plaster saint (yang jungwon) 𓍯
pairing: coworker!jungwon x fem!reader
content: jungwon office au, workplace au, smut, angst
warnings: mdni! sexual content, toxic jungwon, sexual tension, jealousy, risky sex, rough sex, dubcon, coercion, dirty talk, teasing, p in v, unprotected sex (do not do it), fingering, multiple orgasms, strong language, creampie, light choking, a bit of yearning, reader can’t do casual, emotional manipulation
note: i want to write shorter fics but i'm such a yapper bruh. hope you enjoy reading this ! i´ll start writing part two of top two next hehe < 3
taglist (you can comment!): @kristynaaah @hooniella @gentlestpour @heelvcr @heesvnqie @kazehee
the sound of his laughter was always just a little too quiet to hear from across the floor, but you always knew exactly when it happened. you could tell by the way the girls in marketing would suddenly lean over their desk dividers, or how the receptionist would find a reason to walk all the way to the printer on your side of the building just to catch his eye as he passed.
yang jungwon had a way of distributing himself so thinly that everyone felt like they had a piece of him, yet nobody actually held anything at all.
it was a strange kind of currency he traded in. he didn’t have the loud, exhausting arrogance of the men you usually avoided. he didn’t smirk, he didn’t linger a second too long in a way that would make anyone uncomfortable. he was just... soft. incredibly, terrifyingly attentive. he remembered how people took their tea, he noticed when someone looked a little tired, and he always had the right words to smooth over a mistake before the department head could even find out about it.
you had spent eight months watching the cycle repeat itself. a new girl would start in accounting or design, she would get overwhelmed by the workload, and jungwon would appear out of nowhere with a reassuring smile and a cup of coffee. and a few weeks later, she would be looking at him with that same dazed, mesmerized expression you saw on everyone else. he got his shifts covered, his spreadsheets double-checked, and an absolute shield of loyalty from the entire floor, all because he looked at people like they were the only thing that mattered in a room full of fluorescent lights.
you hated how clearly you saw the pattern. it made you feel detached, like a ghost lingering on the edges of a game everyone else was happily playing. loneliness did that to you — it made you hyper fixate on the details of other people’s lives because your own felt so hollow. and maybe, just maybe, it was also about the fact that you were the only person on this floor who he hadn't tried to use that gentle charm on yet. it felt spiteful, almost, like he knew you were watching and had decided you weren't worth the effort of the routine.
you bit the inside of your cheek, forcing your eyes back to your spreadsheet. do not look. do not care.
"you're going to get a headache if you keep staring at that screen without blinking, y/n." your pulse gave a stupid, frantic flutter before you could stop it. he was right there, his shadow leaning gently over the divider of your cubicle. he looked so terribly neat, the sleeves of his grey button down rolled up just to his forearms, his dark hair falling perfectly across his forehead. he didn’t look like someone who had just spent the last twenty minutes quietly convincing the senior supervisor to give him an extra week on his report. he just looked like a concerned coworker.
"i'm almost done." you whispered, your fingers staying frozen over the keyboard. you didn't want to look up. looking up meant acknowledging the way he was tilting his head, the way he was offering you that quiet, private space he seemed to create wherever he stood.
"you said that an hour ago when i walked past." he murmured, his voice slipping into that gentle register that always felt like a secret meant only for you. he set a small paper bag from the bakery downstairs on the edge of your desk, careful not to disturb your papers. "you skipped the team lunch. i brought you one of those lemon tarts you mentioned liking last month."
your heart ached a little, a sharp spike of anxiety hitting your chest. you hadn't even realized he had been listening when you said that to a completely different coworker in the breakroom weeks ago. that was his trick. he collected information like weights, saving them until he could wrap them up in sweet gestures, leaving you with no way to push him away without looking like the bad guy.
"jungwon, you shouldn't have." you said, trying to force your voice to sound flat, or at least indifferent. you finally met his eyes, searching for a slip, a hint of the calculation you knew was behind them. but there was nothing. just those wide, dark eyes looking at you with a steady warmth that made you feel completely exposed.
