Lu Zihao felt so confused at Long Jinjing’s outburst. He followed her out of the kitchen and pulled her arm to stop her. She glared at him. After restraining his own temper, he was able to coax her to tell him the reason why she became so mad at him.
“I feel like you think that money can solve everything! That you can just pay me in order to agree with whatever you want. I don’t need your money, Nikolai. I don’t love you because you’re rich. I have my own money. I can earn my own money!”
His expression turned ugly after listening to her. He was filled with disbelief at the way her brain made up this kind of ridiculous thoughts.
“What the fuck, woman?! I never thought of you that way, like a whore I’m paying to fuck! And you’re making me sound like a sugar daddy! How?! Why?! Jinjing, what the fucking hell?!”
Long Jinjing’s eyes seemed to regain some clarity. She flushed and stammered, “I…uhm, Nikolai…I didn’t mean it. I just…I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m overreacting like this.”
He continued staring at her as if looking at an exotic creature that was beyond his comprehension.
Her lips trembled. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “I think…I’m too stressed out lately. I haven’t really processed everything that you’ve shown and revealed to me yet about your, uhm, you know, your secret identity and all that.”
She opened her eyes again and looked at him with a complicated expression. There was sadness, worry, fear, guilt, confusion, and of course, love.
“S-sorry, Nikolai. I didn’t mean to…y-yell at you.” She covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
Lu Zihao’s body moved on its own before he could fully process what was happening. He already grabbed and pulled her into his tight embrace. He rubbed her back, comforting her as she sobbed on his chest, quickly wetting the front of his shirt. His mind, however, continued figuring out what was wrong with her. Then he understood.
His huge revelation should have shocked her. Contrary to his expectations, she surprisingly took everything well. Too well, in fact. She didn’t react the way he first thought and accepted everything with little to no rejection. She hadn’t been exactly calm but there was no indication that she was affected by his revelation too much.
It seemed that he was wrong in thinking that everything was fine with her after knowing about the true nature of his work at Shadow Winds. He sighed and pressed his lips on the top of her head.
She must have been putting off thinking about his revelation to the point that the stress piled up inside her until everything exploded today. Her outburst about money really didn’t have anything to do with the root cause of why her emotions were all over the place like this.
“Don’t apologize,” he murmured to her. “It’s not your fault.”
Her arms wrapped around his waist.
They hugged like that for what felt like forever. Then he made her look at him. His fingers wiped away her tears. She looked pitiful, tired and embarrassed, but Nikolai still thought that she was damn sexy. Something below his belt started to stiffen but he forcefully tamped his desire down.
“Let’s just sleep tonight. You’re tired. I’m tired. We both need to rest.” He rubbed her soft lips with the rough pad of his thumb. “I know that you must have many questions that you want to ask me but are hesitating. Ask away. If I can answer a question, I will. If not, don’t overthink it. I might not answer something if I deem it unsafe for you to know.”
She nodded but her mouth pouted, making him want to kiss her, devour her, but even someone like him sensed that the atmosphere wasn’t quite right for him to seduce her. The woman clearly needed some time to process his revelation. And by hell, he was going to give it to her even though he didn’t usually have this much patience for any woman he fucked before.
“I wanted to make our dinner date tonight special but I…ruined it.”
Lu Zihao couldn’t help it. He chuckled.
“You’re laughing at me.” Her pouting lips elongated even more.
His chuckled turned to full-blown laughter. He lowered his head and gave her pouting lips a smacking kiss. His hand also gave a playful smack on her butt. Then he realized that his other hand was still holding the belt that the Spaniard chose. He curled his lip in annoyance (and jealousy) and tossed the belt behind his woman’s back. Such an eyesore, that ugly leather belt.
(The leather belt: What did I ever do to you? Wuwuwu!)
Then he suddenly carried his woman like a princess, making her yelp in surprise. They showered together, and unable to stop themselves, they still ended up having sex in the bathroom.
Later, they lay together on the bed naked in each other’s embrace. Lu Zihao still looked like he had a lot of energy to spare but Long Jinjing was utterly exhausted after their bathroom play earlier. He didn’t seduce her again. At least, not for the rest of tonight.
Still, she was unable to fall asleep. Her thoughts and emotions remained in turmoil. It was only now that she realized how much his shocking revelation about Shadow Winds was really stressing her out. There were many questions that she wanted to ask him but didn’t know how to start.
In the end, she could only ask about what he did earlier today. “Did you catch the accomplices to the mall bombing incident?”
“Caught some. Not all of them. Still looking for the others.”
“Oh.” She ran her hand over his big, hard, scarred chest. It twitched under her touch. “You don’t have any wounds or bruises on your body. I’m glad.”
“Hm. Don’t worry. Those accomplices are just lackeys who can’t even compare to a finger of Shun or Robin, much less me.”
“But still be careful.”
“Okay.”
Surprisingly, it was Lu Zihao who fell asleep first. Long Jinjing watched his scarred, handsome face.
Then at that moment, she finally figured out why she felt so bothered by René Alejandro earlier.
“He feels similar to you,” she whispered to the sleeping Lu Zihao but he didn’t hear her.
