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Han Ying has been living at Four Seasons Manor for nearly a year before she settles enough to be unsettled by anything less serious than imminent death.
The present situation does not remotely resemble imminent death, although at times her muscles clench so tightly and her heart beats so fast that she's not sure her body understands this new kind of danger. Which is: the manor Lords. Lord and Lady? They seem like husband and wife, for all that there's no man in sight. Once or twice, Wen Kexing has in Han Ying's hearing addressed Zhou Zishu as 'husband', her lips curling around the word in something like a smirk. Han Ying's breath catches every time.
At first it's no more than that, and the obvious affection between them. Perhaps a little too obvious, but Han Ying is too glad to see them alive and well, to see colour in Zhou Zishu's face and her robes hanging smoothly over a less bony frame, to see her smile, to have any room for disapproval over so small a matter as the occasional public kiss.
They don’t leave it at the occasional public kiss. Han Ying wouldn't be seeing it if she could keep her eyes to herself, but how can she, when Zhou Zishu is laughing? They sit at a table in the small library, leaning into each other, faces painfully intimate, and Han Ying's chest clenches with, with something. Her fist clenches when she notices Wen Kexing's hand resting high on Zhou Zishu's thigh, barely under the table. She drags her eyes away, searching around for some task to focus on and prevent them from shifting back to the pair.
She can't stop seeing it, after that. Wen Kexing's arm around Zhou Zishu's waist, her hand trailing down her hip. Leaning close to murmur something in Zhou Zishu's ear, pausing to kiss her neck in a way that's far more sensual than a brief brush of lips has any right to be. Sometimes, too, their kisses will lose their quick, barely appropriate affection and become...wetter. The manor Lords don't usually eat dinner with the disciples, preferring their own company or a trusted few companions, and having been invited to some of these evenings, Han Ying is…glad, to spare the disciples. She doesn't know if they'd be offended, or—something else. Either way. Not a sight for their eyes.
(It shouldn't, really, be a sight for anyone's eyes. But Chengling studiously looks at the ceiling or concentrates on his dinner or, if it's late and they've had some wine, rolls his eyes at them, and Han Ying tries to do the same. Tries to pretend that Zhou Zishu is an embarrassing older sister, and only succeeds in that night dreaming of being silenced with a warm, "shhhh, meimei," and a finger over her lips. That doesn't help at all.)
Once, they're in the shadiest spot in the courtyard, lounging in the midday spring sun. Han Ying sits by them, a scroll of Four Seasons Manor sword techniques in her hands, saving up her questions for a gap in their rambling conversation. Wen Kexing's arm is slung around Zhou Zishu's shoulder, but it snakes its way under her arm and around to her—
Wen Kexing catches Han Ying's eye, smirking, as her hand slips under the first layer of Zhou Zishu’s robes to cup her breast; Han Ying, frozen to the spot, catches the moment Zhou Zishu's eyelids flutter before she slaps Wen Kexing's hand away with an unconvincing glare. Han Ying all but runs away, face burning with anger and embarrassment and hopeless, desperate, frustrated lust.
She sees them again a few days later, again in the library. It's not private; Han Ying is here, and anyone could wander in, although it's unlikely at this hour. Still. They're—Wen Kexing's hand is between Zhou Zishu's thighs, under her robes. Han Ying can see the movement under the fabric. Zhou Zishu wears such light, draping clothing these days; in the warm late spring evening, perhaps only three layers, in finely made cotton rather than court silk or practical linen and leather. This isn’t an affectionate touch, isn’t even what you could call a grope: Wen Kexing’s hand moves between Zhou Zishu’s legs—inside her, perhaps—making her come. The soft sound of movement around fabric gets wetter, acquires a quality of squelch. Han Ying nearly comes just from the clench of her thighs and stomach, hands fisted at her sides.
She’s still trying to regulate her breathing when Wen Kexing looks up, and looks her right in the eye. Han Ying freezes to the spot; there’s no hiding what she was doing. That she’s been—that her stupid, childish fantasies, and now adult but still deeply disrespectful lust has addled her enough to be so unforgivably presumptuous as to watch them. Wen Kexing kisses Zhou Zishu and, gaze flickering briefly in Han Ying’s direction once again, sucks her own fingers clean. Han Ying can only wait and watch, wondering what her punishment will be, as Wen Kexing murmurs something into Zhou Zishu’s ear and strides in her direction.
Wen Kexing’s smile is wicked in the lamplight as she approaches, and circles around Han Ying to come up behind her.
"I thought so,” Wen Kexing says against her ear, voice low enough that it won’t carry to the next room, where Zhou Zishu is rearranging her hair into a messy half-bun. “You can’t help yourself, can you? Not that I blame you; ah, I’d have done the same.” Breath ghosts over the skin behind her jaw; she shivers. She’s so turned on—so close—that the barest touch feels like brushing a hot pan with your fingers. “Well, no,” Wen Kexing continues, turning her head a little so her nose nudges at Han Ying’s hairline. “I’d have dealt with my rival and taken her place.”
Han Ying freezes even more completely. Is Wen Kexing going to—the possibility that she’ll just be gutted for her presumption did not even cross her mind, and it should have. She tries to assemble her thoughts but they’ve scattered in all six directions, and her throat is dry. “But you…..I think you can share, can’t you,” Wen Kexing says, speculatively. A hand slides up Han Ying’s arm, across her chest—Han Ying shivers in confused fear and arousal—and settles on her neck, giving a light squeeze around her throat. She gives a tiny nod in answer, afraid to move further, but the hand doesn’t tighten. There’s the warmth of a body behind her, and Han Ying is trapped, as caught as a fish on a line and just as wet.
“I should open her robe so you can see her tits," Wen Kexing continues. “They're sensitive, she likes them to be grabbed, likes her nipples rubbed and pinched and bitten.” Han Ying’s thoughts move as slow as the hottest summer days; she only realises Wen Kexing probably has no plans to kill her when a hand moves to rest against her lower belly, drawing attention to the involuntary little twitches of her hips. She makes some slight noise; its whispered hoarseness is more wanton than she’d known she could sound.
“Ah you're close, aren't you? Let me give you something to grind against,” Wen Kexing says, as her hand moves lower still, to the cloth-covered gap between her thighs. Han Ying presses her lips together just in time to contain a whimper as her hips move, obeying the implied order. It’s barely anything, a slight pressure against her through her own layers of clothing, but she’s so close it doesn’t matter at all.
“You can come just from this?” Wen Kexing says, a smirk in her voice. “You should; go on.”
Han Ying does as she’s told, desperate and miserable and not a little afraid, more turned on than she can ever remember. It feels like a betrayal: of what, she isn't sure.
“Responsive, aren’t you? That didn’t take much,” Wen Kexing says, with a puff of breath against her neck that’s an unvocalised laugh, then she draws back. Turns to leave, to go back to Zhou Zishu—who is still there, although the exchange between Han Ying and Wen Kexing, strange and shameful as it was, took less than a minute.
“Well?” Wen Kexing says over her shoulder, much louder, pitched to carry. “Aren’t you coming?”
Ah—she is to be brought before Zhou Zishu for punishment. Han Ying tries to think of Zhou Zishu as she is now and not as she was, cold, without a drop of mercy. Tries to remember that time and that ruthless expression with something other than the current wave of desperation. It doesn't help; she'd thought Zhou Zishu unbearably beautiful then, too, if more dangerous and completely untouchable. Perhaps just a different kind of dangerous: this Zhou Zishu has wide hips and a little curve of belly at the front of her neat waist, with—Han Ying does not dare to think this often—with many of the gains of happiness and good health having gone to her chest. Never modest, now voluptuous: she looks more real, a person who eats and drinks and laughs and, and, has sex. A person who could be touched, who does touch Han Ying at times, a grasp of her shoulder or her forearm, an occasional touch to her head or hair.
