Ramiel licked the roof of her mouth, listened to the accelerating cadence of her breathing. Exultation so sharp that it was painful peaked inside of him. She wanted him too, and that was almost as potent as his own needs.
“Dear God . . . I did not know.”
The words vibrated inside his mouth. He nipped her bottom lip, asked, “Did not know what?” and heard her swallow his breath.
“I did not know that a man’s lips were so soft.” Her lips moved against his, a soft abrasion, warm breath feathering his skin while her fingers dug into his scalp. “I did not know that a kiss was so . . . personal. So intimate. Is it not better if a man holds a woman when he kisses her?”
“I will not touch you against your will.” He was surprised the palms of his hands pressing against the two windows did not shatter the glass. Purposefully, he teased her lips with his tongue, imitating the moist glide of a man’s verge against a woman’s wet vulva, thrust only to withdraw. “It you want me to touch you, Elizabeth, you are going to have to tell me to.”
Her fingers knotted in his hair. “You do not consider a kiss . . . touching?”
“Lips kiss; teeth nibble; a tongue licks and tastes. Only hands touch. They cup a woman’s breasts, warm and heavy with the weight of her need; they guide a woman’s hips, soft and round beneath a man’s hardness; they squeeze a woman’s buttocks, to soothe and urge her closer; they hold open a woman’s thighs, stretching her wide for pleasure; they caress a woman’s vulva until she’s slick with her passion. A tongue can taste that passion, but only through touch can a man’s fingers slide inside her body where she’s hot and wet and aches with desire. Touch prepares a woman for deeper penetration. When you tell me to touch you, Elizabeth, I will touch the very depths of your body.”
Lips slanting, hardening, he took her mouth, unleashed the full strength of his need, and sucked her tongue inside him. She stiffened; he refused to let her go, sucking and sucking her lips, her tongue, until she groaned into his mouth and clutched his hair in both hands, pulling him closer, closer. When he released her mouth, she gasped for breath.
He leaned his forehead against hers, skin bumping and grinding hers as the coach bumped and ground along the cobbled street. His voice was raw with need. “Ask me to touch you, taalibba.”
Her voice was equally raw. “What would you do if I did?”
“I would unfasten your gown and take out your breasts and suckle your nipples until you scream for release. Then I would suckle them until you gain it.”
Her breath audibly caught in her throat. “A woman does not obtain release through her breasts.”
A pained smile twisted his lips, remembering her earlier confession. “And how do you know that?”
“I have two sons,” she whispered breathlessly. “My nipples have been suckled.”
“Not by a man, taalibba.”
“I cannot!” she suddenly cried.
“You can!” he returned, feeling her pain, feeling his own pain from her fingers that clenched in his hair. “You came to me wanting to learn how to give a man pleasure. I want to be that man. I want you to want me so badly, you will do anything to learn how to give me pleasure. Tell me to touch you, Elizabeth.”
Suddenly, he was free, and it took every ounce of control that he possessed not to plunge after her. He had tasted her mouth; he wanted far, far more. He wanted to taste her pleasure, her cry of release.
“You do not know what you are asking.”
Yes, he did.
Lowering his arms, he closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. “A kiss, Elizabeth. If you will not let me touch you, let me kiss your breasts. Let me take your nipples inside my mouth and suckle them like I suckled your tongue. Give me that, taalibba.”
A rustle overrode the grind of the carriage wheels.
Ramiel’s eyes snapped open.
Elizabeth slipped her cloak off her shoulders. “Just a kiss.” Her voice shook with need.
He licked his lips and stared at the white skin that shone above the neckline of her dress that was black in the dark, then burgundy in a flash of streetlight. “Just a kiss,” he agreed hoarsely. And prayed he could stop when the time came.
If he took her before she was ready, she would never forgive him . . . or herself.
“I cannot reach the buttons—”
“Turn around.”
More rustling. She sat on the edge of the seat and presented him her back.
