Surrounded by Wolves
Jiang Wu watched his long fingers toying with the petals, caught the meaning behind his words, and understood everything at once. “You lied to me?”
Huo Qingzhi was completely unapologetic. “Otherwise, how would you have come home?”
He set the flower down and got up, walking over to the kitchen island. “Want a drink?”
“No.”
“Water, then?”
“I’m not thirsty.”
Huo Qingzhi, standing by the island, poured himself a drink anyway. His shirt cuffs were cinched at the forearm with those leather straps, impeccably dressed, his manner elegant and refined. No different from the man who had commanded everyone’s attention at the podium earlier, except that without his jacket, he looked a little more at home.
Furious and humiliated, Jiang Wu stormed over and grabbed his sleeve. “How could you lie to me like that?”
“Do you know how worried I was—” Her words abruptly stopped.
Huo Qingzhi looked at her reaction. “Worried about what?”
“About me?”
“No.” Jiang Wu shoved him, and he let himself be pushed back against the island, leaning there. The lines of his waist, chest, and abdomen became even more pronounced.
Jiang Wu was about to leave. But the moment she turned around, someone caught her wrist from behind again.
Huo Qingzhi set his glass down on the counter. The sound of the glass meeting the countertop echoed almost exactly like the sound of his pointer against the podium, not long ago. Without even moving his feet, he simply reached out and pulled her back!
Only after she was lifted onto the counter did she finally come level with his six-foot-two height.
The sweet wine, water glass, and flower-conditioning vessel cluttering the table came crashing to the floor in an instant, clattering and banging!
The sharp, jarring sound rang through the room as wine splashed across the man’s well-tailored trousers, soaking into a dark patch of fabric.
The sheer force of the impact made Jiang Wu instinctively draw her legs in. They happened to brush against his trousers before coming to rest against the cool leather of his belt.
Huo Qingzhi apparently found her legs to be in the way as well. His large hand caught her knee, stopping her from pulling away as he stepped closer, while his other hand locked around her waist and pulled her toward him!
The kind of closeness that made it seem as though he could pull her completely into his embrace. He held her firmly against the edge of the table, gripping her waist as he lifted her chin.
In the dim light, his eyes were like those of a wolf from the depths of the underworld. He simply looked at her for a moment. She still looked somewhat pitiful under his forceful hold, letting out a faint, unbearable whimper whenever the pressure became too much.
Yet she still hadn’t refused him. She hadn’t slapped him, hadn’t told him to get lost, hadn’t shown disgust or rejection. There was only a faint sheen of emotion in her eyes, making him want to crush her even more.
Huo Qingzhi laughed silently, his innate authority seeping from his bones. “Still the same question.”
“Do you hate me?”
“You—you pervert!” The chill she’d nearly forgotten over the past few days surged back in an instant. Jiang Wu pointed an accusing finger at the man who had been impeccably dressed and composed only moments ago. “Weren’t you perfectly fine just now? You tricked me into coming back, and then you—you…”
Huo Qingzhi really was like a teacher who wouldn’t let a student dodge the question and press on. “Answer my question.”
Jiang Wu turned her face away and said nothing.
Huo Qingzhi answered for her. “You saw that diary filled with all those filthy thoughts, and then you came across those things married couples use in bed.”
“And you still don’t hate me.”
“Even after you found out that, back then, I had already developed feelings for you in this very apartment.”
“You’re still perfectly willing to keep living here.”
Jiang Wu felt her blood rush backward again, a faint tremor spreading through every inch of her body. “You…”
“I’m filthy. I’m a bastard.” Huo Qingzhi lowered his head and moved closer to her. “I told you that.”
“So, what are you hiding from?”
The man who had been standing so refined and dignified at the podium moments ago had now taken off his glasses and pressed her down here, calmly admitting that he was filthy and a bastard.
The contrast between his public composure and his private self was so overwhelming that Jiang Wu still couldn’t stop herself from shrinking back; her delicate brows drew together. “Don’t you realize how frightening you really are?”
Huo Qingzhi couldn’t stand the soft, lingering tone in her voice. “You sound like you’re pouting.”
“I’ll teach you how to curse me in a way that might actually work.” Huo Qingzhi looked at her. “Say you hate me. Say you can’t stand me.”
“Say you never want to see me again. That seeing me makes you sick.”
“Say that you’ll never, ever forgive me for the rest of your life.”
The words were heavy—so heavy that even if they were placed directly in front of Jiang Wu, she wouldn’t be able to say them again.
Jiang Wu looked into the depths of Huo Qingzhi’s dark eyes, then shifted her gaze away. “You know I won’t.”
