The King's Dancer

Chapter 20

Upon receiving the kiss, Xie Lian's first instinct was to purr, much to his mortification. There were still other people in the room! How indecent! He immediately stopped himself with a splutter, which caused Hua Cheng to laugh softly. He even crooned at Xie Lian as if he was a little kid!

"San Lang", Xie Lian whined in embarrassment, and hid his face in his hands.

Hua Cheng chuckled again, before he schooled his face into something more serious.

"Right. I think you're done dancing for today. The musicians may leave", he ordered, and Xie Lian could immediately hear shuffling from behind the screen. He didn't have the nerve to face them however, and just stayed put as he was, hiding his face until he heard the door close again, even though they had been very polite in bidding the king good night.

"I agree, I think I'll have a very good night", Hua Cheng chuckled as soon as they were alone in the room.

Before Xie Lian could comment on that, Hua Cheng leaned back, until his back rested against the backrest of the divan, pulling Xie Lian along with him, effectively having him lying flush on top of the alpha. If Hua Cheng had been careful to not place Xie Lian too close to his bulge before, he didn't seem to care about it at all anymore now.

And while it was indeed rather comfortable to lie on Hua Cheng like this, he still pushed himself up a bit, just because he wanted to look at the alpha's face. He hadn't quite expected his face to have turned this soft in the meantime, and felt entranced by the look of- of sheer... adoration... on his face. Xie Lian felt his face turn a shade darker, but it felt so incredibly nice to be looked at in such a way, he couldn't possibly bring himself to look away.

Xie Lian hadn't noticed it himself, but he must've slowly leaned in towards Hua Cheng, since somehow their noses were touching now. It was just... the look on his face was one thing, but there were also his lips that had somehow lost all of their grim hardness, and looked so incredibly soft- Xie Lian had wanted to touch, to see if they really were as soft as they looked, and since the gentle look on Hua Cheng's face had entranced him, he thought it was a good idea to touch the alpha's lips with his own.

Before he could switch his brain to working mode again, he leaned forward to overcome the last bit of distance between them, and lightly pressed his lips onto Hua Cheng's, somewhat hesitantly. Hua Cheng's eyes immediately closed, and he kissed him back without any hesitation, just as softly as Xie Lian had started the kiss. However, it was that small movement of Hua Cheng's own lips that snapped Xie Lian out of the stupor he'd been in, and all his rationality came rushing back into his brain with a vengeance.

Thus, Xie Lian leaned back quickly, gasped in absolute horror, jumped off the divan, yelled a too loud "sorry!" at Hua Cheng, and proceeded to run towards the door as fast as his feet could carry him, screaming his repeated apologies along the way.

Xie Lian was still screaming variations of "sorry" and "I'm sorry", once he'd already made it down to the second floor, when two strong arms suddenly encircled his waist from behind, and held him in an iron grip, preventing him from escaping any further.

Xie Lian was so out of it and had fallen into straight up despair at having acted so rashly and without thought that he actually started keening, and tried to break out of Hua Cheng's grasp.

The alpha didn't let him go however, and, after a startled "gege!" started crooning at him again, though he only did it for a moment before he changed to rumbling, the vibrations of which Xie Lian could feel on his back, since Hua Cheng was pressing his chest so closely to him.

Xie Lian didn't really want to calm down, he'd behaved much too indecent after all, and only deserved what his rationale threw at him. However there was nothing he could do against feeling incredibly soothed by the alpha's actions, and he couldn't help but relax against Hua Cheng after only a few moments. Even his keening had turned into soft mewling.