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“Master Jinshi,” Maomao tried to speak, the words broken both by pressure and shock, “it hurts,” she tried to explain, reaching her free hand to grab the one he had wrapped around her throat, pressing down almost too much on her windpipe.
“Oh, does it?” He practically sneered at her.
It was so unlike Jinshi. The darkness that was in his eyes, that was entirely set on her and that she could hardly keep contact with her vision blurring at the edges as the pain bled tears in her eyes.
Tears that blurred everything but him. Everything but eyes that screamed with all the pain he was trying to press into her, that burned with all the anger of a slight she didn’t even know she had committed, that commanded recognition of the need he had claimed her with. A want he was so sure she shared, a want she had to deny.
A spark she needed to stomp out, because she was simply not fit, and it was clear to see for everyone but him.
“Good, maybe you’ll understand then,” his voice dark and almost venomous, honey long stripped from it, but almost sad.
He was choking her and had the gall to seem at all sad? What was wrong with him?
She tried to say something, but once more all that came out was a strangled noise of nonsense. Then the next thing she tried to say was stuttered by a sudden intake of air as he at last let go of her. Well, at least of her neck, his hand was still wrapped tight around her wrist as he pulled her, still struggling with the sudden influx of air, closer towards him. Rather, the bench that sat flush to the wall.
Maomao hated the feeling of being dragged like a doll, but she was too focused on regaining air right now to care. Besides, it's not like she could refuse an order from someone of his station, and this felt something like an order.
They sat there, on that bench, under the moonless sky and the cover of darkness, despite the banquet on the other side of the wall behind them. Maomao hated it, hated that she hated it too, that it made her chest and stomach feel weird. But she did.
He made what he wanted so clear, despite what she did, but then again, her feelings on the subject didn’t matter much at all. Became furious when she refuted him, to the point of choking her, and then just nothing? Just sitting with her, beside her, too close to not be misconstrued by someone who saw them, and practically holding her hand. His grip still as tight, as if he thought lightening the pressure would see her bolt, but having slid from her wrist to interlace his much larger hand over top of hers.
She let her fingers curl limply around his simply because it was easier than the alternative of not. She could feel the hard callouses he earned through his swordsmanship against her skin, it was a strange contrast to how smooth and elegant the rest of his hand was.
With every additional beat of silence she only thought more on what he had just done, on why, on what was now happening. All things that further twisted her insides in a feeling she had heard talk of before and very much wanted to avoid.
“I thought you agreed to kill me with poison,” she didn’t quite joke to break the silence that felt like more than simple quiet.
“Honestly,” he muttered with a sigh, flexing his hand still holding tight onto hers, “I want to hit you sometimes.” He turned his face to look at her, something she saw out of the corner of her eye, still focused on his hold on her.
“As long as it's nowhere someone will see.” She joked without thinking, forgetting how poorly her brothel humour landed with the man.
Man.
Jinshi was a man. She knew that, but after thinking of him as a eunuch for so long, it was still oddly hard to remember that sometimes. He was a man, a prince at that, who had claimed her as his choice, unbeknownst to her, only to be ignored and slighted. She couldn’t say his irritation with her didn’t make a lot of sense when she considered some of the stories she had grown up around.
“I didn’t mean literally,” he clarified. The joke having not landed.
He was the one who choked her in his rage, so why did she feel like she had messed up? This was infuriating. If he had at least choked her properly, maybe she could have justified it. Well, perhaps she could at least apologise for the slight, in her own way.
“I know, sir.” She said plainly, considering if she should say what she had just thought of. It's not like he would decline knowing him, but would it cost some part of her dignity she didn’t want to lose? “You know if you're going to do that again, you should learn how to do it properly,” She offered purely as an apology, not at all to feel the large, slender fingers wrapped around her.
She rubbed at her neck as she offered, as she thought of him choking her properly. Simply because it still hurt a little, and because it would be an interesting experience from what she knew of the sexual pleasure to be found in such an act.
“Do what again?” He asked, voice dipping back into the darkness he had spoken with before, all while staring at her lips, something she was going to ignore.
“Choking can be quite pleasurable,” she answered, meeting his eyes directly and noticing the way he swallowed hard on nothing at the information. “It can restrict blood flow to your head, almost like getting drunk or drugged or poisoned,” she explained, tone too light, too as though she was asking him to choke her. Which she was not.
“If you don’t crush someone's airway,” she added with a pointed glare, turning her face from him with a huff.
“Would you want to teach me?” He leaned into her and whispered.
