“There is a way we can take what pleasure it left to us,” he said, the words rushing out before he could stop himself. “Without risking your virginity,” he added.
Her eyes leapt back to his face. “Like the women in the old Emperor’s harem. You would put your mouth...” Her voice trailed away, and her skin turned bright red.
“Yes. And you could do the same to me. If you wished.”
She bit her lower lip, her small white teeth pulling at the pink flesh in a way that made his blood pound. “It is all we could ever have of one another,” she said softly. She put a hand on his chest to stop his agitated movements and to look up into his face with dark, yearning eyes. “And you could teach me what to do.”
His heart was pounding from her touch, but his mind was still locked on the impossibility of his life. To finally find a jewel such as her, and then have to surrender her to the Emperor. “I cannot think of you in the lowest harem,” he whispered. “Such a waste of your talents! Such a terrible life!”
She nodded and stepped closer into his arms. “Then you must help me see that I avoid such a fate. You must teach me, Bo Tao.”
He frowned. “You already know more than any othervirgin about being a political wife. Your mother taught you well.”
“She did not teach me about being a concubine,” she said. “I do not know how to please the Emperor.”
He groaned and rubbed a hand over his face, at last understanding what she asked. The idea of her with any other man infuriated him. The thought that she wanted him to teach her how to please the Emperor sickened his spirit. But he knew she was playing a long game, a smart game. It was the only way she would have a decent life now. Her only other option was the lowest harem and that was not a good life for anyone.
He closed his eyes. “Yi Zhen is not an easy man to please.”
She took a breath. “You said a man in lust will do many things.”
“Of course–”
“If I had met you before coming to the Forbidden City, I could have tried for something different.”
He almost laughed. He had spent nearly all his moments in the last few days thinking “if” and “might have”. He knew exactly how useless those fantasies were.
“But I am here,” she continued. “And I must make the best of the life I have chosen. If I don’t find a way to satisfy the Emperor, then I am doomed to the lowest harem. I will be–”
“The lowest girl in the lowest harem.” He had tried to warn her of such a fate before, but she hadn’t listened. And now it was too late.
“What’s done is done.”
He nodded. “You are smart to think of now rather than what could have been.” Much smarter than he.
“And so you must help me. Please do not doom me to what you showed me in the harem window.”
This time he did laugh. All these virgins and their familieswith their bribes and their smiles, didn’t they understand he had no control over who was selected? “There is nothing I can do, Ji Yue.”
“Yes, there is,” she said as she slowly lowered herself to her knees before him. He thought she was dropping into a kow tow, but she stopped with her legs folded beneath her and her upper body straight. “You can teach me. Show me how to pleasure a man.”
His mouth went dry. His jade stalk, however, wept in joy. But he could not believe she was suggesting this. She was a virgin!
“You want to...to do what you saw in the window?”
She nodded, her hand slowly stroking the bulge in his pants. “I do not know how to do it to a man.” She lifted her eyes to his. “And if this is all we can have, then I want you to teach me.”
“So you can do it to Yi Zhen.” His voice was harsh, his bitterness sour in his mouth.
“You are my only hope,” she said. Her hand was inexpert where she caressed him, but his body still throbbed with hunger. It was so loud that it threatened to drown out his thoughts. Then she reached beneath his tunic and touched the skin on his belly. He grabbed her hand before her fingers reached the tie of his pants.
“You go too far!” he snapped.
“Isn’t this what you suggested a moment ago? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
It was, but not like this! Not so that she could seduce his best friend!
“If we had met before I was the Emperor’s virgin, if you had come to the door of my house instead of secreting yourself away in my palanquin, then I would have found a way to become your wife. I would have waited if you asked. I would have forcedmy mother’s hand and accepted your suit somehow.”
