“Luo Huai.”
Pei Jiheng finally spoke, his voice sounding slightly hoarse.
“Mm.” Luo Huai’s eyelashes trembled as he let out a nasal hum. Because he felt uneasy inside, he unconsciously shifted backward a bit more, completely unaware that the shirt was being pulled higher and higher by his own movement.
“If you back up even a little bit more, the enticement will be way too strong. Being single would be one thing, but have you forgotten that you are married?”
As soon as Pei Jiheng said this, Luo Huai jolted, hastily freeing up one hand to tug at the hem of the shirt, firmly covering his front.
He quickly raised his eyes to glance at Pei Jiheng, his tone weak as he said, “I, I wasn’t trying to entice anyone.”
The corners of Pei Jiheng’s mouth curved upward, the shift in his expression causing that deliberate pressure to relax a fraction, his tone turning somewhat brisk: “You dare say you weren’t doing it on purpose?”
Luo Huai didn’t dare look into Pei Jiheng’s eyes anymore. He turned his head away, his voice as small as a mosquito’s buzz: “On purpose or not. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Pei Jiheng stared at him for a few seconds, let out a very light laugh, and then with a flick of his fingers, single-handedly buttoned up that top button before standing up straight.
That overwhelming sense of oppression suddenly receded, like a receding tide, leaving the creatures on the shore abruptly gasping for air.
Sitting on the bed, Luo Huai breathed in deep, ragged gasps, his heartbeat racing as if it were about to leap out of his throat.
Pei Jiheng turned and walked over to the wardrobe, pulling a pair of lounge pants out from inside without looking back, and tossed them into Luo Huai’s lap.
“Put them on.”
His voice returned to that detached calmness.
Luo Huai sat on the bed holding those pants, stunned for a good several seconds without daring to look up.
He looked down at his still-bare legs, realizing he was still sitting on Pei Jiheng’s bed, with Pei Jiheng himself standing just two meters away.
Luo Huai instantly felt a rush of embarrassment and hurriedly pulled the pants on.
The pants didn’t fit right either. They had an elastic waistband that was okay around the waist, but the rise was a bit low, hanging loosely on his hips. The pant legs were very long, however, so he could only grip the waistband with one hand while lowering his head to roll up the cuffs, looking thoroughly wretched.
Pei Jiheng leaned against the wardrobe, arms crossed, watching his flustered and exasperated scramble with a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“How much longer for the dryer?” he asked, his tone level.
Sitting on the bed while clutching his slipping waistband, Luo Huai answered honestly, “Almost done, I guess.”
Pei Jiheng cast a flat glance at him. The look wasn’t heavy, but it made Luo Huai’s scalp tingle.
Pei Jiheng stopped talking again. Seriously! He was so unpredictable, always making the situation impossible to handle!
Inwardly gritting his teeth in the quiet air, Luo Huai then heard the muffled thud of shoes stepping on the carpet. Pei Jiheng was walking toward him again.
His footsteps were very slow, almost as if he were doing it on purpose to give Luo Huai time to react.
Yet what kind of reaction could Luo Huai possibly have? Right behind him was the bed. Just like Pei Jiheng had said, how was that any different from an invitation?
So he could only sit there helplessly, clutching his waistband, his toes curling as he didn’t dare retreat.
It wasn’t until those shoes entered his field of vision that Luo Huai lifted his eyelids to look up at him from below.
Pei Jiheng stood there towering over him, the hem of his shirt hanging by his waist, the eyes behind his silver-rimmed glasses deeply colored and devoid of any readable emotion.
Luo Huai blinked at him.
He guaranteed he hadn’t done it on purpose!
It was purely a reflex triggered by the other person’s approach; his eyelids had fluttered open and shut quickly, his eyelashes trembling in a completely subconscious blink.
He really wasn’t deliberately practicing an expression this time, nor was it the kind of obedient and sensible act he put on in front of Lin Yuhe.
It was just an instinctive, completely unguarded expression that he couldn’t even replicate looking into a mirror.
Yet that expression, in Pei Jiheng’s eyes, was clearly far from simple.
He simply leaned down once more.
In response, Luo Huai leaned backward again, though this time sitting bolt upright even with pants on now. All of his attention focused entirely on the face right in front of him.
Pei Jiheng reached out to pinch Luo Huai’s chin, closing in right by his ear so that his breath brushed against the tips of Luo Huai’s flushed ears.
He didn’t move any closer, nor did he back away. He just stopped at that distance, speaking in a very low voice.
“My emotional state is very unstable today,” he said, word by word. “Are you sure you want to face me with an expression like that?”
Luo Huai swallowed hard. His backside seemed to recall some ancient memory, suddenly flaring with a nonexistent phantom pain!
These words, these words! Oh my god, sexual suggestion and more sexual suggestion. No wait, sexual manifestation and more sexual manifestation!
Luo Huai’s brain went haywire, short-circuiting at that exact moment. His heart hammered like a drum, and blood rushed to his cheeks, burning all the way from his earlobes down his neck.
Yet he had no idea what kind of seductive expression he was supposedly making, so he could only lower his head tightly, not daring to look at the other person anymore.
“What are you talking about, Uncle. I don’t understand.”
Pei Jiheng let go of his chin, pulled back once more, and straightened up.
“You had better genuinely not understand.”
Reaching into his pocket, Pei Jiheng fished out a pack of cold medicine and pressed it onto the corner of the bed.
“The rain has stopped.”
With that, without waiting for Luo Huai to make any reaction, he turned on his heel and walked away.
All the oppression, all the heat, all the intertwined breaths were truly and completely withdrawn this time.
Hanging his head, Luo Huai panted heavily.
Then he caught a scent.
Pine.
A fleeting, wispy thread of pure pine pheromone, unnaturally leaking from a gland.
That sharp, woody scent pierced his nostrils, carrying the crisp frost-and-snow chill of a deep winter forest. It was icy and aggressive, yet the instant it brushed against Luo Huai’s skin, it melted into a subtle gentleness.
It lasted merely a second before vanishing entirely.
Luo Huai, who had still been trying to regulate his chaotic breathing, suddenly grinned widely.
A long-lost scent.
It seemed that even amidst the chaos, he could still breach a tiny crack in the other person’s effortless defense, letting those heavily guarded secrets leak out from the solid, airtight wall Pei Jiheng had built around himself.
In a wonderful mood, Luo Huai grabbed his pants and stood up to check the clothes in the dryer. Thinking to himself that although he didn’t know what Pei Jiheng meant by being unstable, he knew for a fact that his act earlier hadn’t gone to waste.
The dryer chimed to signal the clothes were done.
Luo Huai pulled the garments out, then reached up to undo the top button Pei Jiheng had personally fastened for him. The moment he lowered his head, uncontrollably, he buried his face into the collar of Pei Jiheng’s shirt and took a deep breath.
It smelled of cotton and laundry detergent, clean and light, devoid of pine.
Yet, it was enough to stir an unacknowledged thrill deep within Luo Huai’s heart.