"What"s taking her so long," the boy complained. "The portal"s been up since this morning. It"s taking her a whole day to decide?"Nian Zhen smiled, not saying anything. He was sipping tea, his tenth cup for the night. He had not eaten anything since this morning. He had been that nervous, that terrified, all though looking at him no one would have believed it.
The boy Ban Chao sneaked a peek at him again. His highness looked cool and unruffled as usual but he had not gone out that day, not partic.i.p.ated in any activity as he always did each morning. That is, until he surprised everyone with the announcement that he had opened the portal and that an important guest will be coming soon and that everyone should get ready and respectfully meet the person.
But that had been hours ago. Before breakfast actually and everyone had waited and were still waiting for this person to arrive. And his highness had not moved from his spot. Had instead drank cups of hot tea that in anyone else would have already given them the shivers of a drunkard.
Still, they waited. The portal remained open and the person was nowhere to be seen.
When the clock struck the hour of ten, Nian Zhen was already deliberating whether to come after her or not.
Ban Chao looked at him like he was a loser. Why wait for that person when the person obviously didn"t want to be here anyway? All these waiting for nothing. Besides, he was hungry and just want to go home and have a nice meal. He stayed by the person"s side the whole day out of concern. Who knew that other person would play a trick like this? Making them wait without food like they were on a fast? Honestly, how cruel.
He opened his mouth to speak but the portal started to churn and shine, the blue waves of the water shimmering like a ghost until the person appeared, tall and grim-faced, like an avenging G.o.ddess about to release her wrath.
The girl stepped out of the portal and into the room, her stormy eyes unerringly finding the boy standing by the window who gazed back at her with an equally stormy expression on his beautiful face.
The two of them stared at each other like enemies reunited. Nian Zhen was tense and nervous. The empress of Yuqui cuc.u.mber cool and haughty.
"Where"s Gu Sheng?" she asked, without preamble. "Take me to him."
Ban Chao was taken aback. His glance at Nian Zhen who glowered at the young girl like he wanted to eat and beat her at the same time.
Nian Zhen took a threatening step forward. The empress stood her ground and smiled without amus.e.m.e.nt.
"It"s been a long time," Nian Zhen said. "How are you, my dear An Ning?"
"What do you call yourself nowadays, Richard?" she asked coolly. "Not the devil, I hope?"
"Seriously...," Ban Chao said but was cut dead by a pair of eyes who speared him where he was with a baleful glare.
"Where"s Gu Sheng? I want to see him," the empress repeated.
"Why so impatient? Don"t you have nice words to say to your husband?"
"Ex husband," the empress corrected. "And you"re not him. As far as I know, he died a long time ago."
Nian Zhen"s lips thinned in anger.
"That"s what you wished for, didn"t you? Sorry to disappoint you but I"m still alive. In a different body but still alive."
"That doesn"t concern me. What you do with your life has nothing to do with me."
"Aren"t you even curious how I came to be like this?"
"Who cares? You died a long time ago. If I remember correctly, we actually gave you a military sendoff. It was under the name of your brother but you were dead anyway, or your soul was, so it was the same."
"An Ning!"
"Don"t try my patience, Richard. Where"s Gu Sheng?"
"Get out!" Nian Zhen suddenly turned to Ban Chao and ordered. "Leave!"
"But, your highness...," Ban Chao stammered, glaring at the empress. "What if something happened?"
"I told you to get out!"
Ban Chao resentfully got out.
"Now that we"re alone..."
Nian Zhen didn"t even finish the words when the empress moved and attacked him with her sword. Nian Zhen stepped back agilely, almost gliding in the air. He didn"t take out his sword, his hands were bare, even relaxed at his sides. The empress again lunged forward but quick as lightning Nian Zhen caught her in his arms, squeezing her arm until she released the sword and his lips bent down and took her lips in a hungry kiss.
An Ning was so surprised that she didn"t even blink as she looked at the lashes and closed eyes very close to hers. The boy"s face was unfamiliar to her yet she could see some traces of the man she remembered, the man who left her for another woman. That man had been tall and handsome, the man who pretended he was Richard but was actually Han. But she didn"t remember Han. All she remembered was Richard, regardless of whose soul he was, and he wasn"t like this, as if he would sear her mouth to his so she would forever remember him, Richard, her husband.
