The Lady's Tutor (20 page)

Her eyelids snapped open. Edward was her husband; the Bastard
Sheikh was her
tutor.
She should be imagining her legs thrown over her
husband’s shoulders.

Straightening, she stared at the dim glow of her bedside lamp.

The Bastard Sheikh had commented on the dark circles under her
eyes.

A ridiculous sense of gratitude washed over her. It was followed
by disgust. She was indeed desperate for attention if she should be gratified
that a man commented on her hollow eyes.

Impulsively, she crossed the thick carpet and turned the flame in
the gas lamp as high as it would go. Light and shadow danced across the
familiar room, turning the dawn-darkened carpet to blue, a rectangular box into
an oak secretary, an oblong frame into a cheval mirror.

Putting away her gloves and emptying her reticule of
The
Perfumed Garden
that she religiously carried to the lessons—as if the
Bastard Sheikh’s library were indeed a school and the book of erotology a
textbook—she hung up her cloak and her bonnet, then unpinned the little silver
watch and dropped it into a drawer in the bottom of the wardrobe. Unbuttoning
the velvet bodice of her dress, she hung that, too, inside the wardrobe.
Gratefully, she shed the heavy bustle.

A glimpse of stark white snared her attention—she turned and
stared at the woman in the cheval mirror. She was dressed in a plain white
chemise and petticoats. Her skin was almost as pale as were the undergarments.

You have a womanly figure . . . Be proud of your body . . .

Staring, Elizabeth untied the first petticoat; it slid down the
woman’s hips and puddled around her feet. Two more followed. Elizabeth raised
her arms; the woman in the mirror raised her arms, too, and then she was
obscured by white linen before reappearing again minus the chemise, dressed
only in drawers, stockings, and shoes.

Her breasts were pale alabaster globes, heavy and full. The
nipples were dark, tight.

Daringly, Elizabeth unlaced her plain white drawers, slid her
hands inside the body-warmed cotton. Bending, she snagged the thigh-length
stockings and pulled them down with the drawers. Fighting the instinct to
cringe and hide, she straightened and assessed the naked body in the mirror.

Her waist had thickened slightly after two pregnancies; her hips
had rounded proportionately. The triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs was
dark red.

Had it always been so ...
lush?
Or had maturity . . .
enhanced
her body?

Shadow outlined her collarbones; it dimpled her knees. She raised
her arms and reached behind her to release her braid from the pins that held it
in a bun. The breasts in the mirror lifted, jutted out from the woman’s chest.

Dropping the pins onto the carpet, Elizabeth loosened the braid,
used both hands to shake out her hair. Warm silk slithered down her back, over
her shoulders, her breasts. At the same time, she watched a waterfall of auburn
fire spill over her shoulders and breasts. Sliding both hands around the nape
of her neck, then, she raised her arms high, pulling her hair up and back so
that it cascaded over her wrists, elbows veed on either side of her head, breasts
lifting, swelling, pouting.

Elizabeth stared at the naked woman in the mirror, entranced. She
was—voluptuous. A woman who had borne and nursed two children. A woman who was
worthy of love.

She licked her lips, a flash of pale pink tongue. They seemed fuller
than they normally did. Kissable.

Touch yourself. . .

As if they had a will of their own, her hands slid free of her
neck, dropped the warm tresses of auburn silk. Tentatively, she cupped her
breasts; the small, feminine hands in the mirror matched Elizabeth’s movements.

The skin was soft, heavy, slightly damp on the underside.
Elizabeth could feel the hard prod of her nipples in the palms of her hands.

Did a man’s nipples grow hard when a woman touched them?

Do you really like a woman to nibble on your nipples?

Yes, Mrs. Petre.

Liquid heat surged through her groin. She trailed her hands down
her ribs, cupped the rounded swell of her stomach.

We all want to be touched. . . .

She touched herself openly, watching herself touch herself. Auburn
hair curled around the white hand in the mirror; underneath it was soft, wet
flesh like saliva moistened lips.

Tachik el heub.

Elizabeth imagined a man thrusting so deeply inside her body that
their pubic hair meshed, dark auburn and bright gold. Soft, firm lips covered
hers; a tongue thrust into her mouth, filling it while he filled her body with
his manhood. Her tender nether lips swelled underneath her fingertips, like
ripe fruit, begging to be plucked, fingered—

The soft click of a door closing sounded over the drumming of
Elizabeth’s heart and the quickening of her breathing.

Edward.
He
was home.

She froze, fingers glued to her skin, unable to move.

He must see that her light was on.

He would come into her room and find her, like this, naked,
touching herself,
wanting...

Muffled sounds penetrated the closed door separating their
bedrooms; a man preparing for bed, a man sliding into bed, a man leaving a
woman alone.

The Bastard Sheikh had said that she was not a coward. So why didn’t
she cross her room and open the door that kept Edward and her apart?

Why didn’t she go to her husband, naked, and show him that she
could please him as well as his mistress did?

Tears spilled down her cheeks, hated tears, a coward’s tears. She
snatched her nightgown off the bed and jerked it over her head. Quickly
clearing away all signs of her decadence—the pins, the underwear, her shoes—
she
had been so eager to touch herself that she had not even taken her shoes off
—she
turned the gas lamp off and burrowed underneath the bedcovers.

The Bastard Sheikh’s voice followed her into sleep.

A woman who has borne two children . . . will not
mind
that I am an Arab
bastard. She will only know true satisfaction at my touch.

lizabeth’s nipples underneath her soft black velvet bodice were
hard. As hard as the male flesh pulsating against Ramiel’s right thigh.

