Teasing her had become habit, if only because there are no other women who would dare to look at him the way she did. His appearance meant nothing, his connections weren't worth a fraction of her thoughts 'unless it related to medicine and acquiring exotic ingredients for his feisty apothecary.

Taking advantage of her would be cruel. Not only would it gall him on a personal level, but every man in the court who had a degree of affection for Maomao would band together and ruin his life more completely than any of his own attempts to do so. And with the substantial number of clever men and influential women who found Maomao endearing, Jinshi had no doubt that they'd find a way to succeed.

He hadn't bothered hiding the fact that he wants her, not for months now. Suiren had guessed and given her approval. Gaoshun said that he knew Xiaomao would be the kind of balance Jinshi needed. Everyone had to be able to tell 'even, he hoped, her. He'd laid his head in her lap before. She'd touched his bare skin. They'd been in compromising positions more than once.

But he wanted

her

to have the power here, this fiercely brilliant woman moved about by everyone 'even him 'as a stone in a game of Go. It would kill him to leave her, wide-eyed and pink in the cheeks, her breath quickening beneath her robes, the golden gleam of pollen dusting her face, her fingers, the delicious spread of skin beneath her throat.

He wanted to bite her, lick her, lay a resounding claim to her.

He knew that was, as yet, impossible. Unfathomable. She would deny it 'deny him 'with every breath. He would tease her, but he would not force himself on her when she could still make a choice.

Instead, he made her say it, the one word slipping from her mouth, the way her lips puckered and shifted as she uttered it. "Please."

Such a simple thing upon which the axis of the world suddenly tilted.

All the power he held now 'the stronger and headier for the fact that Maomao had offered it to him. Acknowledged that, somehow, he was worthy of this moment, of her vulnerability. She trusted he would keep her safe. Trust, true trust, was hard-won, especially from this woman.

He wouldn't ruin it by taking her on the floor of a shed.

"As the apothecary commands," he said, thumb skimming across her lips. She closed her eyes, scrunching them as tight as she could. 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."

"Please," she said again, the word a single exhalation, breathy and hot with desire.

He knew what it sounded like; he'd seen his fair share of women 'and men 'who had ingested aphrodisiacs. He'd never thought to see Maomao this way outside idle late-night fantasies.

But now they weren't fantasies, and the woman in question was in front of him.

In front of him, Maomao's hands had begun to wander over her robes, sliding up and down her stomach, her hips, the not-quite-so-flat plane of her chest. She leaned against the table upon which her lily sat, bracing herself as her fingers skimmed over herself. His eyes followed the line of her throat as she swallowed, the stutter of her chest as her breath hitched when her fingers slid over her breasts.

Jinshi planted both hands on either side of her, curling his fingers around the table's edge and caging her with his body. Maomao groaned softly, the sound turning reedy as he brought his mouth to the soft skin where her throat met her shoulder. He kissed her for just a moment, inhaling the sweet scent of her, the faint hints of medicinal herbs and soap and the floral scent that had to be her plant. He nipped at the flesh, rewarded with a moan and her fingers grabbing onto his robes, trying to bring him closer.

Definitely not the floor of the shed. But he could hardly take her to his pavilion either, could he?

His mouth busy with her throat, allowing her hands free access to him, Jinshi quickly ran through his options. The hour was late enough 'perhaps '

Her fingers worked industriously at the belts and sashes around his robes. He smiled against her skin and caught both of her wrists in one of his hands.

"Not yet, little cat," he teased.

She whined softly, eyes big and a bright tooth dragging over her lower lip. "Jinshi," she said with frustrated ardor.

What he wouldn't give to be inside that clever head right now. Her responses were startling; whatever this was must work quickly, or she'd been exposed to a significant amount of it. Or both. Had he managed to ingest any of it?

Did it really matter?

His body wanted to abandon all its fine aspirations and lose himself in her immediately, but his mind wouldn't allow it. With his other hand, he ran his fingers along her cheek again. She turned her face into his hand, evidently trying to get more skin-to-skin contact. His own breath caught at the thought of her, all her robes bare, her body under the moonlight, splayed across him skin-on-skin '

"Come on, then," he said, his own voice thickening with desire. "I know where to go."

