Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In hindsight, this may have been a bad idea.

Maomao had been quite certain in the steps of her protocol, at first.

Step one: procure the foreign plant Hura crepitans, also known as the sandbox tree.

This had gone quite smoothly; she’d convinced Jinshi that the pursuit of the plant should be spared no expense – it was a particularly fascinating species of vegetation, one boasting a mouth-watering explosive quality that Maomao needed to get her hands on immediately.

She didn’t tell Jinshi about the explosive quality, of course, knowing he’d blacklist the plant from her inventory for eternity. That initial white lie was her first mistake, looking back.

Nonetheless, after spending a particularly busy few days helping create the perfect plant-based concoction to condition Jinshi’s hair to a celestial glow after his baths, he’d been happy to oblige her whims and send out some merchants to procure samples of the plant for her use. With a massive sprig twice her height sitting in a clay pot in the corner of her repurposed-to-a-scientific-laboratory shed, she’d been ready for her next step.

Step two: dissect every inch of the beautiful plant for study of all of its uses and properties, medicinal or otherwise.

And truly, this plant was a thing of beauty. Maomao could barely restrain herself from giving it a long, painful lick. Its bark was covered in sharp spikes, oozing poisonous tree sap that made her tongue tingle deliciously when she’d dripped it into her mouth. A few of the branches sprouted fist-sized fruit, thick-shelled and ripe for the picking. Inside those fruit, she knew was a world of heart-pounding danger. Because the true beauty and uniqueness of this plant was its ability to explode its fruits when ripe, spreading seeds in all directions, allowing it to proliferate widely.

Maomao could only imagine all the uses for this fruit – repurposed to spread airborne medicines, or poisonous gas, or even to be thrown as a weapon.

If she could only figure out how to experiment with it without triggering the exploding mechanism prematurely-

She’d been just giddy with all the possibilities.

And that led her to her final step.

Step three: see how far she can push the limits of the exploding fruits of her lovely sandbox tree.

Not much could go wrong, she’d thought. Sure, it was explosive – but she would take reasonable precautions to protect her eyes, she would keep the plant away from heat and would be particularly careful when dissecting the fruits. If some fruits do explode, she’ll clean up after herself and start again, detailing the appropriate notes to ensure she doesn’t repeat her mistake. As with everything she does, she’d approached her experiment logically, with a clinical detachment. This seemed the only correct path forward.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t considered one overbearing, clingy, and overly emotional factor into her equation.

So, when she’d accidentally triggered a loud, booming explosion of multiple fruits at once, connected through a string of wires and gunpowder as a proof of concept for a weapon capable of setting off staggered explosions, the factor was near enough to hear the commotion and barge in just in time to see her thrown to land into a messy heap. 

And now Maomao finds herself sitting half-sprawled in a puddle of soot, gray flecks of acrid ash clinging to each thread of fabric on her clothing and every hair on her skin, her backside throbbing from the rough impact against the wooden floor.

And her forgotten factor is currently very, very unhappy with her.

Jinshi doesn’t even say a word, at first, so she knows he’s angry. He approaches her quickly, grabs her arm roughly and jerks her to her feet. Maomao winces as she stumbles up, biting her tongue to keep from yelping at the uncomfortable stretch of the fresh bruises from her landing. Gaoshun stands guard in the background, blinking nervously at the mess in the room.

“Are you hurt?” Jinshi practically hisses, voice low, eyes narrowed.

Maomao winces again, but forces herself to meet his eyes head-on. There is a deep, potent frustration welling within, as if he’s barely restraining himself from yelling at her until he gets an answer. She wonders how much trouble she’s in.

“Just a little bruising, I believe,” Maomao replies evenly. “Nothing to worry about, sir.”

Jinshi stares at her for a moment longer, breathing in harsh, short breaths. And then, his eyes close, so tightly that his smooth skin crinkles into deep lines, and he exhales roughly.

