Chapter 4: Desert Flower

She stepped into the tub.

No warning. No asking. Just one long leg over the edge, then the other, and the water came pouring over the sides onto her fancy Western carpet like a flood.

She didn’t even look at it.

She was looking at me.

"You think of me," she said again. Not a question this time.

"Y-yeah," I said. "Kind of hard not to."

She laughed — low, from her chest — and sank down into the water right on top of my lap. Her gold hair floated around us. Her huge tits were right in my face, wet and shining in the lamplight.

God.

In my last life, I used to look at women like this through a screen.

Now one was sitting on me.

"Red silk is better on me," she whispered. She plucked the underwear out of my hand and flicked it over the screen. "You don’t need it anymore."

[Desire +20.]

Then she grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me.

Not shy like Yeon-hee. Ayla kissed like she fought — straight in, no hesitation, taking whatever she wanted. Her hands went everywhere. Her hips rolled against me under the water, slow, then not slow at all.

She was in charge. And she knew it.

For about a minute, I let her.

Then I grabbed both her wrists, pinned them above her head against the edge of the tub, and flipped it.

Her eyes went wide. Then dark. Then she smiled like that was exactly what she’d been waiting for.

"Ah," she breathed. "So the boy has a sword after all."

Yeah.

Yeah, he did.

Let’s just say her tub lost half its water, her carpet is never gonna be the same, and somewhere in the middle of it all we ended up in her bed without me remembering how we got there.

I don’t know how long it went. The light through her window was orange when we started. It was going red when we finally stopped to breathe.

[Desire +35.]

I was lying on my back in her sheets, sweating like I’d run laps around the clan training yard. Ayla was sprawled on top of me, chin on my chest, tracing little circles on my stomach with one finger.

"You are not like the boys in this city," she said.

"How so?"

"They look at me like I am a horse they want to buy." She bit my chest. Lightly. "You look at me like you are starving."

That’s because I was, I thought. For about thirty years.

Then something on her bedside table started buzzing.

A little yellow paper talisman, pinned under a brass cup. It was glowing. And humming, like a bee stuck in a jar.

Ayla froze.

"My husband," she whispered.

Of course he had a sound-transmission talisman. Rich merchants always do. One of those costs more than my room for a year.

She reached for it. I didn’t let her get off me. I wrapped my arms around her waist and kept her right where she was.

She looked down at me. I just grinned.

"Answer it," I said.

She stared at me for a second. Then she bit her lip — and pressed her thumb to the talisman.

"H-hello, husband."

A man’s voice crackled out of the paper, loud and cheerful. "My desert flower! We made the river crossing! Late, but we made it!"

"Late?" Ayla said. Her voice wobbled, because my hand was sliding slowly down her back.

"Some idiot at the inn! I swear on my mother. Our porter got the chest stuck on the back stairs, and there was some young fool trapped up there with the physician — whole thing cost me an hour and a broken railing!"

I had to bite the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

That young fool, sir? He’s in your bed right now.

I leaned up and bit Ayla’s shoulder. Not gently.

"Ah—!" She slapped her own hand over her mouth.

"Flower? You alright?"

"Y-yes. I... stubbed my toe. On the bed."

"Ha! Clumsy girl. You miss me already, eh?"

She looked right at me when she answered. Eyes half closed. Cheeks red.

"Very much," she said. "I am very... very... lonely."

Hearing her lie to her husband with her voice all breathy like that, while she was sitting on me in his bed?

Fuck. It was so wrong.

It was so hot.

"I’ll send word from the next town. Don’t spend all my money!"

The talisman went dark.

Ayla dropped it on the floor like it was burning her. Then she grabbed my face and kissed me so hard our teeth clicked.

"You are a bad man," she breathed against my mouth.

"You liked it."

"Yes." She didn’t even pretend. "I am a bad wife. Very bad. And I liked it."

Something had changed in her eyes. Like I’d opened a door she didn’t know was there. And I couldn’t tell anymore how much of that was her, and how much was the system pouring oil on it.

Honestly? Right then, I didn’t care.

[Desire +25.]

We didn’t talk for a while after that.

Afterward, she lay on her side with her back pressed into my chest, my arm around her waist. Her hair smelled like cinnamon and smoke.

"Mu-jin," she said quietly.

"Hm?"

"Your jar is broken. Your room is small. My husband is gone one month, maybe two." She pulled my hand up and pressed it against her chest. "Stay here. With me. At night I am alone and I hate it."

I didn’t say anything right away. A month of free room? With her? My eleven silver almost cried with relief.

She turned her head, just enough so I could see that little smile.

"If you stay," she whispered, "I let you do things to me you are too shy to even ask."

Too shy. Me.

In my last life, maybe.

I kissed her shoulder, right on the bite mark. She giggled and pushed back into me.

I must have fallen asleep after that, because the next thing I knew, the window was dark blue and somebody downstairs was banging pots for dinner.

Ayla was still asleep. Mouth a little open. Hair all over the pillow. She looked so peaceful you’d never guess she’d just spent half the afternoon trying to break me in half.

I lay there for a minute, just looking.

Then my brain caught up.

The night bell.

Yeon-hee. The hot spring. You can do whatever you want with me.

Shit.

I slid out of bed as slow as I could. My clothes were still soaking in Ayla’s wash bucket, so I grabbed the first thing I saw — a silk robe off her hook. Pink. With little embroidered flowers.

Whatever. Naked and proud was not an option on the walkway.

I slipped out her door, took three steps to mine, slid it open—

And Tae-man was sitting on my bed.

Eating a meat bun. In the dark.

"Bro," he said.

"How did you get in here?"

"Your lock is a joke. I’ve been waiting two hours." He looked me up and down. Slowly. Pink robe. Little flowers. Bite marks all over my neck. "...Where were you?"

"Napping."

"In a pink robe."

"It’s comfortable."

He stared at me. Then at the wall I shared with Ayla. Then back at me. His mouth fell open, and half the meat bun fell out.

"No way. The blonde? With the sword? It’s your first day!"

"I’ll tell you everything later. Why are you here?"

The grin died on his face.

He stood up. Wiped his hands on his pants. And for the first time since I’d known him, Gong Tae-man looked like he wasn’t hungry.

"Get dressed," he said. "Real clothes. We have to go to the academy. Now."

"What? Why?"

"Nam Gi-chul."

"That four-eyed kid from our group?"

"That four-eyed bastard," Tae-man said, "is going to present our group technique to the instructors tomorrow morning. Under his name. Only his name. He says we didn’t do anything."

I stared at him.

Honestly? The last three months, Tae-man and I hadn’t done much. The old Mu-jin probably did, before the fever. I’d been a little busy working my way through the married women of Hangju.

But still. That was ours.

And if my name drops off that technique, the academy drops me next. No clan. No academy. Eleven silver. That’s not a third son anymore. That’s a dock rat.

I looked out the window. The sun was almost gone. The night bell would ring in maybe two hours.

Two hours to deal with a traitor, get back, and make it up that hill.

"Fine," I said, already pulling off the pink robe. "Let’s go kill a nerd."

"Bro, put some clothes on first."