Chapter 37
Rain pattered against the balcony. Outside, the wind howled wildly, while inside the dorm, everything was quiet.
A long while passed before Xie Ning finally regained his senses. In disbelief, he repeated, “We’re going to… kiss?”
“Mm.” Pei Zhi looked completely composed. “You said you’re afraid of getting addicted, so hypothetically speaking, if you get used to this even more intimate kind of contact in advance, wouldn’t that mean you’d be mentally prepared ahead of time?”
Xie Ning: “……”
Pei Zhi added, “We can also use it to test whether we’re gay.”
“How are we supposed to test that?” Xie Ning said. “By kissing?”
Pei Zhi analyzed, “Neither of us rejects being physically intimate with the other. When I hug you or hold your hand, I don’t mind it at all. I actually like it a lot. You’re the same, aren’t you?”
He said, “But ordinary friends wouldn’t go this far. So we can only use even more intimate behavior to test it, like kissing. If neither of us dislikes it, then that means we’re probably gay.”
Pei Zhi had deep, sharply defined features, with a strong and sculpted face. When he spoke seriously about something, his cool, low voice and stern appearance made him sound extremely convincing, impossible to doubt.
When he said all this, he sounded very rational, as though there were no selfish motives or outside factors influencing him at all. It was as if he really did just want to test it—to see whether the two of them were gay, nothing more.
Only the method of testing was a little strange.
After a long pause, Xie Ning finally said, “This is too… too absurd.”
Not only did Xie Ning think so, Pei Zhi also thought it was absurd.
If, in the past, someone had told him that one day he would go this far just to win another person’s favor, he would only have cursed that person for being an idiot. But now, he had really become that sort of person.
Not only had he gone to great lengths to please someone, he was also wracking his brains to come up with clumsy excuses, all just to get more chances to be close and deepen their bond.
Pei Zhi could vaguely sense that Xie Ning also had some degree of affection for him. Otherwise, why was he able to accept Pei Zhi’s touch, but unwilling to accept anyone else’s?
Even if the other person was only meant to be a tool. Then why didn’t Xie Ning use someone else? Why didn’t he treat someone else as a tool?
Because Xie Ning had a latent fondness for him.
He just had not realized it yet.
Xie Ning, who had been keeping his eyes lowered, slowly lifted his head and met Pei Zhi’s gaze. His eyes were very beautiful, the outer corners slightly upturned, but because he usually wore such a cold expression, he always seemed especially distant.
Now, however, his brows were lightly knit, his cheeks faintly pink, and those upturned eyes lent his face a touch of vivid beauty. His damp eyes made him look pitiful, and adorable.
“Just try it, okay?” Pei Zhi had never thought that he would one day do something this shameless. Using such outrageously ridiculous reasoning to coax Xie Ning into intimate behavior with him. But still, he continued to tempt him. “Let’s test it—whether we’re actually gay.”
“……” After a brief silence, Xie Ning asked, “Do we really have to kiss?”
There was hope. Pei Zhi immediately backed down a step. “We can try something else first. We can take it slowly.”
He said, “Can I kiss your hand? Just once.”
If it were something like holding hands or touching his face, Xie Ning would surely have agreed without hesitation. But a kiss itself carried a layer of ambiguity.
Under Pei Zhi’s nearly burning gaze, Xie Ning pressed his lips together. Pei Zhi did not know whether it was only his imagination, but those pale lips seemed much redder now, crystal-clear and moist, like ripe berries. All they needed was to be licked open patiently to taste the sweet, tender juice within.
“Just… once?” Xie Ning asked hesitantly.
Pei Zhi, who had not dared hope for much, suddenly felt his whole body heat up. He was so excited he could barely breathe, yet he still kept his expression calm and gave his promise. “Mm. Just once.”
After Pei Zhi said that, Xie Ning fell silent again. It was only after a crash of thunder rolled through the sky that he finally decided to stop hesitating, and he gave a small nod.
Having received permission, Pei Zhi slowly leaned in. One arm curled around Xie Ning’s waist, while the other hand held Xie Ning’s wrist.
His thin lips parted slightly. Under Xie Ning’s damp, evasive gaze, Pei Zhi began to kiss Xie Ning’s fingers with deliberate slowness.