A cushion, a blanket, two baskets, small bags and wrapping-cloths. It was only a matter of minutes to ask several servants for the collection of odd items. Should any one inquire, he had an excuse prepared 'accompanying Maomao on a particular collecting venture 'but it was ultimately unnecessary as they made their way to the northern quarter and one of the disused pavilions.

The greatest challenge, he found with wry amusement, was keeping Maomao moving rather than attempting to touch herself, or him, or strip off her clothes, as they proceeded briskly. He had to coax her with touches, promises, whispers in her ear, and contend with his own stirring need.

The potato flour-and-herb mixture he took daily was either wearing off, or the drug his apothecary had acquired was far stronger.

It could, he acknowledged as he tugged her up the stairs into a pavilion, also be both.

The hall had seen better days when the northern quarter was in use, but it seemed that it had been tidied in recent months. The dust wasn't as thick as it might have been, and even some of the paintings along the upper borders of the walls had signs of being touched up. Gilded and painted phoenixes and dragons cavorted with tigers and tortoises along the walls and beams. Several carved screens in a style that had gone out of fashion sat in front of windows, serving to obscure their view and scatter shadows into the moonlight. He discarded the baskets and bags and wrapping cloths inside the main door.

Ten seconds he'd turned his back on Maomao to shut the door, set the baskets down, adjust his grip on the blanket and cushion.

Nine seconds too long, apparently, as he turned around to see her hands hiking up her skirts. He froze for a moment, mouth slack, at the expanse of her legs. He'd seen them before, after the beam had fallen on her and cut her leg; he'd hovered over the doctor as she'd been stitched up, ensured she was tucked safely into his bed.

It felt like only days ago, and lifetimes ago. The scar still lingered, but she cared little as her hands pulled fabric away. She whimpered as she touched her knee, her thigh, fingertips ghosting along flushed skin.

He'd wanted to find a bed for her, but would there really be one here left with a mattress, properly padded and with sheets?

Idiot

, he chastised himself as he snapped the blanket onto the ground. He set the pillow on it with trembling fingers. If the best he could do was this 'it was nothing like what she deserved.

"That's for me to do," he rasped, catching her wrist again in one of his hands. "Let me do this."

She looked up at him with big eyes, irises almost vanished in the darkness of her pupils. "Need you," she said breathlessly, her other hand snapping out with serpentine speed to clench at his robes. "

Now.

"

Jinshi wanted to do this slowly, deliberately, patiently. He wanted to strip her down until she wore nothing but skin, hungry, all of her pale and gleaming and spread out before him like a banquet. There was no finer feast in the whole of the empire than the woman before him.

But he couldn't do it. It called for a patience he couldn't even hope to have now.

"As my lady wishes," he said as he lowered his mouth.

It was like a bolt of lightning streaking through him as he brought his lips down and slanted them against hers.

This.

This

was what he'd wanted, what he'd waited for. She kissed hard and artlessly, making muffled needy sounds against him. Any pleasure district training was forgotten now in the stupor of the aphrodisiac. Her sheer enthusiasm almost brought him to his knees; he speared his hands through the liquid silk of her hair, cradling the back of her head close as he kissed her. Fire licked its way through him, a blazing heat to answer the inferno in Maomao. Fuel to her fire.

She might immolate him, but he'd call himself blessed for it and go merrily to that pyre.

Maomao made a muffled sound against his lips, a hungry noise his own heart and body echoed. Now that he'd had a taste of her, nothing would ever be enough. He needed to taste her, every inch of her, inside and out.

Clothes couldn't come off fast enough. Two pairs of hands, almost at cross-purposes, working to bare skin. Something tore 'his robe? hers? Did it matter? 'and the kiss only broke when it was time to work her undershirt off.

