After Failing to Win Him Over, I Babied the Brooding CEO into Submission - Chapter 3

I noticed Tan Xun had softened toward me.

Naturally, I had to push my luck even further.

As he wheeled himself to the bathroom to bathe, I caught his chair.

He frowned slightly. “What are you doing?”

“Kittens are afraid of water. How could I let you wash alone?”

After everything he’d been put through these past few days, Tan Xun could clearly tune out certain words automatically now.

“I don’t need you.”

I pushed him straight inside, turned on the shower, and shut the bathroom door.

Frowning, he said, “Get out!”

“Your little temper is adorable, but I told you I can’t let you wash alone.”

I looked at his white shirt.

“Will you unbutton it yourself, or shall I?”

Perhaps the bathroom was too warm. A flush began to spread over his normally pale face.

“Get out!”

I nodded in understanding. The instant my hand touched his skin, he shoved me away.

“…You!”

When he realized I had no intention of leaving, he finally surrendered, deflated.

“…I’ll do it myself.”

He took his time unbuttoning his shirt. I picked up the towel and gave him a thorough scrub.

By the end, Tan Xun was red all over.

Whether from the scrubbing or from embarrassment, I couldn’t say.

After I dried him and carried him back to his bedroom, the System sighed mournfully in my ear.

[Host, you’re a complete lecher.]

“Excuse me?”

“What kind of accusation is that? I’m completing my mission.”

[And how does forcing Tan Xun to let you bathe him help you win him over?]

“You don’t understand. Someone like Tan Xun seems covered in thorns, impossible to approach. But when someone ignores the rules and breaks through the boundaries he’s set, he’s the one who loses his footing.”

“The moment those defenses collapse, all the softness and fragility he’s hidden comes spilling out.”

“Mm. Delicious.”

I was beginning to feel something different for him.

[…]

[I almost believed you until that last bit.]

I opened Tan Xun’s bedroom door again. He watched me warily.

“What do you want now?”

I picked up a storybook and tucked his blankets around him.

“To tell my little baby a bedtime story.”

He rolled over and ignored me.

Watching the slightly damp fringe falling over his forehead and the delicate, flushed collarbones beneath his pajamas, I began slowly.

“Once upon a time, a little white rabbit lived with his mother. Before she went out, she told him, ‘Baby, I’m going out. You mustn’t open the door to anyone.’”

Unable to take any more, he rolled back over and interrupted me.

“What an ancient story. Feels like it held me when I was a baby…”

He kept mumbling.

I couldn’t make out a word.

All I could see were his red lips opening and closing, his white teeth, the way his…moved.

It was so…you know.

“Mama Rabbit left, and the little rabbit stayed home alone. The big bad wolf pretended to be his mother and knocked. ‘Little rabbit, it’s Mama. Open the door…’”

His gaze was so intense that I faltered.

He’d just complained about how old the story was. Yet whenever I spoke, he watched me so earnestly.

His eyes were bright.

As though he were looking at something precious.

My Adam’s apple bobbed. I reached out and covered his eyes.

Then I went on.

“The little rabbit said, ‘No, no, I won’t open the door. Mama isn’t home. Unless…’”

He pulled my hand away.

“Unless what?”

After being interrupted again and again, I frowned slightly and looked down at his face, a little irritated.

Three seconds of looking at that beautiful face, and my temper inexplicably vanished.

Something even stranger rose in its place.

Tan Xun was so soft like this.

Unaware of the beguiling fragrance spilling from him.

Strange.

I swallowed the words caught in my throat and rewrote the tired old story I’d been using to fob him off.

“‘Unless you love me more than Mama does. More than anyone who’s ever been in my life. You have to obey me and tame me, see through my disguise without exposing it, put up with my appalling temper and peculiar tastes, and…never, ever eat me.’”

“The wolf said yes, the rabbit opened the door, and they lived happily ever after.”

Tan Xun frowned at the perfunctory ending.

“Your version is awful. That rabbit asks for far too much. And how can he be sure the wolf won’t eat him?”

I looked into his eyes.

Exactly. How could you be sure I wouldn’t eat you?

Showing me that expression, without the slightest guard up.