Because You Love to Hate Me(51)

She should have snatched her arm away, screamed for help, but she felt curiously docile; all her attention—her entire being—was focused on where Hai Xin’s skin touched hers. “Oh . . .” She swallowed, staring at his hand caressing her arm. It was a beautiful hand, strangely perfect, well manicured and strong. The hand of a noble? Or a well-known scholar?

Hai Xin gave a small tug, and she shifted, facing him on the bench. He cupped her face briefly. Then his fingers were stroking the nape of her neck. Mei Feng’s head tilted back; her eyes closed. Her mind had been bled blank, as if someone had carried all her thoughts away. Nothing existed in this world except for Hai Xin’s touch. His lips brushed against her earlobe, his breath warm and sweet, and she trembled with pleasure.

Suddenly, the atmosphere changed, and he pulled away, breaking their embrace. She felt robbed of his touch, aching, as the sounds of the world came crashing through.

“Mei Feng,” her mother called. “Where are you?” Lady Jia’s wooden heels clacked against the cobbled path.

“Interrupted,” Hai Xin said. “Regrettably.” He lifted her hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles; everything felt right again—his supple mouth against her flesh. “Next time, then,” he said, and rose. Hai Xin glided down the pavilion steps just as her mother rounded the corner.

Mei Feng’s mouth had gone dry, her heart battering an unsteady beat against her chest. Her breaths came fast: erratic and shallow. Her mother would scream now, call for the sentries who guarded their home. Instead, she said nothing as Hai Xin strolled past Lady Jia down the same garden path. Mei Feng swore she saw his blue robe sleeve brush against her mother’s bare arm, but Lady Jia acted as if she did not see him—acted as if Hai Xin did not exist at all.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Mei Feng didn’t know if she was frightened or relieved.

“Daughter,” her mother exclaimed. “Why are you hiding here? It’s time for the midday meal.”





Only three days passed before Hai Xin appeared again, this time in Mei Feng’s bedchamber.

She had lived those days in between in a daze, wondering if she had hallucinated the episode, wondering if she was somehow going mad. Her thoughts had dulled, heavy and sluggish, but her flesh had come alive, sensitive, tender. Mei Feng went about the rituals of each day, having her hair brushed and arranged by Ripple, drawing on her cool underclothing and silk skirt as if she were in a trance. Her body tingled, pinpricks of anticipation dancing across her skin, longing to be touched again.

Fear and caution lurked in some dark corner of her mind, caged and muted. She knew Hai Xin—this strange, seductive man—was dangerous. But it was a distant concern, a problem she knew she could not solve. Better not to dwell upon it.

She was lying in bed, her hair spread like a fan over her brocaded cushion, when Mei Feng felt his presence. Hai Xin’s silhouette appeared behind the finespun gauze of her bed curtains. He exuded power . . . and desire. His hunger for her was tangible. It gripped her heart like a vise, tightening her throat. She tried to lurch away from him but lay like stone upon the platform bed, unable to move. Hai Xin had used his sorcery, immobilizing her. There was no escape, nowhere to hide.

He slipped beneath the silk sheet like a whisper, hot hands twined in her loose hair within a breath. Only a husband was allowed to see a woman’s hair unbound; only a husband had the privilege to touch it. He pressed himself against her, whispering into her ear, promising wedded bliss and beautiful children, promising paradise. His lips and fingertips roamed across her throat, over her abdomen, brushed against her breasts. She gasped with pleasure, even as the fear in the deep recesses of her mind expanded, screamed in warning.

“You taste as sweet as you look, beautiful girl,” Hai Xin murmured against her hair.

“One of your greatest assets is your beauty, daughter,” her mother had told her, over and over again.

“Our brood will be stunning,” he said, then kissed her so deep and long she couldn’t breathe.

Mei Feng felt his excitement. She remembered all those line drawings she had pored over endlessly in The Book of Making, tutored by her mother. She willed her arms to move, to shove him off, but her body betrayed her.

A door panel slid aside, and Orchid’s voice broke the oppressive silence that had wrapped the bedchamber. There had been no other sounds except for Hai Xin’s beguiling words between his kisses and the roar of her heartbeat within her ears.

“Mistress?” Orchid called out in her lilting voice. “I’ve come to douse your lanterns.”

Light, slippered feet crossed the reception hall toward the bedchamber.

In an instant, Hai Xin vanished, as if he had never been there at all.

The only indications of his presence were the lingering heat of his touch against her feverish skin and the tang of salt in the air—a whiff of the sea.

“Your virginity is the one virtue more valuable than your beauty,” her mother had also repeated time and again. “The emperor expects his brides to be presented to him untouched, pure. Don’t ruin it by dabbling with some stupid boy.”

Thank the goddess for Orchid’s arrival, Mei Feng thought as she feigned sleep. It had not gone that far.

She clutched the crumpled sheet over her chest with shaking arms, finally able to move her limbs again, and did not let the tears slide down her face until the handmaid had retreated from the bedchamber, leaving her in darkness.