He wanted to arouse her. He wanted to bind her to him so
inextricably that she would never,
ever
think about pleasing another
man. Ramiel had planned this lesson very carefully to accomplish his goal.

“Which is the most sensitive, Mrs. Petre—your lips, your nipples,
or your clitoris?”

For one long second she held the cup of Turkish coffee poised near
her lips, nose wreathed in curling steam. He saw shock in her hazel eyes; it
was followed by arousal. Then he saw nothing but the fan of her lashes and
blue-veined porcelain as she tilted the cup and took a leisurely sip. By the
time she returned her cup to the saucer balanced on her lap, her face was
composed. “I feel quite certain that you know where a woman is most sensitive.”

“But my knowledge is not of you,
taalibba.
”
Yet.
“Every
woman’s body is different. Some women enjoy one touch while another does not.”

She
tilted her chin. “Perhaps, Lord Safyre, some women would enjoy being
touched—anywhere.”

Ramiel
did not want her to settle for just any touch, anywhere.

He
wanted her to demand the rights that were her due as a woman—total, utter
satisfaction.

“How
long has it been since your husband came to your bed?”

The jarring clatter of china on china chased his words. Her lips
tightened. “We agreed that we would not discuss my marriage.”

How
had he thought her stoic?

Her lips gave away
everything,
quivering with sensitivity,
compressing to hold back her emotions. Anger, fear, pain.
Passion.

His
eyes narrowed. “I agreed not to malign your husband.”

“How long has it been since
you
have been with a woman,
Lord Safyre?”

“Six
days.”

“An
excessive amount of time.”

Her voice was sarcastic. But the knowledge was there.
He had
not been with a woman since she had blackmailed her way into his home.

“Yes, Mrs. Petre, it is an excessive amount of time,” Ramiel said
deliberately. “Before now, the longest I had ever gone without a woman is three
days. How long has it been since you have had coition?”

“Suffice it to say that it has been longer than six days,” she
retorted repressively.

Ramiel
thought of Edward Petre. He thought of the damage he must have done to her over
the course of sixteen years.

“Longer
than six months?” he goaded.

She stared into her coffee cup. The shadows underneath her eyes
were darker than they had been yesterday.

Another
mark against Edward Petre.

Were Elizabeth his wife, he would bring her to orgasm so many
times she would fall into exhausted sleep every night.

He hardened his voice. “You agreed not to lie. How long, Mrs.
Petre?”

She
raised her cup, sipping, hiding, trying to hold the truth at bay:
she was
married to a man who would never satisfy her.
Carefully placing the cup on
the saucer, she extended them toward Ramiel. “It has been longer than six
months, Lord Safyre. It has been longer than six years. May I have more coffee,
please?”

Ramiel
inhaled sharply.

He expected her answer; he did not expect the riot of emotions it
would unleash.

Longer than six years.

Ela’na. Damn.
She
would be tighter than a virgin.

Taut anger overcame the piercing desire to find out just how tight
she was.

Anger
at Edward Petre. Anger at Elizabeth.

He
had used her. She had allowed it.

Ramiel
would not.

Today she would see what a man looked like. Very soon she would
experience what a man felt like.

The man would not be Edward Petre.

He lifted the silver coffeepot at his right elbow and poured more
coffee into her cup. Hot steam roiled between them. “In Chapter Eight the
sheikh lists various names for a man’s sex organ.”

“Thirty-nine.” She waited until he added the prerequisite splash
of cold water to settle the coffee grounds before pulling back her hand. As if
it were commonplace for a woman to admit that she had not had coition with her
husband for more than six years, she balanced the saucer and cup on her lap. “An
excessive number, surely.”

“You
counted them.”

“I
thought that was the intent.”

The intent was for her to become acquainted with the various
stages of arousal in a man.

“Which
names did you favor?”

She tilted her chin. “That is difficult to say, Lord Safyre. I was
rather taken with ‘the pigeon’; however, ‘the tinkler,’ the ‘one-eyed,’ and ‘the
expectorant’ ran a close second.”

Laughter and lust. Ramiel could feel the two disparate emotions
mingling deep inside of his body.

“Do not be too harsh, Mrs. Petre. English translations of Arabic
words do neither the culture nor the language justice. When a man ejaculates,
his manhood shrinks and nests on his testicles, hence the ‘pigeon’ simile. When
a woman is wet, suction arises when the man thrusts in and out of her body; if
he should pull out of her, it will create a ‘tinkling’ sound. The one-eyed is
rather obvious. As for the expectorant, it is called thus because a man
secretes moisture when he is excited, just as a woman does.”

She glanced down, as if she could see through the desk and
ascertain the truth of his statement herself. “Does every man ... secrete
moisture . . . before he ejaculates?”

A circle of damp warmth penetrated Ramiel’s trousers where the
crown of his manhood strained against the black broadcloth. “Yes.”

Her gaze jumped up from the desk, safely settled on the cup and
saucer in front of Ramiel. “How much?”

“Enough to lubricate a woman’s nether lips so that he can glide
between them.” Ramiel dipped a long finger into his coffee and circled the rim
of his cup with it. “Enough to wet his fingers so that he can caress her
clitoris and bring her to climax.”

She tore her gaze away from his cup and met his eyes. “What Arabic
terms do you prefer, Lord Safyre?”

Ramiel’s
manhood thickened. He shifted in his chair, stretching out his legs to find a
more comfortable position.
“Keur. .. kamera .. . zeub.”

“Virile
member, penis, and verge,” she translated softly.

Ramiel
lowered his lashes, veiling his eyes. “You have an extraordinary memory, Mrs.
Petre.”