Burning Tigress (29 page)

"Are you careful with me?" she asked as she worked.

"Always," he replied, his voice a low croak.

Her hand stilled and she looked into his eyes. "Am I so fragile?" Her recent experience had left her feeling small and powerless. She couldn't bear it if he thought her weak as well.

He reached out and caught the washcloth, his fingers entwining with hers, his heat flowing into her. "You are worth a thousand Little Pearls. She is nothing compared to you."

"But am I weak?" After all, she had nothing to show for her life. She did not study great thinkers like Joanna; she had not captured a husband like many of her friends. She was constantly getting into scrapes, saying the wrong things,
doing
the wrong things. Everyone said so.

Did that mean she was feebleminded like her brother? That her character was lacking in some essential quality? Perhaps she simply did not have the intelligence to navigate her world without disaster.

He shifted her hand, moving the washcloth to her body, to her breasts. He began with her nipples, moving in the soothing, dispersing circles they'd used before. He spiraled around her flesh in larger and larger movements while she kept herself still by an act of will.

She knew he meant to throw off her bad energy, to release that which was disharmonious to her qi, but his actions did nothing of the sort. The cool slide of water, the rough brush of coarse cotton, and the steady pressure of her inhalations against his hand set her belly to quivering again. It should have been delightful. It
was
delightful; but the silence that stretched between them was an answer that brought tears to her eyes.

"So I am stupid," she said, turning away. "I went to that school when I shouldn't have. I let her give me tea and take me into that room. I—"

"Do not be a fool!" he snapped, and jerked her back to him. She blinked in surprise, stunned by the fury in his voice. "What Little Pearl did was wrong. It was an abuse and a perversion that would be severely punished were the Tigress Shi Po still here."

Charlotte shook her head, her throat too clogged to speak. Didn't he understand? Didn't he realize that she couldn't care less about what Little Pearl had done? What mattered was that Charlotte had ventured there in the first place. That she had not seen the danger and saved herself. That she had drunk the tea and walked of her own accord into that terrible room. How could she be so idiotic?

"Little Pearl has a darkness inside her," Ken Jin continued. "Without Shi Po to restrain it, she has already left the Tao, the Middle Path."

Charlotte shook her head. He didn't understand, and she couldn't explain. So she broke away from him and quickly moved back into the main room. She had no purpose except to avoid hearing more about Little Pearl.

He followed, and she stopped running. There was nowhere for her to go with her breasts bare and her hair wild. Her head was pounding, and she needed air. She needed the breeze that was stronger here. She needed...

He stopped her before she went blindly to the window. He drew her backward against him, his hands strong around her upper arms, his chest hard and still slick with water. He rubbed her arms with his thumbs, and then he slid his hands around to cup her breasts. She pushed him away despite the hunger still simmering in her blood.

"Don't, Ken Jin, just don't. You don't understand."

He spun her around, and her knees buckled from the force of his pull. He caught her, of course. He was strong enough to support her as she stumbled, to lift her slightly and set her down so she sat in the dip between mountains on his strange piece of art. Except, it didn't feel like art. It was more like a chair right then, one with uneven armrests.

"What don't I understand?" he pressed.

She blinked back her tears. She didn't want to cry in front of him, didn't want to speak of something that he couldn't change. She shouldn't have brought it up, but she couldn't stop herself. She needed to know.

"Am I feebleminded?" she asked.

He blinked. "What?"

"William doesn't know. He... he's happy. I think he knows he's different, but he doesn't seem to understand how..." She swallowed. "How slow he is. We protect him. He doesn't go out; he plays with servant children. If people talk, he doesn't hear it." She gripped Ken Jin's arm. "He doesn't know."

He stared at her, but she couldn't read his expression or guess at his thoughts. Finally he spoke, but only after he had settled onto his heels before her. Only after he had brushed her hair from her face and took her hands in his.

"The Chinese value different things in a woman than the English." He frowned, as if struggling with the words. "We call you 'ghost people' because you are white, yes, but also because you value things of little substance—gold and pleasure, the things of appetite. In your women, you want soft, full flesh to lie upon and an oxlike obedience."

She nodded. It was true. The Englishmen she knew wanted a woman who would bear their children and not interfere in their pursuits, be they fame, fortune, or any known vice.

"The Chinese look for different things," he continued. He switched languages to Shanghai dialect, using idealized words that she recognized from Joanna. They came from the Confucian classics and were poetry as much as instruction. "A Chinese woman must be beautiful in form and heart. She is humble, yielding, respectful, and frugal."

Charlotte winced. She did not recognize herself in that list. He continued, unaware of her anxiety.

"If the English wish for an ox, the Chinese look for a delicate bird with beautiful plumage, sparing demands, and a lilting voice that raises a man's heart whenever she speaks." He sighed and looked down at his hands. "Such a woman is married and promptly caged."

"Caged?" she asked in surprise.

"Women do not have public affairs. They would stop their weaving," he quoted. He shrugged. "That is what we are taught. That our women should stay in their homes, away from all eyes, so that they may work untouched by anyone else."

She looked away. It would seem she was fit to be neither a Chinese nor an English wife. "Ken Jin," she began.

"A Dragon has different needs. A Dragon looks to a Tigress for his fulfillment. The Tigress must be strong of character or the Dragon will eat her. The Tigress must be pure..."

She flinched, but he corrected himself.

"Not pure of body, but pure of purpose. Only single-minded devotion clarifies the qi." He paused and waited until she looked into his eyes. "It goes without saying that a Tigress must be intelligent. How else would she hunt with any success? And only the wisest can ascend to Heaven."

She swallowed, at last understanding where he was headed. "But I am not a Tigress."

