Batter My Heart,Mr Xi (Book 2)

Chapter XL (16+)

(Mature themes....I think. Not too explicit but explicit enough. My first intimacy scene so I hope you enjoy it😅)

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The ship pulled away from Qingshi as the sun began its descent, the town's rooftops gilding slowly in the late light. They boarded with the loose, satisfied tiredness of people who had walked enough and eaten enough and bought at least one thing they hadn't planned to. The group dispersed naturally as the dock disappeared behind them - Song Jieli claiming she needed to lie down, Xi Jun vanishing toward the upper lounge, Shen Hui and Quan Fumin going separate directions with the careful unconcern of two people who had spent the afternoon not talking about something.

Yang Zhilan stood at the stern railing as the ship moved and watched Qingshi shrink to amber and shadow on the water.

She stayed for a few minutes. Long enough to feel the river wind and the particular quiet that comes after a full day. Then she turned and went inside.

She didn't notice Xi Jinwei at the far end of the deck until she nearly walked past him - standing near the stairwell entrance, jacket collar up against the wind, watching the bank they'd just left. Not the view. The bank specifically. The stretch of dock and shoreline they had just come from.

He turned when she stopped.

"How long have you been up here?" she asked.

"A while."

She looked at him. At the careful stillness of his face that she had learned meant the opposite of nothing.

His mood had soured for some reason. Probably Fu Tuying. It seemed that their hatred and rivalry she had read from Two-faced CEO novel had really come to pass. Perhaps it was fate.

She crossed the deck and stood beside him. He didn't reach for her immediately - just let her be there, giving her the space to decide. She decided to take his hand. He let out a breath so small she almost missed it, and his fingers closed around hers with a grip that said considerably more than he had.

" I'm not going to let anything happen to you Lan'er."

"I know," she said. "I know you won't."

They stood together until the last light left Qingshi entirely, the town dissolving into dark and river. Then he said quietly, "Come inside," and she did.

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The suite was warm.

Xi Jinwei dropped his jacket over a chair and loosened his collar and checked his phone - one look, deliberate face-down on the table - before Yang Zhilan had even kicked off her shoes. She noticed. He was trying. She left him to it and went to the bathroom to wash the day off her face.

She took her hair down while she was in there.

It had been pinned up since morning and she pulled the pins out one by one until it fell loose past her shoulders. She stood looking at herself in the mirror. Flushed cheeks. Clear eyes. The small clay rabbit from the market sitting on the edge of the sink where she'd set it without thinking.

She thought about what she was going to do.

She had been thinking about it since the tea house. Since she had sat across from him in the afternoon light and thought with a clarity that surprised her - *I want to show him.* Not because she had to. Not because the moment demanded it. But because she was tired of covering it, and he was the only person she had ever looked at and thought: *this one won't make it into something I have to manage.*

She stayed in the bathroom a little longer than necessary.

Then she went out.

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