Chapter 262: Okay Then
Jian Yuche had been shot before.
He had been stabbed, poisoned, beaten, burned, betrayed, and once hit hard enough across the back of the head that he lost three hours and woke up with someone else’s blood on his shirt.
He had intimate knowledge of what it felt like when the body took damage before the mind could catch up. There was always that one strange second where the world stayed exactly where it was, but the meaning of it shattered and had to put itself back together in the right order.
This was one of those times... and he didn’t even have to spill a single drop of blood for it to happen.
Or maybe his blood was moving to a completely different organ.
Rouxi stood in front of him with both hands on her hips, her face flushed with frustration, her eyes bright, and her mouth still shaped around the sentence that had just cracked straight through the center of his skull.
’Just what does a girl have to do to seduce you?’
And for one single second, Yuche couldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe properly either, but that seemed a lot less important.
Instead, he just stared at her, his expression unreadable, his body completely still. Then something shifted behind his eyes—something dark and controlled breaking free just slightly at the edges.
"Okay then," he said quietly with a nod of his head. He closed his eyes for a second before they flashed open and a completely different man was staring out at her through his eyes.
Before she could process the meaning behind those words and the change in his expression, he crossed the space between them in three quick strides. His hand found her face, cupping her jaw with deliberate gentleness that somehow made the gesture more intense, more possessive. His thumb brushed across her cheekbone once, slow and deliberate, like he was memorizing the shape of her.
He had wanted to do this almost since the first time he had laid eyes on her. The way she challenged him, the way she moved around the mansion, the way she lay on that couch, the way he forced himself to maintain distance while every instinct screamed at him to claim her, all of it screamed at him in his head that she was his.
And now she was asking him to prove it.
"You want to know what you have to do to be able to seduce me?" His voice had dropped to something low and dangerous, like the very idea that she had to do something was laughable. "Nothing. You do not have to do anything."
He kissed her then, and every careful line he had drawn around her disappeared the moment her mouth met his. He had been holding back because she was hurt, because she was tired, because the house was full of people who kept needing things from her. But she was standing in front of him now, flushed and angry and wanting him, and that was the only permission he needed.
The kiss was demanding and consuming, his other hand slid into her hair to tilt her head where he wanted it. In response, her hands gripped his shirt, and he could feel the tremor in them—whether from surprise or desire, he didn’t care.
Both would work for him.
Her mouth opened under his onslaught, and when her tongue met his, he groaned against her lips. She tasted exactly how he thought she would taste. A little sweet, a little sour, and so incredibly addictive that he didn’t know how he would ever be able to go another day without kissing her again.
When he pulled back just enough to let her breathe, he pressed his forehead against hers.
His heart pounded like he had just walked out of a fight, even though all he had done was stand in her living room and watch Rouxi make an absolute disaster of seducing him. It should not have affected him this much. It should not have taken one slow blink, one awkward lean, and one furious confession to tear through his control like a blade through wet paper. But it had, and somehow, that was the most infuriating and arousing thing he had ever experienced.
She grabbed at his shirt with the same subtlety she brought to most things, which meant none at all. Yuche let her pull it up and over his head, let her hands shake as they moved over his chest, over old scars, old wounds, and all the proof that his life had never been gentle. The trembling should have made him slow down. Instead, it made something dark and satisfied curl low in his chest, because she was nervous and wanted him anyway.
He stood there and let her touch as much as she wanted, his hands clenched at his sides while every instinct in his body demanded he stop being patient. She was the one reaching for him. She was the one dragging him closer. She was the one looking at him like she had finally figured out what she wanted to do with that tiny spoon, and if he moved too fast, he would ruin the moment before he had the chance to memorize it.
"You have no idea," he said, his voice rough, "what you do to me."
He lifted her, already knowing exactly what he was going to do the second her feet left the ground. Rouxi let out a soft gasp as he turned toward the stairs leading to the bedroom he had found for her, and the sound nearly pulled his control apart before he had taken a single step.
At least the fighting had stayed downstairs. The living room, the entrance, and the front of the house had taken the damage, but the rest remained untouched, including the wing where her bedroom waited. Yuche looked down at her for one brief moment, still checking her expression even now, still making sure the want was there beneath the embarrassment and fury.
Rouxi looked back at him, flushed and furious, like she still had several complaints to file.
That did not help him when it came to holding on to what little control he still had.
He kept his eyes forward after that, his grip steady and his pace even, because every step toward her room felt like one more test of his control.
