“Is Captain Quinn still here?” Jun loved Qi, but hoped she wasn’t bothering Will.
“Yes, come see.” Ting led the way before turning and laying a finger over her lips. “Shhh, I found them just this way.” She swept her hand toward the alcove.
Jun’s heart flooded at the sight of Will and Qi sitting side by side, with the child innocently curled around his arm, sleeping soundly against his chest. Will held Qi’s tiny hand.
Jun made a sound like air leaving a set of bellows. In her brutal world of battles and bloody conquests, fleets of hardened, vicious men, when was the last time she had seen something so tender and dear? The sight touched a hidden maternal corner of her heart she didn’t know she had. If she hadn’t already had feelings for Will, she would have melted into his arms in that single moment.
“I should take her from him,” Ting whispered, “but they looked so content. I didn’t want to disturb them.”
“No,” Jun sighed softly as her heart ached at the sweetness of it. “Leave them.”
“I have mistress’s bath water warming. Shall I prepare it for you now? Bring your tea?”
“Aye…”
Ting hurried away on silent feet. Jun smiled as she returned to her rooms. A small envious part of her wishing she was the one resting against the strong wall of Will’s chest. She hoped to change places with Qi soon.
Standing before a deep copper tub of milky soft water, Jun stepped out of her clothing, before testing the temperature and stepping into the luxurious bath.
The tepid water slipped like gentle waves over her skin, washing away the cold business of the day. Somehow today, everything felt different. As if her skin had become more sensitive, more receptive to the sensuous feel of things around her.
Taking the thick bar of rose soap, she ran the petal-laced bar slowly over her shoulder and down one arm. Soaping her leg next. Shivering as she trailed the lather high on her inner thigh.
Jun sighed with pleasure as she continued the soapy trail over her belly to suds the bow of her breasts. The jolt of pure longing as she ran the bar over her nipple made her gasp and she dropped the soap. Her free hand teased at the firm tip, fanning the flame of the fire that had started to build within her. The flicker of flame that had begun long before she climbed into this heavenly bath. In truth, this fire had ignited the first time she’d been captured by a pair of topaz eyes.
It was him. Will’s touch that she craved. His mouth on hers. His hands on her body. Had she ever hungered for anything so much in her life?
Just the thought of it sent another tremor along her limbs. Jun slipped her hand lower, but when she reached the smooth apex of her thighs she stopped. A thin thread of fear wrapped around her heart.
Her tattoo. The ink that marked her as a whore. How would Will react when he saw it? She could imagine a look of disgust on his face. Would he even know what it meant, and if he did, would he give her the chance to explain? What if he didn’t believe she’d only lain with Jian Fu?
The water in the bath had begun to turn cold. Her thoughts, however, had chilled more than the tub. She shivered and moved to pull herself from the water when she caught sight of the very man crowding her thoughts while shifting and whipping her emotions into a froth.
Will leaned against the framework of the door casually enjoying the view of her bathing. How long had he been there?
Jun crossed her arms over her chest and ducked back beneath the water, sloshing a great wave of it to the floor. Will’s eyes followed the flood before returning his gaze to hers with a grin.
“You shouldn’t be here. Ting? Where is Ting? Did you see me…? Why on earth am I talking?” Her heart raced faster than her words.
The way he watched her lips was so terribly seductive. She instinctively pressed them together to stop the flow, which only invited his gaze to travel lower. Jun could feel the heat of his gaze upon her skin. Searing a path across her collarbone, and down the slick pathway between her breasts to sizzle when it reached the soapy remains of her bath.
Her body tingled with desire “Oh…you really shouldn’t be here…” she whispered.
Jun startled as he pushed away from the doorframe and moved toward her. He lifted a wide, plush drying cloth from a small pile next to the tub, unfolded it, and held it wide in invitation. When her gaze darted back to his, he raised a teasing eyebrow.
“No.” She shook her head at him, before snatching at the towel. Jun ignored the expectant look upon his face and swirled a finger telling him to turn away.