Hands trembling—the bouncing of the carriage did not aid him—he found the tiny buttons and one by one worked them free. His fingers tingled, aching to touch more than cloth. “I have to unlace your corset.”
“Yes.” He heard her ragged whisper over the drumming of his heart.
Laces . . . He thanked both Allah and God for the nine years he had spent in England, learning Englishwomen’s undergarments. Quickly, efficiently, he freed her.
She turned, clutching the dress to her chest.
“Give me your breasts, taalibba.”
“I can’t.”
“Ela’na, Elizabeth—”
“My chemise . . .”
Reaching out, he gently pulled the straps of her dress over her shoulders, trapping her arms at her sides. Peeling the corset down, he exposed the chemise, a white square of cloth cut low across the pale curve of her breasts.
Breath rasping in his throat, he slowly, carefully, slid his fingers underneath the cotton. Soft heat seared his fingers as he delicately lifted her left breast free of the restraining chemise. Unable to resist, he brushed the hard, exposed bud of her nipple.
She gasped. “Ramiel—”
He stilled. She had never called him by his given name, never called him a bastard, an animal, a dirty Arab. She had apologized for her husband’s rudeness. So many firsts, for her, for him.
“It’s all right,” he crooned, lifting free her right breast, contact minimal, more than he had promised, but he would not abuse her trust any further.
“It’s all right,” he murmured again, slipping down onto the carriage floor, down onto his knees, digging his fingers into the leather seat on either side of her to prevent himself from taking more than she wanted.
“It’s all right,” he repeated, leaning forward into the warmth of her body, lips grazing soft, smooth skin. Her fingers threaded through his hair, cupped his head, caressed the tips of his ears. He breathed in the heat of her; it washed over him in a scalding wave. Suddenly his entire world consisted of this moment, this woman, and he wanted her to share that wonder.
He wanted to give her the gift of sex.
Nuzzling, he found her, a hard, tight bud of pure passion, and sucked her deep into his mouth. Elizabeth cried out; an answering cry ground out of his chest as he tongued her and suckled her and lost himself utterly in her wants and her needs.
She drew him closer, leaned into his face, body arching with her need, bouncing with the coach. “Oh, my God. Stop. Ramiel. What are you doing? I feel . . . please. Stop. Oh, my God!”
Halfway there, taalibba.
He rooted for her left breast, spared a moment to nuzzle her, to lick a hard, straining nipple in quick welcome, and then he took her into his mouth, became a part of her, heart pounding in time to her heartbeat, lungs expanding and contracting with the labored cadence of her breathing. He tongued the tiny indentation that had once spurted milk into the mouths of her sons, imagined her giving him a son and letting him drink from her after she had fed their child. Imagined drinking and drinking until she could give no more and there was no need to worry that it wasn’t enough.
“Ramiel, please, you have to help me, I cannot—I don’t—” Elizabeth’s sob strangled in her throat.
Ramiel gently sank his teeth around the base of her nipple, giving her the extra sensation that she needed while he continued licking and suckling, licking and suckling. He could feel the arch of her body, hear the rush of air whooshing inside her lungs, could see her orgasm growing behind his eyelids, expanding, erupting—
> He jerked free of her nipple and took her cry of release inside his mouth, plunging his tongue inside the hot wetness of her, taking her pleasure and making it his own.
She abruptly tore her mouth away from his, gulping oxygen. Her cheek was wet.
Ramiel opened his eyes—harsh gaslight penetrated the coach window. His throat tightened. “Don’t cry, taalibba. It was only a kiss.” He licked away the trail of salt. “Just a kiss.”
“The coach has stopped.”
He buried his face into her neck, knowing what she was going to do, hoping he had the strength to let her do it. Sighing, then, he moved away from her, sat across from her as if she had not shared her first orgasm with him.
She wriggled, freeing her arms from the vise of her dress, tucking her breasts back inside the chemise, pulling up the corset, the dress, wrapping the cloak about her.
