by Jade Lee
Chapter Ten
She was lying. Jie Ke knew it. Knew as well that the lie was more for herself than for him. He was well familiar with the stories one told oneself. The question was, did he allow her the illusion?
"Do you want me to ravish you?" His body throbbed at the idea. It took all his willpower to remain still on the ground with just a few feet separating them. "Should I throw you down to the ground and overpower you?"
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Almost breathlessly she nodded. He wondered if she realized what she was saying.
"You would wish to be overpowered? Why?"
Her gaze skittered about, suddenly uncertain and anxious. With an angry jerk, she pulled more of her buttons free and her dress slipped down enough to reveal white lace and corset. "It is what women do, isn't it? Men take, order, command. And we obey."
"And you want this from your lover?'"
She shook her head even as she shimmied out of her dress. The wind whipped her hair about her face, flattening the delicate lace against the pink blush of her skin. There was little moonlight here, but the lantern glow cast her in softer tones— golds and the flickering grays of shadow. She appeared more spectral than real, but her need throbbed in the air between them, a physical presence. Or perhaps it was Jie Ke's own hunger.
She kicked her dress away and stood before him, tall and proud in a corset and no shift. Her stockings outlined long legs, and the rosy ribbon at her thighs taunted him. The wind carried her scent. Even now, his mouth watered for another taste. If he moved one finger, he would be upon her like a beast. But no matter what she claimed, he knew she did not want that.
"Why me?" he whispered. That was the real reason for his restraint. Not out of some noble desire to let her truly choose this path. It was his pride that needed to know. "Why me, when you could have any man you want?"
"There are no limits with you." She closed her eyes and turned her face to the wind. As she spoke, it snatched away her words almost as if she had never said them. But he heard and understood.
"It's not real with you, either," she said to the darkness. "If you told everyone what we do, no one would believe you." She turned an impish smile in his direction. "They might even kill you for saying it."
"Christopher will know. On your wedding night, he will know if you are not a virgin."
She released a nervous giggle. "No, he won't. There are ways to fake such things. I have asked and learned from those who have done it."
"You have thought of this, then."
She nodded, then raised her arms to the sky and spun around and around, her hair flying, the ribbons pulling ever so slightly apart. "I learned. Not on purpose, but a lady listens— to her family, to servants, to crofters. And sometimes she hears things that are not appropriate for her ears." Her spinning stopped, and she stood there swaying before him. "Once I'd heard, I could not stop thinking or imagining or wondering. But I never dared . . ." She abruptly dropped to the ground in front of him. "Touch me," she whispered. "Fill me."
He could not resist. He raised his hand to stroke the top of one breast. It was round and full such as he'd seen only with white women, especially when amplified by a corset. Her skin was cool from the wind, but so beautifully soft. He meant to brush only lightly then withdraw, but once he'd begun he could not pull away.
"I have been with women before," he confessed. "There are women who pride themselves on making monks fall. And a white devil is a novelty to them." He shook his head. "They were quick and hurried affairs, meetings of the body without the mind."
She shivered at his caress. "No thought at all," she murmured. "That is exactly what I want."
"It can leave one emptier than before."
"But during that moment, in that short time during . . ." She tugged on the ribbons in the front of her corset, which opened wider and wider with each breath.
"It is just a short moment," he said.
Her eyes opened, but he barely noticed; the rosy tips of her nipples had appeared. They were tightened from the cold, but so beautiful.
"Did you feel free?" she asked. "Did you fly like never before?"
Jie Ke's hand that had been stroking her breast dipped lower. His fingers outlined her nipple and tugged it. She shivered in response.
"Did you feel free?" she asked again. "In that moment of release, when pleasure consumes everything. . . were you free?"
He leaned forward, needing to kiss the cool expanse of skin she had just bared. Once touched, he needed to taste it. He extended his tongue, brushing a long stroke across her breast. She arched into him, lifting herself more fully. He didn't even need to move. He coiled his tongue around her nipple and drew it into his mouth.
Her hands came to his shoulders to steady her. His hands fell to her hips to grasp and hold. But his mouth was on her breast and his tongue toyed with her nipple, sucking, drawing, and even biting enough to make her quiver. Then he pulled back just enough to look her in the eye.
"There are other ways to expand beyond the body, other ways to feel free."
She shook her head. "This is the one I know."
He stilled, the thought of other men in his place a sour burn of intrusion. "You have done this with others?"
She shook her head. "Alone. In my bed. But last night. .." Her eyes took on a dreamy cast. "You showed me how much better it can be. I never... I never dared before." She touched his head, stroking her fingers from his temple to the nape of his neck, and then she tugged him forward. "Kiss me like that again."
"I do not know how to unbind your corset."
She smiled and with one powerful movement pushed the edges together, unhooked the bindings, and then pulled the garment totally free. She was naked except for her stockings. Then she took Jie Ke's hands, lifted them up, and put them on her breasts.
"Touch me," she ordered.
He did. It was heaven, and he worshipped at the altar of her breasts. He coiled his tongue around her nipples and drew them each individually into his mouth. While one hand stroked and shaped on the right, his mouth pulled and teased on the left.