“Then, pray tell,” he continues, eyes still closed, voice just a little shaky, now. “Why did this plant explode?”

Maomao swallows, arm still gripped tightly in Jinshi’s unyielding hold. “The sandbox tree is known for its explosive properties. I believe I may have contributed to the force of the explosion with the gunpowder.”

Jinshi’s eyes snap open, and his face goes red with fury. “And you didn’t think to tell me that I was purchasing an exploding tree when you made me get it for you?!”

Well. Jinshi is certainly yelling now.

Maomao lowers her gaze, shuffling her feet in discomfort as a few flakes of ash flutter down from her hair.  “I apologize for the mess. I will clean it at once. If anything was broken, I will make sure to repair it or find a replacement.”

“That’s not-” Jinshi cuts himself off mid-yell, sputtering. His grip tightens on her arm. “That’s not the problem. You could have seriously injured yourself; you lied to me and made me complicit in your own harm – what is wrong with you?”

Maomao blinks. “I don’t believe anything is wrong with me, sir. I was simply conducting scientific research. But, you are entitled to your opinion.”

“I am entitled- I am entitled to my opinion-” Jinshi sputters again, and now Maomao is certain she must be in trouble because he has never looked this angry before, and she forces herself to bite back a comment that might only make everything worse.

She remains quiet, quiet as Jinshi continues to glare at her furiously, as his brows crinkle together and fire melts in his pupils. She remains quiet as he forces himself to breathe in deep, harsh breaths, as he finally releases his grip on her arm.

“Go clean yourself up,” he snarls, “then come to my office. I will deal with your behaviour there.”

And with that, Jinshi turns around with a vicious swirl of his robes, and leaves with a pale Gaoshun in tow.

Maomao stares at the smooth, polished wood of Jinshi’s office floor under her knees, head bowed. She’d thought a bath and a set of fresh clothes would have eased the swirling coils of nervousness that had grown in her stomach after Jinshi’s promise to deal with her behaviour in his office, where the two of them are now, completely alone.

Unfortunately, the coils continue to gnaw at her insides. She knows the discomfort is simply a trick of her mind, the slight nausea a miscommunication between her brain and her gut. But it certainly feels as real as the still-aching bruises on the backs of her legs, her backside.

With every moment of stretching silence, every moment that Jinshi scratches a brush evenly upon parchment, writing something he hadn’t even bothered to look up from when she’d entered his office, her nervousness only grows. She doesn’t dare speak out of turn, not now, not even to voice an apology. So, she waits.

After what feels like an eternity, the scratching stops.

A voice like honey flows to her ears. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Maomao.”

Maomao. Her name again. It’s rare to hear it fall from his lips so casually. Somehow, it feels anything but casual in this moment.

She dares to glance up, to meet the cold expression on Jinshi’s face.

“I apologize-”

“No.”

Jinshi’s interruption cuts off her words mid-sentence, leaving her mouth flopping open like a fish. Jinshi had always been too lenient with her, his anger never long to last. This is certainly a new experience; she'll have to tread carefully.

Maomao closes her lips, swallowing roughly.

“You lied to me, took advantage of my fondness for you to get your hands on an extremely dangerous plant without me knowing the risks.” He continues, almost softly. “I did my research, you know, while you were cleaning yourself up. There is a reason the plant is so difficult to obtain. You knew that, and you had me get it for you anyway.”

Jinshi stands up, then, chair scratching loudly against his floor, creating an imposing figure separated from Maomao only by his desk. “Worst of all, you put yourself in serious danger, unnecessarily. You could have been maimed. So no, Maomao, you’re not getting away with a simple apology today.”

Maomao swallows again. She’s not sure what to say to make things better. Clearly, Jinshi doesn’t want an apology.

She concludes that all she can do is wait and see what he decides to do to punish her for her transgressions.

Maomao lowers her gaze once more.

