At two-fifteen in the afternoon, the elevator doors opened on the thirty-eighth floor.
Elysia walked at the very front, her long pink hair drifting gently in the airflow from the air conditioning.
Her right hand held Griseo's, and her left hand carried a paper bag printed all over with brand logos.
"Hello, everyone~ Ellie's here~"
Her voice was like tossing a candy bomb into the quiet office area.
Nuwa was the first to spring up from behind her workstation, a stylus still clutched in her hand.
"Elysia! You're finally here! Come look at the new character art I drew! I redid Kiana's eyeliner three times this time—"
"Wow, let me see, let me see~"
Elysia let go of Griseo's hand and, in two quick strides, leaned in front of Nuwa's screen.
The two of them pressed their heads together and started pointing and commenting at the character art of that white-haired girl on the screen.
"Push this bust curve out just a tiny bit more—yes, just a tiny bit. A girl's charm lies in things half-hidden, half-revealed~"
"Ellie, you get me!"
After her hand was released, Griseo stood quietly in place, hugging her own drawing board, her gaze sweeping slowly across the unfamiliar office environment.
She saw Kevin behind the bar counter, saw Fu Hua wiping down the weapon rack, saw Ma Feima doing push-ups in the corner.
Then she lowered her head and added a stroke to her drawing board.
Eden was the last to step out of the elevator.
Her dark gold dress gave off a soft sheen under the fluorescent lights, and her high heels made no sound as they pressed into the carpet.
She took off her sunglasses and hung them at her collar, her gaze sweeping past the entire office area and locking precisely onto the glass door at the very back bearing the nameplate "Director's Office."
Kevin stood up holding his coffee cup and gave a slight nod.
"Eden."
"Thanks for your hard work, Kevin. Su Yu's here, right?"
"He's waiting for you in the office."
Eden returned a tasteful smile and exchanged greetings with Fu Hua and the others.
Her footsteps didn't pause; she headed straight for the office.
The glass door closed behind Eden.
Su Yu was sitting at his desk, and in the holographic projection before him floated the image of a girl with gray hair and orange goggles.
"Boss, the stress test on the third layer of the firewall is done, no problems." Bronie chewed her bubble gum, arms folded across her chest. "I've also finished the server expansion plan for the PV release day. Guaranteed not to crash."
"Thanks for your hard work." Su Yu turned his chair and, seeing Eden walk in, said, "Eden, come, let me introduce you—this is Bronie, codename Hack Bunny, our studio's chief cybersecurity officer."
Bronie's holographic image tilted its head, sizing Eden up and down.
"Oho, Eden in the flesh. Prettier than on TV."
Eden walked over to the side of the desk, pulled up a chair and sat down, crossing her legs.
"Hello, Miss Hack Bunny. Su Yu has mentioned you."
"Just call me B.H." Bronie blew a bubble. "Boss, anything else? If not, I'm going back to grinding my game."
"Hold on."
Su Yu lowered his voice, glanced out the door, and only after confirming that Elysia was still discussing the character art with Nuwa did he turn back.
"Eden, I need to ask you a favor. The fact that Bronie is working for me—help me keep it secret in front of Kiana."
Eden raised an eyebrow.
"She doesn't know?"
"Kiana teamed up with Bronie before to do Vigilante work, saving money to buy me a present. Bronie was the partner she recruited herself; I don't want her to find out that Bronie has actually been working for me all along." Su Yu rubbed his nose. "She wants to give me a surprise, and I don't want to disappoint her—what do you think?"
The office was quiet for two seconds.
Eden's gaze fell on Su Yu's face, and the curve at the corner of her mouth shifted subtly.
"Heh, our little producer really knows about romance, doesn't he."
Her voice was very soft, the intonation lilting up a touch.
At the same time, under the desk, a foot in a high heel quietly stepped onto the top of Su Yu's foot.
Su Yu's expression stiffened for an instant.
In Bronie's holographic image, the eyes behind those orange goggles swept back and forth between the two of them a few times.
"...Fine, then." Bronie popped the bubble gum in her mouth with a crisp "pop." "Looking at this scene, maybe I'd better not keep being the third wheel here~"
She pulled a virtual business card out of her pocket and flicked it in Eden's direction.
"Ms. Eden, this is my private encrypted channel—if you ever have any technical matters in the future, you can contact me directly. On call anytime."
Eden took the virtual card and stored it in her phone.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. I'll be off."
The holographic image flickered twice, and Bronie shot Su Yu a meaningful glance before vanishing.
Only the two of them remained in the office.
Su Yu lowered his head and glanced at the high heel pressing on the top of his foot under the desk, then looked up at Eden's face.
