Work Text:
The file was called:
do_not_open_v7_final_FINAL_actuallyfinal.docx
Which, in hindsight, was the first problem.
No grown woman with a functioning brain and a medical degree in self-preservation named a document like that unless it contained something that could legally be classified as evidence.
The second problem was that I had meant to send it to Mira.
Mira, my best friend. Mira, who had read six progressively worse drafts of my anonymous, self-indulgent, absolutely fictional story about a woman who definitely was not me getting ruined on a kitchen counter by a man who definitely was not my older brother’s best friend.
I had been lying on my bed in an oversized shirt, hair in a wet bun, one leg thrown over my pillow, cackling to myself as I typed:
read this and tell me if the dialogue is too much???
Then I attached the file.
Then I hit send.
Then I watched, with the calm of a woman standing on train tracks, as the name at the top of the chat loaded properly.
Bang Chan
My soul left my body so quickly it probably broke the sound barrier.
For three whole seconds, I did nothing. I simply stared.
Then my phone slipped from my hand, bounced off my stomach, and hit the floor with an accusing little slap.
“No,” I whispered.
My room, unforgivably, did not answer.
I scrambled for the phone with the frantic horror of someone trying to disarm a bomb after already hearing the explosion. My fingers were suddenly useless. My screen blurred. My heart had stopped beating and started operating a small, hateful drumline in my throat.
I opened the message.
Delivered.
Not read.
A gasp left me, half prayer, half dying animal. I slammed my thumb on the message and held.
Delete.
Delete for me.
I stared at the option.
“Are you kidding me?”
My phone gave no mercy. Technology, I decided, was mankind’s punishment for arrogance.
I typed so quickly my fingers nearly caught fire.
DON’T OPEN THAT. WRONG FILE.
Then:
Actually wrong person.
Then:
Actually please delete that.
Then:
Chan. I am so serious. Delete it.
For forty-seven seconds, there was no reply.
Forty-seven seconds was enough time to reconsider my entire life. Enough time to fake my death. Enough time to look up flights to Mongolia. Enough time to remember, in vivid and unforgiving detail, exactly what was inside the file.
The scene in the elevator.
The scene in the hallway.
The one where the heroine—who, again, was not me despite having my haircut, my job, my apartment layout, and my extremely inconvenient crush—told the hero, who was not Chan despite being handsome, broad-shouldered, infuriatingly calm, and named something very subtle like Kang Chan-young, that she had thought about his hands for years.
Years.
The file had the word years in it.
My phone buzzed.
I nearly threw it at the wall.
Chan:
Too late.
I stopped breathing.
Another bubble appeared.
Chan:
Define “wrong file.”
I made a sound into my pillow that probably summoned something ancient.
Me:
A private one.
Delete it.
Chan:
I opened it before your warning came in.
I stared at that sentence until the letters became shapes.
Me:
How much did you read?
His typing bubble appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
That, somehow, was worse than a direct answer.
Chan:
Enough to know your fictional male lead has excellent taste.
I sat up so fast my wet bun slapped the back of my neck.
“No. No, no, no.”
I typed:
You did not read enough to have opinions.
He replied almost instantly.
Chan:
He calls her “princess” a lot.
I screamed silently.
Into my blanket.
For a long time.
Then, with the cold dignity of a woman whose life had already ended, I wrote:
I’m blocking you.
Chan:
That seems unfair. I’m still on chapter two.
Chapter.
Two.
My entire body went hot.
Not embarrassed hot, though that was definitely there, boiling beneath my skin. It was worse than that. It was the humiliating, traitorous heat of imagining him reading it. Chan, with his black hair usually pushed back from his forehead, his long fingers wrapped around his phone, his mouth doing that almost-smile thing he did when he found something amusing and refused to admit it.
Bang Chan had been my brother’s best friend since high school. He had slept on our couch during exam weeks, eaten my mother’s kimchi stew from the pot, taught me how to change a tire, and once threatened a man at a bar for touching my waist after I said no.
He was family-adjacent.
Which was exactly why he had no business having dimples like that.
Or hands like that.
Or a voice low enough to make ordinary sentences sound like suggestions.
I had spent years pretending I didn’t notice him.
And apparently, judging from the document currently in his possession, I had not been subtle in private.
My phone rang.
His name filled my screen.
I watched it vibrate against my palm like it was a live grenade.
I rejected the call.
He called again.
I rejected it again.
A message came through.
Chan:
Pick up.
Absolutely not.
Another.
Chan:
Lee Seo-ah.