"i wanted to." he said simply, a tiny, almost imperceptible crinkle forming at the corners of his eyes. "you look tired, y/n. let me do something nice for you for once. okay?" the way he said for once, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to care about you, made a bitter knot form in your throat. he was opening the door to the routine, and the worst part was how badly a small, pathetic part of you wanted to step inside.
you looked down at the brown paper bag, the grease from the pastry already leaving a translucent circle on the paper. it felt heavy, like an anchor pulling you straight into the deep end of his world. if you reached for your purse right now, if you pulled out a crisp bill and insisted on paying him back, you would look incredibly cold. you would be the girl who couldn't just accept a simple favor from a coworker who was only trying to be thoughtful.
but you needed a barrier. you needed to prove to yourself that you weren't like that girl from accounting, or the receptionists, or any of the other people who let his probably fake kindness soften their edges until there was nothing left to protect themselves with.
"how much was it?" you asked, your fingers gripping the edge of your desk a little tighter as you kept your voice low, trying to maintain the flat, corporate boundary between you. "i can venmo you. i also think i have some cash in my bag."
jungwon didn't move. he didn't blink, either. he just kept staring down at you, his thumb slowly brushing against the seam of his trouser pocket. for a second, just a tiny fraction of a second, the soft crinkle around his eyes vanished, replaced by an expression that was entirely unreadable. it was the closest you had ever seen his mask come to slipping, and it made your stomach do a small anxious flip.
but then, as quickly as it had gone, the sweetness returned. it bloomed across his face like it belonged there, gentle and effortless. "don't do that, y/n.” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, sounding almost disappointed. not angry, just gently hurt, like a friend whose genuine intentions had been misunderstood. he reached out, his fingers hovering just an inch above the paper bag, not quite touching it, but close enough that you could smell the faint scent of his laundry detergent mixed with the sweet scent of the lemon. "it's just a tart. you don't owe me anything for it."
you hated how good he was at this. he made your self-preservation look like paranoia. "i just don't like feeling like i owe people things." you whispered, finally looking away from his eyes because the intensity of his gaze was starting to make your chest feel tight. you focused on his collar instead, tracing the neat, sharp line of his grey button down. "especially at work."
"you don't owe me." he repeated softly. he leaned a little closer over the divider, his shadow completely enveloping your desk space now, cutting off the rest of the bustling floor. "i promise. consider it an apology for the project timeline being so messy this week. i know it's been stressful for you."
he hadn't even been the one who messed up the timeline, it had been the senior supervisor's fault. yet there he was, taking the blame, wrapping it up in a pastry, and handing it to you like a peace offering. it was perfect. it was entirely unassailable.
before you could think of another way to push him back, another way to say no without sounding entirely irrational, he was already straightening up. he patted the top of the cubicle divider twice, the dull thud of his palms against the fabric signaling the end of your private pocket of time.
"eat it before the sugar melts." he said, giving you one last, lingering smile that felt entirely too warm for a tuesday afternoon in a fluorescent lit office. "i'll see you in the meeting tomorrow, y/n."
you didn't answer. you just watched his back as he turned around and walked away, his stride easy and completely relaxed. and then, you watched the trap reset.
barely three steps away from your desk, he ran into the assistant manager. within two seconds, jungwon’s posture shifted, his head tilting in that familiar, attentive way as he listened to the older man complain about a client. he smiled, offered a reassuring nod, and effortlessly slid back into being the floor's favorite person. it was like his conversation with you hadn't even happened. it was just another stop on his daily rounds.
you sank back into your ergonomic chair, feeling smaller than you had five minutes ago. the paper bag sat on the edge of your desk, a tiny, sweet monument to your own weakness. you hadn't won. you hadn't even fought back.
when you finally decided to pack your bag, the fourteenth floor was entirely dead. the quiet was suffocating, broken only by the distant, rhythmic hum of the building's ventilation system. you had stayed late on purpose, hiding behind the excuse of a heavy workload just to avoid having to walk out the double doors at the same time as everyone else. you needed the air to clear.
you walked down the narrow carpeted hallway toward the back supply room to drop off a final stack of hard copy client files before heading to the elevators. the lights in the back corridor were completely out, the darkness only cut by the faint city lights bleeding through the floor to ceiling glass windows at the end of the hall.
as you neared the heavy wooden door of the archive room, you realized it wasn’t fully latched. a thin sliver of light was slicing across the dark carpet. and then, you heard a sound that made your entire body freeze in place.
it wasn't a murmur about spreadsheets or a polite laugh. it was a breathy gasp, followed by the distinct, unmistakable friction of fabric rubbing against a hard desk surface.
it was sarah from design. her voice was completely unrecognizable, stripped of her usual corporate composure, thick with an open, desperate kind of heat.