She drops to her knees in front of Zhou Zishu before she can even think to meet her eyes, forehead to the floor in shame—but not just in shame. In a kind of worship that leaves her feeling raw and sensitive as she never otherwise is. “This disobedient servant begs for an appropriate punishment,” she says, even though the rote words twist in her mouth and come out—breathless, a little. It's good. It's right. Zhou Zishu is the Manor Lord, Wen Kexing is her wife and partner, and together they lead and run the household and their growing sect. It's only correct that Han Ying should kneel at their feet, bow respectfully for them, do as she's instructed and thank them for their regard. Thank them for whatever punishment they deem appropriate. She tries not to imagine being caned like a disobedient child, tries—futilely—not to find that image suddenly so compelling that her cunt throbs.
When Han Ying looks up, Zhou Zishu does not look angry: she looks...a little flushed, in fact. Soft around the eyes, maybe. She has just come, Han Ying remembers, biting her tongue.
"Allow me?" Wen Kexing's voice comes from behind.
A gracious nod and a noise of assent. Han Ying stays silent, under no illusion that this query was for her. Wen Kexing steps around her to kiss Zhou Zishu, a little side-on so Han Ying can see how wet and deep it is, how Zhou Zishu opens her mouth wantonly, tips her head back and lets her legs shift apart. Wen Kexing pulls back for a moment—how Zhou Zishu chases her lips for an instant after is captivating—and instructs, "Watch."
It's not at all clear how this is a punishment, although by now she has surely soaked through her under-trousers which will eventually be uncomfortable. She has not been told to move, though, so she remains kneeling, hands to the floor. She has been told to watch, and so she watches. Wen Kexing loosens Zhou Zishu's belt and pulls her robes open, and as she begins to stroke down Zhou Zishu's chest, pauses to pinches a nipple between two fingers, it is suddenly clear how this is a punishment. Up close, it is torturous to watch Zhou Zishu's head tip back, to see her throat work as she swallows and her chest heave as she pulls in long, shaking breaths, lets out soft gasps. Wen Kexing's long hands aren't large enough to cup her breast fully. Han Ying would crawl over glass to touch her.
After several impossibly long minutes, Zhou Zishu whacks Wen Kexing on the back of the shoulder like a rider kicking a recalcitrant horse. "Stop it," she grumbles, utterly undermined by the breathiness in her voice.
Wen Kexing laughs softly. "Sorry, sorry," she says, not apologetic in the slightest. "I just thought Ying'er would appreciate the show."
"I'm not feeling patient," Zhou Zishu says, biting at Wen Kexing's jaw briefly.
"You never are," Wen Kexing agrees, but she opens Zhou Zishu's robes lower and strokes her soft stomach, undoes the ties of her trousers and pulls her underwear off. Zhou Zishu's hips tilt up against Wen Kexing's hand, and the hair between her legs is dark—wet with her come, Han Ying realises, and a small whine escapes her throat.
They both look back at her for the first time: Wen Kexing predatorily, Zhou Zishu with a sort of proud, aristocratic version of embarrassment. Her face and sternum are flushed, perhaps with more than arousal, as Han Ying kneels more or less between her legs.
"Look how eager she is," Wen Kexing says, and the musical lilt to her voice is like an ornately decorated blade. "She's leaning as close as she can, like a dog desperate for a treat who's too well-trained to move without permission."
It's true. Han Ying could die of embarrassment: she hadn't realised she'd moved at all.
"I trained her," Zhou Zishu says, archly. Han Ying is grateful to be already kneeling, so her suddenly shaking legs don't have to support her. Zhou Zishu looks back at her. "Come here," she orders. Han Ying crawls forward, pauses once she's within the reach of Zhou Zishu's hands. "Closer," Zhou Zishu says, and she obeys.Zhou Zishu directs her with one knee and cants her hips to meet Han Ying's face.
Han Ying feels like a dog, like a starving dog that can't believe it's being offered a steak dinner: she tries hard to not just bury her face in Zhou Zishu's cunt and moan helplessly. She does moan at the first taste, as she presses one reverent kiss over Zhou Zishu's clit and gives her a long, slow lick, beyond the ability to restrain herself more than she is. She can only let herself moan, while she tries to be useful with her mouth and not just enjoy the taste and warmth of Zhou Zishu's softest skin.
Wen Kexing says, "She likes to follow directions, A-Xu; put your hand in her hair."
Then there's a hand fisted in her hair, not pulling to the point of pain but certainly directing her, and Zhou Zishu's hips grind into her face, and she wails, desperate; humiliatingly, she likes it more even than Zhou Zishu seems to. Why is it like this, that she's on the floor serving her Lord and still she cannot give more pleasure than she gets? The strength of her own lust is too much to match. She'd debase herself far more than this for a taste of Zhou Zishu. Gladly. She tries not to imagine the things a person could make her do to earn this again. She's crying by the time Zhou Zishu comes without letting her stop and breathe, grateful overwhelmed tears that get lost in damp skin.
Wen Kexing's presence behind her comes closer. A hand flips up the layers of her robes, slides down her under-trousers. In a horrible tease, the only touch is the brush of cloth against her skin. When Wen Kexing finally does touch her, long fingers trailing down her tailbone and between her damp thighs, she wails aloud, and Zhou Zishu's hips jerk.
"Use your fingers," Zhou Zishu directs. Han Ying gladly slides two fingers inside, sighs in pleasure at the velvet feel of her. Fucks her gently until a tug at her hair prompts her to go faster and harder, as if she's a horse to be ridden, directed by reins until she's trained well enough to respond to her rider's more subtle movements of hips and legs and shifts of weight.
Wen Kexing places the back of her fingers gently against Han Ying's cunt, parts her lips, then slides two fingers over her clit and up nearly to her ass, then back down again. Slow, not light enough to tickle but without enough speed or pressure to be anything but a tease. The disparity is dizzying: Zhou Zishu's panting breaths and Wen Kexing's patient fingers. Han Ying can feel by the twitch of muscles that Zhou Zishu is close again.
"Don't let me distract you," Wen Kexing says. Her voice is so warm and smooth, low for a woman's though not at all masculine, and while Han Ying has been in love with Zhou Zishu for years and only a fool would fail to notice Wen Kexing, it's not until this moment that she realises: she's been looking away, looking at unattainable Zhou Zishu to save herself from learning that Wen Kexing's voice makes her drip. And her face—the way her mouth plays with a smirk, the way her laughter holds a blade, her posture full of languid grace that whispers: want me, if you dare. Han Ying dares. The first time they met, Wen Kexing wrapped a hand gossamer-light around her throat, and her breathing stopped. No greater threat was necessary. She only looked away because neither of them were for her to look at. In any case she needn't look, now: her eyes slipped closed as soon as her mouth touched Zhou Zishu's cunt.
"What are we punishing you for, Ying'er?" Wen Kexing asks, and her slow stroking fingers pause to pinch Han Ying's clit lightly between them. It's not pain that makes her gasp—in truth there isn't any—but the threat of it. She moans against Zhou Zishu’s cunt, helpless, caught; failing now to keep especially still as Zhou Zishu’s fist tightens in her hair and she fucks herself on Han Ying’s fingers. She can’t answer, of course—her mouth is otherwise in use—but please aches on the tip of her tongue as Zhou Zishu lets out a long, loud groan and comes, smothering Han Ying’s face, briefly constricting her breath.
A moment later the grip on her hair relaxes, and tugs her to the side. Han Ying rests her face on Zhou Zishu's thigh where she's been put, panting. "I… looked," she manages. Can't completely remember what about this required punishment, though the rightness of being on her knees sings through her, and nothing has felt much like a punishment so far. Zhou Zishu wanted to come first—wanted Han Ying to make her come, which is surely a privilege, but it's not as if it's up to her to decide.
