The three-day conference had just wrapped up. Because of Song Xinya's arrival, Qin Yuhe made a last-minute change to his plans: he would not head back to Jingbei that day, and would spend the night at a hotel in Hebei instead.
His assistant, who had no idea what was going on, stood outside Qin Yuhe's hotel room with two large rolling suitcases, and rapped three times on the door.
"President Qin, the plane is about to take off. We need to head out now."
Qin Yuhe was in the middle of kissing the woman beneath him.
He was unruly and unrestrained, catching her tongue between his teeth, his nibbles light on the soft fullness of her lips.
Their lips tangled together. The start was gentle, like taking the first bite of a dish of food you'd been craving: you could hold back the hunger before you tasted it, but one small bite did nothing to sate your longing - it only stoked a ravenous, deeper craving. Soon, that soft, tentative peck erupted into a fierce, heated kiss.
He explored every corner of her mouth, his tongue pressing heavy against hers. The hotel room filled with the slick, wet sounds of their clashing lips and tongues, tangled with the drag of breath and shared, warm saliva.
Those sounds echoed in both their ears and their minds, over and over, loud and thick with unmistakeable heat.
Outside the door, the assistant frowned in confusion. "Huh? Why isn't President Qin answering me? Is he not in his room?"
He knocked again, rapping three more times, then three more after that.
"President Qin?"
"President Qin?"
"President Qin?"
Still no response.
The assistant mumbled to himself, "President Qin can't be inside. He must have stepped out, right?"
Separated only by the thin hotel door, the light, soft dress the woman had been wearing was tossed up into the air by Qin Yuhe's hand. It fluttered for a moment like a beautiful, blooming flower before settling on the carpeted floor.
Song Xinya's long legs were pale, cool to the touch, and as smooth as silk.
With no clothes between them, she felt the warm, solid weight of his skin directly against hers. He carried the quiet, steady scent of cedar trees deep in a forest, a faint, rich, woody aroma. His skin was soft to the touch, but under it lay sharply defined lines: lean, powerful muscle and clean, sharp bone structure, all taut and strong.
Song Xinya loved the way Qin Yuhe touched her. His fingers were long, like raindrops falling soft and sure, his body heat and the steady pressure of his hands sinking into her soft, warm, slick skin, making her feel utterly, perfectly at ease.
Outside the door, the assistant had reached a new conclusion. "President Qin definitely isn't in there."
"Then where did he go?"
"Why didn't he tell me if he left?"
"If we miss the flight, Tyrant Qin is definitely going to chew me out, the poor overworked drone that I am."
He grumbled on and on, then pulled out his phone and dialed Qin Yuhe's number.
The ringtone blared clearly from the other side of the door.
The assistant yelped in surprise. "Wait a minute - President Qin is in there after all!"
Qin Yuhe's voice drifted through the door, clear as day. "I'm very much in here. And I heard you call me a tyrant."
The assistant's legs nearly gave out under him, and he started slumping toward the floor.
He had to grab the wall with both hands to steady himself.
"President Qin, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that."
"Judging by how smoothly you rambled that out, you not only meant it, you've called me that behind my back plenty of times before."
Sweat dripped down from Qin Yuhe's temple, slid along his jaw, and fell drop by drop onto Song Xinya's collarbone.
The hand that had been curled tight around her waist pulled away. He lifted it to run his fingers through his hair, and the defined, flexing muscles and lines along his forearm looked powerful, and thick with unspoken desire.
His sharp, thin eyes caught the glow of the crystal chandelier overhead, and his face, with its deep, striking features, looked all the more devastatingly handsome and sexy when glistening with sweat, just like this.
Song Xinya was completely lost in his charm, her gaze dazed and adoring. Her damp, messy long hair stuck to her cheeks, and her eyes as well as her lips glistened with a soft, rosy, dewy sheen, as sweet and tender as a ripe, juicy peach.
Outside the room, the situation was the total opposite.
One single line from Qin Yuhe left the assistant so weak in the knees that even bracing both hands against the wall couldn't save him. He collapsed onto the floor like someone with severe polio.
"President Qin, please forgive me!"
"That's a job for God. My job is to send you to meet Him."
The assistant immediately held his own hands up to his neck. "President Qin, let me perform a ritual suicide to atone for my sins!"
He swiped his hand across his neck, making a gushing sound with his mouth: "Splat—"
Then he flopped face down onto the ground. "Ahh, I'm dead."
Qin Yuhe said, "Get out."
The assistant scrambled to his feet in a flash, grabbed two large suitcases, and bolted down the hallway. "Heaven above, thank you President Qin for sparing my life!"
He ran all the way from the 18th floor down to the 8th without even remembering to take the elevator. Driven entirely by his overwhelming will to survive, he didn't even feel tired the whole time.
The second he realized he was completely safe, the exhaustion from his mad dash came crashing over him like a tide. He tossed the two big suitcases aside, then stretched out full-length on the floor like a starfish.
He was filled with deep emotion, and four words drifted through his mind: It's good to be alive.
After he caught his breath, three little question marks popped up above the assistant's head.
If President Qin was inside the room, why didn't he answer his calls?
Why did President Qin suddenly decide not to head back to Beijing?
And President Qin's voice sounded strange just now—why was he a little out of breath?
