sleep.' She mumbled his name, but, drowsy with satisfaction, made no further protest. Cassie slept. Outside the cave, the storm raged. Inside the cave, Jamil waited for a different tempest to subside. It took a long, long time to do so.

 

She awoke in his arms. For a few delicious moments, almost afraid to breathe lest she disturb him, Cassie allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to wake in his arms every morning. To feel safe, and wanted, and cherished. To feel this delightfully floaty, blissful, can't-tell-which-bit-is-me feeling. To have her body melded into his like this every day. What would that be like? And what would it be like if he had truly made love to her? Would she feel even more blissful?

Was it possible to feel even more blissful?

Ought she not to be feeling rather the opposite?

No. She would not regret, and she would not allow herself to feel shame. What had happened had been wonderful. More than wonderful. She would not allow
its memory to be tainted, or the colours dimmed—it was too precious. It felt too right.

Right?

But it could not be right. It must be wrong, it must be—every tenet of her upbringing ought to tell her that! And if it did not yet, then surely it would soon. Very soon. Just as soon as she left this dream-like experience behind and returned to real life. As Jamil's daughter's governess, not his—his doxy!

The word made her smile, such a picture of decadence as it conjured up. But then her smile faded. She might not be a painted harlot, but that is surely how she had behaved, how the world would view it, even if she did not. If the world ever found out. Which it would, of a surety, if it happened again, and it would happen again because there was no getting away from the simple, plain fact that she found Jamil irresistible, and now that he had introduced her to the delightful world of sensuality, she would find it impossible to refuse his invitation to join him there again. And the world would know, for it would be writ large on her face, for everyone to see: Cassandra Armstrong, fallen woman.

She would be disgraced. She would have disgraced her family. And Celia, too, for she could not stay in the palace under such circumstances, with everyone thinking her Jamil's concubine. Neither could she continue to serve as Linah's governess, since the occupant of that position must, as Jamil never tired of pointing out, have a stainless reputation. But the thought of leaving here made her panic. She most certainly did not want to leave.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

Which meant this intimacy must not be repeated. Ever. This was the first time. And the last time. It had to be. Determined to imprint it for ever on her mind, Cassie turned her face into Jamil's chest, rubbed her cheek on the rough hair there and drank in that tantalising scent that was him. Just him. Outside, the storm had abated. Let him not wake, not yet, she thought, but even as she did so, he stirred.