Huo Qingzhi lowered himself even closer, his voice dropping until it was little more than a breath. “How would I know?”
His warm breath slowly mingled with hers, lingering and intertwining. The meaning was unmistakable.
Jiang Wu tried to retreat, only to be yanked back into him!
In an instant, she was overwhelmed by his forceful possession of the moment, every inch of her caught up in him, pressed against the solid expanse of his chest and body.
His arms closed around her, making it increasingly difficult for her to breathe. But unfortunately, even this did nothing to ease the hunger that the impeccably dressed beast had been carrying all these days. So much so that he genuinely wanted to crush her to pieces in his arms.
Jiang Wu sensed what he intended and braced both hands against his chest. She heard a faint, cold scoff rumble from his chest.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Say you hate me.”
“Say you can’t stand me.”
While Jiang Wu remained silent, the man stared at her lips, which had refused to utter a single word, before pressing down over her again!
This time, it became much fiercer. His kiss became more intense, leaving Jiang Wu startled by its force. After that faint soreness came an endless numbness. Then it felt as though even her bones were being ground into powder, leaving her weak and limp.
He drew from her a soft whimper, as though she’d been bullied far too harshly. The force of his hold wrinkled her shirt-dress into layer upon layer of creases.
Her entire body seemed to be pressed against and softened by his searing warmth, melting beneath him.
His teeth suddenly caught her lip, drawing another muffled, breathy sound from her. His husky voice beside her ear carried a hard edge. “Say it.”
She still didn’t speak, but she looked almost pitiful now. Her eyes were filled with moisture, the corners flushed a delicate crimson.
Jiang Wu realized that she didn’t hate him. She simply couldn’t accept how intense his desire for her was. He was her “brother.” Things between them had already gone too far.
But desire was like a flood beast. Once a breach appeared, it would pour through it, and no matter how vast the waves became, they could swallow everything in their path.
Huo Qingzhi stared at the flush at the corners of her eyes, his fingertip brushing over the involuntary tears gathering there. Looking at how pitiful she seemed, he appeared to know exactly what she was thinking, and there wasn’t the slightest hint of him softening at all.
His hand remained at her side, hidden from view beneath the rumpled edge of her skirt, forcing her to admit what neither of them wanted to say aloud: that same dangerous pull existed within her, too.
Jiang Wu trembled violently at the touch. “Brother…”
Huo Qingzhi held her firmly, the force in his hand just as it had been that night in Dubai. “Ah Wu is a child who says one thing and means another.”
The faint calluses brushing against her skin stirred another wave of tingling tremors, like a wildfire racing across the plains, burning everything it touched.
“You said in class today that you don’t want apologies, explanations, or promises.”
“Then the teacher has no choice but to attend to you himself.”
“The teacher hasn’t even done anything yet. Why don’t you take a look at how much you’ve already given yourself away…”
The wildfire had burned all the way to the most sensitive place when Jiang Wu suddenly shuddered, her curled knees still firmly controlled in his grasp.
The sensation crept along her tense leg like a snake finding its way through the grass.
Elusive and unsettling.
She could no longer tell whether she was trying to escape the feeling or simply bracing herself against it.
And when he uncovered it, his touch slowly scraped across it without surprise. “I’ve actually been curious every time.”
“Ah Wu always acts as though she’s resisting me, but then secretly enjoys herself behind my back.”
Jiang Wu’s lashes trembled like butterfly wings beneath the roughness of his callused touch. Her entire body was enveloped beneath the man’s burning warmth, tangled together with him.
“You know what happened to one of my suits last time?”
Jiang Wu’s entire body felt flushed and swollen with heat.
His voice was right above her forehead. Jiang Wu clutched at his arm and shirt.
She was really trying to stop what his hand was doing, but even just his forearm was too thick for one hand to wrap around. She had to use both hands to hold him back.
Jiang Wu’s palms were filled with the man’s firm muscles and prominent veins, raised by the force he was exerting.
Huo Qingzhi stood there, utterly unmoved. “Calling Mom and Dad won’t help you today.”
“But saying you hate me just might.”
When the first person intrudes into a place where no one has been, every blade of grass and every leaf become extraordinarily tense. Any unfamiliar scent can stir up a great commotion.
The grass and trees trembled, the wind mourned, every sound becoming unusually distinct. So distinct that it felt as though a storm was about to descend upon this place, destroying everything before giving rise to something new.
Even the little stream trickling through the grass was stirred into greater turbulence by the increasingly abundant moisture in the air.
To Jiang Wu, it sounded as though even Mom and Dad could no longer control him. Her cheeks flushed crimson. After clinging to his shoulder and arm for a long while, all she managed to say, her voice blurred with a hint of tears, was, “You bastard brother.”
