novelraw Chapter 454: More than a dance?
Chapter 454: More than a dance?
"P-Pretty?" Taken aback, Jia didn’t know how to respond to his gesture of a sudden compliment."Thanks..."
For a strange reason, her voice had dropped to a whisper, peering into his deep, black eyes.
Is he taller than usual?
Wait, what kind of an idiot conclusion is that? People’s heights don’t suddenly change...
But it didn’t seem to give the illusion that she looked smaller before him. A click then echoed and a third song track began playing - a softer, slow-paced song this time.
She then coughed. "I am the only one dancing. Don’t...you want to dance too?"
The tilt to his head and his gaze strangely fixed at hers brought a flutter to her lashes and a tinge of dryness to her throat. She forgot all about it though when he moved closer, his arm sliding across her waist to its back. Her eyes stretched wide upon finding her left hand interlocked in his.
"...This wasn’t the kind of dance I wasn’t referring to," her eyes slightly squinted.
"But this is the kind of dance I was exactly imagining. Besides, the song sets up the perfect mood."
Jia was a champion by now in dealing with Dr. Yang, who treated everything and everyone as his source of entertainment. She didn’t have the manual yet to handle a serious version.
She snorted but jokingly. "Perfect mood or you just want the chance to get touchy like always?"
"I always want to get touchy with Spicy."
This man’s shamelessness is next level...
Then she blinked, his chest appearing too close to her face. She held an instinctive urge to take a step backward as the distance closed in. The mild scent of his perfume made her breath hitch.
"For some reason, I feel like getting more touchy today," his fingers squeezed hers, just like her waist, which was pressed against his body like a film of inseparable glue was in between.
Jia swallowed, the words uttered lingering far too close to her skin. She told herself it was just him being him - casual, teasing and pushing boundaries the way he always did. Yet tonight, the usual deflection didn’t come easily. His hand at her waist wasn’t playful, but almost digging into it as if a feeling of something ’more’ hovered somewhere in the twitch of his fingers.
She lifted her chin a fraction. "You say that like it’s a revelation," she said, trying for lightness. "You are always like this."
"Am I?" Mingshen raised a brow.
The question wasn’t rhetorical. His gaze searched her face, as if he were genuinely curious about the answer. She had an unexpected urge to look away. Instead, she held his eyes, refusing to give ground even as her pulse strangely betrayed her.
The music swelled, slow and deliberate. He guided her, not with exaggerated steps, but with subtle shifts of pressure - a turn here, a pause there. It felt less like dancing and more like learning the rhythm of someone else’s breathing.
Jia became acutely aware of the space - or was it the lack of it? His shoulder beneath her fingers squeezed and relaxed as if an odd tension coursed through it. The warmth of his palm felt more feverish than ever.
"You are tense," his eyes twinkled.
In return, she arched her brow. "Sorry, who is tense here? I can feel your shoulder muscles flexing like crazy."
A twitch raised his brow. "What should I do if you are holding it so passionately?"
"I am hardly squeezing it. My fingers are as light as a feather. It’s you who is panicking."
"Excuse me, who is panicking?"
"You."
"Huh?"
She smiled. "It’s alright, Mingshen. I know you try to sound cool and handsome, but you don’t have any experience with women."
"Hold on. As if you have any experience with men."
"Do I look jittery to you right now?"
He frowned, somehow not liking that answer.
Wait a minute, does it mean that it’s only me who looks affected by this proximity?
"It’s even cuter when you are trying to figure it out," she laughed.
But all of a sudden, she was pushed back - or his torso did all the way until her back hit the wall.
"So you are saying..." his eyes narrowed, "That you don’t feel affected by my presence. Not even a little bit?"
"...It’s just a friendly dance," her senses sat straight up, alert.
"Are you sure?" From her waist, his hand slid up, not leaving the contour of her shape. It reached all the way up to her jaw, as he tilted her chin up just slightly.
"It can be much more than just a friendly dance."
It was in her ear that his deep voice had breathed into without any warning. More troublesome was the ticklish kind of feeling that left in the wake of the tip of his nose barely hovering over her cheek. It almost touched, but it didn’t. The push and pull of that almost contact continued until she was forced to swallow a gulp.
The song drew to an end, fading into silence. The lights shifted again, softer now, casting them in a muted glow. But neither of them had noticed it. Instead, their eyes locked, pulling deeper into each other’s reflection.
Jia had seen his handsome face a million times now. It was truly a sinful face that would falter any woman in her steps. She hadn’t allowed herself to get swallowed by his sheer beauty. Yet tonight, his usually arrogant eyes sparkled with a silent admiration. His black eyes shimmered in the lights, as pure as snow.
’You look pretty when you laugh.’
Not riddled with the usual playful sarcasm, his compliment was as sincere as it could get.
"Thank you. I think I didn’t express myself quite clearly earlier."
He blinked twice.
"When you said I look pretty when I laugh. I liked it. I liked your compliment. But the thank you wasn’t for praising me. It was for everything you did for me. If I’m laughing right now, then," she smiled, a soft gleam in her eyes, "It’s all because you took that flight back to Beijing that evening. I think I would have gotten lost into a hell hole hadn’t you stayed by my side."