Another beat of silence, and then footsteps. The hem of a silky, plum robe stops in front of her, hovers in the periphery of her vision.

Before she can predict what Jinshi might do next, she hears a rustle of clothing, and then the grip of a thumb and forefinger on her chin, lifting her face up.

Jinshi crouches in front of her, holding her face tightly, forcing her to meet his furious eyes. Except for a twitch of her upper lip, Maomao manages to keep her face neutral.

“I’m going to punish you.” He says simply.

Maomao feels a shiver travel down her spine.

She forces herself to respond. “I understand.”

“Do you know what kind of punishment is given to a servant that lies to their superior?”

Maomao lets out a soft breath, lips pursing. “It depends on the relationship between the subordinate and their master. Sometimes it could be extra labour, or reassignment to a lower position. For more severe lies it could be flogging, even execution.”

Jinshi hums under his breath, almost thoughtfully. “And which one do you deserve, do you think?”

Is he really asking her to decide? Maomao thinks, uncertain. She would prefer not to be executed. Reassignment would be the worst, considering that would mean her scientific laboratory and clinic would likely be taken away from her. Extra labour would be manageable but unpleasant, especially if she’s assigned to something particularly gruelling and for some indeterminate amount of time. Being beaten, especially with her battered body from earlier, could be quite unpleasant too.

She’s not certain how to respond. She’s not certain if her response even matters. If Jinshi is punishing her, who is she decide what the punishment would be?

In the end, she settles for the most respectful response. “I wouldn’t presume it’s up to me to decide, Master Jinshi.”

Junshi scoffs, fingers tightening against her chin. “Is that so? Where was this obedient girl earlier, when you were lying to me?”

Maomao remains silent. He’d already said he doesn’t want apologies. Aside from that, she’s uncertain what he could possibly want from her.

And then, as suddenly as he’d grabbed her chin, he lets her go, rising back up to his full height.

“Fine, don’t answer. It’s no matter.” Jinshi says sternly. “You’ll understand what will happen when you lie to me about your safety soon enough. Get up.”

Maomao obeys, legs shaking as she rises to her feet. She folds her hands together in front of her, meeting Jinshi’s eyes, nervousness boiling once more in her gut.

Slowly, a predator stalking his prey, Jinshi circles around her, ends up somewhere behind her, somewhere she can’t see him.

She can’t help the surprised gasp that tears out of her throat when two hands grip her hips tightly enough to bruise. Maomao forces herself to bite back any more noises, hands curling into fists as her mind runs wild with possibilities.

When he pushes her forward, walks her forcefully towards his desk, those possibilities fill with uncertainty and confusion, wondering at what Jinshi could possibly be planning.

With a final, hard shove from Jinshi’s hands, her hips meet the edge of his desk with a thud. A jolt of pain throbs over her pelvis as she falls over from the force of Jinshi’s push, hands dropping to the desk, palms flattening over smooth wood.

His hands leave her body, and the following moment of quiet fills only with Maomao’s harsh little breaths, wide eyes staring down at her hands on Jinshi’s desk as she processes her situation, a few strands of unruly hair falling into her face.

“Now, before I carry out your punishment, I must see your injuries for myself.” Jinshi speaks up from somewhere right behind her. “Since I cannot trust you when it comes to your safety and well-being, I need to make sure you weren’t lying about the severity of your fall from earlier.”

Maomao just continues to blink down on her hands, mind shockingly slow to catch up with what’s happening. She finds a certain jolt of excitement suddenly spears through her chest – excitement at this new, fascinating feeling of being unable to think straight, like the kind only brought on by the most potent and delicious of poisons-

And then, Jinshi resets her brain with three simple words.

“Lift your skirt.”

Maomao can’t stifle her sharp inhale. Slowly, she manages to look over her shoulder, to meet Jinshi’s gaze with uncertain eyes.

His gaze is still cold, unyielding. The fire of fury continues to burn deep in the depths of his eyes.

