Burning Tigress (20 page)

"But most men don't wear corsets," she murmured.

He nodded. "But you understand my confusion. It took me some time to understand why you English created such a thing for women."

She frowned and slowly withdrew her hands from his hips. With a quick snap, she undid the last clasp, then tossed the contraption away. "Because we want to fit into our dresses?"

He shrugged. "Naturally. But why are your dresses designed in such a manner?"

She took a deep breath. Her breasts lifted and bobbed with the movement. "Because men like tiny waists and big breasts, of course."

"But the pressure of the corset rests on the back and belly."

"And the ribs." She tilted her head. "I don't understand what you're saying."

"The pressure points, Miss Charlotte. When stimulated, those points increase sexual potency—in a man
or
a woman."

She shook her head. "I have never thought a corset increased anything, Ken Jin. It cuts off the breath and squeezes the belly. It is not a pleasant device, and I long for the moment each day when I can discard the horrid thing."

"Of course. Because too much pressure for too long stimulates too much. In the end, it cuts off all energy."

"Are you are saying my corset is designed to cut off desire?"

"And then to allow it to flood back through you the moment the device is released."

She stared at him as his meaning sank in. "So, women are to be suppressed during the day, and then incredibly active at night?" She looked at the discarded corset, her brow tightened in thought. "How very clever of you men."

He grinned. She had surprising intellect, especially for a virginal woman. "Unfortunately," he said, "use of this device is not restricted to married women. Indeed, I would think it would induce madness in the young ones or the widows."

"Those who have no one to..." She looked back up at him, and he had to force himself to meet her gaze. Her breasts and wide hips were much too enticing a view. "No one to help them."

He could not stop himself; he reached out and cupped her breasts. They were full in his hands, a weight that made his dragon rear with hunger. "I have found that, once released from their corset, all white women—virginal or otherwise—have need of extensive yin release." He shook his head. "Truly, I do not think your English corset is a healthy device."

He was manipulating her nipples. Without thought, he was twisting and pulling at those rosy peaks, and she arched into his hands, a low purr of appreciation rolling through her body. He needed to stop. This was not what he had intended when he brought her here. And yet, her skin was so soft, the yin flowed so freely. One tweak of his thumb and the power poured into him like hot lava—potent, powerful, and oh-so-needed by his often-cold dragon.

"How do you... know about this?" Her eyes were closed, and the words came in an uneven rhythm as if she too struggled to maintain focus on anything other than his touch.

"I learned in the way of all children—at my parents' knee. I listened, I learned."

Her eyes popped open. "Surely they did not teach you this." She looked down at his hands on her breasts.

He stopped, abruptly recalled to himself, and he let his hands fall away. "No, Miss Charlotte," he said. "I did not learn this from them." Or at least, his mother had not meant to teach him these things. "My parents—my father most especially—are acupuncturists. He has a life-sized doll in our home that shows the lines and points, the secret gates and the open channels. I studied that when I was bored. And I would watch from behind a screen when he treated someone."

Charlotte straightened, her hands retracting to her chest as if she, too, suddenly realized what she had allowed. "You watched him stick needles into people?"

He smiled in memory. "I knew all the hiding places in my home. A boy can learn much if he knows how to be small and quiet."

She looked at him, her expression lightening. "I had not thought of you as a boy," she said. "But of course you must have been one." She stared at his face, and her head tilted to one side. "So you learned this religion from them. This energy—"

He shook his head and stepped away from her, away from her drugging yin. "I learned some understanding of acupuncture from them. The rest came from another source."

She pursued him, at first with a single step, and then with her eyes as he pivoted in the tiny space. "How did you learn this, Ken Jin—about yin and yang energy?"

"I learned from the Tigress Shi Po." His words were sharp, and he was startled by his own unbalance. Was her unpurified yin so potent that its loss so easily unsettled him?

"The woman who is in jail?"

He nodded.

"I'm sorry."

He did not want her sympathy, and so he glared at her. Yet her softly spoken words still found him, still created a warm center in his chest where a woman's yin would be found. He sighed.

"Your unpurified yin is highly distracting," he said. "Please, arrange yourself for cleansing."

She stilled. All her body froze, except her hands, which once again fluttered idly near her belly. "I do not know what that means, Ken Jin," she admitted. "Do you mean for shaving?"

Her voice broke, reminding him that this could not be easy for her. How simple it was for him to forget that she was no practiced courtesan as he usually frequented. Nor was she even a Tigress cub, partially trained from classes and lectures. She was a virgin barbarian with uncommonly strong yin.

Forcibly reining in his lust, he focused his thoughts on his task. "My apologies, Miss Charlotte. We are here to strengthen your yin." The very thought left him reeling. Wasn't she powerful enough? "My task is to teach you."

"So, there will be no more... shaving?"

He smiled. He couldn't help it. Of course she wanted a repeat of last night's performance; her yin had been dammed up so tight that its release had nearly knocked him unconscious. How he longed to return to that moment as well.

"Not tonight," he forced himself to say. Though one look told him that he had done a despicably poor job of shaving her. Which meant, of course, he would have to try again soon. "Tonight we shall purify your yin. You are not to release it; we are cleansing."

She squared her shoulders, and her breasts bobbed as if in agreement. "What should I do?"

"Sit on those pillows, with your right leg bent toward your red lotus. Your heel should press deeply into your cinnabar cave."

She frowned. "My what?"

"The centermost point between your legs. Where a child would emerge were you to give birth."

