Time Raiders: The Protector

by Merline Lovelace

  As busy as the days were, the nights were pure hell. Cassie lay beside Max, listening to his breathing, remembering their kiss, aching to touch him. She managed to restrain herself, however, until the night before the festival was scheduled to commence.

  Max had attended another banquet, this one with Jao present. Cassie could smell the empress’s distinctive lotus-and-rose perfume on him when he returned. It was late, past midnight, and tension over tomorrow’s weather had Cassie wound up tight.

  “Well?” she demanded when he dismissed Peony and the other servants, insisting he could undress himself. “How many heads did Her Heavenly Majesty order whacked off tonight?”

  Shrugging, he dropped his boots to the floor. “None that I know of.”

  “Can it be? Is the Dragon Lady getting soft in her old age?”

  “C’mon, Cassie. You know Wu Jao is no more cruel or despotic than any male ruler of her time, in China or anywhere else in the world.” He let his other boot drop to the floor. “You also know the nobles will rise up against her at the first sign of weakness. That’s why the ceremony tomorrow is so important.”

  As if Cassie needed the reminder! Lips pursed, she watched while Max shrugged out of the burnished-leather jacket and gold-embroidered tunic his new rank entitled him to wear. When he pulled the tunic over his head, she became so absorbed in the sight of his rippling biceps she only half heard his next comment.

  “The woman is holding an empire together with skill, cunning and an iron fist, yet she’s lost none of her femininity. It’s easy to see why two emperors fell for her, and fell hard.”

  The bit about femininity caught Cassie’s attention. The falling-hard part angled her chin.

  “Two emperors and one twenty-first-century civil engineer?” she asked sweetly.

  Too sweetly, dammit! She could have kicked herself when amusement glinted in Max’s gray eyes.

  “Jealous, Spring Leaf?”

  “Not hardly,” she lied. “The only thing going on between you and me, Brody, is our mission.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about that kiss in the garden?”

  So it had been preying on his mind, too! Cassie couldn’t decide whether she was gratified or just relieved to know she wasn’t the only one. Still, she tried to keep the matter in perspective.

  “We both know the kiss didn’t mean anything. We were excited because of the rain and, uh, got a little carried away.”

  “That so?”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. The lazy amusement in his eyes edged into something different, something that made Cassie’s toes curl.

  “What’s our excuse this time?” he asked.

  She was right, Max assured himself. A kiss was just a kiss. In this instance, a small, insignificant release of nervous tension before the ceremony that would culminate in Jao’s declaration that she would rule all China in place of her incapacitated husband.

  Max was prepared this time, sure he could control his hunger. God knew he’d kept it on a tight leash this past week. He was thinking of those agonizing hours with Cassie lying beside him when his mouth brushed hers.

  He would have stopped there. He was sure of it. Pretty sure, anyway. If she hadn’t made that small sound. Or laid her palms on his chest. Or looked up at him with such a dangerous mix of doubt and desire.

  “We shouldn’t do this.”

  “You’re right,” he acknowledged as he bent to brush her mouth again.

  “This is crazy,” she whispered, her lips pliant under his. “Stupid.”

  “Agreed.”

  He slid a hand to her nape. His conscious mind registered the textures of warm skin and soft, feathery curls, but his body reacted instinctively. Just the feel of her, the scent of her, got him hard.

  Max knew then he was in trouble. Big trouble. She was like a shot of some high-powered drug that went straight to his veins. There were some questions in the back of his mind she hadn’t answered yet. He still wanted to know what had really happened the day Jerry Holland died. But at this moment Max wanted Cassie more.

  He’d gotten to know all aspects of her during this mission. Her courage and gritty determination. Her kindness to the little maid. Her psychic instincts about the environment around her. Those qualities stirred his admiration almost as much as her long legs and slender curves fed his hunger.

  Still, Max would have ended it after the second kiss. He came within a breath of stomping across the courtyard to the bathhouse and dousing himself with icy water. But when he dragged his head up, one look at her face told him that she wanted him as much as he did her.

  He saw it in the flush staining her cheeks, heard it in the catch in her breath. That little gasp acted on Max like a spur. He tugged her closer until she lay half across his lap, and speared his fingers through her hair, anchoring her head in his palm.

  “If we don’t stop now,” he warned hoarsely, “we don’t stop.”

  The doubt was still there in her eyes, battling with desire, until she blew out a ragged breath and gave up the fight.

  “So don’t stop.”

  That was all Max needed to hear. His blood rushing south, he covered her mouth with his.

  Cassie closed her eyes and ignored the warning shriek inside her head. She knew surrendering to this burning heat wasn’t only stupid, it was downright dangerous. She and Max were in a foreign culture and a different century. One slip and they could irrevocably jeopardize their mission. One mistake and they might never find the fourth medallion piece. Hadn’t she learned her lesson with Jerry Holland, for God’s sake?

  She had only one excuse for this monumental idiocy. Max wasn’t Jerry. He wasn’t anything like cocky, full-of-himself Jerry Holland.

  Okay, maybe two excuses. They were alone, with the palace settling in for the night and the prospect of Cassie’s move to different quarters looming closer with each whir of the water clock.

