Chapter 78
Nan Xu froze, speechless.
She felt heat spread from the tips of her ears down to her neck. Hearing such a blunt confession from Xie Hejing was like being forced to swallow a shot of burning liquor.
Flustered, she lowered her head.
Seeing Nan Xu stayed quiet for too long, Xie Hejing couldn’t help but press her, “Didn’t hear me? Do you need me to repeat it?”
“No,” Nan Xu murmured, rubbing lightly against his chest. “…I heard you.”
But her unconscious movement only intensified Xie Hejing’s burning desire.
His breath grew rough and edged with desire. “And then?”
“Then… I…”
Nan Xu parted her lips, but the words stuck in her throat. Images of Xie Hejing’s tenderness from the night before kept flashing through her mind, but the man holding her now was burning with desire.
Every one of his movements seemed magnified in her eyes, including the scorching heat of the hand resting on her.
“Does it really hurt that much?” she asked.
How could he not even handle it himself anymore? He used to be perfectly fine.
Nan Xu bit her lip and curled up even tighter under the blanket, struggling with whether she should help him.
“You really can’t…” Nan Xu could never say things as calmly and shamelessly as Xie Hejing. Skipping over the explicit words, she asked softly, “Really… not even that?”
“No,” Xie Hejing repeated firmly.
“Mm…” Nan Xu thought about it seriously, then asked, “Is something wrong? Should you maybe see a doctor?”
“Nan Xu!!!” Xie Hejing’s voice suddenly shot up. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Once your period is over, you’ll feel it yourself.”
Nan Xu: “…”
Not only did she fail to calm him down, she somehow managed to make him angry again. She could already imagine how miserable she’d be in a few days. Nan Xu decided it was safer to shut her mouth before things got any worse.
But Xie Hejing’s labored breathing kept pouring down from above, making it impossible for her to fall asleep.
She could still manage; after all, he’d given her leave, and she could nap in the afternoon. But Xie Hejing didn’t have the time to catch up on sleep at all.
“Can you… try again? See if you can sleep?”
His answers were coming faster now. She barely finished speaking before he shot back, “I can’t.”
Nan Xu clenched the edge of his sleep shirt, torn between choices.
Saying yes felt like indulging him too much.
But rejecting him… she didn’t want to watch him suffer like this either.
Xie Hejing had probably guessed exactly what was going through her mind. He lowered his gaze and caught her restless, fidgeting fingers.
“Please… wife.”
Nan Xu’s breath hitched. Every time that word left his mouth, it was like a hook catching onto her heart and making it skip a beat.
“Don’t… don’t call me that,” Nan Xu said, taking a deep breath to steady the flutter in her chest.
“If I don’t call you ‘wife,’ then what should I call you?” he murmured deliberately, lowering his voice. “Baby? Jiaojiao? Or maybe…”
“Stop!” She cut him off in a panic, which only earned her his quiet, triumphant laugh.
Wind picked up outside the window. Nan Xu could hear it whistling in the distance, and naturally, she could also hear her own heartbeat speeding up after Xie Hejing had completely thrown her off balance.
“Wife…” His voice suddenly turned low and plaintive. “I really can’t do this without you.”
“It’s almost midnight. Are you really okay with letting me suffer like this all night?”
He always knew exactly where her weak spots were, always able to twist her reasoning into a mess. Nan Xu exhaled and muttered, “Fine, I… I’ll try.”
Even so, her burning-hot face ended up buried further into his chest.
Her trembling made Xie Hejing’s brows lift. “Why are you shaking so much?”
“I’m nervous,” Nan Xu admitted honestly.
“It’s not like this is our first time seeing each other. Why are you still nervous?” he asked.
“I get nervous every time.”
“Then don’t look… Just feel it.”
Before she could react, he reached for the silk sleep mask on the headboard and slipped it over her eyes with no room for refusal.
Light vanished instantly, leaving only the sound of his breathing growing sharper in her ears.
She reached up to tug at the mask, but let go a second later.
Maybe… staying like this was better.
At least she wouldn’t lose sleep over it later.
Nan Xu had still been lost in her own thoughts.
A moment later, her hand was suddenly grabbed and squeezed hard. She jolted, her whole body tightening. In the darkness, every touch felt magnified, her breathing instantly thrown into chaos.
Xie Hejing tightened his grip in a deliberately wicked way. “Ready?”
Nan Xu immediately shrank back into her timid little quail state again, as if the hand he was holding no longer belonged to her.
The soft rustling of fabric slowed beside her ear. She’d never noticed before that Xie Hejing undressed this slowly.
Nan Xu felt like a lamb waiting to be executed and couldn’t help saying, “Can you hurry up?”
Xie Hejing let out a low laugh. “Impatient already?”
“…I just want to sleep early,” Nan Xu said. “You promised you wouldn’t keep me awake tonight, so you’d better watch the time.”
