1

She always used to survey her surroundings once before going to sleep. Before going to sleep, she had a habit of looking around her.

This room was familiar to her, but everything in the darkness still made her feel uneasy. For example, the shadows of the trees reflected in the window looked like the claws of a ghost. She rolled the covers around her and held her breath for a while, but didn’t hear any unusual sounds. Just as sleep overtook her and she was about to drift off to sleep, a sound was keenly caught in her ear. Just for a moment, she immediately came to her senses, her fingers hidden under the covers interlaced with her ten fingers and pressed tightly against her heart.

Breathing, carefully.

The sound of a smart door lock opening and closing with a fingerprint is extremely subtle, but when a person’s nerves are tightened to a certain point, a sound as subtle as a beetle crawling is audible.

The soles of the handmade calfskin shoes gently scuffed across the thick insoles laid out in the entrance hall, and she closed her eyes, clearly outlining in her mind the route that those feet were walking. Step by step, slowly but surely, with hardly any hesitation or a moment’s hesitation, they walked straight in her direction. Between the steps, the rustling of the clothing material was like the sound of the silkworms that were raised in her childhood lying on the fat mulberry tree leaves, gnawing the leaves one by one, frequently and consistently.

She was now just like those poor mulberry leaves, about to be slowly eaten up.

The moment the bedroom door was opened, the body under the covers suddenly tightened.

And in the reflection of the bright lights of the living room, the slowly approaching black figure slowly enveloped her like a huge nightmare beast. With her back to the doorway, she felt she perceived the sharp gaze traveling over her body as if it were a knife scraping against it.

After the rustle of removing clothing, the bed collapsed in a corner against the door. Her body involuntarily slid a little toward the center of that sag. Like a small ant caught in a sandy nest, she was involuntarily drawn towards it. Only the little ant could still struggle a few times, but she could only hold back her fear and couldn’t move.

The strong smell of wine ran into her nose, mixed with the smell of the man’s body, smoked her unconsciously tilted her head inward, a soft arc was drawn between her jaw and neck, and the rhythmic drumming of the slightly floating arteries could be seen vaguely.

An extremely light snort crawled into her ears like tiny bugs, tingling so much that she wanted to jump up immediately.

Must have realized she was faking it, the man’s eyes were so sharp, like a steel knife picking out bones, always snowing with palpitations. A flicker of decadence grew inside her, and she was tempted to just roll over and come face to face with him. But the scent floating in the air kept her from doing so.

A burning scent swept over her, causing the dense little patch of fluff around her ear to shiver and flinch involuntarily. His lips didn’t physically touch, merely snaked down the curves of her body, crawling across her skin at intervals of fine downy hair and air, causing her to shudder. He must have sensed her uneasiness, for his hand probed into the covers as well, lightly.

The tip of his nose rested against the junction of her jaw and neck, and his chest pressed against her back, rising and falling forcefully with his steady breathing.

It was supposed to be a relaxing, even safe position. But at this moment, she just felt a burst of creepiness, her body tensed to the extreme, her nerves so fragile that if the other party made one more strong movement, she would be unable to bear it any longer and jumped up.

His manicured, rounded nails slid into the nightgown, scraping their way up the soft skin. He stopped at the smooth curve, as if waiting for something. A few moments later, the rough fingertips probed through the edge of the lace, slowly rubbing it.

Couldn’t help it!

Instead of being cooked by him like a frog in warm water, it would be more enjoyable to be fried in a big fire.

This thought flashed through her mind extremely quickly, like a flash of lightning. However, the movement of her hand was one step faster than her thoughts, at the moment when his fingers filled with malice were about to climb up to that high point, she intercepted his with her backhand and viciously wrenched it backward.

“Not bad, lasted five minutes this time.” He lifted his head from the nape of her neck, the slight smirk at the corners of his mouth not reaching his eyes. Pivoting on his elbows, he looked askance at her angry little face from top to bottom, a sneer in his tone.

Her large almond eyes were burning with a majestic fury, but also filled with the embarrassment of being humiliated. Snow-white teeth clenched her lower lip, seeping out a trace of blood color.

His impish gaze fell on her open neckline, surveying her from above, “Much better than the first time you ran away screaming.”

She held a fire inside her, her fingers tangled together in a death grip, grinding and creaking between her teeth, and

“Pervert!”

He let out an inaudible hmmm, but his hands were using their strength to bring her tightly into his arms. It was a possessive gesture, not to be denied or negotiated, and his words were commanding as well:

“Sleep.”

The expected encroachment didn’t happen, but that didn’t make her relax either. His strength didn’t relax at all, and when she moved just a little, the hands on her waist tightened, dragging her into his arms, making it harder and harder to get out. He was pressed so tightly against her, the part of his heart beating forcefully against her back. His breath spilled over the back of her neck with a smoky, flushed, drunken tang, and his uniquely masculine scent, gripping her like an impenetrable net. She moved her body to resist, and was soon pinched solidly on her waist. Without waiting for her to cry out in alarm, one of his arms passed through the gap between the pillow and her neck, his elbow bending up to wrench her head back. The pointed chin was forced to pick up and her slender white neck was exposed.