"...Could you move your foot, Sister Eden?"
"No."
Eden's answer was crisp and clean.
But in the end she withdrew her foot, stood up, walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window to glance at the skyline outside, then turned back.
"By the way, where's Kiana?"
"In the break room." Su Yu stood up too. "She doesn't seem to be feeling well today. When you see her later, be careful, don't—"
He didn't finish his sentence.
Eden turned around, walked back in two steps, and hooked a finger into his collar.
The force wasn't great, but the direction was very clear.
The small of Su Yu's back hit the armrest of the office chair, and his whole body was pressed back down into the seat.
The chair's casters slid half an inch across the carpet.
Eden bent down.
The distance between the two of them was compressed to within ten centimeters.
That expensive perfume scent on her, mixed with her body heat, grew rich in this cramped space.
"Good little brother."
Her voice was very low, her lips almost touching the curve of Su Yu's ear.
"Do you know that bringing up other girls so often in front of your lover—even I would get jealous?"
Su Yu's throat bobbed. This scene was so terribly familiar; last night at the mountaintop, she had launched a surprise attack just like this—he was just like a defenseless little rabbit, its throat bitten clean by this big gray wolf, unable to move at all.
Eden's breath was right at hand, blowing against his ear, and Su Yu felt half his body was going numb. His throat bobbed once, and he opened his mouth:
"Sister Eden, this is the office, Elysia's still outside, at any moment she could—"
Eden didn't give him the chance to finish.
She let go of his collar and stepped back half a pace.
Su Yu had just let out a breath of relief when he saw Eden bend down, the dark gold hem of her dress vanishing from his line of sight.
She slipped under the desk.
That broad solid-wood desk—the space below its surface was just enough to hold an adult woman's body.
Looking from the outside, all you could see was Su Yu sitting in his chair, with documents and a laptop spread across the desktop—everything normal.
As she bent to slip under the desk, the dark gold hem slid down along the base of her thighs, exposing that stretch of skin from her knees to mid-thigh.
Today she wasn't wearing stockings, and the bare skin of her legs took on a porcelain-white hue in the dim light beneath the desk.
When she knelt on the carpet to adjust her posture, the muscle lines of her thighs tensed slightly and relaxed with the movement, the entire curve from ankle to thigh-root stretching out in the narrow space under the desk. The air was filled with the scent of body lotion lingering on the skin of her legs, mixed with the faint warm breath emanating from the lining of her high heels.
Su Yu lowered his head and looked down.
Eden knelt between his legs and lifted her head, those eyes startlingly bright in the shadows under the desk.
The corner of her mouth curled up—it was the gaze of a "hunter."
Her fingers settled on his zipper.
The sound of the metal zipper being pulled open was especially clear in the quiet office.
"—"
Su Yu had just spat out a single syllable when his whole self felt as though someone had clamped a hand around his throat; he wanted to curse.
Eden's hand had already reached inside.
"Shh."
Her lips pressed against the inside of his thigh, her voice carrying up through the gap in the fabric, laced with amusement.
"Quiet down, good little brother—the door isn't locked."
Su Yu's ten fingers clamped down hard onto the armrests of the chair.
Outside the office, Elysia's laughter drifted in through the glass door, blending with the sound of her discussing character art with Nuwa, all lively and bustling.
"Cinch this waistline in a bit more~ yes yes yes, that's exactly the feeling~"
"Ellie, you're a genius!!"
The girl's pure, unadulterated happy voice carried in from outside, clearly audible, and it made Su Yu's body go taut.
The laptop screen on the desktop was still lit, the PV storyboard drafts arranged neatly in the folder.
Su Yu drew his gaze back and let it fall on the cup of iced Americano on the desk.
His breathing turned very shallow, very slow.
Under the desk, Eden's voice drifted up again.
"What's wrong? Nervous?"
"Eden, you're insane."
"Mm, insane for you."
Su Yu's ten fingers left scratch marks from his nails on the chair's armrests.
The space under the desk was dim, with only a single thread of daylight leaking in from the edge of the desktop, lighting up the outline of half of Eden's profile.
She knelt on the carpet, her knees sinking into the soft fuzz, the dark gold hem of her dress spread out behind her.
Her movements carried an obvious inexperience.
The moment her lips first made contact, Su Yu's waist jerked up as if electrocuted.
Eden was startled by his reaction and shrank back half an inch, looking up at him.
Those eyes were excessively bright in the shadows.
"Don't move. This is my first time doing something like this too—let me study it a bit."
Her voice was very soft, the breath she exhaled landing entirely on the inside of Su Yu's thigh.
She said this as naturally as if she were studying ants moving house in an elementary school science class.