A smile spread across his face as he followed her instruction. Jun started to rise, but a cheating peek over his shoulder stopped her once more.
“Do you want me to freeze to death in my own bath?” She twirled her finger once more. “If you keep sneaking glances at me, I’m not coming out.”
Cautiously, she began to rise again. Ready at any second to dive for cover once more. She kept her eyes on him as she stepped out of the tub while wrapping herself in the drying cloth.
Jun reached for her robe and was quick to struggle into it with wet skin. “You can turn around now.” She pulled the belt tight and touched his shoulder.
When he faced her once more, he did that slow scan of her body, sending heated messages straight to her core. Will ran a wide finger down the damp skin of her chest before hooking that finger behind the knot she’d tied in her belt and pulling her close for a kiss.
Unable to get over the fear that he’d pull her robe away from her body before she got a chance to explain her lotus, the kiss she gave him was quick and chaste. Jun pulled out of his grasp, his face, registering his confusion at her rather hasty rejection.
Shaking her head, frustration warred within her. Jun held up a hand. “No…not no, but wait… Look at you, you don’t understand. I did say no, but not no, I don’t want you. No…I need to tell you…before… Damn it. I can’t stop every time I need to write out a blasted conversation on a bloody rock. This is impossible!” Jun covered her eyes with her hand.
When she lowered her hand, Will was walking away. Her stomach sank and she shivered at the chill. “Oh, no…”
She caught him as he moved through the doorway, circling a fist over her heart. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ “I’m sorry. I wasn’t yelling at you to stop. I was yelling at me. At the situation. I want you to kiss me, let you slip away my robe and touch me. Have you lift me in your arms and carry me to my bed. I want to be with you and make love to you. Spend an entire night not talking. It’s just right this moment, I need to speak to you, and somehow make you understand.”
Searching his face, Jun only saw the proud set of his jaw and the cool distance in his eyes. She cupped his cheek and lifted on her toes to kiss him. “I’m sorry.” She said the words against his lips as she continued to sign the word.
Jun kissed him again before taking his hand and leading him into her bed chamber. She held up one finger, asking him to wait a moment, while she moved to her table and gathered paper and quill. She lifted it so he would see before she set to pouring out her story on the page.
She told him everything about her past. About Jian Fu and the painted whores. It filled one entire side of the piece of paper and half of another. The ink smudged in her haste and stained her fingers, but she kept writing.
Then she offered him the pages. Pushed them into his hands. After an agonizing hesitation, he started to read. He stopped only once to look at her, but she tapped on the sheet to keep him reading.
Will shifted the pages and continued. When he finished, he lifted his eyes to hers. She was too nervous to try and read his expression. Thankfully he couldn’t hear her heart trying to beat its way through her ribs.
Jun took one step back and held tight to Will’s gaze as she untied the belt at her waist, opened her robe, and let it fall to the floor. She stood with her arms pinned to her sides waiting for him to scan her body, but he didn’t. H
e never moved. Did he not want to look?
His eyes never left hers.
Chapter 15
In two strides, Will had her in his arms. The pages she’d given him fluttered forgotten to the floor. Good God, had he ever seen anything more incredible in his life than Jun baring her body and her soul to him?
He crushed her mouth to his, catching the sob that wrenched from her throat. Lifting her, he held her body tight to his. Her story touched his heart and made him appreciate the amazing woman he already knew her to be, but it made no difference to how he was coming to feel about her. In truth, it only served to solidify what his body had been trying to tell his heart all along. Did she for one minute imagine he would hold her past against her? His past was hardly pure. None of it mattered. She was his in this moment. That is what mattered. He ran his hand down the curve of her back and over the slight bow of her ass. Her skin was still moist from her bath. She smelled of roses, and he wanted her more than he had wanted any other woman he’d ever met.
