Page 18

S hao Qing couldn’t think. Tears flowed down his cheeks like hot, uncontrollable rivers. His shoulders racked with sobs, weighed by grief he couldn’t recall. His chest constricted, too tight and too full. His eyes burned. He was trembling. He felt sick.

The world was so intense.

Small hands touched his shoulders. Someone offered him a blinding white handkerchief.

When he blinked back the dark spots in his vision, Zhi Lan appeared before him. Her delicately arched brows were furrowed. Memories from the past three days crashed over him like a tidal wave. He relived each conversation anew. Every look. Every touch. Shao Qing stopped breathing, gazing at her with feverish intensity. She was so...so...

“How do you feel?” Her voice was nothing short of musical.

Zhi Lan pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. Her skin was as soft as silk. Shao Qing didn’t remember what silk felt like. But surely it couldn’t compare to the girl before him.

“Skies, you’re burning up!”

“For you.” His tongue felt like cotton in his mouth.

“This is no time for jokes!” Zhi Lan exclaimed. “Let’s get you out of here before someone finds us.” She began to stand, but Shao Qing cupped the back of her neck, forcing her to sit.

“Stop. You’re like a bird. Always about to flit away.”

Zhi Lan stared at him as if he had grown a second head. “My goodness,” she whispered. “You really are ill.”

She said something else, but Shao Qing had stopped listening. He leaned in until her perfectly shaped lips were an inch away.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

Vaguely, he recalled that he’d been kissed only once by the courtesan who had attended him. It had been an insistent pressing of lips and tongues, and he hadn’t liked it. He had a feeling it was because he hadn’t been kissing the right person.

Zhi Lan widened her eyes. He waited for her to protest. Even as the thought of kissing her consumed him, he cared very much whether she was willing or not.

She nodded ever so slightly.

It started first as a soft brush of lips, and Shao Qing was lost. Sensual heat pooled to his core, nearly setting him aflame. He drew her to his chest. Zhi Lan gasped, her lips parting as his hands curved over her waist. He kissed her slowly and deeply. His kissed her until he grew drunk off her lips. He kissed her neck. The back of her ear.

Cool hands cupped his cheeks and kept him from leaning in for more.

Zhi Lan was saying something again.

Black spots appeared in his vision.

Then, nothing.