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The morning light shone through the thin, white curtains that kept flowing in the late spring breeze, catching on parts of the room: the edge of a table, the uneven piles of discarded clothes on the floor, and the bed where two people laid in similar state of undress in the embrace of their shared, thick duvet – not quite parting from each other even in sleep.
Changyu woke slowly to the feeling of the sun caressing the skin of her uncovered legs, her awareness coming back to her in increments – she felt the warmth first, then heard deep breathing that was not her own, and finally sensed the unmistakable presence beside her that could only belong to one person in this world.
She didn’t open her eyes at first.
For a while, Changyu simply laid there – suspended in that dream-like space between sleep and reality where everything just felt soft, warm, and light. Where nothing was required from her yet; where there were no responsibilities or problems – just peace. She matched her breathing to the rhythm of the one beside her, and let her thoughts go just for a while.
But her body was hard-wired to wake with the sun – even before becoming a general, early mornings had been part of her routine for years – and just because she wanted to sleep in due to feeling comfy, that fact hadn’t changed.
When Changyu finally let her lashes lift, she was met with a familiar picture – her husband occupying the other half of the bedding, exactly as she expected him to be.
Xie Zheng was laying turned towards her – one arm being half-hidden beneath his pillow, and the other resting loosely between them, maybe a palm-width away from her waist, having slipped off from there sometime during the night when she moved.
They usually went to sleep cuddled to each other: limbs tangled and Xie Zheng plastered to her – making Changyu feel safe, loved, and protected.
There was only a tiny issue though – her husband’s body was always emitting heat like a furnace.
In the fall and winter months, that was obviously welcome – they always woke up as glued together as they were when they went to sleep, fighting the chill together. But as the temperature began to rise with the seasons changing, Changyu often overheated and had to escape his hold in the middle of the night to be able to actually sleep.
Right now, because of that, Xie Zheng looked as if he was reaching out towards her even in his sleep.
There was something unbearably soft about him like this – a side of him that existed only when he was asleep; where the constant tension and discipline she had come to associate with him was simply laid to rest.
Changyu watched him – at first without meaning to, her gaze just finding his form because he was right in front of her, and then simply staying.
Since that fortunate encounter in the snow years ago, she had seen him unconscious numerous times but still – tracing the familiar lines of his face with her eyes like this still felt different now that she was allowed to look to her heart’s content without being reminded about propriety.
She could look at his dark brows – usually furrowed together – that were still there, just less present.
The straight, proud line of his nose with that single mole on one side – the slight imperfection only making his face seem more perfect.
The shape of his mouth, which seemed gentler now than when he was awake – his plump lips parted slightly, inviting kisses.
Changyu cocooned herself into the duvet more to fight the impulse.
She noticed his hair had come loose.
Not entirely, but enough that a few strands had fallen across his cheek, softening the sharper edges of his face she was used to and it drew her attention more than it should have – the way it rested there beautifully messy, shifting faintly with each deep, unhurried breath he took.
Changyu wondered, briefly, if she should fix it for him.
Then, without quite deciding to, her hand acted on its own, and she reached up and moved the unruly strands herself. Her fingers – careful, almost tentative – brushed lightly across his forehead, the warmth of his skin settling into her fingertips.
Despite the touch, Xie Zheng had not woken.
Encouraged by that, she let her hand remain where it was a moment longer, her touch drifting, tracing the same path again more slowly in a loving caress.
She shifted closer to him without realizing, his hand bumping into the bare skin of her stomach. Her body – as if remembering his touch and what it usually entailed – erupted in goosebumps. Changyu simply ignored it.
Up close, there was more to see.
The faint shadow along his jaw suggested that he was in need of a shave soon and his lips were slightly dry after sleeping through the night. The way his unfairly long and delicate lashes rested against his fair skin, still and unguarded, made her chest feel unexpectedly tight.
He was so beautiful, her husband – sometimes Changyu still couldn’t quite believe that he was hers.
Her hand moved again, as if bound to him by a red thread.
Her fingers traced from his temple to his soft cheek – pausing there, feeling the warmth beneath her touch – then she leaned in before she could reconsider.
The movement had been slow, her breath barely disturbing the space between them before her lips brushed against his forehead, soft enough that it almost felt like nothing at all.
She pulled back slightly to check – but fortunately, he still had not woken.