Her lips were swollen and pink from, eyes dark and gleaming. Her soft cheeks were flushed with color, her mouth half-open, some of her face still dusted with the golden pollen. Even hints of her freckles were still in place. He laughed softly to himself and let his eyes drop down along her throat, her collarbones and the shadows that filled their delicate hollows, and then to places his eyes had never seen.

Her shoulders, the delicate mounds of her breasts, each a handful or a mouthful and he was going to savor them. Her nipples were tight, dark buds he would feast upon for hours. Her belly was flat, her hips slim, and '

The shadows didn't do anything to hide the skin of her thighs and the wiry curls on her mound that pointed to the promise of pleasure between her thighs.

Maomao arched against him and leaned in to press her body against his. She was a fiery ember in his arms; she ought to have seared his last thin underrobe away. Frustrated at the last layer of cotton that separated them, she dug her fingers into the fabric and pulled it roughly away from him. The last of his composure was in shreds.

She glanced once at his erection, throwing him a look almost impossible to read. "Even this," she said in that frustrated tone, "is beautiful. You're terrible." There was a moment of true Maomao there, exasperation and annoyance, before she wrapped one hand around it.

Jinshi nearly spent himself then and there as her hand closed around him and she brought her face close to his erection. His body craved her touch, skin on skin. Pleasure shot through him at her touch, easing some of the fierce need that consumed him. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough, as his hips moved in the half-circle of her hand of their own accord.

Needed touch, needed more, needed

her

.

She spat into her hand and then stroked him from base to tip, squeezing and releasing. Her hand couldn't quite close all the way around him, and she kept her attentions on him, adding her second hand to twist and have twice the touch. The head of his penis was slick with arousal, pearls beading in the silvery moonlight.

"Mine," she said possessively. She licked her lips again and inhaled sharply. She looked up at him, eyes bright with excitement.

Then she closed her mouth around him, and his mind went blank.

Maomao's warm, silken mouth wrapped around him in exquisite pleasure. His knees turned to jelly as she tightened her grip at the base of his shaft, lapping at the head with delicate strokes of her tongue. No fantasy could ever compare to the reality of her mouth on him.

Jinshi cupped the back of her head as gently as he could, threading his fingers through her hair. His hips twitched, half-thrusting into her mouth. The pleasure was unbearable, but it wasn't enough, not with the aching hunger and desperate desire that filled him. Heat churned at the base of his spine as he began to move in earnest, Maomao taking more and more of him into her with every thrust of his hips.

"Maomao," he said, trying to put all his pleasure and approval into her name. She looked up then and he felt his body tighten, muscles clenching as her eyes met his while she continued to suck on him. Her gaze was hot on him, looking up attentively. He brought his other hand to stroke her cheek. She moaned around him, and the vibration made the heat pooling in him ignite.

And then, he realized, her other hand was busy between her own thighs. He should have heard it sooner, should be doing something about it 'hadn't he said he'd take care of her?

She did something with her tongue and her cheeks and the most delicate touch of her teeth.

His fingers tightened in her hair in a warning he couldn't voice. So long spent with concoctions that would deaden any kind of sexual desire and now his body was overloaded with it.

He might have his hand in her hair, but she was the one in charge right now. He exhaled sharply, fingers digging into her scalp. She didn't care, only took him deeper, humming with pleasure as her cheeks hollowed around him. She was breathing hard, her breasts heaving with every inhalation.

So beautiful. Guileless and greedy and

his.

Jinshi whispered her name again, his hips moving quicker, eyelids half-closed. Desperation had him in its clutches; whatever he'd ingested of the aphrodisiac was in full effect now. She licked and sucked at him and he chased her mouth as she moved. He needed her hands, her mouth, all of her on him. His erection, impossibly hard, jumped in her mouth as she flicked at it with her tongue. She traced the length with an almost malicious delicacy. His muscles tensed as he tried to keep his balance, the tension coiling tighter and tighter.

If it always felt this good 'there was no wonder the emperor was so enthusiastic in his adoration of his consorts. Jinshi couldn't think of a world without this, now that he'd known it.

