The Samurai's Forbidden Touch Page 3

  “Now show me what you desire,” he said, his authoritative tone tempered by longing. The tautness of his muscles as he lay at her knees revealed the depth of Takeshi’s inner struggle. Though capable of taking what he wanted at will, he had instead chosen to remain still and wait for her.

  Miku leaned down, and, like a butterfly lighting on an upturned flower, her lips gently explored his mouth. Her heart fluttered wildly as she tasted him, the warmth of his mouth a tantalizing invitation to deepen the kiss. And when she did, seeking out his tongue with her own, his mouth responded with a shared passion. Surely, she thought, there could be no greater bliss than the sweet connection of their intoxicating kiss.

  He lifted his hands, sweeping them slowly up to her shoulders and pushing back the open robe. Lost in the new delight she had found at his mouth, Miku did not think to modestly resist as her clothing fluttered to the floor, or when his hands moved to cup her full breasts.

  No longer was she a noblewoman to give commands. With the sweep of his hands, Takeshi once again captivated his prisoner.

  His calloused fingertips began to circle lightly, their touch tracing the outer edge of her breasts. She sighed with delighted pleasure, mesmerized by the gentle brush of his hands across her tingling flesh. And then without warning his thumb flicked across the peak of one breast, releasing sparks of pleasure that shocked her out of her sensual reverie. She felt her nipples tighten and became acutely aware of her position, naked on her hands and knees above him. She realized could not move her hands to cover her bare breasts without losing her balance.

  Suddenly shy, Miku tried to shift away, but Takeshi’s grasp tightened around a handful of ebony hair at the base of her neck. He pressed her lips back to his while once more his other hand tickled across the hardened peaks of her breasts. She squirmed with renewed pleasure as he held her in his kiss, unwilling to release his captive. She was his to possess, with no possibility—and no desire—of resistance or escape.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw in his gaze a molten hunger. With his unyielding hold on the back of her head, she could not look down at the hand on her breasts but was forced to wait in blind anticipation for the next achingly delicate stroke. She saw heated delight flicker in his eyes each time his fingertips caused a surprised moan to escape her lips.

  His fingers continued to tease her breasts, sometimes lightly pinching their peaks until she thought her legs would go weak with ecstasy and sometimes waiting so long between caresses that she would grow impatient and angry, longing for the excitement of his touch. And with each brush of his war-hardened hands, a tingling ache deepened between her legs.

  When she had bent to kiss the samurai, Miku had imagined the moment to be hers to dictate. She was the poet, after all, and he a compliant canvas at her feet. Yet Takeshi’s firm grip on her hair as he relentlessly consumed her mouth and caressed her hardened nipples told her she no longer controlled this man or what he would do with her. But rather than scaring her, that realization seemed to fuel an even deeper passion. His fingers on her body and his lips against her mouth had unleashed a raw hunger she had never before known.

  The ache between her legs was an overwhelming throb now, and, letting her eyes close, she began to slowly roll her hips. Her conscious mind could not fathom what she needed, but her body told her there was a release from the delighted agony she was enduring if only she could open her legs and press her hips against something, against him. She stretched her back as her hips continued to sway, giving herself over to carnal instinct as she sought to satisfy her growing arousal. And yet her undulations seemed to only intensify her excitement without bringing any release.

  Finally she moaned, her primal sound of delight and frustration a wordless plea to Takeshi. Instantly, he moved his hand from her tingling breasts, wrapped both arms tightly around her and pressed her supple body down to his muscle-hardened form.

  Caught in Takeshi’s powerful embrace, Miku didn’t resist when the samurai rolled her gently onto a nest of silken floor cushions, their kiss never breaking. He was next to her now, his flesh radiating heat as he pressed his torso against her soft skin and slid his hands up the length of her arms, pinning her hands above her head. His grip around her wrists was firm and sure, the touch of a man who knew power and expected submission. It was a warrior’s touch, and she had no choice but to surrender to it. Yet the tenderness revealed as his fingertips traced the curves of her palms assured Miku that her lover could release her the instant she requested.