"shhh." a voice quieted her. low, raspy, and completely dripping with that gentle cadence. "someone might still be on the floor. stay quiet for me, yeah?"
your heart gave a violent, sickening lurch against your ribs, your fingers locking onto the edge of the file folders so hard the cardboard bent. you shouldn't have looked. every piece of self-preservation you had left was screaming at you to turn around, to run to the elevators and pretend you hadn't heard a thing. but you were paralyzed. your eyes moved to the small gap in the doorframe, your breath catching in your throat. through the crack, the scene was explicit, dark, and entirely heavy.
sarah was pushed back onto the edge of the heavy wooden archive table, her knee length pencil skirt hitched all the way up past her thighs, her fingers tangled frantically in the dark hair of the boy pressing between her legs. jungwon’s shirt was completely unbuttoned, hanging loosely off his shoulders, exposing the pale, sharp lines of his chest and back as he moved against her. he wasn't being rough. even like this, hidden in a dark room against company policy, his movements carried that same terrifyingly smooth rhythm. his head was buried in the crook of her neck, his lips leaving slow, wet tracks along her collarbone, his hands gripping her hips to anchor her as he drove into her with a quiet deliberation. every roll of his hips elicited a muffled, shaking groan from the girl beneath him, her eyes completely blown out, utterly ruined by him.
"you're so good." jungwon whispered against her skin, his voice hitching slightly as his pace quickened, his thumbs digging into her skin. it was said with that same comforting warmth he used when he was handing someone a pastry or fixing a computer screen. "so sweet for me, sarah."
seeing him use that exact same tone — the soft sweetness he used to navigate the bullpen — while his body was violently taking someone against an office desk made a cold wave of humiliation wash over you.
he really was doing it. all of it. he wasn't just collecting favors, he was consuming them. and less than four hours ago, he had leaned over your cubicle divider, looked into your eyes with that exact same soft warmth, and told you he wanted to do something nice for you for once.
you backed away from the door. you had thought you were being smart by observing him, thought you were immune because you saw the matrix of his charm. but the truth was, you were just another potential name on the rotation of favors he hadn't gotten around to breaking yet.
inside the room, the sudden, sharp rustle of your folders against your coat cut through the quiet. the rhythmic sound of his movements stopped instantly. through the gap, you saw jungwon’s head lift, his dark eyes instantly cutting through the dim light straight toward the door frame, his chest heaving as he stared directly at the shadow you were casting on the floor.
you didn't wait for him to pull away. you turned and ran toward the elevators, your chest heavy with an indescribable, uncomfortable feeling as the doors finally closed.
the next morning, the fourteenth floor swallowed you whole, completely unchanged. the office was just its usual, sterile self. you sat at your desk, eyes fixed on your monitors, trying to drown out the intrusive images from the night before. because the worst part — the thing you refused to admit to yourself as you stared at your spreadsheets — was how it had actually looked. the sharp lines of his bare back, the tight grip of his hands on sarah's hips, the low, raspy weight of his voice... it had been explicit. it had been dangerous. and god help you, it had been the most terrifyingly attractive thing you had ever seen.
you bit the inside of your cheek until it tasted like iron. do not think about it. do not fall for it. you weren't going to be another project he managed. you weren't going to let a few seconds of office floor smut shake the armor you had spent months building. besides, you were certain he would never try to win your favor like that anyway — he clearly wasn't interested. you had never had those kinds of interactions with him, which only made the fact that you were fixating so hard on the memory feel even creepier. you were acting like a voyeur, replaying a performance that wasn't meant for you, all because the raw control he had displayed had been so violently hot, if you were honest. you needed to go back to your normal self and not think about him ever again.
the conference room smelled of stale catering coffee and the chemical tang of dry erase markers. everyone was crammed inside, reducing themselves to a neat row of titles and deliverables. sarah sat three chairs down from you, her posture slightly rigid, her eyes tracking jungwon’s every move with a quiet devotion. but she wasn't special. you watched how he shifted his attention effortlessly — offering a quick, easy laugh to one of the guys from logistics, leaning in to whisper a reassuring note to the senior supervisor, making sure that everyone felt chosen. he didn't look like a man who had spent the previous evening ruining a coworker against an archive table. he looked immaculate. when the supervisor praised the recent turnaround on the quarterly reports, jungwon offered a modest smile, deferring the credit entirely to the rest of the team. he was a calculated machine, running on the fuel of everyone's compliance, using his charm interchangeably to keep the floor running exactly how he wanted it to.
you kept your gaze firmly fixed on your ipad, drawing a series of neat, aggressive boxes in the margins. you were an observer. you just had to get through the remaining forty minutes of this meeting, go back to your cubicle, and bury yourself in data.