His body arched, the heat and need in him almost overwhelming. He had to be close. "Maomao," he rasped, hoping to warn her, give her a chance to draw away '

She dug catlike nails into his ass with one hand, five bright pinpricks of warning. Her mouth tightened around him, her other hand working harder, stroking the base of his erection and below to cup his testicles in her hand and roll them with effortless ease. He tightened in her grasp, veins afire with lust and need. Every breath was her name, whispered and hoarse, a promise and a prayer.

The tip of her tongue flicked just

so

and he was undone.

Fireworks burst against the back of his eyelids as he spent himself in her mouth. Maomao's throat worked, her enthusiasm never waning. He shuddered, breathing hard, heart galloping in his chest. Slowly, nerves singing with stimulation, he withdrew from her mouth and dropped to his knees.

Her cheeks were still flushed and pink, her lips a rich, dark pink. He kissed her again and pushed her down to the blanket, reaching up with one long arm to push the cushion beneath her head. Moonlight slanted in through a high window and a carved screen, throwing a patchwork of shadow and light across the expanse of her body. A celestial nymph fallen into his grasp, and tonight he would adore her as she deserved.

His mind felt slightly clearer after his climax, the fire of his need banked for a moment. She wriggled on the blanket, moonlight revealing a slick shine between her thighs.

So wet, so ready. Bury himself in her, claim her, forget the years of lies.

His penis stirred again between his thighs, more than ready to help.

"Lay back," Jinshi instructed her as he knelt over her on the blanket. "Don't move."

"Need you," she said, the words slow and thready. Her eyes were glazed with lust, and it was clearly lust that guided her tongue. "Or don't you know how?" she said, a moment of a wicked gleam in her eyes that reminded him of the real Maomao, the one he knew who looked at him as though he were an insect, a dissected mouse. "

Please

, Jinshi."

Swiftly as though it was a training match, he bent and grasped her wrists with one hand. He pinned her hands above her head and brought his mouth to her ear. "So demanding." His tongue darted out, licked more of the golden pollen from her cheek. Her body arched against him, hips rolling as he licked a path from her collarbones between her breasts.

Maomao let out an unearthly sound, somewhere between a moan and a wail.

He lifted his head from between her breasts and met her eyes. "Quiet, or I'll stop. Don't want to start new rumors about ghosts in this quarter, do you?"

Irritably she flexed her hips, rolling against him again. "I

need '

"

"I know what you need. But if guards show up, do you really think you'll get it?"

She shut up.

Her body trembled under his hand like a willow in the breeze. Desire, yes 'but nervousness, he suspected, as well. With no more hesitation, Jinshi licked a spiral around one of her breasts, made an intricate knotwork path with his tongue that culminated in the tight hard bud of her nipple. She grumbled, struggling against his grasp, her hands still trapped in his hold. He grinned against her skin and drew her breast into his mouth.

One hand wriggled free from his grasp and dug itself into his hair. So he was on the right track, was he?

He let her other hand go free as he caressed her other breast, turning his attentions to it until her chest rose and fell raggedly and a quick glance showed she was muffling her own cries with the back of her hand.

A climax had let him think more clearly; maybe it would do the same for her.

Jinshi slid down her body with more speed than he'd like, already thinking about what it would be like to settle himself between her thighs. He wanted again, the musky smell of their shared arousal warring with the floral notes of pollen and her habitual medicinal herbs.

Down he sank further still until his head rested against the inside of her thigh. Her muscles quivered, taut as bowstrings, as he leaned in to nose along her folds.

His tongue darted out for yet one more lick; Maomao's thighs clamped around his head like a vise.

"Hrk!" The sound, muffled against the sensitive skin, did little to relax Maomao's death grip around his head. He felt himself growing hard again, the need unfurling in him once again like a flower seeking the sun. With effort, he slid his fingers around her thighs and pulled them apart ever so slightly to give himself room to work. A second brush of his tongue sent her hips up, nearly crushing herself against his face.

Maybe he'd found a way she enjoyed being touched after all.