BL - One Night In Pingjing

At first, Yun Peng had cared. Or perhaps, he had pretended to. He had apologized with a bouquet of roses. Unaffected, Xiao Maiguo had walked out on him and his perfumed bouquet. After the first day, Yun Peng had started to act like he didn"t notice Xiao Maiguo.

Xiao Maiguo had gotten p.i.s.sed and had decided to punish him. He had deliberately fired a couple of staffs from Yun Peng"s department to give him a hard time. His plan had backfired as Yun Peng—according to him—used the excuse of a lot of workload to stay away from home. To Xiao Maiguo"s annoyance, went to work in the early hours of morning and returned very late.

On this particular morning, when Xiao Maiguo had woken up to Yun Peng"s absence, he was immediately thrown into a foul mood. He had started to long for Yun Peng"s presence. He wanted to kiss him and wrap his arms around his neck. He wanted Yun Peng to drive him to work.

Xiao Maiguo reluctantly dragged himself to the bathroom. Inside, he stared at the little mirror that hung above his bathroom sink. His eyes were sunken and had dark circles underneath them. Like he hadn"t been sleeping well. Although he made a mental note to cover the circles under his eyes with some makeup, he didn"t follow through. He was too worn-out and frankly didn"t care much.

Xiao Maiguo"s mood spiralled further downwards when he arrived at his office and noticed his secretary wasn"t at her table. He didn"t really care if she was late; all that mattered was that she was absent and there was no-one to get him coffee. He looked on her table, which was quite messy, grabbed a pen and paper and boldly wrote the words, "You"re Fired" on it.

After grabbing his cup of coffee by himself, he entered his office and was immediately transfixed to the spot in which he was standing. The figure of a well-dressed, blonde-haired man was standing by a wall, looking down at the city through its clear, clean gla.s.s.

The man was seemingly entranced by the view of the city as he failed to realize the presence of someone else in the office.

Staring at the man"s attractively broad shoulders, Xiao Maiguo cleared his throat, then asked, "Can I help you?"

The man turned his head to the left, as if to look at Xiao Maiguo. But his movement was ever so slight that even the side profile of his face wasn"t visible. In a deep voice that sounded like music, he replied in English, "Only you can help me now."

Xiao Maiguo immediately recognized the voice and accent. This person. It couldn"t be...

Ben turned around slowly. With a coy smile on his face, he shook his head and asked, "You really didn"t think you could run away from me, right?"

"How... How did you find me?" Xiao Maiguo asked, his surprise evident.

"Fairly simple, actually." Ben said and walked towards the office table. He seated himself on Xiao Maiguo"s chair and continued. "This app on my phone can read people"s true caller ID and it showed me your real name. I copied the result into Baidu and found more information about you than I had dreamed."

Xiao Maiguo shook his head in dismay. This Ben had to be psychotic.

Ben proceeded to tell Xiao Maiguo everything he had learnt about him. "You"re a third-generation heir to the Xiao Dongyuan group of companies. The company was founded by your grandfather, taken over by your father and will be taken over by your elder brother in the future."

Xiao Maiguo frowned. "Who let you in here?"

Ben stood up and pointed a finger at Xiao Maiguo. "I meant to talk to you about that. For a company as big as this, the security here is quite lousy. Your door was just open. Like, anyone can just walk in here."

Xiao Maiguo rolled his eyes. If he could fire his secretary again, he really would. He hadn"t noticed how negligent she was until today. "That wasn"t what I meant. I meant, who let you into the premises? You aren"t given access unless you show your ID."

"Oh! I showed my ID. No-one refuses me access whenever and wherever I show my ID." Ben walked towards Xiao Maiguo and handed him his ID card.

Xiao Maiguo inspected the ID card, then gave Ben a suspicious glare. "You. You aren"t really Benjamin Daylight, are you?"

"No, I am." Ben snickered c.o.c.kily. "I am the owner of the Daylight Global Freelance Platform; the biggest freelance platform in the world. How can anyone deny me access into any building? I could want anything?"

Talking to Ben had taken Xiao Maiguo"s mind off Yun Peng and improved his mood a bit. He sighed, then asked. "What do you want?"

"To go on a date with you, of course. But first, you have to unblock my number." Ben said, then traced a finger along Xiao Maiguo"s cheeks.

