Captive Bride (17 page)

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blistered toes and raw heel and he clicked his tongue at the damage.

He ordered her to sit down while he went to the sink to dampen a cloth and got a jar of ointment from the shelf. Again he knelt at her feet, took off both shoes and held the wet cloth against each one before smoothing cool ointment over her abraded skin.

Shimmers of delight turned to a deeper thrill as her body responded to his gentle touch. A little pain seemed a small price to pay and she thought she’d gladly walk her feet into bloody stumps for this kind of attention.

When he was finished, Alan wrapped her feet in strips of cloth, put his hands on her knees and looked up at her. “Sit. I’ll cook.”

“No,” she protested, but he rose and pressed his hand on her shoulder, not allowing her to rise.

“Sit.” His deep, commanding voice sent another delighted shiver through her.

Huiann hadn’t realized how tired she was, but a wave of exhaustion flooded over her. Folding her arms on top of the table, she rested her head and listened to Alan move around the kitchen. When he stroked his hand over her head, smoothing back her hair, she started from a light doze.

He placed a plate before her and sat across from her to eat the simple meal of leftovers from the pantry.

Huiann hardly felt like eating. Her stomach was jumpy from the incident with the stranger and from nervousness about the upcoming night, but after one bite she found she was starving and soon her plate was empty.

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Before she could rise to clear the table, Alan whisked the dishes away. Huiann was both flattered and uneasy at the way he treated her as an honored guest rather than a servant. She sipped the cup of tea he’d given her and watched him move around the kitchen, efficiently performing her tasks.

After he was finished, he came and stood before her. He leaned over and scooped her up out of the chair. She squeaked in surprise. One of his arms supported her back, the other slid under her legs, and he cradled her against his chest. She looped an arm around his neck and held on while he carried her upstairs. He set her down in front of her room.

His expression was tense and his fingers tapped against his thighs. “You’re tired. You probably want to sleep.”

“No.” She shook her head and whispered huskily,

“Tonight.”

He swallowed. “All right. I’ll wait for you.” He jerked a thumb toward his room. “Come when you’re ready.”

Backing away from her, he tripped on a warped floorboard. His clumsiness lessened her own fears and made her smile. Alan smiled back, his eyes glowing.

The promise of something to come simmered in the air between them.

Water spilled from a kettle can never be put back,
Grandma Mei’s voice helpfully reminded her.

Huiann ignored that bit of wisdom as she went into her room, stripped naked and washed in the basin of water. She’d washed her hair early that morning after Alan left for the store. Now she brushed it with the silver-backed brush he’d bought her. She put on a Bonnie Dee

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simple white cotton shift she’d sewn, collarless and sleeveless and ending at mid-calf. Beneath the garment, she was naked. The material brushed against her skin, which was already tingling, and the tickle of the fabric against her breasts and bottom made her sex tighten with desire.

Uncapping the bottle from the doctor, she took a swig of the bitter brown liquid. She scrubbed her teeth with toothpowder and rinsed, then stood, staring at her bandaged feet. All her preparations were finished.

Nothing but nerves was keeping her from walking down the hall and entering his room.

Her heart raced at the prospect and she drew a deep breath. She was about to have sex with a man who was not her husband—a shameful act which dishonored her family, including her long-dead ancestors. She tried to feel the appropriate guilt, but she couldn’t summon any about giving herself to Alan Sommers, who’d been nothing but kind and generous and respectful to her from the day she’d stumbled into his life.

No holding back now. This was what she wanted and she would not be afraid. Huiann extinguished her light and padded down the corridor to Alan’s room.

The door was open and flickering candlelight rather than a kerosene lamp lit the room. She paused in the doorway.

Her protector and savior was shirtless and barefoot, dressed only in a pair of drawers. He stood beside the bed with his back to her, turning down the covers. She studied the rippling muscles of his shoulders and arms as he performed the mundane task. His back was a beautiful, pale canvas on which she could imagine painting letters and designs. She admired the bands of 156

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muscle and the shadows beneath his shoulder blades.