Even when he’d given her a safe word, she wouldn’t say it. Instead, she’d chosen a phrase that only made him want to torment her even more.
Huo Qingzhi listened to her words, dark currents surging beneath his eyes while his expression remained outwardly calm. He was thinking about how to tear her apart and knead her to pieces.
Some girls were simply like that. Proud and precious, unwilling to admit that they had surrendered themselves to a pleasure they knew was wrong.
Yet unconsciously provoking the other person to become harsher, stirring up his darker side so that they could secretly lose themselves in it. As though all the blame belonged to him.
She had done nothing wrong.
He was the bastard.
He was the filthy one.
He was nothing but a beast.
He laughed. In the dim room, that cold, heavy laugh raised goosebumps across the skin. The beast had lost control.
Almost at the same moment, a sharp cry rang out inside the room!
The dim room, which had carried a trace of warmth only moments before.
Huo Qingzhi had already tidied it up after returning, adding many new things. He had apparently been staying here for several days, and the room was filled with a vivid sense of life.
A layer of knitted fabric covered the table, tassels hanging from all four corners. At the very center stood a vase of carefully trimmed roses. Beside it were more flowers resting in a conditioning vessel, slowly opening.
The bright roses had been stripped of their outer mesh, revealing only the unopened buds. Fresh and inexperienced, yet obedient, they stood upright in the water-filled flower vessel, slowly stretching open their petals.
Some of the more stubborn buds that refused to open would be carefully coaxed apart by the man of the house himself.
Slowly unfolding them.
Breaking apart their resistance.
Until they finally yielded.
From the blooming roses in the vase, one could see the refined and elegant master of the house standing at the kitchen island. Shirt and trousers, his clothes perfectly arranged, not a single strand of hair out of place. At six-foot-two, his figure appeared even more imposing in the darkness.
In a gentle voice, he said, “Relax.”
“Try it.”
At first glance, they were almost impossible to see, but on closer inspection, the long, slender limbs of pale jade on either side of his trousers could be seen trembling continuously.
Clinging tightly to him.
Perhaps they weren’t trying to cling to him at all, but rather trying to push themselves away, resisting the surging heat he was giving her.
She had no way to do so. Her feet couldn’t reach the floor, and she couldn’t even kick him. She couldn’t summon enough strength.
The only thing she could do was brace herself against him, trying to create even the slightest bit of distance.
And he was that cruel.
He didn’t take it as resistance.
He took it as an invitation.
Even his neatly pressed shirt, on closer inspection, revealed that the shoulder and sleeve had been pulled into disarray, wrinkles scattered everywhere.
The cuff had been pulled loose as well, hanging from her arm.
And around his shoulders were two more arms, clinging to him, trying to escape the overwhelming torment coming from him.
It was as though every inch of her had been laid bare, leaving her with nowhere to hide and no secrets left.
His sharply defined knuckles pressed and moved with relentless precision.
Before, Jiang Wu had only thought that her brother’s hands were large, his fingers long, his tendons and bones beautifully defined, but she had never felt the length of every joint in those fingers.
Never felt the roughness of every thin callus.
Never even noticed the pulse of every vein.
But now, she could feel every one of them in places she had never imagined he could reach.
How could he do this?
Jiang Wu trembled violently, letting out a muffled sob as she bit down on his shoulder, but all she caught between her teeth was his shirt, making it impossible to bite properly.
She wanted to bite his neck, too, but she couldn’t reach. Her brother was simply too tall.
Even biting his shoulder required her to tilt her head up, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her whole body nearly forced open to accommodate the breadth of his frame.
So pitiful.
That was what Huo Qingzhi thought, yet there was little change in his expression. He looked almost like a good teacher tutoring a student right now.
Focused and relentless, he continued with the lesson at hand.
The first rose unfurled quickly. The stem trembled and shook like a sieve, frightened yet instinctively burrowing into the arms of the person who felt safest.
Only to find herself vulnerable the moment she sought refuge there.
That warm refuge was no paradise. It was no sanctuary at all—it was a hungry wolf’s den.
Whenever she was most vulnerable, it would only bite down harder.
Faced with such a contradictory choice, a girl experiencing desire for the first time was nearly driven into a state of confusion.
Clinging to him, she broke down into soft sobs. “I hate you. I hate you…”
Drip, drip.
Water fell from the edge of the island counter. The wine that had been knocked over must have spilled across the surface and begun dripping down.
Huo Qingzhi lowered his eyes, a dense darkness gathering in their depths. His other hand came down with a sharp smack. The piercing sound mingled with her pained cry.
