The Way of the Tigress 1-4

by Jade Lee - The Way of the Tigress 1-4

  "The Dragon path requires a great deal of practice. I cannot always be in my rooms in town, nor is my room here adequately locked." He could not help the dry note in his voice.

  She tilted her head, her hair slipping across one shoulder. "But you weren't here yesterday when... when..."

  "When William interrupted my practice?"

  Red tinged her cheeks. "You were using those needles, and your trousers—"

  "I remember. Perhaps you do not recall that the gardeners were quite busy that day. Plus, you and William were supposed to be closeted in lessons all morning. I should not have been interrupted."

  She looked away, surveying the room. "No," she agreed with a sigh, "you should not have. But William can be fast when he wishes."

  "Of course."

  The candle was burning, the bedding arranged. Ken Jin had even propped open the loose board in such a way that they could see out but their candlelight was shielded from outsiders. In short, the room was set. Now was the time that he would test her true willingness. After all, many a virgin had balked at the very last moment.

  He straightened and turned around. She was already naked. Or rather, not fully naked, but very close. She had removed her dress, and stood before him in corset and stockings. Her shoes were set neatly beside her folded gown, and she was distracting herself by wiggling her toes up and down. Her arms were crossed over her belly, but seemingly more out of cold than modesty. Ken Jin could only stare.

  She met his shocked gaze with a lifted chin, followed by a raised eyebrow. "Did you think me inconstant or cowardly?"

  Unable to find footing with this bizarre woman, he resorted to his servant persona. He bowed slightly to her and queried, "My lady?"

  "Oh, stubble it, Ken Jin. You thought I might walk all the way out here and have second thoughts. That, when it came right down to it, I would not be willing to follow through."

  He didn't answer, because that was exactly what he had thought.

  She flung her arms wide, all ribboned corset and lacy stockings, creamy white flesh and long well-shaped legs. "But how could you imagine such a thing after last night?"

  She clearly meant to bluster her way through. She was not as sanguine as she appeared. He could tell by the way her hands would not stop moving. First they spread wide, and then they fluttered back to her sides, only to again twist together as she folded her arms across her belly. Despite the bravado, she was nervous. Not surprising, really. For all her innocence, she knew that she was about to take a momentous step. On some level, she understood nothing would ever be the same again.

  He smiled, though he covered the motion with another bow. "My apologies, Miss Charlotte, but I asked you to remove all your clothing."

  She was a silent a moment. He chanced a glance at her face. Her cheeks were flaming, and she bit her lower lip. "But it is so very cold in here."

  In truth, it was nothing of the kind; but he did not argue. "You will not be chilled for long."

  She didn't answer, and he felt the weight of her stare. Indeed, it was heavy enough that he felt himself straightening in reaction. She was watching him, her eyes narrowed in thought as she idly twirled her hair. "You understand that I want to remain a virgin? I still want to marry someday. After William is settled, and assuming the right gentleman offers..."

  He stiffened, insulted. "Were you not safe last night? My restraint is legendary, Miss Charlotte, even among Dragons."

  "Of course, of course," she hurried to say. "I meant no insult."

  He nodded. "No, Miss Charlotte, you only mean to delay. But it is already late. Like you, I have had a difficult day. So if you do not intend to proceed with the lesson, perhaps..."

  That was all the spurring she needed. Her fluttering hands went to her corset and she began to strip it off. But her fingers were too unsteady to complete the task. Fumbled, she grimaced. The ribbons knotted, and she cursed. In the end, he had to help her.

  Batting away her hands with a quick flick, he set to work on her ties. He'd had a great deal of practice with underclothing, and so anticipated no trouble. But perhaps it was colder than he'd thought, for his hands were nearly as unsteady as hers.

  She was of average height for a white woman, so her breasts were chest-high to him. The corset's hooks marched down the center of the garment, so they were in easy reach, and yet he had to stand nearly atop her to manage the unbinding. Unfortunately, the close proximity flooded his senses with her yin power. Her scent became a foglike smoke around his brain, and the short gasps she released as he tugged seemed to echo in his ears. By necessity, his knuckles brushed across her collarbone and the flesh beneath. And when he tugged at the topmost clasp, her knees bumped into his. Worse, her hips surged forward to briefly jostle his fully wakened dragon.

