“You do?”
She looked up from her work and gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes, I do. I listen. It was the best thing my grandmother ever taught me. Some of it is silliness, so we got the ladies to talk to one another over tea. Some of it is important and so there is always a girl there who pays attention.” She picked up her pestle again. “Always someone.”
“You.” It wasn’t a question. He said it as he tried to imagine a small Yihui grinding away with mortar and pestle while listening to a chattering group of old women. The thought was delightful.
“When I was young, yes,” she said. “Then I grew older and had other responsibilities, so I taught the next girl what to do and what to see.” She smiled at him. “Seeing is just as important as listening.”
“That is very clever.”
She chuckled. “Now you have listened and learned.”
There was a sparkle in her eyes, a glint that had nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with who she was when she was not afraid. She challenged him, teased him, and was genuinely happy to be there with him without extra demands. Indeed, she was the one proving her medical skills to him, and yet all he could think was that she was the most amazing woman he’d ever known.
He was standing beside her before he realized his plan. And once he smelled her scent, he was lost to the need to possess her. But he was not a man to simply grab what he wanted. He touched her face first, trailing his fingers across her brow so that he could see her eyes. Too often she kept her head down, feigning a timidity that was not in her nature. He wanted to see her boldly, and so he swept her hair aside and watched as surprise flashed across her face.
“Have you been kissed before?” he asked, startled by how raspy his voice was.
“A few times,” she answered. “But only twice by my own choice.”
“And what happened?” he asked as he let his fingers slide across the smooth silk of her neck. “With the boy you said yes to?”
“Two boys,” she corrected. “One was a bad choice. I was fortunate my brother caught us.”
“And the other?”
Her lips ticked up in a smile. “He was sweet, and I was young. My grandmother caught us.”
“She didn’t approve?”
“She thought I could do better.” She shrugged. “She told me the boy was smart, which he was. He saw my worth but underneath, he was not kind.”
“Kindness is important to her?”
“She said it is the most important thing in a husband.”
“Not love?”
She shook her head, and the movement brushed his thumb across her lips. “Not love,” she said.
“Not passion either.”
“Never that.”
He curled his fingertips beneath her chin, tilting her head up such that they were nearly kissing—he leaning down, she stretching up. It was his favorite time in a seduction, that moment that teetered between no and yes.
He felt her breath on his lips and ached to taste what he could only feel.
She closed the distance between them. She stretched that last fraction of an inch until their lips touched, their teeth clashed, and his tongue could finally delve inside her.
Lust coursed through him, but he kept it in check. He knew the pound of his heart, the hot swell of his cock. But this time, he also learned the shape of her mouth, the rapid dart of her tongue, and the near panicky catch of her breath. She did not know whether to be frightened or aroused, and he was determined to wait until she decided one way or another.
He continued to tease her lips, gently brushing across them as he darted into her mouth. He was tempting her to do more, to open herself up to him, and to surrender to what he wanted. Andall the while, he kept his thumb stroking along the sweep of her neck.
It took a delightfully long time. Yihui was not a woman to surrender easily, but he won her over. She swayed against him as she gripped his arms. Her mouth fell open to his plunder. And her breath stretched into sighs as his hand slid down her neck to cup her breast.
She made a mew sound, high and sweet. He paused to see if that meant he had gone too far, but she clutched him. Her nipple was a tight nub, and he brushed it with the edge of his nail, back and forth while she trembled.
He licked her top lip then, a daring little stroke as he pulled back to look at her. He watched her eyes flutter open above cheeks that were flushed a dark pink. And still he played with her breast, letting it fill his hand while he squeezed it.
