The Lady's Tutor (18 page)

He opened his top desk drawer and produced the gold pen. She had
no option but to take it from him . . . and remember how she had compared her
own pen to his. And how she had wanted even that small comfort.

A stack of thick white paper was pushed across the mirror-polished
desk, along with the brass inkwell.

“Take notes, Mrs. Petre.”

Another time she would take umbrage at the order; now she was just
grateful to concentrate on something other than the pulsating ache her entire
body had become.

“Unless one is inclined for acrobatics, there are only six
positions that a man and a woman may use. A woman may lie on her back with her
legs either raised to various levels or not; she may lie on her side; she may
lie on her stomach or kneel with her buttocks raised—”

Buttocks raised. . .
like the beasts in the fields.

“She may stand; she may sit, and if she sits, the man may either
be lying on his back or sitting also.”

Belly to belly, mouth glued to mouth.

She clenched the thick gold pen between her fingers and stared
down at the black ink scribbled across the white paper. “Which position is most
enjoyable for a man?”

“If a man is tired, he will prefer to lie on his back and let the
woman straddle his hips.”

Rekeud el air,
“the race of the member,” as if a man were a stallion.

She tried to imagine Edward lying back with her straddling his
hips . . . and could not.

“Have you engaged a woman in all positions, Lord Safyre?”

“All forty, Mrs. Petre.”

All forty
vibrated
deep inside of her body. As if it had a life of its own, the steel nib
scratched a dark line of words across the paper.

“What is your favorite position?”

A harsh intake of breath sounded over the pounding of Elizabeth’s
heartbeat. She did not know if it came from him ... or her.

“I am fond of several.” The Bastard Sheikh’s voice deepened. “My
favorite positions are those where I am free to touch a woman’s breasts and her
vulva.”

Kissing. Licking. Suckling. Touching.
Plucking.

“And your least favorite, Lord Safyre?”

“The position which does not please the woman.”

Her head snapped up. “Why would a woman not be pleased by you?”

The Bastard Sheikh threw his head back and stared at the ceiling,
as if he could not bear to look at her.
Why would a woman not be pleased by
you
reverberated inside her head.

She stiffened her spine, no corset to help her out.
What a
silly, wanton woman he must think her.

“I may enter her too deeply.” The harsh words were addressed to
the ceiling. “Or I may not thrust deeply enough. A woman who is new to sexual
play or has been abstinent for a while would find it painful if I put her legs
over my shoulders.”

Elizabeth forgot to take notes. She forgot that he was a bastard
and she was the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She forgot everything
but the fact that he was a man sharing with her his most intimate reflections.

He lowered his head, his stark face a study of light and shadow. “On
the other hand, a woman who has borne two children will need the deeper
penetration to achieve her climax. She will like it when I press and grind
against her womb, knocking for entrance. She will not mind that I am an Arab
bastard. She will only know true satisfaction at my touch.”

Elizabeth had borne two children.

The wood smoke and the gas fumes had obviously gone to her head.
A
man like him would have no interest in a woman like her.

“Why did you leave Arabia, Lord Safyre?”

The sharp lines of his face hardened. “Because I was a coward,
Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth had heard many rumors about the Bastard Sheikh;
cowardliness was not one of them. “I do not believe that.”

He ignored her shocked denial. “You, on the other hand, are not a
coward. You did not run from the pain of betrayal. You took control of your
life. I did not.”

A bastard sheikh was not supposed to have so much pain.

“You had the courage to leave Arabia and start a new life.”

“I did not leave Arabia; my father exiled me.”

Elizabeth had never seen such bleakness in a man’s eyes. “Surely
you misunderstood him.”

“I assure you, Mrs. Petre, there was no misunderstanding.”

“How do you know? Have you ever been back—”

“I will never go back.”

But he wanted to. She could see it in his eyes, feel it resonating
from his body.

“You are not a coward,” she repeated firmly.

A smile lit his face, erasing the shadow, filling it with light. “Perhaps
not, Mrs. Petre. Not now, at any rate.”

“Are harem women beautiful?”

“I used to think so.”

“What do harem women enjoy?”

“Whatever the man enjoys.”

That could not be. “They have no personal preferences?”

“Like you, Mrs. Petre, their main interest is in pleasing—a man.”

He sounded as if the idea were distasteful. If a man like the
Bastard Sheikh could not be seduced by his own lust, how would she ever tempt
her husband?

“Is that not what a man wants ... for a woman to put his own
desires above hers?”

“Some men. Sometimes.”

“Is that not what
you
want?”

“I will tell you what I want,
taalibba,”
he rasped.

She had gone too far.

“You have already told me what you want, Lord Safyre. A woman, you
said.”

A warm, wet, wanton woman who is not afraid of her sexuality or
ashamed of satisfying her needs.

Leaning forward, she placed the gold pen onto the cool wood of his
desk—only to have it plucked from her fingers. The Bastard Sheikh leaned
forward in his chair, the pen stretched between his two dusky brown hands, five
inches of solid gold.

Elizabeth recoiled, too late; his eyes snared hers.

