Chapter 2 Busted at the Club.

All the way home, I was too numb to care about the curious glances thrown our way. Only one thought kept looping through my mind: I’m dead. I’m so dead this time.

The silence inside the car was suffocating. Old Chen, our driver, knew his boss all too well. Recognizing that shit was about to hit the fan, he had raised the privacy partition early on, trapping Song Ci and me in our own claustrophobic little world. I curled into the corner, swallowed whole by his oversized suit jacket, looking like a delinquent middle schooler waiting to be picked up by her parents.

Beside me, Song Ci sat with his eyes closed, his long, slender fingers tapping a steady, rhythmic pattern against his knee. I knew that habit inside and out: he was thinking, and his patience was wearing dangerously thin.

“Song Ci…” I ventured timidly.

He ignored me completely.

“…Hubby…” I lowered my voice, dripping as much sweetness into it as humanly possible.

His fingers stilled. Opening his eyes, he turned to stare at me, the streetlights flickering past his face and casting his features in sharp, unforgiving angles.

“Oh, so now I’m your husband?” His voice was raspy, laced with a bite of mockery. “I thought you were enjoying yourself back there, being called ‘gorgeous’ by a kid half your age.”

My heart skipped a beat. Of course. He’d seen every single thing.

“I just went out to unwind a little! Staying home every single day is turning my brain to mush!” I gritted my teeth, trying to defend myself.

“Unwind?” He let out a cold, humorless chuckle. Reaching over, he gripped my chin, forcing me to look directly into those dark eyes behind his glasses. “Dressing like *this* to unwind? Letting another man lay his hands on your waist is what you call unwinding?”

His grip was tight enough to bruise. “He was just trying to keep me from falling!”

“Niannian.” He used my full name, his tone dropping to absolute zero. “Do you think I’ve been spoiling you too much?”

The alcohol mixing with a wave of indignation made my temper flare up.

“Spoiling me?! You call this spoiling me?! I can’t eat this, I can’t drink that, my bedtime is ten p.m., and you even dictate what I wear! Song Ci, I’m a human being, not your damn pet!”

“So normal young people…” The corners of his mouth twitched upward, his voice dropping into a dangerously low register. “…go to bars to pick up college boys?”

I lifted my chin stubbornly. “So what if I do? He’s younger than you, he actually knows how to sweet-talk me, and compared to you…”

“Mmph.”

The rest of my sentence was cut off. He leaned down and captured my mouth in a brutal, ruthless kiss. There was nothing romantic about it, it was pure punishment. Fierce, relentless, and leaving me zero room to pull away.

Only when I was completely out of breath did he pull back slightly, his hot breath fanning across my flushed face. “Compared to me? Better than me?”

The composure in his eyes was utterly gone, replaced by a wild, possessive fire that terrified me. I shut my mouth real quick.

He let out a quiet scoff, releasing my chin before calmly adjusting his tie. “We’ll finish this at home.”

—

The moment the car pulled into the garage, Song Ci scooped me up into his arms. Any resistance on my part was utterly pointless. The elevator doors slid shut, ascending straight to the penthouse. The front door clicked open, then slammed shut behind us.

He tossed me onto the bed, the mattress bouncing lightly beneath me. Before I could even scramble up, his imposing frame loomed over me. He yanked his tie loose, unbuttoning his shirt row by row. The polite, dignified professor from the daytime was completely gone. Standing over me was a man pushed past his absolute limit.

“Song Ci… just calm down…” I scrambled backward until my back hit the headboard.

“I am perfectly calm.” He removed his glasses, setting them on the nightstand. Without the lenses shielding them, his dark eyes were so deep they sent a shiver down my spine. “Niannian, when you break the rules, you take the punishment.”

The entire world flipped upside down. That night was so excruciatingly long that I genuinely began to suspect Song Ci was paying off three whole months’ worth of pent-up restraint all in one go. By the time the faint morning light peeped through the window curtains, I was too exhausted to lift a finger, my voice raspy as I sobbed out a plea:

“Song Ci… I can’t anymore… Didn’t you say… no staying up late?”

What time was it even? This wasn’t staying up late, this was a endurance marathon!

His movements paused for a split second. A bead of sweat dripped from his nose, landing warm against my skin. He looked down at me, his voice heavily laced with dark satisfaction:

“Consider this the price for being a bad girl.”

—

When I finally woke up, it was already late the next afternoon. My entire body felt like it had been dismantled and put back together wrong, especially my waist, which felt entirely detached from the rest of me.

“You’re awake?”

A familiar voice sounded from the side. I instantly squeezed my eyes shut again, a single thought echoing in my mind: Maybe I should just fake my own death.

I cracked one eye open to sneak a peek.

Song Ci was sitting in the armchair beside the bed, holding a book. Dressed immaculately with every hair in place, he looked every bit the distinguished professor straight out of an Ivy League lecture hall.

Only I knew just how utterly unhinged that polished exterior had been last night.

Seeing me move, he set his book aside, poured a glass of warm water, and gently helped me sit up. As the warm water trickled down my parched throat, I felt as if every cell in my body was slowly coming back to life.

“Song Ci, you absolute beast,” was the very first thing out of my mouth.

He merely raised an eyebrow, not bothering to deny it. Instead, he reached out and tenderly brushed back my messy hair. “Still got enough energy to curse at me? Sounds like you’re recovering just fine.”

“You…”

“Are you hungry?” he interrupted in that maddeningly calm voice of his. “There’s porridge downstairs. I’ll bring you a bowl.”

Without waiting for my response, he turned and walked out, leaving me no chance to fire back another shot.