Chapter 6: The Steam Bath

The bath room behind the Hall of Quiet Rest was narrow and hot, and the air tasted of mugwort.

Steam curled from a deep cedar tub.

A single paper lantern turned the walls amber.

"A medicinal steam bath," Seo-wan had told the guard at the outer door. "Mugwort and wormwood, for the lungs. Two hours."

The guard had written it in his log and looked pleased to be useful.

Now the tub held the King of Joseon, naked to the chest.

Wet hair clung to his neck, and his arms lay spread along the rim.

He watched her unknot her sash.

"The lungs," he said.

"Doctor's orders."

"I have never been so ill in my life."

"Hush."

She let the jeogori slide from her shoulders.

The skirt followed, and the chemise, and she stood before him in the lantern light, bare and flushed from the steam.

His eyes went over her slowly.

Her breasts, her belly, the soft curve of her hips.

She felt each part of her go tight under his gaze.

"You're looking again," she said.

"I have been looking since the first night. I'm not going to stop."

She smiled and stepped into the tub.

The water was hot enough to sting.

It rose over her calves and her thighs, and she sat down facing him with her knees on either side of his hips.

She settled onto his lap.

He was already hard against her, thick and warm under the water, and she rubbed herself along him with a long slow slide.

His breath hissed out.

"Slowly," she said. "We have two hours."

He lifted a bottle from the rim of the tub.

It held camellia oil, and she had left it there herself.

"May I?"

"Yes."

He poured a thread of it into his palm and rubbed his hands together.

Then he reached around her and laid them flat on her back.

She arched into it with a moan.

His palms were broad and slick.

They worked up the long muscles beside her spine, kneading and pressing.

They found every knot she had carried since the exam.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, that's, don't stop."

"You've been holding your shoulders up by your ears for days."

"Four days."

"I counted five."

She laughed, and her forehead dropped to his shoulder.

His thumbs dug into the place between her shoulder blades, and a shudder ran through her all the way to her toes.

The oil made her skin slippery and warm.

His hands slid lower, to the dip of her waist and the swell of her hips, and he drew her closer against him.

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