The Lady's Tutor (14 page)

Whatever you prefer, Elizabeth Petre.

But it was so painfully clear that she did not know what she
wanted, just that she wanted.

Her voice was low. “Do you really like a woman to nibble on your
nipples?”

A bolt of heat shot through Ramiel’s testicles. “Yes, Mrs. Petre.”

Body tensed, he waited for her next question.

Her breasts underneath the brown velvet dress rose and fell in
time to her breathing. She
raised her head. The pupils in her eyes were dilated with arousal.

“Do you ... do
you
derive pleasure from nibbling on a woman’s
nipples?”

“Kissing. Licking. Suckling. Nibbling,” he said harshly. “Yes, I
take pleasure in a woman’s breasts.”

“What about your. .. member? Yesterday you said that when a woman
wraps her fingers around a man she holds his life in her hand. How do you like
to be ... held?”

A hiss of breath whistled in the air. Ramiel vaguely identified it
as his.

“I like a woman to pump and squeeze my manhood until the crown is
no longer capped by the foreskin.”

Elizabeth did not move, not even a flicker of an eyelash.

Ramiel could sense the blood rushing through her veins underneath
her alabaster skin, a statue waiting to be sexually awakened.

“Muslim men are circumcised.”

Silently, viciously, he cursed himself. Why had he said that?

“The Arab women must have found you fascinating.”

Her appreciative response was not what he expected.

Warmth brushed Ramiel’s cheekbones, his first blush in twenty-five
years. “Yes.”

The women had found him fascinating but foreign. A concubine would
not mate with a man like him, an infidel, when their tenure in the harem ended,
not even at the price of freedom.

“Have you ever encountered a woman who was not pleased by you,
Lord Safyre?”

Arab. Bastard. Animal. In bed, out of bed, the names did not stop.

“If you are asking if I have ever failed to give a woman an
orgasm,” he said roughly, “the answer is no.”

Paper crackled—the crumpling of her notes.
“Never?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I do not claim to be a martyr, Mrs. Petre.
There have been times when I climaxed before a woman. But there are other ways
of providing release. Fingers. Hands. Lips. Toes. Almost any part of a man’s
body can be used to satisfy a woman.”

He had shocked her. Again.
“Toes?”

“Toes.”

Disbelief flitted across her face. It was followed by intrigue,
then that, too, was hidden away.

She glanced down at her lap and smoothed out the paper that she
had crinkled, the gold pen thick and shiny between her fingers. “Perhaps you
carouse with women of ill repute who respond differently than do respectable
women.”

Elizabeth so obviously repeated what she had been raised to
believe as opposed to what she herself knew to be true that he wanted to shake
her.

“Do you honestly believe that respectable women and women of ill
repute are anatomically different?”

She wanted to lie; he could feel it. Just as he could feel the
passion in her that she so desperately strove to hide, bubbling and chuckling
like an oasis in arid desert land.

Several seconds passed before she had smoothed the sheath of
papers to her satisfaction. “No, of course not.”

“Then why do you think that respectable women are incapable of
sexual pleasure?”

“Perhaps it is the wanting, or the acknowledgment of her baser
nature,
that makes a woman not respectable. She may outwardly appear to be
virtuous, but if she craves sexual pleasure, surely that makes her no better
than a ... a woman of the streets.”

Ramiel leaned forward in his chair, wood creaking, suddenly
wanting to stop the words that he knew were coming. “Mrs. Petre—”

“Lord Safyre . . .
you,
as a man . . .” She raised her
head, hazel eyes filled with self-loathing. “Are you not disgusted with a woman
who wishes to rut like the beasts in the field?”

He had wanted to see what was underneath her sedate exterior. Now
he wanted to give her back her composure.

He could do it too.

He could lie. He could tell her
yes,
a woman’s base sexual
needs revolted a man like him.

He could tell her that respectable Arab women were trained to
give a man pleasure, not
seek their own, and that passion, while praised in a concubine, was condemned
in a wife.

He could send her home and spare her the decision that he would
ultimately force her to make and hope that she never learn the truth about her
husband.

Too late . . .

“No, Mrs. Petre, I am not disgusted by a woman’s sexual needs.”

“But you are part Arab.”

There was no reason for the surge of raw rage that coursed through
Ramiel’s veins. It had not bothered him when Inchcape called him a bastard.
Elizabeth’s inference that he was half Arab and therefore not capable of the
same sentiments as an Englishman burned like acid.

“I am a man, Mrs. Petre. Whether I am called a bastard by an
Englishman or an infidel by an Arab, I am still
a man.”

Ramiel was not prepared for the dawning comprehension in her eyes.

“If I thought differently, Lord Safyre, I would not have sought
you out for instruction,” she declared firmly. “I offer you my sincere
apologies if I offended you. I assure you it was not my intention.”

His nostrils flared.

He was not used to apologies, nor would he tolerate pity. “Then
what did you mean, Mrs. Petre?”

“I merely meant that the English people do not accept a woman’s
sexual nature. You do not find such needs repulsive because of your Arabic
upbringing, whereas if you did not have your unique background, perhaps you
would feel different. But perhaps it is only Englishwomen who are raised with
these notions. My husband has a mistress, so obviously he is not repulsed by
feminine sexuality.
I
do not know,
Lord Safyre. I do not know
what anything means anymore.”

The honesty in Elizabeth’s eyes was too stark. Ramiel stared at
the proud tilt of her chin, at the blazing highlights in her auburn hair.

