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Her voice then continued her story, “Several weeks passed mostly in peace for the king and the hwarang.  As well as for their noble leader.  But then, one day, events occurred to spice things up a bit.”

“Oh?” he quirked an inquiring brow.  “Do tell.”

Her lips twitched.  “I will, you impatient man!  Let me speak.  Stop interrupting me during my dramatic pauses.”

He snorted.  A puff of air slipping from his nose in surprise.  “Forgive me, madam storyteller.  Proceed.  I shall keep my comments to myself from now on.”

“Yeah, right,” she slid her eyes suspiciously towards him.

“Well, I will try anyway,” he mumbled.

“Ahem,” she cleared her throat, still unconvinced of his sincerity.  “One day, a woman appeared inside the training facility.”

“A woman?” he asked, shocked.

She pinned him with a steely glare.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“One of his fellow hwarang had a beautiful sister.  A lass with midnight hair and emerald eyes.”

“Ah!  The girl he rescued!”

Eun Sook eyeballed Jijin again.  “Am I going to get a word in edgewise, sir?” she queried dryly.

He reached up and buttoned his lip with his index finger and thumb.

And a smile decided to give evidence of itself on her face.  She held back a giggle and proceeded to tell her story.  “This lovely lass came to visit her brother.  But…he had been injured that morning and couldn’t come out, so the king went in his place.”

Jijin’s eyebrows slowly ascended his forehead as he watched her expressive countenance lighting up as she told him her story.  He loved her face as much as he was drawn to her soothing voice.  And he knew those mesmerizing indigo eyes would never lose their allure either.

He tried to stay awake to take in more of her fascinating story, but last night had taken a toll on him.  So when he yawned a moment later, and she paused to glance up at him, he asked her a surprising question. 

“Can I…can I lie down and put my head on your lap?”

Shocked, she opened her violet eyes wide.  “Um…” she gulped. 

But she found the sudden mental image of his head pillowed in her lap to be quite endearing, so she nodded her head.

A moment later, he was settled against the skirt of her robe.  Smiling up at her.  She watched him close his eyes.  And was surprised to discover that he’d fallen asleep nearly as soon as his head had hit her lap.

She sat for a long while that night and watched him sleep.  As her heart turned over and over in her chest.  And her love for him flowed from her gaze to bless his slumbering face.  His head was still pillowed in her lap, resting against her thigh. 

She reached down and ran her fingers through his hair.  An action that had always seemed so romantic when she wrote about it.  But halfway down his long locks, her fingers snagged up against a tangle, tugging against his scalp.  He grunted in his sleep, and her eyes flew wide.  The last thing she wanted to do was to wake him.  Or to be caught touching him while he slept.

She froze.  He opened his eyes.

“What’s going on?”

Mortified, she responded, at first, truthfully, “My hand got caught in your hair.”

But when he frowned and asked her how her hand had gotten caught in his hair, she tossed the truth out the window and muttered, “I do not know.” 

Then she tugged her fingers free.  However, he reached up and caught her hand before it could descend to her lap.  He drew her fingers towards his head. 

And smiled a very boyish smile at her.  “You may play with my hair till your heart’s content,” he murmured generously as his gorgeous, chocolate eyes flirted with her.  Then those heavy lids closed once more, hiding the glory of those magnificent orbs from her view.

She pouted but slid her fingers into his hair again.  This time stopping to massage his temple.  He groaned.  “And you may do that for the rest of eternity.”

She watched as absolute ecstasy played out across his countenance.  So she reached up with her other hand so that she could rub both of his temples at once.  A moan of relief escaped his lips.  His eyes opened languidly, and he shot her a faint smile before they drifted shut. 

“Please continue,” he whispered before he slipped off to sleep again.  When the change in his breathing alerted her to his successful slumber, she stopped the massage and simply looked her fill at him. 

But she awoke a while later to discover that she’d fallen asleep sitting up.  His dark head still resting against her thigh.  She scooted out from underneath him carefully and lay down next to him.  Reaching for his fingers before she too drifted off to sleep again.  Once more content to spend the night in his presence.