Chapter 137: Not Yet

Hanchuan started to move away, but Zhiyi’s arms tightened around his shoulders before he could leave the bed.

He stopped immediately and looked down at her. "You have to let me go," he murmured against her mouth.

Her grip loosened reluctantly. "Briefly."

The warning in the single word made him smile.

Hanchuan kissed her before straightening. "I’ll hurry."

Zhiyi’s attention remained on him while he removed the rest of his clothing. There was no embarrassment between them after seven years together, but the warmth in her eyes still made his pulse quicken.

She knew every scar on his body. She had touched most of them in the dark, listening while he told her about injuries he would have hidden from anyone else. Nothing about him was new to her, yet she watched as if familiarity had only given her more reasons to want him.

Hanchuan returned to the bed before the brief separation could become another objection.

Zhiyi reached for him immediately.

Her palm settled against his chest while her other arm slid around his waist and drew him down. The first touch of her bare skin against his emptied his mind of everything except the woman beneath him.

Hanchuan buried his face against her neck.

For the first time since the Heat began, nothing beyond their bedroom mattered.

The city could survive without Zhiyi for an hour. Director Han could wait for another calculation, and the water model could continue operating without her watching every number change.

Hanchuan had already given the world more of her than he wanted to surrender.

This time belonged to them.

He kissed the place beneath her ear and felt her head tip back. Zhiyi relaxed beneath him before one leg curved around his waist and pulled him closer.

The welcome nearly stripped away his remaining patience.

Hanchuan entered her slowly despite the need tightening through him. Her breath caught, and her fingers pressed into his back while her body adjusted around him.

He stopped before joining them completely.

Zhiyi opened her eyes and found his face. Her hand moved to his cheek, and the tenderness of her thumb crossing his skin made restraint more difficult than desire ever could.

Then she lifted her hips and drew him fully inside her.

Hanchuan closed his eyes.

For one breath, he remained still above her. The pleasure of being surrounded by her was almost secondary to the way she held him, one hand against his face and the other around his back as though she wanted every part of him close.

Zhiyi touched her forehead to his. "You can move," she whispered to him, and the quiet permission undid him.

Hanchuan kissed her as he began. The first slow movement drew a breath from her mouth, and the next made her fingers curl against his cheek.

He watched pleasure replace the tension she had carried throughout the day. The line between her eyebrows softened, and her lips parted each time he moved deeper.

She was still Zhiyi. Still the woman who could discover an error while everyone else remained convinced the numbers were correct. Still the woman who could reduce a citywide crisis to a problem small enough to solve.

But none of that stood between them now.

She wasn’t protecting anyone or correcting anything.

She was completely focused on him.

Hanchuan shifted his weight and felt her react beneath him. The soft sound she made traveled through his entire body.

Her fingers tightened at the back of his neck.

He repeated the movement, and Zhiyi drew him closer until her mouth reached his shoulder. The kiss she pressed there sharpened when pleasure caught her by surprise.

His control frayed.

Hanchuan slowed before it disappeared entirely, lowering his forehead to hers while he fought to steady his breathing.

Zhiyi noticed the change. Of course she did. "You slowed down," she complained softly.

"I don’t want this to end yet," he replied.

Her eyes moved past his shoulder toward the clock.

The sight awakened an immediate protest inside him. He didn’t want numbers in the bed with them. He didn’t want her thinking about reports or calculating how many minutes she needed to recover before returning downstairs.

Hanchuan started to shift, intending to block the display.

Zhiyi’s gaze returned to him before he could. "We can exceed the time."

The words were simple, but what they gave him wasn’t.

She wasn’t allowing him to steal another hour. She was choosing to give it to him, placing something she wanted above every unfinished task waiting beyond the bedroom.

Hanchuan’s hand moved into her hair. "Then I’m keeping you."

Her arms tightened around him. "You already are."

The answer destroyed his restraint.

Hanchuan kissed her deeply as his body found a faster rhythm. Zhiyi followed him without hesitation, meeting every movement while the hand at the back of his neck held him close.

The filtered air kept the bedroom cool, but heat gathered between them. Hanchuan touched her wherever he could reach, unwilling to allow even a narrow space to remain between their bodies.

