Free Innocent in the Sheikh's Harem by Marguerite Kaye Page A

his resistance was beginning to falter.
    He wanted her. There was every reason for him to deny himself, but he had done so much denying since his brother died he was sick of it. He wanted her. He wanted to teach her. He wanted her to know pleasure. And he wanted her knowing to be his doing.
    Ramiz got to his feet. ‘I guessed because you have the look of a woman starved of attention. Come with me,’ he said, reaching out a hand to pull her to her feet, placing a finger over her mouth to stop her speaking. He led her out of the salon to the courtyard, where the fountains made their sweet music in the jasmine-scented air. ‘Look up there.’ The deep sapphire of the night sky was framed high above their heads. ‘In my culture, we believe that love has wings—wings which can take you all the way up there to the stars, where the heavenly pleasures of the body are worshipped. It is a voluptuous journey. A journey which leaves its mark upon a woman in her eyes, in the way she walks, the way she learns to nourish and to relish her body, knowing that it is a temple of delights. I look at you and I see a woman who has not yet learned to fly. I look at you and I want to help you experience what it feels like to soar in the high clouds.’
    His voice shivered seductively in her ear. They were standing by the fountain, his hands on her arms, stroking feathery light up and down her bare skin. She could feel the brush of velvet from his sleeves. He smelt of lemon-scented soap and night-scented man. She pictured herself flying. His presence, the scent of him, the feel of him, the husky sound of him, gave her a fleeting image of what that might be like. Of what he might do to her to make it happen.
    She wanted it. Whatever it was, she wanted it, and she knew she would never find a more able tutor. His confidence was intoxicating. His aura of power equally so. His casual mastery, which could intimidate and anger, was here, under the secret stars fascinating, beguiling, and incredibly persuasive.
    ‘Don’t you want to know what it’s like to fly, Celia?’ Ramiz spoke into her ear. His lips whispered over her skin.
    ‘I don’t know if I can,’ she said, which was the truth.
    His laugh, like a throaty purr, so filled with assurance, made her stomach clench in anticipation. ‘Trust me—you can.’
    His tongue traced the shell of her ear. His fingers trailed up her arms to the nape of her neck, circling delightful spirals which whirled little pulses into life. Her heart was beating fast. Faster. She was hot and cold all at the same time. His mouth traced the line of her jaw, and she ached, ached for him to kiss her lips, but instead he moved down her throat. His velvet-soft mouth gave kisses that made her arch back in his arms like a bow, so that she could see the sky now, the stars glinting and beckoning and calling to her as his mouth reached the hollow of her neck, and her skin seemed to reach out to greet him, wanting more than the flickering kisses he gave her.
    ‘Ramiz,’ Celia whispered, ‘Ramiz, please…I want to.’
    He scooped her up into his arms, heading for the nearest salon, which happened to be the one in which she slept. The low divan, with its scattering of pillows and silk covers, took up centre place in the room. It was the strangest bed she had ever encountered, for it was round, with neither head nor footboard. Ramiz set her to her feet before it, gazing deep into her eyes, his own glowing amber in the shadowed light with something fierce she didn’t recognise and wasn’t sure she liked.
    She lowered her lids, but he tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him again. ‘You must not be ashamed of your body; you must learn to enjoy it. That is the first lesson you must learn or you will never leave the ground.’
    Then his lips covered hers, fitting so perfectly that she stopped breathing. How could mouths fit like that? But they did. Warmth flooded through her. She stood pliant, unsure what to do,