“Divorce Edward Petre.”
“I cannot.”
Ramiel steeled himself against the finality in her voice. “I can give you love, Elizabeth. What can he give you?”
“He can give me my sons.”
“You have your sons.”
Elizabeth reached for the door. “I have to go.”
He could not let her go, not with the taste of her still coating his tongue. “I want you, Elizabeth.”
“And my husband does not,” she rejoined flatly. “But you know that, do you not?”
Yes, he knew.
“Do you think I want to live the rest of my life with a man who does not want me?” Her low cry echoed inside the coach. “You just gave me a memory I will always cherish. And now I have to go. Please do not ever ask me to dance again, because I cannot.”
Wrenching open the door, she tumbled out of the carriage. Ramiel jumped to help her.
Elizabeth leapt to her feet, clutched her cloak about her. Golden light from the gas lamp by the town house door danced in her hair. “I asked for a divorce. It is not advantageous to either my husband’s or my father’s career. Ma’a e-salemma, Lord Safyre.”
She slammed the carriage door in his face, leaving him with only her bonnet and her gloves and the lingering taste and smell of her body.
It occurred to Ramiel that he had underestimated Elizabeth. And that he had quite possibly jeopardized more than her reputation.
Chapter 18
Johnny sat on a chair inside the foyer, fast asleep. Either Edward had not come home yet or he had posted the footman as sentry to clock the time she returned from the ball.
Elizabeth dashed away the salty stains on her cheeks. Underneath her cloak, her dress had slid off one shoulder; the loosened tapes of her corset tickled her back. Her lips tingled, her breasts ached, and she should feel tawdry and used, allowing a man who was not her husband such familiarities. She did not. She felt—alive. Empowered yet humbled. Like she had received far, far more than just a kiss.
Stealthily, she closed the front door to the town house and tiptoed by the footman, up the stairs, foot landing on the telltale creaking board. She could not go on with her marriage, having sampled the intimacy that a man and a woman could share.
She could not—but she must.
Elizabeth eased open her bedroom door—and stopped dead in her tracks. A black-haired man dressed in evening clothes sat at her desk. He was reading—what?
“What are you doing, Edward?”
The distant bong of Big Ben sounded over London’s rooftops; it was followed by a more proximate chime—the Westminster clock downstairs. It was two o’clock.
Edward continued perusing whatever it was that he was reading. “I am amassing the evidence of your adultery, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth’s heartbeat pounded against her loosened corset. “You are a Uranian, Edward. Exactly what does a Uranian do?”
She had the satisfaction of seeing his back stiffen. Edward swung around in his chair. “Your lover did not tell you?”
Elizabeth shut the door and leaned against it. “Ramiel is not my lover,” she retorted, too late realizing she had called him by his given name.
Contemptuous eyes raked her body. Elizabeth was acutely conscious of her state of disarray, of the swollen heat of her lips and her nipples and the dull throb inside her womb.
“You were given an ultimatum this evening, Elizabeth.”
She had expected to regret her dance with Ramiel. But now that it was time, she could not. All that she felt was gratitude, that he had shown her the ecstasy of a man’s kiss. She regretted only that she had not told him to touch her until he plumbed the very depths of her body so that she would never again feel dirtied by her husband.
“Are you going to threaten to kill me too, Edward?”
Shadow deepened his dark brown eyes. “I know how much you love your sons. I do not have to threaten your life.”
Sick horror rose in her throat. “Are you threatening to harm your own children?”
“I do not have to.”
“But you would.”
She could see it in his eyes. For the first time, Elizabeth was glad that Richard and Phillip were away at school, out of harm’s way.
“I will do whatever it takes to become prime minister.”
Desperately, she tried to call his bluff. Edward had backed down when Ramiel threatened to expose his membership in the fellowship of Uranians. She would not let him threaten her sons. “Is your mistress a Uranian too, Edward?”
“As a matter of fact, my lover is a fellow Uranian.”
