Lu Chen stepped slowly into the private banquet hall, its opulence rivaling that of a royal palace. The air was thick with the mellow bouquet of the finest red wines, the spicy tang of expensive cigars—and above all, the mature, orchid-like scent clinging to Jiang Wanxing, as intoxicating and perilous as opium's own perfume.
His gaze swept calmly over the priceless décor and the stunning blonde who currently sat at the grand piano, her fingers dancing over the keys with effortless grace. At last, his eyes rested on the peerless beauty approaching him like a dark-night queen—Jiang Wanxing herself.
She was barefoot, her snow-white feet painted a vivid scarlet, each step falling to the rhythm of the most seductive drumbeat. The wine-red silk slip dress she wore swayed gently with her lithe movements, revealing tantalizing glimpses of her long legs sheathed in black lace stockings and crimson heels—heels now kicked aside as casually as discarded petals—exuding a breath-stealing sensuality and an unspoken invitation.
"Lu Chen, you're here." Jiang Wanxing's voice was huskier than in the office, her words steeped in alcohol and that fatal magnetism that sent shivers down the spine. Her phoenix-red eyes, already captivating, now glistened with a crystalline moisture—part wine-fog, part unspoken longing—promising to ensnare any man's soul who dared meet her gaze.
She drew close, their breaths mingling, the heady scent of mature femininity washing over Lu Chen like a soft yet merciless tide. He could even see how, freed from the confines of a bra, her ample white curves beneath the dress's plunging neckline rose and fell with each shallow breath, sketching a breathtaking arc that threatened to seize every last thought from his mind.
"Sorry—traffic was a bit bad. I'm late." Lu Chen's calm smile was perfectly measured, his voice steady, his eyes clear. To him, the woman before him—capable of driving any man mad with desire—was merely a business partner.
The more indifferent he appeared, the more Jiang Wanxing's eyes, blurred by alcohol and expectation, burned with a fierce desire to conquer and possess. She recognized that this young man was nothing like those who had only ever used their basest instincts—he possessed the uncanny ability to see through every secret of her soul, and the power to awaken her long-dormant heart with a second spring of deadly magic.
She wanted him. She wanted to own this one man who could both understand and be conquered by her.
"It's all right. For you, I'd wait as long as it takes." Jiang Wanxing's ruby lips curved into a temptress's smile, laden with endless seduction and fatal promise. She lifted her slender hand, adorned with a ruby ring, and teasingly brushed aside the strands of hair that had fallen across Lu Chen's forehead in his rush—her icy fingertips gliding over his smooth skin as though she were the most dangerous of vipers, testing her prey with a velveted touch.
Lu Chen felt each electric tingle from her fingers coursing through his limbs, quickening his heart that already pounded from the sheer erotic spectacle before him. Yet he maintained perfect composure, his eyes narrowing slightly as he examined her flushed, exquisite face with appreciation—and a hint of playful challenge.
"Is that so?" His voice, touched with just the right rasp and amusement, echoed softly. "I'm curious—what is it about me, Jiang Wanxing, that makes you go to such lengths?"
A tinkling laughter, crystalline yet laced with a feline allure, escaped her lips. Her voluptuous curves trembled with each soft peal, her high, full bosom heaving like startled rabbits, radiating a virile temptation that quickened the pulse.
"Lu Chen, you really know how to ask rhetorical questions." Jiang Wanxing's liquid, mischievous gaze never wavered, her tone steeped in lethal insinuation. "Can't you feel my... unique admiration and longing for you?"
She emphasized "admiration" and "longing" as if each syllable were a poisoned, silver needle driven home to Lu Chen's sharpened heart.
Through her teasing words, he detected an almost volcanic intensity hidden beneath her playfulness—a desire that threatened eruption at any moment.
["This little devil... he knows everything about me, yet pretends innocence... it's wicked..."]
["But... I like it..."]
["I like that he can see through me, yet remains calm, savoring the thrill of hunting me..."]
["This feeling... so exhilarating... so all-consuming..."]
["I haven't felt like this in ages... like dancing on the tip of a blade..."]
An impish, dark-Satan's grin curved on Lu Chen's lips, tempered by the mercy of a savior's compassion. He knew that the "mermaid"—the peerless beauty who had once towered above countless men—had already been ensnared in the invisible web he had woven with his "Heart-Hunting Score," and she welcomed her own entrapment.
"Wanxing, I do feel... some of your admiration and longing." Lu Chen slowly reached out, his touch asserting both dominance and tenderness, drawing Jiang Wanxing's slender waist into the safe, solid warmth of his embrace—an embrace that gave her a sensation of security unlike any she had known.
"But..." His eyes glinted with playful inquiry, "I wonder if this longing is for me, Lu Chen, as a man... or for the value I might bring to solving the troubles currently besetting Wanxing International."
At his words, Jiang Wanxing's voluptuous form quivered; her moist, coquettish eyes flickered with a trace of panic and wounded pride.
"You... you—" She parted her lips, as if to retort, but instead buried her flushed face against his masculine chest, her voice a broken whisper, "It's all... it's all..."
Boom—!
In that instant, Lu Chen felt his very soul ignite under the flame of Jiang Wanxing's fateful answer.
No longer could he restrain the primal desire awakened by both the side effects of the Heart-Hunting Score and the captivating femme fatale before him. He bent his head in one decisive, tender-yet-unyielding motion and captured her wine-soft lips with a kiss both possessive and infinitely gentle.
For Jiang Wanxing, the world went blank—as though an atomic bomb had detonated in her brain. She forgot to breathe, to think, even to remember who or where she was. All she sensed was the scorching torrent of masculine heat, a lethal current that coursed from Lu Chen's inexperienced yet commanding kiss straight into her soul.
Her heart, long frozen and numb, awakened as though parched earth received a life-giving rain, stirring with a desperate craving to be wholly conquered, wholly possessed, wholly melted away.
Long moments later, their lips parted. Jiang Wanxing's sumptuous curves went limp in Lu Chen's arms, her breath ragged. Her face, flushed like a ripe apple from oxygen deprivation and unspoken bliss, glowed with an intoxicating bloom. Her phoenix-eyes, glistening with desire, brimmed with an irresistible allure.
"Lu Chen... I..." Her voice was husky and uneven, each word seeming torn from her very essence, "I... want more..."
Lu Chen smiled—a smile brimming with confidence and the irresistible power of one who commands all. He knew that tonight's so-called "private appreciation" banquet had only just begun to serve its most exhilarating course.