“Your injuries—” I protested, but he picked me up anyway.
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said wickedly. “It’s you who will suffer tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, as he deposited me on his pallet.
“Lie back,” he ordered. “I’m going to make you stop thinking.”
Tentatively, I lay down. Leisurely, he unbuttoned my robes, then studied me in my nakedness. Beneath his possessive gaze, gooseflesh pricked my skin.
He cupped my breasts, which ached with his touch, then traced his way down my stomach. One hand went around my hip, as the other stroked the inside of my thigh, slowly parting my legs.
At last, he dragged my undergarments away, and I closed my eyes, bracing myself, guessing what was to come. Instead of the painful intrusion I had been warned of, I felt a single finger slip inside me. I jumped at the unexpected nature of it, my eyes flying open.
“Aren’t you supposed to use…” I flushed crimson. “Something else?”
He laughed under his breath, his face intent with focus. “That’ll come later, sweetheart.”
His finger slowly circled me, moving in foreign motions that made strange things happen to my body. To my mortification I felt a new wetness welling from between my thighs, and I moved to close my legs, to hide myself, but he would not let me. He did not appear embarrassed, only pleased. With wicked patience he slid a second finger inside, stretching me. I gasped from the shock of it—and the resulting pain and pleasure. They were so intertwined my senses grew completely overwhelmed, and as his fingers plunged deeper inside, I cried out reflexively.
“Quiet, my love,” he said, his tone arch. “What did we say about not waking our neighbor?”
I reached for him, needing to cling to something for balance as wave after wave of sensation rolled through me. “Lei,” I gasped, taken captive by the feeling he’d wrought over me. “What—what are you doing to me?” I asked, panting with exertion.
“I’m pleasuring you, sweetheart,” he said, steadying me against him as my hips bucked. “No one’s done this for you before?”
At the shake of my head, he was quiet for a moment, thinking, before saying, “Then let me show you.”
I was already soaking wet, but still Lei parted my thighs farther, guiding me into sensations I had never dreamed of experiencing. I was biting my tongue so as not to scream, my hands twisting the bedding into knots. Just when I thought I could take no more, I felt his tongue where it had never been before. I thought surely I must be dreaming, surely this could not be real. But then he found my apex, tasting me, and I knew I was awake. I had never been more awake. A crest of feeling flooded through me and I cried out, so loudly Lei covered my mouth with his hand. I shuddered beneath him, feeling like the tide caught beneath two moons, roiling with a perfect gratification I had never known before.
“How sweet you are,” he murmured. His eyes were glazed with desire.
“Come here,” I said, and he obeyed, bringing his face close to mine. He held himself up by his forearms so as to not crush me, but I could still feel the strength of his lust against me.
“Do you have protection?” he asked.
It took me a moment to grasp his meaning. After my betrothal,Xiuying had mentioned methods to prevent pregnancy, but I hadn’t pressed her for details at the time—I hadn’t thought it would matter for me.
I shook my head.
He sighed, shifting away from me. With a soft groan he fell onto the pallet beside me, then drew me into his arms so that I rested atop him.
“Is that okay?” I asked into his chest. I did not understand the nuances of physical gratification, but I’d heard the stories of men transformed into beasts in their passion. Every Anlai woman had heard them, as a warning and as a threat.
“I’ll wait,” he said, brushing my mussed hair from my eyes. “We have all the time in the world, my love.”
Ming Lei always did know how to lie. He knew how to make false words taste like candied hawthorn, so that they went down smooth and sweet. And I, the most hopeless of them all, believed him.
Forty
The sword of Liu Zhuo was known as the dragon’s sword, for there was no blade as tremendous or as costly. Forged by the famed blacksmiths of the Runong Desert, it was said to be made of the finest diamond and steel. Its blade was three mi long, and its weight over twenty jin. Indeed, it was said that to even lift his sword was a feat of considerable strength.
—Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, 954
The next morning, I awoketo an empty bed; Lei was gone.
At the sound of rumbling wheels beyond, I hurriedly returned to my room, but not before Kuro caught me in the corridor, shouting good morning with a cheery wink. I ignored him.
In my room I dressed and armed myself to the teeth, then touched my jade for good luck. I could no longer feel Qinglong’s attention, but that did not mean he had given up on me. Just as I’d been biding my time, so too had he.
