Pedra de Apoio

“Not here, not here!”
A soft laugh, soothing and low, reached her ears, and Shi Ran’s body tingled as if electrified. She involuntarily loosened her grip against the man’s hand.
“If Jiaqi saw you like this, what would happen?”
As he spoke, the man’s hand climbed higher, growing bolder.
The dark window tint blocked most of the outside light; her porcelain skin stood out starkly against the black leather seat.
“Outside... someone might notice...”
Zuo Yelin’s sharply defined face was shrouded in shadow, his emotion unreadable. Only his deep eyes fixed on her reactions, the corners of his eyes curling subtly.
“Even if they notice, who would dare say anything!”
He was right.
No one dared gossip about him. But she—nominally the daughter of the Zuo family—would be despised and insulted; her mother might even beat her to death.
Shi Ran’s worries were clear to the man, who gently pulled her back with a simple motion when she momentarily faltered. “Do you like it?”
How could she not?
He had once been her senior at school, the object of her pursuit. To finally be seen by the one she had secretly admired for five years, and to share intimacy with him, was her deepest hope.
But this hidden relationship frightened her.
She feared the gossip of the Zuo family, feared being condemned as the illegitimate daughter of his stepmother, the so-called younger sister behaving recklessly and shamelessly.

A voice called from outside, “Director Zuo, time’s up.”
Zuo Yelin withdrew decisively, then stepped out of the