“I fear anyone else wouldn’t rather die under your hand than tell you of your mistake,” she replied with half a shrug and feigned disinterest as her heartbeat traitorously picked up.
“Why do you assume I’ll make a mistake?” he asked with a pout she could hear without seeing his face.
“Because you already did.” She snarked.
“So how do-“ He started, but she cut him off with a raised hand as she turned back to face him.
“I suggest we not do this here unless you would like to be discovered doing something rather indecent?” She offered the opinion, even she understood time and place.
“What’s there to worry about?” Jinshi asked with a sly smile that never resulted in anything good, “All someone will see is me with my favourite candidate, that’s nothing scandalous.” He reinforced a reality she was actively avoiding.
“I am not a candidate,” she affirmed her stance, “I was brought here by technicality and tricks.” She reminded him with a glare that he probably enjoyed too much.
“Well, if you are so unfit as a candidate, what's the harm in us being found like this?” He pushed her into a corner with that one, either she relents and does this here and now, or admits she's a candidate.
“Fine,” she shrugged, standing from the bench for only a moment before sitting straddling his lap and pulling their still joined hands to her throat, waiting for him to let go.
He let his hand leave hers to rest lightly, like a necklace, more on her collarbone than her neck. She was sure it was a combination of her small stature and his larger, but the degree to which his hand could wrap around her was expansive and a thought that had her shift in his lap.
She wished he would press into her skin more, let her feel the slender fingers that didn’t bulge with bones, as carved to perfection by heaven as the rest of him. To have him press into her flesh with more strength than anyone would have expected Jinshi to possess. Trimmed and neat nails that would just barely press into her, leaving behind half moon stabs that would outlining the position of his fingers.
She rested her hand flat on the plane of his chest and slid it up to his neck, eliciting a lewder noise than she would have expected from him, before her hand even reached his neck.
“There are two ways to choke someone, the far more dangerous way that you did earlier, air.” She let her hand trail his Adam's apple, feeling it bob with her touch. She wasn’t truly placing any pressure on his airway, but the presence of her hand there at all would be felt.
“Pressing down on the throat here to stop someone from breathing,” she further explained, not able to look at his eyes but catching the way he wet his lips as she moved her hand back to the side of his neck.
“Or you can restrict blood to the brain, still dangerous but easy enough to do lightly and for pleasure,” she informed him, looking for his pulse, “your heart is racing, sir,” she noted.
“I think that’s rather expected considering,” his voice still dark and almost rasped, as his free hand found her hip and pulled her closer to him yet, forcing her stomach to press against his, and leaving her far more aware of a decently sized bulge she was doing her best to ignore.
“Is mine?” She asked, hoping he would take the hint and she wouldn’t have to ask more directly. An odd change for her to be sure.
His fingers felt like silk and fire as they danced far too lightly on her neck in the same place she had touched his, looking for her heartbeat. Once he had felt the flutter through her skin, he pressed a single lone finger into her skin, pressure enough to feel the weight of, but not enough to do anything other than make her want more pressure, more fingers closing around her.
Fingers that she was embarrassed to want just as much, if not more than, all the ladies who were tripping over themselves for him. If she were being honest, she surely wanted to feel his fingers in many more ways than those girls who would make pure blushing brides. Just another reason she was unfit to be a candidate. She wanted his hands on her, not because he was the Moon Prince, or because he was the celestial beauty, but because he was Jinshi and because she could trust him with this. Something she was sure was stupid.
Either way, anything felt all twisted inside her, and she didn’t have poisons to taste, and so she wanted something to fill that void. The floaty feeling of Jinshi choking her would have to do. Besides with hands like his, not being able to choke someone pleasurably was simply a waste, that was an objective fact.
“Yours is racing too,” Jinshi almost whispered, as if mystified that her heart wasn’t entirely unaffected by the situation.
“Put your thumb on the side,” she ignored him and continued, very done with this preamble.
His thumb dragged on her skin faster than the other fingers had, thankfully. He easily found the smaller subtler pulse point and pressed his thumb into it, still too gently. She made a noise of agreement or perhaps approval, but certainly not pleasure.
“You can touch the front of my neck, just don’t press down,” she explained, her voice sounding light, surely because her body was starting to register the threat of choking.
Jinshi made a noise she was sure was also just in acknowledgement or understanding, not pleasure. Despite what she could feel between their bodies, it was surely just as frog or something.
There was no way Jinshi was becoming aroused at the sight of her starting to get breathless and flushed while his hand collared her neck. A thought and image that also did nothing of the sought to her. The warmth she felt between her legs was simply a consequence of how they were positioned, and sitting that was all.