Oh, using my full name. Evil. Cheap tactic.
Another.
Chan:
Pick up, or I’m coming over.
My thumb hovered.
I typed:
You don’t even know where I live.
The reply came immediately.
Chan:
I helped move your sofa.
I stared.
That was, unfortunately, true.
Another message.
Chan:
You have ten seconds.
I picked up on the ninth because I had some pride left and wanted him to know I had deliberately made him wait.
“What,” I said, with all the grace of a cornered raccoon.
There was a pause.
Then Chan laughed.
Not loudly. Not cruelly. Just a low, disbelieving breath that rolled through the speaker and went straight down my spine.
“Seo-ah.”
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You said my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve read chapter two.”
His laugh deepened.
I closed my eyes and pressed my knuckles against my forehead.
“Delete it,” I said. “Delete it and never mention this again. I will pay you.”
“How much?”
My eyes flew open. “You are negotiating?”
“I’m curious what my silence is worth.”
“My brother’s friendship.”
That shut him up for half a second.
Then he said, too calmly, “Your brother doesn’t scare me.”
“He should. He owns boxing gloves.”
“He uses them for cardio.”
“He has emotional range when motivated.”
“Seo-ah.”
My name again. Lower this time.
Something changed in the air between us, even through the phone. Something less funny. More dangerous.
I swallowed. “What?”
“Is it about me?”
Every organ in my body dropped.
I could have lied. I should have lied. Any intelligent woman would have laughed brightly and said, “Of course not, you arrogant psycho,” then moved to another country and started over.
Instead I went silent.
And silence, that devastating little traitor, answered for me.
Chan inhaled softly.
“Seo-ah.”
“Don’t sound like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re thinking.”
“I am thinking.”
“Stop.”
“I don’t think I can.”
I got off the bed because lying down suddenly felt vulnerable. Which was stupid, because he was not there. He was somewhere else, probably in his apartment, probably leaning against something expensive, probably wearing one of those fitted black shirts he liked because God had favorites and apparently so did laundry detergent.
“This is humiliating,” I said, pacing across my room. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
“That you write?”
“That I write porn about you.”
There.
Silence.
My face burned. “Forget I said that.”
“No.”
I froze. “No?”
“No,” he said, voice quieter now. “I don’t think I will.”
A slow, awful flutter opened low in my stomach.
“This is where you’re supposed to be decent,” I told him.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
“I would,” he said, “but you wrote me as a man who eats women out against walls, so I’m working through a few things.”
I slapped a hand over my face.
“Oh my God.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t ‘mm’ me.”
“I’m not sure what sound you want me to make after reading that.”
“None. Silence. Eternal silence.”
“You made me very competent.”
“I made him competent.”
“His apartment has my couch.”
“Lots of people have gray couches.”
“And my watch.”
“Lots of people have watches.”
“And the scar on my ribs.”
My mouth snapped shut.
Another silence fell.
This one had teeth.
Chan’s voice lowered. “You remember that?”
Of course I remembered that.
I had seen it three summers ago at my parents’ house, when the air-conditioner broke and everyone ended up drinking beer in the backyard. Chan had tugged his shirt up to wipe sweat from his neck, and there it was—a pale, narrow scar cutting across the hard plane of his ribs.
I had looked for half a second too long.
Apparently, my imagination had kept a record.
“I remember weird things,” I said weakly.
“I noticed.”
My heart kicked.
“You noticed what?”
A pause.
Then, softly, “You.”
The room went very still.
My bare feet pressed into the cool floor. Outside my window, a car passed through a puddle, tires hissing against wet pavement. My pulse seemed too loud for my own skin.
“Chan,” I said, and it came out thinner than I wanted.
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“No, because whatever you’re going to ask is going to make this worse.”
“Are you alone?”
My breath stopped.
The question was simple. Quiet. But there was something under it, something deliberate and dark enough to make heat unfurl through me.
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Door locked?”
My thighs pressed together.
I hated my body. Truly. A treacherous government.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “Good?”
“I’m coming over.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, because you have that voice.”
“What voice?”
“The voice that says you’re going to do something insane.”
“I’m going to return your manuscript.”
“You can email it.”
“I’m five minutes away.”
My stomach flipped. “You’re what?”
“I was leaving the gym when you sent it.”
The gym.
Of course. Of course he was freshly showered or worse, not freshly showered, all warm skin and clean sweat and that faint cologne he wore like a felony.
“I’m not letting you in,” I said.
“Yes, you are.”
“You’re very confident for a man I can report to my brother.”
