by Jeannie Lin
The air rushed out of her in one sharp exhalation. The sensation was indescribable. Overwhelming. A moment of fear gripped her as he continued to fill her. She didn’t know what to do other than drape her arms over his shoulders. Her limbs became weak as the feeling of being invaded and stretched increased, sending unknown shocks through every part of her. Above her, Baozhen’s brow furrowed sharply, but he didn’t stop. She dug her nails into his back.
“Lian—” He spoke her name brokenly as he finally settled deep within her.
They were hip to hip, as close as two people could be. He remained still for a string of heartbeats before his body lifted. She thought it might be over—until he slid back in, shuddering with the movement.
She whimpered softly as he continued to move, his thrusts increasing in speed and forming a rhythm. His fingers tangled into her hair, a rough reassurance, and his mouth touched against her throat. Her body began to open for him, to accept these new sensations.
Before she could decipher what it was she was feeling—pleasure or pain—Baozhen’s muscles suddenly constricted. With a groan that came from deep within his chest he sank down onto her and laid his head against her shoulder: an odd position, considering he was much larger than her. He buried his face into her hair.
The enormity of what had just happened began to sink into her. They were on her bed, their clothes hastily shoved aside. The boy she had always wanted, now a man, was there in her arms. Baozhen shifted some of his weight from her and she became aware of the soreness where their bodies had been joined. She didn’t know what to think. The experience had been both confusing and exhilarating. Now everything was so...strange.
Baozhen lifted himself onto one elbow so he could see her. “I didn’t expect any of this.”
His voice even sounded odd, and unlike him. Heavy and uncertain.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Absently, he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and then sat up. His movements were slow and deliberate and his expression showed he was lost in deep thought. He smoothed her skirt carefully back down over her legs before righting his own clothes. The silence became oppressive, and Lian couldn’t think of anything to do but watch and wait.
He moved to the edge of the bed, then paused to turn back to her. “What do you want me to do, Lian?”
She was at a loss. Why would he be asking her? He was more experienced than she was.
Before she could think of an answer the sound of voices in the courtyard stopped her heart. Baozhen straightened, his shoulders tensing.
“My parents!” she gasped.
Baozhen shot to his feet. His eyes darted to the door, the window, then back to her.
“Hide,” she said frantically.
“Where?” There was no place in her tidy room for him to fit.
“Are you feeling better, daughter of mine?” Her mother’s sing-song call came from just outside the door.
Lian was still struggling out of the bed when the door opened and there stood her mother, staring at Baozhen.
“Chen Furen,” he addressed her formally, his voice rasping.
“Oh, dear heaven!” her mother wailed, rushing past him to the bed.
“Mother, Baozhen was only—”
Lian’s words caught in her throat. Only...what?
Mother threw her arms around Lian and called for her father.
Baozhen looked sick as her father entered. Her father was tall, the cut and color of his robe severe, and he had his piercing glare fixed upon Baozhen. Her father was well-known as a force in the East Market and he appeared particularly imposing tonight.
“Mister Chen.” Baozhen managed a small bow.
Lian tried to extract herself from her mother, who was fluttering worriedly about her and cooing little assurances and endearments that were supposed to be soothing. Her father had never been violent, but she was certain Baozhen was about to be dragged away and flogged.
“Mister Chen,” Baozhen repeated, and he swallowed. His infamous honeyed tongue was thick in his mouth. “I must say...please understand...I hold your daughter in the highest regard...”
Her father raised his hand, stopping Baozhen in his painful admission. Baozhen stiffened as her father approached, as if preparing for a strike, but her father only put his arm around him and turned him to face the door.
“How is your father, my son?”
“My fath—? He’s well...sir.”
Something really, really bad was about to happen. Her father never showed when he was angry. He just grew overly calm and controlled. He was very calm now.
“It has been a while since your parents have come for tea,” her father was saying as he and Baozhen disappeared into the courtyard. “I think we shall see them tomorrow. The earlier the better.”
Lian turned frantically to her mother. “Tell Father that Baozhen didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Shh.” Mother ran her fingers through Lian’s hair, smoothing it away from her face. “Mother and Father will take care of everything.”
It occurred to Lian that her parents were home at an almost discourteously early time from the registrar’s party, and that her mother didn’t seem nearly as distressed as she had appeared only moments earlier. A sly smile even appeared on her lips as she pressed them to Lian’s forehead affectionately.
CHAPTER FOUR
Everything happened quickly. Now that “the rice was cooked,” as the expression went, there was no time to waste. The once-innocent Lian might be with child at that very moment. Honor was at stake. Both families could either lose face or celebrate a lavish union.
It was hardly a choice at all.
Within the week the necessary inquiries were made. The families were gathered. A fortune teller was consulted. Baozhen and his parents made a formal procession, bearing engagement gifts of tea and lychees, silk and jade. The parade marched all of twenty steps next door for the traditional tea.
