The Scarlet Empress (16 page)

“Removing your footwear.” One by one, he set her boots on the dirt. Then he reached for her pants. Her eyes opened wider. “Now what are you doing?”

“Taking off your pants.”

Cam swallowed a squeak. She’d been having fantasies about the Rim Rider all day. Her attraction to him had been growing steadily, with him pressed against her back as they rode, and all it took was a glance at the man to confirm that he, too, had been entertaining similar fantasies about her. That, at least, made her feel better. She didn’t want to think it was one-sided. But this undressing business . . . well, it was a little sudden. She appreciated spontaneity as much as the next single girl, but she was feeling a little incapacitated at the moment. Leg cramps and romance didn’t exactly mix.

“I thought you would appreciate a massage,” he explained.

“A massage . . . Heaven.”

“It is said I give the best massages in the kingdom.”

She laughed. “Who says that? Your girlfriends?”

“There are no girlfriends,” he said, shaking his head.

“You mean just not tonight.”

“No. What I tell you is true.”

“Wow. Too bad. For them, I mean: the women of the kingdom. Speaking of which, why is it called the Kingdom of Asia if you have an emperor?”

“At first it
was
a king and a kingdom. About fifty years afterward, it changed to ‘emperor’ and ‘empire.’ But everyone uses the terms interchangeably. It is our land’s quirk, I suppose. It doesn’t, however, change the population’s limitless affection for their ruler.”

“I hope the prince is paying you to do his PR.”

“P . . . R?”

“Public relations. Making him look good.”

Kublai frowned. “Prince Kyber does not require anyone to ‘make him look good.’ ”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult O Glorious One.”

“Glorious One.” Kublai stared off into the night. “The term has definite appeal.”

“Write it down. When we get to the palace, you can drop it in the royal suggestion box.”

He knelt between her legs and rubbed his hands together. “I will now knead the muscles in your legs to alleviate the spasms and give you a more comfortable night. If that is acceptable, of course.”

Who was he kidding? “That would be nice.”

Nice? Sweet mercy.
Having the Rim Rider’s hands all over her would be much more than that. Why hadn’t she thought to complain about her muscle spasms last night?

He reached for her waistband, and she stared at his
hands. It stopped him. “You are wearing your long under clothes, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then there is no risk of baring too much.”

No, damn it.

Gently, carefully, he unfastened her pants and pulled them off. A small light he’d brought with him provided a cozy glow, but the thick, damp darkness of the forest pressed in all around, as if trying to snuff it out.

His head was bent down, and she couldn’t see his face as he placed his hands on her legs. “I will touch you now.”

Please,
she thought. All over.
I’m dying here.

He began by stroking his palms over her legs. Cam swallowed and tipped her head back as his thumbs circled, pressing into her skin, finding the sore spots and soothing them away.

“You have incredible legs,” he said. Then, seeming to correct himself, he amended, “Strong legs. Yes, they are very strong.”

So, he liked her legs. She tried not to smile. “Actually, they used to be much stronger. There’s been a lot of atrophy. I stumble all the time. I know I shouldn’t complain—I should be happy to be alive—but I hate the clumsiness. Lately I’ve been wondering if my balance will ever come back.”

“They will do much for you, the palace physicians.”

“I hope so. It’s been the hardest thing about my recovery to accept, losing my coordination,” she admitted, growing more talkative as she relaxed. Kublai’s hands were expert. “I should have appreciated it more when I had it. I took so much for granted.”

“With our talents, we often do, it seems.” He bent to
the task of kneading the long muscles under her thighs, his fingers brushing the edges of her buttocks.

“What are your talents, Kublai?”

He lifted his head to give her the absolutely most intense, sexiest look she could imagine. She had to remember to breathe. “Besides that,” she practically gasped.

He threw back his head and laughed. “Do you think me a barbarian still? I don’t think your mama would be pleased if I were to regale you with tales of my prowess in bed.”

“The best men don’t have to brag.”

“No,” he said. “They do not.”

The atmosphere grew even more charged.

“Needless to say, I was going to tell you that swordplay is a talent of mine. No euphemism intended.”

She laughed softly.

