‘Who was it?’ she asked again when she drew breath.

‘You never give up.’

‘Who?’

He sighed. ‘It was Feng Po Chu. His father, Feng Tu Hong, is the leader of the Black Snakes and the president of the council.’

‘Po Chu? The one who stole the explosives? Why did he do this to you?’

‘Because I did something. It made him lose face.’

‘What kind of something?’

Chang was silent at first and she thought he was going to keep his secrets from her, but slowly he started to speak. ‘I walked him naked and bound to his father and made him beg. I thought I had the protection of Feng Tu Hong but…’ He paused and traced a finger around the curve of her ear. ‘I was wrong.’

Lydia abruptly recalled what Mr Theo had told her about Chang making a deal with Feng, and she nodded. ‘Thank you. Now I know.’

After a moment of thought she rolled away from him out of the bed, felt her way over to the small green lamp on the table, and switched it on. When she returned to the bedside, she stood quite still for a moment, gazing down at him intently. Slowly she slid the nightdress up over her head.

She saw his black eyes fill with desire.


She lifted the sheet and lay in the bed next to his naked body. He was warm. Like silk all down one side of her skin. She stroked a hand gently over his bandaged chest and down his thin ribs to his hips. She knew his body so well, each bone and muscle of it.

But suddenly, stupidly, she felt awkward. She didn’t know what to do next. Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears and she was frightened he would hear it, but just when she was thinking she’d made a complete fool of herself by climbing into his bed like a common slut, he lifted himself up on one elbow and studied her face with a dark, serious gaze. So intense it stripped away her fears.

Slowly his lips found hers. Tentative at first. Small lingering kisses on her mouth, on the tip of her chin, the corners of her eyes and the sweep of her cheekbones. They made her whole body surge with something that felt almost like pain, it was so fierce, a burning heat. It swept from her lips to the tips of her breasts and rushed down between her legs. Her nipples ached. She heard herself moan in a soft mewing sound she had never heard before.

‘Lydia,’ he murmured as his mouth claimed hers again. His hand caressed her naked breast and slid in slow teasing circles down the slope of her slender stomach.

It was as if her skin became something other than skin. It grew so alive it leaped out of her control, rubbed itself against his body, her hip pressing against his, her hands touching, searching, stroking, seeking out each bone of his back, his flat wide shoulder blades, the curve of his buttocks. Her lips opened to his and the unexpected sensation of their tongues entwining sent such a shiver of delicious shock through her body that it made him stop, lift his head, and gaze at her with concern.

But she laughed, almost a purr, and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him back to her once more. His lips explored her throat with open-mouthed kisses, as if he would eat her up, and his tongue started to lick her breasts, tasting her, discovering her, making the lines of her body melt until they moulded perfectly to his. It amazed her that two bodies could do this. Become one.

As he bent his dark head over her breast she let her own tongue trail along the back of his neck, twirling the short hairs and nuzzling each bone of his spine. His skin. It smelled of herbs. But the salty taste of it set her loins throbbing. When he took her nipple into his mouth the heat inside her seemed to explode in her chest and the need for him became unbearable. Her hand reached down to where she could feel his penis thrust hard against her thigh but when her fingers curled around it, it startled her. This was not the penis she recognized, the one she had cradled in her hand before. This was different. Big. Too big. How could anything be so hard and yet so soft?

He moaned the moment her hand touched it. It twitched between her fingers as if electric shocks were sweeping through its blue veins and she felt a fierce choking desire to hold it, keep it, protect it, own it forever. It was as if it were a part of her. As he was a part of her.

Abruptly she could hold back no longer and she took his good hand, placed it between her legs. Instantly he lifted his head so that his mouth and his tongue could merge with her own, and his fingers started to caress the moist heart between her legs, gently at first, then firmer, harder. She moaned, and under it she heard a low breathless growl that was him. She lost track of time. A minute or an hour, she had no idea. She wrapped a leg up over his hip and felt his penis tight against her cleft, the pulse of it hot and needy.

And suddenly he was above her. His lips kissing her eyelids until she opened them and found his dark gaze looking down at her with an expression so tender and so full of longing that she knew she would carry it with her till her dying day. His mouth moved against her own.

‘My sweet love,’ he breathed. ‘Tell me this is what you want.’

For reply she bucked her hips so that the tip of him slid inside her and she heard his quick intake of breath. His teeth bit down on her lip. Slowly, gently, with infinite care he entered her. At one point a sharp pain made her cry out but he held her close, murmuring, whispering, eating her up.

She could barely breathe. All thought ceased. Her whole world became this one moment. A fierce pounding heat that crashed over her body, burning new pathways through her flesh. Through his flesh. Through their flesh. Moulding it into one flesh. And when the final shuddering climax tore through them both, she thought she was dying. Literally dying. And that Chang An Lo’s gods had carried her to a new afterlife.


No nightmares. Not that night. She had banished them.

Chang An Lo could not take his eyes off her, even in the dark. Her head lay curled on his shoulder as she slept and he brushed his cheek against her hair, just to feel it again, to touch its flames. His mind kept rushing ahead, twisting and turning around the hidden coil of the future, but he drew it back. Back to the present. To this moment. This now. This perfect point of time.