“You won’t.”
“Why not?”
His voice dropped into something that felt like a hand at the back of my neck.
“Because you want to know what I thought of chapter two.”
My lips parted.
The line went quiet except for the sound of his breathing.
Then he said, softer, “And chapter four.”
My entire body went liquid and furious.
“You read chapter four?”
“I skimmed.”
“You absolute menace.”
“Open the door in five minutes, Seo-ah.”
Then he hung up.
For a second, I stood there holding the phone to my ear like an idiot.
Then I looked down at myself.
Oversized shirt. No bra. Sleep shorts so tiny they barely deserved the name. Damp hair. Bare face. Panic in human form.
“No,” I told my reflection in the dark window. “We are not changing. Changing implies effort. Effort implies interest. We are above this.”
Four minutes and forty seconds later, I had brushed my hair, put on lip balm, changed into a softer oversized shirt that still looked accidental but was absolutely not accidental, and sprayed perfume on my wrists like a woman with no principles.
The knock came at exactly five minutes.
Not the doorbell.
A knock.
Two firm taps, then silence.
I stared at the door.
My apartment suddenly felt too small. Too warm. Too aware of me.
I opened it with every intention of being cold, composed, untouchable.
Chan stood in the hallway wearing black joggers and a white T-shirt that clung indecently to his chest. His hair was still damp from the shower, falling messily over his forehead. One hand was braced high on my doorframe, the other holding his phone.
He looked down at me.
And whatever speech I had prepared died immediately.
His gaze moved over my face, my mouth, the oversized shirt, my bare legs.
Slowly.
Not like an accident.
Like permission he hadn’t been given yet, but wanted badly.
I lifted my chin. “Give me your phone.”
His mouth twitched. “Hello to you, too.”
“Phone.”
He held it up.
I snatched it from his hand, turned, and marched inside. “You are staying outside.”
He stepped in behind me.
I spun around. “I said outside.”
“You left the door open.”
“That is not consent.”
“No,” he said, and his expression shifted. The amusement softened into something steadier. “It isn’t.”
The answer landed between us.
Not teasing. Not playful.
Real.
My grip on his phone loosened a little.
Chan closed the door behind him but didn’t move closer. He stayed there, giving me space, hands sliding into his pockets like he didn’t trust them.
“Delete it,” I said, quieter now.
“I will.”
“Now.”
He nodded toward the phone. “Go ahead.”
I unlocked his screen because of course his face ID didn’t work for me, and of course the phone demanded a passcode.
I looked up.
He said, “Your birthday.”
My chest tightened.
I hated that. Hated it so much I almost liked it.
I punched in the numbers. His phone opened.
The file was still there in the chat. I deleted it. Then I went to downloads. Deleted. Recently deleted. Deleted again. I checked his files, his cloud, his messages like a paranoid criminal.
He watched me the entire time.
When I was done, I shoved the phone back at him.
“There. Gone. We will now pretend this never happened.”
Chan took the phone but didn’t look at it. “No.”
My jaw tightened. “You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep saying impossible things.”
“It is very possible to shut up.”
“Is it?” he asked.
I hated the way he said it. Like he was genuinely curious. Like he already knew I couldn’t.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“So am I.”
There it was again.
The shift.
His eyes were darker than usual, all the teasing stripped back to reveal something I didn’t know how to handle. Want, maybe. Or restraint. Or both, fighting each other with their teeth out.
He took one step toward me.
I took one step back.
His gaze dropped to my feet, then rose again.
“Tell me you don’t want me to mention it,” he said, “and I won’t.”
“I don’t want you to mention it.”
“Seo-ah.”
“What?”
“Not like you’re reading from a hostage note.”
I glared at him.
He came closer again. Slowly enough that I could move. Slowly enough that the choice stayed mine.
My back met the edge of the kitchen counter.
Wonderful.
Of course.
The kitchen counter.
His eyes flicked behind me, then back to my face.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
I pointed at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it.”
“I did.”
“Don’t think it.”
“I’m thinking about how anatomically ambitious chapter four was.”
I made a strangled sound. “You are the worst person alive.”
“I’m also impressed.”
“I will poison you.”
“With what? You have oat milk and expired gochujang.”
“You looked in my fridge?”
“I moved your sofa. I also installed your water filter. Your household is not a mystery to me.”
“You are disturbingly domestic for someone currently blackmailing me with porn.”
“I’m not blackmailing you.”
“No? What do you call this?”
He stepped closer.
Not touching me.