“I practice each morning without fail. Even when on the road. It is an ancient art—obsolete, most say—a form of martial arts, but I find I crave it. Pushing my body and mind to new levels. The discipline of it all.”

“The focus, yes,” she said. “That’s a lot of it. I used to do gymnastics. All I practice anymore are the rings and uneven bars, but as a girl I had real talent. I wanted to stick with it straight up to an Olympic medal, but genetics slammed that goal into the dirt. All the women on my mother’s side are tall, willowy, and blond. I was just another cast in the mold.” She smiled. “At twelve years old I sprouted to five-foot-nine. Gymnasts need to be short. Luckily I only put on another inch before stopping.” She shrugged. “But as for these legs and my balance, I’m not asking to return to a hundred percent. I’m
not asking for miracles. If I can regain some of my lost coordination, and practice something I enjoy, I’ll be happy. That’s not asking much, is it? There’s so little else left. . . .” Her throat thickened as sadness unexpectedly washed over her. What was with her? It took all she had not to crumple into tears, like she used to in the early days after waking.

“You . . . left someone behind.”

“I left a lot of people behind.”

“Family, I know. But what of a husband?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t married.”

“Never?”

“No. Not that I was against it. I hadn’t found the right guy yet.”

“No lover?” he asked, his hands hard at work. Did he sound hopeful, or was it only her imagination?

“I had a boyfriend, yes.”

Cam followed Kublai’s gaze to the hand she’d brought without realizing it to the base of her throat. “He gave me a necklace,” she said quietly, not believing she was telling this man all the things she’d previously kept private, even from nosy Zhurihe. “It was a pearl on a chain. I picked up a habit of twirling it.” The sad part was that the air force had probably emptied her locker once they realized she was missing and likely killed in action, and given the necklace to her family. Or maybe even back to Matt. “Even now, after all these months, I find myself reaching for it though it’s long lost. I think it’s an unconscious need to grasp something familiar. Does that make sense? Wanting to hold on to something you wish wasn’t gone. Like trying to scratch an itch on a limb long since amputated.”

Kublai’s hands had all but stopped moving. “From time to time, I still look up from reading the sports news to debate the merits of a favorite team with my father. I find myself speaking before I remember he isn’t there. As for the loss of your lover, I am sorry.”

Cam lowered her hand. “Matt wasn’t the love of my life, Kublai. He was only the man I was dating when I was shot down.” Matt had been a sweetie, a nice guy. He was a flight surgeon, a military doctor, but as an officer, the major hadn’t been on the fast track. When she’d brought him home to test the waters, she could see the disapproval in her mother’s eyes. Matt wouldn’t ever be a general like her father; nor would he ever fly. “I liked him.” A like that had slowly been turning to love. “But fate pretty much ended the relationship before it had the chance to play out.”

She thought of Bree next. She couldn’t help it. “I had a friend, though. A very close friend. I think, of everyone outside my immediate family, I miss her the most. I wish . . .” She took a breath to steady herself. “I wish I knew what happened to her.” She pressed one hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I think she’s probably dead, and I’m having a hard time with it.”

Kublai stared down at her, as if taken aback by the depth of her grief. Except for his father, and the brother from whom he was estranged, he’d mentioned no attachments. No women. No wife or lovers—or girlfriends; he’d told her that flat-out. She’d bet he was one of those men who hated putting down roots, a man who avoided commitments and making promises, because he knew he was true to his word and didn’t want to owe anyone anything. If she had to guess, she’d say that Kublai preferred total freedom—from women, from everything. No wonder he
was attracted to the life of a Rim Rider, traversing the borderlands on the back of a horse, like the marshals of the Old West. Once they got to Beijing, she’d probably never see him again.

Disappointment bubbled up inside her. She quashed it. It was just as well they went their separate ways. She had a friend to find, and he . . . well, Kublai had the Rim to patrol. Outside of sappy Saturday-afternoon made-fortelevision movies, men like that never changed, and damned if she’d be the one to try “fixing” him. She didn’t view men as projects. Men were people who came into her life because they added to it. The relationship either worked or it didn’t, and if it didn’t you moved on.

Except when fate forced your hand.