“You stayed silent for so long, waited until you had enough, and now you remember the safe word?”
“What does that mean, baby?”
“You hate me now that you’ve had your fill?” Huo Qingzhi suddenly lifted her from the island counter with one arm.
The sudden sensation of weightlessness made Jiang Wu’s heart drop. She grabbed him, but she had no strength left. Caught between taut nerves and the trust she had in him, she could only let him carry her wherever he wanted.
Huo Qingzhi didn’t go far. He simply sat down on the sofa, his fingertips lingering against her as he regarded her with that utterly unruffled expression.
“There’s another one.”
Another pair of suit trousers.
Jiang Wu refused to look at them. She wanted to get down, but the hand around her waist remained firmly locked in place.
“I want to get down.” Her voice was soaked through with tears, as though one squeeze would make them spill over.
“Where are you going?” Huo Qingzhi studied her quietly. “Are you going to hide from me again, Jiang Wu?”
As he spoke, he reached over and took one of the newly opened buds from the flower vessel beside them. He gently pried it open.
Jiang Wu couldn’t form a proper response. The moment she opened her mouth, only a strange sound came out.
“Still going to hide?”
“Still think I’m frightening?”
Huo Qingzhi watched her say nothing. “Then I suppose you haven’t learned your lesson.”
“No…”
A rose would take time to open on its own, but if it were submerged in water, allowed to drink its fill, then carefully coaxed open, it would open much faster.
It would slowly surrender and unfurl itself, and its fragrance would linger on the fingertips and in the palms.
By the end, Jiang Wu no longer knew what was what. All she could do was clutch his shirt, bury her face in the hollow of his neck, and sob as she repeated the answers to the questions he kept forcing her to answer.
“I won’t hide anymore.”
“I’m not afraid anymore.”
Then Huo Qingzhi continued pressing her. “So, does that mean Ah Wu was wrong?”
“For something that could have been settled at home, you abandoned your husband and child and ran away from home?”
Jiang Wu fell silent, and he immediately became stern.
“Yes. Yes.”
Huo Qingzhi asked, “Didn’t I tell you there would be consequences?”
Jiang Wu sniffled, her voice trembling. “Yes.”
He didn’t give her any time to react. A sharp smack suddenly rang through the dim room. A sudden sting at the side of her thigh, waist, and hip startled a cry from Jiang Wu.
Her voice immediately trembled with the shock of it.
“I’ve finished saying it.” Huo Qingzhi’s palm pressed against her waist and hip. “So how are you supposed to apologize?”
Jiang Wu faintly sensed what kind of apology he was demanding without saying it outright. This reminded her of when they were children, whenever she had done something wrong and climbed onto her brother’s lap to say:
“Wenni knows she was wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Brother. Don’t be angry.”
“If Wenni does it again, Brother can punish me.”
Even the most vulnerable part of her was still firmly under his control. The hand resting there was warning enough. The moment Huo Qingzhi moved his hand, a cold draft swept past.
Before it could even come down, Jiang Wu hurriedly spoke. “Ah Wu knows she was wrong.”
“I’m sorry, Brother.”
“Don’t be angry anymore.”
“I told you last time, didn’t I? You’re not allowed to hide from me.” Huo Qingzhi began seriously settling the score. “You went away on a business trip without even telling me?”
His low, husky voice sounded together with another sharp smack. “Ah Wu really has been a very naughty girl.”
Jiang Wu let out another embarrassed little cry. “Don’t!”
Her voice weakened. “Don’t do this.”
Huo Qingzhi asked, “Besides ‘don’t,’ what else?”
“There’s also…” Jiang Wu had known since childhood what he liked to hear. In broken phrases, she said, “I won’t keep things from you. I won’t leave without telling you again.”
“What happens if you hide something from me again?”
Jiang Wu said nothing.
Huo Qingzhi told her, “Hide something from me again, and there will be consequences.”
He gave two light pats against her hip in warning. “Understand?”
Jiang Wu’s body shuddered, her eyes glistening with tears; she whispered, “I understand.”
There was no emotion to be read in Huo Qingzhi’s expression, and his hand around the heart of the rose still hadn’t loosened.
Pressed against the delicate depths, it shifted slightly, brushing against the places it had found twice before.
Jiang Wu’s lashes trembled as she tried to turn away, but she could feel his body pressing closer. His thin lips brushed against hers, and his deep, magnetic voice praised her.
“Don’t hide. Good girl.” Then he told her, “Then there’s a reward waiting for you.”
He had been thinking about it for a long time. He had been wanting to give her a proper reward for a long time.