Qi Yu · chat.title

It was a late night of torrential rain. The office on the twenty-eighth floor was unnervingly empty; all overhead lights had already been turned off, leaving only the anti-blue-light desk lamp at your cubicle struggling to cast a faint halo. You had been sitting at your computer for four hours straight. In your rush to finish a core data reconciliation sheet needed first thing tomorrow morning for an M&A deal, your brain was practically on the verge of shutting down. Exhausted, you rubbed the back of your aching neck and reached for the mug beside you, only to find it had long been empty. Just as you were about to stand up and head to the pantry for water, the surrounding air underwent an extremely subtle shift. It was a sensation impossible to put into words—as if all the oxygen had suddenly been vacuumed out of the quiet space, replaced by an immensely powerful, undeniable sense of pressure. Immediately afterward, a scent invaded your senses. Not some sharp, pungent cologne, but an exceptionally sophisticated, chillingly crisp aroma of fir wood. Every muscle in your body tensed instinctively. The thick carpet was so sound-absorbent that you hadn't heard a single footstep, yet you knew with absolute certainty—someone was standing right behind you. And standing extraordinarily close. You instinctively tried to turn around, but half a second before you could move, a heavy garment carrying searing body heat and the intense scent of fir dropped from above, draped with pinpoint precision over your slender shoulders. It was a charcoal-gray, impeccably tailored bespoke suit jacket. The fabric's quality was jaw-droppingly luxurious, but what made you tremble even more was the scalding warmth lingering on the inside lining—heat that belonged to that man. "President..." you stammered in panic, your voice trembling faintly in the cavernous office. Before your words could fully leave your mouth, however, the man's next move choked every sound back into your throat. Qi Yu didn't step back. On the contrary, he closed in by half a step. Two distinctly jointed, remarkably large hands reached past both sides of your shoulders, planting themselves forcefully on the edge of the desk before you with a sharp snap. On his left wrist, the cold Patek Philippe watch brushed right against the back of your hand, sending a scalp-tingling jolt of static through your skin. It was a textbook posture of total confinement. You were trapped firmly between your office chair and his arms, with nowhere to retreat. You didn't even dare to take a deep breath, because you could clearly feel Qi Yu's broad, hard chest hovering less than a centimeter from your back. He didn't actually press against you, maintaining that final shred of gentlemanly decorum and restraint. Yet those mere millimeters of separation drove you crazier than direct contact ever could. The astonishing heat radiating from him due to sheer, agonizing forbearance continuously seared into your spine right through the thin fabric of your shirt. The entire world seemed to fall dead silent, leaving only the sound of torrential rain battering the window glass and the heavily suppressed, almost erratic breathing right beside your ear. Qi Yu lowered his head slightly. In the dark reflection of the computer screen, you could clearly see his silhouette. A few stray strands of his usually immaculate black hair were now falling untidily across his forehead; the gold-rimmed glasses that symbolized absolute rationality and abstinence were fogging slightly at the edges from the sheer proximity and rising body heat between you. Through the lenses, his deep, narrow dark eyes fixed on the nape of your neck—which rose and fell faintly with your nervous breathing—with a gaze that was almost voracious, yet fiercely suppressed. "Does verifying a single set of data really require staying until a quarter past midnight?" He finally spoke. His voice was terrifyingly deep. No longer the flat, emotionless chill of the daytime conference room, it was raspy and taut, as if scraped raw by the coarse sandpaper of intense emotion, laden with a dangerous tension on the verge of snapping. As he spoke, his warm breath spilled unreservedly against your sensitive ear and the back of your neck, sending goosebumps coursing across your skin. You could even feel the faint rumble of his chest, reverberating into your own body across those few millimeters of air. "I... I'm almost done, President. This data is needed first thing tomorrow morning—" Desperately trying to cling to reason, you attempted to turn your head to explain to him. "Don't move." Qi Yu cut you off in a low, husky voice. The veins on the backs of his hands bulged from the sheer force with which he gripped the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning a restrained, pale white from exertion. He was fighting with every ounce of his will to suppress the wild, raging impulse to haul you up from the chair and crush you into his very flesh and bone. His impossibly handsome face lowered another half-inch. With the tip of his nose practically brushing your hair, he greedily yet cautiously breathed in the gardenia fragrance lingering on you that had become his addiction. "He whispered your name softly in your ear, every word forced out through gritted teeth with heartbreaking restraint and an almost pleading suppression: "I don't like my employees overtaxing their health for the company." "Save the file and shut down the computer." He took a deep breath, and his tone finally regained a hint of its usual unquestionable authority, though the raspy undertone could not be erased: "Go home. Right now."