Wenzhi could barely process the absurdity of the reality he had landed in. He was actively being stretched and worked open by a dense tentacle of Xinyuan’s dark mist while the Esper himself hovered over him, planting soft, tender kisses against his lips.

"Relax, baby," Xinyuan murmured. "Do you want me to go deeper or not? I want to hear the words, Zhi’er."

Wenzhi parted his lips, heat rolling through his lower abdomen. He sharply turned his head to the side, refusing to look into those manic eyes. "Yes," he gasped out, his pride completely cracking under the pressure.

The moment the word left his mouth, the shadow slid significantly deeper, moving with a slow rhythm that targeted every sensitive nerve ending inside his entrance.

Wenzhi’s eyes snapped shut, his jaw slackening as a delicious, overwhelming sensation flooded his body.

He had officially gone mad. There was no other explanation for how incredible this felt, the shadow rubbing against his inner walls while Xinyuan dropped his head back down to feast on his skin.

He bit into Wenzhi’s collarbone, sucked heavily at his throat, and pinned his wrists to the stone, completely having his fill until Wenzhi was pushed over the edge.

A sharp, breathless cry tore from Wenzhi’s throat as he came hard, his release splashing white and hot against Xinyuan’s chest, his own stomach, and the space between them.

The exact moment the climax peaked, Xinyuan pulled the shadow tendril out, letting the mist dissolve instantly. He reached up, gently cupping Wenzhi’s chin and coaxing his heavy eyelids open.

"I am the only one who can make you look like this," Xinyuan purred, his dimples cutting through the blood on his cheeks. "I’m so lucky..."

Wenzhi tried to knit his brows into a stern, defensive frown through the lingering haze of his orgasm, but he failed. His muscles felt like water.

Xinyuan was staring down at him like a goddamn demon that had just successfully collected his soul, and the worst part was that Wenzhi still wanted more.

He watched the dark chains, uncoiling from Xinyuan’s arms and chest as his powerful muscles flexed with every micro-movement.

Wenzhi slowly lifted his hand, pressing his fingers against the burning skin of Xinyuan’s chest. He followed the path of the retreating lines, his fingertips trailing down the hard ridges of the Esper’s stomach with purposeful curiosity.

Before he could drop his hand any lower, a stray wisp of Xinyuan’s mist snapped out, wrapping firmly around his wrist to stop him.

"If you keep touching me right there, baby, I am going to blow up the entire planet."

"Kinky," Wenzhi scoffed, a breathy laugh escaping him.

Xinyuan released his wrist and pulled Wenzhi up from the cold, bruising cavern floor. Wenzhi didn’t fight him; he completely allowed the Esper to move their positioning, shifting until he was on his hands and knees.

Xinyuan moved in behind him instantly. He locked an arm around Wenzhi’s waist, lifting his hips before driving straight into him in one smooth, devastating thrust.

He hit Wenzhi’s sweet spot on impact.

"Ahnn—!" Wenzhi jolted forward, a loud, ragged moan tearing from his throat.

With his hands sliding against the smooth stone floor, he desperately reached back, gripping Xinyuan’s thigh and digging his fingernails deep enough into the dense muscle to draw fresh blood.

Xinyuan didn’t care. He began to fuck him with a ruthless, alternating rhythm, shifting between slow, deeply agonizing stretches and deliciously rough slams that had Wenzhi’s head throwing back against the Esper’s shoulder.

Broken, repetitive grunts and breathless "uhs... uhs..." escaped Wenzhi’s parted lips as Xinyuan hit the exact same spot again and again, sending the Guide’s grey eyes rolling back toward his skull.

By the time the tension coiled too tight to handle, Xinyuan came inside Wenzhi who followed immediately.

"Come here..." Xinyuan grabbed Wenzhi’s hips and flipped their positions, pulling Wenzhi up onto his lap so he was riding him.

