Chapter 1

Sometimes, when Richard drank endlessly, Chloe would cross the hallway to call him back to bed. She would gently sway her hips and pout at him, looking both adorable and incredibly enticing.

During one of our casual chats, I learned that Chloe was extremely timid and absolutely terrified of the dark. If Richard wasn't home, she was too scared to even sleep alone.

I started casually calling her "scaredy-cat," half as a joke, and half out of a selfish, mischievous desire to tease her.

Whenever she heard it, her cheeks would flush, and she would retort with a hint of bashfulness, "What girl isn't afraid of the dark? I'm just a little more timid than most."

I would let my gaze deliberately sweep across her chest and say meaningfully, "Well, you're certainly not small everywhere! I've seen much smaller!"

She was a smart woman and immediately caught my double entendre. Her face would instantly burn an even deeper red.

Sarah always said I had skin as thick as a rhino, and that was probably true. I was born without a sense of shame. Even when Chloe rolled her eyes at me, I didn't care. Every time I bumped into her, I couldn't resist taking verbal advantage of her.

Over time, she got used to it. Sometimes she would fire back without holding back: "You men are all the same, just a bunch of bastards!"

Richard and I would just burst out laughing.

To be honest, even though Chloe was stunningly beautiful, I genuinely had no inappropriate intentions toward her back then. When it came to messing around with women, I was always extremely careful. First, Sarah kept a very close eye on me, giving me zero room to cheat. Second, we were all too familiar with each other; you don't shit where you eat.

But sometimes, God just loves to play tricks, pulling a cruel joke on you when your guard is completely down.

That Friday night, I went over to their place to watch the game and have a few drinks. Richard drove down to the corner convenience store to grab some tortilla chips and grilled sausages. Chloe and I were lounging on the fabric sofa in the living room, casually chatting with the TV on.

She was wearing a lake-blue silk slip nightgown. Because she was lying on her side, the hem of the nightgown had parted, exposing a large expanse of pale, plump thighs. Under the warm glow of the floor lamp, her skin was dazzling.

I was sitting right next to her calves. As my eyes swept over that expanse of white, my heart suddenly skipped a heavy beat.

Even to this day, looking back on it sends shivers down my spine—I don't know what possessed me, but I did something incredibly insane.

Driven by some demonic impulse, I reached out, gently stroked her smooth thigh, and blurted out, "Your legs are so white!"

The moment the words left my mouth, I wanted to bite my tongue off. In this cultural context, that was textbook sexual harassment!

Sure, we joked around all the time, and occasionally there was some light physical playfulness, but that was strictly when a lot of people were around. We always maintained a perfect sense of boundaries. But right now, we were the only two people in the room. God, she was my neighbor's wife!

Chloe's eyes widened in sheer shock, followed quickly by an unnatural, dry laugh. She swiftly pulled her legs back, tugging at the hem of her gown to cover up the alluring view.

The temperature in the living room instantly dropped to freezing. The air felt completely solid.

My heart was hammering wildly in my chest. I was completely at a loss, entirely unsure of what lie to fabricate to smooth things over.

For the rest of the night, while we drank, I felt like I was sitting on pins and needles, completely distracted. Watching Richard cheerfully chatting away, my mind was racing: Would Chloe tell him? How was he going to beat the living hell out of me? I was so panicked I could barely string a coherent sentence together.

However, Chloe acted as if absolutely nothing had happened. She casually accepted the snacks Richard handed her, making the moment I touched her thigh feel like a hallucination. Honestly, women are born Oscar-level actors.

For the next few days, I felt like a thief terrified of being caught. I constantly worried that if I ran into her in the hallway, she would suddenly point her finger at my nose and curse me out for being a creep.

But she remained perfectly composed. She even initiated jokes with me just like she usually did, teasing me about being so quiet lately and asking if I was having an early midlife crisis.

Her attitude made my imagination run wild once again. I secretly began to suspect if she harbored some unspeakable feelings for me as well. Emboldened, I started deliberately steering our conversations toward the hidden boundaries between men and women, testing her limits.

The push-and-pull between a man and a woman is a truly delicate thing. Faced with my probing, Chloe neither responded nor rejected me, allowing a faint, ambiguous mist to settle between us.

We now shared a dirty, unspoken secret—I had touched her leg, and she had chosen to hide it.

Her silence was interpreted by me as a form of tacit consent and encouragement. I could no longer extinguish the lustful fire of my coveting her.

For the Thanksgiving long weekend, our two families agreed to take a trip to a vineyard estate out in the suburbs.

Before we left, Chloe brought along her TV network colleague, Valerie. Valerie had voluminous blonde waves, an impeccably tall figure, and a sophisticated, coldly glamorous aura. Chloe secretly whispered to me that Valerie was actually the wife of the television network's Vice President.

Since my car was still in the auto shop after a minor accident, the five of us crammed into Richard's spacious Ford SUV.