“Now just squeeze,” she gave a light squish to his neck before letting her hand fall back to his chest to steady herself. She was already starting to feel lightheaded, which was odd.
Maomao made no noise, absolutely none, and even if she did, it was certainly not a whimper, when she felt Jinshi’s hand flex across the expanse of her neck that it covered. He was providing a controlled and slowly tightening and constricting pressure on her muscles that shot pleasure straight to her core.
For the first time, she found herself glad for this absurdly heavy dress. She was sure that even if they could feel the other through all the layers, there was no way he could tell that there was a growing wetness she would deny endlessly between them too.
He kept squeezing until a strange, strangled gasp that wasn’t quite a moan but also very much was fell from her lips. It wasn’t her fault, his hand had her neck crushed like a vice. It was delicious. It was flooding her mind with thoughts of all the other places he could apply such pressure, as embarrassing as the fantasies might be.
She simply couldn’t help it. It all felt too good.
Her vision blurring at the edges once more, leaving only a feral eyed Jinshi clear to her as he stole her breath - at least this time with permission. Eyes dark as the night sky and focused solely on her as though she were the brightest thing left, as though she were Vega herself.
Maomao felt almost disconnected from her body and fuzzy at the edges. That was why she squeezed her thighs tight against Jinshi’s own, and why she gripped his collar and shoulder so hard.
She was dizzy, and that was the only reason her hips were rolling into his was because of that. She was going to fall off him if she didn’t do something to keep her balance after all. It was making the heat building within her worse, she knew why even if she couldn’t admit it. She knew she should stop, that it would be far better for them both to stop.
But she couldn’t.
Not with the way his hand pulsed its grip around her neck, making her wish he wouldn’t have to remove it soon, not with the way he looked at her, or licked his lips or pulled her hips into his as he also pressed up against her. Certainly not after hearing the noises he made. Whines as pretty as him, as desperate for her attention as he had been all night, as he made clear not too long ago. All of that was ignored.
All she felt at that moment was a result of that, and it was all always just one step short of too much.
That step was the lewd noises that were going to be pried from her lips once more. Something her dignity, whatever remains of it would simply not allow, that was to only reason she captured those soft and well wet lips of his with hers.
She simply needed something to muffle the noise, something to hide the pleasure that had snapped in her to cause that noise. Jinshi’s hands choking her properly was simply too much. How was she supposed to do anything else but climax between that and the friction that was between them?
Her only solace in this moment was her being taught by Pairin all kinds of arts of seduction and pleasure. As long as she ended this quickly enough, Jinshi would never know what he had accomplished and, as such, could never hold it over her.
A courtesan never lost the upper hand even when the client paid for control.
She used a technique she was forced to practice until her jaw wouldn’t close for days and her tongue could barely move. A series of flicks and drags as she forced her tongue past those perfect parted lips of his, that reduced him to a far greater mess than her effortlessly, as it would any virgin.
His hand seized tighter than she thought it could around her throat, still not pressing down on her airway, thankfully. She almost felt cheated that it was a moment that came from a lapse of control as pleasure wracked his body, if he could have squeezed that hard he should have done so earlier.
His hand fell from her neck, the one on her hip loosening, as she pulled back from his mouth, a string of saliva connecting their swollen lips. He looked dazed, and it made her feel just as floaty as the choking. Something she wouldn’t dwell on right now.
She stood with far more effort than she assumed would be required, straining to not let her shaking legs show themselves. She wiped the wet mess of her mouth with a long drag of her thumb, not breaking eye contact with Jinshi. Jinshi, who was still sitting and still dazed, but whose eyes followed her thumb very closely.
She smoothed her hair, and righted her collar. Ran her hands over her skirts hoping to not betray how affected she was by what just happened between them. Something she would try and forget later, something she would fail at, she was sure.
“I think I hear my brother calling, Moon Prince,” She teased before leaving with a bow.
She made a straight path through the banquet and back to her room. As fun as it would have been to wait and watch just what Jinshi did to try to right his appearance and hide what had happened, she was too worried about giving away her own part of their tryst.
Once she was back in her room, alone in the dark, she couldn’t help but run her own too small and stubby hand up her neck, wishing Jinshi’s hand was back on her. Wishing her own too meagre finger was his, far longer and thicker than her own, they would fill her so much better than her own. She tried to chase the feeling she had in his lap, knowing the memory of tonight would long linger in her mind and fantasies and that they would never compare to the real thing.
Jinshi was a poison, and she so badly wanted a second taste, but for once in her life, she feared the consequences of such a taste.