He had personally tasted that cloying sweetness before. Every night, after his wife drifted into a deep sleep amid their kisses, he would savor those precious drops of sweetness, licking them up one by one and swallowing them down.
He had once thought that was the height of pleasure. Yet now, immersed in it himself, an entirely different kind of delight began to bloom within him.
Was this the reason mortals became so deeply captivated by it, never tiring of it no matter how often they indulged?
He turned to look at Su Yu. Behind the swaying gauze curtains, she still bit her lower lip, eyes closed, damp lashes resting softly against her cheeks.
Her cheeks grew redder and redder, and at some point, the soft whimpers spilling from her throat had become a melody that made his breathing unsteady.
Ji Xuanyue felt himself lose control. It was as though something had broken free of his grasp and raced headlong along the path of instinct.
Then, amid her trembling, his wife opened her eyes and looked at him through a haze of desire. “Husband…”
Su Yu called to him in a trembling voice.
In the past, whenever Ji Xuanyue kissed her, he would draw her into his embrace, unfailingly gentle. Yet now she could neither see his expression nor hear a single word. His hand remained clasped around her waist as he gazed down at her. A chill, distant aura surrounded him, strangely unfamiliar to her.
How can this be? Su Yu thought amid the jostling motion. She wanted an embrace. She wanted a kiss. Not this… not merely their bodies joined together as they were now.
“What’s wrong?” The scent in the air suddenly turned bitter. Ji Xuanyue stopped and, in the darkness, gazed at his wife’s flushed face.
Did he hurt her? But judging by her expression and the sounds she had made earlier, it hadn’t seemed like pain.
Ji Xuanyue frowned, a rare occurrence. He was still immersed in that rich, lingering sweetness. The discomfort of forcing himself to stop felt almost harder to endure than the agony of the cracks in his demon core.
Suppressing the overwhelming urge that nearly twisted away his reason, he lowered himself. His thumb brushed across the flushed corner of his wife’s eye before he asked again, his voice low: “Did I hurt you?”
Mortals were fragile, and his wife was even more so, even though he had already held back ninety percent of his strength just now.
Yet Su Yu fell silent again. She bit her lower lip, her damp lashes lowered, and said nothing for a long while.
Ji Xuanyue did not move either. He waited quietly. Only after a long time did she finally speak, her voice soft and muffled. “Could you… be like before… and hold me?”
Ji Xuanyue seemed to realize something. For mortals, intimacy was apparently not just about physical union. They also needed touch. They needed embraces. They needed all those things he had found somewhat unnecessary a moment ago, things that somehow elevated the experience into something more.
“Alright.” He leaned down and cupped her soft, pale curves in his palm. As she let out a startled cry, he claimed her lips in a kiss.