Chapter 4

By the time we finished discussing business, the moon was high.

I took Bian Xun to one of my villas. The neighborhood was quiet and highly private. Because I had bought the property only the previous year, Duan Yujing had never visited it, and Bian Xun had to wear a pair of women’s slippers prepared in advance.

I had him register his fingerprint. “No one has stayed here before, so there is nothing you can use. Tell the housekeeper what you need. She’ll arrange it.”

He nodded solemnly, looking inexplicably pleased.

“What is it?”

“So this place belongs only to you, and from now on only you and I will come here?” He crouched to change my shoes and looked up. The angle emphasized his exquisite jaw and throat—and, below them, the white shirt with its top button undone.

From below, he looked boyish. From above, the view was distracting enough that I missed what he said.

Following my impulse, I hooked a finger into his collar. “Don’t address me so formally when we’re alone.”

He gave me that soft, unreadable smile, damp-eyed as a small animal. “All right.”

Bian Xun was made for this profession.

As his fingers gently combed through my half-dry hair, my thoughts wandered. Only the hum of the hair dryer disturbed the room. The warm air and his perfectly measured massage made me drowsy.

Then he knelt beside me.

For the first time since we met, uncertainty appeared on his face.

“I don’t have any experience.” His ears reddened. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

I nearly told him it did not matter. With Duan Yujing, I had rarely asked for intimacy either. Looking at his face had been enough; the less said about his roughness, the better.

Unlike him, I was not particularly enthusiastic about sex. It had never been an especially good experience.

But then Bian Xun lifted the edge of my robe and gently raised my calf.

“I’d like to try something else first.” His warm, soft lips touched my leg. “May I?”

I did not refuse. That was permission enough.

The room grew hot. Mist veiled my vision, and I seemed to sink into a spring strewn with petals.

When we kissed earlier, he had been awkward and unpracticed. More than once he froze, apparently afraid his teeth might knock against mine.

Jiang He had checked his medical records. He was healthy and clean, with no serious illness in his past, only several old martial-arts injuries. The records also showed no previous relationship and hardly any female friends.

When I asked if that had been his first kiss, his silence admitted it. Then he promised, a little vexed, “But I learn quickly.”

Now, feeling his lips and tongue in an entirely different way, I discovered how quickly.

His progress was astonishing.

At one point, I bit my lip and tried to withdraw my leg as my breathing quickened. He held my ankle.

“Don’t hide. Please?”

His muffled voice seemed to sink beneath the sea. It was not an order but a plea, and I found I could not refuse him.

My fingers slid into his soft hair and, in one restrained moment, tightened.

Duan Yujing had never done this for me. I could not adapt. White flooded my vision as wave after wave swept over me.

I never noticed the phone vibrating nearby.

The caller ID read: Duan Yujing.