The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 377: Too Sweet (Yizhen)

She bit a candied hawthorn he had pushed to her lips as they walked through the night market.

"Too sweet," Xinying complained with a soft smile on her lips, but she kept chewing anyway. It had been a long time since Yizhen had moved himself into the Palace, and he still liked to take her out on dates where nobody could recognize her.

"Not yet," he replied, his deep voice sending a shiver up her spine. He flicked a coin to the vendor without looking and tugged her hand through the crowd. "But give me ten minutes and I can fix that."

He bought other small things as they moved: a paper fan for the heat, a hair ribbon she didn’t need, a tiny carved comb he claimed was lucky.

Each time she tried to refuse, he pressed it into her palm and kept walking.

He did not hurry.

He drifted through the street like a man who knew every stall and every cut-through, and who everyone knew back.

A gambler called his name and thought better of it when he saw who walked at his side.

A girl selling sesame cakes stared at Xinying, then dropped her eyes and smiled to herself, as if she’d just seen a story end the right way.

"Where are we going?" Xinying asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Upstairs," Yizhen said, easing her into a narrow lane hung with little lanterns. "A room that belongs to me. Also the owner. Also the deed."

"So it is yours."

"I could be talked into handing it over to you for the price of a kiss."

She gave him one on the move, quick. He made a pleased sound and bought her another candied haw. She rolled her eyes and ate it anyway.

The teahouse stood at the end of the lane, three floors of soft light and soft voices.

Two men at the door straightened; one opened his mouth, only to abruptly close it again when Yizhen lifted two fingers.

They vanished like smoke.

Yaozu, Xinying’s faithful shadow when she was outside, followed them inside without a word and chose a place by the stairs where anyone who wanted trouble would have to meet him first.

The staff clocked the arrangement and flowed away.

"Let’s go upstairs," Yizhen purred, and led her to the top floor.

He unlocked a plain door and set the bolt himself once they were through.

Curtains, a low table, a chair by the window. The market noise dulled to a hush, like the city had put a palm over its own mouth.

"It’s quieter up here," he said.

"It is," she agreed, and loosened her hand from his. She set the paper rabbit he’d insisted on buying on the table. It sagged to one side. He straightened it carefully, like it mattered.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"For what?" she said, but her smile had no edge.

He touched the lacquered tray that sat ready—sweets, candied fruit, little sticks of ginger. He looked at her again. "For dessert."

She knew what he meant. He knew she knew. She nodded once. "I am always hungry."

"Come here," he said, and held out a hand.

She went willingly.

He took her wrist and kissed the inside of it, then the center of her palm, then the base of her thumb.

He smelled like spice and trouble and clean skin. She let her shoulders drop and let the day fall off her. He felt the change and smiled, softer now.

"Let me take care of you," he purred, his eyes turning dark with desire.

"I’m in your hands," replied Xinying with a smile on her face.

He did not reach for her mouth to kiss her.

Instead, he unpinned her hair instead, sliding each pin free like a small debt paid in full.

He set every piece on the table so none would fall and then combed his fingers through the loosened strands, slow from crown to ends, once, twice, until she breathed deeper without trying to.

"Better," he murmured.

"Yes."

"Sit."

He eased her onto the chair, then dropped to one knee as if teasing a court he had no use for.

He slid one shoe off and then the other, pressing kisses to her ankles, then higher, just enough to make her hands curl on the edge of the seat. He looked up. "Still too sweet?"

"Not yet," she said.

He rose. His mouth found her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, then her mouth full.

He kissed like he talked—quick, then slow, then quick again—playing, testing, learning her breath, waiting each time for the moment she gave him all of it back.

He had chased a thousand things in his life and watched most of them throw knives over their shoulders as they ran. But she did not run. She came to him when he asked and let him lead where he promised.

She was everything he could have ever wanted in a partner. One who knew exactly what he needed and when. One who could turn soft on nights like this and stand firmly at his side when there was a threat.

He never saw himself married. Being the King of Hell didn’t lend itself to a Queen. Or at least not a traditional one. But the moment Zhao Xinying walked into his life, he never had any doubts that he was meant to be hers.

Going back to what he was doing before, throwing all those thoughts into the back of his mind, Yizhen did not undress her fast.

He opened ties and folded cloth like it belonged to a favorite story, drawing everything out. He kissed new skin as he found it, nothing rushed, nothing rough, not until she put her hands in his hair and tugged, gentle but clear.

"More," she demanded, her voice still soft, her slips still curved in a smile.

He smiled against her throat. "Your wish is my command, my Queen."

He skimmed his palms under silk and found heat; her back arched, small and involuntary.

He kissed the place below her ear, the line of her neck, the place his thumb had learned years ago to rub when she was thinking too loud.

He did not speak. He did not joke. He laid kisses like a path until she leaned into his mouth without thinking to be brave.

There was a knock downstairs, faint through the floor.

He paused, his head tilting to the side, and counted each step with his ear as easily as other men counted coins. The steps came closer. Stopped outside. The doorframe breathed.

"Occupied," Yaozu said through wood, voice even but not inviting any questions.

The steps retreated. The room remembered them and forgot them.

Yizhen laughed under his breath, that pleased note he only made when the world obeyed him without having to be fixed.

He looked at her again, took her hand, lifted her from the chair, and turned her to face the table, his chest to her back.

"Don’t move," he said. "Let me."

She set her palms on the table’s edge and nodded.

She watched his hands in the polished wood as he slid her robe down and left it where it fell.

His fingers settled warm at her waist and then lower, steady, sure. He loved taking his time with her when he had it. He learned her with the patience of a man who had never been given permission until now.

She let her weight find him and let her head drop back to his shoulder. He made a small sound, low in his throat, and kissed the place where her jaw met her neck.

"Good?" he asked.

"Yes."

He fed her a sugared ginger with his other hand and waited for her to chase it with her tongue before he put his mouth on hers again, sweet and sharp at once.

He swallowed her little gasp and smiled into it, then went back to his work, finding rhythm, pressure, pace, all the small maps that made a body say yes. She gave him her yes without mistrust.

She pressed back at him, slow; he held her steady, slower; she sighed, and he answered that sigh with his palm and two fingers and the kind of attention that did not need witnesses to believe it was real.

Words fell away. She rested her forehead on her hands, on the smooth lacquer, and let her hips follow the way he set. He hummed once, not a song, a note of satisfaction at the way she answered him.

"More," she demanded again, her body practically melting into his.

He heard what more meant and how much.

He slid his hand up to her breast, cupped, thumb circling until she made a quiet, unguarded sound that pleased him in a way money never had. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

He kissed the back of her shoulder. He tasted sugar on her skin. He added what was missing—a slow press where muscle met heat—and kept it there until her breath broke on his name.

That was when he stopped being gentle.

But he wasn’t rough...never that.

Just sure, fully. His hands turned her.

He lifted her onto the table and stood between her parted thighs.

He looked at her once, asking with his eyes what he had not asked with his mouth.