Burning Tigress (10 page)

"Miss Charlotte," he began, "the scrolls you found describe a course of study, a path to Heaven in a most unusual way."

She felt her face and chest flush with embarrassment. "Only the Chinese would make sex a course of study." When he looked at her in confusion, she elaborated: "We English do not write such things down. We simply..." How to express her father's lecheries?

"You simply rut," he supplied. She opened her mouth to object to the crude term, but he held up his hand to stop her. "You believe you understand your father's activities?"

She looked away. "We English do not talk of those things either."

"But you know of them."

She nodded. Yes, of course she knew. Shanghai's gossip-mongers made sure of that. Indeed, her father's exploits were discussed among even the most sheltered of her friends.

"What he does is rut," Ken Jin continued, his voice gentle despite his harsh words. "Like a beast in the field, he performs according to instinct without conscious thought, except to meet his most basic desire."

Charlotte felt Ken Jin's fingers touch her chin. She felt the rough brush of his calluses, the cool press of his skin against hers as he drew her around to look at him.

"What he does is not wrong. It is merely ignorant."

"Mama believes it is wrong. She says that's why William is... isn't very bright. And that is why she prays so much." She bit her lip, stunned by what she had just admitted. Why would she tell that to a servant? And yet, who else would she talk to about it? Ken Jin was here. He'd lived in their home for the last ten years. He understood what went on in the family; he probably knew better than she did.

His eyes held compassion as he spoke. "I do not understand your white gods."

She shrugged, weary of the conversation. "I'm not sure anyone does."

"That is in the nature of gods." His hand was still on her chin, but now he extended his thumb and drew it across her lips. Charlotte did not move. It was an unconscionable liberty, but she had already allowed a great deal more. Besides, she was too entranced by the tingling pleasure to stop him. How could her lips feel so full, so electrified, by a single caress?

He too gasped, and his eyes widened as his thumb repeated its pass. He moved slowly, and she felt every texture of his thumb, even to the point of imagining how it would taste against her tongue. The tingling became a throb.

"Do you feel that, Miss Charlotte?" His voice held a note of breathless awe. "Do you feel the fire of yin and yang in combustion?" He let his finger slip to the indentation between her lower lip and chin, and abruptly pinched her there. The single quick bite of pain caused the heat in her face to blossom into riotous sensation. She gasped, stunned by the accompanying shiver of warmth in her belly.

Then, before she could speak, he licked his thumb before returning it to that very same location, rubbing in a wet circle. The slide of wet made her belly liquefy; the cold kiss of air made her face feel even more hot. And then he leaned forward, replacing his thumb with his lips.

She should move away. She knew that. This was much too familiar from a servant. But nothing in her wanted to escape. In fact, she extended her chin to give him better access as his tongue swirled in another erotic circle. She shivered and her nipples tightened. And then he finished with a sucking kiss that seemed to draw her out of herself. As he pulled away, she wanted to follow, but she was too stunned to do more than utter a nearly silent whimper.

"I have opened the gate for intimacy, Miss Charlotte. This attunes our spirits, one to another. Do you feel the difference in your body?" He spoke in Chinese, but she understood. And the foreign words made the experience all the more intense.

"Yes," she managed. "Oh yes."

"This is what I study." The cadence of his voice set a kind of rhythm in her blood. It made no sense that a single touch could do so much, and yet she felt aligned to him as had never happened before with anyone. Her heart even seemed to beat to the tempo of his words. "This is the pathway to what is beyond rutting," he continued. "It is what your father has not found and your mother does not understand."

"I want to learn," she said. She had no idea how she formed the thought, much less managed the breath to speak, but her desire was unquestionable.

"Your mother will damn you for it."

Her eyes flew open, but the fire she felt did not dim. "No," she whispered, "she will damn you."

She saw him blanch and he draw back. The loss was so devastating that she grabbed his arm.

"Teach me anyway," she said. "Teach me, and I will protect you. She won't ever know." Her words were rash, possibly lies. There was little she could do if her mother thought a servant had debauched her daughter. But there were ways to avoid discovery.

"Give me the scrolls, Miss Charlotte, and I will show you the first steps."

She shook her head, not willing to compromise. "
All
of the steps."

He smiled, but the expression seemed mocking. "Only the Enlightened know all the steps." A look of longing crossed his features briefly; then it was gone. His hand returned to her face, this time with more than his thumb. This time, he pressed two fingers to her lips. Then slowly, inexorably, he pushed them inside her mouth. At last, she could taste his fingers. She could feel the texture of callus and nail against her tongue. She could purse her lips and suck him deeper inside.

"Give me the scrolls, Miss Charlotte, and I will show you the path."

He was wiggling his fingers, spreading them wide against her teeth and the roof of her mouth. His movements touched off sparks in the strangest places—the base of her teeth, the underside of her tongue, even the back of her throat though he'd only penetrated to his first knuckle.

She slid her hand up his forearm to his wrist and abruptly pushed his fingers deeper into her mouth. She had no understanding of her actions, only that she wanted to taste more of him. It was disconcerting to feel touched in places that he couldn't possibly reach. If he could do this with just his fingers, how much more wonderful it would be with his whole penis in her mouth? The thought was thrilling beyond belief.

"Give me the scrolls, Miss Charlotte."

She couldn't focus on his words. She wanted to understand how she could tingle in places he hadn't stroked, how there could be heat and power pulsing in the back of her throat. And how that erotic pulse could continue all the way down her body deep into her womb.

He withdrew abruptly, leaving her open and empty. "Give me the scrolls, Miss Charlotte."

She swallowed. It took an act of will, so completely had he tied her to his power. "Or what?" she finally rasped.

"Or I will teach you nothing more."