  But she did not want him to let her go. She wanted him to possess her, to consume her, to be joined with her forever.

  Takeshi’s iron grasp on her wrists lightened, and he whispered a gentle warning into her ear: “You will not move. You are my prisoner, and mine to command.” Her breath caught as he released her hands, but she obeyed and left them stretched above her, delighting in the intensity of his desire for her.

  Takeshi, his black mane of hair falling loose across his chiseled face, slowly slid down her body, his kiss lingering first on her neck, then her throat, and finally taking in the achingly sensitive tip of one breast. She arched into his mouth as his lips closed around her nipple, his tongue flicking back and forth as she writhed slowly next to him in agonized bliss.

  As he continued to tease her breasts with his mouth, Miku watched as if in a dream while Takeshi slid one hand slowly around the curve of her hip, down her buttock and underneath her leg, lifting it at the knee and pressing it outward. She was open to him now, and, uncertain of his intentions, she watched as his hand moved to stroke the heated flesh of her inner thigh. Not thinking to be shy, she only trembled with anticipation, awaiting the unfathomable pleasure his next touch would surely bring.

  Slowly he released her breast with a lingering kiss and raised his eyes to meet hers. With moonlight reflecting in his dark gaze, he traced the delicate curve of her mouth with his fingertips, their roughness softened by the gentleness of his touch. In instinctive answer to the deep hunger of his stare, she opened her mouth to his caress, her tongue moving playfully across his fingertips as his had just done with her breasts.

  His low moan of pleasure told her she had guessed his desires correctly, and she eagerly took his fingers into her mouth, sucking them with a hunger of her own. Finally, with a reluctant groan, he slid his hand away from her lips and down the soft curves of her body. Wet with her kisses, his fingertips lightly caressed a tiny point between her legs. Miku cried out in surprise at the overwhelming sensation that instantly enveloped her.

  She pushed up on her elbows, panting with surprised delight, but before she could speak Takeshi once more ran his fingertips across her core. She arched against his hand as sparks of pleasure coursed through her body, then pushed against the silken pillows beneath her as she sought, if only temporarily, to regain control of the explosive desire now unleashed within her.

  But Takeshi reached a firm hand around her waist, pulling her back to him. “You are not to move,” he reminded her as she struggled beneath him. And despite the gentleness in his eyes, Miku realized he had no intention of allowing her to resist his touch.

  She grew still, and his fingers once more traced down her stomach and between her legs. He slid a thumb slowly across her hidden point, the pressure light but unwavering, and she lost the ability—and desire—to fight the intense longing his touch ignited. With a breathless cry of surrender, she fell back to the nest of pillows, the silk cool beneath her heated flesh.

  No longer waiting for her to recover from each shock of pleasure his touch brought, Takeshi began to caress her with a rhythmic stroke soon matched by quivering twitches of her hips. Though still gentle, his fingers moved faster and faster until she writhed in abandoned delight beneath him. All conscious thought left Miku’s mind as a pleasure more intense than she had ever imagined overwhelmed her. And mingled with that pleasure was an aching need, growing more insistent with each touch.

  Whispering into the soft curve of her neck, Takeshi
’s voice was thick with desire. “Obey me once more, my poetess, and give yourself over to this pleasure.”

  Miku’s lips parted, but she could only moan in response as he lowered his head from the crook of her neck. With a deliberate slowness that caused the ache between her legs to throb, he took one breast into his mouth, his tongue teasing her hardened nipple as his fingertips continued to caress between her legs.

  “Obey me,” he repeated, and she cried out, abandoning herself fully to the surging waves of pleasure that shattered up from between her legs and washed through her body in a rolling tide of bliss.

  She clung to him, desperately afraid that the explosion of sensation would sweep her away. But as the fiery tingle slowly faded to a contented glow, she found herself held tightly as he gently rocked her in his arms. She buried her head against the hard muscles of his bare chest, and he kissed the loose hair that flowed down around her face.

