One Blossom Now In Bloom - Read on MistNovel

Maomao sneezed.

She wrinkled her nose and frowned. This flower looked right�it looked like a spider lily, a profusion of beautiful leaves that reached out and curled and occasionally twisted back on themselves. A tangle of brilliant pinks, fading to a darker, richer pink-red-purple in the center and a paler one at the tips. She'd been cultivating this lily for weeks�months!�in her room, and now it shone in the late afternoon light with an unexpected golden sheen.

All of her effort and her hopes had not been wasted.

Pride�fair and allowable enough!�curled up in her chest and warmth spread through her cheeks. She brought her hands up to her face, clenching them with excitement, allowing a smile to spread across her lips and mouth in the privacy of her room. Her success had been pure luck, but she was not about to let it slip from between her fingers. Just one bulb that looked slightly different than the others, that day in the market�but sometimes a slight difference was more than enough. Mugwort and wolfsbane could be misleading.

Or in this case, a decorative flower and an aphrodisiac one could be almost identical.

Almost, Maomao allowed smugly, but not quite.

She sneezed again and drew in a deep breath loaded with luxurious, almost decadent scent. Barely a moment passed before she sneezed a third time. With each one, the golden glitter on the spider lily shuddered into the air and settled on the table and drifted through the air to alight on her fingers and face.

It smelled wonderful, even if she'd never want to admit that she enjoyed the scent to anyone. It was medicinal�it had been hard to acquire, and harder still to grow, but the lily here might be just what she needed in a pinch when the rest of her ingredients gave up. It could be a way to make some money to give to her father�or to make sure she didn't stay in debt for long while she worked at the palace.

Even if it

was

an aphrodisiac and not a poison. In her hunt for a panacea, she'd found that life often also carried death within it�many medicines had a poisonous side to them if misapplied. Maybe there was something this one could do� but if not, at least the consorts�and the emperor�would likely be pleased.

She sneezed again despite herself and rubbed irritably at her nose. Her fingertips shone with the golden pollen.

"Maybe," she said softly, "just maybe it's time to do a little experimenting. But just a little."

It was quiet, her duties for the day complete, and her privacy assured unless there was an emergency. There should be no one bothering her for several hours at least�she would have ample opportunity to collect pollen, take a snipping of the leaves and petals, begin to separate them and analyze them.

As much as she disliked aphrodisiacs, she couldn't very well make up a medicine without knowing its effects. Trial and error was the only way to proceed. Perhaps like some plants, too much might act as a poison�or it might be the leaves that could kill, or the petals, or the pollen. How long did it last? How severe was it? What should it be mixed with, should it be applied to the skin, ingested as pills, a drink?

Maomao's pulse skipped and delight filled her as her excitement took hold. She peered at every bit of the plant, her curiosity increasing. The room grew warmer; she loosened her robe and pinned up her hair. She hummed softly to herself and licked her lips. Some pollen must have landed on them; they tasted sweet, just the sort of candy Xiaolan might like.

She scoffed to herself. What would Xiaolan do with an aphrodisiac? What would any of the palace women�outside of the four top consorts�do with it? Nothing good.

How many times had Jinshi come to her with something he suspected had been poisoned or adulterated in some way, and how many times had it been poison? She couldn't let any of this get into the hands of any of the rear palace women. Maybe just the consorts, the women at the Verdigris House (not that any of the Three Princesses

needed

it, but you never knew when it might be what a client wanted)�

The thrill of research and experimentation filled her, making her toes curl in her slippers. She'd figure out what to do with it once she knew what part of it worked, and how. The first step would be samples, certainly.

With a fine pair of scissors, Maomao reached to snip several leaves and set them in one bowl, several petals into a second. More pollen scattered into the air despite her delicate touch. She set the petals down and reached for a brush.

"There are gardens for your enjoyment," came a heavenly voice from behind her, "and you insist on staring at one plant in a shed?"

Maomao clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes heavenward. Of

course

this man would have to show up just now. The one man who she couldn't figure out�the one who seemed to delight in her presence for reasons she couldn't understand, who sought her presence, and who�

Well, he

had

given her any number of opportunities, hadn't he? And he had been very firm in ensuring she took care of herself, instead of ever taking advantage of her�even after she'd learned his secret. He, at least, valued her for her skills. He cared about what she could do, instead of merely as an ornament to the Emperor's garden.

"There are no flowers like this in the emperor's gardens," Maomao said instead. "It's something entirely special and unique."