Red.

Arabs used the color to represent many things. Rage. Desire.
Blood.

Here, in this room, it was simply the color of an Englishwoman’s
hair. A woman who felt rage and desire. And perhaps, in the end, who would see
blood.

“If a man is repulsed by a woman’s sexuality,
taalibba,
then
he is not a man.”

“Perhaps not when she is young—”

“Mrs. Petre, you are a woman in her prime.”

“I have two children, Lord Safyre. I assure you my days of prime are
long gone.”

She returned his perusal as if unaware that he had openly gazed down
her dress last night and savored every glimpse of her smooth, round white skin.
As if she could not imagine a man ever trembling with passion for her.

“You have a womanly figure, not the flat breasts and shapeless
hips of a young girl.”

Elizabeth visibly bristled, her vanity pricked. “We are not here
to discuss my person, Lord Safyre.”

“Mrs. Petre, there are certain things that a man can do with a
full-breasted woman that he cannot do with a less generously endowed one,”
Ramiel explained softly, gaze dropping to her chest in seductive speculation. “Be
proud of your body.”

“And just what sort of things can a man do with a womanly figure,
Lord Safyre?” she asked caustically. “Use her breasts as twin buoys?”

Ramiel laughed.

Elizabeth Petre would never cease to surprise him.

He had associated sex with pain; he had associated it with death.
He had never associated it with laughter.

“If you are quite finished, perhaps we can continue with our
lesson. How does a woman entice a man?” she inquired frigidly. “And please do
not say by baring her breasts. I find it hard to believe that half the ladies
who comprise society flash their bodies to you.”

Ramiel bit back another chuckle. “You surprise me, Mrs. Petre. I
was not aware that you knew such language.”

“You would be surprised at some of the words that I know, Lord
Safyre. A lady may not say
them, but it is difficult not to hear them when she works with the poor.”

“Here, in my home, you may say what you will—I guarantee you I
have heard it before—and from a very, very grand lady.”

The countess, Ramiel’s mother, would laugh to hear him describe
her as such. Elizabeth Petre was not convinced either.

Ramiel relented. “A woman who enjoys her body is enticing, Mrs.
Petre. The way she dresses, the way she walks, the way she talks—all of these
things tell a man what he needs to know.”

“And that is?”

His voice deepened. “That she wants him.”

Her expression froze. “I am not flirting with you, Lord Safyre.”

The urge to laugh died a quick, irrevocable death. “I know.”

“You are my tutor.”

“In this room, yes.”

“Before you agreed to tutor me, did you know that my husband had a
mistress?”

Ramiel stiffened. She could not know . . .
could she?
“I do
not run in the same circles as does your husband.”

“But you
had
heard rumors?”

“There are always rumors,” he rejoined cryptically. “Else you
would not be here.”

Elizabeth glanced down at the small silver watch pinned to her
dress.

“Thank you for being so candid.” She laid the gold pen on top of
his desk beside her unfinished coffee. “It has been an education.”

An education that had only started.

“Chapter Six, Mrs. Petre. You will find it of particular interest.”

Elizabeth had her curiosity fully in check. She stuffed her notes
inside her reticule.

“Rule number four.”

She did not raise her head. “There are only so many articles of
clothing I can shed, Lord Safyre. It is February. Furthermore, gowns are
designed for bustles.”

He studied her intently. “How do you know what I was going to say?”

Clutching her gloves, she stood up. “You do seem to be obsessed
with a woman’s clothing, or lack of, I should say.”

One day—hopefully soon—they would conduct their lessons without
clothes.

“Very well. When you retire for bed, lay on your stomach and
practice rotating your pelvis against the mattress.”

Her breath audibly caught in her throat.

“Love is hard work.” He stared at the velvet draping her gently
rounded stomach, imagining her fleece, red like her hair, imagining his manhood
tunneling deep inside her. “You must condition your body.”

She turned without comment. And barely sidestepped the chair.

“Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth paused, hand reaching for the knob on the library door.
Seconds passed, she silently struggling, he patiently waiting.

How far would the Bastard Sheikh go? her stiffened spine shouted.
How far could a respectable woman let him go and still remain respectable?

The squaring of her shoulders told him her answer.

Further than this, they said.

“Ma’a e-salemma,
Lord Safyre.”

Hot blood filled Ramiel’s manhood.
“Ma’a e-salemma, taalibba.”

issing. Licking. Sucking. Nibbling.
The winding hallway, dimly lit and in need
of a coat of paint, echoed with the sharp click of Elizabeth’s heels.

. . .
There are other ways of providing release. Fingers.
Hands. Lips. Toes. Almost any part of a man’s body can be used to satisfy a
woman.

She skidded around a sharp turn in the hallway, instinctively
slapped her hand against the wall to retain her balance.

1 am a man, Mrs. Petre. Whether I am called a bastard by an
Englishman or an infidel by an Arab, I am still
a man.

Elizabeth leaned into the peeling paint, riding a wave of
remembered pain.

His pain.

The pain of a bastard sheikh.

A cockroach scurried across the back of her gray kid glove. Biting
back a scream, she snatched her hand away from the wall and jerked it back and
forth, back and forth, even though the cockroach was long gone.

It suddenly dawned on her that this was not the way back to the
meeting room.

A door stood ajar at the end of the corridor.

Elizabeth froze.

Something watched her... and it wasn’t an insect.