“The window is attacking me.”
She snorted.
When she tried to slip out of his tails, they tightened automatically around her waist.
“Oh?” she teased, leaning over him. “Are we clingy this morning?”
He cracked one eye open, looking deeply offended. “I am not clingy. I am anchoring you.”
“To the bed?”
“Yes.”
She kissed his cheek. “Let me get us water.”
“Mmm… no,” he mumbled, pulling her back against his chest. “Stay.”
His voice, still hoarse from the night before, sent a warm shiver down her spine. His head lowered to her throat, brushing a kiss there—slow, sleepy, instinctive—before he seemed to remember language existed and added:
“Please.”
Her heart melted, and she settled against him, fingers resting over his heartbeat. That was when she felt it. A soft, warm pulse beneath her hand… not physical, not qi entirely… something deeper. A whisper of magic. A spark answering a spark.
She stilled.
Mingxi seemed to sense her silence and peeked up. “Are you all right?” he murmured, instantly alert despite his melodramatic suffering.
“Yes,” she whispered quickly, not wanting to alarm him.
“Just… feeling you.”
His expression softened, turning unbearably tender. “Then feel all of me,” he whispered, brushing a thumb over her lip before he kissed her.
Slow, sweet. Soft enough to stir heat again. Lazy enough to say we had nowhere else to be.
Until—
KNOCK
“Are the newlyweds alive?” Minghua shouted joyously.
Mingxi buried his face in Poppy’s neck with a muffled curse.
Poppy stroked his back, trying not to laugh. “We should answer.”
“We shouldnot,” he said firmly. “We should stay here for the next decade.”
“Mingxi—”
“No. I refuse. They will drag me into sunlight. The sunlight is angry.”
Poppy pressed a kiss to his jaw. “We’ll face them together.”
He released the longest, most suffering exhale in fox-spirit history.
Another knock.
“Mingxi!” Mingjun called, far too amused. “If your qi is unstable, Mother made ginger tea.”