He had never seen a woman so well-endowed. The Chinese women he'd been with were smaller proportioned, stingy in their attributes and their emotions. Her breasts overflowed his hands and his mouth. Even better, the slightest touch, the smallest nip of teeth produced a rewarding response from her. Evelyn's body quivered, her breath came in stuttering gasps, and whenever he abraded her nipple with fingernail or teeth she moaned with abandon. Never had he heard so many erotic sounds, felt such total physical absorption.
With every breath, every caress, he wanted more of her, more of this. More. He pushed her down into the grass. She went easily, stretching her arms out wide. He didn't follow, being too intent on stripping off his robes. As he stripped out of his clothing, she put her hands in her hair and pulled out pin after pin, tossing them over the edge of the bluff. Her hair spilled down and free, pale strands of shimmering gold that blew across her face and fluttered in the wind.
His breath caught in his throat. The last twenty years he had spent with dark-haired people of different skin and slanted eyes, many of whom had reviled him for the difference. Here was a woman more physically like himself, a lush white goddess with pink skin, full breasts, and a golden halo of hair. If ever there were an angel in this land, it would be she, and he was breathless with the thought of making love to her.
"Come closer," she said as she lifted up onto one elbow. He moved as though in a trance, his eyes feasting on the curve of her shoulder down to waist, then up again for hip and leg. Her pale stockings looked even more shocking now, especially contrasted to the dark shadows at the juncture of her thighs.
"I have never seen a man before," she murmured. She reached out and touched him with the flat of two fingers. There was no apology in her touch as she outlined the full shaft of his organ from tip to base. The pounding in his veins beat louder, harder, and his organ thrust forward in that primal tempo.
"Evie!" he gasped.
"Oh!" She immediately gentled her grip, but she did not release him. Instead, she levered herself up onto her knees to look at him more directly. "I've seen babies, of course. And sometimes the older boys when they went swimming," she said. "But never a man. Never this."
She opened her hand to stroke him. Sensations piled on top of one another. She fluttered her fingers from tip to base. Her thumb rolled around the head and through the bead of moisture at the tip. Then her other hand cupped his sac. He was fully supported by her hands as she tugged him closer.
"Evie," he gasped through the pounding beat. "Do you know what you are doing?"
"The wives—they talk sometimes. I'm not supposed to hear, but I do. And I've thought a lot about it." She looked up at him, her eyes luminous in the darkness. "I want to know, Jie Ke. I want to understand it all!"
She leaned forward and put her mouth to his organ. Her lips touched first, a perfect circle of sweet pressure. She started off-center, but rapidly adjusted. Then her tongue swiried and swept across him. He groaned at the overpowering wetness, the wondrous heat. His buttocks tightened and his hips spasmed forward, but she held him tight—oh yes, so tight—and his thrust went only as far as she allowed.
He tried to control himself. He tried to keep his legs taut, his body under his mastery. He failed. In this moment, he was hers. The beat in his blood, the contraction of his buttocks, the thrust of his body—it all happened whether he willed it or not. It happened because she willed it.
She opened her mouth and engulfed him. Her movement was tentative, her timing exquisite. She moved with his thrusts and allowed him to push past her lips. His hands tightened where he gripped her shoulders. He didn't even remember touching her, but she was all he had to ground himself in reality, and his reality was her.
She began to toy with him. Her movements were random—a caress of her tongue, the suction of her mouth, or the sudden tightening of her fingers around his balls—all came at her pleasure, with her timing. He could do no more than surrender. And the pounding in his blood beat stronger, louder, and ever wilder, until it was all he knew.
His eruption came as a total release of all that he was. His mind, his body—it all poured into her, and still she continued to suck. He thrust, he pulsed, he gave until his legs buckled under him. He collapsed onto his knees, his consciousness gone except as an awareness of her.
He was hers. The enormity of that truth over-whelmed him. He fell forward, his head dipping to the ground in boneless worship. And in his soul, he felt. . .
Awe.
Evelyn stroked a hand across Jie Ke's back, watching her fingers flow over the wide expanse of muscle and bone. How broad he was, and how beautiful.
Without closing her eyes, she could see how he looked when he sparred with his monk friend. She could see the explosion in each punch, the brute force in every kick. The sound of impact, of flesh hitting flesh, had echoed in the clearing. She remembered it so clearly.
And yet here he was, collapsed before her on his knees as if in worship. She had brought him to this state. She had touched him and stroked him and brought him not only to his knees, but completely spent before her.
Her body still simmered with desire, her blood still thrummed with its hunger, but this was something beyond the demands of her body. This was more incredible than anything she had felt before. Not freedom, exactly. Power, perhaps. Was this what it was like to be a fully mature woman?
She let her fingers trail across his head, then skate again over his back. She brushed over the ridges of his spine, lengthening her arm as far as it would go down toward his narrow waist and tight behind. She could not see it clearly in the shadows, but she didn't need to. She remembered. Hadn't she just cupped him a moment ago and felt the immense strength of his thrust?
"Are you still breathing?" she asked, startled to hear the note of joy in her voice. She was happy?
