In Ni Zhen's eyes, a man's body has two forms.
When wrapped in clothes, it's a work of art.
The bones, the line of the shoulders, the rise and fall of his waist and abdomen.
Something to admire, something to examine.
But the moment the covering comes off, it becomes a sharp weapon.
She couldn't enter an intimate relationship of any kind, not even with the husband she'd been married off to.
That is, until she met Liang Xusheng.
Her husband's older brother.
A man with a physical defect.
A man who made her feel safe.
The Liang family's old home.
The red lanterns beneath the eaves swayed in the night breeze. The man stood where light met shadow.
One half of his face was steeped in darkness, while the other was tinted a suggestive crimson, even his lips tinged with a wanton allure.
"Are you afraid of men?" He leaned against the wall, head slightly bowed, looking completely open and unguarded. "Someone like me can't do anything. What are you afraid of?"
He was tempting her.
Using his defect.
And somehow, in a man who was incomplete, she found a restrained sensuality.
It made her want to draw closer.
And turn and run.
*
Liang Xusheng's body had never been awakened. He thought of it as dirty and ugly, until that night...
Beneath the blue-glowing brocade, she lay with her eyes closed, her breathing slightly uneven.
Her long black hair was damp with a sheen of sweat, winding along her pale, luminous neck.
She reminded him of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
He raised a hand.
The wedding ring on his index finger snagged a thread in the quilt.
Like years of pent-up bitterness, a crack opened, revealing a trace of desire with a raw, animal edge.
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