Xie Ning’s fingers were long and pale, his nails a light pink like flower buds. Now the skin near his knuckles was stained with moisture, and the surface of his nails seemed covered in a glistening sheen. Even Xie Ning’s eyes began to lose focus.
The pleasure brought by the kiss was even fiercer than Xie Ning had imagined. He had once naively thought that hugging Pei Zhi at close range was already enough to feel wonderful.
He had underestimated his skin hunger.
The instant Pei Zhi sealed his lips over his fingertip—
Xie Ning truly could not control himself. He turned his head and buried his face in Pei Zhi’s neck, his shoulders trembling slightly. The rough surface of a tongue brushed over the soft skin of his fingers, sending rapid, dense currents of electricity through him.
Xie Ning could barely breathe. Tears were forced out at the corners of his eyes, yet Pei Zhi kept going. Pei Zhi’s emotions suddenly became extremely excited, as though some kind of stimulus had set him off. One segment after another of those pale, slender fingers disappeared, vanishing into the damp seam of his lips.
Xie Ning let out a short, muffled sound. Damp heat enveloped him. Pei Zhi’s tongue hooked around his finger, kissing and sucking at it over and over, making sticky, wet sounds.
He felt awful. His body kept arching backward, but behind him was Pei Zhi’s embrace, and there was nowhere left to retreat. His brows trembled as they drew together, and he let out tiny whimpers.
That whimper made Pei Zhi’s scalp go numb. A tingling pleasure spread from the tip of his heart, almost enough to make him lose his soul.
He pressed himself as close to Xie Ning as he could, one cheek bulging faintly, distorting his handsome face a little. As he kissed Xie Ning’s fingers, he kept watching Xie Ning’s dazed and unfocused expression.
Xie Ning accidentally stretched his hand a little too far forward. Pei Zhi failed to avoid it in time and gagged.
That suddenly brought Xie Ning back to his senses. Only then did he realize how excessive what he had done was. He hurriedly pulled his hand back, drawing out a glistening strand of saliva.
“You…” Xie Ning was startled by the sound of his own voice the moment he spoke. His clear, cool voice had gone utterly hoarse, the last note drawn out with a sweet, soft, lingering quality. He still forced the words out. “Are you okay? Did your mouth get cut or…”
Pei Zhi pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, held Xie Ning’s wrist, and lowered his head to kiss Xie Ning’s fingertip. His voice was just as hoarse. “I’m fine. What about you?”
“Me?” Xie Ning was leaning entirely against Pei Zhi, his consciousness still floating somewhere far away. “I’m fine too.”
Then Xie Ning asked, “Does this count now?”
Pei Zhi had said that one kiss would be enough to tell whether the two of them were gay. And now he had already kissed his fingers. So it should… be enough, right?
But Pei Zhi was still immersed in how wonderful it had felt just now. Xie Ning’s fingers had been bonelessly soft, and so small they could be easily enclosed. And because of that contact, greed began to rise inside him, demanding even more.
Looking at Xie Ning—who was clearly a little nervous and awkward, yet also carried a kind of innocent greenness—his voice came out even rougher than usual. “No. It’s not enough.”
Xie Ning was stunned.
Pei Zhi explained, “Did you have any special reaction? I don’t think I did. I didn’t dislike it, and I didn’t reject it either. But when I thought about it carefully, there’s also hand-kissing etiquette in the West. Kissing someone’s hand isn’t really a big deal between close friends.”
He came to a conclusion. “You don’t seem to dislike me kissing your hand either. But that can’t prove we’re gay, because friends can also do that. We need to do something friends can’t do.”
Only because Pei Zhi knew Xie Ning was utterly inexperienced when it came to feelings—and that Xie Ning still wasn’t fully clear-headed right now—did he dare say such outrageous nonsense without restraint.
After he finished speaking, even he himself thought it was absurd. Yet the Xie Ning before him actually followed that line of thought and began considering it seriously.
He was far too easy to fool.
Still, Pei Zhi knew that Xie Ning was in a state of floating pleasure right now, something like a light drunken buzz. In that kind of condition, it really was hard to stay clear-headed and rational.
