The Lady's Tutor (17 page)

The soft internal explosion brought tears to her eyes. She buried
her face into her pillow.

How would she be able to face the Bastard Sheikh, knowing what she
now knew?

lizabeth stared at the dark gleam of mahogany wood, at the hot
steam that rose from the demitasse cup with its delicate blue veining, at
anything but those knowing turquoise eyes.

“You practiced rubbing your pelvis against the mattress.”

It was not a question.

She turned up her cup and gulped bittersweet Turkish coffee. The
scalding liquid traveling down her throat did nothing to counteract the
scorching heat infusing her face. She placed the empty cup on the saucer and
with careful precision set it on top of the massive desk. Resolutely, she
raised her head and met his gaze. “I did.”

The Bastard Sheikh’s eyes glinted in the gas lamp. “The pleasure
is far greater when a woman is with a man.”

She refused to give in to her shame. “How do you know that, Lord
Safyre?”

“Because the pleasure is greater when a man is with a woman.”

“Do men practice rotating their hips on a mattress, then?” she
asked politely.

“No,
taalibba.
Men practice with their hands.”

The breath caught in her throat. Surely he could not mean what she
thought he meant. Surely a man like him would have no need to—

“Do you?

The question popped out before she could stop it.

He did not pretend to misunderstand her. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Loneliness. Need. We all want to be touched, even if it is by our
own hand.”

“But you can have any woman you want, anytime you want her. You do
not have to rely upon—” Her jaws snapped together.

“Remember what I said,
taalibba,”
he murmured softly. “Here,
in my home, you may say what you will.”

Elizabeth had said quite enough. Yet. . . Instead of squirming
with embarrassment, she felt strangely unburdened. This man knew more about her
than any other person . . . and he did not condemn her for her needs. Perhaps,
even, he shared her needs, wanting to touch, to be touched. . . .

Impossible.
A
woman like her had nothing in common with a man like him. She wanted, she
studied. He wanted, he took.

Elizabeth jumped onto the most innocuous subject matter contained
in the sixth chapter. “The sheikh places a great deal of importance on kissing.”

“Ferame.
”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sheikh places a great deal of importance on a specific kind
of kiss, Mrs. Petre. The kiss that is intended
to
arouse a man or a
woman is called
ferame.”

The kiss that involved the use of tongue and teeth.

“I find it hard to believe that a man would nibble on a woman’s
tongue, Lord Safyre,” she said repressively.

But she could imagine it. . . .

Jagged shadows spiked his cheeks. “A woman’s tongue is like a
nipple, to be nibbled and suckled. Her mouth is like a vulva, to be licked and
probed. Have you ever had a man’s tongue in your mouth?”

Lightning sensation jolted up between Elizabeth’s thighs. She
pictured his dark face bending
to
hers, kissing and licking and probing
her mouth with his tongue. Immediately, the image was replaced with his dark
face poised between her legs, kissing and licking and probing her vulva with
his tongue.

The vision was riveting. Shocking. It caused her breath to quicken
and her heart to race.

Edward was a fastidious man. Not even with a young and beautiful
mistress would he engage in such an act.

“Have you ever had a woman’s tongue in
your
mouth?”

“Evading the question, Mrs. Petre?” he asked silkily.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “No, I have never had a man’s
tongue in my mouth.”
Or anywhere else.
“Are you evading my question?”

“You already know the answer.”

Yes, she knew the answer. He had probably had more tongues in his
mouth than Cook had prepared for dinner.

She studied the light and shadow molding his high cheekbones and
his slightly hooked nose instead of his eyes and the erotic draw of his lips. “If
a man were fastidious . . . and he were hesitant to try this kind of kissing,
how would you recommend that a woman . . . broach the matter?”

“By doing this.” The Bastard Sheikh brought up a long, practiced
finger and touched the corner of his mouth.

Elizabeth’s lips quivered in response. She sucked them in. “You
mean touch his mouth? But where?”

“Touch yourself, Mrs. Petre.”

“I would prefer it if you demonstrate where your lips are most
sensitive, Lord Safyre.”

“This is an experiment, Mrs. Petre. There is a reason for my
suggestion.”

“Then, if this is an experiment, perhaps I should explore your
lips.”

The gas lamp flickered, flared high.

She could not have said what she heard still ringing in her ears.

His eyes narrowed, as if he, too, did not believe what she had
said.

A sharp creak of wood sounded in the silence, and then Elizabeth
was staring at an ivory button instead of his turquoise eyes. He silently
padded around the desk while she continued staring where but for her outburst
he would still be sitting.

He stepped into her line of vision, blocking the light from the
lamp. She could feel the brush of his brown leather trousers against the dark
gray velvet gown covering her knees.

The leather over his crotch bulged, as if stretched across
something very large and very hard.

Elizabeth threw her head back. The light shining behind the
Bastard Sheikh outlined his hair so that it looked as if he wore a bright gold
halo. Lucifer before the fall.

“I am at your disposal,
taalibba.”

Warning bells crashed and clanged inside her head.

She had never seen a man and she
wanted to.

She had never kissed a man and she wanted that too.

“You promised you would not touch me.” She hardly recognized her
voice.

“In this room, yes.” His voice was all too recognizable.