His drawers sagged low, revealing narrow hips and the intriguing curve of his rear. Her sex tightened at the glimpse of his buttocks.

His face was in profile and his nose no longer seemed too big or his features too coarse as she’d once thought, so long ago it seemed. Instead, they appeared assertively masculine except for the thick sweep of eyelashes and the generous fullness of his lips.

Alan noticed her and turned. The blanket fell from his fingers as he gazed at her with the eyes of a hungry dragon. His lips parted and the exhalation of his breath floated to her across the quiet room. Then he walked toward her.

For several moments they gazed at one another.

Huiann’s blood raged, a river in flood, but she held still like a crane perched at the water’s edge. Holding her breath, she waited for Alan’s touch.

He lifted his hands and stroked her hair then bent and kissed her lips, raindrop-light kisses that stirred the growing storm within her. His fingertip traced the neckline of her shift, trailing over her chest and leaving ripples of heat in its wake. He cupped her bare shoulders then slid his hands all the way down her arms to lace his fingers with hers. Huiann opened her mouth to his exploring kisses, flicking her tongue lightly against his, tasting the same tooth powder she had used.

He groaned quietly, reminding her of a distant thunderstorm rolling in off the Yangtze, and kissed her harder. The heat between her legs burned as she leaned into him. She slid her hands up to his shoulders and held on. His hands went around her hips and cupped Bonnie Dee

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her bottom, bunching the fabric of her shift, pulling the hem higher and higher. Air brushed the backs of her legs and then her naked rear. When he stroked her bare flesh at last, her buttocks tightened. Her sex felt slippery wet and throbbed in steady pulses.

Alan broke off their kiss and tugged her shift higher.

She raised her arms so he could pull it off. His gaze locked with hers and Huiann felt a connection between them—as if an invisible chain rather than a mere gaze bound them together. Yin and yang, the negative and positive principles, locked together in eternal union.

Alan dropped his gaze to her body. As he beheld her nakedness, Huiann held still, her stomach quaking and her nerves singing like crickets. Her flesh burned not with mortification but with lust. The hungry look in Alan’s eyes reminded her of the men Xie Fuhua had brought to examine her. But while their assessing stares had revolted her, Alan’s turned her insides to golden honey. She had hoped those men thought she was the ugliest woman they’d ever seen. She wanted Alan to find her beautiful and desirable. When she saw in his eyes that he did, her heart floated.

He leaned to kiss her shoulder, a tickling touch that made her squirm and smile. Then his lips traveled across her chest to each breast, suckling one then the other, while his hands moved restlessly over her back and buttocks. She thrust her chest toward his mouth and whimpered at the delightful tugging sensation of his mouth on her nipples.

He moved lower, over her rib cage and down her belly. Kneeling in front of her, he pressed his face to her stomach, his hands holding her hips. Huiann stroked his caramel-colored hair. The sight of this big, 158

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strong man on his knees before her gave her an excited thrill. She wanted to hold and love him and take him deep within her body.

Alan pulled his head from its resting place on the pillow of her stomach and he pressed a kiss right below her navel. Her muscles twitched at the feathery touch. He kissed her again lower…and lower still. She gasped when he kissed her right above the dark tangle of curls. Would he kiss her sex? Madam Teng had told her to expect some men to enjoy that intimacy.

Her labia felt swollen and feverish. Her stomach jerked with every soft lick he bestowed. He made a path around the triangle of her pubis and nibbled on her thighs on either side. Wetness trickled from her vagina as if it were a river that had overflowed its banks.

Alan looked up at her with an intense soul-stealing gaze then nudged her legs apart and lowered his face to her golden lotus. She watched, enthralled by his profile, his closed eyes and his fingers spreading her wide. When his mouth settled on her bud, her eyes closed and she moaned. Wet flicks of his tongue sent lightning crackling through her. She wiggled but his hard hands held her steady while his tongue lapped relentlessly over her.

She clenched fistfuls of his hair as lightning flashed within her, bolt after shining bolt. The charged air of a storm grew closer. Her hips rocked and her breathing grew ragged. Her whimpers turned into needy whines.