Xie Ning suddenly remembered that in a list he had seen online before—100 Small Things Friends Must Do—there really had been something similar to kissing hands…
Was it really like Pei Zhi said?
If friends could kiss hands, then the fact that they had just kissed hands and neither of them rejected it really proved nothing. At most, it meant they were very close friends with broad personal boundaries.
They would have to do something more intimate, something friends could not do.
The comfort brought by his skin hunger was still lingering. Xie Ning’s head felt light and dizzy, yet he was being forced to keep using it, like making someone who had just woken up and was still groggy decide something very important.
He slowly lowered his damp lashes. The dark, wet clumps of lashes trembled like butterfly wings. He pressed his lips together again and again, and in the end, turned his head a little childishly. “But that’s not what you said just now.”
Xie Ning still remembered Pei Zhi’s original words. “You said… kissing my hand once would be enough.”
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I just didn’t think it through properly at first.” Still holding Xie Ning’s hand, Pei Zhi lowered his head and rubbed the tip of his nose against the inside of Xie Ning’s wrist. Hoarsely, he said, “And I even made your hand this wet. I’m such an asshole.”
Since Pei Zhi had apologized, Xie Ning instead felt a little uncomfortable. He asked, “Then now… we still have to kiss?”
The moment the matter of kissing came out of Xie Ning’s mouth, it suddenly felt completely different. Pei Zhi’s body began to heat up. He held down the emotion on the verge of bursting out and said in a serious, proper tone, “Mm. We still have to kiss.”
“Kissing is more accurate.”
Pei Zhi had said kissing his hand once would be enough, but in the end he had not kissed it only once—he had kissed it for a very, very long time. And afterward, he had said kissing hands was useless.
The topic had circled right back to where it had begun. What Xie Ning still had to face was kissing.
He hesitated uncertainly, and Pei Zhi continued, “No matter how good friends are, they could never accept kissing. If both of us can accept it, that would prove to some extent that we’re gay. Even if we aren’t right now, then we’d at least be potentially gay.”
“So?” Pei Zhi said. “Do you want to kiss?”
Xie Ning’s fingers were still coated in a silvery sheen, all licked out little by little by Pei Zhi just now. Their gazes fell to his fingertips at the same time. Outside, thunder cracked through the sky, but it still could not cover the sudden sound of someone swallowing.
It came from Pei Zhi.
Xie Ning could not ignore the burning look in Pei Zhi’s eyes.
Pei Zhi quietly waited for his answer without urging him, his face full of upright composure. Finally, Xie Ning made up his mind. “Just one kiss?”
A familiar question. Familiar words. And, just as before, Pei Zhi promised, “Just once.”
Time seemed to rewind. Just as with the earlier hand-holding, Xie Ning once again gave a tiny nod.
Pei Zhi lowered his head. The instant he drew close, every hair on Xie Ning’s body seemed to stand up. The intense aggression and invasiveness that accompanied Pei Zhi’s approach rushed straight into his mind.
“Mm,” Pei Zhi said. “I’m starting.”
Xie Ning squeezed his eyes shut, but Pei Zhi greedily kept his own open, unwilling to miss even a single one of Xie Ning’s expressions. Now he slowly lowered his head, moving closer to Xie Ning’s face. The closer he got, the louder their breathing sounded, and Xie Ning’s face grew redder and redder.
His brows were tightly knit, and his lashes trembled as if malfunctioning. It was obvious that Xie Ning was terribly nervous and somewhat uneasy.
Pei Zhi gently rubbed the back of Xie Ning’s head in reassurance. He was nervous too. Holding Xie Ning by the waist, he drew the two of them closer bit by bit. Warm breaths brushed over their lips as they drew near, bringing wave after wave of shivers.
Xie Ning unconsciously grabbed Pei Zhi’s arm.
He could clearly feel Pei Zhi’s fingers slowly closing over the back of his head.
The flow of breath between them came closer and closer… nearly enough to dampen the skin around his lips.
He moved slightly and brushed against warm skin. Frightened, he did not dare move again, and his fingers tightened around Pei Zhi’s arm.