(It was always a gamble with Xie Zheng. Sometimes – especially when he was tired, be it from a fight or something else – he could sleep so deeply that a cannon could go off right next to him and he wouldn’t notice. But other times, Changyu would breathe in a slightly different way, and he would wake up, immediately asking what was wrong.)
Her thumb, daringly, brushed once across his cheek as her gaze drifted lower, inevitably catching on the line of his mouth. Her thumb eventually followed through, Changyu watching it transfixed.
As if under a spell, she leaned in again and pressed a light kiss to the corner of his lips.
It had been gentle and brief – but this time, his breathing did change: not abruptly, not in any way that suggested he was startled, but enough that she noticed, and knew that he wasn’t sleeping anymore.
“You’re awake,” she murmured, the words slipping out low and quiet, trying to not disturb the quietness of the morning.
There had been a pause, then along with a small stretch, a soft sound came from Xie Zheng – sleepy and ridiculously comfortable even from her outsider view.
“Mm.”
Her hand drifted up to smooth over his beautiful hair in a gentle caress automatically, making Xie Zheng simply melt under her touch with a satisfied hum.
But she noticed the faint, smug smirk in the corner of his lips – entirely at odds with the soft atmosphere. It didn’t take long for her to figure out why he had that expression on his face.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, watching him with a mixture of exasperation, fondness, and slight embarrassment due to her actions.
“You were pretending,” she accused him, pursing her lips, feeling betrayed.
There was another pause – a longer one this time – where Xie Zheng didn’t move and didn’t say anything – if it wasn’t for that damn smirk, Changyu would have believed him to be sleeping still.
The corners of his mouth twitched, like he was trying to hold back laughter, and he nuzzled into his pillow all innocent and adorable.
“Was I,” he hummed faintly, with clear amusement in his voice.
Changyu’s hand fell from his hair and started slapping him – not hard – on his broad, naked shoulder that was peeking out of the duvet, in retribution. He took her embarrassed hits while snickering.
“You were already awake when I kissed you,” she pouted, resolving to pinching the meat of his biceps – until he grabbed her hand as quickly as a striking snake, and pushed it down on the bedding between them, ending her tirade.
His phoenix eyes had opened properly then – slowly, still half-lidded with sleep – his gaze finding her immediately, watching her with warmth and the adorable mischief of a little boy twinkling in them.
“I was wondering what you’d do next,” he said, half-curious, half-amused.
Changyu didn’t respond with words.
Instead, she leaned in again, closer this time, her hand sliding firmly along his jaw as she pressed another kiss to his mouth, properly this time – taking his lips unhurried and intimate, letting it linger just enough to scramble his brain.
When she had pulled back – with a deliberate nip on his lower lip, making his breath stutter – she didn’t go far.
“There,” she said quietly, watching his eyes being glazed over, with satisfaction. “You don’t have to wonder anymore.”
For a moment, he simply looked at her, something faint and unguarded flickering through his expression, followed by a streak of lustful and dark, before softening into something soft and loving. He took her hand from his jawline, dropping a kiss as delicate as a cherry blossom on the back of it, then taking it with him to put it under his head – nestling into her palm with his cheek, like she was part of the pillow, blinking all sleepy and smiling in contentment.
Changyu’s heart soared – seeing him so settled and happy.
Time and the morning quietly continued around them while they weren’t paying attention – the light slipping further across the bed in slow, unhurried increments, brushing warmly against skin and fabric alike; the curtains faintly stirring with the breeze, carrying the early, clean freshness of the late-spring air.
Somewhere outside, beyond the room, the world had begun in earnest – birds were chirping merrily in uneven chorus, and the murmur of life, softened by distance, slowly started to reach them.
And yet, neither of them made any move to leave their bed.
Changyu’s other hand – the one not held hostage by her sneaky husband – shifted from under the duvet to him, her fingers absentmindedly tracing an idle path where light met shadow across his shoulder, neck, and his collarbone.
“I thought you’d be sleeping longer.”
Her voice came out softer than intended – as if not just the words themselves but the moment settled between them required a quieter approach.
Xie Zheng did not answer immediately.
There was a slight pause – the natural lag of someone not entirely awake just yet to be having so much conversation, needing to search for words through the haze of sleep.
He shifted slightly beneath her touch – not away, never away – but closer, silently encouraging her for more, his other hand sliding to her side as if finding its rightful place again.
When he did speak, his voice carried that same unhurried, slightly amused quality that immediately told her he was going to tease her again – but still, it was softened around the edges.
“I might have if someone hadn’t decided otherwise.”