“The sheikh writes of six movements a man and a woman practice
during coition. The sixth movement is called
tdchik el heub,
‘the boxing
up of love.’ The sheikh claims it is the best of all movements for a woman . .
. but it is difficult to achieve. A man must thrust his verge so deeply inside
her body that their pubic hair meshes. He cannot withdraw, not even an inch,
not even when the woman grips him more tightly than a fist and his testicles
ache for release. The only member that he can thrust is his tongue, in and out
of her mouth while he grinds his pelvis against hers,
dok,
grinding and
grinding against her clitoris until she climaxes over and over.”

As she had ground her pelvis against the mattress.

Hot moisture pooled between her thighs. She watched, riveted, as
he made a fist of his left hand and slid the pen inside the sheath of his
fingers until only a blunt golden tip protruded from his dark skin.

He watched her watching him; she knew that he watched her and
still she could not look away.

“By giving the woman release”—he rotated the gold pen around and
around inside his fist—”she will give me release.”

“Have you ever engaged in this”—she sounded as if she had raced up
a flight of stairs—”sixth movement?”

The thick gold shaft slid out of the sheath of his fingers,
slowly, inch by inch, as if a woman’s vagina worked to pull it back inside. She
clenched her thighs together, feeling the draw deep inside her own flesh.

“Have you ever seen a man, Mrs. Petre?”

Elizabeth wrenched her gaze away from the lure of the gold pen;
his eyes were waiting for hers, hot, bright, knowing
exactly
what he was
making her feel.

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

There was not enough oxygen in the room to fill her lungs.

What exactly was his question?

Would she like to see a man?
Or would she like to see him?

She licked her lips; he watched that too. “Yes, Lord Safyre, I
would like to see a man.”

He stood up.

Her gaze rested on the apex of his thighs. The brown leather
trousers were domed, as if a circus tent had been erected inside.

She leaned closer—

“It is time for you to leave, Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth remembered the cut she had delivered him at the
Whitfield ball—and wondered if he had felt the same sharp pain of rejection
then as she felt now.

Hot shame engulfed her. He had shared his knowledge and she had
turned her back on him.

She squared her shoulders and stood up, clutching paper, her
reticule, and her gloves. “I apologize for my actions at the ball, Lord Safyre.”

His expression did not invite an apology. “Which actions are
those, Mrs. Petre?”

“I did not mean—” Yes, she had meant to cut him. She had seen her
mother’s disapproval and had instinctively acted to avoid it. “I walked away
from you.”

“Would you dance with me again?”

Dance with a bastard.
Her breasts pressed against his chest, thighs to thighs, swirling
and whirling, impervious to propriety and ugly, hateful truths.
He was a man
who belonged to neither the East nor the West; she was the wife of a man who
preferred his mistress’s bed to hers.

“I would be honored.”

A smile twisted his mouth. “I wonder, Mrs. Petre. Where is your
husband?”

Her spine stiffened. “At home,” she lied. Or perhaps she did not. “In
his bed.”

Where she should be.

“Is he, Mrs. Petre?”

“You lied, Lord Safyre,” she riposted. “You know who his mistress
is.”

“I did not lie,
taalibba.
I do not know. I merely wondered
if you knew.”

“You do not think that I will be able to seduce my husband, do
you?”

There.
It
was out.

“I do not know.”

She lifted her chin.
I do not know
was better than
no.

“Perhaps you underestimate your abilities as a tutor.”

“Perhaps you underestimate your husband.”

All the pent-up desire burst into frustrated anger. “This is not a
game, Lord Safyre. You told me that whether you were called a bastard or an
infidel
you are still a man.
Well, I am a woman and my choices are few.
I must make my marriage work because that is all I will ever have.”

Tears filled her eyes.

She hated tears. For thirty-three years they were the only protest
she had voiced, muffling her loneliness in a pillow.

“Go home, Mrs. Petre.” His turquoise eyes were unreadable. “You
have dark circles underneath your eyes. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we will
discuss Chapters Seven and Eight.”

“Very well.”

The paper was not hers. She blindly placed it on the desk and
turned around, careful of the chair, careful of the emotions that sat like
fragile eggs on her shoulders.

“Mrs. Petre.”

For a second Elizabeth thought about opening the door and walking
away and becoming the safe, blameless person she had been a week before. She
wasn’t courageous,
she was desperate.

“What?”

“Rule number five. Touch yourself and find the places on your body
that are most sensitive. Lie down on your back, bend your knees and practice
the same motions you practiced on your mattress.”

“Will this teach me how to please my husband, Lord Safyre?” she
asked stiffly.

“It will teach you how to please a man, Mrs. Petre.”

Why did he make the two sound separate, as if Edward were not a
man?

Or as if he did not believe that Elizabeth would be able to
satisfy her husband . . . ever.

“Very well.”

“Ma’a e-salemma, taalibba.”

“Ma’a e-salemma,
Lord Safyre.”

Elizabeth opened the door and stood face-to-face with the Arab
butler.

uhamed’s head loomed over Elizabeth’s auburn hair. A black hood
cast his face into shadow.

Every muscle in Ramiel’s body coiled in preparation—to drag
Elizabeth back and finish what they had started—to protect her from the man she
thought was an Arab.

His engorged manhood throbbed a painful tattoo inside his leather
pants.

She had wanted to see him.

He had wanted to show her.

He
still wanted to show her. . .
what he looked like, how
to please him, how to swallow his flesh for their maximum enjoyment.