Xie Ning shrank back a little, but Pei Zhi’s hand on the back of his head kept him from escaping. At such a close distance, he truly did not know what to do. “Pei Zhi, should we turn off the light—”
“Keep it on.” Pei Zhi refused without hesitation. Then, realizing his tone had been too forceful, he softened and coaxed him gently. “It’s easier to see this way.”
Their lips were perhaps only a millimeter apart. If either of them spoke too loudly, their mouths would brush against the other’s lips by accident.
The sensitive bead of Xie Ning’s lower lip accidentally grazed Pei Zhi’s lip, and Xie Ning immediately let out a small whimper. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. A faint pink spread across his pale eyelids, blue veins winding beneath the skin, making him look fragile and beautiful.
Pei Zhi had not even done anything yet, and Xie Ning was already struggling, already showing such a beautiful expression.
That made Pei Zhi realize one thing.
Xie Ning… was really sensitive.
Xie Ning was waiting for a torturous ordeal. Pei Zhi’s kiss still had not fallen, and the suspense made him feel increasingly uneasy. The moment he opened his eyes, Pei Zhi’s lips pressed against his, catching him completely off guard. For an instant, his mind went blank.
Reflected in Pei Zhi’s deep black eyes, he could clearly see his own astonishment.
It was as if Pei Zhi had been deliberately waiting for him to open his eyes, just so he could lightly touch Xie Ning’s lips under his gaze.
The kiss only lingered at the surface, their lips lightly rubbing together. The full flesh of their lips was pressed and deformed by the contact, even making Xie Ning’s lip bead jut out a little.
From time to time, Pei Zhi would part his lips slightly and take Xie Ning’s lips between them, savoring them as though tasting some delicious dish, nibbling, suckling, and tasting them little by little.
Xie Ning could not bear this teasing kind of kiss. He had only just turned his face away when Pei Zhi gripped the back of his head and held him in place. Then a wet, hot sensation spread over his lips—Pei Zhi had stuck out his tongue and was licking them.
Their lips were sealed together, so he could not say a single word. The large hand at the back of his head slid into his hair, fingertips lightly rubbing against his scalp. Tingling currents filled his whole body.
The rain outside was loud. So was Xie Ning’s heartbeat. And louder still were the wet sounds by his ear. Pei Zhi held the back of his head and kissed his lips. It was not a very deep kiss; it was gentle and slow, as if Xie Ning were some fragile treasure that had to be cherished with great care.
At first, Xie Ning had braced himself for an ordeal, but he had never expected kissing to feel this good. Even this kind of kiss, only lingering on the surface, made him feel as if he were floating. His whole body felt as though it were soaking in hot water, rising and sinking, until even his thoughts no longer felt like his own.
Doing something like this in the dorm—sitting on his roommate’s lap and kissing him—was something Xie Ning had never imagined. Even more absurdly, he was actually deriving pleasure from it.
His cheeks burned fiercely, and his lips stayed tightly closed. Even his breathing carried a kind of shameful force.
And yet, his skin hunger was making him desperately crave more.
This was Pei Zhi’s first kiss too. He had no experience, so he could only explore one step at a time. At first, he merely pressed their lips together and rubbed them clumsily. But later, he began to feel dissatisfied.
It wasn’t enough. Far from enough.
He extended the tip of his tongue and slowly licked along the seam of Xie Ning’s lips. The rough surface of his tongue was filled with an intensely invasive force as it licked at him. His lip bead, the corners of his mouth… every part of Xie Ning’s lips was licked, leaving the area around his mouth sticky and wet.
In truth, Pei Zhi also had a bit of a cleanliness obsession, and he did not normally have the habit of licking around carelessly. But right now, he truly could not control himself.
Everything had gone out of control.
The shame in his heart fought against the pleasure brought by his skin hunger. Xie Ning was terribly conflicted, but in the end, he closed his eyes again. When he realized that Pei Zhi was focusing on licking at the seam of his lips, trying to pry them open, panic suddenly rose in him.
Some saliva slipped through the seam of his lips into his mouth. That foreign, overbearing presence gave him the illusion that his territory was being invaded. The wet sensation, unlike anything he had ever experienced before, frightened him badly.
“Pei Zhi—!” Xie Ning almost screamed. He turned his head away, and the wet kiss dragged a streak of moisture from the corner of his lips.
