A/N: Anything you recognize from MG, I do not own.

Chapter 5: voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

Ximen didn't know what to do. While a part of him rejoiced that he hadn't turned into a damned eunuch after all, another part of him feared its implications. Because the last time he'd felt like this, was that fateful night six years ago when she'd come back to Taiwan and spent the night with him. Had he known he wouldn't be able to feel again after that night, maybe he wouldn't have been so quick to do what he'd done.

But she'd been irresistible that night.

Flashback --

"What are we doing?" Ximen asked as they found themselves in his flat in downtown Taipei, just a couple of blocks away from Shan Cai and Dao Ming Si's wedding reception. He, along with Lei and Mei Zhou, had been one of the best men.

"I would have thought it was obvious." Xiao You muttered as she pulled his head back towards her. She'd just come from Toronto to be her best friend's maid of honor.

"Shan Cai…" he mumbled just before he kissed her again, intending to warn her about the consequences of their actions.

"…had just left with Ah Si before we made our exit," she finished as she returned his passion by pressing him against the just-closed front door.

"Xiao You, I…" he'd wanted to tell her he thought they should take things slower. He'd missed her in the last 3 years she'd been in Canada. He hadn't realized just how much until he'd seen her walk down the aisle, wearing one of the sexiest maid of honor dresses he'd ever seen in his life. But he couldn't stop his right hand from molding her body against his, nor his left one from searching for the zipper of the sheath dress she was wearing.

"Shhh…" she whispered to his lips as she too got busy pulling at his cummerbund. His bowtie had long since been discarded, just as the top three buttons of his dress shirt had been popped open.

Ximen couldn't think. When he'd gone up to her during the reception, he had only meant to tease her with his comment about asking her to become his girlfriend for the week. He thought she would laugh at him and they would reminisce about her infatuation with him years before. But she'd surprised him by agreeing so readily. He'd been too shocked by her response that he hadn't been able to stop her from giving him a playful kiss. A playful kiss that was supposed to be over as quickly as it had begun but had unwittingly turned into one of those intensely long ones. A kiss like no other kiss he'd ever experienced in all the years before. A kiss that had had them hurrying away from the reception and making their way to this very flat.

He supposed he would have been able to recover his wits if they'd just continued giving each other playful kisses, but then she'd stepped away from him and before he could even ask her why, her dress lay in a pool on her waist. He nearly swallowed his tongue when he realized just how little she was actually wearing under the dress. She looked breathtakingly beautiful with her torso covered only by her long locks and her lower body hidden by the dress. She crooked her finger at him and like a dog being called by its master, he could only follow as she made her way into his bedroom.

By the time they were standing by the bed, her dress had lain in a heap by the bedroom door as was his shirt and pants. Her heels and his shoes were left somewhere in the living room. The cummerbund…who knew where?

They stared at each other for a moment, him taking in her figure in just barely-there high cut satin VS undies and her taking in his manly figure wearing only boxers. He then looked into her eyes intently, asking without words if she was sure. She answered by stepping closer to him, until only an inch separated their bodies, and slowly running her fingers from his chest towards his backside and then sliding them inside the waistband of his boxers so she could push it downwards and off him.

The fragile hold Ximen had of his control finally snapped at the feel of her tongue tracing a path down his chest towards his tummy and he found himself tangling the fingers of his left hand into her hair and pulling her up for another one of those slow drugging kisses while he lifted her up with his right arm so he could lay her down onto the waiting bed…



Xiao You's sudden move to push herself off him brought Ximen back to the present.

"You shouldn't have done that!" she said as she stood up and turned her back on him.

He could only look at her back helplessly before answering, "You could have broken your bones," stiffly as he sat up.

"We wouldn't have ended on the floor if you hadn't moved to catch me. Although I rented this one, jumping in and out of boats is nothing new to me as I own one just like this in Canada." she retorted as she moved to start the boat.

Ximen didn't answer. He didn't want to argue about something that had already happened. So he just stood up and walked towards her. She didn't seem to be all that bothered about that brief contact so he pretended that it hadn't mattered to him too. "So what now?"

She deftly maneuvered the boat off the jetty and only when they were well out into the open water did she fish for a scrap of paper from her back pocket and gave it to him. "Here…" she said as she dropped anchor.

"What's this?" he asked, but she'd already moved away from him to walk towards the boat's living quarters. He stared at the paper that she'd handed him. On it was written a schedule. It was a schedule of their activities for the whole week. His eyes nearly popped out of its sockets when he saw what she had written down for Day 5.

"Are you serious?" his voice came out hoarsely as he chased after her.

"Do you see me laughing Ximen?" she asked seriously as she whirled around to face him. They were now inside the boat's living quarters.

