Chapter 287: The Consort [II]*

Xinhua shut the door behind him and put her back against it and let out a breath she’d evidently been holding since the fifth hour of the morning.

"Right," she said. "That’s the empire done for the day."

Lin Xuan watched her slump against the carved wood, the Empress of half the known world with a red line pressed into her forehead from the crown she’d finally shed. The thing sat on a lacquered stand now, pearls and gold catching the low firelight, and without it she looked younger and twice as dangerous.

"You’re staring, consort," she said, not opening her eyes.

"I’m calculating how many layers you’re wearing."

She snorted. "Somewhere between forty and forty thousand. The outer robe alone could stop a crossbow bolt." She pushed off the door and turned, presenting her back to him. "Start with the jade clasp. If you can find it."

He crossed the room, his own ceremonial robe dragging at his shoulders like a second skeleton. The embroidery alone must have weighed fifteen pounds, gold thread and river pearls sewn in patterns that told the story of their union to anyone literate in imperial iconography. He’d been wearing it since dawn. His neck ached, his feet hurt, and his cock had been half-hard for the past three hours from watching her move through the banquet hall with that smile that promised nothing and read everything.

The jade clasp was at her nape, buried under three collars. He worked it loose, then the next fastening, then the next. Silk whispered as each layer gave way. The over-robe came off first, a mountain of brocade that he draped over a nearby chair because dropping the Empress’s wedding finery on the floor felt like a political incident.

"Gods," she breathed, rolling her shoulders. "I can feel my spine again."

"More."

"Keep going."

He did. The second robe was lighter, a deep crimson with phoenixes worked in silver thread. It pooled around her feet. The third was pale gold, thin as a moth’s wing, and through it he could see the shadow of her shoulder blades moving as she stretched.

Lin Xuan’s fingers slowed. "You chose this marriage yourself," he said. It wasn’t a question.

"I did." She turned to face him, and the remaining layers fell open at her throat, showing the hollow where her pulse beat. "I chose you, Lin Xuan. Not your sword, not your cultivation, not whatever that elixir did to your meridians. You."

"And now I sail for another continent in four days."

Her smile flickered, just for a heartbeat. "Now you’re standing in my bedroom with forty layers of silk between us, and I’m very tired of being an empire."

She reached for the ties of his robe. Her fingers were quick and sure, the same fingers that had held a ceremonial wine cup steady for nine hours without spilling a drop. She undid the heavy bronze clasps, pushed the robe off his shoulders, and let it fall with a thud that shook the floorboards.

Underneath, he wore a simple inner tunic, and under that, just him. The firelight traced the faint scar low on his sternum, the one the elixir hadn’t quite erased. She put her palm flat over it.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

"Good." She hooked her fingers into the neck of his tunic and pulled him down to her mouth.

The kiss started almost chaste, a brush of lips that tasted of the sweet osmanthus wine from the banquet. Then she bit his lower lip, not hard, just enough to make him growl and haul her against him. Her remaining layers crushed between them, silk and heat and the solid weight of her body.

"I’ve been thinking about this all day," she said against his mouth. "Sitting on that fucking throne, listening to the Minister of Rites drone on about grain distribution, thinking about what I was going to do to you when they finally let us leave."

"Tell me."

She pulled back, eyes bright. "Take off the rest."

He obeyed. Her inner robes came away one by one, until she stood in a thin white shift that ended at her knees. The firelight made it nearly transparent, showing the dark circles of her nipples, the shadow at the junction of her thighs. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

"Now yours," she said.

He stripped off the tunic and the loose trousers beneath. His cock stood thick and heavy against his belly, already slick at the tip. She looked at it, then back at his face, and her smile turned into something hungrier.

"On the bed," she said. "I want to see all of you."

He lay back on the massive bed, the sheets cool against his overheated skin. She climbed over him, straddling his thighs, still in that thin shift. The heat of her cunt pressed against his leg through the damp fabric, and he could smell her—salt and musk and something sweeter underneath.

"You have no idea," she said, "how many times today I wanted to reach under my robes and touch myself. Just thinking about this."

"Show me."

She laughed, low and dirty, and pulled the shift over her head. Her breasts swung free, full and heavy, nipples dark and already tight. The red line from the crown was still on her forehead, and somehow that made her more naked, more real.

