Chapter 245: The Fox gets taken care of
Chu Yun knew something was going on the moment Xiao Zai's face fell. He grimaced as if he was in pain. The look on his face sent a nauseous bolt of self-consciousness travelling sickly through Chu Yun's stomach.
He took the hand away from his nape and climbed off Xiao Zai with a flinch. "Never mind, we should sleep."
Chu Yun could still remember the last time he told Xiao Zai he could mark him. They'd been fucking then, and Chu Yun was so high on his own arousal, and on the power trip of having Xiao Zai salivating for him, that he'd made the suggestion like he was handing out a treat for good behaviour.
Xiao Zai had rejected him then too -- but at that time it had only inflamed Chu Yun with the conviction that he'd make him regret missing that chance.
So much had happened since then.
Now, Xiao Zai knew that there was nothing out of the ordinary about Chu Yun -- about their relationship. Maybe he no longer wanted it. After all, he'd been doing just fine without marking Chu Yun.
Did he regret letting Chu Yun mark him? He couldn't help flickering his eyes towards Xiao Zai's neck, and the ragged scar he'd left there, almost visible from the side with out careless Chu Yun had been.
He'd mauled Xiao Zai.
Even through the chill of the fresh rejection, the memory made him hot all over. If he closed his eyes he could still taste the coppery burst of Xiao Zai's blood under his lips.
He was so lost in his own thoughts, and his own embarrassment that he didn't notice that Xiao Zai had sat up behind him and pulled him into the cradle of his body.
"Don't cry," Xiao Zai whispered, rocking Chu Yun back and forth.
Chu Yun was about to snap at him that he wasn't fucking crying, but the smell of wet salt clogging his nose told him otherwise.
He still said, "I'm not crying," all the same.
"It' not that I don't want to," Xiao Zai said, whispering the words into the back of Chu Yun's neck. "But what if it's not good for the baby? What if your body rejects it somehow, what if--"
Chu Yun interrupted him, "What if we're not soulbonds and I'm just some fox you were forced to marry?"
Xiao Zai recoiled as if Chu Yun had slapped him. "That's not fair, Chu Yun. I love you."
Chu Yun opened his mouth, but he had nothing else in him to say. The wind had gone out of his sails.
Things were so much easier before he realised he loved Xiao Zai too. Back then he could fool himself that Xiao Zai was just a spectacular fuck who was so cock-drunk for Chu Yun he would ask 'how high' whenever Chu Yun told him to jump.
Now he had all these insecurities and deep emotions about their marriage, and all of it completely out of his rational control.
Chu Yun hated not being in control.
"Please say something," Xiao Zai pleaded, concern etched across his regal features. "You look like steam is about to come out of your ears."
Chu Yun turned to glare at him. "Fuck you, Xiao Zai, Zilang, your Majesty, you've made me fall in love with you, so don't go thinking you're getting rid of me just because I'm not your soulmate, or whatever else you convinced yourself I was."
He was ready to launch into another tirade, to hide his bruised feelings behind anger, but Xiao Zai's face split into a huge grin and it completely disarmed him.
Xiao Zai cupped his jaw and brought their faces together, licking into Chu Yun's mouth hungrily, almost leaving him winded with the intensity of his kiss. He left Chu Yun gasping for air when they parted.
"How can someone be as brilliant as jade one moment and as dull as coal the next?"
He silenced Chu Yun's protests with another bruising kiss, and then whispered against his lips. "I love you. I have loved you almost from the start, when you couldn't say two sentences to me without wanting to tear out my throat."
"I still want to, sometimes," Chu Yun grumbled under his breath, but he was mollified, by Xiao Zai's kisses as much as his soft tone and warm gaze.
He let himself melt against his side, let Xiao Zai's hand run up and down his flanks in soothing motions.
"It changes nothing," Xiao Zai said, into the side of Chu Yun's head and his soft hair. "Nothing could make me want you any less. But I am scared, you need to know that, even just to be more careful with yourself. For my sake."
Chu Yun didn't say anything, but he hummed in the back of his throat, a sound almost like a cat's purr.
"I'm so tired of being pregnant," he confessed with a groan. "It wasn't so bad in the beginning, but now it's really uncomfortable."
Chu Yun had kept his discomfort to himself, mostly because of pride. All his previous complaints had been facetious, but now he lets his exhaustion show in his tone.
Xiao Zai's arm wrapped around his side more tightly, the tips of his fingers brushing the side of his swollen abdomen. "You know, there's other things we could do..."
That wasn't what Chu Yun expected him to say, but Xiao Zai's words sparked up heat under his skin. "Like what?" he asked, dropping his head back onto Xiao Zai's shoulder looking up at him with a smirk.
He got his answer when Xiao Zai manhandled him against the pillows and lowered himself between his legs, undoing his inner robes with sharp tugs and letting them fall open on Chu Yun's sides like butterfly wings.
He moaned at the first touch of Xiao Zai's tongue to the tip of his cock. He felt like he could fly out of his skin.
Xiao Zai dedicated a great part of the night to melting Chu Yun's sore body into molten wax.
In the morning he woke him up for another round, and just as Chu Yun was about to spill messily around his fist, Xiao Zai whispered darkly into his ear, "Once the baby is born, I'm going to fuck you for days. I'll mark you and use the blood to slick you up. I'll ruin you for anyone else, you'll never be able to leave me."
Chu Yun shivered with the possessive heat of Xiao Zai's words. He wasn't going anywhere, but Xiao Zai didn't need to know that. "You talk like a big bad wolf, but in the end I always turn you into a puppy. My puppy."
"We'll see about that." Xiao Zai tightened his fist around Chu Yun's cock, and bit into his earlobe with a snarl.
Chu Yun came with a ragged shout.