"It's not for looking," Wen Kexing says. Her fingers begin to move again, a little faster than before; Han Ying stays where she has been put. She was told not to move, and hopes her shivering hips don't count as moving, since she isn't sure she could stop. “It's for hiding,” Wen Kexing continues. “You were looking at us, but you kept looking away.”
“Once you even ran away.” Zhou Zishu says. “You would have run away this time too, wouldn't you, if Lao Wen hadn't caught you." She sighs, and shifts her legs together as though it's a great effort. Then her voice does something Han Ying has never heard before, had never imagined hearing: it takes on a hint of a pout. “Ying'er, you made us wait so long.”
And oh, of course she should be punished, then. Zhou Zishu has been—wanting? Han Ying bites her lip to control a full body shudder that wanted to course through her and push her hips demanding against Wen Kexing's hand. She thought she knew what it was to ache with want, before, but her body has never been so insistent that it wants to be fucked.
"So you're going to wait," Zhou Zishu says. "You won't be allowed to come now. And keep your hands off yourself until we say so."
Han Ying nods in desperate acquiescence, though she wants to plead for Wen Kexing's fingers inside her. She'll come if Wen Kexing fucks her; she'll come if she speeds up at all.
"That made her wetter," Wen Kexing observes, slyly.
"You like that?" Zhou Zishu sounds both incredulous and huffy. "I didn't even say how long. What if we made you wait for weeks?"
Han Ying whimpers and only tries to nod again, feeling her own thighs tremble. This is a punishment, now. She'll take it, of course; she'll take whatever they want to give her. She's going to be in bed later, with her hands curled into fists at her side, thinking about them. She’s going to be squeezing her legs together, overwhelmingly close as she is now, every night for however long they leave her. What if they leave her for weeks? She isn’t sure what she’d do—beg, probably. Get on her knees again and beg for it. It isn’t difficult to imagine Wen Kexing making her do something to earn the privilege. “I’d wait,” she manages.
Wen Kexing makes a strange, almost angry sort of noise and her fingers once again nearly pinch Han Ying’s clit again as if in punishment—there is some pain this time—and Han Ying nearly comes, has to clench her teeth to hold it. She’s lost herself a little, moaning into Zhou Zishu’s thigh, hips pushing back against Wen Kexing’s fingers, begging the way her mouth won’t. Can’t, and also won’t since there’s no use. This is a punishment.
“Please,” she says against Zhou Zishu’s thigh. Her whole body is shaking, now, holding back her orgasm.
“Please what? You know you’re not allowed to come,” Wen Kexing says. “So stop moving.”
She stops, somehow, and finds—mortifyingly—that Wen Kexing’s hand wasn’t moving at all, that it was all her, desperately rubbing her cunt against Wen Kexing’s fingers. Something like a sob escapes her lips; Wen Kexing’s fingers are resting against her, still.
"So obedient," Wen Kexing praises, finally withdrawing and shifting to stroke Han Ying’s hair with her other hand. How did her words become so sweet? Han Ying presses against her hand, and wishes she could touch more of her. “Don’t you think, A-Xu? She wants so badly to be good.” Wen Kexing puts her fingers in her own mouth and licks them clean of Han Ying's slick; Han Ying shivers. “And she tastes good.”
“Greedy,” Zhou Zishu says. “Well, I’ll clean her up, then.”
And then before Han Ying can get her thoughts even halfway in order, Zhou Zishu has slid off the desk and walked behind her, where she’s still bent over and exposed, and then—and then her tongue laves slowly over Han Ying’s cunt, not as if to give pleasure, but just as if she’s licking juices from a plate. Han Ying clings to the edge of the desk with both hands, and bites her lip around a sound that might have been a scream; she’s still so close. She bears it, bears Zhou Zishu making satisfied sounds as she licks up Han Ying’s slick. It’s something of a futile effort, as Zhou Zishu’s tongue only makes her wetter. “Hmm,” Zhou Zishu says eventually, pulling back. “You’re a greedy slut too, Ying’er.”
Han Ying makes an inchoate noise, gutted suddenly by Zhou Zishu’s meanness. Of course Lord Zhou can be mean; Han Ying has seen her far crueler, but never thought to wonder if she’d be cruel to a lover. The way she rearranges Han Ying’s clothes for her feels cruel, too, though gentled by the way they both move to get her on her feet.
Once there they smile at her, though Wen Kexing seems a little wild with it while Zhou Zishu’s smile is satiated. “Good night, Ying’er,” they say in rough concert; then they each press a soft, slow kiss to her mouth, and depart arm in arm.
“Good night, my Lords,” Han Ying says to the empty air.
————
A few days later, Han Ying goes for a walk in the middle of the night. She needs...something. Some air, the cool midnight breeze on her face. Perhaps it will blow away the hot restlessness and let her sleep, though just at present, her dreams are—vivid.
Her feet, without her say so, walk her past the master suite, and she only realises where she's going on hearing...well, the sounds a couple make in private. Usually in private, anyway, though they're louder for the assumption of privacy. They’re talking, low and rough, and Han Ying can’t make out the words but she can hear their moans twining between them. It's all just sounds, pleasure-overwhelm-orgasm, and Han Ying presses her back against the wall and tries to keep breathing, since walking on has proved a lost cause. That was Zhou Zishu's orgasm, she now knows. She wonders what Wen Kexing sounds like when she comes. Han Ying shakes in the dark stillness, trying to regain her composure.
The door slides open, making her jump: she'd heard no footsteps.
“Can’t sleep?” Wen Kexing asks, her sly grin visible even in the darkness. “A-Xu is so cruel to leave you untouched this long. It’s her, of course; I’m the merciful one.” Her thumb traces over Han Ying’s mouth but leaves before she can think to open her mouth. Wen Kexing’s hand trails over her, unhesitating; down to the notch at the base of her throat, over the single layer of her sleeping robe to pinch one hardened nipple, then around her waist, down her hip to her thigh, then between them. Long-nailed fingers dig into her inner thigh where she’s soft and sensitive.
"Please," Han Ying whispers, not even sure quite what for.
Another hand joins the first and shoves her legs apart in a casual show of strength that shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. Han Ying is hardly easy to throw around—under normal circumstances. One warm thigh moves into the gap and Wen Kexing leans, pressing Han Ying against the wall through her braced leg, only the single layer of her robe between them.
"I won't let you come, of course, until A-Xu says," Wen Kexing tells her, moving her hands to Han Ying’s hips. “But I think you should get a little relief, after waiting so long.”
She doesn't move then, only raises one eyebrow, expression just visible on her shadowed face. Her hands pull Han Ying's hips, and Han Ying understands, finally: she must move. Wen Kexing watches hungrily, one canine pinching her bottom lip, as Han Ying hesitantly presses her cunt against Wen Kexing's firm thigh and begins to move her hips. After a week of not touching herself at all, washing quickly in cold water, and waking up panting and wet, she has no control of herself at all, and it’s seconds before pleasure overcomes embarrassment enough for her to move unhesitatingly, clutching at Wen Kexing’s robe and biting her lip to avoid waking anyone.
Wen Kexing doesn’t help her; she just watches as Han Ying fucks herself, hands resting on Han Ying’s hips as if to feel their movement. Then one hand moves to cover Han Ying’s mouth—ah, she forgot to control herself, had begun letting out sounds—and Han Ying feels feverish, drugged, strung out and desperate with the friction against her bare cunt, now leaking onto Wen Kexing’s robe. She wants everything: she wants to fling herself fully against Wen Kexing, wants to kiss her, wants to pull Wen Kexing’s hands under her robes and ask her to pinch and scratch and squeeze; she wants to be allowed to come like this, and to drop to her knees in front of Wen Kexing and beg to kiss her cunt, her feet, anywhere.