Wei Xinhua leaned down and kissed the scar on his sternum, then lower, trailing her mouth down his stomach. Her hair had come fully loose now, spilling dark across his skin. When she reached his cock, she didn’t hesitate. She licked him root to tip in one long stroke, then took the head into her mouth and sucked.

"Fuck," he breathed.

She hummed around him, and the vibration went straight up his spine. Her hand wrapped around the base, stroking what her mouth couldn’t reach, and she worked him with a rhythm that said she’d been planning this, too. Her tongue pressed flat against the underside, found the sensitive spot just below the head, and he had to grip the sheets to keep from thrusting up into her throat.

Xuan had spent the last hours being measured, bowed to, presented, and paraded. He had worn a robe that could have stopped a blade and smiled until his jaw ached. None of it had prepared him for the Empress of the known world on her knees between his legs, her mouth hot and wet and utterly without ceremony.

She pulled off him with a soft pop, her lips shiny. "You’re quiet, husband."

"I’m trying not to come in your mouth before I’ve even touched you."

"That would be a waste," she agreed, and climbed up his body. Her thighs bracketed his hips, and he could feel the heat of her through the thin silk of her remaining underrobe. She was wet already—he could smell her, musky and warm, and his cock twitched against her belly.

Wei Xinhua kissed him then, open-mouthed and hungry, and he tasted himself on her tongue. His hands found her ass, squeezed hard, and she ground down against him with a broken little moan. The formal underrobe was still between them, damp now where she pressed against his length.

"Take it off," he said against her mouth.

She sat up, straddling him, and shrugged the silk from her shoulders. It pooled around her waist, and she worked it down over her hips with a shimmy that made her breasts sway. Lin Xuan watched, propped on his elbows, and didn’t bother hiding his stare. She was all soft curves over lean muscle, her waist narrow, her thighs strong from hours of standing through ceremonies that would have broken lesser women.

"Like what you see?" she asked, tossing the robe aside.

"Come here and find out."

She lowered herself onto him slowly, one hand guiding his cock to her entrance. The first inch made them both gasp. She was tight, so tight, and hot as a forge. Wei Xinhua’s head fell back, exposing the long line of her throat, and she sank down until he was buried to the hilt.

"Fuck," she whispered, and it was the first time he’d heard her swear all day.

She started to move, rolling her hips in a slow, grinding circle that pressed her clit against his pubic bone. Her hands braced on his chest, fingers splayed over the faint scar there, and she rode him with the same deliberate control she’d used to choose a husband from a field of ambitious men.

Xuan let her set the pace for a while, because watching her was its own kind of pleasure. Her face was flushed, her hair a wild tangle, the red line on her forehead a reminder of everything she’d carried all day. But when her rhythm started to falter, when her thighs began to tremble, he sat up and wrapped his arms around her.

"My turn," he said, and flipped them.

She landed on her back with a surprised laugh that turned into a moan as he thrust deep. He hooked her legs over his shoulders and drove into her with long, punishing strokes. The bed creaked. The fire popped. Somewhere in the palace, a night watchman would hear them, and Lin Xuan found he didn’t give a single fuck.

"Harder," she demanded, nails raking down his back. "Don’t treat me like an empress. Treat me like your wife."

He did. He fucked her like a man who’d been waiting through a thousand bows and a hundred toasts, who’d stood at the center of an empire and wanted only this. Her pussy clenched around him, fluttering, and he felt her orgasm build like a storm.

Xinhua came with a sharp cry, her back arching off the bed, her cunt milking his cock in rhythmic pulses. Lin Xuan drove through it, chasing his own release, and when she looked up at him with those dark, knowing eyes and said, "Inside me. Give me everything," he shattered.

He buried himself to the root and came with a groan that felt torn from his chest. Hot spurts of his release filled her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to keep him there, her inner muscles still fluttering around him like she wanted every last drop.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Their breathing was the only sound in the room, ragged and slowing. Then Wei Xinhua laughed, soft and breathless.

"You know," she said, "I spent a really long time planning that wedding."

Lin Xuan rolled off her, pulling her against his chest. "And?"

She turned her head to look at him, her smile sharp and satisfied. "The after-party is much better."

He snorted. "Glad I made the guest list."

"You were the guest list." She pressed a kiss to his jaw. "Now shut up and hold me. We have to be an empire again in four hours."