Close enough that I could smell him, clean soap and warm skin, something sharp and subtle underneath.
“I call this,” he said, “the first honest conversation we’ve had in years.”
My throat went tight.
“Honest?” I echoed.
He nodded.
“You read my smut and now you want honesty?”
“I read your smut and realized you’ve been lying to my face for a long time.”
My laugh came out brittle. “That is rich coming from you.”
His brows lifted slightly.
The words had escaped before I could stop them.
His face changed.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No.” His voice was quiet. “Say it.”
I folded my arms, which was a mistake, because his eyes flicked to the movement and stayed there for half a second too long.
“You flirt with me,” I said.
“I do.”
My brain skipped. “Excuse me?”
“I flirt with you.”
“You’re not supposed to admit that.”
“Why?”
“Because now I can’t accuse you properly.”
His mouth curved. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No,” he agreed. “I’m not.”
I stared at him, pulse hammering.
“For how long?” I asked.
Chan’s expression went still.
“Seo-ah.”
“How long?”
His gaze held mine. “Since you came home from grad school and told your brother his apartment looked like a divorced accountant’s cry for help.”
Despite everything, a laugh burst out of me.
“That was three years ago.”
“I know.”
The laugh faded.
Three years.
Three years of family dinners, holidays, group drinks, late-night rides, borrowed chargers, casual touches, almost moments I had convinced myself were one-sided because wanting him had already felt dangerous enough without hope.
“You never said anything,” I whispered.
“You’re Minho’s sister.”
There it was.
My older brother’s name hit the room like a warning bell.
I looked away.
“Right.”
“And,” Chan added, “you were younger.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“I know.”
“I have health insurance.”
“Congratulations.”
“I file taxes.”
“Very seductive.”
“I am not some baby sister you have to protect from alcohol and bad men.”
His eyes darkened. “I know that too.”
The way he said it made my skin prickle.
I swallowed. “Then why are you looking at me like that?”
His jaw flexed.
“Because you’re standing in front of me in that shirt,” he said, voice rougher now, “after sending me twelve thousand words about how much you want my mouth on you, and I am trying to be a good man.”
My breath left me.
The silence after that was not empty.
It was full of every single thing we had avoided.
My fingers curled against the counter’s edge.
“And?” I asked.
His gaze sharpened.
“And what?”
“Are you?”
He stared at me.
“Am I what?”
“A good man.”
A beat.
Then Chan stepped closer, close enough that his thighs nearly brushed mine, close enough that the heat of him sank through the thin cotton of my shirt.
“I’m decent,” he said. “Usually.”
My voice dropped. “Usually?”
His hand lifted, but he didn’t touch me. He braced it on the counter beside my hip instead, caging me in without trapping me.
My body reacted so violently I almost hated myself for it. My breath caught. My nipples tightened under the shirt. My thighs pressed together, and his eyes—damn him, damn him—noticed.
“Usually,” he said again, softer.
I should have stopped.
I should have laughed, shoved him back, told him to go home before this became something neither of us could fold neatly away.
Instead, I looked at his mouth.
Chan went very still.
“Seo-ah.”
I loved my name in his mouth.
I hated that I had written entire paragraphs about it and still somehow undersold the damage.
“If you kiss me,” I said, “you can’t blame the document.”
His eyes lifted back to mine.
“I won’t.”
“And you can’t act weird tomorrow.”
“I’ll act exactly as weird as you want.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I’m not feeling very reassuring right now.”
A helpless laugh slipped out of me.
His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed hungry.
My pulse pounded everywhere. Wrists. Throat. Between my legs.
“Chan,” I said.
“Tell me.”
It was not the line from my stories.
It was better.
Quieter. Rougher. Real.
Tell me what you want.
Tell me where the line is.
Tell me yes, and I’ll cross the room. Tell me no, and I’ll leave with my hands in my pockets and your name still in my teeth.
So I told him.
“Kiss me.”
The restraint broke in his face.
Not all at once. Not violently. It was worse than that. It melted. His control went soft and dark at the edges, and then his hand came to my jaw, warm and firm, and his mouth was on mine.
For a second, I forgot every clever thing I had ever said.
Chan kissed like he had been waiting and resenting the wait.
His mouth moved over mine slowly at first, deep and controlled, giving me one chance to step back. But I didn’t. I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, and he made a sound low in his throat that ruined me on the spot.
Then the kiss changed.
His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck. His other arm went around my waist, hauling me up against him. I gasped into his mouth, and he used it, licking into me with a dirty, confident stroke that made heat pool hard and fast in my belly.