  Not to mention the fact that Max’s mouth and hands were doing things to her central nervous system that had never been done before!

  She could feel the nerves just under her skin jumping everywhere he touched. Her bare arm, when he rubbed his hand down it. Her nipples, when his fingers skimmed over the thin silk covering her breast. Her hip, when his palm slid over its curve to cradle her bottom. Then he stretched her out on the sleeping platform and Cassie stopped thinking about anything but the hunger that had grabbed her by the throat.

  She dragged him down with her, their arms and legs tangled, their mouths still fused. His weight crushed her into the furs. His bare chest and shoulders provided fertile field for exploration, first with greedy hands, then with her tongue and teeth.

  When she twisted to get at the buckle of his leather belt, she tore the fragile silk of her nightdress. One shoulder dragged down, baring her to the waist.

  Max’s growl when he bent to nuzzle her breast kicked in her afterburner. The rasp of his tongue on her turgid nipple almost put her in orbit. Gasping, she yanked on his belt.

  “We need…to…get you out of these…pants.”

  He took care of that with a few quick moves, and bunched a fist in the folds of the torn silk. What remained of her nightdress joined the heap of his boots, trousers and tunic.

  Cassie didn’t have time to generate even a momentary embarrassment over her nakedness. She was too busy gulping at the sight of Max’s. She knew the man was built. She’d seen him in the buff, or close enough to it, and had cradled against him for warmth more than once.

  But this was the first time she got a full frontal. Her greedy gaze drank in the broad shoulders, the solid chest and flat stomach with its interesting tan line. Below that, he sported an erection that made her vaginal muscles spasm. It jutted from the golden hair at his groin, as stiff and as proud as the pikes carried by the imperial guards at the…

  “Oh, no! We can’t do this.”

  Cassie’s groan stopped Max half on, half off the bed. She dragged her gaze upward to quivering biceps, a corded throat and a suddenly tight jaw. />
  “Second thoughts?” he growled.

  “No! Yes! I mean…” She sat up and pounded the bunched furs in frustration. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t pack any condoms for this little jaunt through time. And don’t even suggest oiled rice paper or a sheath cut from a pig’s bladder.”

  “Is that what they use?”

  “Along with some rather nasty implements I refuse to insert into any of my orifices.”

  “Not a problem. We’ll improvise.”

  When he gripped her ankle, she caught a flash of his silver cuff, a mere glimpse of cloudy quartz, before he gave her a quick tug. A second later she was flat on her back. With a wicked grin, Max reached for her other ankle. Dragging her legs apart, he made himself comfortable between her thighs. Then he contorted his torso and found her hot, wet center with his tongue.

  Cassie’s head went back. Her fists dug into the furs. For a fleeting second she wished she’d let Peony shave down there. Especially when Max slid a finger inside her. Two fingers. A third brushed tantalizingly close to her butt crack.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and gave herself up to the erotic sensations. The prickle of his whiskers against her inner thighs. His tongue flicking her nub. His busy, busy fingers. All too soon the pleasure swirling low in her belly gathered speed and intensity. It came in waves, each more powerful than the last, until her back arched and her womb contracted, hard and tight.

  “Max,” she gasped, trying to wiggle back and slow things down. “It’s…It’s too soon, too quick! You need to…Oooh!”

  The groan ripped from Cassie’s throat. Head tipped back, her body torqued, she rode the explosive climax to its last, racking shudder.

  “As they say here in seventh-century China,” she said with a ragged breath, “holy moley!”

  A deep chuckle brought her eyelids fluttering up. Max was propped on one elbow, looking extremely smug.

  For an instant, just an instant, his self-satisfied grin reminded her of Jerry Holland’s humiliating triumph after getting into the weirdo weather officer’s pants.

  As quickly as the thought came, Cassie stomped it into the dust. She knew with everything that was female in her this time was different. Max was different. With the gut certainty, a section of the Great Wall she’d erected around her heart cracked and came tumbling down.

  “Is that what they say?” he asked with a smile that crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes.

  Another section of the wall came down. Cassie had to fight for breath.

  “It…it sounds better in Chinese.”

  She lifted a hand, let it trail over his shoulder, while the last ripples subsided and strength flowed back into her limp body.

  “I seem to recall another ancient saying,” she said, letting her hand slide over his chest and down his belly. “Something about there being many paths to the top of the mountain.”

  She closed her hand around his still rigid erection. The skin was satin smooth, the veins hot and pulsing. Her own sluggish pulse stirred in response. Throwing off her sensual lethargy, Cassie ran her tongue over her lips and smiled provocatively.

  “My turn to take you to the mountaintop, Bro-dai.”

  Peony knelt on the other side of the wall separating the sleeping chamber from the gathering room. With her stockinged feet folded under her, she leaned forward to peer through the viewing hole. It was invisible from the other room, buried as it was amid the clouds and swirls in an elaborately painted wall hanging.

