The Lady's Tutor (13 page)

“And just what do you think the truth is, Lord Safyre?”

“Look to your husband. When you see what he is and not what you
want him to be, you will have your truth.” Suddenly, he dropped her hand and
released her waist. “The dance is over, Mrs. Petre. Let us promenade.”

Elizabeth jerked her left hand down, away from his shoulder. “I
will not be blackmailed.”

“I think you will. You love your children but you know nothing
about your husband ... or yourself. I will expect to see you tomorrow morning.”

She nodded at an acquaintance, her mind busily digesting and
analyzing his words. “You know who my husband’s mistress is.”

“No.”

“Then, why are you doing this?”

“Because I think you are a meritorious woman.”

“I do not have a male member, Lord Safyre,” she retorted frigidly.

The harsh line of his mouth eased. Mischief danced in his eyes.
He
looked like the impish schoolboy he must have been when he was twelve, spurned
by his mother.
“We will see.”

“I will not be there tomorrow morning.”

“You will be. Just as I will be waiting for you.”

For the first time in her life, Elizabeth understood why Phillip
used to stomp his foot in anger. She stared across the ballroom . . . directly
into the eyes of her husband.

A man joined him—a fellow Cabinet member. Edward turned to the
older man and walked toward the card room.

Edward had seen Elizabeth, she realized numbly, and dismissed her.

She met the Bastard Sheikh’s turquoise stare. He had seen Edward’s
dismissal, too.

The smell of gas from the chandeliers, of women’s perfumes and men’s
macassar, rushed to her head. Elizabeth firmed her lips and straightened her
spine. “I will not lie to you if you will not malign my husband.”

“Very well.”

“And if you insist upon the truth, you must be prepared to give
it.”

His thick, dark lashes created jagged shadows on his cheeks. “I am
here to tutor you,
taaiibba,
not the other way around.”

“Perhaps we will both learn.”

“Perhaps.” He offered her his arm.

She tentatively rested her fingers on his sleeve. Underneath the
silk, his muscles were whipcord taut.

Heat washed over her chest—it came from his gaze, staring at her
breasts. She drew her shoulders back, corset creaking, too late realizing the
motion pushed her breasts up and out.

He lifted his lashes; laughter shimmered in the depths of his
eyes. “Rule number three. Starting tomorrow morning, you will not wear one
single article of wool in my house. You may wear silk, muslin, velvet, brocade,
whatever you wish so long as it is not wool.”

“And you, Lord Safyre,” she asked rashly, brashly, “what will you
wear?”

“As little or as much as you wish me to wear.”

Elizabeth’s mouth went dry, imagining warm brown skin capped by
red-hot desire.

She abruptly remembered who he was and who she was not.

A man like him did not lust after a woman whose hair was
touched by silver and whose body had
thickened from the birth of two children.

“We are engaged in a tutelage, Lord Safyre, not a burlesque.”

Heads turned to see who dared laugh with such unadulterated
enjoyment.

Elizabeth bit her lips to keep from joining in with his mirth.

It was pure nervousness, of course. There was nothing even
remotely humorous about society witnessing the Bastard Sheikh’s uninhibited
laughter, especially when she held his arm and also came underneath their
scrutiny. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not keep her lips in a
straight line.

Emerald-green eyes caught Elizabeth’s.

Her mother’s eyes.

They were not amused.

Elizabeth jerked her hand away from the Bastard Sheikh’s arm.

His
laughter abruptly died.

Elizabeth turned, giving him the cut direct.

And felt as if something inside her died, too.

lizabeth Petre wore a heavy brown velvet gown and cold English
civility. Last night she had smiled at him ... and then she had cut him
directly as if he were a gutter dog.

“Sabah el kheer,
Mrs. Petre.”

“Good morning, Lord Safyre.”

A reluctant smile crooked his lips as she methodically removed her
black leather gloves. He poured steaming coffee into a blue-veined porcelain
demitasse cup, then added a splash of cold water before handing it to her.

Clearly, she was reluctant to accept it. It was equally clear that
her rigid English manners decreed she not offend her host by
not
accepting
it.

Ramiel studied her through the veil of his lashes, willing her to
take the coffee.

The exultation that surged through him when she accepted the
Turkish beverage was a throwback to his Mogul heritage.

He wanted her.

He wanted her to acknowledge her physical needs.

He wanted her to want
him
, the Bastard Sheikh, a man born
in the West who had become a man in the East and
El lbn,
a man who had
tasted the bitter dregs of human sexuality and still yearned for more.

Turkish coffee was a good place to start.

Hot mist enveloped Elizabeth’s face; she blew into the cup before
taking one sip, two, three. . . Sliding the cup and saucer onto the edge of his
desk, she pulled a sheath of papers out of her reticule.

“Your choice of textbook is confusing, Lord Safyre.” She raised
her head and caught his gaze. Sexual awareness briefly glimmered in her clear
hazel eyes and was quickly buried. “The sheikh gives very little instruction on
how to give a man pleasure.”

Ramiel refreshed his own cup of coffee, inhaling the thick, sweet
aroma, a bittersweet reminder of what he had once taken for granted. “ ‘O you
men,’ “ he murmured, “ ‘prepare her for enjoyment, and neglect nothing to
attain that end. Explore her with the greater assiduity, and, entirely occupied
with her, let nothing else engage your thoughts.. . . Then go to work, but,
remember, not till your kisses and toying have taken effect.’ ”

He deliberately raised his cup to his lips and drank. The thick
brew was hot and wet, exactly the way she would feel when he was lodged deep
inside of her.