Xie Ning’s hands pressed against Pei Zhi’s shoulders, trying to push him away. But the large hand around his waist suddenly tightened and forced him firmly back against Pei Zhi’s body.
There was something strange in Pei Zhi’s expression. The eyes that were usually cold and calm were now stirred by an unnatural storm. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and the veins at his neck stood out in an unnatural way. The aggressiveness rolling off him made Xie Ning feel a primal sense of danger, like a weak herbivore fearing a beast of prey.
Pei Zhi’s chest rose and fell in an abnormal rhythm. After a long while, he bent low, like some beast crouching before Xie Ning. He exhaled a scorching breath against Xie Ning’s neck and shoulder, his voice completely hoarse.
“What does it feel like?” Pei Zhi asked. “A kiss like this—what does it feel like?”
Xie Ning had been so busy being torn apart inside that he had not thought about that at all. He was like a student who had not properly memorized his lesson and was suddenly called on by the teacher to recite, left in a state of confusion.
“I…” Xie Ning froze and could not answer. “I don’t know.”
“Then it was too shallow,” Pei Zhi said.
“Too shallow?” Xie Ning repeated.
“Mm. We only kissed for a short while, and all we did was touch lips. There wasn’t enough sensation before it ended.” There was an obvious look on Pei Zhi’s face—the look of someone who had not eaten his fill. Like a beast forcibly dragged away from its meal, every strand of him radiated hunger. Lowering his head, he looked into Xie Ning’s eyes. “This time, deeper.”
Pei Zhi asked, “Does it disgust you?”
The moment Xie Ning shook his head, Pei Zhi instantly crushed down over him, stealing away his breath. Xie Ning’s lips were seized hard between his own. Instinctively, he clamped his mouth shut, refusing to let Pei Zhi kiss his way inside.
Pei Zhi reached out and lightly patted Xie Ning’s waist. Xie Ning let out a soft little sound without any guard, and his teeth loosened at once. A wet, burning tongue swiftly slipped through the tiny opening and licked its way inside.
The sticky feeling of that wet kiss left Xie Ning completely stunned. In a daze, he thought: hadn’t they agreed… to kiss only once?
That thick, savage tongue swept through Xie Ning’s mouth, hot breaths tangling between their lips. Pei Zhi gripped Xie Ning’s chin and kissed his way in without any room for argument. He caught Xie Ning’s small tongue between his lips and sucked on it, not too hard, not too lightly.
Xie Ning’s pupils expanded instantly. His skin hunger reached an unprecedented level of satisfaction, and his whole body began to tremble violently.
Pei Zhi wound around and twisted against Xie Ning’s tongue almost excessively, crazily stirring and devouring it. That rude, rather brutal behavior was like a beast barging into someone else’s territory, while Xie Ning could only flee helplessly in all directions.
His green, inexperienced tongue panicked and scrambled under Pei Zhi’s invasion, but Xie Ning’s mouth was very small, and the space inside even smaller. In such a cramped space, he truly had nowhere to run. Instead, it almost looked like flirtation, as if he were playing with Pei Zhi.
Pei Zhi kissed him hard. He sucked and tasted at Xie Ning’s tongue, while his own tongue wickedly scraped against the roof of his mouth. The sensitive palate was teased again and again. Xie Ning trembled all over, mist rising in his beautiful eyes, his pale face blooming into a vivid red from sheer shame.
The pleasure was enough to make Pei Zhi’s scalp go numb. Xie Ning’s mouth was too small—so small that his tongue fit perfectly inside and filled it. But precisely because Xie Ning’s mouth was so narrow and tight, Pei Zhi could only force his way in little by little.
The hot, soft feeling inside, the sensation of being tightly enclosed, the saliva that would gather now and then and spill right onto his tongue—
Pei Zhi felt as though he might die right there on Xie Ning.
Pei Zhi, who had kept reminding himself over and over to be restrained, had now completely lost his mind. He gripped the back of Xie Ning’s head tightly and kissed him with intense force. Xie Ning’s lips were forced fully apart, his aching mouth almost unable to close. The inner walls of his mouth had been kissed wet, red, and glistening, the same color as the flushed corner of his eyes.