She watched his back expand as he inhaled and heard a low groan as he pushed himself upright before her. He went slowly, his face pale, his eyes huge.
"I breathe," he said.
She almost laughed, he looked so . . . so young. All of his masculine power, all of the harsh angles of face and jaw were gone. "Tell me how you feel," she said. She wanted to understand everything he had experienced.
He breathed again, his chest expanding as his eyes drifted shut. "My body is sated, my mind is silent. I feel as though I could sleep for a thousand years or that I could conquer a thousand worlds." He smiled, a soft curve of his lips. "I feel at peace."
"Does that always happen? Did you feel that way with . . . with those other women?"
He shook his head. "Only with you."
She grinned, startled and immensely pleased. She had brought this strange, intense man peace. "It was like that for me last night. A beautiful, wonderful peace, but only for a moment. It didn't last long enough."
"To yearn for the past, to plan for the future—these are useless activities. We have only now. And now . . ." He grinned. "Right now, I feel at peace."
She frowned, trying to understand his words. She couldn't imagine a lifetime spent without past or future, without thinking of what she had to do or ought to be doing or would soon be told to do. "Is that what it is like in China?"
He shook his head. "That is what it is like at the temple."
She closed her eyes and breathed, just as he had done a moment ago. She lifted her face to the night sky and spread her arms wide, lifted and arched, feeling the wind on her naked breasts and glorying in the sensations of a body unfettered by clothing. "How wonderful that sounds," she said to the sky. "To feel like this always."
"Not always, Evie. Just now."
On his lips, her name sounded like a prayer. She liked that. So she straightened back to face him. "Tell me about the temple. Tell me everything!"
He laughed, then gestured at her body. "I can tell you all that you want, but aren't you cold? Do you want.. ." Was he blushing? "Do you want what you had last night?"
Yes, she did. But no, it wasn't preeminent in her thoughts. Her desire was a physical call, but this other thing—the demands of her mind—seemed so much louder now. "Will you help me dress?" was what she replied.
He nodded and immediately went to gather her gown. She stood, taking one last moment to appreciate her nakedness. It felt like sacrilege to cover herself again, but now that he had mentioned it, she was cold. Her skin felt tight from the biting wind and she shivered.
She reached for her dress. He handed her the corset instead. "No." She couldn't go that far, couldn't don that thing again tonight. She wanted to toss the garment off the bluff, but knew that some shepherd would find it, and then the whispers would begin. The material was too fine, the whalebone too expensive for it to be anyone else's. It would not be hard to track it back to her.
With a sigh, she resigned herself to keeping the damn thing. And once kept, she might as well wear it. With another sigh, she wrapped it around her chest and hooked herself in. Then she knotted the ties loosely. She was restricted, but not completely bound. Jie Ke held out her dress, and she stepped into the skirt.
"You have lost some buttons," he said. "But I believe I can fasten it adequately."
She nodded and felt the familiar tug of propriety settle around her. The loss was so acute that she almost cried.
Then she felt him, a press of lips at the base of her neck. It was tender, though she felt the gentle abrasion of his beard on her skin as she shivered in delight. Sensual hunger rumbled through her body like thunder in the distance. It was there and it was powerful, but it was an echo of what was. Or maybe, hopefully, it was a precursor to what could be. Then it was gone and her dress settled firmly, tightly into place.
"Do you
want to stay here? Or should we walk?"
"Let us head back to the house. Maddie will be watching for us. Is my hair too wild?"
He smiled. "Just wild enough, I would say."
She nodded, but she smoothed it anyway and then quickly plaited it down her back. While she worked on her hair, he grabbed his robes and began dressing. Her fingers slowed as she watched him don fabric that didn't appear to have any fastenings at all. Three pieces, all wrapped and tucked, underskirt then overwrap, then a heavier, fuller robe on top.
She frowned at the flash of fabric. "Is it the light, or does that have different colors?"
He smiled. "All one color, but different pieces of cloth. We make our robes from discarded scraps."
Her eyes widened at the thought of him stitching together rags. "But why? Surely one piece of cloth is easier." She brought the lantern closer to examine stitching done in a neat even hand. "You sewed this?"
"My first efforts were not so fine. It took me many years and many robes before I made this."
"But. . ." How to phrase her question. If he were truly Jacob, the son and heir of an earl, he would not have known how to sew. Certainly not this neatly. Although she supposed he could be taught.
He must have understood her confusion, because he shrugged. "My first years at the temple were angry ones. I was not kind to anyone about anything. The abbot made me first collect the rags, then wash them. You cannot imagine how furious I was. I, an earl's son, walking the streets looking for rags? Disgraceful!"
"It is a wonder that you did not run away." They were both dressed now and so began the slow walk toward the manor.
"I did a few times, but where would I go? I was not stupid. I saw what happened to the street boys. The lucky ones were used as slaves. At temple I had a bed and food. Not the kind I liked, and certainly nothing I was used to, but it was food and rest in safety. Plus, I believed that eventually someone from England would come for me."
She looked at him, trying to see the angry, frightened boy somewhere within the man. She didn't see him. Whatever had happened to the boy, this man had made peace with it. Assuming it was all true, that is, and not some elaborate fiction.