There was zero complaint in it, just a slight cheek; the faint roughness in his voice still carrying the remnants of sleep as he turned his head just enough for the light to catch more clearly along the line of his face, alighting his eyes from leather brown to beautiful amber.
It was honestly unfair, how effortlessly attractive he was.
Changyu’s lips pressed together faintly, not quite in a smile, not quite in annoyance; her gaze dropping for a moment to where her hand still rested against his shoulder, and lower: to his broad chest, to his slender waist half hidden by their blanket, the reminders of survived battles on his skin – and purple marks that were left behind all over him during much pleasurable things.
Changyu entertained the thought of adding another one to the growing collection, purely because the sunlight lighted them just right, before her gaze returned to his, letting go of the idea.
For now.
“You did not seem to mind,” she pointed out after a beat, wholly expecting him to deny it to bait her.
However, he just breathed out slowly, the sound warm and unhurried, his eyes fluttering shut for a second before settling on her softly.
“Indeed,” he whispered simply.
The word brought them back into their comfortable silence; just enjoying the other’s presence.
Changyu drew closer, her naked legs tangling with his under the covers and found her hand slipping down to rest against his chest, where the steady rhythm beneath her palm anchored her more than anything else.
She felt it clearly – the warmth of him, the way his body reacted almost immediately to her closeness, pressing against her stomach insistently. Changyu half expected him to act on it, but he remained as relaxed as he had been.
“You’re very quiet this morning,” she murmured after a while, her voice soft. Perhaps teasing and perhaps a touch curious.
Quiet – and uncharacteristically docile. Normally, by now, he would secretly start following the steps of a complex strategy only he knew the details of – one that would leave both of them gasping and in dire need of a bath in the end, and the servants having to change the sheets.
(It never was just simple sex with him – he would plan every breath, every action in his head like he would a battle, and execute it perfectly. Sometimes he shared his thoughts with her in advance – or during –, and sometimes he didn’t – just enjoying getting her, and them, towards the high he imagined, without her knowing what would happen next.)
(Changyu secretly likened this habit of his to a predator playing with his prey.)
And Changyu wouldn’t be opposed to it this time either – despite being marked and feeling sore in places that would make even a courtesan in the Fengxiao Pavilion blush, she would never refuse her husband’s touch.
But he wasn’t entertaining such thoughts this morning, it seemed. Right now, Xie Zheng behaved more like a house cat basking in the warmth of a fire than a healthy, vigorous young man who had his arm around a beautiful, willing maiden.
“I’m thinking,” he said quietly, his gaze not drifting from her even for a second.
“That sounds dangerous.”
There was a faint huff of laughter from him at her response, and a small twitch at the corner of his mouth that suggested her humor hadn’t gone unappreciated.
“Mm, it can be.”
He did not elaborate further – instead, his thumb started drawing little circles into her skin, absent and slow against her waist.
She had tilted her head up slightly, kissing his chin and jawline, her breath warm against his skin, lingering there for a moment as if the contact itself might coax the answer out of him.
“What are you thinking about?” she pressed stubbornly when he remained mum.
Xie Zheng simply shrugged – as if the answer was obvious.
“You. Me.” His voice got softer. “Us.”
Something flickered in his expression then – a faint, unmistakable smirk again that did not quite belong to the peacefulness of this morning.
“Last night, when you –”
Changyu had moved before he could finish: her hand coming up to cover his mouth, firm enough to stop the words she knew he wanted to say.
Her cheeks warmed and became redder than a pomegranate as she thought about what happened – him giving all control into her hands.
(She did not think her husband would want to be touched there, like that, controlling in the bedroom as he was – nor that he would moan so loud he’d need to stifle the sounds by biting on a pillow. Or that Changyu herself would like it so much she wanted to see him like that again – preferably soon.)
“If you utter a single word, there won’t be a repeat of it,” she threatened fruitlessly, both of them knowing she was lying through her teeth.
Xie Zheng’s eyes darkened with something that was very much awake now, even if the rest of him still lingered in bed. When he had shifted just enough to lift his head away from her hand’s reach and to look down on her, his voice was low, and sensual.
“That would be a shame,” he purred, unbothered, “considering how much we both enjoyed –”
“Xie Jiuheng!”
Her embarrassed yell of his courtesy name made him laugh so hard, his whole body shook with it. Changyu momentarily forgot to be annoyed at the wonderful sight of it.