Elizabeth remembered the fear she had felt only hours earlier,
confronted with a man who threatened to shoot her with a shotgun. She
remembered the fear she had felt plowing through London streets and into the
occasional lamp pole. She remembered the fear she had felt defying her husband
after he had telephoned the constable
because she had inconvenienced him.

She did not want to die without once touching someone other than
herself.

Pushing back the leather chair, she stood up.

Her head came to the top of his shoulder. He was too close. She
could feel the heat of his body, could almost hear the beat of his heart.

“You—you’re too tall.”

He promptly perched on the edge of the desk, eyes nearly level
with hers, gaze never wavering. His knees spread out on either side of her so
that she could step between them ... if she dared.

She dared.

Heat radiated from the
V
of his legs. Elizabeth studied his
mouth, glad of an excuse to escape the intensity of his eyes.

She had never before scrutinized a man’s lips. Had never realized
what a masterpiece of sculpture they were, as if chiseled out of human flesh,
the top lip sharp, concise, the bottom one fuller, softer. Slowly, tentatively,
she reached out a finger and brushed that sensuously rounded bottom lip.

Electricity shot through her body.

He jerked his head back. She simultaneously snatched away her
hand. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I did not—”

“You did not hurt me,
taalibba.
” His breath smelled of
coffee and sugar, familiar smells, hot, exotic, like the man himself. A lock of
wheat-blond hair fell across his forehead. “The lips of a man are as sensitive
as those of a woman.”

“But if they are that sensitive”—she tried to regulate her
breathing, but failed—”how can two people bear to kiss?”

A stillness settled over his dark face. The golden halo that edged
his hair alternately blazed and waned. “Your husband has never kissed you,” he
said flatly.

She bit her bottom lip, struggling to keep her relationship with
her husband anonymous.

What would the Bastard Sheikh think, learning that her husband
lacked even the simple desire to kiss her?

No waltzing, no sex, no kisses.
No bonding.

“The truth, Mrs. Petre.”

She did not know what the truth was anymore.

She tilted her chin. “Once. He kissed me when the minister
pronounced us husband and wife.”

The derision she expected did not come.

“Lick your lips.”

“What?”

“The purpose of a kiss is the same as that of coition—to incite
moisture so that the lips move freely without irritation, just as a man’s
toying excites wetness in a woman’s vulva so that his member will more easily
thrust back and forth inside her body.”

She had been dry when Edward had come to her bed.

The Bastard Sheikh’s long, dark lashes were clustered in thick
spikes. She concentrated on that instead of on the wet heat that was building
between her thighs. “Is it painful for a man if a woman is not... moist?”

“Yes, although probably not as painful for the man as it is for
the woman. A vagina is easily bruised, like a ripe piece of fruit. Care must be
taken in plucking it, fingering it. . . .”

Elizabeth instinctively licked her lips, her saliva hot and slick.

Satisfaction glimmered in his eyes. “Now touch your lips . . .
glide your finger over them . . . gently.”

Her lips were moist and slick; the delicate tissues inside her
mouth throbbed in time to the pounding pulse in the pad of her fingertip. She
stared into his eyes, blue, green; the longer she looked into them, the more
she could discern tiny individual flecks of color.

“Lick your finger.”

She obeyed him unhesitatingly.

“Now touch my lips.”

Slowly, slowly, she again reached out. The sensation was less
shocking this time, more sensuous, like touching wet silk. Heat rose to the
surface, stoked by the slick glide of her finger.

“Your top lip is not as sensitive as your bottom one.” Her voice
was hushed. “Is it the same with every man?”

“Perhaps.” The word was hot, moist; it seared the entire length of
her finger.

She raised her left hand and touched her own top lip while she
touched his, gliding, stroking, the corners, the chiseled peaks. His lip
twitched, her lip twitched, so sensitive.
She had never known lips were so
sensitive.

Curiously, breath bated, she explored the seam of his mouth. She
had never felt anything so soft or smooth. At the same time, she explored the
seam sealing her mouth, lost in sensation, the texture of their skin, the
prickly heat that trailed her lips and the pad of her—

Wet heat leapt up from between her legs and flicked the tip of her
finger—his tongue.

She jerked her hand back.
My God,
what was she doing?

“Do men and women kiss in the same manner?” she abruptly asked,
bringing her clenched hands safely to her sides. He had agreed not to touch
her; perhaps he should have demanded the same of Elizabeth. “That is ... are
there things that a man is required to do that a woman does not, or vice versa?”

“That is the beauty of sex, Mrs. Petre. A man and a woman are free
to do anything that gives the other pleasure.”

His lips glistened with her saliva; they looked swollen, as if she
had bruised them, Eve manhandling the forbidden fruit.

She stepped back, bumped into the leather chair. It skidded out
from behind her.

Mortified, she snatched up her gloves and reticule that had
decanted onto the Oriental carpet. “Please forgive me. I seem to be unusually
clumsy this morning. Perhaps I should go home—”

The Bastard Sheikh loomed over her, behind her. Something nudged
the backs of her legs—the chair.

“Sit down, Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth sat down, a graceless
whoosh
of bustle and
leather.

As if nothing untoward had taken place, he resumed his position
behind the mahogany desk. “The sheikh describes forty positions that are
favorable to the act of coition.”

“Yes.” She could feel her heartbeat—in her lips, between her legs,
her nipples.

“Did you take notes?”

“No.”
She had been too busy reading and wanting.