“That’s enough,” Wen Kexing says, and Han Ying manages to stop, somehow. Manages to hold herself up on shaking legs as Wen Kexing withdraws her thigh, then her hands. It’s an effort not to whine at the loss. “What a sweet little slut you are,” she continues, moving back in to place a soft kiss on Han Ying’s neck. “So good to play with.” Another kiss, on her throat this time. It’s impossible to do anything but tilt her head back and plead mutely for more.
"Go back to bed,” Wen Kexing continues, breath trailing goosebumps over her skin, “And fuck yourself exhausted; like this, don’t use your fingers." Han Ying nods fervently. She'll do as she's told, of course. Wen Kexing drops one last kiss on her mouth, and turns to pad silently back into her bedroom. Before she can tear herself away—before her legs deign to work underneath her—she hears first a sleepy grumble, then a soft moan. Not Zhou Zishu’s moan; Wen Kexing is going to. Well, Han Ying doesn’t know exactly, of course, but there’s another inaudible murmur, and another moan, and Han Ying will surely come untouched if she stays to listen to this, or suffer some other humiliation, like dripping on the floor.
She staggers back to her own bedroom, kicks off her shoes and wraps the first strip of cloth she can find over her pillow, to side astride like she did Wen Kexing’s thigh. It takes her only a few minutes to be a hair’s breadth from orgasm again and then, nerves so fried she’s almost angry, she stops to breathe, to let her pleasure dissipate into a desperate ache.
How long will they leave her? Is this some kind of initial test, or would they keep her like this, if—if they took her to bed and kept her there, some nights? She could be just a tool for someone else’s pleasure, a sweeter use than she’s known before. She's been ill used in her loyalty and trust, but never by Zhou Zishu. Maybe she'll have to beg to be allowed to please them; maybe they'll fuck in front of her and she'll kneel next to the bed, clenching her fists to hold back the urge to reach out and touch them, to look too long and too greedily, trying to keep her eyes on the floor nomatter what sounds and moans she hears that neverteless fill in a vivid picture. Maybe, if she's good, she'll be allowed to crawl between Zhou Zishu's legs and gently lick her clean. What if they kept her like that, her mouth and hands for Zhou Zishu to come on, if she pleased, and for Wen Kexing to tease? What if they never let her come—and like the emperor's concubines never let anyone else touch her? What if the last orgasm she ever has is Wen Kexing's hand rubbing over her clothes? In a terrible irony, the thought nearly makes her come, and she wrenches her hand away, more turned on than she'd thought possible.
It takes a few more rounds of bringing herself to the edge and then breathing, letting it go, before she sweats and writhes herself to exhaustion.
Strangely, sleep comes quickly.
—-—
She's just finished a very swift, very cold bucket bath after that afternoon's training session when she comes across them again. By now she knows it's intentional: Zhou Zishu was a spymaster, once, and she knows how to track a mark. It—probably should not make her warm between her legs to think of it that way, but truthfully, a passing breeze makes her warm between her legs, these days. That too is Zhou Zishu's doing, although if Wen Kexing claimed to have no hand in it—other than the literal hands she's had on Han Ying's body—Han Ying would be sure she'd been lied to.
They're in the main study when Han Ying comes in. Few enter during the day: no one at all in the evening, since truthfully it's the Manor Lords' study, and nearly everyone must knock and wait to be called. All but Han Ying and Chengling—who reliably falls into an exhausted heap at the end of the day's training, and can barely be impressed upon to read comic verse, nevermind the contents of this study. Through the gap in the screens to the other side of the large divided room, there's the sound of laughter. Zhou Zishu is in Wen Kexing's lap, legs wrapped around her. Even through layers of robes, her ass is plump and round.
"Shall I leave you?" she asks, daring to make her presence known. They've known every time she's seen them. They want her at least some portion as much as she wants them. What's the use in further sneaking? She's no longer peering through a skylight, separate and unseen. There's no need to: she can look, and be seen in turn, if she can bear their gaze on her naked body. Just now, she'd bear nearly anything to be touched. To come, she hopes, though a streak of her would like, in some twisted way, for the torture to continue. To be strung out and fucked and used and denied, again and again and again, until she's screamed her throat hoarse and she doesn't remember how to be anything else but theirs.
"No," Zhou Zishu says, turning her head to look over her shoulder at Han Ying. "Come here. Kiss me." She taps a finger against her neck and, carefully, Han Ying pads forward and kneels behind her to place a careful kiss there, her smell filling Han Ying's nose. From here, Han Ying can see that her robes are open at the front, that she's wearing nothing underneath the underrobe, that her plush thighs part naked over Wen Kexing's lap.
"More," Zhou Zishu directs, tilting her head: Han Ying obeys, kisses down her neck and over her shoulder, dares to ease the layers of fabric back until her whole front is exposed. She's a feast: Han Ying barely knows what to do, where to put her hands, what Zhou Zishu will permit or what she'll enjoy. Ah, but Wen Kexing had said—Han Ying strokes her hands down her breasts, as generously proportioned as the rest of her and as astonishing under Han Ying’s hands as to her eyes, and thumbs over her nipples, gently, questioning. Zhou Zishu arches into the touch like a cat, and tips her head back to rest against Han Ying’s shoulder. Ah, she’s so warm: her hair spills shining over Han Ying’s chest and arm, and Han Ying has self control—perhaps too much self control, sometimes—but she’s not made of ice, and there’s nothing on earth that would stop her turning her face to bury it against Zhou Zishu’s hair. It’s as soft and silky as cat’s fur, too, and smells of her. It’s a familiar smell, different from the smell of sex, just one that’s found Han Ying’s nose faintly before, during training, once or twice when she stood particularly close.
She inhales deeply, indulgently; when she looks up, Wen Kexing is looking right at her, a knowing smirk on her face, eyes dark and intent. She does something outside of Han Ying’s line of sight, and Zhou Zishu gasps and arches again, pushing her hips forward into Wen Kexing and pressing her back against Han Ying’s chest. Han Ying can feel the thrust of Wen Kexing’s hand as it moves Zhou Zishu, and her body knows Wen Kexing’s touch enough to crave it just as much as she craves feeling more of Zhou Zishu’s skin. Her hands remember their purpose, stroking everywhere she can reach, and returning to Zhou Zishu’s nipples when she feels the faint scrape of teeth against her neck. Feeling daring—how much can she ask for? How much is she allowed to want?—Han Ying turns her head toward Zhou Zishu’s mouth to press a kiss to her lips. There’s a moment of worry that she's crossing a line of some kind, but Zhou Zishu opens her mouth, hot and greedy, and comes a few moments later, panting into Han Ying's mouth.
Han Ying is panting, too. She doesn’t want to stop whatever this is, but Zhou Zishu peels herself off Han Ying’s chest just enough to shrug her robes haphazardly back on and closed. She stands, swings her leg over Wen Kexing’s lap as easily as dismounting a horse.
“A-Xu,” Wen Kexing says, eyes gone from Han Ying now. It’s obvious why Zhou Zishu loves Wen Kexing to look at her, whatever her amused protests; the rest of the world falls away when she focuses her sharp, predator’s gaze on you alone. Han Ying is not even bereft without it, merely relieved that she’s only sometimes the focus. “What do you want?” Her hands reach forward to grab; Zhou Zishu takes one and uses it to yank her to standing.
Wen Kexing goes, inelegant with surprise.
“Come to bed,” Zhou Zishu says. Her eyes sweep imperiously over the pair of them as she reties her belt. “Both of you.” The she turns towards the exit, entirely confident that they’ll follow her.
They will, of course. Wen Kexing’s hand between Han Ying’s shoulder-blades, encouraging her forward, feels both warm and more solicitous than it seems as if it should. “You look good from the back, too,” she says, and Han Ying leans into her touch a little. She’s done so before, but—as with kissing Zhou Zishu, it feels different to lean into affectionate touch than to go out of her mind fucking herself on Wen Kexing’s fingers. An even less familiar intimacy, in her experience.
