“Just perfuming, and the proper way to disrobe before a gentleman.”
“Disrobe for me,” he commanded, sitting cross-legged amid the colorful cushions. “Pretend I am to be your gentleman.”
She stood very still before him. Her fingers hardly seemed to touch the tiny pearl buttons of her robe before it opened. He had not but the barest glimpse of her breasts when she twirled gracefully. The silken robe slid with agonizing slowness down the long line of her back and over the perfect twin moons of her buttocks. She turned to face him, her eyes modestly lowered. Sinking to the floor, she said softly but clearly, “As my lord commands.”
For a moment he stared at the gleaming dark head that touched his slipper. He was amazed not only by her easy skill, but by his own reaction to it. Beneath his brocaded robe he was swollen and aching, and he couldn’t quite believe it. He had always maintained a perfect control over his body.
She raised her head, and their eyes met. “Do I please you, my lord?” she asked innocently.
“Very much,” he murmured huskily. Don’t! Don’t! his saner self warned him, but he heard himself saying, “Sit next to me, Skye.” And when she nestled in the curve of his arm he bent over her and touched her lips. They parted easily beneath his, and he drew her scented breath into his own mouth. His tongue sought for hers, found it and they caressed one another with burning softness until he became aware of her hands seeking his, and placing them on her naked body.
“Touch me, my lord Khalid!” she whispered urgently. “Please, pleasetouch me!”
Fighting to control himself, he allowed his hands to slide over her body. He had never felt such a desire in himself for any woman. Her skin was softer than anything he had ever known, and when she moaned with undisguised pleasure he trembled. He slipped his own robe off. You must not! She is unschooled! You will ruin everything! warned his saner self, but his lips slid down the pure pillar of her throat, and his hungry mouth captured a taut nipple, sucking passionately on it until, with an angry half-cry of desperation, he yielded to his own desires.
Swinging himself over her burning body, he impatiently parted her thighs and thrust himself into the welcoming warmth of her. She sighed and with a deeply rooted feminine instinct, she wrapped herself about him and moved her lush body to match his frantic rhythm. Her slender fingers slid down his long, smooth back, kneading his muscled buttocks until he whimpered with pleasure. Within her own body she felt a tingling tenseness that built with unbelievable intensity until, cresting, it burst over her like a giant wave lifting her high and then dashing her down into a swirling darkness.
“Skye! Skye! Ah, my beautiful beloved,” he murmured against her ear. He caressed her gently.
“I did not remember until now how beautiful making love could be,” she whispered.
“Do you remember anything else?” he questioned hastily.
“No. Only that I have done before what we just did, and that it was good.”
“I should not have taken you,” he said. “What if I had frightened you?”
“You did not frighten me, my lord Khalid, but perhaps I displeased you with my lack of skill.”
He laughed weakly. “No, Skye, you did not displease me. It is true you lack the skill of a trained courtesan, but this same lack of skills has given me a very pleasurable time.”
“Must I continue my lessons with Yasmin, my lord?”
“Yes. Your innocence has charm, my beloved, but there is no harm in your learning our ways. You will learn to pleasure your gentlemen in a variety of ways. It is your duty as a woman to be knowledgeable in the arts of love, and as Yasmin teaches you, you will show me.”
She lay on her back breathing quietly and evenly. He lay on his side so he might gaze down at her. His fingers traced a delicate pattern down her breasts and torso. Shivering, she raised her blue eyes to him. Bending down, he kissed her mouth with great tenderness, then her eyelids. “Go to sleep, Skye, and sleep in the knowledge that I will watch over you.”
Her eyes closed. He again wondered who she was and where she had come from. A noblewoman without a doubt, but from where? Her coloring ruled out the far north, and he did not believe her to be either Spanish or French. When she had first regained consciousness he had spoken to her in French and she had answered him, but he knew her accent was not native to France.Could she be English, or one of the Celtic races? Unless she regained her memory, they were unlikely ever to know.
Khalid el Bey was not sure he wanted to know. Somehow this beautiful creature had insinuated herself into his heart. It had been a long, long time since he had felt more than just sexual satisfaction with a woman, but with Skye he suddenly felt something he had long believed himself immune to. That feeling was a longing for a real home, and it took a wife and children to make such a home.
He smiled at his fantasies. Surely he was getting old, for the first sign of age in a man like him was the longing for rest. He gazed again at the woman by his side. Was it possible? Did he really love her? What if he married her, and she later regained her memory? But that was unlikely. She would not regain her memory, or so his physician said, unless faced with the very thing that had shocked her in the first place.
Still, he would not move swiftly. He would allow Skye to continue her lessons. It could do no harm. And later he would make a decision about their future. He closed his eyes, sighed, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
YASMIN WAS SHOCKED. “YOU TOOK AN UNSKILLED WOMAN TOyour bed? What on earth possessed you, my lord Khalid?”
He turned on her. “You presume on our long association, Yasmin. Skye belongs to me, and I will do with her as I choose. I do not need your approval.”
“I only meant—”
“You are an insolent slave,” he said cuttingly. “I have rarely found it necessary to use the whip, but you tempt me now, Yasmin. You tempt me greatly.”
She had gone very white. Flinging herself to the floor, she implored his forgiveness. “Get up,” came the cold reply. “You will continue Skye’s lessons, Yasmin, and if I should ever hear of your mistreating her in any way, I will sell you. Go now!”
The Circassian scrambled to her feet and fled the room. Her heart was thundering. In all their years together he had never spoken to her that way. Yasmin was deeply frightened. Was he in love? Allah forbid! The worm of jealousy gnawed at her heart, and Yasmin began to hate the woman called Skye with an impotent fury.
