Yanlong did not release her arm.
His grip was firm, final, like someone who had decided that this time, there would be no escape.
Tianyin did not lower her eyes.
They stared at each other, motionless, in that kitchen suddenly too small to contain what was happening between them.
Neither wanted to yield.
Neither wanted to be the first to look away, to blink, to show anything.
It was a silent war.
And neither of them wanted to lose it.
The seconds stretched.
The silence between them was dense, charged, almost audible, like the air just before a storm, when everything holds still and nothing has yet been decided.
Tianyin did not blink.
“Or what?” she said.
Her voice was clear.
Firm.
She held his gaze without trembling, her eyes fixed on his with a boldness that would have disarmed anyone else.
But not him.
Yanlong, his gaze dark, did not answer immediately.
He looked at her for a long second, as though weighing something, as though calculating, then pulled her back toward the table.
A slow, deliberate, irresistible movement, as though he had all the time in the world, as though there was nowhere she could go that wasn’t where he wanted her to be.
The edge of the table struck her hips.
Instinctively, Tianyin’s hands landed in the flour, erasing the previous marks, theirs, mixed together and impossible to distinguish.
As though she wanted to erase the trace of what had happened.
As though that could change anything.
Yanlong’s hands settled over hers.
Firmly.
Holding her without violence, without brutality, just enough to keep her from moving.
Their fingers disappeared into the white powder.
Above her, he looked at her.
She looked at him.
The flour.
Their hands.
That gaze.
Everything started again.
Yanlong spoke, more slowly this time.
“Or…”
A single unfinished word.
Suspended in the air between them like a flame being brought toward dry fabric.
Tianyin didn’t answer.
But she didn’t look away either.
She had never yielded before anyone.
Today would not be the day that began.
Yanlong looked deeply into her eyes.
His face above hers, too close, terribly close.
His eyes slowly traveled across her face, first her eyes, which did not falter, then her features, every line, every curve, and finally her lips.
He lingered a fraction of a second too long on her lips.
Tianyin noticed.
And something inside her wavered, imperceptibly, which she hastened to ignore.
She looked at him too.
The perfect lines of his face, that unreadable gaze that revealed nothing to her, that drove her crazy precisely because it revealed nothing.
How could someone be so impossible to read?
“Let me go!” she said fiercely.
She struggled with all her strength, pulling at her hands, trying to regain the ground she had lost.
Yanlong held her even more firmly.
And he moved closer.
Their bodies brushed. This story is hosted at g.com.
For barely a fraction of a second, Yanlong’s chest against hers, his warmth, his solidity, his overwhelming presence—and Tianyin fell silent.
All at once.
As though someone had cut the sound.
That approach had stolen her breath in a fraction of a second, and she had nothing left to say, she who always had something to say, she who never stayed silent, who answered everything, who always found the words to retort.
She searched for her words.
They were no longer there.
She looked away.
She who never stayed silent.
She who always had the last word.
And now, nothing.
She never yielded before anyone.
Never.
And yet, there, now, in that kitchen with flour on her hands and that gaze above her, she felt more vulnerable than she ever had before.
This small weakness she had never known existed, this crack in her armor that she had never allowed anyone to find.
No one, until him.
Yanlong moved even closer.
Their lips were only a few centimeters apart.
He looked at her lips.
Then her eyes.
And he felt something he couldn’t name, that hold she had over him without even trying, without even wanting to, perhaps without even knowing it.
How could someone like her have such a hold over him?
The question had cut through him like a blade.
He, who had never allowed anyone to get close to him, who maintained a distance between himself and the world with absolute discipline, and yet this girl, this impossible, rebellious, untamable girl, was capable of destabilizing him with a single look.
The closer he got to her, the more he felt the need to move closer still.
Closer.
More intense.
Hotter.
It was inexplicable.
And he couldn’t stop himself.
On her side, Tianyin felt the same thing.
That hold Yanlong had over her, which she refused to admit, growing despite herself with every passing second.
The closer he came, the more her heart refused to hold back, the more something inside her leaned toward him like a flame toward air.
How could someone like him have such a hold over me?
The closer he gets, the more my heart…
She didn’t finish the thought.
Because at that moment, something changed between them.
As though both of them, at the same time, had decided to erase what had just happened.
Tianyin struggled.
Yanlong resisted.
And what could have been a confession became a fight.
They fought there, in the kitchen, amid the scattered flour and dried herbs trembling from the beams.
Sometimes she found herself only a few centimeters from him, her eyes plunging into his before she pulled away.
Sometimes he found himself above her, too close, before she found an opening and pushed him away.
No words.
Just their breathing, their movements, and that tension between them that didn’t disappear, that intensified instead, with every touch, every fraction of a second when their bodies found themselves too close to each other.
Outside, the maids exchanged glances.
The noises coming from the kitchen, the impacts, the sudden movements, the muffled bursts of voices, were enough to intrigue them.
“What is happening in there?” one of them whispered.
Another stifled a laugh behind her sleeve.
“A young couple who just got married…
you can imagine.”
They laughed softly, looked at each other, and quietly walked away.
Inside, neither Tianyin nor Yanlong was aware of anything except each other. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
They continued.
Neither wanted to yield.
Until Yanlong found an opening.
A movement that was too fast.
A fraction of a second when her balance faltered.
He took advantage of it.
He seized her.
Pinned her to the floor.
His hands above her head, Tianyin struggled again, but Yanlong didn’t move an inch.
Neither his hands.
Nor his gaze.
He slowly bent toward her.
Their eyes held.
Strands of Yanlong’s hair slipped across Tianyin’s face, dark and light, brushing her cheek, her forehead.
And Tianyin’s long eyelashes, in that imperceptible movement, stirred Yanlong’s rebellious strands like a breath.
The tension between them was more than burning.
It was unbearable.
It was absolute.
The silence had returned.
But it was no longer the same silence as before.
There were no words left for this moment.
There was nothing else but this, their gazes, their mingled breaths, and that thing between them that refused to be named.
It was at that exact moment that the window behind them opened.
Someone entered.
Then stopped dead.
A man dressed in black, masked, who had clearly seen what he had just seen, immediately dropped to his knees, head lowered, eyes fixed on the floor.
“Your Highness…
forgive me for interrupting you.”
His voice was tense, hurried, like someone who knew he had arrived at the worst possible moment and had no choice.
“I have an urgent message to deliver to you.”
The silence lasted one second too long.
Yanlong stood up.
Slowly.
With the calm he always regained, that way of putting himself back in order with disconcerting speed.
He straightened his tunic, adjusted his long hair, and within seconds became the Crown Prince of the Yan Kingdom once more—impassive, inaccessible, perfectly composed.
As though nothing had just happened.
Tianyin stood up as well.
Her cheeks slightly flushed, her hair disheveled, her hands still white with flour, she did her best to recover the composure she had lost somewhere between the table and the floor.
She wanted to leave.
She took one step toward the door.
Yanlong’s hand closed around her wrist.
Firm.
Without hesitation.
She stopped.
Slowly, she turned toward him, her eyes shining with an anger she couldn’t quite keep contained in her gaze.
Yanlong bent slightly toward her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
His voice was low.
Calm.
Dangerously composed.
Close enough for every word to brush against her skin.
“Our conversation isn’t over yet.”
New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 🖤