The Lady's Tutor (53 page)

Lowering her
head, she inhaled his scent, musky with a hint of Eastern spices, tasted the
essence of him with the tip of her tongue before sucking him deep inside her
mouth.

The
countess had said if she relaxed her muscles, she could take him more deeply.

It worked.

A low,
guttural groan ripped out of his chest, pure, unadulterated music to her ears.
This was a woman’s power; this was the wonder of sex—
this was Ramiel.

He arched
into the wet heat of her mouth. The huge bulb of him pulsed deep inside her
throat, a part of her. A matching pulse leapt to life between her thighs.

Elizabeth
took as much of Ramiel as she could, swallowing him again and again, licking
him like she would a—did Arabs have lollipops? she wondered. And then she did
not wonder about anything, lost in the smell and taste and the silky smooth
texture of him. There was no champagne to camouflage his flavor. He was, quite
incredibly, the most delicious thing she had ever eaten.

When she
could feel trembles rack his body, Elizabeth released him with an audible
popping sound and was not at all concerned that it was not dignified. Ramiel’s
dark face was flushed with sexual arousal, his turquoise eyes bright. He
gripped the wooden chair arms as if holding the reins on a runaway horse.

Keeping
her eyes on his, she placed a soft kiss on the throbbing crown of his penis.

The skin
over his knuckles whitened.

“I think,”
she whispered, deliberately bathing him with her hot breath, “that you want me
to take off your shirt and nibble on your nipples.”

The
third lesson.

Seducing a
man was strangely erotic. Elizabeth forgot that she had stretch marks on her
hips or that Edward had said she had udders.

Standing
up, she pulled his shirt out of the band of his trousers. Her breasts, heavy
and swollen, swayed in his face—and it felt good to be naked and unashamed. She
tugged at the slick white silk until he raised his arms, a reluctant
participant in his own seduction.

His
nipples were hard. As were hers.

She touched
herself briefly, a hard nub of flesh; then she touched him, an even harder nub
of flesh. His skin burned.

Suddenly,
the shirt was wrenched out of her fingers. Ramiel jerked it over his head and
tossed it aside. Male challenge and raw need glittered in his turquoise eyes. “Why
are you doing this?”

She
would not back down.
With
Edward, yes, but never with this man.

“I thought
that was rather obvious. Do you not want me to nibble on your nipples, Ramiel?”

“I want
you to tell me what you think you are doing.”

“I am
seducing my tutor.”

“Why?”

She did
not flinch away from his gaze. “Because I lied to you when I told you that I
regretted coming to you.”

“And when
you told me I was no different from your husband and your father? Did you lie
then?”

Ramiel was
nothing at all like Edward.

“Yes.”

“I cannot
be what you want me to be, Elizabeth.”

Kneeling
again, Elizabeth rested her hands on his thighs; his heat warmed her fingers. “But
you are. And now, if you do not mind, I find that I quite like seducing you.”

Leaning
forward, she delicately licked the hard bud of his left nipple before taking it
between her teeth and gently worrying it. His heart pounded against her lips;
his chest hair tickled her chin. Laving him with her tongue—wanting to please
him, wanting to please herself, wanting to end the pain and the mistrust—she
suckled him as if she could take nourishment from him.

She could.
When she touched him, he became the focus of her entire world.
And it was
all right.

Heat
cupped her head—his hands. Liquid warmth flowed through her body. His thighs
that she blindly clenched opened; she leaned into the welcoming warmth of his
veed legs until the moist crown of his manhood pulsed against her stomach and
she drew and drew upon his nipple, drew until it was harder than a pebble and
he tangled his hands into her hair and yanked her head back. He stared at her
lips, swollen from suckling him. At her breasts, swollen from wanting him.

“What else
do you think I want?” His voice was a dark rasp.

“I think
you want me to sit on your lap,
dok el arz,
so that I can take you
inside my body so deeply that our pubic hair meshes. So deeply that you cannot
withdraw, not even an inch. I think you want me to grip you so tightly that
your testicles ache for release, so tightly that the only thing you can thrust
inside me is your tongue while you grind your pelvis against mine.”

Ramiel’s
nostrils flared. “You don’t have any pubic hair.”

Elizabeth
was abruptly, agonizingly aware of the fact that he wore trousers and she was
naked—of both clothing and body hair. She had been so intent upon showing him
that she could please him as well as a woman from the East that she had
forgotten the one simple precept: In the fourth lesson he had specifically told
her that he wanted a woman’s pubic hair to blend with his.

She
stiffened. What had ever made her think that a woman like her, a woman who was
not in her prime, could seduce a man like Ramiel? “I’m sorry.”

“Will you
marry me?”

She had
forgotten ... so many things. “Muhamed would not approve.”

Ramiel’s
fingers tightened in her hair, not causing pain exactly, but not exactly
gentle. “Muhamed is gone.”

She had
not meant to come between the two men.

“Will he
return?”

“Perhaps.
He went back to Cornwall. To see his family.” Loneliness reverberated inside
Ramiel’s voice; he had lost the last living remnant of a country that had
exiled him. “Perhaps he will find some peace there. Will you marry me?”

Marry .
. . the Bastard Sheikh.

“I would
be honored.”

A sharp
creak of protesting wood cracked the air and suddenly Elizabeth was straddling
his knees and the wet heat of her penetrated the broadcloth of his trousers.
She grabbed for his shoulders.

“Lift your
legs and put them over the arms of the chair.”

Elizabeth
squeezed her eyelids shut to block out the blazing light in his beautiful
turquoise eyes. “It is not going to work, Ramiel.”