“Now, apothecary.” He says evenly, never breaking eye contact.

Back to just ‘apothecary’. Maomao faces forward, pursing her lips. One hand rises from the desk, shaking, grabs onto the side of her skirt. And then, she lifts the material, so, so slowly, exposing her ankle, the back of a single calf-

She stops.

The cool, still air of Jinshi’s office settles against her skin, raises little goosebumps. Her leg tenses, then relaxes, squirming in its spot under what Maomao is sure is Jinshi’s intense scrutiny. Based on the soreness she can pinpoint in the area, she knows he can see the bruise that stains the upper part of her calf from her earlier fall.

“I didn’t tell you to stop, did I?” Jinshi’s voice is a clear magnitude angrier, now. If the simple bruise had that effect on him, she starts to worry about how he’ll react when he sees the extent of her bruising.

Maomao’s thoughts feel muddled, chest constricting and body warming from head to toe. Somewhere in the back of her mind her consciousness screams about the indecency of the situation, that her well-being should be of no concern to him, but it’s a voice so distant she can barely hear it. That same hot, heady excitement from before pulses through her once more, the pure freedom of the lack of control, magnified by the rather delicious pain pounding under the battered skin of her bruises.

Her other hand reaches for the drooping side of her skirt, and Maomao begins to lift the material once more.

Gently, the hem of her skirt glides up the smooth, pale skin of her legs, every exposed inch of the marred reds and purples of her injuries eliciting angrier and angrier growls from behind her, making nervous sweat pool at the back of her neck. If she turns her head now, she’s sure the sight of Jinshi’s face would be downright terrifying in its fury.

With a deep, shaky breath, she lifts the rest of her skirt until her hem rests somewhere mid-way up her thighs, and then stops once again.

Lifting it any higher would expose the worst of the bruising on her bottom, and she would be lying if she didn’t admit she’s at least a little scared of how Jinshi might react at seeing those injuries.

Not to mention the pure humiliation of exposing herself like so, in a manner that feels far less clinical than it should, nothing but her thin undergarments to protect her decency.

Maomao hears a soft shuffle of clothing, and then Jinshi is standing close enough for his robes to brush against her bare legs.

“I don’t enjoy repeating myself.” Jinshi says coldly. Suddenly, Maomao feels a pinch, and sparks shoot from a bruise at the bottom of her thigh.

She tastes copper – she’d bitten her lip so hard to stop a surprised cry that she’d broken skin. She jerks forward against Jinshi’s desk in a useless attempt to escape his pinching fingers.

He pinches a little harder, and the pain turns so deliciously overwhelming that Maomao jerks the rest of her skirt entirely over her backside, pools the material at her waist in an attempt to appease Jinshi. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sir!”

“Didn’t I say I don’t want your apologies?” He snarls, still holding onto her throbbing bruise. He releases it, only to grab onto another one higher up, right at the bottom curve of her backside, eliciting a pathetically whiny cry she cannot hold back. “Just look at you, look at what you’ve done to yourself. ‘Just a little bruising’, you said? I’m tempted to consider that another lie.”

“No, no, it’s not a lie,” Maomao gasps, words flowing now that she feels the full intensity of the situation, the pain of Jinshi’s treatment as his pinch tightens. “Ow, it hurts-”

He heeds the plea in her tone, releasing her bottom. Maomao tries desperately to catch her breath, heat pooling in her pelvis, blood rushing to her bruises and the sensitive areas nearby.

Jinshi clicks his tongue. “Poor little Maomao, it’s about to hurt a lot more.”

Maomao hears rather than feels what happens next, at first, a loud crack echoing in the office.

And then, pain in the form of a handprint bursts against her backside.

Maomao falls forward from the unforgiving impact, chest landing on the wood of Jinshi’s desk, bending her over the edge of the table completely. She’s so shocked that her mouth falls open, but no sound comes out.

The next time he strikes her backside, she most certainly makes a sound.