"y/n?" the supervisor’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts.
you blinked, pulling your shoulders back into a sharp corporate posture. "yes?"
"jungwon mentioned that the client files from the fourteenth floor archives were still showing a few discrepancies. did you manage to drop off the hard copies last night?"
your breath caught in your throat. your fingers tightened around your pen so hard the plastic clicked. reluctantly, your eyes shifted across the table.
jungwon was looking right at you. he didn't have his usual soft, accommodating expression. he was leaning back in his chair, his dark eyes locked onto yours with a terrifyingly unblinking intensity. there was no warmth in them now. no sweet, harmless coworker charm.
"i dropped them off." you said, your voice a fraction thinner than you wanted it to be. you forced yourself to maintain eye contact, refusing to let him see the frantic flutter of your pulse. "right before i left."
"perfect." jungwon said softly. he didn't break his gaze. his fingers stopped typing entirely, resting flat against the aluminum casing of his laptop. "i went back in there this morning to organize them. i noticed a few of the folders were a bit bent at the edges. like someone had been in a rush."
a suffocating wave of heat rushed up your neck. he knew. he knew exactly who had been standing outside that door.
"the archive room is quite dark at night." you countered, your voice dropping into a flat, icy register that stood out sharply against the casual tone of the room. "it's easy to lose your footing when you're looking for something in the dark."
for a fraction of a second, the corner of jungwon’s mouth twitched upward. it wasn't his public smile. it was sharp, dark, and entirely private, like a glimpse of the calculating mind behind the mask. he liked this. he seemed to have realized that while the rest of the floor was blind to his games, you were watching every single move. and instead of pulling back, instead of playing it safe, he looked entirely reenergized by it.
"you're right, y/n." he murmured, his voice dropping into that raspy cadence that made your skin prickle with a dangerous heat. "it is very dark back there. you really have to be careful what you stumble into." he laughed softly, slipping effortlessly back into his usual public persona. a few of your coworkers laughed along too, entirely unaware of the double meaning bleeding through his words. you felt like you were going insane, like one of those tragic characters in horror movies who are the only ones capable of seeing the ghosts.
the meeting adjourned, and the room dissolved into the usual chaos of scraping chairs and murmured small talk. you gathered your notebook and pen, eager to escape the stifling air, but a tall shadow stepped directly into your path before you could reach the door.
jungwon stood close, effectively blocking your exit. the faint, expensive scent of his cologne hit you instantly, dragging your mind violently back to the image of his bare back and the frantic grip of his hands in the dark. your chest heaved, a sharp spike of anger and unwanted arousal hitting you all at once.
"you didn't eat the tart, right?" he said. his voice was quiet, entirely obscured by the noise of the departing coworkers around you.
"i wasn't hungry." you replied, keeping your eyes trained on the top button of his shirt, refusing to look into his eyes. you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of a real reaction. he was just being fake nice, putting on the same calculated performance he used on everyone else to get his way. you were just a glitch in his perfect record of floor compliance, a loose thread he wanted to tuck back into his neat little tapestry because it bothered his meticulous nature that your edges wouldn't soften for him.
he leaned down slightly, his breath brushing against the shell of your ear as he spoke. "a shame. i spent a lot of time thinking about what you liked before i bought it."
you bit the inside of your cheek, gripping your notebook like a shield. you didn't call him out, you didn't mention what you saw. you just forced a professional, detached distance between your bodies, holding onto the corporate wall with everything you had left.