Will tore his mouth away from her lips to kiss his way to her shoulder. Sucking gently at the sweet flesh. Dipping slightly, he wrapped one arm under her behind and lifted her off her feet then moved them both to her bed.
The room’s sparse furnishings were modest and low to the ground, but the distance of the bed to the ground was not near as important as the distance from him to her. His skin to hers. A sliver of space greatly hindered by the presence of his own clothing, which took a scant two seconds to remove.
Unlike his chambers, the walls surrounding Jun while she slept were of stone not paper. Windows set high allowed enough light from the waning day to see her stretched out next to him. He drank in every inch of her.
Jun slipped an arm about his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers. As the kiss deepened, Will traced a line down the front of her throat with the pad of his thumb. He followed the path with his mouth.
The vision of her pale breasts hadn’t been a dream. They were exactly as he remembered. Jun arched her back as he sucked one pearled nipple into his mouth. She pulled on his hair and clutched at his shoulder. God, her skin tasted so sweet. Will moved his attention to her other breast, teasing and circling the tip with his tongue.
Beneath him, Jun moved like the sea. Her body rising and writhing like the waves as she stroked his back and his arms, urging him lower. He outlined the shape of her navel before kissing her there and moved lower still.
In the fading light, Will laid his outstretched hand over the inked flower adorning her sex. Each of his fingers reaching the outlined point of each delicate petal. He traced the lines on her skin. Skimmed the smooth colors that fanned across her.
The stem of the lotus ended where the first gentle fold of her sex began. When he lowered his mouth to lay a kiss there, her body shuddered beneath his lips.
Rising on one arm, he lifted himself to look into her eyes. Jun’s chest rose and fell in short pants. He touched the place over her heart before making the sign she already knew.
‘You are beautiful.’
Jun covered her face with one hand, but it wasn’t until her body gave a small jerk did he realize she cried. He pulled her hand away, cupping her cheek, catching her tears as they trailed across her temple.
No, no… It tore at his heart to think he’d hurt her. He kissed her again.
Jun calmed beneath him. She gave him a watery smile before signing, ‘Thank you.’
Her show of such emotion stunned Will. She did believe her past would make him reject her. That somehow her tattoo would turn him away. He wished he could explain to her how wrong she was. He would have to show her instead.
Will stroked his hand down her side as he kissed her again. Taking her hand, he let her feel how much he wanted her. When Jun grasped hold of his erection, all explanations ended. There was no miscommunication. He wanted her, and she wanted him. No words were needed. Nothing else mattered.
They made love long into the night. Will’s only complaint was that he couldn’t see her when darkness finally claimed the room. Luckily, he’d learned every inch of her, emblazoned the image of her beautiful body forever in his mind. Exhausted, they slept just as his problem with the darkness was dissolving into the dawn.
Will came awake with a start. He couldn’t move his arm. Images of him being held down by the British troops when they arrested him for treason flashed through the fog of his brain. But then the British bastard rolled toward him and pressed a soft pair of warm breasts into his side and draped a satiny thigh over his hip. Jun…
Her hair tickled across his chest, and his heart nearly burst with joy. She was still here, in his arms. Still here. She’d stayed with him the entire night. Not rushed off like a thief after she’d taken what she wanted. A smile tugged at his lips. He wouldn’t have to go searching for his pants either. Hell, he didn’t care if he ever found his pants again.
Will caught her knee and raised her thigh a wee bit higher to press her satined skin along the hardened ridge of his erection.
Would this insatiable need for her ever stop? Jun stirred in his arms and rocked her damp sex gently against his hip. Bloody hell, I hope not.
Will kissed her forehead and tightened his hold on her. Jun kissed his chest, murmuring something against his skin before pushing her hair out of the way so she could scorch a line of soft kisses up the side of his neck. Her breath teased his ear until she lightly bit his earlobe. Was she trying to drive him crazy?
In one fluid movement, Jun straddled him and took him inside her. Air rushed from his lungs as liquid fire shot through his veins. He grabbed at her hips and rocked upward, moving with her, finding their accelerated rhythm.
