Sharing a Pavilion With You
Chapter 63: Shape of You

Chapter 63: Shape of You

"Thank you, Bai Li," she breathed with frightened relief as he pulled her clear of the water. She felt in her hair. "Oh dear, that was one of the hydrangea yanbin clips I bought with Sofya. It survived the attack by the assassins, but now it’s lost," she said sadly. "I hope that’s not an ominous omen," she said with a shiver of concern for this trip.

This damn girl would be the death of him, thought Bai Li with a heavy sigh.

He stripped off his armour, his robe and his shoes and rolled his pants up with a grunt.

"It’s okay Bai Li. It doesn’t matter," she assured him, when she saw what he was planning. "I can easily buy another one. Please don’t go in there," she looked doubtfully at the cold, dark pool. It didn’t look at all inviting. Or safe.

He looked her in the eye and shook his head despondently, before he waded into the deep pool. "It’s bloody freezing in here girl," he growled. "You’d sure as hell better make this up to me."

"Oh no! You really don’t need to do this Bai Li! Come back out of there. It’s dangerous!"

"What? And have you fearful of bad luck for the rest of the trip? Is this where it disappeared?" he asked, feeling around with his toes in the sandy bottom of the pool. The water was up to his chin.

"No! Left a bit Bai Li. Yes, left more. Over there. That’s it! Somewhere around there I saw it drop."

"I hope you’re not going to make me dive for it, little girl." It was a rhetorical question...

"Just leave it if you can’t find it with your feet Bai Li," she said with fear. "I don’t want you to go underwater in there."

"Why not? What could happen in a deep, dark pool like this?" he teased her.

He duck-dived under the water, disappearing entirely from view. The clearing went deadly quiet. Meili and Tricky stared with concentrated concern at the spot where he had disappeared.

There was not a sound, not a ripple, not even a bubble.

She waited for a few more seconds. "Bai Li!" she shouted in a panic. "Tan Bowen, quick, go in after him, see what’s happened! He’s stuck down there! Help him!"

Tricky added some loud barks of alarm.

Tan Bowen shook his head with a handsome smirk. "Not even a river monster could stop that man. It would jump out of the river in fear of him."

"Tan Bowen!" she cried anxiously.

Just as she was preparing to enter the water herself, pushing her shoes off with hands that shook uncontrollably, Bai Li surfaced, and swam back towards the riverbank.

"You just had to make me go right under, didn’t you little girl," he shook the water from his long hair.

His hair fell forward into his eyes, droplets of water flying everywhere, hanging from his heavy brow, dripping into his eyes and onto his chest.

As he climbed out of the water and walked towards her, half-in, half-out of the river pool, she suddenly noticed the way his thin white top was open to his waist and clung wetly to his muscular chest, having turned see-through.

’Zing!’ The sight seemed to light something up inside her, like tinder to kindling, igniting a feeling she had never had before and that she couldn’t name. By the time he reached her, where she stood, rooted to the ground, and stuck out his hand with the yanbin clip in it, her face was suffused with pink, right to the roots of her hair.

He looked at her pink face, confused for a moment, then he looked down at his wet shirt and exposed muscles, and one side of his mouth curved into a knowing smile.

He raised his eyebrows at her in a look that clearly said, ’you and I both know what you’re looking at’.

She snatched the clip from his hand and dashed away to join Tan Bowen at the fire he was busy building.

"Thank you, Bai Li," she mumbled, without looking back at him, tripping on the rocks as she fled.

"Hmmff," he laughed to himself, smiling with amusement.

She disappeared into the nearby brush ostensibly to get some more sticks for the fire, but in reality, to escape the men for some privacy while she calmed herself.

Bai Li came quietly up behind her. "If you think that’s sufficient thanks for nearly drowning myself for you, you’re sorely mistaken," he said, very entertained by her reaction to him.

She jumped and dropped her armful of sticks. "Bai Li!" she squealed, not trusting herself to turn and look at him. "What more can I do?" she said helplessly.

"Your tab is really adding up now little girl. Expect me to call it in soon enough."

He helped her gather up her armful of sticks while she studiously avoided looking at him.

"Bai Li, I think you’d better get yourself dressed," she said primly. "You might catch a cold, and I don’t want to have to take responsibility for you getting sick."

"Are you concerned for me? Or just for yourself who would have to nurse me until I recovered?"

"I’m concerned for you of course," she said, "not for myself!"

"I don’t mind you nursing me while I’m sick in bed. I think I’ll just stay half-dressed and cold like this for a bit longer," he teased. "Afterall," he added cheekily, "it seems like you’re an appreciative audience".

"Bai Li!" she cried in agitation.

She turned to strike him on the arm for that rude comment, but she was met with a close-up view of his firm chest.

"Huh," she gasped, her mouth opening in surprise at the sight.

He reached over and gently placed his finger under her chin, closing her mouth, laughing happily as he sauntered away.