Thoroughly fucked and beautifully flushed, Wenzhi didn’t protest. His freckled skin was covered in a mosaic of Xinyuan’s dark bite marks and fingerprints. His head bowed, his dark hair ruffled, he pressed his hands flat against Xinyuan’s broad chest and began to move his hips in smooth, heavy downward arcs.

He didn’t hold back a single sound now, letting out soft, broken whimpers that drove the Esper completely over the edge.

Xinyuan’s hands locked onto his waist as Wenzhi rode him, both of them coming together.

In no time, Wenzhi’s strength completely gave out, his body collapsing forward against Xinyuan’s chest. The Esper wrapped his arms tightly around him, holding him flush against his skin, still buried deep and rock-hard inside him.

They were both breathing heavily, the frantic chaos of their wavelengths falling into a slow, rhythmic hum.

Xinyuan’s palm slid down Wenzhi’s spine, his rough fingertips tracing the pattern of freckles and freshly darkening marks along his skin.

Wenzhi slowly raised his head, shifting his weight against Xinyuan’s chest to look at him, his dull grey eyes unreadable through the haze of exhaustion.

Xinyuan’s eyes were still burning red. The corruption hadn’t vanished entirely. It would take days of concentrated, dedicated guiding to fully burn out but it had reduced enough to stabilize the atmospheric pressure.

Outside, the dark hurricanes were breaking apart, and the floating bedrock was settling back to the earth. The space was shattered, but the storm had finally passed.

Wenzhi ran his fingers through Xinyuan’s messy hair. "What are we going to do about Zhaohe?"

Xinyuan let out a low, breathy chuckle, as if he’d been fully expecting the question. "Are you seriously attempting to talk about her while I am still buried hard inside you, Freckles?"

"I am just asking questions that need to be asked." Wenzhi muttered, a small frown line appearing between his brows as he briefly averted his gaze, though he didn’t pull his fingers out of Xinyuan’s hair.

Xinyuan sighed, the vibration rumbling deeply against Wenzhi’s stomach. "Can’t we just focus on us right now?"

"Like you said... you are inside me. Hard... and deep." Wenzhi swallowed hard, his throat tightening as a sudden awareness of their physical connection rushed back over him. His grey eyes looked beautifully dazed. "Isn’t that... enough?"

The raw, unguarded pleasure in Wenzhi’s expression sent a jolt of electricity straight through Xinyuan’s body.

"It’s..." Xinyuan lost his voice, his throat locking before he cleared it hard. "It’s not enough. We can deal with Zhaohe later. Not right now. This cave is the only quiet sanctuary we’re going to get before we have to go back out there... back to the rifts, the factions, the high families.... Here, we can just be ourselves. We can just be us."

Wenzhi stared at him, his face flushed a deep, beautiful pink, but he didn’t look away this time. Seeing that Wenzhi was actually taking his words to heart, a soft, genuinely happy smile broke through Xinyuan’s lingering mania.

Slowly, Wenzhi brought his second hand down, pressing his palm flat against his own lower abdomen, right where the heavy, solid length of the Esper was rooting him. "I can feel you right here."

That did it.

The last thread of Xinyuan’s fragile restraint snapped completely. He flipped Wenzhi beneath him, pinning him to the hard stone floor and pulled nearly all the way out of Wenzhi’s entrance, eliciting a sharp, breathless gasp from the Guide, before immediately plunging back in one deep thrust.

Wenzhi’s back arched off the ground, his grey eyes rolling back toward his skull as a sharp, high moan of pure pleasure and utter surprise ripped from his throat.

Without giving him a single second to adjust, Xinyuan began to move, fucking into him with a heavy, relentless pace.

"Shall we just get married, Freckles?" he rasped, his voice dripping with an unhinged, hungry devotion in between his deep, heavy thrusts. "I promise I’ll be good to you."

Wenzhi’s eyes were glassy, his head thrashing lightly against the rock as he tried to grit his teeth. "Shut..."

Xinyuan didn’t let him finish. He leaned down and immediately swallowed the remaining words with a deep kiss, one that Wenzhi melted into, wrapping his legs tightly around the Esper’s waist as they drowned out the rest of the world together.