“Please, please, please,” she begged breathlessly as her need intensified. Suddenly relief exploded through her. Rain burst at last from a towering thunderhead.

She cried out and shook, her knees buckling. Alan Bonnie Dee

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caught her in his arms and guided her down to her knees.

She leaned against him, overwhelmed with surprise and pleasure and little sparkles of light that were slowly fading. She didn’t know she could feel such things, and now she understood the look of ecstasy on Alan’s face the other night. Had she given him this much delight? Madam Teng had been right, the business of satisfying a man wasn’t difficult, but she’d neglected to tell Huiann that she might be just as easily satisfied.

Alan held her close, rocking her. She felt his softly furred chest beneath her cheek and smelled his rich male scent. His arms wrapped around her made her feel safe and protected. That man chasing her earlier seemed far away. Nothing could touch her here.

But something was touching her, pressing hard against her damp cleft and her belly. Beneath his underwear, Alan’s erection strained to reach her. And Huiann realized she wasn’t perfectly satisfied after all.

Even as the last flickers of lightning died away, her opening felt empty, yearning for something to fill it.

Alan rose and lifted her in his arms. He carried her to the bed and laid her down. Her gaze swept from his face to his torso and the trail of hair that led to the waistband of his drawers. Although she’d held his cock in her hand the other night, she hadn’t seen it clearly. Now she was eager to see what she’d only touched before.

Catching the focus of her attention, he reached for the drawstring at his waist, loosened the tie and pulled the drawers down the sharp bones of his hips. More tan hair covered his groin and his penis bobbed free.

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The head was a dark reddish-purple, a round knob rising from a cowl of foreskin. As he pulled his pants farther down, the long, smooth shaft was revealed. She was struck by its length and girth and imagined what it would feel like inside her. Her lotus tensed in anticipation.

When he’d pulled his undergarment off, Alan reached for something on his nightstand. Huiann watched as he stretched a thin sheath over his erection, pulling it snug and fastening the casing at the base of his shaft with a tie. This must be the preventative device Madam Teng had told her about, the condom which she’d said men couldn’t be expected to use because it dulled the sensation.

Huiann’s heart lifted as she realized Alan had planned ahead and cared for her enough to be prepared in this way. He was a kind man and her feelings for him grew deeper with his every generous act. She wanted to give all of herself to him and accept all of him into her.

He climbed onto the bed and lay half covering her, giving her time to adjust to his weight. He stroked her hair back from her face, fanning it across the pillow.

“Your hair is beautiful,” he murmured in his rumbling voice. Now that she was used to English words, the language no longer sounded flat and dull. “I love your eyes, your nose, your cheeks, your lips, your chin.” He touched each feature as he named them. “I love all of you.”

He covered her lips with his, kissing her lightly then angling his mouth to possess her more deeply.

Without ending the kiss, he moved on top of her and settled his body between her spread legs.

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Her heart hammered with desire and excitement and a little fear, but the fear was part of the excitement.

She slipped her arms around Alan’s back.

He reached down to guide himself to her opening and she felt the pressure of his entry, a mild stretching, not too painful. He continued to push and she caught her breath as the stretching became a burning sensation.

He paused. “All right?”

She looked into his worried eyes and nodded. And she was all right, with him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and pushed again, slowly but deeply filling her.

Huiann clutched his back. The pressure burned for a moment then began to ebb. He remained buried in her while her body adjusted. He pulled out just as slowly, receding like a river after a flood. Her inner muscles released him reluctantly and Alan gave a soft groan as if it hurt him to part from her.

His brow furrowed in concentration and his eyes were nearly closed. He thrust again. Huiann relaxed and this time her body accepted his presence more easily. He supported himself on his arms, protecting her from the full weight of his body, but still he filled her arms and covered her. She took pleasure in his heavy maleness. As he entered her a third time, she was fully open and ready for him.

Alan moved a little faster, a little less carefully as passion overtook him. In and out he glided on a slick of her juices, filling her over and over. The heat and friction inside her built. Huiann raised her knees on either side of his hips, making a cradle for his body.