Chapter 101: Kissing

An Tong had long since lost all sense of time, only feeling the ache in her lower back and the numbness in her legs, resentfully wondering why this meeting still had not ended.

She could not even hear what they were discussing inside. For the past several minutes, Rong Shen had not said much either, only answering now and then with a quiet murmur.

The muscles along An Tong’s back had already begun to go numb. She wanted to reach out and pound at them, but with the man holding her, it was impossible to move freely.

Rong Shen had long noticed something was off, yet he did not act rashly. He only waited for her to relax on her own.

Fortunately, An Tong did not keep him waiting too long. Half a minute later, the girl’s straightened back visibly softened, and she leaned into the man’s arms like a boneless thing.

He reached out and turned off the microphone as well. When he lowered his eyes, his warm jaw brushed against her forehead. “Tired?”

Leaning against his shoulder, An Tong gave a slight nod. “I’m fine. Just keep holding your meeting.”

Rong Shen said nothing, only tightened his arms without a word, drawing her closer into his embrace.

At some point, the bright white desk lamp had been adjusted to a warmer hue. Outside the window, the cold wind howled, but in the study, bathed in a soft orange glow, the atmosphere was gentle and intimate.

Near nine o’clock, the video conference finally came to an end.

An Tong glanced sideways at the screen and watched as the man closed the video window with her own eyes. She let out a breath of relief. “Is it over?”

“Mhm.” Rong Shen leaned back into his chair, carrying An Tong’s body with him as she settled more heavily into his arms by inertia. “Were you getting impatient?”

“No.” An Tong did not lift her head, merely lowered her lashes to look at her own palm. “If I’d known you were in a meeting, I wouldn’t have come up to bother you.”

She had thought he was in a bad mood and deliberately avoiding her. As it turned out, he really had been busy.

She had made a fool of herself, and there was no way she could tell the truth now.

The man’s arm remained around her waist as he drew back a little. “Tell me, then. Did you come upstairs to see me for something?”

An Tong was forced to meet his eyes in that position. At just one glance, her heartbeat quickened.

She had never sat on a man’s lap like this before, except as a child when she would cling to her father in spoiled affection, which was somewhat similar.

But that experience... was completely different from now.

An Tong’s gaze flickered. Suppressing the small, fluttering thoughts in her heart, she asked directly, “Were you... in a bad mood tonight?”

“How did you tell?”

The man’s palm lightly stroked along her shoulder blade. His movements were gentle, almost like soothing a child, yet with a touch of the intimate ambiguity shared between lovers.

After a brief pause, An Tong said, “It was a feeling. I sensed it the moment you came in.”

When it came to reading other people’s emotions, she was not exactly skilled, but her basic intuition had rarely been wrong.

Especially not when it was Rong Shen.

The man’s bent index finger traced along her chin, his tone carrying a hint of guidance. “Sometimes instinct isn’t necessarily accurate. Rather than letting your imagination run wild, why not chat properly with a friend and take your mind off it?”

An Tong looked at him in sudden realization. “Right. This weekend... I want to go back to Hong Kong for a bit.”

“What for?”

An Tong chose to hide Su Ji’s hostility toward him and gave an innocuous explanation. “I need to go to Yunhai Road to get some things, and I also want to meet Su Ji. I already made plans with her just now, so... I have to go back this weekend.”

Rong Shen lowered his eyelids, the heaviness between his brows easing a little. “You’ve been talking with her all along?”

“Mhm. She wanted to invite me out for dinner, but I couldn’t make it, so I told her about moving to Zhanzhou.” An Tong caught the fingers he was teasing her face with and said helplessly, “She was really mad, saying I should’ve told her sooner.”

“Have you thought about how to explain it to her?”

An Tong turned her head and shrugged. “I’ll just tell the truth.”

His dark brows rose slightly. “About the marriage?”

“That too.” An Tong stroked Rong Shen’s fingers and admitted, “Otherwise, how could I explain moving to Zhanzhou with you? Su Ji isn’t an outsider. She... wouldn’t go spreading rumors.”

An Tong thought he was worried their marriage of convenience would get out, so she spoke up for Su Ji.

Rong Shen looked at her unusually earnest expression and could not help laughing. “There’s nothing about us that can’t be said.”

“That’s good. I was planning to go back Saturday night and return Sunday afternoon.”

“Your schedule is that tight? You’re not planning to stay in Hong Kong for a couple more days?”

As he spoke, the man subtly adjusted his posture, causing An Tong to sway slightly in his arms.

She turned her face, about to speak, when she unexpectedly saw Rong Shen’s thin lips press together. His gaze also settled once more on her face.

Focused, attentive, gentle, and faintly indulgent.

Looking at the curve of his lips, An Tong drifted off again.

Over the past four or five days, they had not made any further progress.

They still maintained the increasingly familiar contact of holding hands and embracing.

An Tong was not simply acting on desire at the sight of a handsome face. The main thing was... their first kiss had never been properly kissed, and that had remained a thorn in her heart.

“What are you looking at?”

Rong Shen’s thin lips curved faintly, and a lively interest ignited in the depths of his inscrutable eyes.

An Tong turned her face away and looked elsewhere, but she could not help biting the corner of her mouth as she peeked at his reaction from the corner of her eye. “Nothing. I’m going downstairs first... hm?”

She wanted to leave, or rather, escape this atmosphere that was making her heart race and her mind spin.

But the moment the girl moved, the man’s strong arms tightened around her back, pinning her firmly in his embrace.

His other hand caught her cheek and turned her face back, his low, husky voice threaded with a smile. “What’s downstairs that has you so eager to go?”

An Tong faced Rong Shen without moving. Her hands rested against the shirt over his chest, and she could even feel the vibration in his chest when he spoke.

At that moment, their noses were very close. Their breaths tangled invisibly, and if An Tong moved forward just one more centimeter, their lips would meet.

She pressed her lips together, her bright eyes looking deep into the man’s, and her mind went blank.

His prominent brow ridge, straight nose, dark eyes like ink, and thin, alluring lips...

All those features together formed the face of the man she liked.

An Tong slowly lifted her damp little hand and placed it against Rong Shen’s face, and some restless intention began to stir within her.

However, in matters like this, a man was rarely ever truly passive.

Just as An Tong hesitated, Rong Shen’s throat bobbed. With one arm around her back, he took her wrist with the other and placed her hand on his shoulder.

The instant the man bent down toward her, An Tong closed her eyes on reflex.

What came next was the cool softness of his lips pressing against hers.

An Tong thought that this first kiss had finally become perfect.

After all, she was a girl without much experience and had assumed that such rubbing of lips was what kissing was.

Until... his tongue slipped in, and her thoughts and reason were completely swallowed by confusion.

In truth, Rong Shen had no experience either, though he did possess the basics in theory.

For a kiss to turn into a deep one was also an action governed by a man’s instincts.

The End