"Soft" originally appeared in Ophelia's Muse.

Soft
 by
 Kate Hill


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 before she tugged a scarf of perfumed silk 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," she whispered, her breath soft against his lips.  It 
carried the scent of mint leaves.  She was a princess.  
Forbidden.  "Love me."

"I'm sworn to protect you," he rasped, almost choked by 
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, his heart pounding and 
breathing ragged as if he'd just 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 cock as hard as 
metal beneath his armor, while she dressed.  He'd 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. Now, faced 
with her delicate touch and heated advances, his control 
crumbled.

"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 back   surprised his legs still supported him and 
ripped the red silk scarf from his eyes.  Drawing a sharp 
breath, he stared at her soft, naked curves.  Large, brown 
nipples tipped her small breasts.  Her belly was slightly 
rounded, her thighs firm, her 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 
dropped to her knees. Wrapping her arms around his waist, 
she pressed her cheek against the ginger spirals at his groin. 
Her lips brushed his cock.

"I've never had to beg for anything, but I beg you now," she 
said.  "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 cock like a moist caress.  
"That is why I went there.  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. 

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.  She uttered a soft sound 
and clung to him, her fingertips gripping the muscles of his 
back.  He caressed her breasts and 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."

Her gaze burned his back 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 hers to write one symbol across the curtain of rice 
paper: Soft.


 The End