“…Alright.” He agreed, and he didn’t want to waste time undressing either. His movements sped up immediately.
“Hold tight.”
His hand covered hers completely, giving her no room to pull away.
The moment they made contact, heat shot through her. That burning warmth seeped through her skin and straight into her chest. The rough texture and rapid pulse throbbed beneath her fingertips.
And of course, Xie Hejing tightened his grip even more.
“Xie Hejing… it’s… really hot.”
Xie Hejing turned to the side and kissed Nan Xu’s hair repeatedly, letting her nervous feelings be soothed.
Half a minute later, sensing that she’d finally calmed down a little, he murmured, “Be good, sweetheart… move.”
Nan Xu’s mind went completely blank. She could only move her fingers mechanically, and the tremor that pulsed against her palm made her throat tighten.
She seriously doubted whether Xie Hejing could really control the time like he claimed.
Her wandering thoughts didn’t escape him for long. He bit her earlobe in warning. “You’re distracted at a time like this? What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about how long you’ll take,” Nan Xu admitted. “Will fifteen minutes be enough?”
Xie Hejing let out a soft scoff and shot back, “What do you think?”
Nan Xu: “…”
“Then… thirty minutes?” she tried again. “You can’t possibly be as slow as… that time. It can’t still take that long.”
“Is that not allowed?” he raised a brow.
“Of course not,” Nan Xu said without hesitation.
Realizing negotiation was useless, she simply gave him an ultimatum.
“I’m tired. You handle your timing. If you keep me awake later, I’m going to be angry.”
“Then I’ll go to my parents’ place and catch up on sleep and ignore you completely.”
Seeing she wasn’t joking at all, Xie Hejing let out a muffled groan. “Then if you ‘try harder,’ it’ll end faster.”
“Isn’t this enough effort yet?” That strange sensation made it simply impossible for Nan Xu to ignore.
Nan Xu asked with a hint of impatience, “How much more effort do I need to make?”
“Squeeze tighter… wife.” Xie Hejing took a deep breath, and then moved Nan Xu’s hand at a rapid pace.
A tingling numbness exploded up her arm. The fine sweat seeping from her palm made the contact even stickier and clearer. Nan Xu was completely shocked. The tension in her hand made her feel like Xie Hejing would devour her at any moment.
“Hss…”
Xie Hejing tilted his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing rapidly. His voice was a hoarse gasp, and his burning hot palm pressed down firmly on the back of Nan Xu’s hand, grinding with a nearly uncontrollable force.
“Good girl… just like that.”
Even though her eyes were covered by a blindfold, Nan Xu could still imagine Xie Hejing’s appearance. She hesitated for a moment, then secretly lifted the blindfold just a sliver.
Xie Hejing’s damp hair hung messily across his forehead, the blue veins on his neck were visible, and his eyes were half-closed, his gaze barely able to focus—a look of complete immersion in the present moment.
Nan Xu was glad she had lifted the blindfold, otherwise she would have completely missed Xie Hejing’s alluring and lost-in-the-moment look.
Xie Hejing’s words dissolved into broken moans, his breaths sweeping over the top of Nan Xu’s head in bursts.
After an unknown amount of time passed, Xie Hejing suddenly buried his head into Nan Xu’s neck, his voice mixed with suppressed sobs and broken whispers: “Almost… almost there.”
Although Xie Hejing tried his best to control himself, Nan Xu still ended up staying up very late.
The morning light squeezed into the room through a gap in the curtains. Nan Xu didn’t know why she had woken up so early, she was even awake before the soundly sleeping Xie Hejing beside her, and she wasn’t sleepy at all.
She felt extremely unbalanced. Seeing Xie Hejing’s relaxed and sated expression, Nan Xu bit her lip and, ignoring their position, bit him directly on his chest. The moment her teeth sank into his warm muscle, the person beneath her suddenly stirred.
A low chuckle vibrated through Xie Hejing’s chest: “Want to keep going?”
Nan Xu simply could not reach such a shameless state. She released him and said angrily, “Dream on.”
Still fuming, Nan Xu reached out and pushed him: “I want to eat something. Go make it for me. I also want water, and I need to change clothes, and I need to…”
Nan Xu kept listing demands.
Xie Hejing curved his lips and reached out his arms, scooping her into his embrace: “Fine, let’s go.”
Held so tightly she could barely breathe, Nan Xu struggled in Xie Hejing’s arms for a while before he finally relaxed his grip for a moment.
“Why are you holding me so tightly? I’m not going to run away,” Nan Xu accused him.
That wasn’t certain. After Nan Xu’s hint last night, Xie Hejing increasingly felt that if Nan Xu became afraid of him in the future, she would hide at her parents’ house.
But he didn’t say any of that out loud.
“As long as you don’t run.”
He guided the wide-awake Nan Xu to the dining table and pressed her into a chair. “Stay here. I’ll make breakfast.”