Her fingers traced over the hollow between her collarbones. Matt’s necklace. She forced away her hand—she hoped for the last time. Matt was a part of her life that was over now. Her attraction to Kublai proved that she was ready to move on.

Kublai’s hands were back to massaging her legs. “I’m sorry for the loss of your friend,” he offered awkwardly.

She made fists in the dirt. “It should have been me. Not her.”

“It’s always worse to be the last one standing.”

She recognized the pain behind that statement. Her eyes lifted to his, so black in the dark night. “Relax,” he ordered gently. “Every time I upset you with my crude attempts to comfort, your muscles harden like rocks.”

“Your attempts are not crude. They’re charming. You’re not upsetting me. You’re helping me. And yes, I miss my friend. Terribly. I’m hoping to find her or some word of her in the capital.”

He was silent for a time as he worked the kinks out of her quads. “She isn’t there.”

It took a moment to realize what he’d told her. “W-what?”

He met her incredulous stare. “Banzai Maguire,” he enunciated, “is not in the capital.”

He’d said it! She no longer had to keep Bree secret. “Is she alive? Where is she now? Is she okay? Does she know
I’m
alive? When can I see her?” In the midst of her torrent of questions Cam started to sit up, and he eased her back down.

Kublai appeared to regret having said anything at all. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

“Knows what?” Cam felt ready to explode.

“Her whereabouts. Her condition. It’s been weeks since she left.”

A shudder ran through her. She’d thought knowing would be worse. It wasn’t. This was worse. “She left?”

“She ran away. The prince did all he could to try to bring her back, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Why?” Cam’s voice cracked. “Bree always listens to common sense.”

Kublai’s hands tightened around her legs. “Not when it comes to you, it seems.”

Cam’s composure all but gave out. “She left to find me . . . ?”
Just as you wanted to search for her.

Cam laid her head down and stared up at the stars. She was shaking, she realized, from fear and from joy. Bree was seen alive! And, thanks to this Rim Rider, she now had some real leads to follow once she got to the palace. The prince would help her contact Bree, let her friend know she was safe and in the capital, and they’d be reunited.

She’d have her friend back, someone from her own time who knew and understood her. Her best friend.

Life had suddenly taken a very good turn.

Closing her eyes, Cam gave entirely in to the pleasure of Kublai’s hands. A delicious shiver coursed through her as his palms stroked up the long length of her legs and back again. There had been men in her past, good men, yet she never recalled feeling anything like this. Not when they touched her, not even in that first giddy kiss.

In the months since waking, she hadn’t really thought of being with a man. First there was the grief, and then the relentless pain. But Kublai from the beginning had reminded her that she was a woman.

She came from a long line of proud Southern belles who understood that femininity didn’t cancel out strength. Her craving for a man’s strong body in no way made her weak. Quite the opposite, in fact. The exhilaration of her attraction to Kublai made her feel as if she could do anything. Like throwing inhibition to the wind.

Kublai’s fingers worked down her inner thigh to her knee and back again. The massage had done wonders for her muscles, but frankly, she wasn’t thinking about them anymore. Other, more intimate aches demanded attention.

Only the presence of Nazeem kept her from grabbing Kublai by the shoulders and pulling him down to her to kiss his lights out.

His lights? If he kissed her, she’d probably last all of one second before combusting.

“Do you feel well?”

Sighing, she stretched her arms over her head. “Amazingly well.” Kublai’s voice was the kind you wanted to hear from your pillow at night. The perfect bedroom voice.

“You look flushed,” he told her. His thumbs were doing something incredible a few inches above her knees, moving higher by the second. “I’m concerned about a fever.”

“I am a little warm,” she agreed, breathless.
Warm? Shoot.
She was burning up. She forced a laugh. “It’s getting a little hot out here.” In Mongolia. In the winter.

His hands stopped, his eyes turning darker still. He knew exactly what she meant. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he propped himself on his hands and leaned over her, his hair soft and falling all around them. She wasn’t sure what to read on his face—temptation, gladness, doubt, maybe a little craziness, too. She knew all about that craziness. By now she was half out of her mind. “Let me see,” he murmured in that rumbling baritone.