Their room is familiar to her, large and a trifle disorganised; that she’s been here before should have been pertinent information, but her usually-sharp instincts were—distorted, by the subject being herself, and by the unbelievability of what she was seeing. Han Ying has never been seduced before. People have wanted her, and she’s availed herself or she hasn’t. People have been targets or informants, and so occasionally she’s used that wanting. In her guises she’s been deliberately invisible, a servant of some sort; she was best at being a servant. None of Zhou Zishu’s well-taught skill in playing some vapid court member, elegant but spoiled.
All disguises are true, or they aren’t believable, Zhou Zishu had told her once. In a way, both Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing—and, really, even Han Ying—are in disguise here. In disguise as regular people, with no past beyond everyday petty cruelty. In another way, this is the least disguised they’ve ever been. They fold her into bed, shedding clothes: she watches as they lose themselves in kisses for a few moments, Zhou Zishu removing Wen Kexing's belt and opening her robes. Her body is so long and lean: she looks dangerous and a trifle underfed in the rangy way of a predator in winter. Han Ying isn't quite sure what to do, with Wen Kexing on her back and Zhou Zishu kneeling over her, but they part a little and Wen Kexing tugs her arm. "Lie there," she says, indicating, "and A-Xu will ride your face."
Zhou Zishu goes a trifle pink, but Han Ying lies eagerly. She can see little but Zhou Zishu's stomach and the underside of her breasts as Zhou Zishu grinds her clit against Han Ying's mouth, but she can hear kisses, rough movement, fabric, and Wen Kexing's moans as Zhou Zishu makes her come. Wen Kexing pants out high, breathy little sounds as she gets closer, cries out gasping and shivery while she comes: oddly delicate, when nothing about her seems delicate. Zhou Zishu shows no sign of stopping, even though Wen Kexing makes little ahs of oversensitivity, keeps going as she comes wetly on Han Ying's face, until Wen Kexing says, "Please, A-Xu, no more," when she finally relents and climbs off Han Ying.
Wen Kexing's eyes are wild: her face is pale but her chest is flushed and heaving. She brings her knees together as Han Ying sits up. It’s not...shyness, she thinks. Han Ying isn’t sure what it is. Let me see you, she thinks, and doesn’t say. Let me kneel for you. But the shadow of tension disappears from Wen Kexing’s face as she turns on her side to kiss Zhou Zishu, then makes a sharp, commanding gesture with one hand to bring Han Ying closer.
Han Ying doesn't know what to expect next, but being laid between them wasn't it. They strip off her clothing down to the last stitch, four hands moving everywhere, across her neck and between her thighs and over her hip. Wen Kexing's body is as hot as a furnace pressed against her back, even through cloth where she's allowed her robes to fall closed.
Zhou Zishu kisses her again, and Han Ying would let them have almost anything.
"You’ve made A-Xu come so much: you should get a reward."
"And you," Zhou Zishu says, which Han Ying doesn't quite follow: she hasn't touched Wen Kexing yet, not to make her come. She could—the desire, now, to have Wen Kexing hold her in place by the hair and direct Han Ying’s mouth over her clit is nearly as strong as for Zhou Zishu—but when she tries to move, a firm hand on her hip stops her. Wen Kexing's mouth moves to her neck, leaves a kiss and then sinks her teeth in: Han Ying lets out a shivery breath and jerks in her grip, an animal between a set of jaws ready to shake her apart.
"We're going to take care of you," Zhou Zishu says, and moves her hand to Han Ying’s stomach and strokes down to the trimmed thatch of hair there, pressing a little against the base of her clit.
"Open your legs," Wen Kexing instructs, and Han Ying does so without thinking, her body moving faster than thought.
A quiet inhale as Zhou Zishu's hand slides up her inner thigh and over her cunt. "She's so wet," she says, spreading Han Ying’s cunt with her fingers to stroke where she's even wetter. Untouched for a week, surrounded by the smell and sound and taste of sex, of them. Of course she's wet. You could put anything inside her of a reasonable size just now and it'd slide right in. Someone's cock, a toy, three fingers or four. She only wants them right now, can only really remember wanting them this much, but she'd take a cock if they told her to, if they'd like to watch her be fucked. Wet sounds fill the air as Zhou Zishu strokes her with one hand, not quite dipping inside no matter how she angles her hips, and with the other strokes over her tits.
They aren't anything noteworthy: not high and pert like Wen Kexing's, not round and heavy like Zhou Zishu's, and not especially sensitive, though she'd like Zhou Zishu's hands on her anywhere. She breathes a little heavier as Zhou Zishu's hand gets rougher, and when Zhou Zishu shuffles down and takes one nipple between her teeth, firmer than just a nibble, she gasps half in surprise. Zhou Zishu grazes the suddenly tight flesh with her bottom teeth and then bites again, a little harder, and a flicker of lightning sizzles down her meridians.
"Ah, she likes that," Wen Kexing says, smoothing a hand over her hip then moving it back to give her ass a sharp little smack that makes her shiver in nothing but pleasure. Ah, she hadn't—ah. Zhou Zishu's face is captivated, captivating. She draws back a little to slap where she's just bitten, once, twice, then soothes the sensitised skin with her lips.
"Don't you?" Wen Kexing prompts. Places her hand on the skin she slapped and cruelly doesn't move it.
"Yes," Han Ying says in a whisper; she can’t quite summon the breath to speak.
"What do you like?" Wen Kexing gives the skin on her thigh a little pinch, just below her ass.
"Anything," she says, liking that too. Another pinch, the flesh above her hipbone. It doesn't feel good, as the slaps do: it feels a little cruel, and the edge of Wen Kexing's cruelty feels good. "Everything you do to me."
Wen Kexing lets out some rough noise, and her hand clenches hard where it rested on Han Ying's hip, fingers and nails digging into her flesh, shaking her a little. When she speaks again, her voice has a quality of a clenched jaw. It's nothing at all like the thick, honey-sweet teasing cruelty of the last time. "But right now, specifically?"
"I like that, uh, that you're slapping me," Han Ying begins, and receives another on the side of her tit—ah, Zhou Zishu's hand had paused on her chest, perhaps watching? Every time she looks up, Zhou Zishu's eyes are on her, as bright and focused as Han Ying has ever seen them. She can only meet them for a moment before lowering her gaze.
"Where?"
"I like you slapping—my tits, my ass," she manages through the hot flush of embarrassment. Making her speak this aloud is the cruelest thing Wen Kexing has done; and she wants it. Make me, she thinks without object. The object is nothing in particular; it's the fact of being made to that's burning her up. "I'd like it other places. My legs, probably, I—" she has a vision and can't hold it back "—my, my face."
Someone growls, "Later." She thinks at first it's Wen Kexing; a very belated moment later her ears inform her it was Zhou Zishu, whose face twists briefly into a snarl. Han Ying remembers a cold Zhou Zishu, a distant Zhou Zishu, whose moments of private warmth slowly froze over the decade and change since Han Ying had met her. The warmth has returned, this past year; Han Ying has never seen so much heat in her face, a scorching desert heat, shocking in its intensity. It should feel dangerous to be naked under it, but though her skin burns everywhere Zhou Zishu's hands have touched, she arches towards it. She's held in her own longing and desperation for so long: even if it hurts her, she never wants to be cold again.
Zhou Zishu's hand leaves her cunt and she angles herself better to keep slapping Han Ying's tits, pausing at uneven intervals to brush the warm, flushed skin with her wet fingers. Wen Kexing's hand replaces it nearly seamlessly, sliding over Han Ying's clit then dipping inside, slowly going deeper, beginning to really fuck her, as Wen Kexing's fingers find no resistance and Han Ying's moans grow louder. She's shaking, she feels so much, it's so much, she hasn't come in what feels like forever, though it's not as if a week without an orgasm is unprecedented for her.
"You don't have to hold back any more," Zhou Zishu says. "You can come; you're allowed."