“Forgive me, A’yu, I couldn’t resist,” Xie Zheng murmured when he calmed down, his thumb stroking her still pink cheek apologetically for teasing her. “It’s been a while since you’ve been this shy. It’s cute.”
“You know what won’t be cute?” she asked, smiling. “When I slap you.”
One of his eyebrows lifted, his endearing smile turning into an infuriatingly attractive one.
“Hm. Naughty.”
Changyu let out a breath that was half exasperation, half laughter, her forehead dropping briefly against his shoulder as though that might help.
“You are the worst,” she pouted.
“Yet you married me. Twice,” Xie Zheng pointed out smugly.
“I’m certainly reconsidering my choices,” Changyu huffed. “Maybe I should get a div –”
He had not let her finish.
His arms tightened around her in a sudden movement, pulling her fully against him, pressing her into the warmth of him until there was no space left between them at all.
“Don’t you dare,” Xie Zheng growled, but with something fragile and desperate beneath it, his hold tightening just enough to make the point clear. “You are mine, Fan Changyu. Forever.”
Changyu had stilled for a fraction of a second, caught somewhere between the meaning of the words and the weight, and then she exhaled slowly, her fingers curling lightly into his back.
“Then Your Highness better behave himself,” she muttered, softer now, against his neck, biting the cord of muscle gently until he hissed – and moaned. “Otherwise I will need to resort to –”
The response was immediate. Xie Zheng raised her chin from his neck to claim her lips, the pace punishing and his movements unstoppable like the tide – clearly trying to tell her without words what he thought of them ever divorcing.
He only let her go when she was starting to get lightheaded and forget who she was – disconnecting their throbbing lips from each other with a slightly wet, sinful sound. His eyes were so dark she couldn’t distinguish his irises from his pupils as he looked at her meaningfully in silence, before arranging Changyu on her back, with him settling onto her chest.
His arm – thrown across her stomach – tightened around her, hugging her to him.
For a while, neither of them spoke – there was no need to.
The quiet morning stretched on around them, the sunlight inching further across the room.
Changyu had felt it then – the rhythm of his breathing beginning to change again, not quite sleeping yet, but getting closer to it, the tension in his arm he was hugging her with easing slightly.
“You will fall asleep again,” she murmured after a while, moving her shoulder so his head was being nudged by it.
“Probably,” was Xie Zheng’s mumbled response. “You are very warm. And comfy,” he said, nuzzling further into her with no intention to move away or stop falling asleep.
“You will be late,” Changyu admonished.
“I won’t.”
“You have court duties today,” she reminded gently, trying to reason with him. “With a bunch of ministers who’d be very crass with the Prince Regent if he didn’t attend in time.”
They always seemed to try to find something they could pick on or use for their gain to undermine his authority. Vultures, the lot of them.
“Those old foxes hate me anyway,” Xie Zheng yawned, unbothered. “They can wait.”
Changyu frowned with disapproval, trying to get up since her husband wasn’t about to move by himself. “They shouldn’t.”
“Today, they will,” Xie Zheng stubbornly said, settling over her body even more so she couldn’t move. Changyu fell back into the bedding fondly exasperated.
“Unfortunately, the Prince Regent wants to cuddle his wife some more. That’s more important than any politics,” Xie Zheng mumbled into her breast sleepily.
Changyu let out a quiet breath that turned into something dangerously close to a laugh, her fingers tightening briefly around his back before smoothing up and down his spine, snickering.
Xie Zheng opened one of his eyes and glanced up at her.
“Why are you laughing?”
“No one would ever guess how cute and clingy you actually are,” Changyu replied, amused, before her voice turned whispering with mischief. “It’s like a state secret only I know.”
After a beat, Xie Zheng lifted his head to drop a kiss on her chest, over her heart, before settling down again.
“Only for you,” he murmured, his voice full of love.
The words, and the tone, made Changyu melt. She kept caressing his spine, her fingers catching on his scars, detangling his long hair if she encountered resistance.
She kissed the top of his head fondly.
“Stay?” Xie Zheng whispered after a moment, the word already blurry with sleep.
Her answer had come easily.
“Always.”
His breathing had evened out not long after, becoming slower, deeper; his hold on her easing as sleep had taken him again. Eventually, Changyu followed – the warmth, the quiet, the weight of him around her drawing her under softly, unhurriedly.
Outside, the world continued waking up.
Inside, the Marquis of Wu’an and his Marchioness – entangled, like their ribbons on the Matchmaking Tree – slept sweetly.