Coldness.
Elizabeth had never known that heat could turn into ice between one heartbeat
and the next. Even though his arms continued to hold her securely, she could
feel his withdrawal. “Why not, Elizabeth?”

She forced
her eyes open and confronted the truth. “The wooden arms of a chair simply are
not designed to accommodate a woman’s legs.”

Laughter
glinted in his eyes. Without warning, he grasped her right thigh and lifted it
for her, hooking it over the wooden arm of the chair. She dug her fingernails
into his shoulder.

A woman
was not made to sit in this position. It was uncomfortable; the wood dug into
her soft flesh. It forced open the lips of her denuded vulva so that no flaw
was concealed. “Ramiel—”

His
turquoise eyes waited, all laughter gone.

Elizabeth
took a deep breath. And awkwardly lifted her left leg over the wooden
obstruction. She was totally open, totally exposed for his perusal. The length
of his manhood lay between them, purple tipped. It pointed toward her
glistening pink vulva.

She
dragged her gaze away from the evocative sight of a man and a woman’s
passion—and met his. “I want to make you knock at my door.” Her voice shook
with the force of her desire. “And when I put you inside me I want you to know
that I accept you for who and what you are.”

“Do you,
Elizabeth?” The gas lamp flared, throwing the right side of his face into sharp
relief.

“Yes, I
do,” she said firmly. “And you will demonstrate that you trust me implicitly by
allowing me to put you inside me.”

Moisture
oozed out of her splayed body. He glanced down; she
did not have to look to see
what he saw: her flesh, her needs. Darkness suddenly seemed to envelop both
sides of his face. “Then make me knock,
taalibba.
”

Before she
could discern his intent, he grasped her buttocks and lifted her up and inward
until her breasts pressed into the scalding hot wall of his chest and his
manhood lay directly underneath her. Cold air invaded flesh that was not meant
to be invaded; it matched the chill that plied her dangling feet.

Biting her
lip, she released his right shoulder and wormed her hand between them. Ramiel
audibly gritted his teeth when her fingers fastened around the electrifying
heat of him. Burying her face against the prickly haven of his neck, she guided
the plum-shaped head of him to her vagina, so wet and vulnerable, his own flesh
so hard and unyielding. She nudged and pushed and nudged and pushed until she
ached, and she knew that he must ache too, holding her up. His arms were corded
with strain; they trembled, or perhaps it was she who trembled, poised on the
verge of a new life.

Raising
her head, she looked into his turquoise eyes, only inches away from hers, and
all resistance vanished from her body. She opened up and swallowed him in hot
welcome
and yes,
it was a moment of bonding. Her breath
whooshed
from
her lungs.

“Would you
go to Arabia with me?”

Her
muscles convulsed in protest, in greed. “To live?”

The
countess had said that women were worth less than a horse.

“Perhaps.”

“But my
sons . . .”

“Can join
us.”

Fear.
Uncertainty. His. Hers.
Theirs.

“Yes. I
would go to Arabia with you. Phillip said he wants to become a
jinni.”

The heat
that flared in his eyes almost blinded her. “You will be very sensitive with no
hair to cushion you.”

She gulped
air. “Is that a hindrance?”

His smile
was a sexual promise. “Not for me,” he whispered. And slowly, inexorably,
lowered her onto him, pushing deeper, deeper yet, until his pubic hair nestled
her clitoris and a button burrowed into her buttocks.

She had
forgotten how deeply a man could occupy a woman. Or how vulnerable was a woman’s
swollen flesh.

Elizabeth
inhaled sharply, button forgotten, fingernails digging into his shoulder, body
clenching to forestall further invasion,
but there was more.
He gave her
his breath, then took hers when he hooked his arms underneath her outstretched
thighs and pushed them higher, wider, grinding the last two inches inside her
so that he could find their special place,
and she took him.

“It was
not my preference,” he gasped.

She gasped
with him when he ground up inside her, caught between pleasure and pain. “What?”

“My half
brother. I did not realize how jealous he had always been of my relationship
with the sheikh. When I... bought something that he wanted ... he sneaked into
my chambers while I slept . . . and he ... toyed with me. When I woke up, his
eunuchs held me down and he raped me. I killed him.”

A month
ago she would have been shocked. Horrified. Now she felt only compassion at the
pain he had endured.

“You did
not tell your father.”

“No.”

But he had
told her.
Implicit trust.

Self-loathing
dulled the passion in his turquoise eyes. “In sleep, Elizabeth, the touch of a
man is as pleasurable as that of a woman.”

“But you
felt no pleasure when you woke up.”

“No.”
Events and emotions that she could not even begin to fathom reverberated inside
the simple word.

Elizabeth
leaned her forehead against his. “I enrolled Richard and Phillip in Harrow
today. Just before I left, Richard said, ‘I love you, Mum. Please don’t blame
yourself for what happened. I don’t.’

“I love
you, Ramiel. Please don’t blame yourself for what happened in the past. I don’t.”
Angling her head, she swiped his cheek with her tongue, tasted tears. “Let me
make it better for you. Let me love you.”

His head
swooped down; he captured her breath into his mouth then gave her his when he
ground his pelvis against hers, body grinding, tongue thrusting,
dok el arz,
belly to belly, mouth to mouth, her desires, his desires, they were one. He
ground and ground into her,
dok,
until they were both slick with sex and
sweat and her climax erupted inside her body while words erupted inside her
mouth. “I love you.”

She forced
her head up and her eyes open. “What?”

“Bahebbik.
I love you.”

No.
She would not cry. “How does a woman say
it... in Arabic?”

“Bahebbak.”

“Bahebbak,
Ramiel.” And then, before
all reason was again lost in the churning, grinding motions, “Do the Arabs have
a word for lollipop?”