In the dark, Luan Nian's lips burned a path across Shang Zhitao's cheek before finally settling on her mouth.
He even managed to say, with perfect solemnity, "If you don't want this, I can stop anytime."
"I don't..."
Luan Nian sealed her lips before she could finish. If she thought he'd actually stop, she'd badly misjudged him.
His hands and mouth moved over her in turns, exploring her without restraint in the darkness, learning every way she'd changed over the years. She hadn't changed much at all. Except, maybe, her waist was a little slimmer now.
Luan Nian was pleased with himself. Too pleased. He'd told himself he could take his time. Instead he was the one who lost patience first.
His movements slipped briefly out of his own control. Shang Zhitao held her breath, then let it out slowly, and his mouth pressed against hers again, teeth catching her lower lip. "So you like younger men now? Can't settle for someone just three years older?"
He pinched her cheek, glaring at her. "Say something."
She let out a muffled sound. Luan Nian was going to be the death of her, and somehow that made her want to win.
"Younger men are... mm, younger."
He punished her for that, biting down on her neck like some kind of vampire.
The whole night was spent tearing away every last bit of hesitation either of them had left, stripped clean, no half measures.
Luan Nian hadn't changed one bit. He still liked to be in charge, moving through her at his own pace, claiming ground as he pleased. Then, without warning, he'd slow down, tongue tracing the shell of her ear, teeth grazing the lobe, and murmur, unhurried, "Say 'younger men' again and I'll kill you."
Shang Zhitao wasn't about to lose. She wanted to provoke him further. "Younger men..."
He caught her lip between his teeth, and their tongues tangled together with a sound that made the whole thing feel dangerously alive. Luan Nian went rough, strong enough that it was almost too much for her.
The night felt like a dream she'd been dropped into and couldn't wake from. By the end of it, every inch of her carried his scent.
When things finally settled, she started laughing softly, then kicked him. "Go sleep in the guest room. I'm not used to this."
He locked his leg over hers. "I'm not sleeping in the guest room. Why would I?"
"Don't be unreasonable. This is my house."
He didn't care whose house it was. He'd sleep wherever he wanted. He pulled her into his arms, and the two of them slept a long, deep sleep.
It must have been close to noon when Shang Zhitao heard the door's passcode lock beep, followed immediately by her father's voice. "She's fine, she just didn't pick up. Probably sleeping too deeply. I'm coming in, hold on a second."
Oh, hell.
She swore under her breath, kicked Luan Nian clean off the bed, and he jolted awake, sitting on the floor and watching her scramble for her clothes. She kept talking as she searched. "Dad, is that you? Hang on, I worked late yesterday, I was exhausted, I overslept and didn't hear the phone."
She yanked her clothes on, cracked the door open just enough to squeeze through, and shut it behind her.
"Is Mom worried? I'm fine, really. Go on back, you've got the shop to run."
Her father let out a breath of relief. "As long as you're all right. I told her you were just tired, but she didn't buy it. Said no matter how exhausted you were, you'd always be up by this hour."
Shang Zhitao forced a smile onto her face.
That was when the door behind her opened, and Luan Nian walked out, smiling easily at her father. "Good morning, sir."
Her father froze. He looked at Luan Nian, then at Shang Zhitao. "You two..."
"Sir, I intend to take full responsibility for Shang Zhitao."
That business about needing someone only three years older, forget it, he'd already taken what he wanted. Luan Nian was shameless and doing it well, and while her father stepped away to call Da Zhai, he shot Shang Zhitao a look, eyebrows raised.
It hit her all at once. She'd walked straight into his trap. He'd been the fox all along, and a cunning one at that.
By the time Da Zhai arrived, they were both fully dressed, sitting upright at the table like two students hauled back to the principal's office. Shang Zhitao was genuinely nervous. Luan Nian was only pretending to be.
Her father had picked an impressively bad moment to show up, though Luan Nian found himself almost grateful to the old man for it. Coming out in the freezing snow just because his daughter hadn't answered the phone.
Da Zhai looked at Shang Zhitao, then at Luan Nian.
Da Zhai didn't actually dislike him. He had a good face on him, and though he looked like he might have a temper, his manners were clearly well raised.
"What exactly is going on with you two?" Da Zhai asked.
"It's just..." Shang Zhitao started, but Da Zhai cut her off. "You be quiet. Let him talk."
Luan Nian cleared his throat and spoke without any rush. "You've probably heard a little about me and Shang Zhitao already. We were together for six years, and then we broke up over a misunderstanding. Now we've found each other again, and we both still have feelings for each other." He kept to the essentials, leaving out anything unflattering. It wasn't so different from giving a status report to a superior. Say the parts that sound good, and everyone's happy.
"But you're not even married, and you're living together already, what does that look like!" Her father jabbed a finger at her forehead. "How could you be so careless!"
"We can get married. Anytime you like," Luan Nian said.
Shang Zhitao stared at him. This was the same man who'd spent years insisting he didn't believe in being tied down, who took no responsibility for relationships at all, and now suddenly he was ready to marry on a moment's notice? She turned to him. "My parents aren't going to hit you."
"Why would you say something like that? Your parents look kind and reasonable, why would I be afraid of that? I mean it. I know a woman's reputation matters, and I'm willing to take responsibility for her."
