“But I did not,” he said in misery.
“You did not.” She twisted her hand from his then quickly dove into his pants to pull the tie apart. The fabric loosened immediately, slipping down until it caught on his eager organ. “If ambition is all that I have left, Bo Tao, then I will hold onto it like the lifeline it is.” She looked up and he saw how fiercely she had thought about this, how determined she was to make the best of her life as it was now.
He reached out and stroked her face. “Your spirit is already becoming harsh, Ji Yue. Ambition does that.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I planned to have myself expelled yesterday,” she said. “The bruises were at their worst then. I could have claimed an illness. I even walked to the examination room in search of the doctor.”
“She must be summoned from her home in Peking,” he said softly.
“The physician was not there, and you had forgotten me.”
“Never!” he cried. “But you had made your choice.”
“No,” she said. “My mother made my choice for me. She will not allow me back home. And you had forgotten me.”
How those words cut at him.
“And so my choice was to leave the Forbidden City to walk the streets–”
“I would not have allowed that.”
She arched her brow. “Perhaps, perhaps not. You do not have the money or the political stability to support a discarded virgin.”
True enough. He had to stay in the Emperor’s good graces or starve.
“In any event, I did not know what you thought. So I chose.”
“To become a whore?”
She hissed in anger. “Tonotbecome a whore. To learn what it means to seduce an Emperor.” With a quick jerk, she pulled his pants down to his knees. “I do not even know what a man looks like, and I have less than two days to learn all I can about it.” She reached up and boldly cupped his sack. He nearly cried out at the force of her grip. “Do you teach me then, Bo Tao?”
With his balls in her hand, he had no choice. Though he did reach down to tap her wrist. “Gentler, Ji Yue, they are not ink stones.”
She softened her grip, then she rolled them slightly in her fingers. “They seem that hard. Underneath.”
His entire body trembled, and it was a moment before he could breathe. “There is a point behind the balls that has special sensitivity.”
“Really?” She tilted her head to look.
“Not yet!” he gasped. “Not yet,” he repeated as his breath steadied into shortened pants. “Look higher,” he instructed. “Begin with the stalk then proceed higher.”
She did as he bid. He had to shed his tunic for the sweat would stain it. Then he stepped away from her to shed it all. If she wanted to see a man, then so be it. She would see all of him.
“Oh,” she breathed softly as she looked at him from head to toe. “Is the Emperor this muscled?” she asked.
“No,” Bo Tao said with a touch of pride. “Though he has special pride in his legs.”
She nodded, obviously making a mental note. Then she stroked his legs, running her hands through the dusting of hair on his thighs, then up to the thicker part between.
“You are beautiful,” she said. “I have seen coolies, of course. I watched them closely when Mama wasn’t looking. You are not so thick as them.” She flashed him a smile. “I like your leanness better. Can I touch it now?”
Her words and her touch were like opium smoke in his body: his thoughts floated away into sensation. He instructed her as best he could. She cupped and she caressed. She gripped his stalk and rolled her thumb over the head. And when she extended her tongue to taste, his buttocks thrust of their own accord. He breached the confines of her mouth.
She drew back in alarm, but he had to steady himself on her shoulders. “You are losing control,” she said in awe. “I have made you lose control.”
“Not yet, you haven’t,” he growled.
“Then I shall have to try harder.” And she engulfed him in her mouth.