"But…" he looked down at the paper again. Written, very neatly as you please, were the following:

Day 1 : date (sailing all day, some fishing & swimming)
Day 2 : kiss (preferably after a fancy dinner, slow-dancing & fireworks display show)
Day 3 : hug (preferably after/during star-gazing on the rooftop of a building)
Day 4 : make-out session (in front of the television after watching a romantic movie)
Day 5 : s*x (preferably under the stars by the beach)
Day 6 : more s*x (open to suggestions)
Day 7 : your choice of activity

"You don't think it's feasible?" she adopted a pensive look.

On the contrary, Ximen thought it highly feasible, given his state after that all-too-brief contact he'd had with her. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I want the week you promised me that night." She answered simply, as though they were discussing the weather.

"You still remember?" Ximen was surprised. He'd thought she'd have forgotten by now. After all, it was she who had chosen to stay away.

"Would I be here if I'd forgotten?"

Ximen thought long and hard before he said anything. Finally, "You were the one who chose to leave," he answered.

She didn't say anything for several minutes. She just looked at him without any hint of emotion on her face. "I had to."

"Why?" he needed to know. "After that night…why did you leave me?" He'd woken up all alone with only the imprint of her head on the pillow next to him telling him he hadn't dreamt the whole thing.

"Because that's what you wanted."

"How do you know what I'd wanted? Were you me? Are you a mind-reader by any chance?" All the anger and hurt he'd thought he'd gotten over years before suddenly came out.

She looked at him without flinching. "You knew where to find me, why didn't you come after me?"

Ximen had no answer to that. Why hadn't he tried to go after her? "Why did you bid for me?" he asked instead.

She shrugged. "I never thought I'd win. I only made a bid because Shan Cai kept nagging me to make one. Who wins with a $2 bid after all?"

"So why make this schedule?" he didn't want to accept her answer. He had no clue why.

"Because I'm not one to look at gift horses in the mouth and because I've always wondered how it felt like to live out your lifestyle. Call it curiosity if you will."

"So you plan to wine, dine & bed me for this week and then leave, is that it?" his tone had hardened upon hearing her answer.

"Why act like it's a big deal? You do it often enough. Why can't I have the same privilege?"

Ximen hadn't expected to get hurt by her words. But he had. "You chose to forgo that privilege when you left six years ago." He reminded her.

"So I changed my mind. It's a girl's prerogative after all."

Her reasonable tone annoyed the hell out of him. "So why bother scheduling the s*x on the fifth day then? It's not like we haven't done it before," he knew he was being offensive.

"Don't be crude!" her temper matched his.

"It's a perfectly legitimate question. I don't see any reason why we have to wait…" he knew she thought he said those things to show her he didn't care one way or another. That she was just a body to him and that she didn't even merit any wooing. But the truth was, she mattered. Too damned much.

Her eyes flashed at him for a moment, but then she turned away from him and answered,

"Okay," without any inflection in her voice.

"Okay?" he asked in confusion. He'd expected her to get angry…to be insulted. Heck he was even prepared for a slap from her.

She turned towards him again and snatched the paper off his hands. She then tore it into several pieces and threw them over her shoulders. "No more schedule. We have s*x when we want it, where we want it. Agreed?"

Ximen couldn't find his tongue. What had happened to the old Xiao You?

"Don't look so shocked Ximen." She mocked him. "Let me see…" she pretended to think about it, "52 weeks in a year, multiplied by 10, that would roughly be 520 women in the last decade alone. Surely at least one of them must have asked you for mindless s*x before?"

He knew he deserved whatever she threw at him. It was his fault after all. He'd made everyone believe that he'd continued on with his one-week-expiry-date policy all these years. He'd continued to cultivate that image because it had helped dull the pain she'd wrought when she left him. He'd thought that maybe, just maybe, if people believed he was still the same playboy Ximen he'd been all those years before, then he'd be whole again. They hadn't known that he'd never taken another woman to his bed again since that one night with her. None of his mei meis had talked because they hadn't wanted to be known as the one who'd never been to his bed. It was pretty funny actually how vain some women could be.

"Now who's being crude?" he answered her coldly. It seemed that they've both reached an impasse. She wasn't willing to talk about that night. So neither would he.

She looked at him for a long while. Searching for something in his eyes, he knew not what. Just when he thought she'd back down and change her mind about the whole thing, she spoke.

"Well, then. Now that we've gotten all that out of the way, maybe we can go and have ourselves some fun?" she smiled at him playfully.

He was stunned at her sudden change of mood. But because she'd smiled at him, Ximen found himself smiling back. Somehow it didn't matter anymore what her reasons were for coming back to claim her week. Why cut off his nose to spite his face? Hadn't he wondered all these years if the memory of that night had been as good as he'd remembered? Hadn't he wished he'd gone after her and demanded more of the same from her?

The truth was, he was glad she'd bought him. For a week, for a day it didn't matter. All that mattered was hoarding these precious moments with her and he vowed to enjoy every hour he'd get to spend with her.

After all, he'd had six years to realize one thing.

Maybe if he got lucky, it would take only this week to get her to realize the same thing too.

***