  Secure in the protective strength of his embrace, Miku finally stretched and smiled. But when she looked up into her samurai’s face, his gaze retained its restless hunger.

  “You are not pleased?” she asked, her previously serene face shadowed with confusion and concern.

  “A warrior understands the value of patience,” he said, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. “And I must wait a bit longer.”

  “For what?” she asked, his tender caress causing a smile to blossom on her lips like a lotus opening for the sun.

  Takeshi gazed at the poetess in his arms, her naive concern for his happiness piercing the hardened armor of his heart yet again. Was this innocent flower really to be his only for one night? Then it must be a night worth the cost he might be forced to pay. Yet he would take her only when she was truly ready, when she knew the full depths of her own desire. Anything before that would be an assault on the beautiful spirit he had already grown to cherish above all else.

  He drew her closer, tipping her head toward the night sky shimmering just past the veranda and open-walled parlor. “A poet should not be concerned with the worries of a warrior. The things of purest beauty, like these stars, are your true focus.”

  Miku’s heart trembled in response to Takeshi’s words and to the spangled expanse that enveloped them. How could the night be anything but so perfectly beautiful, she realized, after the moment she had just shared with this brooding yet tender soldier?

  As the incandescent moon subdued the distant ocean and drew it inexorably to the waiting shore, Miku knew that she, body and spirit, was being pulled toward Takeshi. And yet, only hours before, he had been relatively unknown to her, merely another of her uncle’s sworn mercenaries. Was it something more than fate that had brought them together tonight?

  “You have yet to explain why you, the most valued of my uncle’s samurai, would be sent to perform such a menial task as watching his insignificant niece?” whispered Miku, her fingertips woven through Takeshi’s tousled hair.

  “Your significance is greater than you suspect.”

  Miku’s gaze snapped back from the starlit sky to stare into his eyes, surprised.

  “Explain your meaning.”

  He paused before answering, and when he spoke his words were measured, the clipped speech of a military officer.

  “Your uncle went to meet a man from the capital,” he said, his eyes moving from her piercing gaze to the dark shadows beyond the veranda. “An important man. One with many political connections and great wealth. One to whom your uncle plans to give you in marriage. The ceremony will be upon their return in the morning. I am to guard you until that inevitability occurs.”

  The words bleached Miku’s face with shock and disbelief. And then, in the silence that followed his revelation, an angry flush surged to her cheeks.

  “Marriage? Tomorrow? When was I to be informed? When was I to meet this man?”

  “The Master did not divulge those details to me. He only shared enough to impress upon me the importance of your safekeeping in his absence, and of preventing you from writing any more poetry that might upset your groom’s sensibilities. Your uncle’s plans for successful political advancement hinge on the felicitous celebration of this union.”

  But in saying the words aloud, Takeshi realized he could no longer enforce such an edict. He was no longer Miku’s guard—for she now held his heart captive. Though tradition dictated he should one day marry a woman of the Master’s choosing, Takeshi’s heart now acknowledged that his unexpected—yet undeniable—feelings for this maiden might force a confrontation with the old man sooner than he had planned. Before he could speak again, however, his poet sat back, eyes flashing.

  “Felicitous?” she said sharply. “There is nothing happy about an arranged marriage to a stranger. A forced alliance with a man I’ve never met, let alone decided I can love and respect? Never! I will decide which man I marry. I will decide the man I bed.”

  She was breathing hard. Anger, shock and defiance surged through her body as she glared at Takeshi, daring him to contradict her.

  But instead of demanding her compliance, Takeshi ran a gentle hand down her cheek. She held her breath as his fingertips caressed the edge of her jaw and paused at her throat.

  “And who will that be?” he asked, his voice a husky whisper. “Who will you take to your bed as husband?”

  Stunned by the directness of his question, she was more surprised to realize she already knew the answer.

  Yet while her heart thudded with desire for Takeshi, she also found a growing anger pound within it as well. How could this samurai share such intimacies with her, knowing he must part with her in the morning? Was she nothing more than an evening’s diversion, a soldier’s plaything to be toyed with before being delivered to the bed of another? Pride filled Miku’s heart as she fought to regain control over herself—and Takeshi.

