The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 375: Night Food (Deming)

She caught him with a bamboo steamer under his arm and a guilty look on his face.

"Caught you," Xinying chuckled, shaking her head. She was in a simple green dress and bare feet, her shockingly blue eyes no longer seeming all that strange as he looked at her.

Years without having to fight was a good look on her. It made her more relaxed, more likely to play. And it was a change that he and all her other men would kill to protect.

None of them officially married her. They couldn’t. She was the Empress, and the country needed her as its Empress more than Deming needed to bow to a god he didn’t believe in just to call her his wife.

He did that every night.

Mind you, they all found it funny that there were rumors that to get a posting in the palace meant that you would never marry in your life. It was whispered in the darkness, but they didn’t know the half of it.

There was no way he could even look at another woman when Xinying shone like a light calling out to his darkness.

And sharing her with his best friends?

She hid it well, but they all knew that her heart was big enough to accommodate all of them.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Deming froze in the dark kitchen like a thief who hated being a thief. "This is for the clerks," he announced, even though they both new better.

She lifted the lid and let steam roll up. "Then the clerks won’t miss three dumplings," she said slyly as she took two. Popped one into her mouth, she held the other up near his lips. "Open."

Deming knew that he could never deny her anything. Her word was law, and so, he did.

Chewing the perfectly cooked dumpling, he tried to look stern, only to utterly fail as he looked down at the small figure in front of him.

"Sit," she said, pointing to the low bench by the hearth. "And here was me thinking that you knew how to share, Left Prime Minister."

"I thought we retired titles for the night," reminded Deming as he shifted his weight back and forth.

"We did," she nodded. "Sit, husband. Please."

He sat. She sat closer than the bench needed. He did not move away.

"You know Yizhen says you are worse than him," she went on, fishing for a chopstick with one hand and his wrist with the other. "At stealing food."

"I steal for the state," he said.

"You steal for your stomach." She tapped his bowl. "Which is loyal to no flag."

He tried not to smile only to fail again. "You didn’t eat dinner," he reminded her with a sigh, putting the steamer basket on the table between them.

"I saved room for your crime." She took another dumpling and bit into it too soon. "Hot."

Deming reached, held her wrist, blew on the bite she had left. "You do not have to prove you are made of stone," he said. "Not to me." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

She leaned in and kissed his cheek for that. Fast, soft. "I’m not stone. I’m hungry."

"We could take this to the steps," he said. "It’s cooler."

"Or the study couch," she countered, a big smile on her face. "With pillows and a lot fewer mosquitoes."

They took the steamer and two bowls and walked through halls that finally had nothing urgent to say.

On the couch, she pulled her hair up into a knot that would fall in ten minutes. Deming watched her do it as if it were a military problem. She caught him watching and raised a brow.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Everything."

"Poetry," she teased. "Who are you and where is my very serious left prime minister?"

"He went to bed," Deming said. "You can see him in the morning if you want."

"I always want to see him. But that is good, too, to have you here." She set the steamer on the table and tucked her feet under his thigh like she had paid rent for that space. "Now, I was not the only one to miss dinner. Eat."

He did. He tried to keep his hands clean. Failed at that too.

She laughed when the sauce smeared his thumb and took it into her mouth without asking permission. Sucked the taste away. Looked up at him while she did it, calm as the moon.

He exhaled like a man who had been holding his breath for a year.

"Better?" she asked, letting his hand go.

"No," he said. "Worse."

"Explain."

"I am not thinking about dumplings anymore."

"You were never thinking about dumplings." She set the bowl aside. "You are always thinking three moves ahead." She leaned in until her mouth touched his jaw. "So stop. Be here."

"I am here," he said, and meant it.

She kissed him again, not polite this time. He kissed back like a man who had learned patience in war and now refused to waste it on the peace he had earned. Slow. Careful. Then not careful at all.

Her laugh slid into his mouth. "You taste like vinegar."

"You taste like winning," he answered before he could stop himself.

"Terrible line," she said, smiling.

"But a true line." He pulled her closer with both hands at her waist. "Stay with me."

"I live here," she said, but she moved into his lap anyway, knees bracketing his thighs, skirt pushed high without ceremony. "Hands," she said. "You are allowed to use them."

And so he did.

He mapped her like a road he already knew by heart and still wanted to walk again just to feel it under his feet.

Palms up her sides. Fingers at her ribs. Thumbs under the edge of her robe. She shivered when he found the spot that always made her gasp. He filed it away like a note he would never lose.

"Deming," she warned, soft and low.

"Yes."

"Don’t plan this," she said. "Don’t count. Don’t think."

He nodded, even though they both knew that was impossible for him. Then again, the times where she screamed his name the loudest was when he planned. He moved the steamer out of the way so that they wouldn’t kick it.

"Thank you," she said dryly, sinking down to kiss him again. "Very romantic."

"I am trying," he said into her mouth.

"You are succeeding."

He slid his hands under silk and found skin. Warm. Real. No court. No army. Just them. She moved against him, slow at first, like testing water with a toe. His breath hitched. She smiled and did it again, not a test now, a promise.

"Shirt," she said, tugging at his tie.

He helped. The knot came free. The collar opened.

She pushed fabric off his shoulders and put her hands on his chest like she owned the house and everything in it. He wasn’t proud of the sound he made. He let her hear it anyway.

"Again," she said.

He did it again.

"More," she added, and he laughed once—helpless, happy—and obeyed her like he obeyed nobody else.