In the light of day, she was even more glorious than he thought last night. As she rode him faster and harder, Jun arched her back. The tips of her hair danced across the tops of his thighs. And when he traced the stem of her lotus lower to tease the slick flesh there, it was as if her whole being blossomed like the dawn around him.
* * * *
Against both of their wishes to stay locked in her room and each other’s arms for the remainder of the day, Will slipped out of Jun’s quarters and took a roundabout route to return to his room. Smiling, he stepped past a sleeping man resting against the wall in a side hall who smelled strongly of pickled cabbage. He was taller than Will had imagined.
Will bent to retrieve the thread that “secured” his room. It was then he noticed two men exiting another sleeping chamber farther down the hall. The two were followed by two more, and two more after that. Wasn’t it a might early in the day for a party? All the men headed away from him, so they never saw him. But when Will caught a flash of purple heading out of the room, he took no chances and ducked inside.
He waited, wondering which direction Peng was headed, and more importantly, what was he doing meeting with that many men in the early hours of dawn. Will couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that the man was up to something. Reading the way Peng moved and acted around Jun, it wasn’t adding up in Will’s mind. Jun trusted him, and yet, there was a distinct tension there. Will could see it clearly, but Jun had nothing but praise for her first mate.
He’d keep an extra eye on him. Just in case his instincts were right—they were always right.
After a few hours of much needed rest, Will gathered his things and headed back to the great hall. He was anxious to start writing down the stories of the Scarlet Night, but he was more anxious to see Jun again. The simple thought of seeing her filled his body with the warming sensation of want.
They agreed over a quick exchange of scribbled notes between kisses that they would be discreet with their building relationship, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take every opportunity to be in her presence, or find hidden opportunities to slip away and steal a few quiet moments with her.
Will pulled in a deep breath. He could still smell her on his skin, and yet, he wanted
more. When had he ever reacted this way about a woman? He tugged the tails of his tunic lower. It might be more of a challenge to be discreet if he was constantly walking around with a wooden cock in his pants, but it was a price he was happy to pay. Will pulled at his shirt again. He’d be happy to pick up the proper sized clothing and blessed boots later that afternoon. He’d ordered a fine outfit from the tailor in the village with his newly won coins.
The day’s business had begun by the time he reached the hall. Jun was in her place of honor looking every bit the queen. The evidence of their night together still showed in a lingering blush upon her cheeks. Her tempting mouth and pinked lips looked properly kissed. It took all his strength not to march straight over to her and kiss them again.
Peng hovered to her right. His eyes shifting from the business in front of Jun to various points around the room, but before Will could determine where Peng’s attention was focused, a small, curly-haired child bumped against Will’s side.
Qi grinned up at him and offered him a sticky, purple-stained handful of berries. She counted them on the table and left him half before scooping up the others and scooting away a hair’s breadth ahead of her mother.
Ting planted her hands on her hips and called after the child. Qi wasn’t listening and dashed behind one of the deeply carved panels scattered along the walls of the hall to hide.
The next time Will saw Qi, she was once more entering the hall from behind the dais. Had she gotten past him somehow? It was possible. She was small and quick as lightning, and the hall was busy today. Men and women moved about their business. One child could certainly come and go without notice. Qi garnered no attention from anyone, save her mother, who performed her duties with a quiet grace all the while keeping one watchful eye on her daughter. No small feat, that. The girl was like cool dark water, slipping silently past.
Will stretched his shoulders. He found it tiring to pay attention to all that was going on around him and keep a watchful eye on Peng. Especially when his eye kept traveling back to gaze at Jun. He was counting the hours until he could have her back in his arms again. How much longer before he could sweep his hands over the slight gentle curves of her body. Feel her respond to his touches. How her thighs trembled at her arousal. The primal roll of her hips as she took him inside her. Arch of her back. The look upon her face when she reached her release.
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