Xiao Maiguo recoiled from Ben"s finger. He walked to his table and sat on its edge. "I"m not going on a date with you. I"m in a committed relations.h.i.+p and I"m not going to compromise that for anything."

Ben snickered and turned to face Xiao Maiguo. "I didn"t ask if you"re in a relations.h.i.+p or not. I don"t care about that. I don"t live in China, I"m just on holidays here. When I go back to my country, you can go back to your f.u.c.king relations.h.i.+p. For G.o.d"s sakes, I"m not asking for the rest of your life, all I want is to have dinner with you."

Xiao Maiguo rolled his eyes apathetically. "I"m not going anywhere with you."

"Are you turning me down for some relations.h.i.+p with some guy that doesn"t care about you?"

"Where did you get the impression that he doesn"t care about me?" Xiao Maiguo asked, his temper flaring up.

"The dark circles under your eyes told me."

Xiao Maiguo was silent for a second. In a moment of defensiveness, he said, "The circles under my eyes have nothing to do with my relations.h.i.+p."

Ben scoffed. "What have you been losing sleep over, then? You definitely weren"t thinking about me."

A tide of numbness slapped Xiao Maiguo"s emotions. The talk of his relations.h.i.+p had drained him of every last strength he had. He believed Yun Peng when he said he didn"t have anyone else. It was just difficult to not be insecure when Yun Peng acted so indifferently towards him. As for Ben, he couldn"t find anymore words with which to dissuade him. Calmly, he asked, "Why are you so intent on getting me to go out with you?"

Ben smiled. "You"re the first person to kick me in the crotch. You"re also the first person to block my number. You"re also the first who had taken so long before saying "yes" to my proposition. You"re the first of many things for me, Michael."

Xiao Maiguo cringed at the name. "My name isn"t Michael."

"I know. But I can"t p.r.o.nounce the name properly. You can teach me how to p.r.o.nounce it well on our date."

"I"m not going out with you, Ben."

Ben laughed softly.

"What"s funny?" Xiao Maiguo furrowed his brows.

"This." Ben continued. "Like I said before, you"re the first of many things for me. You are the first person I"ve liked from the first time I met anyone." Ben moved closer to Xiao Maiguo and held up his chin so he wasn"t looking into his eyes. Staring at his lips, he said. "I"ve never in my life wanted to kiss someone as much as I want to kiss you." He moved his lips closer to Xiao Maiguo so it seemed like he would kiss him any moment. Then he said, "You are the first man I"ve been s.e.xually attracted to."

Xiao Maiguo who seemed to have been entranced by Ben"s words suddenly recovered from his trance. With a racing heart, he recoiled from Ben again, leaving the latter"s mesmerizing eyes and temptuous lips hanging over him.

Ben stretched out his arms on the table and leaned towards Xiao Maiguo trapping him between his arms. "I don"t know if you can see it too, but you can"t get away from me now."

Xiao Maiguo recoiled even further. He warned. "If you don"t get away from me this instant, I"ll scream and get someone to call security."

"And risk creating a scandal?" Ben moved closer to him with these words. "I would like to see you do that."

Xiao Maiguo stopped. Ben was right. He wouldn"t want to create a scandal, he wouldn"t call security on him after all.

Ben closed his eyes as if trying to fight some furious inner demon. In the s.e.xiest voice Xiao Maiguo had ever heard, he whispered. "G.o.d, the farther you try to push me away from you, the more I want you." Opening his eyes, he drew himself an inch closer to Xiao Maiguo. "But I"m such a gentleman I can"t even kiss you without your permission."

All of this was too much for Xiao Maiguo to handle. The words and the untamed s.e.xiness was all too much to handle. He could feel himself reacting to Ben in ways he didn"t want to. His heart was racing, his temperature was rising, his...

Xiao Maiguo closed his eyes tightly and in that instant realized why Ben had done the same just moments ago. Slowly, Xiao Maiguo opened his eyes and stared into Ben"s fiery ones. The burning desire in Ben"s eyes was something he had longed to see in Yun Peng"s eyes, but couldn"t find. With no guilt or embarra.s.sment, he asked, "Just dinner?"

With a pa.s.sionate smile, Ben shook his head, "Whatever you want."

"Good." Xiao Maiguo held Ben"s cheek with his right hand. "Because I want more than dinner."