“Oh,” I breathed.
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
His eyes were almost black.
“That was in chapter three,” he murmured.
I hit his chest. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Then he kissed me again, and I stopped pretending.
His hands found my waist under the shirt. The first touch of his palms on my bare skin sent a shiver through me so sharp my knees weakened. He felt it. Of course he did. Chan noticed everything, which was currently both a blessing and a threat.
“Sensitive,” he said against my mouth.
“Observant men are so irritating.”
His fingers flexed at my waist. “You wrote that too.”
“You skimmed, my ass.”
“I became invested.”
“You became horny.”
“That too.”
I laughed, breathless, and he swallowed it with another kiss.
He lifted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing.
The movement punched a soft sound out of me. The countertop was cold under my thighs, his body hot between them. His hands slid along the outside of my legs, pushing them wider, and I should have felt exposed. I did feel exposed.
I also felt powerful.
Because when his gaze dropped to where my shirt had ridden up, when he saw the small sleep shorts beneath, his expression fractured.
“Seo-ah,” he said, almost like a warning.
I leaned back on my hands. “What?”
His thumb traced the hem of my shorts. Not inside. Not yet.
The restraint was obscene.
“Do you have any idea,” he said, voice low, “how hard it was to sit through dinner at your parents’ house last month with you wearing that blue dress?”
My breath caught.
“That dress?”
His laugh was quiet and humorless. “You know the one.”
I did.
Soft blue. Thin straps. Backless enough to be dangerous. I had caught him looking once while I reached for a wineglass and had thought about it for two weeks.
“You barely looked at me,” I said.
“I looked when no one else could see.”
My stomach clenched.
“Oh.”
His mouth brushed my throat. “I have been very careful with you.”
My head tilted back before I could stop it.
His lips moved along my neck, slow and open-mouthed. Not enough to mark. Enough to make me imagine it.
“Maybe,” I said, breath shaking, “I’m tired of careful.”
He went still.
Then his teeth grazed the skin beneath my ear.
I nearly slid off the counter.
His hand caught my hip. “Careful.”
“You are such a hypocrite.”
“I know.”
His mouth found mine again, harder this time. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he groaned when I pulled him in, when I felt him against me, thick and hard through his joggers.
The sound lit me up.
“Oh,” I whispered, because there was no cleverness left. No wit. No dignity. Just the heavy ache between my legs and the impossible reality of Chan’s hands under my shirt.
His forehead pressed to mine.
“You feel that?” he asked.
I nodded, my throat dry.
“That’s what your little attachment did to me.”
A hot laugh escaped me. “My attachment?”
“Mm.” His thumb slid higher, stroking the bare skin just above the waistband of my shorts. “Very dangerous file.”
“You should report it as malware.”
“It did compromise my system.”
I laughed against his mouth, and he smiled into the kiss, and somehow that made it worse. Sweeter. Hotter. The absurdity of it, the years of wanting, the ridiculous document, the fact that he was still Chan—annoying and dry and careful even while hard between my thighs.
Then his hand slipped beneath my shirt and cupped my breast.
My laugh broke into a gasp.
His expression changed immediately. “Okay?”
“Yes,” I said too fast. “Very okay. Disturbingly okay.”
His thumb brushed over my nipple.
My hands flew to his shoulders.
“Chan.”
“I know,” he said, though he sounded like he was losing the argument with himself.
He touched me like he had thought about it. Like he knew exactly how much pressure to use, when to be gentle and when to make it hurt just enough to send pleasure striking through me. He rolled my nipple between his fingers, then bent and took the other through the thin cotton of my shirt with his mouth.
I made a sound so embarrassing I would have filed a complaint against myself if I’d had the concentration.
His hand tightened on my thigh.
“Quiet,” he murmured.
“You be quiet.”
His teeth closed lightly.
My hips jerked.
He looked up at me, mouth still against my breast, eyes wicked.
I hated that he had read me.
I hated that he now had footnotes.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” I accused.
His smile was slow. “You have no idea.”
Then he sank to his knees.
My heart stopped.
“Chan.”
He looked up at me from between my legs, hands warm on my thighs, expression devastatingly calm.
“Yes?”
My mouth went dry.
Words failed.
His thumbs stroked circles just above my knees. “I can stop.”
“I didn’t say stop.”
The room felt electric. Every sound was too loud: my breathing, the hum of the refrigerator, the faint slide of fabric as his fingers moved up my thighs.
He pressed a kiss to my knee.
Then higher.
