"Let you relax a little," Yongye said with an easy smile. "It's our first time working together, after all. Making things too tense won't do either of us any good."
His right hand slid from her shoulder down the side of her arm and stopped inside her wrist. His fingertip pressed a point where the meridians met, then gave it a gentle twist.
Daisy's body jerked, and a muffled groan escaped her throat despite her effort to stifle it.
"Don't do that... Just... get to it!"
"What's wrong?" Yongye's smile was as bright as the neon outside the window. "You said you'd pay any price. You should keep your word."
Daisy closed her eyes and forced down the words I can't take this just as they reached her tongue.
Outside, Manhattan's night sky darkened from deep blue to black. Streetlights and the cold glow of office towers wove flecks of gold across the glass facades.
The living room lights had been dimmed. Only the floor lamp beside the sofa remained on, casting a warm yellow halo against the wall.
Yongye's fingertip still pressed the point inside her wrist, steady and precise. The warmth drew into a thin thread and traveled up her Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, through the crook of her elbow, the front of her shoulder, and her collarbone before reaching the junction of meridians deep in her chest.
Daisy's breathing fell out of rhythm. Her chest rose and fell far more sharply than before, and she gave him a resentful look as she tried to goad him.
"Do you... even know how...?"
"Know how to what?" Yongye lowered his head close to her ear, his voice soft and low. "I like to take things step by step. Courtesy first, force later. Do I strike you as the kind