Page 55 of The Tainted and the Tamed
But how?
Now standing, she bent towards him to kiss him on the mouth. Though he parted his lips—though he longed to draw her back in—she ended it too soon.
“Surprise me,” she whispered.
Now that the harvest season was officially over, it became land dispute season in Asano Prefecture. Both the humble farmers and the wealthy landowners simply had too much time on their hands now that winter had set in. Despite his best intentions, Haruki found himself governing again.
Slipping out of the screened-off room, Haruki hurried into the back hall. Murasaki was still cleaning the room between meetings; he could smell her unique fragrance every time. Whenever he drummed his fingers on the table, he caught a little of her bouquet, as if her sleeve trailed across the table as she cleaned it.
It drove him mad, knowing how close she was and how impossibly far. It had been more than two weeks since she’d last visited his bed.
It was having an effect on his patience, too. The last pair of arguing landowners had gone away none-too-pleased with him and complaining about the taxes, too. He’d ended the meeting abruptly.
If he couldn’t see her soon, he’d have to do something drastic.
Running into his quarters and ripping the bottom off a useless document, he jotted a hurried note.
Meet me outside the bathhouse after the others have gone.
Now that Murasaki was well, she didn’t need to leave early to take her prescribed treatments. From her scent, he could tell she still used them from time to time, as if afraid to completely stop them.
He slipped the note onto the table before fleeing the room. But he lingered in the hall, using his abilities to hang behind the decorative wooden ranma screen atop the door. From there, he watched her.
Murasaki moved about the room with practiced efficiency, changing out cushions before wiping down the table. When the cleaning cloth hit the note, she nearly exclaimed in surprise.
A smile crept across her lips as she read it, then tucked it inside her kimono. She continued her work with a happier expression.
She was waiting for him in the moonlight.
He approached her slowly, soundlessly, admiring the line of her neck as she craned her head. When he was close, he intentionally ran a hand across the bathhouse wall to alert her.
She was still so easily startled. But she recovered at once, that beautiful smile warming her cold-reddened cheeks.
In an instant, he was upon her, a predator of a difference kind. He covered her mouth with his, his hands hungrily grasping her neck, trailing her clavicle and slipping inside her kimono to find her breasts. She gasped as he pinched her hardened nipple.
As if it was a game to see how quickly he could make her moan, he ran his tongue along her neck, then skipped over her jaw to her ear. Why had he never tried her ears before? As he ran his tongue around the outer shell, she nearly melted into him.
“Here?” she asked him.
“Here,” he confirmed.
After making him wait so long, she deserved to be punished. He would be merciless tonight.
He pulled the layers of her kimono apart, hiking it up to her hips. In a moment he’d freed himself, his cock hard as stone and sliding against her folds. Again, she gasped.
Not the sound he was looking for.
With his hand slipping beneath her knee, he lifted her leg for the access he sought. But he paused. Waiting. The head of his cock still touching her folds.
“Do you want this?” he asked her, his voice half-breath in her ear.
“Yes,” she said like a sigh.
“Ask me. Ask me nicely.”
“Please.”
He slid his cock a little closer to her entrance. “I was wrong,” he said. “I want you to beg.”