  Takeshi watched as a storm of emotions surged through Miku’s large eyes before an unexpected detachment seemed to move across her gaze.

  “I choose you, of course, my dear Takeshi,” she whispered, her words those of love but her voice strangely cool. “Allow me to perfume my body before I give it to you. I will be but a few moments in my bedchamber before I return to your embrace.”

  She slipped gracefully from the parlor and into her private chamber, sliding the silken door closed after giving Takeshi one last tempting smile. But the smile fell away as Miku moved quickly toward the room’s outer door. Turning back once more to make sure that the samurai had not followed her into the bedroom, she silently slid open its exterior door and stepped out into the dew-wet night—and into Takeshi’s waiting arms. Having guessed his prisoner’s true intentions, he had stolen out across the veranda and around the side of her suite to recapture Miku.

  For a moment Miku’s breath caught in her throat, then she fought in vain to escape his tight embrace. “Release me!” she cried, in anger and humiliation. “I will never obey my uncle, or you!”

  “I will no longer obey your uncle, either,” growled Takeshi, “but neither will I release you.”

  Lifting her over one broad shoulder, he carried Miku back into her bedchamber and, ignoring her protests, laid her on the sleeping couch. Keeping one arm pressed against her still-struggling form, he reached for several of the silken cords she used to wrap her scrolls of poetry.

  “Let me go,” Miku cried, unable to pry herself from beneath his grasp. “I will not submit to my uncle’s matrimonial plans.”

  “But you will submit to me,” said Takeshi, his voice low and full of authority.

  With a deft motion, Takeshi wrapped one cord firmly around her arms, binding them above her head to the top of the couch. Though pulled tightly, the cord’s silken texture was soft against her bare skin. Miku gasped in shock, but Takeshi did not pause as he quickly wrapped another cord around her waist. Though her legs remained unfettered, she was in all other respects bound firmly to the bed.

  Takeshi looked down at Miku’s soft body tied across the silk blankets, her breathlessly parted li
ps, and her eyes, glowing like fiery embers in the soft lamplight. And in those eyes Takeshi read a burning passion equal only to his own. Pressing one finger across her lips to silence any further protest, he knelt beside her.

  “You will be mine as long as I live,” he whispered, knowing the words were not the promise she thought them to be, but the ardent declaration of a man who soon might die at the Master’s hands.

  “I am mine alone to give, not yours to take,” she retorted, but the flush spreading across her bare flesh indicated a deeper desire threatened to submerge her anger in a flood of passion.

  He pressed his lips to hers, and she fought to move away, but his hands held her face with a gentleness that nonetheless left no room for resistance. With a moan of tormented delight, she finally received his kiss with open mouth, her lips hungry for the taste of him. In her momentary surrender, all thought of the next morning—and the Master’s return—faded away from Takeshi’s conscious mind.

  As their kiss deepened, he caressed her face and ran his fingertips through her dark hair. Miku realized that though he had bound her, she loved this man, and she would joyously now let him possess her completely.

  As Takeshi’s hands slid across her bare flesh, he moaned with anticipation. He slid onto her, every inch hard and heavy against her soft body. Though part of her willed him never to leave, she still struggled against the cords around her arms and waist, her deep hunger battling with her willful spirit. Though every touch pleased her, she still strained against her bonds, not yet ready to surrender fully.

  His tongue curled around hers, and the memory of his mouth on her breasts made her whimper with desire. An aching desire pulsed through her body, and she instinctively opened her legs, pressing herself against the hot skin of his thigh.

  But he slipped away, kneeling again beside her low bed. His lips moved down her neck, delicately brushing the curve of her throat like a calligraphy brush. His tongue traced exquisite characters of his own design, marking her naked flesh as his own. Her skin trembled beneath his touch, and she arched to meet his lips. As he took the peak of her breast into his mouth again, a small cry of delight escaped her parted lips.