DH ✦ Ch 24

✦ Chapter 24✦

It had only been moments since Ga-young had been startled awake by the loud pounding at the door in the dead of night. She had barely managed to tame her disheveled hair and hadn’t even had time to change out of her pajamas.

And yet, Hyun-jae was standing before her now, fully dressed in a dress shirt and slacks, telling her to close her eyes without so much as an explanation.

Still suffering from the mental fog caused by spending the entire night agonizing over what had happened, Ga-young could only stammer.

“I-I…”

Hyun-jae frowned.

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

After muttering something under his breath as though biting back a curse, he strode toward her. The hairs on Ga-young’s body stood on end as his eyes, twisted with something she couldn’t decipher, bore down on her face.

“Did you sleep well?”

“…”

“…No.”

“Neither did I. So…”

Hyun-jae caught her slender nape in his hand and, his lips close to hers, repeated his command.

“Close your eyes.”

Before Ga-young could even think about whether to obey him or push him away, her eyes closed.

Because Hyun-jae had swallowed her lips.

He forcefully sucked in her entire lower lip after devouring her red lips, then bit down on it. His tongue plunged into her mouth with such force that even the tender inner flesh of her lips was thoroughly claimed.

It was dawn, when her mind was already hazy from lack of sleep.

Ga-young couldn’t possibly process the kiss as it happened, so fierce that he seemed like an enraged beast tearing into her.

The shocking sensation drained every ounce of strength from her body.

As she began to collapse, Hyun-jae wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her upright.

When their lips finally parted slightly, Ga-young’s breath came out in ragged gasps. Through her helplessly opened eyes, she saw Hyun-jae. His anger seemed to have subsided only after that one relentless assault.

Looking at her with a calm gaze, Hyun-jae took her slender wrist and placed her hand around his neck.

“Hold on tight. Unless you plan on lying down completely.”

Ga-young had no idea what was happening anymore.

She simply felt, on some instinctive level, that she had been pushed into a situation from which there was no escape, and her arm instinctively tightened around him.

A faint smile crossed Hyun-jae’s lips as her slender arm tightened around his neck.

“Good. Then endure it!”

His strong embrace pulled Ga-young’s body sharply against him.

The instant Hyun-jae pressed his back against the hallway wall, his lips came down over hers again.

And so began a long, uncontrolled frenzy.

The man devoured Ga-young as though he had no intention of allowing even a fragment of air between them. Her lips, tongue, and tender mouth were caught between his teeth and lips, sucked and claimed relentlessly.

Ga-young’s tongue twisted around his, while his teeth lightly but insistently caught at it. His tongue pushed so deeply into her mouth that at times she could barely breathe.

“Mm… ngh…”

Ga-young could do little more than endure, occasionally letting out a small moan.

She remembered her first kiss with this man.

Once the fear of doing something unfamiliar had disappeared, it had actually been rather sweet.

But this was different from any kiss Ga-young had ever experienced.

It was the raw obscenity of adults, with all the romance stripped away.

And it wasn’t only the sparks exploding inside her mouth that she had to endure.

She was buried deep within the embrace of a large man, with only the thin fabric of their clothes separating their bodies.

Her soft flesh was crushed against his solid muscles, while her delicate lower abdomen was pressed firmly against something hot and hard.

The more she twisted and struggled beneath the overwhelming kiss, the more vividly she became aware of every sensation.

At times, the man’s palm pressed firmly against her back through her pajamas, or his fingers gripped her flesh through the fabric.

Whenever that happened, the mingled breaths escaping from their noses seemed to stop for an instant before spilling out through their lips with a breathless sigh.

Ga-young didn’t know where the sensation of her entire body gradually becoming damp was coming from.

All she could do was cling desperately to the man’s neck, overwhelmed by a dizzying sense of danger, as though she were about to fall from the edge of a cliff.

With her eyes tightly shut, she could do nothing but accept his rough lips in the pitch-black darkness behind her eyelids.

When she finally opened her eyes, morning sunlight was already streaming into the hallway.

Exhausted from the prolonged kiss, Ga-young collapsed face-first onto the bed.

She had no energy left to help Hyun-jae get ready for work.

His touch was gentle as he stroked her swollen, reddened lips and wiped the saliva from the corners of her mouth.

Yet even that gentleness somehow made Ga-young shrink back. It was the effortless composure of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

Half out of her mind, she asked whether she could go inside and rest, and Hyun-jae readily told her that she could.

Even after returning to her room and lying alone on the bed, Ga-young’s heart continued pounding for quite some time.

But aided by the exhaustion of having been awake all night, she eventually fell into a deep sleep.

The blackout curtains kept the room dark, so she had no idea what time it was.

She woke only because of the commotion coming from outside.

Then she remembered.

Today was the day the detached house was scheduled for its thorough cleaning.

Ga-young sprang out of bed.

When she looked at the clock, it was already past ten in the morning.

“Ah…”

She rubbed her face with both palms and hurried to prepare to go out.

She hadn’t even properly washed her face, but she had no time for a leisurely shower. She wiped her face with a wet tissue, brushed her hair, and changed into clothes suitable for going outside.

When she stepped out of her room, she saw four or five members of the household staff bustling about as they prepared for the cleaning.

