Thirty-six years old. Inherited his father’s place in the List when he passed four years before, and wasted absolutely no time in requesting an appointment with Liu Xiaokai. Apparently he’d had his eye on him for a while from an assorted number of parties. Kang Haichi had eyes that made Liu Xiaokai feel uneasy—eyes that seemed to bore right into him, strip him, tear him apart and examine every piece. But the thing about Kang Haichi is that he didn’t often like to be physical with Liu Xiaokai—usually he would just sit in the corner watching Liu Xiaokai, his breath ragged and uneven, his nails digging into whatever chair he’d picked for the night, and then eventually he would pull himself out of his pants with shaking hands and fuck his fist, his eyelashes fluttering but his gaze never leaving Liu Xiaokai. Sometimes he would get even more worked up than usual—he would stumble over to the bed with some effort and bend down, taking Xiaokai into his mouth like he was starving, swallowing him down until his nose was nestled in the hair between Xiaokai’s legs, all the while furiously jerking. It was so…animalistic. But it was safe, and it wasn’t demanding.

Xiaokai went to the room early and washed up in the shower, and then he put all his clothes back on and dried his hair as much as possible. When he came back out, Kang Haichi was already settled in the chair in the corner, but he leapt up when Xiaokai came back out, his eyes eager.

“Liu Xiaokai!”

“This was short notice,” Xiaokai said as greeting. “Did something happen?”

“Ah—it’s just that it’s been so long and I was reading over the terms of everything and it said I could just…make demands sometimes if I wanted—”

Even though his words were nervous, the look in his eyes made Xiaokai feel like he was being devoured.

“It’s fine. I understand my situation has been explained to you? I can’t take off many clothes.”

“Yes—yes, that’s fine.”

“That remains true no matter how heated things get.”

Kang Haichi’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, I understand.”

“The usual?”

Kang Haichi swallowed hard. He took an unsteady step backward and collapsed into the chair again. “Yes. Please.”

Xiaokai crawled onto the bed.