The Devil's Favourite Obsession

He did not so much as blink. He did not even look ashamed of staring at her compromised status.

Shameless!

How is it that he doesn’t even look particularly apologetic for standing there with his coffee while she stood half naked before him, scandalised enough if it were the 18th century?

”You are shameless,” she declared, her face going red so quickly that she could feel the heat rising. ”A pervert. A complete—”

Cassian interrupted before she could build sufficient insult. ”You are hurting my feelings again.” He laid one hand against his chest with tragic solemnity. ”I suppose I shall need a cigarette. I told you not to wound me like this.”

Cixi stared at him in incredulity.

The man had entered her room without warning or knocking, had seen her without clothes, and was now speaking of his feelings.

She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the blanket until her knuckles nearly whitened.

”Do not even think of smoking a Cigarette, you Shameless!” Cixi yelled at him.

”Then do stop injuring my heart.”

She bit her lower lip so sharply that pain flashed across it. ”You do not have a heart. You are too heartless to feel injured.”

Cassian lifted the cup and took a leisurely sip. ”On the contrary. Whenever you are near me, my heart beats rather noticeably. It is the most inconvenient for me. Do you realise it? What are you causing me? Therefore, I must insist you treat my feelings with greater care.”

Cixi rolled her eyes so hard that had they not been fixed in her head, they might truly have fallen out.

She looked away, partly because she did not wish to see whether he was amused and partly because the memory of his gaze on her bare skin still made her burn.

How was one meant to argue with a man who answered every accusation with a smoother, more unbearable reply?

At last, she looked back at him and said, with as much dignity as one could manage while wrapped in a blanket like a very furious ghost, ”Should you not knock before entering someone’s room, especially a bedroom? And I certainly do not remember inviting you into my apartment.”

Cassian tilted his head faintly, as though she had asked a curious question rather than a perfectly reasonable one.

”First, why are you being dramatic?” he genuinely asked. ”I already removed your clothes at night. I had already seen everything. Why choose now to become distressed? I mean, you didn’t react at all when I changed your clothes... I even took your permission before taking off your clothes. And you agreed to it.”

Cixi stared at him as he had grown two horns. ”That’s not possible. I would never allow any man to take my clothes off my body, not even from my dead body!”

Cassian shook his head as if it were Cixi who was overreacting.

”I inquired if I could take off your clothes and then presented you with a choice. First, if you didn’t agree, shake your head, and if you agreed, remain still.... and you didn’t shake your head!”

For one dreadful second, Cixi forgot how to breathe.

Her eyes widened so far that they almost hurt.

”You what?”

He looked entirely untroubled by her horror.

”You were injured,” he said. ”So I did you a favour and removed them. You are welcome!”

Cixi’s mouth opened. Then she closed it and opened it again.

There were moments when speech failed because of pain. This was not one of them. This was far worse. This was a speech failure because the mind had simply abandoned all useful function.

”You removed them,” she repeated faintly. ”You took advantage of me! You scoundrel!”

”Yes.”

”How could You remove my clothes?”

”With both hands!”

”You—”

”Yes,” he said again, with tiresome patience. ”Would you have preferred that I let you sleep in dirty clothes and dust?”

Cixi drew the blanket tighter around herself until she nearly strangled in the process. Her ears felt hot. Her face felt hot. Even her toes might have been blushing.

”That is not the point.”

”It seems very much the point.”

”The point,” she said with great effort, ”You are a Pervert and not a gentleman I expected you to be.”

”Pervert?” He gave her a measured look. ”Little Lamb, I carried you here, undressed you, checked your wounds, and remained in the apartment all night. If I had intended to behave like a scoundrel, your concern this morning would be of a much more serious nature.”

The insolence of the remark left her stunned.

Then another line from him followed, spoken in that same velvety tone that always seemed designed to make ordinary speech sound indecent.

”Or,” he added, ”would you truly have preferred to wake in my bed instead?”

The way he said my bed made the words feel far more suggestive than any innocent sentence had a right to feel.

Cixi glared at him. ”No.”

”Such conviction,” he murmured.

”No,” she repeated more firmly. ”And stop speaking in that voice.”

He lifted a brow. ”What voice?”

”That one.”

”What an unfortunate condition,” he said. ”I appear to have only one.”

She made a sound of offended disbelief.

Cassian, entirely unmoved, crossed the room with the cup still in his hand and set it on the side table. Then he looked at her again, not shamelessly this time, but with that same calm appraisal which somehow felt equally intolerable.

”You are healed,” he said. ”How?”

She blinked.

The abrupt change in subject disarmed her. ”I have good genes!” She quickly replied.

Cixi’s expression altered at once, though her embarrassment still lingered beneath.

”I wasn’t hurt that bad, so I healed faster,” she said quietly. ”A good sleep is all I needed!”

Cassian nodded.

”If you remained here all night,” she said slowly, trying to change the topic, ”where did you sleep?”

Cassian’s mouth curved.

He looked towards the chair by the window.

Cixi followed his gaze.

A chair.

A perfectly ordinary chair.

Then she looked back at him, scandal renewed.

”You sat in a chair?”

”Yes.”

”All night?”

”Yes.”

She narrowed her eyes. ”Liar.”

That amused him.

”You wound me again.”

”I do not believe you.”

”And yet I am touched that you imagine I would crawl into bed beside you.”

Her jaw nearly dropped.

”I did not say that.”

”You thought it.”

She looked away at once, which only condemned her further.

Cassian gave a low, satisfied hum, then reached for the coffee again.

Cixi stood there in silence, wrapped tightly in the blanket, glaring at him while he drank her morning peace as easily as he drank the coffee in his hand.

How extraordinary, she thought with mounting exasperation, that a man could rescue her from being shot, frighten her half to death, undress her, sit in her room all night, and still somehow end up behaving as though she were the difficult one.

At length, she said, ”You are the most impossible man I have ever met.”

”And yet,” he replied, lifting the cup slightly in her direction, ”you continue meeting me.”

That, infuriatingly, was true.

She hated it when he was truthful. He wore it far too smugly.

So instead of answering, Cixi drew the blanket tighter around herself and marched towards the wardrobe with all the wounded dignity she could gather.

”Turn around or leave!” she said.

Cassian did not move.

”Why?”

”So I can dress. And we are not Done!”