Another to the inside of my thigh.
My fingers dug into the counter.
“Is this your literary critique?” I asked weakly.
His mouth curved against my skin.
“I’m checking for accuracy.”
“You’re insane.”
“You sent me a guide.”
“It was fiction.”
His eyes lifted.
“Was it?”
I couldn’t answer.
He kissed higher.
My legs opened without permission, and his hands tightened, holding me steady. When his mouth reached the edge of my shorts, he paused. Not teasing. Asking.
The pause nearly killed me.
“Yes,” I whispered.
His fingers hooked into the waistband.
He dragged my shorts down slowly, watching my face the entire time. I lifted my hips to help, cheeks burning, pulse wild. The cool air hit me first, then his gaze.
Chan exhaled.
Not dramatically. Not theatrically.
Like the sight of me had done actual damage.
“Beautiful,” he said.
It was too sincere.
My eyes stung unexpectedly, which was ridiculous because I was half-naked on my kitchen counter and he was on his knees. But his voice had gone soft around the word. Reverent. Like he wasn’t just looking at a body he wanted, but at me.
I reached down and touched his hair.
His lashes lowered briefly.
Then he turned his face and kissed my wrist.
The tenderness lasted three seconds.
Then his mouth was on me.
I gasped so sharply my head hit the cabinet behind me.
“Careful,” he said again, voice muffled and amused.
“Stop saying careful while doing that.”
He laughed, and the vibration went through me so hard my thighs clenched around his shoulders.
His hands gripped my hips.
Then he licked me properly, slow and hot and devastating, and the entire world narrowed to the slick pull of his mouth. He was not tentative. He was not shy. He ate me like he had meant exactly what he said earlier—like he was checking for accuracy and determined to correct every underwritten detail.
My hand tightened in his hair.
“Chan,” I breathed.
He groaned against me.
The sound made me shudder.
He looked up while his mouth was still working me, and the sight of him there, between my thighs, dark eyes fixed on my face, was filthier than anything I had ever written.
The bastard knew it too.
One of his hands slid from my hip to my stomach, pressing me gently back when I tried to curl forward. The other moved between my legs, fingers spreading me open for his mouth.
I nearly came from the gesture alone.
“You’re—” My voice broke. “You’re very smug for a man on his knees.”
He lifted his mouth just enough to answer. “You’re very mouthy for a woman shaking.”
“I am not—”
He slid one finger into me.
The sentence died.
My body clenched around him, and his expression went dark, hungry satisfaction flashing across his face.
“There,” he murmured.
I hated that word.
I loved that word.
His finger moved slowly, curling just enough to make my back arch. Then his mouth returned to my clit, and any last attempt at dignity dissolved completely.
I was loud.
I tried not to be. I bit my lip, turned my face, pressed my hand over my mouth, but Chan caught my wrist and pulled it away.
“No,” he said against me. “I want to hear you.”
My whole body flushed.
“You’ll regret that when my neighbor complains.”
“I’ll apologize.”
“With what, a fruit basket?”
“If necessary.”
Then he added a second finger, and I forgot the neighbor, fruit, my name, and possibly several tax obligations.
Pleasure built fast, bright and merciless. My thighs trembled around him. The counter beneath me felt too hard, his mouth too soft, his fingers too sure. He found a rhythm that made everything in me tighten, then kept it there, relentless.
“Chan,” I gasped. “I’m—”
“I know.”
Of course he knew.
His fingers curled again. His mouth sealed over me.
I came so hard I had to grab his shoulders to stay upright.
It broke through me in waves, my hips jerking helplessly against his mouth while he held me there and took it, slow and obscene and gentle at the same time. He didn’t stop too quickly. He didn’t push too far. He eased me down until I was shaking, boneless, my breath coming in broken little sounds I could not control.
When he finally stood, his mouth was wet.
I stared at him.
He looked ruinously pleased.
I should have said something clever. Something devastating. Something that restored my reputation as a woman with a functioning brain.
Instead I reached for him.
He came willingly, mouth finding mine. I tasted myself on his tongue and moaned, and that was apparently the end of Chan’s patience, because he grabbed my hips and pulled me against him.
His erection pressed hard between my thighs.
I rolled against him once.
His jaw clenched.
“Seo-ah.”
I did it again.
His hand shot to the counter beside me. “Careful.”
This time, I smiled.
“Oh,” I said, breathless. “Now who’s shaking?”
His eyes narrowed.
Then he picked me up.
I yelped, arms flying around his neck as he carried me away from the kitchen.