Elizabeth sucked in air. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. “You said you did not have a mistress.”
“I don’t.”
“Is there a difference between a lover and a mistress?”
Edward rolled up a sheath of earmarked papers. “I will strike a bargain with you, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth stared at the roll of papers in his hand, suddenly realizing what he had been reading and what he now held. Her notes from The Perfumed Garden. She had not been able to throw them away. “What deal is that?”
“I will tell you the difference between a lover and a mistress if you will tell me why you thought you could get away with sneaking out to meet your bastard.”
Betrayal raced through her veins—which one of the servants had given her away? It was chased by fear.
How could he know she met Ramiel—unless he had engaged someone to follow her?
The watching eyes at the Women’s Auxiliary.
Edward had summoned the constable, claiming he was worried because she was late, even though the fog would delay anyone. Had he hired someone to follow her? And had that someone intended to frighten her . . . or had he intended to kill her?
Damn him, he would not make her afraid.
“I will not ask for a divorce again, Edward. That is what you wanted, is it not?”
“Elizabeth, I want you to be the perfect wife. A mother and a hostess with an impeccable reputation so that you will be an asset rather than a hindrance. Fucking the Bastard Sheikh is not acceptable behavior in the wife of a future prime minister.”
Elizabeth had heard that particular word, of course. It was commonplace on the streets, like the word dolly. Never had she imagined hearing it from her husband.
“Perhaps, Edward, you are jealous because you cannot.”
Her mouth snapped shut, wishing the words back as soon as she uttered them.
Edward laughed loudly.
It was the first time Elizabeth had heard him laugh other than the polite guffaw. There was no boyish charm or warmth in it as there was in Ramiel’s laughter.
“Elizabeth, you have absolutely nothing for me to be jealous of.” It should not be possible for a man who called her breasts udders to inflict further pain. It was.
“You did not used to be like this, Edward.”
“Nor did you, Elizabeth.” He stood up, completely at his ease. “You have some very interesting notes here. Quite immoral, in fact. Not at all what one would expect from a virtuous wife and mother.”
Elizabeth p
ushed away from the door, more angry than afraid now. She would not let him spoil the memories of the lessons she and Ramiel had shared. “They are mine. Give them back to me.”
“Everything you have is mine, Elizabeth, including your body.” Edward smiled, enjoying her powerlessness. How could she have lived with him all these years without knowing what kind of a monster he was? “I will keep this as evidence of your illness.”
She twisted her cloak more tightly around her throat. “What illness is that?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Why, nymphomania, of course.” He opened the door connecting their bedrooms, paused. “I will have your maid bring you some hot milk. Distraught women need their sleep.”
Elizabeth fought down nausea.
Death. Confinement. Separation from her children.
All because she wanted to be loved.
She did not have to ask who it was when a soft knock issued from her outer door. It was Emma, come to calm her distraught nerves. She carried a small silver tray. Hot steam rose from its solitary occupant, a mug.
The abigail was fully dressed, as if she had waited up for Elizabeth. But Elizabeth did not demand that her maid wait up for her. If Elizabeth could not undress herself, she rang and Emma came to her dressed in nightgown and robe.
Ramiel had said she would know who Edward’s mistress was when the time was right. Was it Emma?
“Is there laudanum in the milk, Emma?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
An unconscious wife would be much more easily conveyed to an asylum than one who kicked and fought and screamed.
“You may put it down on the nightstand.”
“Mr. Petre said that I should wait until you drank it.”
Feeling strangely numb inside, while outside her body still tingled and burned from Ramiel’s lips and tongue and teeth, Elizabeth took the mug, set it down on a side table beside the window, hoisted up the window, and poured the steaming milk out onto the withered rosebushes below. She returned the cup to the maid. “You may tell him that I did not leave a single drop.”
Emma stared for long seconds at the mug before taking it out of Elizabeth’s hand. “Very well, ma’am,” she said, not meeting her mistress’s eyes.
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