Su Yu clenched his back teeth.
Outside the door, Elysia's laughter kept drifting in through the glass, unbroken.
"Nuwa, look at this waistline~ lift it up just a tiny bit more~"
"Ellie, are you a devil?! This is already the fourth version!"
Eden leaned back in again.
This time she didn't hesitate.
Her lips, from the continuous motion, became fuller and more flushed than usual, the contour of her cupid's bow especially distinct where light met shadow, the clear liquid at the corner of her mouth sliding slowly down along the line of her lips, gathering at the tip of her chin into a droplet trembling on the verge of falling.
Su Yu's breathing fell completely apart.
He wanted to say something, but his throat could only squeeze out a few broken syllables.
His right hand left the armrest and reached instinctively beneath the desk, his fingertips brushing against Eden's hair.
That head of soft wine-red long hair was scattered across his knees, the strands swaying gently with the movements of her head.
Eden felt the touch of his fingers and her movement paused for a moment.
She lifted her eyes.
From this angle, Su Yu's chin, his throat, the taut muscles of his neck—all of it was within her field of vision.
She could see this man's fragility at this moment, see him unable to stop himself under her control, that look of resisting yet yielding, his body so undeniably honest even as he refused—it made Eden feel as though there were a fire burning inside her.
"After I went back last night."
She spoke.
Her voice was muffled by the desktop, audible only to Su Yu.
"My head was full of nothing but you."
Su Yu's fingers tightened among her strands of hair.
"Were you thinking of me? Good little brother?"
"I—"
Eden didn't give him time to organize his words.
Her tongue found a spot that made Su Yu's whole body freeze, then concentrated there without hesitation.
Su Yu's spine arched up violently, the back of his head hitting the chair back.
"I—my head's full of nothing but E—Eden you—"
The words cut off halfway.
A very faint laugh came from under the desk.
That amusement overflowed from deep in Eden's throat, the vibration transmitting directly through the point of contact.
In that instant, Su Yu's mind went completely blank.
Eden had gotten the answer she wanted.
Her movements changed.
The earlier tentativeness and inexperience vanished, replaced by a rhythm that carried a clear purpose, one that allowed no evasion.
Her fingers hooked into Su Yu's belt, fixing him to the chair, leaving him no room at all to retreat.
Su Yu's left hand gripped the armrest for dear life, his right hand buried in Eden's hair.
He could feel himself being dragged by an irresistible force toward some critical point, like that steepest hairpin turn on a winding mountain road—the brakes were already floored, yet the car kept sliding toward the cliff's edge.
The sounds outside the door grew blurry.
The conversation between Elysia and Nuwa, the hum of the air conditioning, the clatter of keyboards—all the background noise was compressed into a thin layer of white noise, leaving only that scalp-tingling, wet sound from beneath the desk.
Su Yu's vision began to scatter.
The documents on the desktop, the laptop, that cup of iced Americano—everything turned unreal in his field of vision.
He could feel his consciousness peeling away from his body, with only the part of him below the waist and abdomen still anchored in reality.
Almost there.
His toes curled inside his shoes, the muscles of his thighs taut as steel wire.
And yet, at this very moment.
The glass door of the office was suddenly shoved open from outside.
"Su Yu~ Eden said she was coming to find you, so where'd she go~ Did she—"
Elysia's voice was like a basin of ice water poured down from overhead.
Su Yu's whole self froze in an instant.
His gaze snapped back from the ceiling and crashed straight into the pink-haired woman standing in the doorway.
Elysia was wearing that pink-and-white dress, holding a cup of Starbucks, her signature sweet smile hanging on her face.
Her gaze swept around the office.
Su Yu was sitting behind the desk.
Eden was nowhere to be seen.
"Huh? Eden's not here?"
Elysia tilted her head, making a puzzled expression, looking utterly adorable.
Under the desk, Eden's movements halted.
Her lips were still pressed in place, the hot breath she exhaled landing on Su Yu's skin.
She didn't look up, but Su Yu could feel that the corners of her mouth were curling upward.
Su Yu's throat bobbed once as he found an excuse.
"She—she just said she was going to the restroom."
He heard his own voice squeeze out of his throat, dry as sandpaper rubbing together.
Elysia let out an "Oh" and took two steps into the office, coffee in hand.
"Then I'll just wait for her~ Oh right, Su Yu, about that opening shot in the PV—Nuwa said she wants to confirm the storyboard with you again—"
As she spoke, she walked toward the desk.
Her high heels pressed into the carpet—one step, two steps, three steps.
Closer and closer, closer and closer.
Su Yu felt as if his heart was about to leap out of his throat.
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