After more than two months apart, all the longing across screens, all the anguish of late nights when they could not touch, exploded in that dark room.
Yuan Su kissed her recklessly, almost stealing all the oxygen from her lungs.
He knew he was losing control.
He wanted to restrain himself, to be gentle. He did not want her to think he had crossed mountains and oceans just for this fleeting pleasure.
Pu Yu's soft white cotton-linen dress had already been rumpled beyond recognition in their earlier entanglement, slipping halfway off her shoulders and exposing a broad expanse of porcelain-smooth skin.
Her chest rose and fell sharply as she panted softly. A wet haze veiled her eyes as she stared at him, looking both hurt and bewildered.
Sweat trickled from Yuan Su's forehead down the bridge of his straight nose.
It landed right on her collarbone.
A voice kept warning him in his mind:
Respect her. Give her the best.
Just as he took a deep breath, braced his arms on either side of her, and prepared to get up and collect himself-
Pu Yu reached out, fumbling frantically in the darkness, and caught hold of something.
It was the drawstring at the waist of his trousers.
She did not pull hard. She merely held it lightly.
Yet Yuan Su stopped moving away.
The moonlight was too dim for him to make out her expression. All he could see were her eyes, bright and wet, looking up at him.
Her hand was still there.
Holding that drawstring.
She was trembling.
He could feel the tremor traveling from her fingertips all the way to her wrist.
But she did not let go.
Instead, she held the drawstring and pulled it down, little by little.
He did not move.
He simply watched