Innocent in the Sheikh's Harem (7 page)

He should have left, he knew that, but he hadn’t been able to tear himself away, and now he was here he could think of nothing, nothing, nothing but finishing her journey, of travelling with her, just this once. His hands stroking her flesh. Her hands, with their long delicate fingers, touching his skin. His mouth on hers. Her breathy moans of pleasure saying
his
name, wanting
his
caress.

Ramiz was beyond resistance. Beyond anything save the need to hold her, to taste her, to take her to the heights of pleasure and this time soar with her. He strode over to the bath, kneeling down on the top step, careless of his silk robe trailing in the puddles of scented water. For a long moment he simply gazed at her, damp and pink and creamy white, the fire of her hair reflected in the fire of her eyes, the sweetness of her breath like a whisper on his cheek.

‘Celia.’ He pulled her towards him, his hands slipping on her shoulders, feeling the delicate blades sharp beneath her flesh as he wrapped his arm more firmly around her, the long sleeve of his caftan trailing in the water.

‘Ramiz.’ Sleepy with arousal, the word wrapped itself around him as Celia’s arms twined around his neck, and he was lost.

Water slopped wildly over the sides of the bath onto the shallow step, forming pools on the tiled floor as he pulled her up, kissing her wildly. No slow build, no delicate preliminaries, passion burst like a ripe fig as they kissed, hands slipping and gripping and sliding, the silk of his robe clinging to their skin, their lips, their tongues, kissing as if they would meld.

She had no thought of resisting, was too far gone in her own imagined lovemaking to refuse her dream made flesh and blood in the magnificent form of Ramiz. They were standing together on the tiled floor by the bath, wet skin, fevered lips, kissing and licking, licking and kissing.

‘Celia, Celia, Celia.’ Ramiz said her name like an incantation, punctuating it with kisses to her lids, her ears, her throat, his hands urgent upon her, raising torrents of feeling where before there had been only feeble tributaries. His mouth found her breast, his lips fastening greedily round her nipple. The delicious tugging produced such a rush of heat that she moaned, slumping in his embrace, arching her back so that her breasts implored him for more. His attentions moved to the other nipple. She moaned again, saying
his
name now, over and over, a plea for completion, of wanting and desperate need.

Her hands plucked at the silk of his robe, wanting to touch flesh. She struggled ineffectually with the buttons at his neck, eager now, desperate for the feel of his flesh upon hers for the first time. She wanted to touch him. To see him. To savour him. She wanted to give him what he was giving her. She wrenched at a button and it flew through the air to land with a click on the tiles.

Ramiz laughed—a low, husky noise which gave her goosebumps. She watched, fascinated, as he yanked the other buttons free and then, taking the neck of his caftan between his hands, simply tore it apart, casting it aside onto the floor to stand naked before her for the first time.

The word
magnificent
did not do his body justice. Celia gazed at him in awe—the golden skin stretched taut over the muscles of his shoulders and chest, the rippling ridges of his abdomen, like the contours of the desert sands of which he was prince. The sheen of water like a glaze cast each dip and rise into relief. Where she was curved he was sharper lines. Where she was soft he was…

She reached out her hand tentatively. Ramiz took her by the wrist, encouraging her. Where her skin was soft, like cashmere, his was smoother, like silk stretched on a tambour frame. She could feel the hardness of his muscles underneath. Ramiz pulled her closer. He guided her wrist lower. The concave stomach. Down. Her eyes followed the same path. Down. To the curving length of him, solid, intimidatingly large. She could not imagine how—where—surely it would hurt?

‘Ramiz, I…’

‘Touch me. There is nothing to be frightened of.’

‘I’m not frightened.’ But she was, just a bit, and her voice gave her away. She was afraid of her ignorance. Afraid of failing. Afraid that Ramiz would find her lacking.

He scooped her up, holding her high against his chest, pushing his way impatiently out of the bathing chamber to the next salon, where he kicked a heap of cushions together onto the carpet and sank down onto them. Satin and silk and velvet—she could feel them all on her back, her bottom, her thighs. Satin and silk and velvet on her mouth as Ramiz kissed her.

‘To touch is to learn,’ Ramiz whispered, trailing his fingers over her hip.