It really wasn’t a comfortable position to be in, it felt like being held hostage. She struggled slightly and the threat followed, “Keep moving if you want to get more comfortable you.” He whispered softly against the shell of her ear, his tone was soft, but impatient was audible.

She closed her eyes, a hint of sweet rusty flavor slipping through her mouth, and didn’t move again.

From the first time they’d met, he’d only squeezed everything out of her in the strongest way possible, forceful and unrefusable. Like a deeply embedded bullet, fierce and overbearing, it could not be plowed out, nor plucked out.

When she woke up, he was no longer around, the air still retained a slight odor of alcohol, vaguely can hear the sound of water flowing. Her sleepy eyes swept across the room to find his clothes along the path that snaked from the bed to the bathroom door.

Jacket, tie, shirt, …… this man eighty percent is belong to the snake, all the way to crawl all the way to molt, is simply a snake spirit with exposure fetish. It is at the time of her venomous slander, the snake spirit from the bathroom naked and slippery …… well, came out.

Shit, actually do not even a towel around! Early in the morning swaying in the wind or something, the most dirty!

She pretended to be asleep, but in her heart, she did not know that she had cursed that shameless man for tens of thousands of times. When that man came out of the dressing room in a suit and fresh, she yawned falsely, as if waking up from a dream, “Good morning.”

He had a silky smile on his lips, his dark eyes were bottomless, “Woke up just in time, come over and tie my tie.”

She slowly walked over, took the tie he handed over half a dozen times, until he somewhat impatiently urged, she only grunted, “I will not.”

He looked at her steadily, until she couldn’t hide the emptiness in her eyes and lowered her head, only then did he say in a cold voice, “Raise your head and look at it properly, only once.” Although she was reluctant, but listening to his tone seems to have to let her learn, so she could only watch carefully as his fingers intertwined with the tie not quickly and slowly up and down the flip twist.

“Got it?”

She nodded in silence.

“Very well, you will learn all of this,” he reached out and gathered her close, his sharp eyes narrowing slightly as his fingers formed a comb and slowly smoothed her slightly curled hair, his voice cool and firm, “because I will be staying here for a long time starting tomorrow.”

The pupils of her eyes suddenly shrunk, a little frightened and confused.

Starting tomorrow?

“I’ll be back tonight with dinner ready.”

Her back teeth clenched as she tried to pile on a dry smile, “Good.”

He pocketed one hand in his suit pants pocket, freeing the other to squeeze her cheek, “Just a reminder, the stuff isn’t in my study, don’t go through it. Be good and I’ll give it to you when the time comes.”

She hung her head, her long, slightly curly wavy hair cascading down, slightly pathetic, “When the time comes is when?”

“When I am satisfied.”

When have you ever been satisfied, a dead man’s face, debt collector! She spat angrily in her heart, the hand behind her back twisted to death. If it wasn’t, she couldn’t guarantee if she’d pounce on him and strangle him next.

“So when are you going to be satisfied?”

The corners of his mouth that held a smile slowly smoothed out as he watched her steadily for perhaps a minute, or perhaps no more than a dozen seconds. She always felt uneasy under his gaze. She wasn’t used to the peeling look in his eyes, like he was trying to slice off a little bit of her disguise, slowly lynching it.

A few moments later, he raised his hand to cover her eyes. Her long lashes fluttered in panic a few times, sweeping across his palm like a fine brush, “If you haven’t learned to hide it, don’t look people in the eye.” His hand rested on her eye, unmoving, “It will only betray you.”

She stiffened and didn’t move, an astringent, bitter taste flooding her mouth as her nails poked hard into her palm, mixing with sweat and sharp with pain. Dark memories burned and swelled her nerves like tumbling limewater.

“What else can I betray?”

“It’s never too much of a disadvantage to be self-aware.” He snorted, lifting her bangs and planting a kiss on her bare forehead, “I look forward to your performance.” At this point his facial expression and voice softened in unison, a departure from his earlier sinister and contemptuous behavior, surprisingly like an excellent lover.

She bit her lips tightly and bowed her head without saying a word.

His palms made a slight force behind her head, forcing her to come closer to him, “Say, you won’t let me down, will you?”

Resisting the urge to slap this man, she stiffly pulled up the corners of her mouth and reluctantly answered. Only after seeing him leave with his jacket did her highly tense nerves relax slightly.

“That pervert,” she muttered out a curse, while her heart skipped a beat. The calm disguise she wore when she woke up in the morning had long since been stripped away, and she looked a bit furious at this point, “A molting snake spirit, stomp you to death, I’ll stomp you to death stomp you to death!” She said while lifting her foot to step on his clothes, along the bed to the bathroom, all the way to step all the way to curse.

After a flurry of venting, she lowered herself onto the spacious bed and huffed and puffed. The ornate lining of the ceiling pierced her eyes, and she raised a hand to shield them and also to suppress the heat that welled up under her eyelids, and

“Surname Shan, we’ll see about that!”