“More,” she rasped, barely recognizing her own voice.
“Yes,” he echoed.
And then he pounded her.
And she flew.
Chapter Sixteen
If Ling Xinwere a fox spirit taking his yang energy, Zhi Hao decided he would willingly give up all of it. It wasn’t merely that her body was made perfectly to attract him. A woman who was both supple and strong had always stirred his desire, but there were many such women in the world.
Ling Xin was more than beautiful. He loved how curious she was, as if she wanted to taste the whole world and she was daring enough to try it. She had not run in fear when the peasants attacked, and once she chose a path, she committed to it. Including the path that had led him to the most explosive release of his life.
And what was she doing right now? She was laying bent over, flat on the table, her breath lengthening into easy rest as she hummed with every exhale. It was a kind of purr that told him she was well content while he pressed tiny kisses to her back.
Then, because he could not prevent it, he slipped out of her. She whimpered slightly at that, but did not move. It was left to him to bring bucket and cloth to clean them both. She allowed his ministrations, smiling as he washed her. And when she was finally set to rights, he was loathe to let her go.
She needed to leave. Every minute that she stayed here with him was a danger to them both. But having experienced her sexual curiosity, he wanted to know more about what else she pursued.
“Does your mother wish you to become empress?” he asked as he guided her to the couch to sit.
She settled easily into the seat, but then obviously relaxed, letting her head fall back and exposing her long, elegant neck. Then she spoke to the ceiling. “When Mama was pregnant with me, she burned many joss sticks praying that I would be a girl. She knew the age of the emperor’s son and that a girl would be the right age to vie to become his wife.” She smiled. “Of course, they didn’t know his father would die young and put him into mourning before his first Feast of Fertility. That gave me extra years to mature, otherwise I would have gone to the Forbidden City very young.”
That would be a crime indeed for he never would have met her then. “From your very first breath,” he whispered. Such far sighted ambition for her parents, and such a cruel punishment for their daughter.
“Every moment of my life has been aimed for this one goal.” She stretched and he watched the glorious shift of her body with growing hunger. “I began to feel suffocated by the time I was six.”
“What did you do?” She could not have been climbing walls to entice Master Gao’s students when she was that young.
“Lots of things,” she answered. “I stole my brothers’ books and read them.”
“Did you?”
She yawned. “Yes. But only because it was forbidden to me. In truth, they were pretty boring.”
“Then what?”
“I explored my father’s work, reading scrolls, maps, and accounts.” She groaned. “Those account books were the worst.”
“So why did you keep studying them?”
“I didn’t want to, but my father caught me. He said an empress should have an understanding of all aspects of China. Itturns out he knew that I had been reading those forbidden texts all along. Indeed, that was why he had forbidden them.”
“But theyareforbidden to women. Or they are where I grew up.”
“They are here, too, but no one cares so long as I don’t speak of it.” She sighed. “Father said that it would be best that the emperor was surrounded by people who understood the world. That included his wife, even if he never consulted her except to bed her.”
He gaped at her. “He said that to you?”
“Many times.” She sighed as she shifted on the couch to look at him.
“So what do you know?”
“A little bit of everything. I can run a household, balance the accounts, and manage the servants. I also know a little geography, classic literature, and you have seen me dance.”
“You learned all that in secret?”
“In secret?” she laughed. “No! Whenever I was caught in mischief, my father gave me more to study. Mother and her kin taught me the basics of medicine. My father taught me accounts and we often discuss the movement of goods throughout China.”