Han Ying's stomach drops and she comes nearly instantly, shivering and jerking through it for a long, long time.
"I'm sorry," she says, when she can speak again. "I didn't mean to—I didn't realise I was—" she finds to her dismay that her face is wet, her breathing shaky not just with orgasm but with tears. The hand between her legs hasn't stopped: Wen Kexing is still fucking her, moving her other hand around to rub her clit, and she wants to say it's too much, but is it?
"There's no need for that, it's okay," Zhou Zishu says, her hands lifting to brush away Han Ying's tears. "It's all right, you did well," she reassures in a brisk voice, eyebrows pinched in concentration, as if that will fool anyone into missing the gentleness of her lips as she places kisses across Han Ying's face. "You were so good for us."
Wen Kexing must know or guess she's somehow both more and less sensitive after orgasm; the rhythm and pressure of her touch has changed to accommodate. She wants Han Ying to feel this overwhelmed; she wants to keep fucking Han Ying while she cries. Maybe it's all right, then, that she's crying. Her stomach muscles want to squeeze and make her cry harder, and she lets it happen as Wen Kexing murmurs into her ear, "Good, that's it, let it out."
Han Ying comes again, sobs through her second orgasm barely two minutes after the first. Feels herself clench tight around Wen Kexing's long fingers.
When her eyes will focus again, she sees Zhou Zishu giving Wen Kexing a dark look over her shoulder.
"What?" Han Ying can't see her face, but the tone of Wen Kexing's voice makes Han Ying imagine her impish grin. "We left her so pent up: she deserved another."
Zhou Zishu almost possessively replaces Wen Kexing's hand with hers, the other grasping the side of her neck to angle her for a kiss.
Wen Kexing's hand tangles at the roots of her hair. "You come like A-Xu, don't you," she says. "Can you come over and over, without stopping?"
“I don't know,” Han Ying says. She usually has one and stops. It's as good an end point as any; surely one is enough? Two is already an embarrassment of riches. Maybe she says this out loud: Zhou Zishu growls and fucks her deeper, slower, adjusting her angle so she can press against Han Ying's clit with her thumb.
“I think you can,” Wen Kexing says. “I think we can make you come some more for us.”
They nudge her forwards until she's half on her front, sprawled over Zhou Zishu. Wen Kexing presses against her back, strokes her thighs, gives her a few spanks as Zhou Zishu fucks her. It's a relief to let her legs splay, to not have to hold them open: when Wen Kexing spreads them wider she tries to help, but her leg muscles have turned to liquid and all she can do is let herself be moved. Some unmeasurable time later, she comes again being kissed thoroughly, deeply, with a faint taste of blood. There's a brief reprieve, then: Zhou Zishu leaves her fingers where they are for a few moments, still, and then when Han Ying's breathing has settled again, she gently begins to stroke her clit. Han Ying squirms in sensitivity but doesn't ask them for mercy. Doesn't want mercy, really, even if it were more painful than it is. If they wanted to see her squirm and wail in pain, she’d take pain, but they're taking her apart with pleasure just as masterfully. It probably works better, even, some never-quite-quiescent part of her offers. She has a great deal more tolerance for pain.
Wen Kexing lays kisses on the back of her neck and presses the pad of one finger—Han Ying shivers at the touch in an unexpected place—against her asshole. People do that, of course, but she hasn't. She's had a fair amount of sex, generally, but little of that was especially inventive; she's used to a mission, or, on occasion, a pastime. To watching faces with satisfaction and warm pleasure while she works her mouth and hips and hands. She isn't used to tumbling into some cavernous space at the bottom of her, to drowning in sensation, to two women who make her burn every time she looks at them. She can't see much here but Zhou Zishu's skin. That seems right. She nuzzles it, seeking sensation. Feels the soft laugh that works its way out of Zhou Zishu's chest and ribcage reverberate through the bones of her skull.
The cleft of her ass is slippery with her wetness already, all the way to her tailbone, and one careful finger slides inside her easily.
"Ah," she lets out in surprise. She'd heard it could be more difficult.
"Does Ying'er like it this way?" Wen Kexing asks, teasing, but meaning it.
"I think so," she says, the best reply she has. It's Wen Kexing's finger in her, so she's predisposed to like it, but the cold part of her says, it doesn't matter if I like it. It matters if they like it. She likes when Zhou Zishu tells her she’s been good; she likes when Wen Kexing laughs her mean laugh, finding some new place to slap or pinch or bite. She likes when they make her come, and when they don't, and she likes the way they look at her when she’s pleased them. Whether it’s want or possessiveness or satisfaction or that dark, vicious look Wen Kexing wears when she’s saying something that makes Han Ying both turned on and ashamed—she just wants to be looked at, as if she’s something important, something worth keeping. Wen Kexing can put her fingers anywhere she likes, and Han Ying will thank her for allowing her to be useful.
"I'll give you more." Wen Kexing gathers more slick with her other hand—Han Ying is so wet that there's a small puddle on the sheets underneath her—and presses two fingers inside. It's a stretch, a little achy, but it presses against her insides in a good way, especially when Zhou Zishu cautiously begins to fuck her again, and they push her over the crest of a slow, shuddery orgasm and then just don't stop, kissing her, kissing each other over her shoulder.
"You're being so good," Wen Kexing says. "So obedient, lying there and taking what we give you and coming for us so sweetly."
"She's always been good," Zhou Zishu says, voice full of warm approval.
Han Ying buries her face in Zhou Zishu’s shoulder; she can’t look at her face, can only shake and pant in their hands. She didn't know her body could do this, that it had this much sensation inside it. They know better. They know what to do with her, how to touch and grab and hit her to make her wet, desperate, pliant; how to make her come and come and come. Being bracketed by them feels so good it almost hurts, like the unmaking relief of pressing on a tight muscle that aches in release.
"Will you keep being good for us? Will you give A-Xu your mouth whenever she wants you?” Wen Kexing asks, intent with her voice and her hand. Zhou Zishu’s answering shiver is almost better than the words, and then she reaches for Han Ying’s hand and tugs it between her own legs. Han Ying’s hands aren’t working very well, but—Zhou Zishu squeezes her thighs together and rocks against her hand. Han Ying nods as fervently as she can; she doesn’t even have to think about it. There are so few things she would ever deny her Lord. “Will you spread your legs for me when I tell you to?" Wen Kexing continues.
Han Ying’s lungs feel weak, but she forces in a breath anyway. She knows what Wen Kexing is really asking. "Yes," she says. "Anything; please let me serve you.” She dares to go on, dares to voice the other thing she wants and has not been offered. “Please let me make you come."
Wen Kexing’s reply is a vicious bite to the back of Han Ying’s shoulder, and Zhou Zishu shakes then, her thigh muscles jumping around Han Ying’s hand. "Shimei,” she says, sounding hoarse and raw, “shimei, ah," and then she’s coming in long, unvoiced gasps. Wen Kexing breathes raggedly into the bitemark on Han Ying’s shoulder and presses all her weight against her, and Han Ying comes with a deep punched-out groan she's only ever heard from herself before in terrible pain.
She's not in terrible pain. She's floating, she's lying on something soft surrounded by the smell of sex and Zhou Zishu, and there's movement and a warm washcloth. Something soft and linen goes under her hips.
After a period of quiet, Zhou Zishu speaks. "It's okay if that was just sex talk, shimei. You didn't really know what you were promising." Zhou Zishu strokes her hair so gently. Wen Kexing kisses her neck as she's cleaning her and arranging them.
Han Ying stiffens. "I. I don't know," she says, and tries to herd her thoughts into a sensible order. They don't wish to be herded; everything is still hazy in a way that was pleasant, until a moment ago, and is now—something else. She did know what she was promising; she thought—she'd meant it, and she'd hoped—"I don't know what you want."