Behind her, Master Jinshi made some sort of odd noise, somewhere between a strangled noise and a laugh. "You needn't tell me that twice," he finally uttered. "There's only one of these flowers in all the empire."

"I hope not," Maomao said blithely. "Hard to ensure it reproduces and can continue to be useful if there's only one."

Jinshi made that noise again, but from closer this time. His faint perfume wafted over her,� delicate scents underlaid with the scent of him, clean and crisp and masculine, no sweat or blood or dirt. But oh, he smelled

good

, good enough to make her mouth water.

"What type of plant is it, then?"

Maomao swallowed, warmth washing through her. She looked at the table, her hands, the spider lily, her collection of samples. Everywhere but behind her. But she had to turn around; if she didn't, he'd probably come over and touch her�

Would that be so bad?

A little part of her, one she preferred to keep locked away and silent, asked.

Even mentally tongue-tied, Maomao turned around, keeping her eyes downcast. That too could only last so long. Something low in her body throbbed sluggishly, long ignored and long denied coming back to life. Slowly she dragged her eyes up over the dark robes to the pale skin of Jinshi's throat, his jaw�

His lips.

Heat rushed through her again, all of her feeling as though she'd been in the sun too long, her skin tight. Perhaps it was like an itch desperate to be scratched. She stayed standing in front of the work table, pressing her thighs together.

"An exotic one," she said in a voice that was not quite her own. "My father's texts mentioned it, but I never saw it. It's quite uncommon. Difficult to grow at the best of times." She swallowed again, her eyes locked on Jinshi's mouth, the way his lips pulled ever so slightly into a smile. Something low in her body twinged again. Pressing her legs together brought no relief. "There's an aphrodisiac quality to it. Apparently."

Her own lips curved in an irritated frown, her tone almost dripping with frustration. Maomao tightened her fingers into the sides of her skirt. She turned her attention back to the peach-pink hue of the aphrodisiac lily on the table. It took great force of will to turn her attention from Jinshi's lips to the plant, but she managed. Maomao drew in another breath to steady herself. "I suspected the bulb would be not be a normal spider lily. I was correct."

Jinshi hummed for a moment. "It's beautiful," Jinshi said, taking a step closer to her and the plant on her worktable. He took a second and a third, coming close enough she could drag the smell of him into her nose. "It truly does look like a normal spider lily, but I've never seen one with those colors before." He reached towards it.

Maomao shot a hand out, interposing it before he could come in contact with the plant. Her voice went cold and hard as ice. "You shouldn't touch it. Or get any closer to it."

"Why not?" Jinshi asked. He sounded huskier, his voice lower, she was sure of it. Still playful but it had no reason to sound as delicious as it did, stroking her skin the same way she might a cat. She wanted to lean into that voice.

Her breathing quickened despite herself, the throbbing low in her body like her pulse after she had found a herb or a mushroom she'd been eager to discover. The warmth curling in her stomach slid up through her chest and into her cheeks.

"I said it was an aphrodisiac," Maomao repeated. She gathered all her ccomposure and tried to stare at Jinshi as though he were yet another venomous bug or slug or creature that deserved her disdain.

It was the wrong choice.

She remembered now one night, early in her association with Jinshi, when Gaoshun had told her not to look at Jinshi that way. It brought him delight, Gaoshun had said; it made the too-beautiful man blush, and that drew even more eyes to him.

Jinshi lifted a hand and flicked one of the beaded strands of her hair with a fingertip. "What part of it?"

"The pollen," Maomao said finally, her voice breathier than it had any right to be. "I think it's the pollen."

Jinshi quirked a brow as he looked at her, taking in the glittering flower and the matching smudges on her hand�and no doubt elsewhere. "You're looking flushed. Are you all right?"

Maomao swallowed, fixing her eyes on the smooth column of his neck and his pulse pounding there. She wanted to lick at his neck, press her face against his skin, drag the smell of him, the taste of him, into her. She ached for touch, her body desperate, her mind clouding.

Oh, what her sisters would say if they saw her now.

She

was the one wiggling like a creature in heat, no matter how much she tried to resist it.

Suddenly the bright look in his eyes increased, the elegant pale skin of his forehead creasing. "You sampled it, didn't you?" His eyes flickered towards the plant and then back to her. "The pollen. Or did you eat a leaf, a petal�?"

"I wanted to find out if it would be good for the consorts to use. If the pollen could be collected, and then adulterated with powder�like the face powder�and brushed on skin. It glitters," Maomao said, looking up at him through her lashes. "The ladies of the pleasure district�"

"Oh, Maomao," Jinshi said, shaking his head. "You tested it on yourself, didn't you?"

