Chapter 3: Caught

Four words. In the dark. Her lips right on my ear, and a saw grinding away at iron somewhere below us.

Yeah. I was done being a gentleman.

What happened next on those stairs... stays on those stairs.

But I’ll tell you this much. Physician Dam Yeon-hee — pulse-counting, plague-fighting, scared-of-the-dark Yeon-hee — is not innocent. Not even a little. She bit my shoulder so hard trying to stay quiet, I’m pretty sure I’ll have teeth marks for a week.

And the laundry ladies?

Still gossiping about me. The whole time. Two steps away.

Honestly? That made it ten times hotter.

[Desire +30.]

We were somewhere in round two when—

SNAP.

"The damn saw broke!"

"Forget it! Just smash the thing!"

An axe. Then a crack like thunder. Then torchlight came flooding up the stairwell like sunrise.

Oh, fuck.

Yeon-hee yanked her wrap back up so fast she put it on inside out. Me? No time. I grabbed her bamboo mat off the step and held it in front of my crotch like a shield.

Two guards. One sweaty porter. One very angry merchant. Both laundry ladies. All of them squinting up at us in the torchlight.

Yeon-hee — red face, hair everywhere, wrap inside out.

Me — robe hanging open, holding a meditation mat over my dick.

"...It got hot," I said.

The guard looked at me. Looked at the mat. Looked back at me.

"Sure, young master."

One of the laundry ladies leaned in, squinting. "Hey... aren’t you that Baek boy who cri—"

"Nope."

I grabbed Yeon-hee’s wrist and we got the hell out of there.

The inn’s office was a cramped little room behind the kitchen hall. Stacks of ledgers, an ink stone, and a smell like pickled radish.

Yeon-hee slid the door shut and leaned back against it. Took a long breath.

Then she pulled a blank jade token out of a drawer and held it out to me. Her hand was still shaking.

"Push a thread of qi into it," she said, not looking at me. "Just a little. It remembers you."

I did. Third-rate qi, but enough. The jade went warm, glowed a faint green, and the character for Baek slowly appeared on its face.

"Done," she said.

Then, quietly—

"Mu-jin... that was a mistake. I don’t know what came over me."

I knew exactly what came over her. A system with a really stupid name.

And for one second, I felt a little guilty about that.

One second.

Then I remembered how she’d looked at me in that dark. The system only pours oil. Somebody has to bring the spark.

I pulled her in by the waist.

"Hey. Don’t do that. We both enjoyed every second of it."

"I’m married," she whispered.

"And?"

"And my husband is a clerk at the magistrate’s office." She laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. "He sleeps there. He eats there. He says the ledgers need him. I’m married to a man who’s married to paperwork."

"So when was the last time he made you feel like that?"

She didn’t answer.

She just looked down, sulking, like a kid caught sneaking sweets.

"I don’t even remember," she said softly. "That’s the sad part. I really don’t remember."

I tilted her chin up and kissed her.

She kissed back harder. Her hands slid inside my robe like they’d been waiting all day for the chance—

The door slid open.

We jumped apart. Way too late.

It was her. The abacus woman from the gate.

She didn’t gasp. She didn’t drop anything this time. She just stood in the doorway and took inventory — Yeon-hee’s inside-out wrap, my open robe, the very obvious situation going on under my robe, the jade token in my hand — and I swear I could hear the beads clicking in her head.

"S-Seo-rin unni!" Yeon-hee squeaked. "This is — he’s the new — I was registering his token —"

"I can see that." She set a thick ledger on the desk. "Monthly accounts, physician. The owner wants them signed."

Then her eyes slid to me.

"Expelled at dawn. Moved in by noon. In the physician’s office with his robe open by afternoon." Clack. "Fast worker, Baek Mu-jin."

"You remembered my name."

"I remember everything. It’s my job." She held out her hand. "Hong Seo-rin. I keep the books for the merchant guild. And for this inn, since the owner can’t add."

I shook it. Her palm was cool. She held on one beat too long — and her eyes dropped. Stayed there. Doing math.

[Desire +10.]

"A word of advice," she said, letting go. "Gossip is a currency in this building. Everyone’s spending it. Some of us... save it."

Then she walked out.

She didn’t close the door.