She watched him, outwardly calm and sedate. Her nipples stabbed at
the soft velvet bodice.

Last night they had stabbed his chest when they danced.

Ramiel returned his cup to his saucer. “You do not think that men
need preparation, Mrs. Petre?”

Indecision warred with propriety in her clear hazel eyes. The need
to know won.

“Are you saying that men and women are excited by the same types
of caresses?”

“We both have breasts, lips, thighs. . .” He lightly rimmed the
warm porcelain cup with his finger. “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.”

“Then you believe that a man becomes aroused when a woman kisses
his cheeks ...” A pulse beat erratically at the base of her throat. They had
irrevocably crossed the boundaries of tutor and student—he knew it, she knew
it. He had planted doubt in her mind about her husband—and himself. “. . . and
nibbles at his nipples?”

Ramiel’s groin tightened. “I
know
that a man becomes
aroused by kisses and nibbles, Mrs. Petre.”

She evaded the heat in his gaze. “I can understand that it might
be pleasant for a man when a woman titillates his lower body, but I do not see
why a man would enjoy having his navel and his . . . his thighs kissed.”

Ramiel knew exactly how much pleasure a man derived from a woman
kissing his navel and thighs. Erotic sensation pulsed in his groin, the memory
of harem pleasures, a woman’s tender explorations, legs spread, manhood
glistening with need as he wound silky-soft hair around his hands and gave
himself up to the primal ecstasy of a hot, wet mouth.

He wanted that—he wanted to experience again the innocent joy of
sex . . . with Elizabeth Petre.

She must acknowledge her needs.

“Do you not enjoy having your navel and thighs kissed?” he asked
in a low, sultry voice.

“I—” Ramiel’s eyes dared Elizabeth to tell the truth. She did not
let him down. “I don’t know. I have never been kissed there.”

“Does it excite you, thinking of being kissed there?”

An ember exploded in the fireplace.

She tilted her chin, daring him to mock her. “Yes, it does. Does
it excite
you,
thinking of being kissed there?”

Ramiel’s breath rasped in his throat. “Yes, it excites me.”

“And does a man like a woman to bite his arms?”

The sizzling sexuality building between them abruptly dissipated.

“Bite
at
his arms, Mrs. Petre,” he said dryly. “The sheikh
is not suggesting that a man or a woman engage in cannibalism.”

“I beg your pardon. Does a man like a woman to bite
at
his
arms?”

A cynical smile curled Ramiel’s lips, other memories surfacing,
more recent memories,
Western
memories. “Pain has its moments.”

“When?”

“When is pain pleasurable for a man ... or when is it pleasurable
for a woman?”

Her English reserve firmly fell into place. “For a man.”

“When a man brings a woman to her pea—”

“Excuse me. I would like to take notes. May I borrow your pen
again, please?”

Elizabeth was running.

From him. From herself.

She knew how to be a mother, but she was terrified of being a
woman.

Edward Petre’s neglect of his wife at the ball the previous night,
coupled with his dismissal, had told Ramiel everything he needed to know about
the sixteen-year marriage. The look on Elizabeth’s face had told its own story.

Edward did not care—Elizabeth did.

He wondered how long she had lain awake when she went home, alone,
waiting for her husband.

He wondered what her reaction would be when she discovered her
husband’s secret.

Ela’na. Damn.
Her
entire household knew about Edward Petre’s sexual predilections. How could she
be so naive?

Ramiel retrieved his pen from inside the top drawer. She stared at
the gold instrument.

Or perhaps she stared at his fingers, remembering the span of his
hands and wondering how he would fit inside her.

Would she accept him easily or would he stretch her to the point
of pain? Would he give her an orgasm or would he leave her aching with
frustration as Edward Petre had no doubt left her?

Squaring her shoulders, Elizabeth plucked the pen out from between
his fingers. “Thank you.”

How long had it been since she had taken a man inside her?

Ramiel scooted the brass inkwell across his desk.

Elizabeth dipped the steel nib into ink and poised the pen over
her paper, eyes trained on the white vellum. “You were saying?”

“Have you ever had a climax, Mrs. Petre?”

Her head snapped up.

“No lies, no evasions,” Ramiel warned gravely. “That was our
agreement.”

Her expression of shocked outrage turned to frigid disdain. “Yes,
Lord Safyre, I have experienced a climax.”

Jealousy coiled inside his stomach like a cobra preparing to
strike.

“Then you are aware that just before climax the ability to
distinguish between pleasure and pain diminishes. When a woman reaches her
peak, she sometimes scratches or bites her lover. The pain can be the impetus
he needs to reach his own climax.”

The steel nib busily scratched its way across her paper.

He watched the play of light and shadow on her hair, dark wine-red
and golden fire. And pictured her head solemnly bent to take her husband into
her mouth.

Ramiel did not know what disturbed him the most, the fact that at
the end of their lessons she would use his knowledge to please another man or
the fact that using it to please her husband would destroy her.

“Now I will tell you what a woman sometimes needs to reach her
peak.”

The scribbling stopped.

“I have known women who like their nipples to be bitten or
pinched.” His description was bluntly sexual. “Other women enjoy it when I
throw their legs over my shoulders and ram them so hard and deep that I can
feel their womb contract around me.”

She gripped the pen in a stranglehold and stared at what she had
written down. “What do you prefer?”

He ached for her ignorance . . . and for her needs that she so
valiantly tried to hide.

“Whatever the woman prefers.”