“Don’t, don’t…”
Don’t kiss so deep…
Xie Ning could not even form a complete sentence. He only managed to force out a few broken words, but instead of stopping, Pei Zhi deliberately licked at the sensitive places inside his mouth even more wickedly.
The sticky sounds of kissing filled the air nonstop. Xie Ning was producing an extraordinary amount of saliva. He had only just swallowed one bit when more saliva was already being fed into him. Clear, shining moisture spilled from the corners of his mouth, tracing damp streaks down his chin, and eventually even wetting the collar of Pei Zhi’s shirt.
His face had become brilliantly flushed, even the rims of his eyes were red. Yet Pei Zhi showed no sign of stopping. Instead, he kissed him even more excessively.
The tongue was full of sensitive nerves. Pei Zhi kept sucking at Xie Ning’s lips again and again. The shivers after such forceful suckling were something Xie Ning simply could not endure. His body had gone so limp he could not even sit upright anymore. Gravity dragged him downward uncontrollably, but Pei Zhi held him tightly and lifted him back up.
Pei Zhi hoisted Xie Ning up again. Bent low over him, he chased after Xie Ning’s lips like a starving wolf, repeatedly feeding on the sweet saliva in his mouth. His mind had been completely eroded, driven only by instinct to search out the softness inside Xie Ning’s mouth and squeeze out even more of that delicious sweetness.
Even though Pei Zhi was bent over at a steep angle, the difference in their height and build was still stark. Wrapped in Pei Zhi’s arms, Xie Ning looked even more slender—fragile, almost.
As their lips ground together, it was easy to see a little bit of Xie Ning’s tongue, kissed into a wet, swollen red. Pei Zhi’s rough tongue coiled around that small red tongue like a snake. Their tongues tangled in the air, saliva running down the corners of both their mouths.
After sucking at Xie Ning’s tongue, Pei Zhi went on to lick away the saliva spilling out. Before Xie Ning had even had a chance to recover, he fed his tongue right back in, greedily drinking the sweet liquid in Xie Ning’s mouth.
Suddenly, the fingers clutching at Pei Zhi’s shoulder tightened. Xie Ning’s nails were neatly rounded, now shining with an inviting pink. He abruptly raked deep nail marks across Pei Zhi’s shoulder and the side of his neck.
Those red nail marks, those pale, trembling fingers, looked especially obscene against Pei Zhi’s darker skin.
Xie Ning’s body swayed helplessly in the kiss like floating duckweed. He could not stop himself from crying softly, and those fragile, pitiful sobs directly stirred something brutal inside Pei Zhi, making the kisses grow even deeper.
Xie Ning trembled fiercely, yet his skin hunger made everything feel too good. His whole body had no strength left. His crying, mixed into the wet sounds of their kisses, was almost louder than the storm outside.
He was being kissed so hard that his body rocked uncontrollably. The only thing he could do was cling to something, and because he was running out of air, he could only rely on Pei Zhi for breath.
The air conditioner hummed. Rain poured in sheets outside. He was so hot all over that he had broken into a sheen of sweat. His clothes clung to his body, even his hair had become damp.
Their lips stayed pressed together, rubbing and making sticky, wet sounds. It felt as though he had been dragged into a swamp, swaying helplessly in Pei Zhi’s kisses. His neck, thrown back, looked fragile and slender. His Adam’s apple bobbed constantly. The little saliva he managed to gather was immediately devoured, only to be replaced by even more.
He kept trying to swallow again and again, but he could not keep up. Saliva leaked from the corners of his mouth. It was as if his mouth was broken and could no longer hold anything in.
No, no more, he needed a break…
“Mm…” Xie Ning finally managed to put a little distance between them. “Wait, I can’t breathe…”
“Mm.” Pei Zhi really did pause for a moment. He pecked gently at the corner of Xie Ning’s lips, his expression almost intoxicated. “My baby…”
The moment those words fell, Pei Zhi kissed him again. The chair shrieked sharply against the floor, a sound so clear that even the storm outside could not drown it out.
Xie Ning twisted desperately, trying to get away, but Pei Zhi caught his wrists and pinned them behind him.