“This seems like a fitting punishment, don’t you think? Your fall already did most of the work for me, anyway.” Jinshi says in a tone that is almost conversational, were it not of the bite of anger still present in his voice. He strikes – no, spanks – her again, like one would a spoiled child, and Maomao’s body burns with pain and humiliation and something unnameable. “It will be a while before you can sit without recalling what a bad girl you’ve been.”

Maomao cries out as his hand comes down again, then again, and again, over already painful bruises, her fingers curling into the fabric of the skirt she’s still holding up tightly enough to hurt.

Her last cry must have been especially broken, because he suddenly stops, the extinguished sound of skin-on-skin impact turning almost oppressive in its silence. And then, his fingertips brush so, so gently across her bruised backside that Maomao could almost imagine it’s nothing more than the wind.

Instead, her skin burns even hotter from the feather light contact than from any of the strikes.

She actually whimpers, a sound she never thought remotely possible to fall from her lips, and the heat boils somewhere deep in her pelvis as she squirms her hips against Jinshi’s desk.

His fingertips freeze, remain pressed lightly to her skin as his lungs stutter over a sharp inhale.

Lightly, he traces his fingertips across a bruise once more.

Maomao fully moans.

She tenses. Her face turns scarlet.

Well. This is unfortunate. Jinshi most definitely heard her. But if he thinks he’ll be getting anything else from her, he’s absolutely, sorely mistaken. As far as she’s concerned, any noise she’d made is nothing more than a reflexive response.

For the first time in her life, she is grateful she’s a woman. If she were a man, she’d be more than a little worried that a certain frog would be making its presence known between her legs right at this moment. Instead, there is a hidden pool of wetness she can no longer deny that hides perfectly between her thighs.

She’d always had a complex relationship to pain, much of it involuntary. It’s not her fault her body is reacting like this in the most inopportune of moments.

It has nothing to do with Jinshi. Nothing. Nothing at all.

“Look at me.” Jinshi’s voice is so, so low, but tinged with something heated.

Maomao presses her face to the desk below and scrunches her eyes shut for a petulant, childish moment.

“Apothecary. Look. At. Me.”

She exhales, a deep, shaky breath. The command in Jinshi’s tone is so potent that she can’t help but to obey.

She lifts her head, turning her face to look at Jinshi over her shoulder.

The raging flame in his eyes is no longer just fuelled by anger.

Then, Jinshi speaks, almost softly, a harsh contrast with the violence of his previous actions. “Pull down your undergarments for me, Maomao.”

A cracked, croaking noise of shock and disbelief pushes past her lips. Maomao thinks that she could just die.

“Master Jinshi,” The last shreds of Maomao’s sanity all come together to keep her voice from stammering. “This is indecent-”

“We’re about to find out just how indecent you are, you filthy, filthy girl.”

Oh, yes. Maomao has certainly died. Because Jinshi, Master Jinshi, the most infuriating, beautiful man in existence, did not just call her a filthy girl.

For the first time, she starts to understand all those men that would visit the Verdigris House, just a little – the way their eyes glaze over, how they make their way towards the courtesans as if in a trance – because Maomao, logical, inscrutable, difficult Maomao, reaches for the sides of her underwear.

And she slowly, carefully, pushes them down to her thighs.

The only thing that stops her from peeling them further down is the sudden, startling feeling of a string of something wet and hot sticking to her thigh-

And then her dawning horror at what she understands must be her arousal dripping down her leg snaps her out of her trance entirely.

Her thighs squeeze shut, trapping the soaked crotch of the undergarments between her legs as her gaze snaps back towards the desk in embarrassment, but it’s too late. Jinshi has seen the evidence of her wrongdoings, and she knows it because of the way he swears under his breath.

“Oh, Maomao,” he murmurs, “what am I to do with you now?”