Ga-young responded warmly to their greetings, and Mrs. Eom approached her with a smile.

“Madam, where were you this morning? We called you to come have breakfast, but you didn’t answer.”

“I fell asleep while reading in the early morning.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’re coming out of the study. I’ll have them start cleaning from the second floor. Please have some breakfast first.”

“No. I’ll be going out for a few hours.”

She wasn’t in the mental state to sit down and eat companionably with Mrs. Eom, exchange friendly conversation with the staff who had come to the detached house, and pretend everything was normal.

When Ga-young said she was going to a bookstore to buy a book, Mrs. Eom readily stepped aside and let her pass.

Ga-young headed into the nearby downtown area.

She wandered aimlessly along streets lined with shops, eventually bought a hamburger because she was hungry, and then threw away the birth control pills in the restroom of the shop.

After washing her hands at the sink, Ga-young stared blankly at her reflection in the mirror.

Her lips, which had never been particularly thin to begin with, were now even redder and fuller.

They were the remnants of the man’s greed, filled to his satisfaction.

When she touched her fingertips to her lips, she remembered the sensation of being sucked into his mouth.

She gently stroked the swollen, sensitive skin.

Her eyelids drooped helplessly at the strange, sensual sensation.

When she pinched her lips tightly, her breathing quickened with a peculiar excitement.

Her mouth was parched, and her throat was dry.

Ga-young ran her tongue over her lips, then placed both hands on the sink and lowered her head.

“Why am I like this?”

In truth, she thought she knew the answer.

She had vaguely realized it even while clinging to the man’s neck and helplessly receiving his rough kisses.

The excitement twisting through her entire body, the shiver that made the hairs on her head stand on end, the dampness gathering between her legs—

She could sense it through all of those things.

She had liked it.

She had liked it when the man sucked her lips softly, when he roughly explored her mouth, and even when he bit her hard enough to hurt.

She had liked the broad embrace that completely enclosed her, the pressure that seemed capable of squeezing the breath from her, even the man’s rough hands gripping and kneading her flesh.

Even if Hyun-jae had crossed every boundary he had maintained until now—if he had taken off her clothes—she probably wouldn’t have hated it.

Perhaps she had even wanted him to.

Whether she could handle what came afterward was the only unknown territory.

Now she thought she understood why she had always felt so tense whenever she was around Hyun-jae.

And she could no longer deny why her throat had felt even thirstier after they kissed.

It was desire.

The first manifestation of human nature to ever come to Yoon Ga-young.

The same thing Shin Hyun-jae seemed to have been tormented by all night.

Sexual desire.

Ironically, the Ga-young of the past had looked down on people her age who enjoyed sex as though it were merely a sport.

She had believed sexual desire to be something inferior to intellectual pleasures such as the pursuit of knowledge. She had thought that pleasure without love was meaningless, and therefore that the people who indulged in it were meaningless too.

It had been nothing more than an absurd, pretentious sense of superiority.

It had simply arrived late for Ga-young.

Only now was she experiencing what it was like to have her everyday life shaken by sexual desire—something that had nothing to do with love.

And her instincts were already craving even greater stimulation.

So I’m no different after all.

We kissed, so should I just sleep with him? Have I finally gotten a taste of men?

She asked herself silently, then gave a bitter little laugh.

She found herself ridiculous for thinking so arrogantly when, in front of Shin Hyun-jae, she always turned into such a hopeless fool.

Ga-young didn’t return to the detached house in Seongbuk-dong until late afternoon.

By then, the staff responsible for the cleaning had polished even the windows until they gleamed and had already left the detached house.

Mrs. Eom was nowhere to be seen either, so Ga-young went straight to the study.

The moment she opened the door, an unexpected change greeted her.

The bed was gone.

In its place stood a brand-new single-person armchair.

“What happened?”

She found the answer that evening when Mrs. Eom came to serve dinner.

After sitting at the dining table, Ga-young asked why the bed had been removed, and Mrs. Eom looked slightly troubled.

“Well, you slept in the study last night, didn’t you?”

“Ah, that was…”

Only then did Ga-young remember that, in her haste to leave, she hadn’t properly straightened the bedding.

She quickly came up with an excuse that she hoped would satisfy Mrs. Eom.

“The executive director looked tired, so I thought it would be better for him to get some proper rest.”

“I suppose so. These days, there are plenty of newly married couples who sleep in separate rooms from the very beginning. But apparently, one of the people who came to clean this morning reported it to the butler at the main house.”

In other words, the fact that they had been sleeping in separate rooms had reached Kwon Seon-jin’s ears.

When Ga-young frowned, Mrs. Eom immediately defended the employee who had reported it.

“There had already been instructions from the chairman, so I’m sure there was no ill intention.”

There was no reason to blame an employee who had simply been faithfully carrying out their duties.

Ga-young understood and spoke gently.

“So the chairman ordered the bed to be removed from my study.”

“Yes. Less than an hour after the cleaning was finished, the newly ordered armchair arrived at the detached house.”

There was nothing Ga-young could do to reverse it.

Unless Hyun-jae stepped in.

The thought that there was now only one bed left in the entire spacious detached house made Ga-young give a bitter smile.