She struggled to gather her thoughts. "I don't need you. The scrolls will teach me everything," she hedged.

He looked unimpressed. "One or two scrolls that start in the middle? You are not so foolish as to believe that paper can show better than a teacher."

No, it couldn't. She'd already looked at the pictures, even tried to decipher the Chinese characters, but nothing had imparted the tiniest clue about what she had just experienced.

"If I give you the scrolls, you won't teach me anything. It's too dangerous for you. If my mother finds out..."

His hands were in his lap, folded neatly. She stared at them, wondering at the power he possessed. Could he affect her from there? Could he touch her from across the room? How far did his abilities reach? She lifted her gaze to his eyes, only now noticing the sweat beading his upper lip. A quick glance showed that his male organ was large beneath his trousers. He was not unaffected by what he'd done. Perhaps he wanted to teach as much as she wanted to learn.

"Teach me first," she offered. "I'll give you the scrolls afterward." That would give her time to have the text copied and translated.

He waited a moment, looking at her with a steady, flat regard. She might have worried, so cold was his expression, except right beneath his hands she saw his sex twitch. He was quite large; she remembered from her unexpected view this morning. The demands of his organ must be equally huge. He would teach her, she realized with a sudden rush. His organ would demand it.

As expected, he sighed and pushed to his feet. He moved slowly, and she guessed he was protecting himself from accidental jostling. She had learned from caring for her brother that a thickened male organ could be quite sensitive. Indeed, she had learned quite a lot when poor William had hit puberty. He had stimulated himself in the most inappropriate places and times. Rather than slap his hands, their mother had slapped his organ as a form of discipline. Charlotte surmised that Ken Jin was trying to avoid a similarly painful fate.

"We can begin tomorrow," she offered as sweetly as she could manage. "When you are feeling more the thing."

She avoided a gloating smile as he bowed before her. But a moment later, she felt a wash of sadness. He had returned to his place as servant, offering her respect without emotion. Her victory felt hollow.

He straightened and walked to the door. "I regret that we could not come to an understanding, Miss Charlotte. Please allow me to return to my work. Your father will wish to check my progress when he returns."

Charlotte blinked, confused. She had won, hadn't she? She stood up and headed slowly for the door. "So, I shall come back here tomorrow afternoon? We will begin then?"

He shook his head. "No, Miss Charlotte. I regret to inform you that I cannot do as you request."

"But I don't understand. Surely you aren't going to just stop... I mean, naturally you wish to continue at another time. Don't you?" Her last words were high-pitched, squeaked as if by a little girl. Appalling, really, since she was no child.

"No, Miss Charlotte, I do not." Again he gave a deep bow. "Good day."

And a moment later, she found herself on the opposite side of his closed door.

* * *

Ken Jin stood facing the shut door. His legs were spread, his hands planted firmly on his hips, and his dragon was as hard as a Shantung maple. All in all, an excellent day. So why was he clenching his jaw as if he were about to chew ginger?

He turned to his desk, refocusing his thoughts on work. He had ledger entries to record, bills of lading to reconcile with ship accounts, and hours of letters to write for Mr. Wicks's signature. Nothing was urgent, but all was important. And with nothing else to occupy his time, he knew he would be at his desk well into the night.

Squaring his shoulders, he settled into his chair, making sure his legs were spread wide so as to give his organ room to breathe. He pulled out the ledger, opening it... only to stare at the neat columns of barbarian writing. No, he abruptly decided, he would not work on white people's numbers today. His qi was in too much disorder to work in straight lines.

The letters, then. Putting the ledger away beneath the abacas, he drew out Mr. Wicks's special letter paper. He curled his lip in disdain at its scent and feel: too flat, too cold. It never absorbed the ink correctly, not of a good Chinese brush at least. And so he had to use a "fountain pen"—a barbarian creation of metal that was too small and dead to properly control.

No. He would use a brush to write his family, and he owed his brother a letter. That would be an efficient use of his time. And it would be an adequately Chinese pastime, to counteract the other forces in his life.

He set down the pen, but did not take up the brush. Slowly, his hand curled into a fist. Abacas, brush, ink stone. Stationery, ledger, pen. What did he want? What should he do? A balanced man walked the middle path, but when the Dragon played near the Tigress's mouth, the Tigress seized the fallen jade. Ledgers or letter? Balanced path or Tigress play? White or Chinese?

Who was he? Disowned by his Chinese family, he had to learn to be white to work and survive. Now the Chinese would not speak to him unless it was to take his money; the whites used him as translator and manager but still disdained him as a servant. Where was his path?

His dragon wilted away to nothing as thoughts churned in his mind. His qi was weakening by the second. Grabbing his bills of lading, he abruptly strode out of the manor, pretending to head for the docks. In truth, he had no thought as to where he would go. Or rather, he had too many thoughts, too many responsibilities.

Should he return to the Tigress school to help Little Pearl? Should he go to his private rooms for practice? He even considered a more public venue, with a willing woman where he could gather more yin. But no answer was right, nothing settled his disordered spirit.

At last he decided to help the Tans. He would drive the Wicks carriage to the prison. He judged it would take half his money to bribe his way into the Tigress's cell, and the other half to arrange for her release. It would take a good deal longer and a great deal more money to arrange for her husband Kui Yu's freedom, but Ken Jin knew the man's honor; he would want Shi Po released first. And so Ken Jin hefted his tiny purse and prayed he had enough.

Very soon, he realized he didn't have anything close to enough. In several hours, he spent two-thirds of his money just to verify that the Tans were indeed held exactly where he'd guessed, in Shanghai's military compound. The last third went toward the discovery that some guards could not be bribed. He did not even manage a visit to the "whore Shi Po" and her husband, the "barbarian-loving Kui Yu."