He watched as she swayed her hips and caressed her breasts behind a curtain of rice paper.

"Close your eyes," she whispered. 

He obeyed, waiting in blackness, deafened by his own heartbeat, though he strained to hear her footsteps as she approached. Her fingertip touched the throbbing pulse in the pit of his throat, and she tugged a perfumed silk scarf across his face. Though blinded, he envisioned her narrow eyes lined with grease pencil, so dark against porcelain skin. Her hair hung in a black braid down her back and past the curve of her buttocks, like the tail of a sweet demon.

"Love me." Her breath felt soft against his lips. It carried the scent of mint leaves. She was a princess. Forbidden. "Love me."

"I'm sworn to protect you." His voice sounded rough with restrained desire as her fingertips danced across his abdomen and clasped the sword that would bring his death as surely as the katana's blade.

"Protect me from my fear. Show me the unknown."

"No." He grasped her shoulders, heart pounding and breathing ragged as if he'd fought a hundred warriors. Her skin felt like warm satin beneath his callused palms. Couldn't she see what she did to him? Couldn't she sense it? His entire life had been spent training, fighting battles. He lived by a code of honor, but since he'd found her that day, bathing naked in a pond amidst birds and water flowers, his thoughts had been anything but honorable. Still, he'd waited with his back turned, his manhood hard as metal beneath his armor, while she dressed. He lifted her onto his horse and brought her home, leading his mount. Sharing a horse with a princess was unacceptable. Her father had sent him looking for the young runaway because he implicitly trusted his finest Samurai. From that moment he'd loved her, ached for her, and now, faced with her delicate touch and heated advances, felt his control crumbling.

"Your family has served mine for generations," she said. "You've fought for me, guarded me. Now I ask you to serve me in another way."

He stepped backward - surprised his legs still supported him - and ripped the red silk scarf from his eyes. He drew a sharp breath as he stared at her soft, naked curves. Large, brown nipples tipped her small breasts. Her belly was slightly rounded, her thighs firm, calves shapely. She stared at him through black lashes, part lady, part tease.

"I shouldn't have come here." He turned to leave, but she flung herself at his feet, arms around his waist, cheek pressed against the ginger spirals at his groin, lips brushing his arousal.

"I've never had to beg for anything, but I beg you now. Stay with me tonight and escape with me tomorrow."

He thought his heart would fly through his chest. Leave? With her? Abandon all he believed in and destroy both their lives? 

"If you hadn't come to me that day at the pond, I would have killed myself." Her tears fell on his manhood like a moist caress. "That's why I went there, you know. I hate my life. I hate the seclusion, the protection that strangles my soul. I love you."

"Don't speak that way..."

"Why not? It's true." 

She tilted her face up to his. Tears, blackened by the grease pencil lines, streaked her pale face. Her lips parted, quivering, and he sank to his knees, holding her to his chest, their naked limbs entwined. He kissed her forehead, her damp eyelids, and finally the mouth he'd longed to taste. His eyes slipped shut as his tongue traced the shape of her lips, explored her moist heat. She made a soft sound and clung to him, fingertips gripping the muscles of his back. He caressed her breasts, left a wet trail of kisses across her belly and thighs.Their joining was first a smooth sweep of a hard, warrior's body over the softness of a noblewoman's, then it was the fierce pounding of lust-driven animals. 

They rested, sweaty flesh on sweaty flesh. He brushed a loose tendril of hair from her cheek and ran his fingertip over her kiss-bruised lips. 

Finally he stood and reached for his clothes. "Prepare yourself. We'll leave before dawn."

She nodded, and he felt her eyes on him as he left. 

"How sad," the members of the noble families said on the morning of the Princess's departure. "And who would have suspected?"

"He served their family so bravely."

"Like his father, grandfather, and great grandfather before him."

"Who would have thought he would kill her, and then kill himself?"

No one knew if, with the last of his strength, he'd used his blood or her's to write one symbol across the curtain of rice paper: soft.

Copyright © 2001 Kate Hill. All Rights Reserved. May not be re-printed in any form without express written consent of the author. Do not copy or post.