Transmigration; A Mother's Redemption and a perfect Wife.-Chapter 460; Honeymoon Phase 6

The one where that man was beating his wife after bringing her to such an exotic place...." The words came out carefully, testing the waters, after all, he was a man, too, and Huo Yang had once done that. "And we had intervened."

"I remember." His voice had taken on a harder edge, though his touch remained gentle.

Tang Fei was quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully so that they wouldn’t come out in an insulting way. "It made me think. About... about us. About what kind of man you are."

"And what kind of man am I?" There was something cautious in his tone now, as if he wasn’t entirely sure where this conversation was heading.

She propped herself up on one elbow to look at him directly, her hair falling in a dark curtain around her face. "Would you ever... I mean, could you ever imagine... doing something like that? To me?"

Huo Ting Cheng’s expression shifted, surprise, then something that looked almost like pain.

He sat up, bringing her with him, his hands cupping her face with a tenderness that bordered on reverence.

"No," he said simply, but with such absolute conviction that it left no room for doubt. "Never. Not even in my darkest moments, not even when we were at our worst, did that thought ever enter my mind. I would cut off my own hands first before I even do it."

"Even when I was..." she hesitated, not sure how to phrase it. "Even when things were bad between us?"

"Especially then." His thumbs stroked her cheekbones. "Tang Fei, I’ve done many things... I can be controlling or possessive..." the irony of that statement, given the herbs he was secretly taking, wasn’t lost on him "....but physical violence? Against you? That’s a line I would never, could never cross. You’re not property to be damaged. You’re... you’re everything. My everything...."

Something in her chest loosened at his words, at the intensity in his eyes.

"What about the anklet then?" she challenged, though there was no real heat in it. "Isn’t that a form of control?"

"It’s a symbol," he corrected, a hint of his earlier playfulness returning. "A very permanent, non-removable symbol, but a symbol nonetheless. Of commitment, not control. There’s a difference."

"Is there?" But she was smiling now, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"There is." He pulled her closer, until she was straddling his lap, his hands settling on her hips. "Control is about power over someone. This...." his finger traced the anklet "....is about connection. About you carrying a piece of me wherever you go. About everyone knowing you’re claimed."

"So possessive," she murmured, but her tone was fond rather than critical.

"Unrepentantly so." His lips found her neck, placing soft kisses along her pulse point. "But I would never hurt you, Fei’er. Not like that. Never like that."

She tilted her head back, giving him better access, her body already responding despite her earlier soreness. "Not even if I really, really made you angry?"

"Not even then." Kiss. "I might lock you in our room." Kiss. "Keep you to myself for days." Kiss. "Make you forget why you were angry in the first place." His teeth grazed her collarbone. "But hurt you? Never."

Tang Fei shivered, her hands tightening in his hair. "That’s... oddly romantic. In a very possessive, borderline obsessive way."

"I contain multitudes," he replied against her skin, and she could feel his smile.

"You contain issues," she corrected, but her breathless tone undermined any criticism.

"You are married to me anyway and it will stay like that until death."

"Hehe... Really now?" She pulled back to look at him, her expression softening. "And I guess I’m, even with the permanent jewelry and the control issues and the general tyrannical behavior."

"Tyrannical?" He feigned offense. "I prefer ’decisively protective.’"

Tang Fei laughed, shaking her head. "You’re impossible."

"But you love me." It wasn’t a question.

"Unfortunately, yes." She kissed him, soft and lingering. "Very much. Even when you’re being an overbearing, controlling, possessive menace."

"That’s all I ask." His hands slid up her sides, his touch warm and deliberate. "Well, that and for you to stop trying to get out of bed. We have this suite for three more days. I intend to make full use of it."

"My body might literally fall apart."

"I’ll be gentle." His smile was wicked. "Eventually."

"That’s not reassuring...." Her protest was cut off as he flipped them, pinning her beneath him with easy strength, careful not to jostle her too much despite the maneuver.

The anklet chimed, a sound that was becoming as familiar as his heartbeat.

"We have nowhere to be," he murmured, trailing kisses along her jaw. "Nothing to do. No responsibilities, no schedules, no interruptions. Just us, and this room, and all the time in the world."

Tang Fei wanted to argue, wanted to point out that they should at least leave the room at some point, see the resort, do the activities they’d paid for.

But his mouth was doing things that made coherent thought increasingly difficult, and the underwater light was painting everything in shades of blue and green that felt dreamlike and unreal.

"You’re terrible," she managed, her hands sliding down his back.

"I’m thorough," he corrected. "There’s a difference."

And as the afternoon light shifted and changed, as schools of fish continued their eternal dance beyond the glass, as the world outside their underwater sanctuary continued without them, they stayed exactly where they were, wrapped up in each other, in this stolen time where the past didn’t matter and the future could wait.

For now, there was only this: his touch, her laughter, the soft chime of the anklet, and the comfortable knowledge that whatever else might be uncertain in their lives, this, them, was solid.

Permanent.

Unbreakable.

Even if neither of them knew the full truth of what they were protecting each other from.