Maomao only squeezes her legs together more tightly, so tightly that her thighs begin to tremble, so tightly that she doesn’t immediately notice when Jinshi’s fingers hook under the back of her undergarments, and shove them to her feet.

She gasps with an equal mix of shock and sudden, potent need, feet spasming as her underwear fall to only hang from one ankle, leaving her entirely exposed.

And then when Jinshi’s fingers swipe against the inside of her thigh, slowly, the need burns so hot that Maomao involuntarily jerks her hips towards his hand like a cat in heat.

Jinshi pulls back just far enough to avoid her center, fingers still hot on her skin.

“Look at what a mess you’ve made, dripping all over yourself,” he says, fingers smearing her arousal against her thigh, climbing higher, higher as she squirms, coating the digits thoroughly.

Maomao can’t help but whimper when Jinshi’s roving fingers suddenly pull away, just a hairsbreadth away from where she throbs for his touch.

And then, her pathetic little whine is cut off, because those same fingers push past her lips and stuff her mouth.

The taste of salted candy coats her tongue as his long, elegant fingers press deeper towards her throat, and her eyes snap up in disbelief. Jinshi’s face is already right there, hovering above her, watching her reaction closely.

“Tell me, do you taste as good as I’ve imagined?” He says, voice almost a whisper.

He’s imagined this?

Maomao’s eyes begin to water, just a little, as those fingers push down on the back of her tongue and stuff her so pleasantly full. She does taste good, she thinks – she gets the sudden urge to tell him that, but she can’t, not with her lips wrapped around his digits.

So, she does the next closest thing. Staring directly into his eyes, she sucks on his fingers.

Jinshi’s face contorts, a deep groan emanating from his chest as his fingers twitch inside her mouth. Maomao presses her tongue upwards, forces it between the digits, begins to lick herself clean off his skin.

A red-hot flush climbs up Jinshi’s neck, makes his breathing turn shallow. “You’re evil.”

Maomao blinks up at him, and even with those fingers still stuck between her lips, she smiles.

Jinshi scowls at her amusement.

“You think this is funny?”  He growls, and then his foot is wedging itself between her ankles, and he’s shoving her legs apart with a rough kick. “Such filthy behaviour from a servant. Looks like I must punish you for this, too.”

Then, his palm delivers a harsh, unforgiving strike directly to her cunt.

Maomao breaks. A shriek echoes throughout Jinshi's office, and she realizes distantly that it must have come from her.

She hopes desperately that nobody outside of the room heard her - the combination of pain and pleasure is unimaginable, a pounding heat exploding between her thighs, and the fingers in her mouth did nothing to stop her cry from piercing past her lips. The thought of someone coming across her in her current state sends heated tremors rushing through every part of her body.

She sucks on Jinshi's fingers again, hard, using them to center herself in her mess of sensations. When Jinshi cracks his palm across her cunt again, Maomao's legs try to jerk close reflexively, but he's having none of that. His foot hooks around her ankle, pulls her further open.

Jinshi grumbles something under his breath, something about taking her punishment like a good girl, and the next time he she feels a strike between her thighs, all she can do is just take it.

For a lost, delirious moment, Maomao thinks that the growing explosion of feeling between her thighs is rather similar to the explosion of the plant that had gotten her into this mess in the first place, but then Jinshi’s hand comes down on her cunt again, and again, and again, and-

Her cunt spasms with a sudden, blinding climax.

And Maomao, strong, stoic, unemotional Maomao, bursts into tears.

Jinshi’s strikes cease and his fingers leave her mouth as suddenly as her unexpected sobs begin to rack her body. 

Maomao doesn’t cry. Ever.

She’s not sure how to describe this sudden feeling of… release, the cathartic spill of emotions that pour from her bawls, from her dripping tears. Perhaps, something like freedom.

There’s not much she can still process, externally, the raging feelings inside of her bursting from every pore of her trembling skin. But when she does feel herself being moved, when she feels the press of a warm, sturdy chest to her cheek, it feels like comfort.