No disappointment, no surprise, just humor lurking in the corners of his eyes.

"I hadn't

meant

to. Not yet," she said. "But I think I ingested some accidentally."

"Not yet. But you were going to."

"How else am I to know if it actually worked and was what I thought it was?"

He smiled and it made her knees turn to jelly. She steeled herself against the rush of emotions and the scrabbling claws at the back of her mind as he turned that look�not the perfect practiced one he threw towards the rear palace ladies, but the warmer, softer one she'd seen him save for only a few people.

Or maybe it was one he saved just for her.

His voice dipped. "And does it? Is it?"

Maomao made a face, digging her fingers into the fabric of her skirts even more tightly. "I believe I have sufficient evidence that it does."

Her eyes tracked his hand as he lifted it and brushed the backs of his fingertips against her cheek. "Poor Maomao. Will you let it run its course? Alone?"

He was propositioning her. She knew it and he knew it and

oh

she wanted to say yes, watch him go crestfallen, all his finery drooping like a rejected peacock. But she leaned into that hand, turned her face into it, a touch she'd denied herself for so long and

why

had she done that

?

The almost painful aching of her skin eased at the touch of his hand. His breath caught, eyes staring into hers. She closed her eyes and simply

was

, all of her mind and body focused on the hand on her face, the smell of him in her nose, the pounding of her pulse, the hungry

need

rolling through her�

She didn't want to do this alone.

After all

, a little part of her whispered,

how can you know if it's transmissible, if it really works, if you don't test your theories?

Jinshi leaned in, ever so carefully. The only part of him that touched her was his hand, still just the backs of his fingers against her skin. "We can play the game of rain and clouds as long as you desire," he said, using one of the courtly terms for sex, prettying up what she had grown up knowing in its far more base forms. "Or you can tell me to leave and I will. When you've been injured, I have tended to you. And tonight would be no different. As long as it takes." His breath ghosted along her throat, prickling goosebumps on her arms and drawing her nipples tighter into aching points.

She whimpered, pressing her eyes closed tighter. Jinshi drew his hand away with a gossamer delicacy that would befit one of the emperor's finest dancers. Maomao turned her head to follow it. With the sudden absence of his touch, the need returned twofold. The antidote removed, the balm drawn away. It was a burn that only found some mild soothing with his touch.

"Or I can leave. Since you find me so�" his mouth quirked up at one corner, eyes almost teasing, "�bothersome at times."

"No." Maomao shook her head, her heart jolting in her chest and her body drawing close to him. It galled her to ask, but she had been improving over the past months, had she not? To let him know what she

needed

? Even with the complicated nature of their relationship -

It was an experiment. It was her research.

And right now it needed

him

.

Greed began to unfurl inside her. His hands on her, his mouth on her, a confusing

need

to have his skin against hers, to do all the things she'd expected no one would ever bother to. She was nothing compared to the Three Princesses, to the Consorts�any needs she had, no one would ever see to.

But here he was, offering. And she was going to snatch at the chance before he changed his mind. Or she changed hers.

Jinshi laughed again, the sound rippling across her skin. "Say please," Jinshi said. His breath pooled against her cheek. "Have I ever done wrong by you, Maomao?"

She shook her head, biting down on her lower lip. He frustrated her endlessly, confused her on an hourly basis, but he'd never truly done wrong by her. He'd tried to do

right

every time, even if it baffled her.

"Say please and I'll take such good care of you, the way you deserve. The way I've wanted to for months." His voice was so disgustingly wonderful, warm and liquid as honey. "You deserve so much. Let me give it to you."

He was so warm and Maomao wanted to melt against him, cover herself in his touch, ease some of the need that hummed along her skin and into her bones. He simply stood there, unfairly beautiful, all that dark hair and endless eyes, waiting for her. All she had to do was say one word. Just one. His eyes were on her like she could raise him to the heavens or crush him into the earth with that one word. She could bring this man to his knees with a breath, and she trembled with the power she held.

It meant nothing right now without his hands on her, his body against hers, the yawning hunger that filled her. It would only get worse as more of the pollen worked through her system, she knew it.

He wanted her, had wanted her before now. Who better?

She wet her lips. "Please."

"As the apothecary commands," he said in that gorgeous voice, thumb skimming across her lips. Firecrackers went off in her brain, behind her eyes, her mind whiting out for a moment. He stood in front of her, waiting until she opened her eyes. He tucked a finger under her chin and tipped it up to meet his gaze. "Come along then, and let me see to your needs."