"A-Xu," Wen Kexing says. "Don't. You know she meant it. So did we."
Han Ying lets out a breath. Manages to release her grip on Zhou Zishu's wrist.
"But," Zhou Zishu says, gesturing vaguely to Wen Kexing wiith one frustrated hand; the other, now freed, has returned to stroking Han Ying's temple. More firmly now. Han Ying's pulse is steadying without her having to breathe it steady herself.
Wen Kexing sighs expressively and sits down on the bed next to them, rests her hand on Han Ying's back. More of the sudden tension uncoils from her belly and slips away. "We want to keep you, Ying-er," she says, in a hesitant sort of tone. There's a pause; over her head, they're speaking to each other without words, she thinks, as they often do. "We don't..."
"We don't. Have that many people." Zhou Zishu's hand on her pauses; fingers slide through her hair as if to grasp, but don’t. "Those left are precious."
Han Ying presses her head against Zhou Zishu's hand, tangling her fingers in her hair. Her foot stretches out behind her and finds Wen Kexing's leg, hooks around it. She senses, somehow, that they need to be held, to be held onto. The way they touch and lean into each other in public is not just lecherous or affectionate, Han Ying's mind offers slowly, like drips of honey: it's fastening and possessive, a literal coupling, a chain between them they're constantly reinforcing, constantly feeling for the pull of. Wrap me in it, Han Ying thinks, helpless. Don't let me go. I won't let you. And, quiet even in her own mind, I'll help it hold fast.
"Yes," Wen Kexing says. "Precious."
Han Ying sighs, satisfied then. She can almost feel the chain looped around her throat, but it's only Wen Kexing's arm sliding under her neck, wrapping in front to touch Zhou Zishu's hand, to cover it where it tangles in Han Ying's hair. It's affection, and it's a quiet binding, but there's a little hint, there, of—how they've been talking to her. As if she's a child, or a much beloved pet, but not quite either of those. Maybe just as if she's theirs. It makes her cunt flutter, faintly, though it'll be a while before she truly wants to be touched there. She doesn't want them to move their arms from where they're wrapped around her neck; she reaches her own wobbling arm to hold them, too. Finds Wen Kexing's arm and pulls it closer. It really is around her neck now, its restraint a comfort. Wen Kexing buries her face in Han Ying's hair and inhales.
—Several Months Later—
One morning, Han Ying is missing from breakfast. There is much gossip: Han Ying is never missing from breakfast unless she's away on a mission, and she's been on those less and less frequently over the past months, the manor Lords unwilling to spare her and pleased to send her well trained juniors.
What she was doing instead is:
Han Ying is dressing in her own room when Zhou Zishu comes through her door and lifts her out of her bow, but only to encourage her to kneel with one hand in her hair. She leans back against the wall and parts her casual morning robes, wearing nothing underneath, and Han Ying leans forward eagerly to taste her.
"My bed was empty and cold this morning," she complains unheatedly, sighing in pleasure as Han Ying expertly tongues her clit. She patiently and exactingly instructed Han Ying in how to please her best, and Han Ying is proud to be as well trained in this as she ever was in martial arts and espionage. Prouder: in this way, she can serve her lord with uncomplicated pleasure, and enjoy the results of her efforts.
"My wife gets up with the sun, and my favourite disciple was absent." Han Ying’s breath catches. There's been a schedule, loose but understood: Han Ying does not spend every night in their bed. Perhaps a night in every five or six, perhaps two nights in a row on occasion. She is pleased to be so often wanted.
She was in her Lord's bed only the night before last, although this is hardly the first time Zhou Zishu has wanted her incidentally. She suffers with her monthlies since the nails, and though medicine helps, in the few days of aches and cramps before she bleeds, she will often request Han Ying's mouth. If her grouchy, bossy manner at those times is nothing but an incentive to Han Ying, well, it's not something she's tried to hide.
Zhou Zishu comes easily, quickly, as if she awoke already wet and wanting: the image makes Han Ying moan. Did she dream? Dream of Wen Kexing's fingers, or perhaps of Han Ying's tongue?
She's pulled back by the hair after that, and only just holds in a whine: it's breakfast time, and it's quite normal for Zhou Zishu to want her mouth for a quick slice of pleasure and then depart, but even so. Something about this morning has her wanting.
She's pulled onto her own bed, to kneeling between Zhou Zishu's spread thighs as she sprawls on her back as if intending to stay for more than another swift orgasm. Han Ying does not ask yet: she simply resumes her service, but after a short time Zhou Zishu pulls her back again. This time her small noise of protest makes it out, and Zhou Zishu rolls her eyes in what Han Ying now knows to be fond exasperation.
"Get undressed," she says. "I want to see you."
She obeys, carefully folding at least her outer robes. Breakfast is clearly a lost cause.
"Hurry up," Zhou Zishu grouses without much real irritation, but Han Ying nevertheless sheds the rest of her clothes more quickly, and climbs naked back onto the bed. There's something of a thrill to be seen like this, to be naked and exposed when her Lord is dressed still. A time or two they've spent a few hours like this, Han Ying naked, both her lovers clothed while they eat and drink and talk, even attend to household matters. Han Ying tries to contribute but, typically, it doesn't take long before she's floating in her own body, content just to be present and wanted. Their hands stroke her absently and her inner thighs grow slowly damp.
It's not quite like this now, but Han Ying is just as turned on. She kneels on the bed in front of Zhou Zishu, who sits up briefly to run a hand over her body like an inspection: she drags her nails lightly over Han Ying’s collarbones and chest, strokes down her stomach, flicks a thumb over her clit and then down between the folds of her cunt. Han Ying has never not been wet around her or Wen Kexing since they first touched her, she thinks.
Two fingers push inside her, swift and practical, but it doesn't matter: her hips jerk anyway at the lazy look on Zhou Zishu's face. As if she's trying to decide if it's worth the effort to make Han Ying come. It's this as much as the touch that has Han Ying panting on edge barely a minute later.
Zhou Zishu's eyebrow raises. "It's not even been two days, and you're already this desperate?"
"Mm," Han Ying manages, too embarrassed to say "yes". Her body is used to regular orgasms these days, and although she still may not come or touch herself without permission—a state of affairs she loves between the bouts of frustrated desperation—she comes to their bed a little more than weekly, and Wen Kexing's appetite for Han Ying hanging from her unpredictable mercy is as great as Zhou Zishu's for her own orgasms. Frequently Han Ying will find herself in a tucked away spot with Wen Kexing's hand over her mouth and fingers inside her, tears escaping her as she struggles to hold back both her moans and her orgasm. Sometimes Wen Kexing even lets her come. It seems to delight her to be obeyed with enthusiasm in the way that Zhou Zishu finds unremarkable: her smile is hungry and vulpine when Han Ying opens her mouth or her legs on command, doubly so when she comes on command, although that's hardly an active effort as much as it is relaxing her hold on herself.
"I wouldn't want you learning impatience," Zhou Zishu says, removing her fingers and presenting them for Han Ying to clean. Han Ying hides a smile this way: Zhou Zishu herself has very little patience, especially where orgasms are concerned. She lies back again, waiting for Han Ying's mouth. If Han Ying needed reassurance about how much she pleased Zhou Zishu with her desire and her willingness to be denied its satisfaction, the speed and ease with which Zhou Zishu comes under her tongue once again would provide it. But she doesn't, really. Zhou Zishu has told her so many times that she's good, that she's theirs, that she's beautiful when she comes and even more beautiful when she's begging to come. Her own appearance is not something Han Ying thinks about often, but she's pleased to be thought beautiful in the eyes of her favourite people. More pleased still that it's something she does, and not some accident of fate that will fade with time and change.
Zhou Zishu pulls her up the bed, unusually: these briefer encounters normally end with them rearranging their clothes and a swift kiss. But Zhou Zishu is luxuriant this morning: she pulls Han Ying close as she usually only does in the evening and kisses her hair.
