Captive Bride (28 page)

“No one saw—”

“Hah! Around here someone always sees and will talk if paid enough.” He glared at each of them before gesturing them toward his office. “Come.” Inside, he tossed a handkerchief at Huiann and gave an order in Chinese. Jeremy dropped into the nearest chair and Huiann bent over him to staunch the blood oozing from his wound. Briefly Alan told Dong about harboring Huiann, her kidnapping and rescue which had left Xie dead—there was no doubt the shots to both his head and chest had killed him.

Dong stopped rummaging through a desk drawer to stare at him. “You haven’t just skipped a pebble across a pond. You’ve thrown a damn boulder in it. The balance of power among the tongs is precarious.

Removing Xie will make more than ripples. It’ll be a tidal wave.” He shook his head. “Change is almost always bad for business.”

Dong summoned the youth who minded the front door and spoke a few words to him. The lad bobbed his head and left, after taking a last curious glance at his master’s strange visitors.

“He’ll bring a doctor,” Dong said.

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“A Chinese doctor?” Jeremy sat up straight. “I can wait until we get to my place. It’s not far.” Dong Li’s withering glance quelled him. “There’s more blood on your shirt than in your body. Besides, a Western doctor’s more likely to kill you than heal you.

Consider yourself lucky to be treated by a physician like Chen Ru. You might live.” Dong found what he was looking for from the drawer. He unfolded a square of material and inside was a row of picks. Alan placed his manacled wrists on the surface of the desk. The man bent his head over the task of picking the locks on the manacles, deftly plying his instruments with the skill of a surgeon.

“How’d you learn to…?”

Dong glanced at him and Alan shut up. He held his breath as the soft click of metal on metal filled the silence. He stared at the top of Dong’s head, the thick black hair streaked with gray, and felt he was in a dream.

“I’m sorry if we’ve caused you trouble by coming here.”

Dong clicked his tongue impatiently and prodded deeper into the lock. A moment later he let out a satisfied snort as the manacle opened. “Hah!” He turned his attention to the other wrist and Alan looked at Huiann. She was bandaging Jeremy’s arm tight to stem the flow of blood. Her body was swathed in Jeremy’s navy blue coat. Her slender legs sticking out from beneath it looked like a child’s. When her gaze met Alan’s, she smiled.

The other manacle opened and Dong Li sat back in his chair. “Haven’t lost my touch.” 260

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“Thank you.” Alan rubbed his chafed wrists.

“Please, could you find something for Huiann to wear?”

Dong looked at Huiann and she placed her hands together and bowed. She said something to him in Chinese and he responded. Alan listened as their conversation flowed back and forth, natural, elegant, easy. Hearing her conversing with someone in her native tongue made him aware of the limits English imposed on her ability to communicate. It must be wonderful for her to talk with someone who understood her completely.

He thought of his decision to ask her to marry him and realized he could never be as important to her as her family. And now that Xie was not a threat there was nothing to stop her from returning to the land of her ancestors.

“She wants you to know how much she appreciates everything you’ve done for her, how much she owes you,” Dong Li told him.

Alan frowned at the word
owe
. “It’s been my pleasure to have her.” The double meaning of the words struck him. “I’ve told her I’ll pay for a ticket to China, but she worries about being even more in my debt. Make sure she understands she owes me nothing.”

“Maybe passage to China isn’t what she wants,” Dong Li said. “What would she be going home to?” Huiann gazed at Alan and spoke at length, her voice rising and falling in the choppy rhythm of troubled waves. When she paused, Dong Li translated.

“Chua Huiann wants to apologize deeply for the trouble she’s caused you, the ruin of your store, the Bonnie Dee

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danger you faced by coming to her rescue. She wishes you to know she will not cause you any more trouble.

She will leave you in peace and find work elsewhere to support herself.”

Huiann swallowed, her hands clasped together and her eyes glassy with tears, then she spoke some more.

“Her heart is full of feeling for you, but she knows it is wrong for her to stay with you. She wishes for you to find a white woman who will fit into your life and be the wife you need.”

Alan started shaking his head before Dong Li even finished translating. “No. Tell her
she
makes me happy.