An Ning opened her mouth to breath and immediately Nian Zhen"s tongue twined with hers in a deep kiss as old as time. She could feel his body trembling, the arms imprisoning her to his hard body racked with shivers. And she could feel the salt of his tears on her tongue as he buried his face on her neck and wept.
Nian Zhen held the empress plastered to his body for what seemed like hours, until his body stopped its shivering and her warmth gradually seeped into his very bones and calmed his beating heart.
An Ning allowed herself to be held by him without protest. When he kissed her again, and his hands started to touch her body hungrily as if she ignited a sleeping fire within him that only she can sate, she squirmed and tried to get away. But Nian Zhen by then had succ.u.mbed to madness and he once more pulled her tightly in his arms as his mouth again ravished the sweetness of her lips.
An Ning tried to kick and scream but Nian Zhen held her fast. He dragged her to his bed, pulled the clothes from her body and kissed and tortured her sweetly until she gasped and tried to pull away.
"Let go of me," she cried, twisting from his lips that was branding her naked skin like scorching fire.
"An Ning, I"ve missed you so," he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "You"re mine, An Ning. You"ve always been mine."
"Richard...no," she said, trying to push at the mouth that had fastened itself on her breast and was sucking and biting on her pink nipple with his tongue and teeth. When the lips transferred its attention on the other neglected breast, An Ning tried to sit up and kick him with her leg.
Nian Zhen, however, deftly caught the shapely leg in his hand and transferred his ravenous mouth to the smooth and white skin of her inner thigh. It wasn"t long before his mouth and tongue reached the center of her womanhood then kissed and licked and tasted the pooling cream of honey it found there.
An Ning"s legs quivered and fell open on their own. Nian Zhen hungrily held her thighs open with his arms as his lips and tongue continued lapping at the seams of her s.e.x, the pink flesh budding and swelling as An Ning"s body started to squirm and burn and pant with desire. She reached the peak just as Nian Zhen"s long and nimble tongue stab at the center of her desire again and again, and didn"t let up until she screamed and continued screaming as her body was racked by unbelievable pleasure that was almost like pain.
The tremors had yet to subside when Nian Zhen caught An Ning"s tongue with his, sucking and nibbling, renewing his a.s.sault on her senses as he positioned himself between her legs. He thrust his hardened c.o.c.k forward then abruptly stopped when An Ning screamed, not in pleasure this time, but in obvious pain.
"Stop," she cried. "You"re hurting me."
Nian Zhen was obviously torn but his body was screaming for release and the sight of him rampant and turgid between the warm and inviting coc.o.o.n of her body was too much even for him. He lifted An Ning"s hips, positioned himself between her legs, and in one smooth, long thrust was inside her before she could form another protest.
An Ning"s fingers dug into his back, her breath suspended in her lungs as the pain pierced through her body like a lance.
"Get off me," she cried, trying to squirm away from his unexpected attack.
Nian Zhen groaned in delight as the female body beneath him squeezed his c.o.c.k like a tight glove.
"I"m already inside you, darling," he laughed, silently shaking with laughter. "And I can"t let you go even if I wanted to. You"ve always belonged to me, you know that."
"You"re a louse," she said, eyes glinting with hatred.
"And you"re so tight," he rasped, his eyes clouded with intense desire as his body started moving intensely and violently between her legs. "Hold on to me and let me love you, darling. Let me love you."
"Richard...," she panted hoa.r.s.ely, as the familiar movement of making love racked her body with its sweetness.
Nian Zhen wrapped her long legs tightly around his waist as his movements became even more uncontrollable, his lips kissing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s before devouring her open mouth and sucking her tongue with his. An Ning held on for dear life as the man above her held her waist tighter as his hips slammed again and again at her wet and tightly-filled c.u.n.t.
"Stop...Richard...I...I can"t take anymore..." she begged, her nails raking down his arms as the sound of skin slapping against skin grew louder. "Hmnn....stop...aahhh.."