He leaned over her, his mouth following where his fingers had led, feathering kisses like whispers, speaking softly of the pleasure to come. She felt her skin tighten as her flesh seemed to swell under his caress. He kissed the crease at the top of her thigh, pulling her onto her side, positioning himself opposite her so that they lay like two crescents curved into each other.

Ramiz dipped his hand between her legs, lightly stroking his way through the moist folds of her flesh. ‘Touch me, Celia. Do as I do. Make me feel as you do. Like this.’ With his other hand he placed hers onto his shaft, wrapping her fingers round its length and gently guiding her. Satin and silk and velvet.

Her touch was entirely inexperienced and entirely delightful. He thought fleetingly of the man who had been her husband, a man who had obviously taken no interest at all in his wife’s pleasure, and then he banished the thought, for he did not want to think of Celia as a wife, or having belonged to anyone else. He did not want to think at all, for to do so would be to stop, and he could not stop. Not now.

He slipped his fingers gently inside her, easing into the swelling heat of her, enjoying the way she clenched around him, the little gasp of pleasure emanating from her. ‘This is what you are doing to me,’ he said. ‘When I do this, and you touch me like that, this is what it feels like.’ Slowly he pulled out of her clinging moistness, only to ease back in again.

What he was doing was a prelude. Finally she understood. Her own fingers clasped around the part of him which was designed to meld them together. She stroked him, wondering at the slight curve on the satiny skin, at the astonishing hardness of him, tracing a line up to the tip of him, softer, rounded, velvety. He was watching her. She gasped as he pushed his fingers inside her again, closing her eyes at the peculiar smarting of this pleasure, more insistent, the edges rougher than last night. Then he did it again, and she stroked him in the same rhythm, and saw the pleasure she was giving him etched on his face, in the way his eyes darkened, the way he bit his lip to stop himself from crying out.

It was the same for him. It was really the same. What she was feeling—this mounting tension, this jagged excitement, this feeling of wanting it done, over, of wanting it to last for ever, this wanting to soar and wanting to cling—he was feeling it too as she stroked him and he stroked her. Then he slid upwards, touching her where he had touched her yesterday, and she felt herself began to slip, but forced herself to cling on. Her thumb caressed the tip of his shaft, and Ramiz gasped. Inside her, he worked magic of his own. It was like being pushed inexorably towards something deep and dark, and as she stroked him and circled him she could see he felt the same. His eyes were closed. A dark flush stained his cheeks. He gripped his lower lip with his teeth. His breathing was fast, uneven. Like her own. Her heart was thumping. Her body was cold, cold—freezing except for where Ramiz touched her and she touched Ramiz. She felt him thicken in her hand, felt herself swelling under his hand, heard him say her name, like a plea, for the first time asking something of her, but before she had time to wonder what he wanted the jagged swelling pressure in her burst through, like water coursing through a dam, and she cried out. Ramiz cried out too, spilling his pleasure over her hand as she melted into his.

He was right. To give was to receive. More than last night. More than she had thought possible. Enough to make her wonder what
more
would feel like. Enough to make her realise that she should heed Yasmina’s warning. This was a fantasy formed in a harem and being played out free from the disapproval of the outside world. Nothing more. It could never—must never—be anything more.

Celia sat up, pulling a tasselled cushion onto her lap to cover herself.

Ramiz opened his eyes, reluctantly pulling himself back down from the heights to which her touch had sent him. He had not meant this to happen.
It should not have happened! What was he thinking?
He got quickly to his feet, pulling his torn robe around him. ‘This was a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’ she repeated stupidly.

‘It was wrong,’ Ramiz said tersely. At least he had not risked any consequences! At least his sense of honour had not wholly deserted him.

His robe was soaking wet from the bathwater, but he didn’t seem to notice. It clung to him, making him look like one of those naked statues, strategically draped for modesty’s sake. Feeling at a distinct disadvantage, Celia hugged her cushion defensively. With his clothing, Ramiz had donned his mask. She hardly recognised the man who had moaned his pleasure at her touch only moments before.

‘What do you mean, it was a mistake?’

‘You are here under my protection. I should not have allowed myself—this should not have happened. No matter how much the provocation,’ he added.

