Her lips tasted of strawberries and sweat, warm as spring and soft as Kitsune silk. Wet beneath his fingertips, thighs smooth as glass, a river of glossy black spilling around her face and clinging to dripping breasts. She swayed above him; a long, slow dance in the lamplight, spilling across her contours, down into soft curves and sodden furrows. Soaking all around him, slick and scalding to the touch. She took his hands, pressed them against her, biting her lip and sawing back and forth atop him. Her sighs were the only sound in his world, her heat soaking through to his center. Her hips moved like a summer haze over lotus fields, climbing the mountain as she moaned his name over and over again.
“Ichizo.” Her lips on his own, breathing into his mouth. “Ichizo…”
He cried out as she finished him, arcs of lightning behind his eyes, every muscle afire. She collapsed atop him and lay there for a blissful forever, sweat mingling with his own, flesh slippery against his. He gasped for breath, the sheets beneath them a soaked and tangled mess.
“You…” Ichizo swallowed, “… will be the death of me, Michi-chan.”
A shy grin curled her lips as she rolled off him. Dragging a sheet around herself, Michi sat up on the futon’s edge, picked up the perspiring bottle of rice wine. He watched her profile in the dim light, throat shifting as she drank, a single droplet running down her chin, pooling in the groove at her clavicle. She tossed long hair back from her face, glanced at him with dark, smoky eyes and offered the bottle. He shook his head, collapsed back onto the pillows.
“Truthfully, are you looking to end me and escape?” His heart thundered behind his ribs. “I’m helpless after that, you should get it over with…”
She laughed, small voice husky with liquor.
“I fear I won’t have to lift a finger if you’re late for the council meeting, my Lord.” She slipped back into bed, rested her cheek against his chest. “Your cousin will have you commit seppuku to prove a point.”
“Gods.” Ichizo sat bolt upright. “What time is it?”
“It must be close to Snake Hour by now.”
“Izanagi’s balls!” Rolling from the ruins of the bed, he charged toward the washroom. He cracked a gong, and two serving girls scurried in from the hallway, heads bowed, eyes downturned. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did say something.” That same shy, delicate smile. “Ichizo. Ohhhh, Ichizo…”
“Demon woman.” His laughter carried over splashing water. “Two nights in your bed and you’ve bewitched me. I should send for a Purifier, have him cleanse me of your taint.”
“What would be the point, my Lord?” She pulled up the sheets to cover herself, curled beneath them. “When the next night you poison yourself anew?”
Ichizo emerged from the washroom shortly, scrubbed and smelling of lavender. The servants had slicked his hair into a topknot, arranged a long scarlet kimono upon his shoulders. He sat in front of the looking glass as one of the girls slipped a tall, tasseled hat onto his head, pierced it with long, golden needles. His robe spoke of lavish wealth, the irezumi on his skin was the work of a master inksmith. He stood as the second girl wrapped a silken obi around his waist, and he slipped two ornate chainswords into the folds at his left hip. The daisho had the unmistakable gleam of weapons that had never seen battle, yet he wore them like a man who knew the art of the blade.
At a nod from Ichizo, the servants vanished without a sound.
“Well?” He turned to the girl curled on the bed. “How do I look?”
Michi pulled the sheet down from her shoulders to expose a few teasing inches of skin, staring up at him through kohl-smeared lashes.
“Still hungry…”
“Gods, you
“Court me?” A short laugh. “I believe it’s customary to do that
He leaned close and kissed her, tasted salt on her lips, wine on her tongue.
It had seemed foolish at first, to be spending so much time in Michi’s room. But the memory of her kiss on the day they met lingered on his skin, and with all the turmoil at court recently, he supposed a few moments in her company would not be noticed. And so he’d visited each day, watched as she whisked and steeped his tea, eyes drifting up slowly to meet his, gift him with that small, shy smile. Questions about Lady Aisha and the Kitsune girl’s assault had given way to queries about her family, her childhood. And two evenings ago, as he bowed to take his leave, he’d straightened to find her standing only a breath away. Lips parted. Cheeks flushed. Shivering. She had breathed his name, just once, like a prayer.
And he had not been able to help himself.
He smoothed the damp hair from her cheek, caressing her skin softly as he may.
“Would it make you happy to be on my arm in public, Michi-chan?”
“Of course.” She sat up straighter, bedclothes clutched about her. “But I’m not certain that should bring any comfort, considering I’d walk on the arm of the Endsinger herself to escape these rooms.”
Ichizo leaned back, searched her eyes. “Would you rather still be in prison?”
She lowered her gaze. “A cage with silken sheets is still a cage, my Lord.”
“I am trying. It will take time.” He touched the old scar fading on her cheek. “I know how you suffer.”
“But do you?” The small dark line Ichizo had begun to hate appeared between her brows. “No charge has been brought against me, and still my honor is in question. The Kitsune traitor who slew Yoritomo tried to kill me too. I have the scars to prove it.”
“I know.” He ran a finger across the top of her breast. “I’ve seen.”
“You declare affection in the same breath you make jest of my disgrace?”
“These things take time, Michi-chan.” He straightened with a sigh. “Lord Hiro is about to broker deals with both of his political rivals. Yoritomo’s old bodyguard have thrown in with him to a man. The Guild already back him. The Daimyo’s chair will be his by weeksend. The plight of Lady Aisha’s ladies means very little to him right now, I’m afraid.”
“And how is my Lady?” Michi met his eyes again for just a heartbeat. “I’m not allowed to see her. Though she betrayed our Shogun, she was my friend as well as my mistress. I loved her, Ichizo.”
“Precisely why you should
“Lord Hiro is your cousin. Who can convince him of my innocence if not you?”
“My cousin is a complicated man, love…”
“Promise me.” The furrow in her brow deepened. “Promise you’ll get me out of here.”
“I will try.”
She sighed, wiped at her eyes. “Trying is not doing.”
“All right, all right. Izanagi’s balls, woman. I promise.”
A smile, bright as sunlight slipping out from behind the clouds. She grabbed his hand, kissing his fingertips, one after another.
“Oh, my Lord,” she sighed. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done. Your kindness … I can think of no way to repay it.”
“I am sure we can remedy that when I return.” He straightened again, backed away to the door. “But now I must go, or Hiro will have my life and all will be for naught.”
She planted a feather-light kiss onto her fingertips and blew it to him. “I’ll miss you.”
“I will return, fear not.”
He slipped from the room with his serving retinue, leaving her alone amidst the fading footsteps. He did not see the smile fall from her lips like a mask at the end of a kabuki play.
He did not see her wipe his taste from her lips.
He did not hear her whisper.
“I fear nothing.”