But Richard was deaf to her pleas, his body almost frenzied with the l.u.s.t he felt as he continued his loving a.s.sault on An Ning"s warm and delicious body. It had been centuries since he had loved this woman, centuries since he had even looked at her dear face. Centuries since he had finally availed himself of her warmth. Centuries since he realized how dearly he loved her as he lay waiting for death in that hospital a long time ago it now seemed. An Ning was his; she belonged to him. And this time, he would never allow anyone or anything to come between them ever again.
"An Ning. An Ning...," he could only repeat as his c.o.c.k came in a gush, as he emptied himself inside her with delicious release that racked their bodies and almost fried both their brains to ash. An Ning gasped and screamed as his release triggered her own, her body quivering and shaking with satiation.
Nian Zhen devoured her lips as he felt his c.o.c.k again hardened inside her. He moved even as her body spasmed with delight, his c.o.c.k lengthening in her wet clasp, the ma.s.sive head eagerly thrusting in and out of her love hole as the liquid of their shared desire made his penetration easier and smoother, the scent of s.e.x filling their senses strong as an aphrodisiac.
"Richard..." An Ning moaned breathily. "Let me go. Stop."
"Just one more time, darling," he gasped, licking her tongue as his groin again gyrated and danced l.u.s.tily between her thighs. "Just one more."
The fierce loving continued into the night and the early morning. Nian Zhen was insatiable. However much An Ning would try to beg and ask him to stop, he would simply kiss and rouse her to pa.s.sion and the loving would continue, her screams and his groans mingling with the sounds of the awakening morning.
An Ning was sleeping, tired and exhausted, when Nian Zhen finally left the room and went downstairs to the kitchen.
"Prepare breakfast," he said, his long hair unbound, his long and lean body covered in a black robe.
The man he threw this order to grinned with malice, his eyes dancing.
"So, virgin boi is no more, eh," he teased unmercifully. "Took you long enough."
Nian Zhen didn"t even dignified this with an answer.
"She likes sweets. Do we have anything of that kind in the kitchen? Do you even know how to make one?" he asked, returning malice for malice.
"Ehrm...," the man was stymied.
"I thought so," Nian Zhen mocked. "Hire a new cook. This establishment is no longer for boys only. Keep the breakfast warm. Or you might even start cooking lunch or dinner if you want to."
"That long?" the man was shocked. "That"s kind of a long time to torture a girl, dude. You might want to practice a little bit of restraint."
"Who asked you?" the boy sneered. "If I need your opinion I"ll ask for it."
"Just saying," the man shrugged.
The boy ignored him and went back upstairs.
An Ning never moved from the position where he left her. Her long hair was sprawled on the pillow, the black strands like ink on the whiteness of the cloth. He never remembered her looking like this before. He never even remembered the long and silken tresses as this seductive. He had always taken her for granted, loved her as a sister and friend then married her because there was no one else he liked and she was suitable.
That madness with Valerie...he didn"t even remember it. For him, everything started in that hospital when he felt his consciousness slipping away and An Ning was sleeping and wasn"t even aware he was leaving her. The thought of that had been torture. That he wasn"t able to say goodbye, wasn"t able to tell her he loved her. His consciousness slipping away as she continued to sleep and the thought that she would later wake up, unaware that the man who looked like him was not him but his brother.
He had spent his entire childhood with An Ning, even at university they had been together. They had married and separated. The divorce had been hard but the intersection of their lives had followed the natural pattern of joy and sorrow. But never in his wildest dreams had he expected that he would die and An Ning would never even know of it. Just a quiet stopping of a breath she didn"t even hear.
Maybe he came back because of that. Maybe his resentment and anger had even defied fate and he came back even if he wasn"t allowed to. Just to say goodbye, maybe. To love her again. To see his children and just look at their faces and let them know he was their father.
An Ning groaned but didn"t open her eyes. Nian Zhen leaned over her, his eyes devouring her dear and familiar face. His An Ning, his wife, the woman he defied death and time for so he and she could be together again. Infinity was not the end. Neither was death. In this lifetime, he would love An Ning till their bones wither together and they die in each other"s arms.
Nian Zhen sighed contentedly, his eyes closing as his arms tightened around her.