Now Baozhen sat in the parlor of the Chen mansion with Lian directly across from him, eyes cast downward. The two of them remained dutiful and silent while their parents exchanged pleasantries. The entire time Baozhen watched the pink rising in her cheeks and thought of her flushed and glowing with her body tight around him.
He was still stunned. His body hadn’t yet recovered from the pleasure of their joining or the shock of their discovery. Theirs was certainly not the first marriage to be negotiated on such terms, he told himself. And he had to marry someday.
“This is fate,” his mother was saying to Lian’s mother, who nodded sagely.
But throughout it all Lian refused to look at him. She kept her head bowed and her gaze averted, as if they were indeed strangers bound together by the whim of a matchmaker. As if she needed to impress upon him that she was demure and innocent and pliant. All of which he knew wasn’t true. Well, except for her innocence—until he’d taken it in a moment’s passion.
Baozhen knew he should be sorry, but it was hard to be sorry when his pulse refused to stop hammering at Lian’s nearness. She sat just beyond arm’s reach, yet she might as well have been on the other side of the empire. The sullen look on her face twisted his stomach into knots.
He finally caught up to her as the engagement party started to disband. He’d had to make an excuse about using the privy—a request which Lian’s father had obliged with a knowing air. He found her at the far side of the garden, before she could slip away to the women’s quarters.
“Lian.” He took hold of her wrist when she turned to flee. “What’s the matter?”
She looked ill as she regarded him. Was it possible she was with child? Would the symptoms already be evident?
Gently, he pulled her behind the shrubbery in the garden. Almost the exact spot where he’d attempted a kiss just days earlier. “I know this isn’t wh
at we expected, but we’ll do what we must.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and her face pale. “What’s done is done,” she said miserably.
Her words struck him square in the chest and he let her arm slip out of his grasp. His fingers had gone numb.
“You wanted Jinhai, didn’t you?” he asked coldly. “Maybe you still do.”
Her eyes flashed at him as she shot him a look like an arrow. This was the Lian he’d known all his life.
“I don’t care a thing for him,” she said bitterly.
“Then why do you look as if this were a funeral instead of an engagement?”
She was the one who had all but demanded he kiss her. He certainly hadn’t protested—but neither had she. And her skin had been so soft and her lips so pink. And he hadn’t been a virtuous man to begin with.
“Lian—”
The gray cloud in her eyes stopped him cold. Her expression was one of anguish. There was shame there, and regret.
“I didn’t think it would go that far,” she protested.
He hadn’t meant for things to happen this way either. There was just something about being so close to Lian and the touch of moonlight on them that night.
“We’ve known each other for so long,” he began gently. “This isn’t the worst of fates.”
He stepped toward her, ready to make promises. They would make the best of things. He would mend his ways. And he did, at the end of all things, care for her.
Lian shook her head fiercely. “No, Baozhen. You should know... You should know that Liu Jinhai and I haven’t only just met.”
Jinhai again. The sound of his name was starting to feel like a thorn in his eye. “What does that scoundrel have to do with anything?”
“We’ve met before,” she went on, looking more tortured with each word. “Long before. And Jinhai is a scoundrel. Completely unsuitable for me and he knows it. But he was willing to play along.”
Baozhen had held his hand out to her, but he let it drop now to his side, like a dead weight. “You care nothing for him?” he said dully, echoing her words.
She shook her head miserably.
“Then...?” He tried to piece together the fragments of the last week. Her sudden interest in one of his acquaintances...the rendezvous in the park...all the while taunting him—
“You little she-demon,” he proclaimed.
Lian didn’t deny it, but her expression was far from triumphant. “I never meant to trap you. I...I just wanted you to notice me.”
With that, her shoulders slumped, and she appeared at once both small and uncertain. Nothing like the scheming creature he knew her to be. Now her look of regret made sense. Lian had been responsible for all of it—every single moment.
Wordlessly he stepped away from her, forgoing a farewell as he turned on his heel.
His mind was spinning.
He might have had a reputation for having three girls in the morning and four in the evening, but it was all talk. Lian’s parents were known as the most skillful negotiators in the city and Lian was apparently as shrewd and clever as they were.
Baozhen might be a wolf, but he’d been completely ensnared by a fox.
* * *
Lian sat alone in an unfamiliar chamber, upon what was to be her bridal bed. She was still dressed in her embroidered wedding robes, though she had cast aside the ceremonial veil as soon as she had been led to the bed and left alone. The wedding banquet continued in the main part of the house, where Baozhen would be accepting good-natured toasts and fending off well-wishers before making his way to her.
The wedding procession hadn’t had far to travel earlier that afternoon. Only the mere twenty paces that separated their households. And yet Lian felt as if she had traveled a thousand li. She had often visited the Guo household, but Baozhen’s private chamber was unknown to her.
