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Prologue

“What do you do with the others?”

Jiwan asked as he pressed his face into Hye-ryeon’s chest. He latched onto one sharply peaked nipple and sucked hard.

“…Ah!”

She couldn’t hold back and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. So sensitive, his deep voice rumbled, before he buried his face against the other breast. Wet, insistent pulls of his tongue kept teasing her.

“Haah…!”

This time he cupped the full, teardrop shape of her breast from below and bit down on her earlobe.

“Somehow this side feels even bigger.”

“…Stop.”

He wasn’t the kind of man who listened. Jiwan grabbed her hand and dragged it down to the thick, straining bulge between his legs.

“You did this.”

The heavy, solid weight of him barely fit in her palm. She tried to pull away in surprise, but he stopped her at once. Touch me. The order was dressed up like a request. Hye-ryeon looked up at him.

“You’ll do it properly this time.”

She understood he was comparing this to how clumsy they’d been years ago. She told herself not to act like some clueless beginner.

She was almost thirty. She’d spent all those years without a man, and she had no intention of volunteering that information.

“Like you usually do.”

At his instruction she nodded. Metal clicked as she worked his belt open, then the buckle, then the zipper. Dark blue boxers came into view, stretched tight.

“You’re good at this. Must’ve practiced a lot while I was gone?”

Only rarely, when she needed comfort, and usually after waking from a dream about him. The memory made her ears burn.

“Not… a lot…”

She answered halfway honestly and tugged the waistband down. Fuck… the rough sound spilled right against her ear.

“How’d you do it?”

While he asked, Jiwan lifted one of her legs and folded it back. His voice stayed soft, but his eyes were wild. She pressed her lips together.

“…I’m asking.”

He growled low and lined himself up. The thick, solid press of him made everything inside her head go white, like steam fogging a glass wall.

That was…

While she was still searching for an answer, he rolled his hips forward in one heavy wave.

“Actually, this works out better.”

“…Ah!”

The sudden fullness made tears sting the corners of her eyes.

“Since your body’s already used to a man, I don’t have to be careful.”

Then he started moving hard. The rough rhythm made her vision blur. She clenched her teeth. Don’t hold back, he ordered, and easily lifted her up.

Thud.

Trapped between the glass wall and his body, she rocked like a boat caught in a storm.

A relationship without love.

A relationship that wasn’t love.

The Do Jiwan who’d once belonged entirely to Ha Hye-ryeon was already dead. He’d died the day she left him.