“Bedroom?” he asked.
I pointed down the hall. “Left.”
“I know.”
“Creepy.”
“I moved your bed frame too.”
“You’re basically my unpaid husband.”
His steps faltered for half a second.
I felt it.
He felt me feel it.
For one soft, terrifying moment, neither of us joked.
Then he laid me on the bed.
The air changed again.
The kitchen had been heat and shock and years of restraint catching fire. But the bedroom was different. Quieter. More intimate. The sheets were rumpled from where I had been panicking earlier. My laptop sat open near the pillows, the cursed document still visible on-screen.
Chan looked at it.
Then at me.
“I'll delete that too,” I said.
“Absolutely not.”
“Chan.”
“That is a historical document.”
“That is a crime scene.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Of what?”
His gaze moved over me, half naked on the bed, hair loose now, lips swollen from his kisses.
“That you wanted me.”
My chest tightened.
Then he added, lower, “And maybe that I’m not the only one who’s been losing his mind.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then I sat up and reached for the hem of his shirt.
He let me pull it off.
God.
It was one thing to fantasize about a man. It was another thing entirely to have him standing in your bedroom, bare-chested, all lean muscle and warm skin and that pale scar across his ribs that had haunted me like an unpaid debt.
I touched it before I could stop myself.
His breath hitched.
My fingers traced the scar lightly. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I leaned forward and kissed it.
His hand slid into my hair.
“Seo-ah.”
I kissed higher, over his stomach, his chest. His body tightened under my mouth.
“Still being careful?” I asked.
His fingers flexed in my hair.
“Barely.”
I smiled against his skin. “Good.”
He pushed me back onto the bed and came over me, one knee between my thighs. His mouth found my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. He stripped my shirt off with less patience than he had used with my shorts, and when I was naked beneath him, his expression went so raw I forgot how to breathe.
“You’re staring,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“Say something.”
“I’m trying not to say something irresponsible.”
My hands slid down his stomach to the waistband of his joggers.
“Maybe I like irresponsible.”
His laugh was strained. “I know what you like. I read the file.”
I shoved at his shoulder, but he caught my wrist and kissed my palm.
Then I hooked my fingers into his waistband and pulled.
He helped me.
When his joggers and underwear were gone, my breath caught.
“Oh,” I said.
His mouth twitched despite the tension in his body. “That was also in the file.”
“You know what? I actually understand my own creative choices now.”
He laughed, low and surprised, then kissed me so deeply I felt it behind my ribs.
He reached toward the bedside table. “Condom?”
“Drawer,” I said.
He opened it, found one, then paused.
His gaze came back to me. “We don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know,” I repeated, softer.
He held my eyes.
The hunger was still there. God, it was everywhere—his flushed skin, his parted mouth, the tense line of his shoulders. But beneath it was that same steadiness. The part of him that had always driven carefully when I was in the passenger seat. The part that walked on the outside of the sidewalk. The part that remembered my birthday as his passcode and made sure the door was locked.
I reached up and touched his face.
“I want you,” I said. “Not because of the file. Not because I’m embarrassed. Not because this is funny.”
His throat moved.
“I want you,” I said again. “I have for a long time.”
Something in him cracked.
He kissed me hard, then tore the condom open with shaking hands. That, more than anything, ruined me—the fact that he was not nearly as composed as he pretended to be.
He settled between my thighs, and my body opened for him instinctively, eagerly. When he rubbed himself against me, slicking the head of his cock through the wetness he’d put there with his mouth, I gripped his arms.
“Chan.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
Then he pushed into me.
Slowly.
So slowly I lost my mind by degrees.
The stretch was intense, full, a deep pressure that made my lips part around a sound I couldn’t contain. He stopped halfway, jaw clenched, arms trembling slightly beside my head.
“Okay?” he asked.
I nodded quickly.
His eyes searched mine.
“Words.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, I’m okay. Don’t stop.”
He exhaled shakily and pushed deeper.
My back arched.
He cursed under his breath.
That did something to me, hearing Chan—composed, careful Chan—come undone in fragments above me.
When he was fully inside, we both went still.
The feeling was overwhelming. Not just physical, though God, it was physical. He filled me completely, hot and heavy, his hips pressed to mine, his breath ragged against my cheek.
It was the intimacy that nearly undid me.
His body over mine. My hands on his back. Years of wanting collapsed into one impossible moment.
He pressed his forehead to mine.
“Seo-ah,” he whispered.
I wrapped my legs around him.
“Move.”
His control snapped.
