Weiran just nodded and opened his arms, and Xiaokai went into them.

He trembled against Weiran’s mouth. It took longer this time to morph him into Xingyu in his mind, but by the time his pants were getting unzipped, Weiran was gone.

It wasn’t until afterward—after Weiran had come, and after he’d grasped reality enough to know that it was Xiaokai in front of him and not Xingyu—that Weiran realized…

“You never took off your clothes.” He’d removed his pants just enough to climb on top of Weiran and fuck him into the mattress, but Weiran couldn’t remember ever seeing much skin at all.

Xiaokai was fixing his tie and hair in the mirror. “Mn.”

“Well, could I—”

“I have to get going,” Xiaokai said suddenly. Weiran blinked.

“Huh?”

“I’ll see you on Monday at the meeting. Please feel free to contact me if you have any problems. I’ll get you the information I got as soon as I can.” His voice was just as hoarse as it had been when he first came in, and Weiran realized too now that he’d barely made a sound the entire time they were having sex. He hadn’t noticed because he’d been so lost in the fantasy but now that he thought about it…the only sounds that he’d made were light grunts and panting gasps. He’d not even spoken to Weiran, when the last time he’d had a multitude of things to purr into his ear, like he’d known exactly what would rile him up.

“Wait, Xiaokai, can we talk?”

Xiaokai went to the door and grabbed the handle, and Weiran had to stumble, naked and spattered with cum, to grab his wrist before he could pull the door open.

“Wait.”

Xiaokai sighed. He looked at Weiran in the eyes and said, very calmly, “I’m busy, Zhang Weiran.”

“Can we talk about the medical files? Can we talk about the clothes thing? Um, can we talk about—”

“I’ll see you on Monday,” said Xiaokai.

17

THE PARTY

ANY KIND OF celebration or event at the Liu estate was, of course, outrageously extravagant—but it was the sort of extravagance that was only outrageous to people like Xingyu and Xiaokai who both recognized the kind of money that went into things like this and abhorred it too. To everyone else—to the people who either didn’t know how much it cost or didn’t care about such excessive opulence—it was the kind of affair that they could talk about for the next few months at least.

It really was beautiful, as long as you didn’t think about where all the money was coming from.