The Lady's Tutor (38 page)

He buried
his face into the crook of her neck; steam and sweat dripped off his forehead.
She smelled faintly of gas; overriding it was the scent of her, of hot, moist
skin and even hotter desire.

“Why didn’t
you come home with me last night?” The tight inner core of her pulsed in time
to his heartbeat. Slick feminine desire leaked from her body, pooled in the
palm of his hand. He tightened his fingers around a deliciously soft, plump
cheek—
How could she think that she forced herself upon him when all he
wanted was for her to come to him, for him, with him?
—and pulled her
closer, needing the reality of her sex, the assurance of her body. “Why did you
risk death rather than come to me?”

Moisture
trailed down his shoulder, steam, sweat,
tears.
She rubbed her cheek
against him, skin slick against skin, outside, inside. “My sons. Edward
threatened to take my sons away from me.”

Salt
burned his eyes. “Would you have come to me last night... if it had been only
you?”

“Yes.” He
felt the word all through his body, the movement of her lips against his
shoulder, the dark heat of her breath, the soft sigh of sound.

“Just for
this?” He wiggled his fingertips deep inside her.

“No, for
something more.”

“You would
bond with a bastard?”

“I would
bond with
you.”

Ramiel
buried his face more deeply into her neck, melting, his fingers, the last nine
years of his life, the anger, the jealousy borne of fear.
He was a man.
For
her he was a man, and that was more than enough.

“I will
not let him take your sons away from you,
taalibba.
As long as we are
together, you will be safe. You must trust me.”

“I have
three of your fingers inside me, sir.” The tart primness of her voice was
spoiled by an inner trembling. “I
must
trust you, or I would not be
here.”

He
would protect that trust.
No
matter what the cost. He had the knowledge. Petre had given him the means.

“Let me
bathe you.”

Let me
remove the last remnants of Edward Petre from your skin.

“Now?”

Her body
had relaxed around his fingers; she was almost ready.

“Now.”

“Ramiel, I
hardly think—”

“Trust me,
taalibba.
”

“But I need
to remove my stockings and shoes—”

“When it
is time I will remove them.”

“Ramiel, I
am afraid.”

“Not of
this, Elizabeth. Don’t be afraid of this.”

Her hazel
eyes flickered with uncertainty. “Do you tremble with passion, Lord Safyre?”

The
memories of their lessons were there, a part of her as surely as his fingers
were now a part of her.

“I tremble
with passion,
taalibba.
For you.”

“You will
bathe me ... how?”

“With my
tongue. While my fingers hold you open for me.”

Her
muscles reflexively tightened. “A woman trembles in her passion too.”

A pained
smile twisted his lips. “I know.”

“What if I
fall?”

For answer
he knelt down on the wet bundle of her clothing and breathed in the scent of
her, savored the sight of her, embracing him. The dark skin of his fingers
disappeared inside a rose-tinted ring of flesh. Glistening drops of feminine
desire dripped down his palm.

A flash of
flesh-colored stocking folding inward caught his eyes. At the same time, her
muscles clenched around the base of his fingers.

His left
hand shot out, grabbed her thigh. “Keep your foot on the tub,
taalibba.”

“You can
see me.”

“And smell
you.” He leaned closer. “And taste you.” He nuzzled her damp auburn fleece with
his nose, flicked her with his tongue. “And kiss you.”

She
tangled her fingers into his hair. “I will fall.”

He raised
his head and met her stare. Fear. Recognition. A need that was as much pain as
pleasure. It was all there in her hazel eyes.

“I won’t
let you fall,
taalibba.’“
Leaning forward, he sucked the swollen bud of
her clitoris between his lips, bathed the petal-soft folds of her flesh with
his tongue, explored the hardness of his hand and the hot, wet opening stretched
paper-thin to take his three fingers. He licked her, licked her off his hand,
licked her until he knew every nuance, every fold, every texture of her.
Spreading his fingers, he licked through the spaces and tasted the very essence
of her. Ramiel licked and licked until all that held her up was the pillar of
his fingers between her thighs and his hand gripping her buttocks.

Elizabeth
suddenly yanked so hard on his hair that his head tilted back. “I need you,
Ramiel. Now. Please. Come inside me.
You.
Not your fingers. Please don’t
let me be alone now.”

Her hoarse
voice matched his need.

“I don’t
have anything down here to protect you.”

Comprehension
dawned on her flushed face. The thought of pregnancy had never crossed her
mind.

She
released his hair, soothed the small pain away.
“The Perfumed Garden . . .
did
it not include preventive measures?”

He leaned
his head into the softness of her gently rounded abdomen and imagined it big
with his child. And damned himself for the thought that if he impregnated her,
she would give him the same devotion that she had given Edward Petre. “They are
not infallible.”

“And what
you have upstairs is?”

“No.”

Forcing
himself to look up, he watched her swollen, reddened lips. They were
compressed.

This
was the reality of bonding with a bastard.
Disgrace. Social ruin.
Bearing the child of a bastard sheikh.

“I can
give you this, Elizabeth.” He agitated his fingers inside of her; more moisture
spilled down his hand. “But I cannot give you respectability. Not even if I
wanted to.”

“What
would you do if I... if we ... if I did become pregnant?”

“I would
watch you suckle our child. And then I would drink the milk our son or our
daughter did not drink.”

Her lips
quivered, relaxed. Her vagina tightened, pulsed. “I want you, Ramiel. Now. I am
tired of sleeping alone. I want to feel your body inside mine. I want to know
what it is like to give and take pleasure.”