Han Ying can't hold it in. "Love you," she whispers against Zhou Zishu's jaw. Zhou Zishu tsks because she doesn't seem to know what to say to that, anytime those words have tripped out of Han Ying's mouth, but she does tighten her embrace.
"Get dressed," she says a few minutes later. "There's breakfast."
Han Ying is taken back to Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu rooms where there's a full breakfast spread. Did Wen Kexing make this? Her hair, as she breezes towards them to press a kiss first to Zhou Zishu’s lips then to Han Ying’s hairline, smells faintly of the kitchen.
"That took longer than I expected, A-Xu," Wen Kexing says, eyes bright with knowing exactly what they've been doing.
Zhou Zishu ignores this completely, with the good cheer of one knowing hypocrite to another. Wen Kexing has no patience either; Han Ying considers it quite fortunate that she has enough for all three of them. "Shall we eat, then?" she says. Her hair is terribly tousled, and Han Ying's must be worse.
Wen Kexing grins and sits down, encouraging Han Ying into her lap, facing away, so Han Ying's back presses against her chest. Han Ying turns her head and says, "Please?" hopefully: she's at least as fond of Wen Kexing's faint moment of surprise as she is by the kiss to her lips. The surprise is becoming less surprised as Han Ying does this more often. The first time she'd been terribly nervous, unsure if she was asking too much, but the reward had been Wen Kexing's startled pleasure as well as a kiss. Wen Kexing keeps kissing her as she eases both hastily donned layers off, so Han Ying is once more naked in the warm room. Wen Kexing parts her legs so her knees hook over the outsides of Wen Kexing's thighs, slides her hands over Han Ying's torso and hips, and doesn't touch her cunt at all. "Stay there," she says.
Zhou Zishu pours tea. Wen Kexing serves dishes into her and Zhou Zishu's bowls. There isn't one for Han Ying, who is by now getting hungry, but she will wait. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing pick up a discussion about the state of the garden, and the possible hiring of new staff to tend it.
After taking a bite or two, Zhou Zishu plucks a morsel between her chopsticks and moves it to Han Ying's mouth to feed her: Han Ying, flushing redder, opens her mouth and takes it.
A few moments later, Wen Kexing lifts a cup of tea to Han Ying’s lips, not interrupting for a moment her enthusiastic description of the last time she’d interviewed for staff. The words wash over Han Ying, more sound than meaning, as she is slowly fed a meal, bite by bite.
Halfway through, fingers slide over her cunt, find her wet and wanting, and press inside. Han Ying moans and cants her hips, and Wen Kexing pinches her nipple in mild rebuke. "No, stay still."
The meal continues. She is ignored by the conversation, but between bites, hands pat affectionately at her hair, her shoulder, the top of her thigh. It makes her—it makes it difficult not to move or make noise. She must be dripping onto the skirts of Wen Kexing's robe.
The conversation continues, punctuated by soft laughter: they've changed the subject. The breakfast dishes are emptied; Wen Kexing's fingers slowly move in and out of her cunt, and she struggles not to move, not to make too much noise.
She only half-succeeds at smothering a yelp at a smack to her inner thigh, and Wen Kexing says, "I told you to stay still: who told you to be quiet?" and—oh. She stops trying to be quiet. They keep talking, pausing every so often to fit their words between her moans. She can no more understand what they’re saying than she can divine the future. Staying still is harder, when she's not also staying quiet.
"Don't come," Wen Kexing says firmly, obviously to her as it's clearer and more into her ear. "Hold it off for as long as you can."
"Yes," she says with an anguished moan as Wen Kexing fucks her faster.
There's no conversation now: Zhou Zishu is leaning on Wen Kexing, kissing her, a steadying hand on Han Ying's hip. The sounds of their kisses and the way they begin to move against each other edges her closer: she could come now, if she stopped holding back, but of course she won't. She can't hold back forever, but she’ll try.
"I'm close," she says. "Please,"
"You're doing so well," Wen Kexing says, kissing behind her ear in approval. "Keep holding it."
“I can't,” she says between gasps, stomach shaking so hard she can barely get the breath to speak. “I can't hold it much longer.”
“You can,” Zhou Zishu says. “You are. You're holding it, you're doing so well.” Her hand squeezes and soothes. Han Ying wishes it would slap or pinch her, although whether that would help her hold back her orgasm or bring it on is uncertain.
“I really can't hold it," she pleads. Every muscle in her body is trembling with effort. “Please stop, I can't, please don't make me come—”
“You don't want to come?” There’s some edge to Wen Kexing’s voice that Han Ying can’t think enough to understand.
“I'm not allowed,” she wails. “Please stop, I'm not allowed, I don't want to come unless I'm allowed, I can't—” she can't even talk, she's about to—
Wen Kexing stops, and slowly withdraws her hand, leaving her panting and shaking and so dizzy she can barely sit upright. “Thank you,” Han Ying says, afraid to move before the edge recedes.
Then she realises it's not only her who's shaking. Wen Kexing is shaking too, behind her, breath uneven. “Ying'er,” she manages between breaths. “Ying'er, you're so good. That's so hot, sweetheart, come here,” she says, nonsensically, but then she shuffles them both off the chair and onto the ground, sitting up, where she swings a leg over Han Ying's thigh, drags her face close for a starving kiss, and grinds her cunt against Han Ying's thigh for a few short minutes until she's shuddering and coming herself.
“Anyway,” Zhou Zishu says from where she’s been watching them, legs crossed, on a chair that looks a little like a throne because of the way she’s holding herself. “Today is a day off. Chengling has cancelled training, you're going to spend the day with us.” Han Ying blinks. A whole day like this? Naked, serving, surrounded by their touch and their—their love. For each other and for her, though not quite in the same way. That doesn't matter at all. Not even parents love all their children the same. Today, she can be their favourite concubine.
“We won't let you come until the sun has gone down,” Zhou Zishu says. It's probably supposed to sound a little stern, but it doesn't. Han Ying smiles: perhaps, if she begs very sweetly, they'll change their minds—but it's their choice, either way. She's theirs in every way that matters; every part of her has their fingermarks imprinted there.
"Yes," she says. Stays where she is, kneeling naked on the floor. Wen Kexing retakes her seat: Han Ying at length leans her head on Zhou Zishu's thigh and has her hair gently stroked while Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu enjoy each other's company, flirt and argue fondly and kiss. There's nowhere else she'd rather be than at their feet.
—-------
End notes:
Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu’s POV of this goes like:
Wen Kexing pointing out that Han Ying has been gazing longingly at her for years and also with lust
Zhou Zishu sortof groaning about this like ughhhhhhhhh I was trying not to notice
Wen Kexing like: she's cute tho and she’d do literally anything you asked which is a point in her favour
Zhou Zishu: just spit it out
Wen Kexing: so I think we should all fuck about it
Zhou Zishu: ...well I'm not making that happen but sure
A conversation between Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing, lying in bed the night after the first threesome:
Zhou Zishu: You seduced her quite thoroughly.
Wen Kexing: And so what if I did? I needed to. You had seduced her already.
A wordless grumble from Zhou Zishu. She did no such thing. Han Ying just has a Thing for dangerous women who can throw her around in a fight; in the whole Jianghu, her options aren’t expansive.
—
While Han Ying isn’t wandering around all horny and submissive, though, it’s just her showing up to take the advanced disciples training looking….healthy, and all the disciples cringing because they’ve seen Han Ying in a lot of moods but ‘whistling’ isn’t one of them. She beats the snot out of them even harder than usual, and forgets to pretend it’s a challenge.
They ask Chengling what happened, obviously, which he really can’t believe they still do, because half the time he doesn’t know and the other half he wishes he didn’t. On first being asked ‘what’s up with Han Ying lately?’ he doesn’t know. Sadly, a few days later, he falls accidentally into wishing he didn’t.
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