His voice abruptly broke, the ending pitch rising high, filled with sweetness and panic.
Pei Zhi, all six-foot-something of him, pressed against him by force, sucking wildly at his lips like a mad dog devouring him.
Xie Ning was truly on the verge of falling apart. His head was forced high, his body curling back and trembling over and over.
The hand gripping his waist tightened, but in the process it accidentally pushed his shirt hem up. Pei Zhi’s palm slipped inside without warning.
A stretch of slender, tender waist was exposed, gleaming under the light like polished crystal. Pei Zhi’s skin was much darker than Xie Ning’s, and when his hand clamped around that waist, it was like he was holding a piece of flawless white jade.
As Pei Zhi kissed him fiercely, his distinct fingers pressed into the soft flesh at Xie Ning’s waist, making the pale skin bulge through the gaps between them. The obvious difference in skin tone and body size made that waist look so narrow it might snap in one hand. The sight was unbearably lush and vivid.
“Mmhn…”
Xie Ning was truly beginning to break down from the kisses. His brows drew together in pain, and soft, sweet little moans kept slipping from his throat. The pleasure was enough to drive Pei Zhi mad; his body trembled with excitement.
For someone like Xie Ning, who suffered from skin hunger, repeated skin contact and one deep kiss after another were simply too much. The overwhelming pleasure kept his nerves suspended in a constant state of intense bliss.
He looked almost broken now—his expression blank and confused, his gaze empty and unfocused—as Pei Zhi sucked greedily at his tongue.
Pei Zhi had been watching Xie Ning’s face the whole time, observing what kind of kiss made him shiver the hardest, then cycling through those same methods again and again. He kissed harder and harder, never giving Xie Ning the chance to beg for mercy.
The corners of Xie Ning’s eyes were already soaked. Not only could his mouth no longer hold his saliva, even his eyes could no longer keep in their tears. He cried while moisture spilled from him, and sometimes, when Pei Zhi kissed especially deep, the Xie Ning straddling his lap would unconsciously draw his knees tight, clamping down hard.
Pei Zhi seized Xie Ning’s chin and devoured the tender flesh inside his mouth.
Those pale lips had been kissed raw and burning. The lip bead was swollen high, with one bit of skin rubbed away, exposing the tender, bright-red flesh beneath—like overripe fruit whose peel had been licked open.
Suddenly, Xie Ning struggled violently. Pei Zhi was kissing too deeply; he was suffocating. Crying softly, he reached out as if asking for help, only for Pei Zhi to seize his wrist and enclose his hand firmly.
Pei Zhi gripped Xie Ning’s hand tightly. That hand, one size smaller than his own, fit perfectly inside his palm. Their fingers interlaced, inseparable, and with that, the kiss also deepened even more.
…
Xie Ning did not know how long he and Pei Zhi had been kissing. All he knew was that when they finally separated, a suggestive strand stretched between their lips.
His whole expression was blank and dazed, like a broken doll that could not even react anymore.
Pei Zhi pressed his face against Xie Ning’s neck, breathing low and hard. Heat still poured off him from head to toe. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough. Far from enough.
When Pei Zhi lifted his head and looked at Xie Ning’s lips, Xie Ning had not even fully regained his senses, yet he still instinctively curled backward in fear, as though he had been frightened by how much he’d been messed with.
Xie Ning’s whole face was red. His small face was wet all over, as if he had been bullied terribly. Leaning against Pei Zhi, he panted with flushed cheeks, his shoulders shaking violently.
Pei Zhi rubbed the back of Xie Ning’s head. Seeing how overly red and swollen Xie Ning’s lips had become, his Adam’s apple rolled again.
Pei Zhi kept stroking his back and soothing his breathing. He even poured him a cup of warm water. But instead of feeding it to him directly, he took a mouthful himself, held it there, then caught Xie Ning’s lips and passed it to him.
Only after the water moistened him did Xie Ning recover a little of his awareness. Even then, his breathing was still uneven. Pei Zhi lightly patted his back and, looking at the rather pitifully dependent way he leaned against him, murmured something in an unreadable tone.
“Dummy.” Pei Zhi rubbed the tip of his nose against Xie Ning’s, then lightly kissed away the tears at the corners of his eyes. “Like a little baby.”