He looked almost unbearably sincere.
And in a way, he meant it. Over the past few years, he'd watched friend after friend settle down while he alone stayed unattached, drifting. This was not a fight he was willing to lose.
But the deeper truth was that he'd spent those years wondering what might have happened if Shang Zhitao had never left him. They probably would have married. There might already have been a child.
Somewhere in all the time they'd spent together since reuniting, he'd come to feel that growing old with her wouldn't be some burden. It would be the end of a dull, colorless life and the start of something warm and full instead.
Shang Zhitao still hadn't said a word.
It all felt too fast.
She hadn't even had time to process the events of the day before they simply happened to her, one after another. Finally she found her voice. "Dad, Mom, why don't we... let me talk to him alone for a bit."
"Go ahead and talk. We're leaving, the shop's busy today."
Her parents headed for the door, and just before stepping out, Da Zhai turned to Luan Nian. "How old are you?"
Before he could answer, Shang Zhitao got there first. "He's almost forty."
He'd been about to give some number the old folks would find acceptable, since it wasn't as if anyone was checking his ID. But Shang Zhitao showed no mercy. Da Zhai's expression toward him shifted at once, the kind of look that said a man that age who still wasn't married probably had something wrong with him.
"If Taotao hadn't left me back then, we'd already be married by now," Luan Nian said, unbothered, calm and unhurried as ever.
Once Da Zhai and her father were gone, the two of them went out to walk the dog.
It was freezing outside. They walked in silence for ten minutes before Shang Zhitao finally spoke.
"Ready to marry anytime, are you?"
"If I hadn't broken up with you back then, would we have a kid by now?"
"Yes." He answered her plainly. "Everything I said back there was true. I told you when I came back we'd talk, and that was exactly what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to start over with you, with marriage as the goal. And then you left."
He looked at her. The cold in this city had turned both their ears bright red, and the tip of her nose had gone pink as well.
The cold up north didn't hide anything. The wind cut straight through you.
"Lies make your nose freeze off," she said.
He caught her hand and pressed it to his own nose. "Has it fallen off?"
"No."
"So, Shang Zhitao. Can we start over? From the very first time we met?"
Back then you were twenty two and I was twenty eight, and we were both in the best years of our lives.
Back then you were simple and fearless, and I was hardened by the world, but our eyes met anyway, and that was the start of a strange kind of journey.
If we can't go back to that time, then let's start today instead. You're thirty two now, I'm thirty eight, and we're both still steady enough, still holding on to what we want from life.
Maybe our love can cross through this cold and reach the spring, and find our own early spring clear skies waiting on the other side.
The tip of her nose went even redder, and tears froze against her skin. She knew she must look a wreck, but she said it anyway. "Okay."
She had never imagined that the dream she'd had at twenty two would come true at thirty two.
That was probably the strangest, most wonderful part of a life.
He held her hand in one of his and Luke's leash in the other, and the two of them walked a long while through the snow. By the time they got back inside, they were frozen through.
Luan Nian went to start dinner, and Shang Zhitao wrapped her arms around him from behind, sliding her cold hands under his shirt, raising gooseflesh across his skin.
He turned to look at her, but she kept her eyes down, too busy pushing his shirt up until his stomach came into view.
She bent her head and bit him there, and his abdomen tightened hard. She didn't let up, working her way slowly upward, rising on her toes to kiss him while her cold hands kept exploring. He closed his eyes, thinking that this woman was going to be the end of him.
He lifted her onto the counter in one motion and pressed against her. "Whoever backs out first loses."
"Not going to be me."
She hooked a leg around him. The countertop was cold enough to hurt, though somehow that only made it better.
"Not eating dinner?" she asked him, right as he was losing his composure.
"Not yet. Eating you first."
She thought to herself, who was it that said younger men were better? Only she knew whether an old man like him was any good, and the answer was that she wouldn't trade him for ten younger men.
The two of them carried on like that until evening, until Luan Nian had finally worked off years of pent-up wanting. Then he asked her, "Want to go out to eat?"
"Yes."
She jumped off the bed. "Let's go!"
"You're not tired?" He seemed genuinely surprised by her stamina.
"What we do is way harder than what you were just doing," she said. "That takes real stamina." Then she laughed. "Let's go get a drink somewhere. It's snowing out."
"How do you know it's snowing?"
"I'm an ice city girl. I can smell snow."
He pulled the curtain back, and sure enough, it was.
"How many times a year does it snow here anyway? Feels like it just goes from autumn straight through to spring without stopping." She pulled on a sweater, then the down jacket he'd given her. "You know, out of everything you've given me over all these years, do you know which gifts I like best?"
"Which ones?"
"Every single thing since we got back together."
She cupped his face in her hands. "Everything since we got back together, I've never once thought about selling. I actually mean that."
"None of it cost as much as a handbag."
"But all of it's worth more than a handbag."
"If you say so."
She thought, it wasn't really that he'd gotten better at choosing gifts. It was that he'd changed as a person. He was still sharp around the edges, but now he actually thought about what she wanted.
She had always wanted to love him as an equal. Every day since they'd found each other again felt a little closer to the kind of love she'd always wanted.
Was this her good fortune?
She slid her hand into his pocket and said, "I want to go see Dr. Liang."