Now
she was ready.

“Then you
shall have what you want.”

ne second Elizabeth was impossibly stretched with three fingers
inside her while she gazed down into eyes so intensely turquoise, it was
painful to look into them; the next second she was impossibly empty and her
entire world turned topsy-turvy.

She
clutched Ramiel’s shoulders, taut and corded from the strain of lifting her,
half afraid he would drop her, half wishing he would. Was it not enough that he
had seen every flaw, every stretch mark? Must he also know her weight?
Must
he continue to tease and taunt her?
“I am quite capable of walking on my
own,” she protested stiffly.

“You won’t
be,” he murmured, brushing her lips with his. His mouth was hot and moist from
her essence.

Searing
heat shot through her body at the image of him watching her nurse . . . then
drinking milk from her breasts.

“What. . .
what type of preventive measures are you going to use?”

Ramiel
tilted his head to one side, eyes lighting with familiar mockery. She was
acutely conscious of his arm underneath her bare bottom. And the moisture that
dripped from her breached body.

“Champagne,
I think.”

“Champagne?”
She stared at his chin; it was covered with golden brown stubble, the same
shade as had been the hair around his manhood. “The Arabs drank champagne . . .
three hundred years ago?”

“Probably.”
His lips were shiny wet. .
.from her.

He had
seen her. Smelled her.
Tasted her.

“I hardly
think getting inebriated is going to prevent pregnancy.”

He smiled,
flashing white teeth. “I was thinking of a champagne douche. Followed by a champagne
lunch.”

She tried
to squeeze the memory out of her head, failed. “At my wedding breakfast I was
allowed one glass of champagne.”

“Then
today you shall have an entire bottle.”

The
special place that he had found inside her body burned and throbbed at the
erotic image his words conjured.
Surely he did not mean .. .

Her gaze
leapt up to his, only a heartbeat away. Carnal knowledge glittered in their
depths. Of her. Of her needs.

“You are
not doing this out of pity, are you?”

His eyes
darkened. “Elizabeth, a man does not taste a woman’s body because he pities
her.”

“But you
could do it out of kindness, I think.”

“I am half
Arab. Arabs are not kind.”

“You are
half English,” she insisted.

“And they
are not kind either,” he replied dryly.

“You
surely have known kindness from the countess.”

“Do not
confuse kindness with love.” His breath was hot but a coldness settled behind
his eyes. “I have known love, but there comes a time when it matters little if
you are Arab or English. We cannot always be kind, especially to those we love.”

Elizabeth
had known neither kindness nor love with her husband. She would not allow fear
to destroy the opportunity of experiencing one if not the other.

“The
champagne will not be chilled, I hope.”

The
coldness in his eyes vanished. Laughter rumbled out of his chest; it shook her
entire body. “It will be an experience,
taalibba,
for the both of us.”

A pulse
throbbed at the base of his neck. “You have never before . . . administered a
champagne douche?”

“There has
been no need. If you prefer, we will go upstairs to my bedroom. I have condoms
there.”

Elizabeth
took a steadying breath. “I do not want you to use a condom. I want to feel
your flesh inside of my flesh. I want to feel you ejaculate inside of me.”
Out
of pleasure instead of duty.
“And then I want you to fill me with champagne
and drink from me.”

His mouth
took her breath away. She squeezed her eyelids together and opened her mouth
for him. There was hard masculine intent in his kiss, but there was tenderness
too. His tongue was an uncompromising invasion; it imitated the motions his
fingers had established earlier.

She
wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, wanting the thrust of
his tongue, the thrust of his fingers, the thrust of his manhood.
No man had
ever wanted her.
Virtue seemed cold compensation. Death colder yet.

An icy
hardness impacted her naked buttocks. She instinctively released the warm
column of a neck for the support of—a ceramic iris. He had set her down by the
edge of the swimming bath.

A splash
exploded in the silence; warm drops of water sprayed her breasts.

Elizabeth’s
gaze darted up—Ramiel stood in the swimming bath. Dark blond hair arrowed down
his abdomen and curled around the base of a large, thick penis. The bulbous
purple crown of it skimmed the rippling water.

She was
about to do the unforgivable. She was going to have sex with a man who was not
her husband. A man society called the Bastard Sheikh. A bastard who could give
her a bastard.

Elizabeth
studied the solid length of him. He could hurt her. He could reject her. He
would prove once and for all that there was more to the joining of a man and a
woman than empty, lonely frustration.

As if
aware of her thoughts, he waded toward her and grabbed her ankles. She followed
his gaze, peered at the black-patent slippers and the flesh-colored stockings
that bit into her thighs. There was indeed something rather lascivious in a
woman thus dressed.

The hard
heat banding her ankles tugged her across the cold ceramic tiles that separated
them. “Scoot forward, bend your knees, and plant your feet wide apart on the
edge of the bath.”

Her head
snapped up. He had seen her when she had one leg raised onto the tub, but this—”I
will be—indecent.”

“You will
be wide open and totally accessible.
Lebeuss el djoureb, taalibba.
Only
I will be standing instead of sitting. With you spread out before me ... so
that I can rub my verge against your vulva .. . and knock at the door of your
vagina .. . until you are so wet. . . and so open . . . that you will swallow
me whole.”

The note.

He
remembered.

She had
her own memories. He wanted a warm, wet, wanton woman who was not afraid of her
sexuality or ashamed of satisfying her needs.