He pulled back and drove into me again, and the pleasure hit so sharply my nails dug into his shoulders. He groaned, deep and wrecked, and did it again.
Then again.
The rhythm built slowly at first, his hips rolling into mine, every stroke dragging through me in a way that made my entire body tighten around him. He kissed me between thrusts, messy and open-mouthed, swallowing my sounds like he wanted to keep them.
“Fuck. You feel so good,” he said, voice rough.
My eyes closed. “Don’t say things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll get embarrassing.”
His laugh broke into a groan when I clenched around him.
“Too late.”
I dragged him down harder, kissed him harder. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m going to start saying it during family dinners.”
“I’ll deserve it.”
His hips snapped forward harder.
I gasped.
“There,” he said, breath hot against my mouth. “That shut you up.”
I should have argued.
Unfortunately, he did it again.
And again.
My thoughts scattered.
He found the angle that made pleasure spark bright behind my eyes, then kept hitting it with devastating precision. The bed creaked under us. My hands slid over his back, his shoulders, the tense flex of muscle as he moved. He was so controlled even while losing control, so focused on my face, my sounds, every hitch in my breathing.
I understood, suddenly, that if I wrote him again, I would have to make him worse.
Less polished.
More dangerous.
More tender.
Because fantasy had not accounted for the way his voice broke when I said his name. It had not accounted for the way he kissed my cheek when I got too overwhelmed, or the way his hand slipped between us, thumb finding my clit because he wanted me there with him.
“Come with me,” he said.
My body clenched.
“Chan—”
“I’ve got you.”
His thumb moved in tight, perfect circles, his cock thrusting deep, and the pleasure rose fast, too fast. I clung to him, breath breaking, body tightening around him.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
I came again with his name in my mouth.
He followed seconds later, his rhythm breaking, his face buried in my neck as he groaned my name like it hurt. His body went rigid over mine, then shuddered, warmth pulsing deep through the condom as he held himself there, as close as possible.
For a while, neither of us moved.
The room was quiet except for our breathing.
His weight was heavy but not crushing. His skin was damp against mine. My fingers moved absently through his hair, and his mouth brushed once against my shoulder, soft enough to make my heart ache.
Eventually, he lifted his head.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Then he said, completely deadpan, “I have notes.”
I stared.
Then I burst out laughing.
He smiled, and it changed his whole face.
“You are unbelievable,” I said, shoving weakly at his chest.
“I’m serious.”
“You just had sex with me and now you’re workshopping my smut?”
“First note,” he said, kissing my jaw. “The counter scene was ambitious but achievable.”
“Oh my God.”
“Second note.” Another kiss, lower. “You underestimated my stamina.”
My stomach flipped despite myself.
“Is that a threat?”
“Constructive criticism.”
“Chan.”
“Third note.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Choose wisely.”
His expression softened.
He brushed damp hair away from my face.
“Next time,” he said, “send it to me on purpose.”
The laughter faded from my throat.
My chest squeezed.
“Next time?”
His thumb stroked my cheek. “If there is one.”
I searched his face, trying to find the joke.
There wasn’t one.
Only him. Warm, gorgeous, infuriating him, looking at me like the accident had only stripped away the final excuse.
I swallowed. “And my brother?”
Chan sighed and dropped his forehead to my shoulder.
“There it is.”
“He’ll murder you.”
“He’ll try.”
“He’ll cry first.”
“Probably.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“He loves me more.”
“As he should.”
I smiled despite myself.
Chan lifted his head. “We don’t have to figure that out tonight.”
“No?”
“No.” His mouth brushed mine. “Tonight, I’m going to help you delete that document.”
“Thank you.”
“After I make a copy.”
I gasped and slapped his arm.
He caught my hand, laughing, and pinned it gently to the pillow beside my head.
“Kidding,” he said.
“You better be.”
“I am.” His smile turned slower. “Mostly.”
“Chan.”
“Yes, Seo-ah?”
I tried to glare at him, but he shifted his hips just slightly, still half-hard against my thigh, and my glare suffered a catastrophic loss of credibility.
His eyes darkened again.
“Oh,” he said softly.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You said you were helping me delete the document.”
“I will.”
“When?”
His mouth moved to my neck.
“After chapter two.”
A laugh caught in my throat and turned into a gasp when his hand slid down my waist.
The cursed file remained open on my laptop, glowing faintly from across the room.
The title blinked at the top of the screen.
do_not_open_v7_final_FINAL_actuallyfinal.docx
Not final, apparently.
Not even close.