Yeon-hee buried her face in her hands. "She saw. She definitely saw. Oh gods, if she tells anyone—"

"She won’t," I said.

I had no idea if she would. That woman was a vault. And vaults don’t open for free.

Yeon-hee took a breath. Then she grabbed the front of my robe and pulled me down to her ear.

"The hot spring," she whispered. "Tonight. After the night bell. Nobody goes up that late."

She bit her lip.

"And this time... you can do whatever you want with me. Anything."

Fuck.

Then she shoved me out the door, because someone was coming down the hall.

I was halfway up the front stairs — not the back ones, never again — when it hit me.

Lunch.

The blonde with the sword.

Shit.

The sun was way past noon. When I got to the top floor, Ayla was sitting cross-legged on the walkway outside her door with a low table full of dishes, eating alone. Sword across her lap. Pouting.

"You are late," she said. "Food is cold. I am cold."

"Got stuck on the stairs," I said. Which was true.

She looked me over. Messy hair. Sweat. Robe tied crooked. Teeth marks on my shoulder.

She sniffed the air once.

"Stuck," she said. "Hm."

Then she tapped the sword on her lap, very lightly, and smiled like she knew exactly what I’d been stuck in. And like she didn’t mind. Like it was a challenge.

"Sit."

I sat. She scooted in close — knee pressed against mine, that thin dress hanging off one shoulder — and fed me with her own chopsticks like it was the most normal thing in the world. Cold dumplings never tasted so good.

"So where are you from?" I asked.

"Far. West. Past the desert." She popped a dumpling in her mouth. "My father sold horses. I married a man who sells everything."

"Your husband?"

"Left this morning. Caravan." She rolled her eyes. "Big iron box. Very heavy. Very stupid porter."

Wait.

The chest. The stairs. The guy whose stupid box trapped me in the dark with Yeon-hee.

That was her husband.

I almost choked on my dumpling.

Thank you, sir. Truly. Your box did more for me in one morning than my father did in nineteen years.

"He is gone one month," Ayla said. Then she licked the sauce off her finger. Slow. Looking right at me. "Maybe two."

[Desire +15.]

Then she leaned in and sniffed my neck.

"You smell like sweat. And... other woman."

I froze. Sword on her lap. Very sharp sword.

She just laughed. "Relax. In my country, a good horse runs many races." She tapped my chest with a chopstick. "But it comes home to eat."

I had no idea what that meant. I decided it was good.

"I need a bath," I said. "My water jar’s cracked. Half of it’s on the floor."

"The wine thief complain also. That jar is always broken." She tilted her head. "I have tub. Big tub. Water is hot already."

"Wait... really?"

Like I didn’t already know my answer.

"Use it," she said, standing up and stretching. The dress rode up. I stopped breathing for a second.

Her room was nothing like mine. Carpets from the West all over the floor, little brass lamps, a smell like cinnamon and something sweet I didn’t have a name for. Behind a painted screen in the corner, there was a huge wooden tub, steaming.

And when she turned around to show me—

Her ass. In that thin dress.

God.

It wasn’t as tight as Yeon-hee’s, but those curves? Dangerous. The kind of ass that ends wars. Or starts them.

"Leave your clothes outside the screen," she said. "I wash them."

She wasn’t being polite. She wanted me naked in her room. And who was I to say no?

I stripped, tossed my robe over the screen, and sank into the tub.

Hot water up to my chest. Finally. I closed my eyes and tried to cool off. Tried to think about anything else. Anything but Yeon-hee tonight, and Seo-rin’s cool little hand, and Ayla’s finger in her mouth.

It didn’t work.

Then I opened my eyes and saw it.

Hanging on the edge of the screen, right next to my face. A tiny scrap of red silk.

Her underwear.

My dick was at full attention instantly, like a soldier hearing the drum.

I wasn’t proud of what my hand did next. But I wasn’t exactly ashamed either. I closed my eyes, thinking about her in that dress, bending over that low table, her lips around those chopsticks—

The floorboard creaked.

I froze.

I opened my eyes slowly...

Ayla was standing at the edge of the screen. Watching me. Red silk in one of my hands, and my other hand very, very busy under the water.

And she wasn’t shocked.

She was smiling.

"You think of me?" she asked.

Then she reached up, slow, and pulled the tie at her shoulder.

The dress hit the floor.

Fuck.