‘Provocation!’ Celia’s face burned with a mixture of shame and anger. ‘I thought I was alone.’

‘This is my harem.’ He was being unfair, but it was true in a way. If she had not been—if he had not seen her in the bath like that… ‘My harem,’ Ramiz repeated firmly. ‘I am free to walk in here any time I wish.’

‘That’s preposterous. It may be your harem, but as you’ve just pointed out I am a guest here. I am entitled to some privacy.’

‘And I am entitled to expect my guests to behave more decorously.’

‘You’re being quite ridiculous.’

‘You call
me
ridiculous? You forget yourself, Lady Celia. You forget who you are talking to.’

She knew he had a temper, but she had not before experienced it. His face was pale with anger, his mouth set in a thin line, his hands clenched at his sides. She had overstepped the mark as far as he was concerned, but as far as she was concerned so had he. Her own formidable temper was normally kept firmly under wraps, but his heady change of mood from euphoria to accusation sent it spinning out of her control before she could rein it in.

Regardless of her naked state, she flung the cushion away and got to her feet, her hair flying out like battle colours behind her. ‘I don’t care who you are—you are being ridiculous. I was taking a bath in the privacy of a bathing chamber. The fact that it happens to be in your harem is completely irrelevant. It is not my fault that you fell victim to your own base desires. I won’t be branded some sort of siren just to satisfy your honour, be you prince, sheikh, or simply a man.’

He flinched as if she had struck him. As she had—with the truth of the matter. He had been unable to control himself. No matter that he had not taken her, he had wanted to. ‘You are right.’

Celia’s temper fled as quickly as it had arrived. There was an embroidered cover on one of the divans under the window. She snatched it up, wrapping it around her shoulders. ‘Ramiz, you were not the only one to lose control,’ she said painfully. ‘I did not provoke you deliberately, but I didn’t stop you either.’ She reached out to touch his arm. ‘You are not the only one to blame.’

He shrugged himself free of her hand. ‘You are a woman. I should not have allowed you to submit.’

‘Submit?’ Celia stared at him in confusion. ‘Why must you persist in the belief that I don’t have a mind of my own just because I’m a woman? I make my own choices, even if they do turn out to be foolish ones.’

Ramiz sighed heavily. ‘I am pleased you think this way, even if it is misguided. I hope this—this event—will not colour the view of my country that you take back to England.’

Realisation dawned, cold and savage. ‘You’re worried that I’ll make things difficult for you through my father?’

‘We are at a delicate stage of negotiations with your people.’

‘I won’t be crying ravishment, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She glared at him, determined not to allow the hurt she felt to show.

It was the last thing he’d been thinking of, but it
should
have been the first. He could not forgive himself. He could not allow himself to think about why he had done what he did. Or how Celia felt. And definitely not how he felt. It was a relief at least that his actions had not offended her. He must ensure he gave her no further cause.

‘Tomorrow, if you still wish, I will take you out to see something of Balyrma.’

‘Is that my compensation for keeping my mouth shut? If so, I’d rather stay here.’

‘I thought you wished to see the city. If you have changed your mind…’

‘I’m sorry, Ramiz, I shouldn’t have said that.’ Celia attempted a weak smile. ‘All this—everything here—it’s all so strange to me. I feel like I’m in a dream half the time. I’d love to see Balyrma, and if you have the time to escort me I’d be honoured. I’m sure I couldn’t have a more knowledgeable guide. Akil told me you’ve written a history of Balyrma’s origins.’

Ramiz shrugged. ‘It is nothing. The work of an enthusiastic amateur rather than a scholar. I will have you brought to me in the morning.’ He turned to leave.

‘Ramiz.’ Difficult as it was to speak of such things, she could not square it with her conscience to allow him to think he had forced her, any more than she had been able to accept that she had enticed him. ‘Ramiz, I meant what I said. It was as much my fault as yours. You are not responsible for my actions, no matter how accustomed you may be to thinking you are.’

‘It does you credit that you say so.’

‘I say so because it’s the truth.’

Ramiz smiled like a god descending from the heavens to join the mere mortals. It transformed him. ‘It is not just me who is accustomed to shouldering the blame, is it? I think you must be a very protective sister.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘You are certainly a most unusual woman.’