She nodded, heading for the blankets. He turned to give her a little more privacy. Little Pearl had once commented that it was difficult to begin this task with someone staring at her, so he busied himself with lighting the incense he kept stored here for his own exercises. He lingered over the task, even closed his eyes to absorb the strengthening scent of cinnamon, ginger, and ginseng. He let the aroma filter into his consciousness and open his sluggish yang centers. They responded, of course. Yang always responds to strong yin. He had cause to be grateful for that fact.

When he turned around, she had seated herself as he indicated. Her right leg was bent and pressed deeply into her pleasure grotto, which he could see was slick with yin dew. She was looking at him with an air of expectation—a student awaiting further instruction—but he found he could not speak. Indeed, he was completely robbed of all strength.

He had been prepared to instruct her, to talk her through her exercises as one would teach a child to use an abacus or braid a queue. Instead, he had turned to find a deity. There was no other word for it.

She had discarded her shoes, but her stockings remained on, attached to her thighs by dainty rose bows. Except, both had come undone. The ribbons dangled across her legs like a goddess's trailing ribbons of glory. Her skin was white, her breasts full and shapely. And the color of her moist lips matched the dusky rose of her nipples, her ribbons, her barely hidden cinnabar cave.

Ken Jin licked his lips, tasting her yin scent on the air despite the incense. His hands itched to touch, to take, to worship, and his dragon flushed with unaccustomed power. Never before had he ever encountered such a potent woman. He longed to drink from her fountain again. How would he ever look at her again without thinking of this moment? Without seeing the yin well inside her?

Her hands began to flutter about her belly again. She was becoming nervous as he continued to stare, for she did not know what was happening. But he understood: The more he watched, the more his yang called to her yin—and the reverse—and the hotter the fire between them blazed.

"Yang is like wood," he said, his voice thick. "It fuels the fire that makes the yin boil." He reached out, unable to stop himself from stroking the top of her breast. A single caress, but his dragon surged in response, nearly taking him to his knees.

She looked up at him, her shoulders shifting with her soft, shallow breaths. "This feels terribly strange."

He knelt, unable to stop himself. "You must remove your stockings."

Her cheeks turned an even darker rose. "But then..." She stopped and looked away. "Yes, of course. I am being silly."

He touched her chin to bring her gaze back to him. "Qi requires absolute honesty. If we are to purify your yin, do not pollute it by hiding your thoughts." She didn't answer, and he could tell he would have to press further. "Why didn't you take off your stockings?"

She tried to turn away, but he did not allow it. "I told you I was being silly. I will take them off—"

"Answer my question, Charlotte."

She paused, her lips pressing tightly together. But in the end, her entire body sagged on a sigh. "I didn't want to be completely naked. I don't know why. You have... we have done..." Again the heavy sigh. "I don't understand myself."

"Clothing is a covering. Even when it hides only the feet, our spirit can cower behind it."

"I am not cowering."

"I know." He released her chin and was gratified to see that she did not look away. She met his gaze with an angry flash.

"I will take off my stockings."

"And as you do, you will shed the petty thoughts and dishonest acts that pollute your spirit."

She bent her knee to bring her leg closer to her hands, flashing him a look of irritation. "I am not dishonest or impure." Her voice broke on the last word, and he knew she was worried on that account.

"All people have done wrong at one time or another." He moved backward to allow her more room. "And all people think that—"

"You're a servant!" Then she gasped, frozen with shock. "Oh, Ken Jin! Oh Lord, I didn't mean..."

But of course she had meant it, and that stung. Though why he let it hurt, he had no idea.

"Ken Jin—" she began, but she obviously had no idea what she meant to say.

He stopped her with a single press of his fingers on her lips. "I
am
a servant," he said, the words coarse in his throat. "And you are embarrassed to be completely naked before me.
Why?"
It made little sense, especially considering what she had allowed him to do earlier.

She didn't answer, but she didn't look away either. She simply stared at him as she rolled down one stocking. And he suddenly understood.

"It is not that I'm a servant," he said softly, "but that I'm Chinese. All the maids who help you dress and bathe are English." Her right stocking was off. She shifted her weight and bent her other leg, but Ken Jin stopped her. He put his hand on her knee and waited until she looked at him. "What we do is not English,
xiao jie."
He used the Chinese word for little girl, and she flinched at the term. He wanted her to understand that in this she was just beginning as a young Chinese girl would.

"I am not a child," she said, her tone flat.

"You are not a woman yet either."

Her gaze rose to meet his, but it was not easy for her. Charlotte's movements were jerky, her voice even more so. "And this...
this
will make me a woman?"

Was she sneering? Probably. Which meant that she didn't understand. "Not in the fashion you mean. Not in the way of little boys giggling as they peer through peepholes. Not in the way of a whore who spreads her legs and calls herself a divine creature." They were both excruciatingly aware of her position on the floor, one leg bent, the other extended, her pleasure grotto disconcertingly exposed.

"Then how?"

"We make your qi pure and strong. A woman's qi is one of the most powerful forces on this earth."

She took a deep breath, clearly trying to understand. "In England, a girl becomes a woman when her virginity is taken."

"In China, a girl becomes a woman when her inner strength is powerful enough to manage a home and raise her children."

"I am already managing a household."

True enough. "But you cannot defend William yet. Not from your mother's energies."

Tired of the delay, Ken Jin began to roll her other stocking down her leg. She made no demur, though he felt her leg twitch beneath his fingertips. He meant to move quickly. The less time spent bathed in her yin heat, the better for his clarity of purpose. But once again, her energies defeated him. He lingered as he worked, making the simple removal of her stocking into a seduction, a sensuous slide of fabric intermixed with the deeper stroke of his fingers.