While they were eating, Nan Xu kept feeling Xie Hejing’s gaze on her. At first she tried to ignore it, but eventually he stopped moving altogether—no eating, no talking—just staring straight at her.
There was no way she could pretend not to notice anymore.
“Why are you staring at me?”
She lifted her eyes to look at him, and slowly realized he wasn’t looking at her face at all… but at her hands.
His gaze felt almost physical, so intense she didn’t need him to say a word to know exactly what was going through his mind.
Nan Xu was eating; she couldn’t exactly hide her hands behind her back. She snapped, “Stop looking. And stop thinking whatever you’re thinking.”
At that, Xie Hejing let out a faint smile and asked, “Oh? You know what I’m thinking?”
“Well… whatever it is, the answer is no.” Nan Xu didn’t care what he was actually imagining—his expression told her clearly enough that it wasn’t anything proper.
“I was just thinking,” he said, voice low, “how your hands could be so soft… so comfortable…”
“Stop—stop!” Nan Xu called out twice in a row before he finally shut up. She wished she had a few extra hands just to cover his mouth.
“Go to work already. If you wait any longer, you’ll be late.” Nan Xu turned her phone around to show him the screen. “You’ve got twenty minutes.”
Xie Hejing didn’t look at the phone at all, he kept his eyes on her. “You’re not coming with me?”
Nan Xu stared at him in disbelief.
Not long ago, he’d said he was giving her time off, and now he wanted to take it back?
No way.
She reminded him, “President Xie, you said you were giving me a break. Did you forget? I still have two days left!”
“You’re still not feeling well?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then why aren’t you going to work?” he pressed, refusing to give up.
But when it came to her time off, Nan Xu wasn’t budging.
“President Xie, don’t go back on your word. You said I had two days, so I have two days.”
“And besides, I need to catch up on sleep!”
“Catch up on sleep?” Xie Hejing repeated, as if evaluating whether she truly needed it.
“Of course,” Nan Xu said, and after a few seconds, she grit her teeth. “And don’t pretend you don’t know why I need to.”
Xie Hejing deliberately teased her. “Why don’t you remind me? My memory’s a bit fuzzy.”
“Xie Hejing!” Nan Xu slammed her chopsticks down and stood up, clearly outraged.
How could he forget what happened last night?
Impossible. He just wanted to drag her back to work.
“I’m not going back during my break,” she declared. “Say one more word and I’ll quit. I can work anywhere.”
Xie Hejing’s expression darkened instantly, though he still did his best to suppress his anger. “You can’t even go nap in my office lounge?”
Nan Xu couldn’t understand why he was so insistent on having her follow him to work, he was even fine with her sleeping there.
She shook her head. “No. Your lounge isn’t as comfortable as home.”
Hearing that, Xie Hejing stood up abruptly. At his height of nearly 1.9 meters, just standing there in front of her created an overwhelming pressure without him needing to say a word.
Nan Xu muttered quietly, “What are you doing? I’m just telling the truth.”
But Xie Hejing replayed her words in his mind, and no matter how he tried, the irritation wouldn’t go away.
Anywhere she worked would be the same?
The same?
“I’ll give you a chance. Take back what you just said.”
Nan Xu blinked, confused. She had said so many things, how was she supposed to know which line had set him off?
“Which one?”
“‘Anywhere is the same!’” he repeated coldly. “I’ll ask you again—is it really the same?”
“Is Assistant Nan planning to change jobs?”
Nan Xu originally wanted to argue back, but then Xie Hejing continued, “Even if you’re no longer Assistant Nan, I’ll still make you come to work with me. The only difference is that I’ll have to start emphasizing your identity as Mrs. Xie instead.”
Nan Xu didn’t dare imagine what ridiculous things he might actually do if it came to that. She hurried to pacify him.
“No, no—I’m not planning to change jobs. The benefits here are pretty good. I’m not going anywhere for now.”
“If you say something that ridiculous again, I’ll knock you out and carry you to the office so you can ‘accompany’ me at work.”
Nan Xu sucked in a sharp breath.
Xie Hejing was still as unhinged as always.
Thank goodness she corrected herself in time.
Being around him really required a strong heart. Otherwise, who knew what terrifying idea he might come up with next.
Nan Xu forced herself to calm down and continued eating her breakfast.
“Got it.”
Xie Hejing walked to the entryway. Seeing Nan Xu spacing out after finishing her meal, he deliberately cleared his throat.
Nan Xu didn’t notice, still lost in thought.
Xie Hejing sighed and coughed again.
Nan Xu still had no clue what he was trying to signal, but she did notice the cough this time. “Is your throat uncomfortable?”
Xie Hejing: “…”
Since she couldn’t even pick up on a simple request for a goodbye kiss, he had no choice but to walk back himself and plant a series of kisses across her face.
“Mrs. Xie, I want to see you tonight when I get home.”