Even drinking water had to be taken care of by him, fed mouth to mouth. And now he was still panting for breath, needing Pei Zhi to pat his back and help him recover.
Wasn’t that just like a little baby?
A beat too slow, Xie Ning tilted his head up to look at Pei Zhi, his gaze full of confusion. More than ten seconds later, he sluggishly asked, “What?”
He really looked like… he had been played with until he broke.
Looking at Xie Ning now, so different from the cold, distant person he usually was, Pei Zhi suddenly smiled. Joy filled his brows and eyes—joy that was not only physical, but emotional too.
He picked up Xie Ning’s hand and sucked lightly on one of his fingers. “Awake now?”
“Mm…?” Xie Ning nodded blankly. “Mm.”
Judging from the look of it, he still was not fully awake.
If it had only been a simple kiss, of course Xie Ning would not have stayed muddled for this long. But the problem was that he had skin hunger, and that made his reaction to all this contact much stronger.
Xie Ning was even more sensitive than Pei Zhi had imagined.
Pei Zhi continued patting his back and smoothing his breathing. Lowering his head, he asked hoarsely, “What did it feel like?”
“That kiss just now—what did it feel like?”
“I…” Xie Ning’s eyes were unfocused, and he just kept panting stupidly. The snow-pale skin around his lips had been rubbed pink, standing out vividly against the rest of his face. The corners of his eyes were wet and flushed, his gaze drifting weakly. Caught by the sudden question, he answered sluggishly, “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?” Pei Zhi said. “Did you like it, or hate it?”
Xie Ning’s thoughts moved very slowly, and even processing Pei Zhi’s words took time.
Taking advantage of that, Pei Zhi continued, “Could it be that the kiss was too short, and you didn’t have time to feel it clearly?”
“?” Xie Ning tilted his head, frowning as he repeated, “Short?”
Slowly, he thought: Was it really short?
He still had not recovered. His whole body felt dizzy and floaty, like a cat that had inhaled too much catnip.
Yet Pei Zhi said with certainty, “It was too short, so you couldn’t tell. Actually, I’m the same. After that kiss, I still couldn’t tell whether I liked it or hated it.”
Then he added, “But I didn’t reject it.”
“What about you?”
Xie Ning was still in a haze. But under Pei Zhi’s questioning, he answered obediently, like a good student responding to a teacher. “Me too.”
Under normal circumstances, where would Pei Zhi ever get to see this side of Xie Ning? So obedient and easy to lead, answering whatever he was asked, and that unconscious dazedness made him unbearably cute.
He kept telling himself to stop while he still could, not to go too far. But seeing Xie Ning like this, he could not help giving in to darker thoughts.
Xie Ning’s lips were still damp. Even after being wiped, they still held an enticing color. The lip bead had been sucked, licked, and bitten again and again until a little bit of it had broken.
That tiny wound on a face that was usually so cool and elegant was simply too eye-catching, too arresting, enough to set anyone’s heart racing.
It looked as if he had been branded with a mark belonging to Pei Zhi.
At that moment, Pei Zhi desperately wanted to kiss him.
But Xie Ning probably would not agree so easily. As he patted Xie Ning’s back, he kept trying to think of a way. Suddenly, he lowered his head and said, “Since neither of us could tell, that means what we did still wasn’t enough. We probably have to kiss again. Otherwise, the first two times would have been a waste. Don’t you think?”
Pei Zhi coaxed him softly. “Let’s try one more time, and then we’ll know.”
Xie Ning looked lost. “Try one more time…?”
Leaning weakly in Pei Zhi’s arms, Xie Ning still could not catch his breath from that kiss, and his whole body felt powerless. His black hair had been dampened with saliva and stuck to the corners of his mouth and his temples. The flush had completely replaced the pale color of his skin.
Hearing Pei Zhi’s words, he looked both surprised and slow to react. Resting in Pei Zhi’s arms, he slowly tilted his head up. His wet red eyes, still full of innocence and tears, looked over.
At this moment, his expression was utterly soul-stealing. Pei Zhi began to feel excited all over again. Hoarsely, he said, “Mm.”
“This time, you kiss me.”