It may not be more than that, not yet. But right now, that’s all she needs. So, she buries her face in that chest, and continues to cry.

In the corner of his office, Jinshi sits on a small, comfortable sofa. Cradled in his arms, he holds his warm, trembling Maomao, buried in his chest. Soft little hiccups still squeak from her lips occasionally, but aside from that, her tears have mostly stopped. He leans down, carefully, her soft, messy hair tickling his nose as he presses a gentle kiss to the crown of her head.

He's finding that the soft kisses seem to calm her down, just a little, although he’s been too afraid to venture his lips anywhere beyond her hairline.

One of his hands is underneath her skirt, cradling her backside, rubbing away the soreness gently. As indecent as the gesture should be, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels more… intimate, in a manner more akin to caring for a loved one than anything improper. Besides, Maomao seems to enjoy the gentle motion of his hand, so who is he to pull away?

“Jinshi…”

Jinshi’s breath catches, for just a moment, his eyes travelling down to Maomao’s face, to where her mouth opens and closes with little breaths, pressed to his chest, where her eyelids flutter softly, half-open half-shut.

Jinshi. She called him Jinshi. Not sir, not master. Just Jinshi.

What a wonderful sound.

“Yes, my Maomao?” He murmurs in response, pulling her closer.

Her eyes open fully, then, trailing to his. She turns away from his chest, watching him, deep in thought. She says nothing more, but her cheek nuzzles back against his chest, almost imperceptibly. Her lips are stained with tears. Jinshi wipes them away with a thumb.

She shifts in response to his movements, just a little, then winces as the motion pulls on her bruises.

Quickly, her cheeks fill with colour, and her eyes flit away from his. Jinshi can’t help the little smile that graces his lips.

He knows how much his little cat indulges in all manner of pain, through poisons and sharp edges and burns. And although the blatant self-harm infuriates him to no end, he has a feeling it goes beyond simple scientific experimentation, with how hard she climaxed with his hand striking her cunt.

For a moment, Jinshi wonders if he could offer a safe environment for her to play with this craving for pain, a controlled hurt he can ensure causes no long-term harm, to replace her more self-destructive of tendencies.

Perhaps he’ll find more reasons to… punish her, then.

But he would also be lying if he said that today was all a game, that it didn’t start largely out of anger, out of fear that Maomao seriously hurt herself and would do so again unless he did something memorable to prevent her from putting herself in danger in the future. He wasn’t planning to take it this far. He wanted to scare her a little, embarrass her a little. But then she moaned, and who would he be if he didn’t give his beloved Maomao all the pain and pleasure she could ever want?

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The words fall out of Jinshi in a rushed, pained breath. He doesn’t even realize he’s speaking.

Maomao just blinks at him, a little furrow growing between her brows. He can’t help it – he leans down, pressing his lips to the furrow, pulling back only with the tension under her brow dissipates.

He doesn’t pull back far.

Jinshi’s forehead presses to Maomao’s and he looks directly into those large, beautiful doe eyes. “Caring about you is downright terrifying. Every day, I worry you will hurt yourself irreparably. I’m just so… scared.”

A moment passes, two. Then, a warm, calloused hand presses to his cheek.

“I understand.” Maomao says softly. “I will be more careful.”

Maomao has never been a woman of many words, and now is not an exception. But something about her tone holds so much more weight than any songs or ballads ever could. To him, it indicates that maybe, just maybe, she might one day start to accept his feelings for her. And her promise to be more careful means the world, coming from her.

So, that’s enough for him, that’s enough for now. She can take as long as she needs, a lifetime, even. He will always wait for her.

“Thank you, my Maomao,” he murmurs, presses another soft kiss to her brow.

Maybe he’s imagining it, but he thinks he sees a little smile climb to her lips.

“Will you hold me for a little longer?” She asks.

“Always.”

He doesn’t let her go all night.