He caressed her: a long single stroke that started with her cheek, trailed down her neck and over her collarbone, until he finally circled her breast to thumb her nipple. She inhaled deeply at his touch, and her eyes slipped closed to savor the sensations. Little Pearl's drug was wearing off, the fires across her body fading, and yet his single caress set off a low roar in her ears.

"Neither the Chinese nor the English wish their wives to be intelligent. Only Dragons prize such a thing." His hand stilled, and she opened her eyes. His gaze was dark with meaning, but it took a moment for her to understand.

"You are a jade Dragon," she whispered.

"Yes." Then, when she said nothing, he pushed himself forward to capture her nipple in his mouth. She gasped even as she arched into his kiss. He sucked her nipple deep inside his mouth, using tongue and teeth to shape its form. She murmured her appreciation at the wet flick of his tongue, the harsh nip of teeth, and the long pull that came with being sucked deep into another soul.

He pressed her backward and to one side. Soon she was leaning against the slope of the larger mountain. Indeed, she straightened her legs, rising up so that her head fell across the rounded peak and her breasts were offered up to the Dragon above her.

Then he stopped. He stood, looking down at her with a stunning fierceness. He did indeed look like a towering dragon poised in the clouds above her. "Do you understand, Miss Charlotte?"

"You are a Dragon," she repeated though her mouth was dry.

"And I have found my Tigress, one whose yin qi is strong and pure. One who is wise enough to reach the antechamber to Heaven and brave enough to hunt in a forbidden Chinese school."

"I wasn't hunting when I went to the school."

"Of course you were. You hunted enlightenment."

"But it wasn't there. They didn't teach me anything."

He smiled slowly, a challenge sparking in his eyes. "So where then, my Tigress, will you find your answers?"

A flash of power burned through her body when he claimed her as his Tigress. "With a Dragon," she answered. "With a wise and powerful jade—"

He claimed her mouth with a deep and penetrating kiss, using the same skill he had used on her nipple. Then he pulled back. His hands framed her face while his thumbs stroked the curve of her cheeks and the wet outline of her lips. "I am a jade Dragon," he said loudly—firmly. "I choose you as my Tigress. I will stalk you. I will eat you. I will take your yin into myself, and I will use it to fly into the heavens." He paused as his hands slid down her torso. Up and over her breasts he moved, past the flat of her stomach, down until he grasped the tie of her pants. Her belly flattened as he moved so he had ample room to rip the fastening, exposing her sex to his probing fingers.

"Do you understand, Charlotte?"

She swallowed, even as her hips tilted and opened for his touch. He stepped between her legs as she spoke. "A Tigress must be very clever with her Dragon."

"Or I will devour you," he replied and thrust a finger deep inside her.

She tensed at the invasion, her stomach tightening. Without clear thought, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him, capturing his hips with her calves and pulling him tight. His hand was trapped against her, inside her. "You want me to be smart?" she challenged. It was as much a statement as a question. "To toy with you as a cat does a mouse?"

He began to wiggle his finger, stretching her. "I
demand
it." He leaned forward. "That is why I chose you." Then he grinned as he pushed his hips hard against her. His finger probed deep and his thumb slid high through her pleasure grotto. "And so the Dragon plays in the Tigress's cave," he murmured.

She exploded around his hand. She had not expected it; it came upon her so fast. Her belly convulsed, her yin cave compressed, and then wave upon wave of pleasure roared through her.

He did not waste a moment. Shoving hard, he pushed her backward across the larger mountain. Her legs dangled open as he sat in the valley and pulled his hand from her. Bracing her at the tops of her thighs, he put his lips to her yin pearl and began to suck. The power flowed straight into him. She knew it. She felt it, a hot rush of energy that poured from her abdomen into his mouth. It brought tingling heat with it, burned across her yin pearl, and kept the shuddering waves of pleasure going on and on.

She didn't even mind that he absorbed her power. She knew she would feel drained and exhausted when it was done, but since her yin went to Ken Jin, she opened herself even more and let him drink. She owed him that. And even if she didn't, she wanted to gift him with it.

In time, he stopped. He fell backward with a gasp, his head and shoulders dropping against the shorter mountain as he struggled for breath. Without his support, she slipped back down the large mountain until she sat across his knees, her sex exposed to the cooling air, her torn pants slipping away.

"So much," he breathed. "You have so much yin, I cannot take it all in."

She would have grinned at the awe in his voice, but she had no strength anywhere in her body. Her legs would not support her. She couldn't even lift her head. All she could do was lie against the larger slope and wait while her heartbeat steadied and the tingling gradually faded from her blood but not her mind. Her consciousness still shimmered; her joy continued to sparkle in her thoughts. "I think I shall enjoy being a Tigress," she murmured. Then she laughed at the silliness of her statement. She obviously enjoyed it.

"I am using you."

Ken Jin's heavy tones dimmed her sparkling thoughts. She blinked and lifted her head. Apparently she had enough strength to stare at him. "What?"

"What we did... this..." He gestured to her belly and her cinnabar cave. "I am stealing your yin. I am taking your power to strengthen my own."

"I know."

He shook his head. "No, you do not understand. I am stealing what you need. You should be keeping your yin power. A Tigress takes a man's yang power, adds it to her own, and then finds someone like me to stimulate her. The two energies combine and take her to Heaven."

She nodded. "That's what happened last time."

He sighed, straightening in his seat. But his motion shifted her weight on his knees and she slid farther down the mountain, which dropped her higher upon his body and against his jutting dragon. He hissed in pleasure as her weight pressed against him. Out of curiosity, she rotated her hips. She pushed hard against him, then pulled away. Push, pull. Push-

He grabbed her hips and set her away from him. "Listen to me!" he ordered, frustration growing in his tone. "I lied to you. I am stealing your power. I promised to teach you, but I am not. That is why my dragon is as strong as it is now: because I stole from you."