  She’d been watching for some time. While she admired Lord Bro-dai’s well-sculpted body, she thought he’d brought the mistress to the first of her prescribed seven consistencies rather too quickly. Now Spring Leaf serviced him. Interesting that they chose to swallow each other’s essence instead of performing some variation of the dragon dance. Did the master not wish her to present him with a male child? If so, Peony would have to procure mercury and ground ivory for the medicinal soup used by courtesans and prostitutes to flush out the male seed after copulation.

  But first she would have to inform Chief Eunuch Tai that the outlanders had, indeed, engaged in sexual congress. The prospect made Peony sick with dread. She didn’t understand the eunuch’s obsession with knowing every detail about the mistress’s day- and nighttime activities. Or his perverted desire for a woman who could never bring him to pleasure.

  Yet he seemed to want her all for himself. The fact that she’d slept next to Lord Bro-dai these past nights ate into him like water dripping relentlessly on stone.

  Tai would beat Peony for bringing this news. She knew it. She dared not withhold it, though. He would have her head if he found out about this session from one of the other servants, or overheard the master and mistress speak of it. Swallowing a sigh, Peony shifted silently on her folded knees and put her eye to the peephole once again.

  Chapter 10

  Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

  —Confucius

  S tartled out of sleep, Cassie shot upright in bed.

  “What was that?”

  The silk-lined bed furs slithered down her naked body and puddled in her lap. She blinked owlishly in the hazy dawn light, trying to figure out what had penetrated her stupor.

  She thought at first it was subconscious worry about the weather on the empress’s big day. The light seeping through the oiled rice paper reassured her somewhat on that point. The sun was on its way up.

  So why had she jerked awake?

  She was still trying to figure it out when Max rolled over and squinted at her through a half-open eye. “What was what?”

  “If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  He opened his other eye and hiked a brow at her terse reply, but didn’t comment as he angled up beside her. Side by side they listened to the muted sounds of the palace getting ready for the great Buddhist festival of the Fourfold Gathering of the Twelve Thousand.

  A cock crowed somewhere outside the walls. The faint clack of wooden clogs on the cobbled outer courtyard drifted through the rice paper covering the windows, along with the scent of fresh-cooked noodles. After a moment or two Cassie picked up the clink of spears and the measured stamp of booted feet.

  The changing of the imperial guards. Their steady tread should have reassured her. If something was wrong, they would be hotfooting it to the scene.

  Yet the hair on the back of her neck still tingled. Straining every sense, she stared at the covered windows for some clue why.

  “It’s the big day,” Max said quietly after several moments. “Could be nerves.”

  “Quiet, please.”

  He complied and didn’t say anything more until she finally gave up and rolled out of bed.

  “You always this grumpy after a wild night of sex?” he asked as she reached for her torn nightdress. “I’m not complaining, you understand. I’d just like to know for future reference.”

  The future-reference bit caught Cassie’s attention. She held the thin silk to her front while the chill dawn air mass-produced goose bumps on her rear.

  “Look, Max, about last night…”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was good. Okay, great,” she amended reluctantly. “But really, really stupid. We both knew that going in.”

  Poor choice of words, she realized instantly. They’d been in, out and all over each other for most of the night. The memory of some of those erotic insertions made her face heat and tipped one corner of Max’s mouth into a salacious grin.

  “We’ll talk about it at breakfast,” she said, slithering into the remnants of her nightdress. “I’ve got to hit the bathing room.”

  No way she was using the chamberpot with him lying there watching her like some Oriental potentate.

  She grabbed one of the furs to use as a wrap and shoved her feet into the wooden clogs kept ready beside the door. Peony and the other servants had obviously been up for some time. Curls of steam rose from the stones in the bathhouse. Fragrant soaps and twigs for scraping teeth were laid i
n readiness.

  Peony herself shuffled in as Cassie finished scrubbing her face and teeth. The maid looked tired this morning. No wonder, considering the hours she and the others had to serve. The loops and coils of her glossy black hair lacked some of their usual precision and the flaps of her peach-colored kimono were crooked, but she smiled as she held out arms laden with gleaming silks and thick furs.

  “Chief Eunuch Tai begs you to accept these garments to wear for this most holy of days, mistress.”

  When she spread the clothing on the massage table, Cassie couldn’t hold back a gasp. The gown was a shimmering spring-green, richly embroidered all over in a leaf pattern with silver thread. The gown had only one sleeve, as did the sable-lined outer robe of heavy blue-green silk, also fantastically embroidered.

  “I’ve heard rumors Princess Mei Yin’s gown also has but one sleeve,” Peony commented, gliding to her knees with her usual grace. “The better to draw her bow, she says. You start new fashion, mistress. Now all women will dress like the fabled female warriors of Lo-Shun.”

  She leaned forward to hold up a pair of silk drawers for Cassie to step into. When she bent her head, the cowl collar of her kimono separated a little from her nape.

  “Peony!” Cassie gasped. “Are those bruises on your throat?”

  The maid paled, dropped the drawers and hastily adjusted her kimono. “It is nothing, mistress. Only…only shadows from dim light.”

  “The hell it is. Let me see.”

  “No!” Scuttling backward on her knees, she put out a desperate hand. “Please to not look nor touch. Humble servant not worthy of such attention.”