She is exactly the wife I need.” He breathed deeply, steadying the quaver in his voice. “Ask Chua Huiann if she will do me the honor of marrying me.” Dong clicked his tongue, but offered Alan’s proposal.

Huiann’s eyes opened wide and she spoke rapidly.

“How would your family and your people react to you marrying a foreign bride? You would be ostracized. It cannot be.” Dong added his own thoughts to the translation. “The girl speaks sense and sees more clearly than you.”

Alan frowned. He couldn’t promise his family would accept Huiann or ever welcome them home as a couple, but he didn’t care. Maybe she was seeing reason, but he was only seeing her.

Dong shrugged. “Shall I tell her you would give up everything for her because you love her like a romantic fool?”

“Love isn’t foolish,” Jeremy interrupted, his voice strained. “It’s more powerful than anything and it can overcome any obstacles. Look at me and Cynthia.” 262

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“Yes, tell her I love her,” Alan said. “And I’m willing to face whatever difficulties lie ahead as long as we’re together.”

Dong laughed. “How did you manage to communicate without me? And what in the hell makes you think you’re in love? Is she that good in bed?” He spoke at length in Chinese, making Alan wonder if he was embellishing the message.

By the time he’d finished, tears slipped down Huiann’s cheeks. She dashed them away with the back of her hand as a smile lit her face and brought her dimples dancing. “Yes, Alan Sommers. I will marry you.”

She looked at him with such depth of emotion in her eyes that he knew he did understand her completely. They could communicate their feelings without any words at all. His worry about how they could be together in a world that wouldn’t accept them evaporated. Their need for one another was so elemental, there was no denying it.

Chapter Twenty

Huiann knelt in the washtub while Alan poured warm water over her head. The cascade rinsed the soap from her hair and ran in rivulets down her body. Her shivering stilled at last as she basked in the warmth of the water and the feeling of Alan’s hands soaping and rinsing first her hair then her body. The cloth and slick soap glided over her shoulders and down her back. He lathered her then rinsed her with fresh water from the kettle warming on the stove.

The smell of smoke and charred wood lingered in the kitchen, but the fire in the store had been extinguished before Alan’s living quarters had been burned, and the building appeared to be structurally sound.

Huiann sighed as the warm water sluiced down her body and the level in the tub rose higher. She shifted and water nearly sloshed over the edge. She pushed back the wet hair from her face and looked up at Alan.

His eyes were dark like a night sky, hungry and yearning for her. After the horror of being kidnapped and nearly raped, it seemed impossible she could summon any feelings of sensuality, but she couldn’t deny her rising desire for Alan. She wanted to lie with him, to be as close to him as two people could be, their bodies wrapped around each other in silent communion.

He soaped her chest and breasts with soft caresses of the cloth that made her nipples tingle. The flannel 264

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glided over her belly and Alan’s hand plunged beneath the water. The abandoned cloth floated to the surface as he explored her with his fingers, seeking the tight bud at the crest of her sex. Like the minnows that used to dart around her ankles when she waded at the edge of the Yangtze, his fingers tickled her. Her pussy tensed as she rose into his touch.

“Is this all right after everything that’s happened today? Do you want…?”

“Yes, I want,” she assured him.

He leaned to settle his mouth over hers in a soft kiss and resumed rubbing her erect bud. She moaned and gripped his shoulder with one wet hand and the edge of the tub with the other. She held on while his increasingly demanding kisses and circling finger carried her away. Quickly and unexpectedly, bliss rushed through her and she cried out.

He pulled away with a hum of pleasure. “So fast,” he murmured.

His hand surfaced from between her legs and slid up her stomach to cup one of her breasts. His eyes glittered like beautiful gems. Huiann’s heart rose into her throat and nearly choked her at the profound feeling filling her.
I love him. He’s mine. And we’re
safe, truly safe at last.

Alan rose and took her hand, drawing her up from the water. He wrapped a towel around her and lifted her into his arms. Water dripped from her feet onto the kitchen floor and all the way up the stairs as he carried her to his bed. He laid her down and smoothed ointment over the lacerations caused by Liu Dai’s whip. Then he laid clean cloths over her rear and thighs before leaving her.