He struggled to centre his mind. Focus his senses. But all he could feel was the joy of her, the physical wonder of her, the sweet smell of her. His fox girl. He relived each second in his head as he lay awake in the hours before dawn. Heard again the little yips of pleasure. Felt her teeth on his collarbone. The strong muscles inside her. That moment of certainty when…

No. He dragged his mind away and forced it to be in the now. Not in what had passed. Nor in what was to come. But now. To breathe each breath completely and not think about the next. The gods had granted him a treasure few ever come close to experiencing in this life. He would not waste it by fearing that some thief would come and steal it from him tomorrow or tomorrow’s tomorrow. He touched her forehead with his lips and kept them there against her skin. It was warm and musky with sleep. His eyes held on to the shadowy tangle of her hair, and he listened to her breathing. He had to clear his brain. To think what was right for her.


‘Are you tired?’ Her eyes were huge. Great amber pools of light.

‘No.’ He smiled at her as she lay beside him on the pillow in the darkness. ‘I feel better. Much better. Strong inside again.’

‘Good.’

He kissed her ear. ‘You have perfect ears. Priceless curls of porcelain.’

She laughed and wrapped her leg lightly over his body. Instantly he was aroused. He touched her breast and felt the muscles spring to life under her skin. This time she made it easy for him. She sat astride him, rocking with an urgent rhythm while his hand caressed the soft swell of her breasts, firm and taut and infinitely inviting to his tongue. He watched her face. It was so mobile. It showed so much. He painted the picture of it into his head the way an artist paints a delicate portrait on a porcelain plate.

The freedom of her passion as she threw her hair forward and seized his lips with hers, arching over him with open longing, was something new to him, and it fired his need for her to even greater intensity. But it moved him too, deep down inside where no one else had ever touched before. And he wondered, as he danced his fingers down her sides and saw her tremble, whether he was the one who was the virgin.

43

Lydia lay very still. She didn’t want to disturb the darkness.

Everything had changed. Even her pillow smelled different. Her body felt as though she had swapped it for a new one overnight and she had to familiarise herself with it all over again because this body knew things and did things instinctively that her head could only observe with amazement. This body had no shame. In fact it revelled in these extraordinary acts of intimacy. And she was astonished that it knew no bashfulness in its nakedness, not even under the gaze of a man.

Not just a man. A Chinese man.

What would her mother say?

She smiled and a bubble of laughter escaped into the silent room. She pictured Valentina’s face if she walked in now, her eyes and her mouth round with shock, then narrow with fury, but oddly none of it had the power to touch her. Not now, in this wonderful new body. This desirable body. This shameless body. She flexed its limbs, stretched its toes, clenched the newly awakened muscles between her legs and in the lowest part of her abdomen, felt a dull ache down there. Not a pain exactly, just a delicious ache that reminded her of what had happened to her. As if she could forget.

A virgin no more. The thought brought nothing but a shiver of pleasure even though she knew her mother would rant and rave and say that no man would want her now that she was spoiled goods.

That was such rubbish, she couldn’t suppress a grin. She had been transformed from dreary back-of-the-shelf stock into shiny new goods. Glossy and glowing, inside and out. And who cared about what other men might say? She shivered with disgust at the very idea of another man’s touch. It was Chang An Lo she wanted. No one else.

She put her ear close to his mouth to make sure he was still breathing. She didn’t quite trust his gods. They might want him. But she wanted him more.


‘Time for breakfast, my love. I know it’s not even morning yet,’ she laughed and waved a hand at the black window, ‘but I’m starving.’

He felt the warmth of her body disappear from his side.

‘I want to eat only you.’ He smiled.

‘No. Boiled egg and toast for you today. Got to keep your strength up. You never know when you might need it again.’

She abandoned him with a mischievous chuckle, turned on the light, and trotted off to the bathroom. He was impressed by such luxuries in Western houses. He could hear her running a bath and singing to herself. He smiled, but knew he had to prepare her.


‘Tell me about your childhood.’

She was perched cross-legged on the end of the bed eating yesterday’s bowl of something she called trifle. Every now and again she leaned forward and slipped a spoonful of it into his mouth. Secretly he found it teeth-grating in its sweetness and was astonished she could relish it so, but he gave no sign of that.

‘My childhood,’ he said. ‘It was very grand. Tutors, servants, and slaves. My father was a great mandarin. A peacock feather in the hat and gold-coloured tiles on the roof as a mark of superiority. He was a trusted adviser to Empress Tzu Hsi, but after Sun Yat-sen…’

‘My rabbit?’ She grinned.

‘… after the true and noble Sun Yat-sen brought the end to the Ching dynasty in 1911, my family escaped death. Only because the new central government needed my father’s financial skills. But,’ he felt his face grow stiff and expressionless, ‘the warlords slit each other’s throats and came for him.’

‘And your family?’

‘Dead. Each one of them. Beheaded in Peking. By order of General Yuan Shi-k’ai.’

‘I’m sorry. So very sorry, my love. To lose everyone…’

He shook his head, as if he could shake out the image from his mind. ‘I escaped. I had chosen to live with monks to learn a simpler way of life. In a temple up in the mountains north of Yenan.’

‘A temple?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I thought Communists didn’t believe in religion.’

‘You are correct. But it is not a simple task to root out superstition from the human mind.’ He reached over, drew her to him, and let his tongue lick a smear of custard from her lips. ‘Or love from the human heart.’

‘Is that what has happened to us?’ Her eyes were solemn.