An Illicit Temptation by Jeannie Lin Page A

flight of the golden eagle over the valley. He was
glad to spare the creature. He felt a kinship to it at that moment as it soared
high above its domain.
    He felt boastful around An-Ming today. He wasn’t the barbarian
struggling to be a gentleman in a foreign city any longer, but he wasn’t a youth
learning the ways of the steppe, either. He had come home and An-Ming was
inextricably part of that journey.
    There was little conversation for the rest of the day. When
evening neared, they stopped and followed the usual routine: tying down the
horses, the fire, the tent, a simple meal of ground tea brick and millet.
    His princess who wasn’t a princess then retired into her tent
without even the generosity of a single kind word for him. He grinned and let
the first stars appear over the horizon before going to her.
    She lay on the rug inside with a blanket draped over her. Her
eyes were open. They glittered in the darkness.
    Without a word, they were in each other’s arms. Clothing was
only a momentary distraction. They unfastened just enough for skin to find skin.
An-Ming wove her fingers into his hair to pull him to her. He liked it when she
was demanding. He liked her any way at all.
    He laid himself down and pulled her on top of him. She made a
startled sound, but the confusion didn’t last. She braced her palm against his
chest as she straddled his thighs. Her hair tickled against his throat. His
hands circled her waist, angling her just so. With just a lowering of her hips
and an upward thrust of his, he was inside her, sliding into sultry heat.
    This was good. Very, very good. Soon they were both shuddering,
lost in each other.
    An-Ming melted onto him afterward, her curves molding perfectly
to his body. She hid her face against his shoulder.
    “I must still marry the khagan,” she said, tormented.
    “You don’t have to.”
    She shook her head, refusing to look at him. She was determined
to bear this burden and nothing could convince her otherwise. Nothing that could
be said with words. He rolled her beneath him and hushed her, kissing her
forehead, the tip of her nose, then her lips. The sort of kisses a longtime
lover would bestow. She responded to him so sweetly. She wanted to be
hushed.
    “What is your name?” he asked when they broke apart to catch a
breath. “Your real name.”
    “Dao.”
    “Dao.” He said it to test the feel of it on his tongue.
    “But I prefer An-Ming,” she insisted. “It’s so much
grander.”
    “Dao suits you.” His lips made a trail down to her shoulder.
“Like a sweet, ripe—” he curled his palm over the lush shape of her breast
“—summer peach.”
    He nipped at the soft underside of it and she gasped.
    “ Scoundrel .”
    “Why this new name for me suddenly?”
    “Because a man changes after he has a woman,” she accused.
    “How would you know? You haven’t had any men before me.”
    “How do you know?” she
challenged.
    “I know.”
    She had called him her first lover. First. She had already
decided there would be another. He was like any man with his share of jealousy.
He countered it by positioning himself between her knees and easing his length
into her again. Her breath caught and she made a soft, startled sound as her
body accepted him that told him all he needed to know. That she was his.
    A man did change. He became ensnared, bewitched. A handful of
days without her and his body had become impatient and greedy. He sank fully
into her sooner than he meant to. His hips lifted and pushed forward slowly. He
closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. Her breath grazed his
cheek. Her nails dug into his shoulder as she throbbed around him.
    “This is the last time we’ll be together,” she said once they
had stilled.
    Her tone was heavy, resolved. Sad. She ran her fingers lightly
over his face, tracing the lines of it as if she were etching a picture of him
in her mind. He tried to kiss her fingertips as they skimmed past, but the touch
was