Ian stooped down, stretched out his hand, and swirled it in the water. Not long after, Amber noticed that the water level was diminishing rapidly. Then, Ian’s long and slender fingers snapped in the air as he said, “The water’s dirty. You should change it.”
“….”
Amber remained silent for a moment, and then said, “Thanks, but I don’t need your help. Can you go out first, please?”
But if he obediently listened to her words, then he wouldn’t be Ian anymore. He looked at her and earnestly asked, “How can I go out?” As he said that, he actually started taking off his clothes.
Amber gave up, and said, “In that case, then please go shower first. You can just ignore me, as if I’m the air.”
‘There’s a shower outside! Go shower over there, go!’
Ian didn’t respond, and neither did he move towards the shower. Instead, he curled up his lips, threw his shirt down, undid his belt, took off his pants, and climbed into the bathtub naked, all in quick succession.
Amber jumped up in rejection. “If you’re going to bathe, then I’m going to shower.” She tried to clamber out of the bathtub.
But just like their tennis match, she was still unable to defeat Ian. Even though she rushed out as fast as a bullet, Dr. Camille’s speed was still slower than Ian’s. He simply moved his feet a little, and then Amber “rushed” directly into his lap.
His stance was surprisingly solid, not even going off balance when Amber ran into him. He hugged her tightly and stood steadily in the bathtub.
Her skin, which had just been soaking in water, was still wet and slippery, and its texture was so pleasurable that Ian couldn’t bear to stop squeezing Amber.
His hands lightly caressed her back, and his mouth playfully licked her ear. “You can’t run.” His tone was surprisingly serious. “If you’re bad, then you’ll be punished.”
Amber was frightened by his antics. Honestly, it wasn’t like she didn’t want to do it, but she was scared of him. Why did his current expression remind her so much of that night when they had first had sex?! After that endless night, she had been sore for the next few days, ok?!
Even though he had terrible technique, he insisted on doing weird things with a weird posture … ‘Ian, that’s enough!’
Amber said in an indignant and justified manner, “I’m not done bathing!”
But he merely pushed her down and refilled the bathtub with water.
Amber started begging him. “… I haven’t tested myself, but today should still be dangerous for me.”
“That’s fine,” he said as he kissed her tenderly. “I won’t shoot inside.”
“….”
Between then and when they finally got in bed, Amber didn’t have a single chance to speak a complete sentence.
What had happened to getting angry with him over what he’d sent her?
At any rate, that night, it was Amber who was given a fierce lesson by him. But unlike before, she actually did feel an entirely different level of both comfort and oppression.
When she was finally allowed to sleep, she couldn’t even move her toes anymore. As for criticism and education, they paled in comparison to her desire to sleep.
For the rest of the night, Amber dreamed of trying to catch a car. Perhaps it was because Ruby had bothered her about it in the morning, but she had spent some time looking at cars earlier.
And that night, she dreamed that Ian had found her a car, a bright red one. She had then brought her whole family out for a day of fun, but on the way back, her car had disappeared.
She pressed the alarm button on her car keys continuously, but the car key was acting strangely. Then, out of nowhere, her new car had zoomed out, twisting and turning onto a big road outside.
She had chased after her car, trying to get it to stop, but it moved erratically and drove itself very quickly. There were quite a few moments where it was about to hit either a pedestrian or someone else’s car.
Amber’s heart was exhausted, and she chased after that car in her dreams for the entire night.
When she woke up, she still felt a bit dazed. Ian had gotten up before she did, and was leaning by the side of the bed while browsing through his phone.
After Amber’s eyes fluttered open, the first thing out of his mouth was, “You didn’t give me money this month.”
“….”
Oh, that’s right. She owed him money and paid installments to him every month. But because she had been extra busy this month, she had forgotten to send him anything.
Out of extreme exhaustion, Amber casually threw her phone at him. “The passcode’s 652847. Transfer the money yourself.”
She was still thinking of that car in her dreams. Her dreamscape had been extremely strange, but the out of control car was a metaphor for her feelings-something was gradually going out of control, as if it didn’t belong to her anymore.
But it wasn’t all that bad. People aren’t always rational, Amber thought to console herself. Then, she turned to Ian, who had actually logged into her bank account and was currently transferring money to himself.
Amber defiantly asked, “Didn’t you say that if we got married, that all of your money would be mine? What’s the point of transferring it over?”
Ian continued to tap at her phone as he answered, “It makes me happy.”
“… It’s more that you feel happy when you see my empty balance, right?”
Ian lowered his head, slightly smiling at her.
His smile actually reminded Amber of what she was going to do last night. She immediately sat up straight, turned around and saw that the box of testing strips was still on the shelves by the bedside, picked it up, and threw it into his lap. “Ian, I forgot to tell you last night, but next time, you’re not allowed to send something weird like this to my hospital!”
Ian picked up the box and curiously asked, “Is this that weird?”
“Isn’t it?” Amber sat down in front of him. “Who would send something like this to their girlfriend, and at their workplace at that? Do you know who opened this? It was my students. Huh, do you know what they said? They said, ‘Professor, we must be seeing things, right? These are actually gold bars wrapped in testing strips, right?'”
Ian picked up a random strip. It seemed like he had also picked up the art of lying recently, because he effortlessly said, “… It does seem like it.”
She leapt on top of him and fiercely bit him as she yelled, “You dare! My goodness, don’t you think that I want to throw my face away? Don’t you think that my authority as a teacher is important? Uuuu, Ian Axton, you’d better compensate me!”
“Hehehe ….” Ian unexpectedly suddenly started laughing. Even though they had been together for so long, this was the first time that Amber had ever heard him laugh. It was so soft that she almost thought that she had misheard him.
Her entire body was on his lap, and after a momentary hesitation, she stretched out her hand and grabbed his face. “Are you laughing at me? Then keep laughing. Keep doing it!”
And he really did. His laugh wasn’t very loud, but it was filled with a genuine happiness.