As the muted sounds of the evening banquet droned on she searched for signs of him. The furnishings were tidy, but not stringently so. A stack of books lay upon the desk. The fragrance of rosewood and cedar surrounded her, making her think of dark and distant forests and the remote places where Baozhen had traveled.
He had been beside her for the wedding ceremony, but she’d been prevented from seeing him by the red veil draped over her face. All she’d had to sustain her was the tug of his hand opposite hers upon the symbolic red ribbon that had joined them together. He’d been a silent, forbidding presence.
They hadn’t spoken a word since she’d confessed her scheme to him after their engagement. Lian was beginning to worry. Neither of them had expected to be married so hastily, and his last words to her had been far from passionate.
“What do you want me to do?” he’d asked. The heat of desire had faded and there had been nothing left but a sense of duty weighing down his shoulders.
It didn’t matter. What was done was done.
The minutes stretched into hours, during which Lian had nothing to do but sit there and try very hard not to think of how many girls her husband had kissed before her. Baozhen was staying away for too long. He had no business staying at the banquet and enjoying the festivities. Wasn’t an eager groom supposed to extract himself from his guests in a timely manner?
Finally the door creaked open and she shot to her feet. Baozhen stopped just inside when he saw her, and closed the door behind him. He was dressed in a heavy robe of blue brocade and his hair was covered by a ceremonial cap. Her heart pounded. She hadn’t realized how hungry she’d become over the last few weeks for the sight of him.
“Why were you away for so long?”
Lian cringed at the unintentional shrillness in her voice as he blinked at her in surprise. Her first words to her newly wed husband and they sounded like an accusation.
Her mistake was immediately evident. Rather than coming to her, Baozhen sank into the chair beside his writing desk. He leaned back to regard her, his shoulders tense.
“It was our wedding banquet,” he replied.
His flat tone left a hollow feeling in her stomach.
“Wine was poured, and then more wine. Everyone wanted to give us their blessings.”
“Have you had very much to drink?” she ventured.
He was in a peculiar mood.
His eyebrows lifted. “Are you worried that I won’t be able to fulfill my duties as a husband?”
This was all wrong. They had always been able to speak openly, but now every word between them seemed forced.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter, since the deed is already done,” she said tightly.
His eyebrows rose slightly, but he said nothing.
She went to stand before him, stopping just as her robe brushed the tip of his slippers. Her heart lodged in her throat. “You’re angry with me.”
The line of his jaw flexed as he tilted his head down to her. So handsome. He had never appeared so far from her reach. It wounded her to see him so withdrawn, tonight of all nights.
“You can’t be angry,” she protested. “This is our wedding night. It would... It would be a bad omen to start out this way.”
“You are forbidding me from being angry?” he asked incredulously.
Desperation grew within her. Her fingers twisted together as he continued to assess her, taking her apart with his eyes.
Was she going to be one of those shrewish, demanding wives? What sort of husband would he be?
“Tell me,” he began slowly. “And no more games. Did you lure me into your bed, Little Lian?”
His emphasis on her childish nickname was sharp and devoid of affection. Her breath caught as his gaze pinned her in place. She had always known how Baozhen could disarm anyone with his easy charm, but now she saw he was twice as formidable when he wielded this iron stare.
“Yes,” she said, fighti
ng for her voice.
“Every step of the way?” he murmured.
“Yes.”
Lian had never intended to force his hand, nor put him through such shame and dishonor. Her parents had been supposed to be gone late into the evening. She’d wanted Baozhen to burn for her. To choose her above all the other women who had ever caught his eye. Now he had no choice in the matter and he resented her.
“I didn’t mean to trick you, but I refuse to apologize,” she said stubbornly.
His hand shot out and caught her around the waist, making her tumble in a squirming heap into his lap. His arms closed around her, making escape impossible.
He willed her to meet his eyes. A smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “I’ve never been pursued so ruthlessly.”
“You’re not angry?”
“At first,” he admitted. “But then I realized it was me you wanted all along. Me. I can’t help but be flattered at inspiring such deviousness in you. Seducing me like that.”
“You’re shameless,” she accused.
She braced a hand against his chest to push him away, only to find her fingers caught in his grip. His smile faded, along with any trace of smugness, as he searched her face. For the first time there was no more taunting.
“No more childish games,” he said.
Her reply was no more than a whisper. “I have only ever wanted you.”
He pulled her close, his palm cradling the back of her neck. His mouth captured hers and her fingers curled into the front of his robe from the sheer pleasure of finally being in his embrace. He tasted of rice wine and the faint spice of cloves. She was floating, flying...
Without a word, he lifted her from his lap and led her to the bed. She sat perfectly still upon the edge while he extracted the pins from her hair, one after another. Each touch sent a tingle down her spine. She could hear Baozhen’s breathing deepen as he tended to her. He smoothed the hair away from her face as it fell loose and her cheeks flushed hot at the stark intimacy of the moment. The near solemnity of it.
