Chapter 26
Chapter 26
Si Yan pushed him hard twice. Finding she could not move him, she stopped trying.
Very well. She had missed his kisses a little too.
Her hands stopped pushing. Instead, they slid up from his shoulders and wound around his neck.
Her fingertips threaded through the hair at the back of his head as she met his kiss.
The familiar feeling spread through her body. Even her eyes held pleasure.
Meanwhile, in the side room,
Jihe lay in the dark, listening to the sounds from the main room, her face as red as a cooked shrimp.
Heavens. Heavens. Heavens!
She fumbled frantically for the bundle beside her bed and found the cotton she had prepared.
With shaking fingers, she pinched off two wads and stuffed them firmly into her ears.
Miss and Young Master Jiang were far too bold!
No wonder Linghe had told her to sleep as soundly as possible.
She pulled the quilt over her head and curled up beneath it, her eyes tightly closed.
Yet even then, sounds from the main room reached her in fits and starts.
She screamed silently several times and pushed the cotton farther in.
Drawing the quilt higher, she repeated to herself again and again,
“Sleep, sleep, sleep…”
She did not know how much time passed.
Outside, the moon’s shadow had shifted from one square of the window lattice to another.
The two candles on the table glowed quietly, their wicks grown rather long.
Candlelight cast wavering shadows over the bed curtains and lit flawless, pale skin.
“Wait. I really have something to tell you.”
Si Yan’s face was buried in the hollow of his neck. Her breathing had not steadied, and her long hair spilled behind her.
“I’m listening.”
Jiang Youze’s voice was hoarse with desire, indistinct and damnably seductive.
“I…”
Si Yan flushed, unable to speak coherently. Her mind seemed to be burning, waves of dizziness passing through it.
“Someone… Someone’s been in my courtyard…”
He did not answer.
Candlelight fell from the side, warming his face.
His eyes were lowered, his lashes concealing whatever lay beneath.
The little strength she had finally gathered drained away again in these circumstances.
“Jiang Youze…”
She called his name softly once more and raised a hand, wanting him to listen properly.
Though she was not sure anyone had truly come, she still needed to tell him her concerns.
But he still did not answer.
Anxiety showed on her face. Her fingers tightened in his hair.
“Did you hear me?”
Satisfaction glimmered in Jiang Youze’s eyes. His lips curved, lending that excessively handsome face a seductive edge.
“I heard. Don’t worry. I’m here.”
His voice was still hoarse, the tide of desire not yet receded, but utterly certain.
If he could bring her into the palace, he had the power to protect her.
From her first night here, he had stationed people to guard her from the shadows.
As for whoever had entered her room, that person had already been identified. Only the motive remained unclear.
He had not acted yet simply because he was waiting.
Those who had humiliated her over these three years, those who wanted to harm her… They would all have to die!
Jiang Youze lifted his long, clean fingers, brushed aside the troublesome strands of hair, and followed their soft ends downward.
Si Yan blinked in bewilderment. Her blurred vision focused, meeting those dark eyes.
Panic and shyness surged in her heart. She instinctively caught his wrist.
Her voice still trembled, soft and sweet. “Jiang Youze…”
He answered quietly.
Yet his fingertips slipped down from the inside of her wrist, coaxing her with infinite patience.
“Don’t be afraid.”
Thin calluses covered the pads of his fingers, worn there by years of holding a brush.
Si Yan lay in the crook of his arm, his shoulder blocking the candlelight completely.
She could not see his expression, only those eyes, so hot, so dark…
He wanted her, even though he was a eunuch now.
Even though his body was damaged and could never fully answer the longing in his heart.
He still wanted to make her his completely.
That desire was more than mere lust. It was an obsession he had been storing up since the first awakening of love.