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“Rest a while. I’ll be right back.” He strode from the room, boot heels tapping on the floor as he descended to the kitchen. She listened to the sounds of water splashing and pictured his naked body. Huiann rolled gingerly onto her back and drifted into a lazy doze in which she was observing Alan bathing—his wet hair darkened and molded sleekly to his head, his torso shining, the muscles of his shoulders, chest and stomach sculpted as if by an artisan. The perfection of his long legs and the thrust of his cock beckoned her to touch him. Her hands roamed over all the angles and planes of his body.

Huiann wakened from her fantasy at the sound of Alan’s footsteps in the hallway. When she opened her eyes, he stood in the doorway exactly as she’d pictured him, except for the towel around his waist. She devoured him with her eyes—his damp hair and pale body. He was so tall the top of his head nearly brushed the door frame when he entered the room.

She pointed to the towel and ordered imperiously,

“Take off.”

He smiled and loosened the fabric, letting it drop to the floor. He stepped on it as he sauntered toward her with the grace of a cat and sprang lightly onto the bed.

On hands and knees he suspended his body over hers.

Her body tensed in anticipation as he slowly lowered himself and her gaze met his smoldering stare. Until she’d met Alan, she’d never known eyes could reveal so much. He communicated with her in eloquent ways when neither of them spoke.

His body brushed against hers, skin to skin. His mouth came down on hers and she lifted her head from the pillow to meet his kiss. Lips molded to lips, so 266

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intimate and seductive. He caught her exploring tongue between his teeth and nipped it playfully. She grasped his lower lip in her mouth and pulled lightly.

A warm chuckle reverberated in his chest. Oh, how she loved the sound of his laughter at the little games they played.

His body settled into the cradle of her hips and his erection rubbed her seam. When it brushed over her sensitized clitoris, renewed sparkles of light danced through her. She lifted toward him and bent her knees so her legs bracketed him on either side. Huiann ran her hands up his chest, feeling warmth and his steady heartbeat beneath her palms, then hooked her hands over his big shoulders. He was so solid and alive.

Only this morning she’d woken in her captor’s house, doubting she’d ever see Alan again. Yet here she was, once more in his bed. It was a miracle. Or maybe it was fate that had led them through trials and back to each other’s arms. Or the protection of her ancestors. Whatever had made good fortune smile on her, she sent up a prayer of thanks to all gods, ancestors and anything else that might have had a hand in seeing her through her ordeal.

Alan pressed his mouth to her neck, nibbling and licking his way down her throat and sending delightful ripples through her. He rocked his hips, rubbing that long, hard cock back and forth over her pussy. She was slippery and open, ready for him to plunge inside, but he seemed to be in no hurry.

He kissed her chest and the swell of her breast then flicked his tongue over her nipple until she wiggled with pleasure. He drew the peak into his mouth and rolled his tongue around it, then sucked greedily. The Bonnie Dee

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tugging sent an almost painful ache through her.

Huiann cupped the back of his head in her hands, feeling the damp coolness of his hair, the hard skull beneath.

“Now!” she urged him in her own language. “I need you inside me, my love.” As if he understood, Alan reached between them and positioned his cock at her entrance. He pushed inside, slowly. His girth stretched her and she groaned at the painfully sweet sensation. He paused and she gripped his buttocks to pull him even deeper into her.

Alan filled her then receded like a tide, in and out in an easy rhythm. She watched his face—the rapture in his eyes, his parted lips—and felt the beauty of their communion.

A sheen of sweat shone on Alan’s forehead as he continued his controlled thrusting. Sometimes they came together with frenzied passion, but tonight he made every stroke last, holding inside her as if reluctant to be apart even for a second. And as he filled her again and again, Huiann felt a rising pressure inside her, strengthening with every thrust.

She wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs and clung to his shoulders, lifting toward him. His tempo increased along with his quiet grunts as their bodies slapped together in rhythmic unison. Abruptly, like a lone flute rising above a drumbeat, Huiann’s bliss soared through her. She gasped and arched as if she would fly away with joy, but his weight anchored her.