as a matter of course. It took no effort for him to make her feel these things. He did it without knowledge and without care, taking no responsibility for her hope, her excitement or her pain.
He was blissfully ignorant while her spirits soared or plummeted at his whim.
She gave him a little shove, though it did little to move him. “Maybe it’s not you I want a kiss from.”
“You asked me for one once.”
She froze.
Any gentleman would have conveniently forgotten her request. She had been young and had foolishly gathered her courage to ask for a kiss. Baozhen had been older and more experienced. He had refused her. Even worse.
“You laughed at me.” The sharp, piercing embarrassment came back to her. She had shrunk inside to nothing more than a wisp of smoke and disappeared into her room for days.
Baozhen looked stricken. “I didn’t laugh at you.” He paused, as if trying to recall. “Or I didn’t mean to, if that’s what happened. You surprised me. It was just that you were—”
He struggled for words, his smooth charm failing him. He seemed earnest in his uncertainty and she let down her guard.
“Perhaps I was waiting for a better time,” he said, but his tone was more gentle than beguiling.
A small crack formed in her resistance. He backed her farther behind the cover of the shrubbery and this time she let him. She let him because it was Baozhen, and it had hurt so much when he’d rejected her. She had been fifteen years old and foolish, and now she was eighteen and not so foolish—but she still very much wanted that kiss.
He didn’t put his arms around her. Instead he rested his hands over her shoulders as he bent to her, holding her carefully, as if she were made of porcelain. She couldn’t breathe. Baozhen was so close and she had imagined this for so long, in so many different ways. She could feel the sigh of his breath against her lips, and then his mouth was on hers.
His lips were softer and warmer than she’d imagined—but in no more than a heartbeat he was gone.
She was left blinking up at him. That was all? Baozhen straightened abruptly, and for a moment they simply stood there. The tingle of the maddeningly brief touch had already faded. She didn’t even have any time to consider returning his kiss.
“I’ll see you at the park.” Baozhen wasn’t smiling or teasing, or really doing anything but staring at her oddly.
“Until then,” she said, her voice dull.
She stood clutching that ridiculous slingshot to her breast as he turned to go. Someone as adept as Baozhen couldn’t even flirt with her properly. She truly was as hopeless as she had always feared.
* * *
Baozhen had just arrived at the park when he saw the yellow-pink flash of Lian’s summer robe through the green. She was at the far end, strolling along beside her cousin. Within moments she caught his eye but quickly looked away, pretending to be absorbed with something Ming-ha was saying.
“I thought we were going to the tea house,” Jinhai said from behind him.
Usually he found Liu Jinhai to be an agreeable companion. They had similar interests and he was good-humored and unpretentious. Today, Baozhen found him unbearable.
“In a while. There’s something we must do first,” Baozhen said, resigned.
The two ladies glided along the pebbled walkway, making an unerring path toward them.
Conveniently, it was Ming-ha who called out. “Why, it’s Baozhen!”
Lian came up beside her, her robe catching the breeze just enough to tease them with a glimpse of the rounded curves beneath the delicate material.
Baozhen stepped out in front of them. “What a surprise. This pleasant morning has become more enjoyable.”
“Ah, now I see...” Jinhai’s murmur came low and amused from behind him.
Baozhen suppressed a scowl and positioned himself squarely at the lead, to greet Lian and her cousin. Ming-ha was the taller of the two. Her features were slender and elongated and he had been thoroughly fascinated with her once for half a summer, in the way of a boy just beyond childhood.
It was Lian who had his complete attention now. She was softer in the face, with eyes that were keen like a cat’s. After such a long time away, he had decided he did find Lian pretty. This morning had confirmed it. Why else would he have been so compelled to kiss her? Now, every time he saw her, he couldn’t look away. His senses demanded to be constantly fed with this new discovery.
“It’s been too long, Miss Lian,” he said with an overflow of meaning.
“Nonsense, Baozhen. We live next to each other. We see each other too often, one might say.”
Lian had drawn a red tint over her lips since they’d parted. The little fox. She also had a fan in her hands, which she wasn’t using at all to her advantage. It was supposed to be an excuse to bring attention to shapely hands and bared wrists, but instead she was waving it in short, impatient movements while trying to glance around him.
“Your friend, here, is another matter,” she said pointedly. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
Her directness was refreshing—except that it was directed at the wrong man. Baozhen could sense Jinhai similarly trying to weave around him to make an introduction. Any man would, the way Lian was dressed and painted like a newly ripened peach, ready to be plucked.
“Liu Jinhai’s father is a textile merchant in the East Market,” Baozhen offered rather magnanimously. “And this is Miss Chen Lian.”
“Miss Lian.” Jinhai executed a rather courtly-looking bow.
Baozhen noted with displeasure how Jinhai immediately adopted the more intimate form of address. He also had nothing good to say about the way Lian’s eyes fluttered downward. She echoed Jinhai’s name between her lips with a sweet murmur that set Baozhen’s pulse into a dangerous fervor.
“Miss Lian’s family lives in the courtyard beside ours. We’re very close,” he added.
“Our families are very close,” Lian corrected, flashing him the eye.
Jinhai had managed to maneuver around him to stand beside her. He granted her a smile that was full of even white teeth. “You must have interesting stories to tell about this fool.”
“I do...but only if one wants to hear about Guo Baozhen. Do you?”
“On second thought, I don’t. Not really.”
They shared a laugh. How charming.
Baozhen was preparing to insert himself back into the conversation when dear Ming-ha chimed in. “Let’s go see the fish pond.”
She took his arm and held on tight before he could slip away.
“Let’s all go together,” he said, loud enough to interrupt Lian and Jinhai. Ming-ha’s