He wanted everything she gave him.

Every uneven breath. Every movement of her hands across his back. Every quiet sound she made against his mouth.

Zhiyi’s control began to slip.

Her face turned into his neck, and her fingernails pressed into his skin. Hanchuan welcomed the marks. They proved she had stopped holding part of herself away from the moment.

He felt pleasure gathering inside her before his name escaped against his throat.

One hand moved between them.

The first touch made her arms close around him. Her lips pressed against his neck, and the sound she made there belonged only to him.

Hanchuan kept moving.

Pleasure overtook her with enough force that her body tightened around him. He held her through the first tremors, feeling every one of them move through her.

The sight of Zhiyi lost in his arms carried him past the last point of restraint.

His rhythm broke as release moved through him. Hanchuan lowered his face against her shoulder and held her tightly enough that nothing could have pulled them apart.

For several seconds, his entire world narrowed to the woman beneath him.

The city disappeared. The shelters disappeared. Even the heat waiting beyond the protected walls ceased to matter.

There was only Zhiyi.

Hanchuan remained above her until he trusted his breathing enough to move. Then he shifted onto his side, bringing her with him instead of allowing their bodies to separate completely.

She settled against his chest.

The ease of the movement affected him almost as much as everything that came before it. Zhiyi belonged there without needing to be guided, her cheek resting above his heart and one leg still tangled with his.

Hanchuan wrapped both arms around her.

He had spent 27 days constructing places strong enough to keep her alive. Concrete, cooling systems and decades of supplies could protect her body.

This was what he wanted to preserve inside them.

The quiet warmth of her skin against his. The way she touched him without needing anything except the reassurance that he remained near. The certainty that, for at least a little while, the woman he loved was safe enough to forget the world.

Her fingers drifted across his shoulder and stopped over one of the marks left by her nails. "I scratched you," she said, as concern entered her voice immediately.

Hanchuan caught her hand before she could pull away. "I liked it."

Zhiyi raised her head and searched his expression. He smiled and kissed her fingertips, removing the concern before it could settle.

Apparently satisfied that he wasn’t hiding an injury, she rested her cheek against his chest again. Her hand remained inside his.

Minutes passed without either of them speaking.

Hanchuan didn’t need words. He could have remained there for the rest of the afternoon, listening to her breathe while his thumb moved across her knuckles.

Eventually, her attention shifted toward the clock.

He felt the change but didn’t tighten his hold. If she wanted to return downstairs, he would let her go.

He simply wouldn’t pretend that he wanted to.

"You exceeded the allocated time," Zhiyi informed him.

Hanchuan looked down at the woman still wrapped around him. Her body made no effort to leave even as she identified the violation.

"You didn’t tell me to stop."

Silence followed.

Her thumb moved once across his knuckles before becoming still. Hanchuan waited while she looked toward the clock, then down at their joined hands.

For once, he didn’t attempt to narrow the question for her or protect her from the answer. This choice belonged entirely to Zhiyi.

When she lifted her head again, no regret appeared in her face. "I didn’t want you to stop," she assured him.

The words reached somewhere inside him that nothing else could touch.

She hadn’t forgotten the time.

She had chosen not to care.

Hanchuan drew her higher against his chest and kissed her with all the tenderness he couldn’t fit into an answer.

Zhiyi softened in his arms and returned the kiss. Her hand left his and moved to the back of his neck, keeping him close long after the first kiss should have ended.

When their mouths finally separated, she didn’t look toward the clock again.

Hanchuan brushed the hair away from her face. "Are you going back downstairs?"

The question cost him more than he allowed his voice to reveal.

Zhiyi glanced toward the bedroom door. He felt the city begin reaching for her again—the unanswered reports, the distribution model and every problem waiting for the person most capable of solving it.

Then her gaze returned to him.

"Not yet."

Relief moved through Hanchuan so quickly that he almost laughed.

He tucked the sheet around her and pulled her closer, accepting the additional minutes before she could reconsider them.

Outside their bedroom, Yunzhou continued failing one system at a time.

Inside, Zhiyi rested her head above his heart and allowed the clock to continue without her.