  "Hold still!" he ordered.

  "I'm trying!"

  Threads from the lace had caught on the top hook, holding the corset closed, though a tiny gap of rounded flesh peeked through. She was looking down as well, and her hands fluttered around his. "Let me—"

  "Hold my hips," he ordered.

  She stiffened. "I beg your pardon?"

  "To hold you still," he practically growled. And to keep her hands and yin-filled scent away from his nose.

  "Oh. Of course." He felt her hands on his hips: small palms, long fingers with surprising strength, and a feminine heat that felt like a brand. Ten years from now, he would still be able to feel the exact outline of her fingers and know where Charlotte's power had seared through him.

  The clasp finally released. He felt her exhale hot air into his face. Normally that would irritate him; after all, he felt flushed enough. But her breath was different. It smelled of the mint leaves she chewed after meals, and it blew the hair from his eyes. Plus, it distracted him from the soft mounds pressed against the back of his hands as he dug deeper down her corset.

  Her breath stopped as she tried to shrink backward to give him more room. Her hands tightened on his hips, and her head dipped forward. But without the release of her breath, the energy built and built until he felt as if his fingers were pressed against living flame.

  "Breathe!" he ordered, but his voice came out as a soft whisper of fear. If she burned him now, what would happened after she was purified?

  The second corset hook released at the same moment she took a breath. He waited, completely still, for her next exhale. He even closed his eyes to better experience the air passing across his face. When it came, it was like lightning—hot power there and gone in an instant.

  He glanced up at her face. She was panting—soft shallow breaths of rising yin. He had to say something to distract her, anything that would slow the yin tide.

  "The first time I saw a corset, it was in a shipment to my master's house." He watched her face for a reaction, but instead fixed on the wet, red sheen of her lips. "Mr. Lewis was a thin man, you understand, with bony hips and a gaunt face, but I thought the corset was for him."

  Charlotte's lips pressed together into a frown, but she did not hold the expression long. Her curiosity got the better of her. "Why ever would you think that? The shape, the ribbons, even the colors are all designed for women."

  He nodded. "Of course, of course, but I had just begun working for the English. I knew nothing of what you women wore. Mr. Lewis did not bother much with them."

  "Then why did he have a corset?"

  The third latch released and her breasts dropped into a fuller, more natural position. Ken Jin could not help but smile at the sight. "I thought—mistakenly, of course—that it was a man's cure for impotence." He felt her start in reaction, and he belatedly realized that she might not understand the masculine ailment. "It is a difficulty with a man's dragon. When he has insufficient yang to draw it out, or sometimes it is because of a weak jade stalk."

  He heard her tsk, and looked up from the quivering expanse of her belly. "I know what the word means, Ken Jin. But I don't understand why a corset—"

  "It presses upon the Sea of Vitality.
Here and here." He shifted his hands around her narrow waist to her lower back. Then he pressed two fingers deep into her flesh, about three finger-widths out on both sides of her spine. He felt her gasp at the sudden pressure, but it soon shifted to a sigh as he massaged in tight circles. Then he shifted his hands lower, delving to the tops of her buttocks. "These points on a man relieve impotency, and the corset rests here."

  She arched back slightly, forcing him to press deeper.

  He waited a moment, then pulled away, sliding his hands back around her waist to her belly.

  He should have moved quickly. After all, he was trying to distract her. But the seat of her vitality pulsed with power and he was loath to leave it. Indeed, without conscious thought, he found himself probing deeper into her energy points. Both his thumbs delved into the Sea of Energy, three inches below her navel.

  "And when you move," he breathed, his whole focus on the shifting soft skin beneath his fingers, on the pulse of power that beat just beneath the surface, "the edges dig in here."

  She moaned slightly, and he was startled enough to look into her face. Without even realizing it, he had stimulated her yin to the point of cloud creation. Already, she produced a rumble of thunder in her chest.

  He stopped kneading, and her eyes opened. She blinked as she struggled against the rising tide.

  "All that is left," he heard himself say, "would be to activate the Rushing Door and Mansion Cottage points, and impotency should fade away."

  "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."

&n
bsp; 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.