"i have work to do, jungwon. i’ll excuse myself now, see you." you stepped sideways, brushing past his shoulder without looking back. but as you walked down the carpeted hallway, you could feel his eyes burning into your back, a silent promise that he was only just getting started.
by thursday afternoon, the tension had settled into the very carpet of your floor, heavy and thick enough to make your lungs ache. you tried to perfect your routine. eyes on the monitor, fingers on the keys, headphones firmly over your ears even when there was no music playing. you were determined to be the ghost he couldn't touch.
but jungwon was a master of using the space around you against you. he spent twenty minutes at the shared printer island just three feet away from your cubicle opening. he wasn't alone. he was with elle from legal, helping her sort through a massive stack of compliance contracts. you could hear the low, smooth rumble of his voice filtering through your headset. you didn't look. you swore to yourself you wouldn't look. but then you heard that quiet, private laugh — the one that always made people lean over their desks. against your own damn will, your eyes flicked up.
jungwon was leaning over the printer, his grey button-down stretched tight across his shoulders. his hand was resting on the small of elle’s back, his thumb making slow, casual circles against the fabric of her blazer. it was a gesture so effortlessly intimate, so completely unnecessary for printing contracts, that a bitter spike of heat flared in your chest. elle was looking up at him with that exact ruined expression you had seen on sarah, on the receptionists, on everyone.
and then, without missing a beat in his conversation with her, jungwon’s dark eyes shifted. he looked directly over elle’s shoulder, straight into your cubicle, locking his gaze onto yours. his thumb didn't stop moving against her back. his face didn't change its pleasant expression. but his eyes were entirely dark, heavy with a silent, mocking challenge.
look how easy it is, you imagined him saying. look at what everyone else gives me without a fight.
he was doing it on purpose. he knew you were hyper-fixated on his patterns, he knew you had seen what happened in the archive room, and instead of hiding it, he was putting his transactional nature on full display right in front of your face. he wanted you to feel the weight of your own isolation. he wanted the jealousy and the confusion to twist inside you until you finally snapped and gave him the compliance he wanted. you ripped your eyes away, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. you hated him. you hated how he could make you feel so entirely exposed without even speaking to you. and worst of all, you hated the pathetic, traitorous part of your brain that had watched his hand on elle’s back and wondered, just for a terrifying second, what it would feel like if those fingers were digging into your own skin instead.
you swallowed hard, the taste of iron lingering on your tongue. he doesn't want you, you reminded yourself, a cruel, internal mantra. he's just fake nice. he just wants to win the game.
the shadow fell over your desk before you could even register the sound of his footsteps. "the legal files are sorted." jungwon murmured. he wasn't leaning over the divider this time, he was standing right at the entrance of your cubicle, effectively blocking the view of the rest of the floor. he set a single blue folder on the corner of your desk, his fingers lingering on the plastic tab. "i put the updated compliance guidelines on top. i thought you might need them for your afternoon report."
you didn't look at his face. you focused strictly on his hands, on the neat skin of his wrists. "thanks."
"you seem quiet today, y/n." he said softly, his voice dropping into that low register meant only for the two of you. he leaned in just a fraction, his shadow completely swallowing your desk space. "even more than usual. did you get another headache?"
the artificial sweetness in his tone felt like a physical weight pressing against your chest. he was mocking your boundaries, testing the exact strength of the walls you were sweating to keep up.
"i'm fine, jungwon." you whispered, your voice tight, keeping the corporate distance as rigid as humanly possible. "just busy."
"mmh." a small, completely unreadable sound left his throat. he reached out, his index finger lightly tracing a slow line along the edge of your desk calendar, stopping just a millimeter away from where your hand was resting. the proximity made the skin on your arms prickle with a terrifying heat. "well... don't work too hard. it would be a shame if you got tired out before the week is even over."
he gave the desk a final, quiet tap of his knuckles and walked away, leaving you drowning in the suffocating air of his departure.
on friday evening, the office had emptied out with a desperate speed, everyone fleeing for the weekend the second the clock hit five. you had stayed behind on purpose again. it was safer this way. the quiet felt like a shield, a brief window where you didn't have to watch him hand out his attention like loose change to every person who crossed his path.
the only light left on was the dull, overhead glow of your own cubicle row, casting geometric shadows across the empty desks. you were just finishing up the last data entry for the week, the rhythmic click of your keyboard the only sound in the entire space. you let out a long breath, your shoulders finally dropping from the tight, defensive posture you had kept up for days.
then, the printer island three feet away whirred to life. the sudden, mechanical groan made your heart drop straight into your stomach. a single sheet of paper began to slide into the tray, the sound incredibly loud in the dead quiet of the office.
"i thought i saw a light still on down here." his voice came from the darkness just outside your cubicle opening. low, completely devoid of the light, airy cadence he used during the day. jungwon stepped into the glow of your monitor. he had already taken off his tie, the top two buttons of his grey shirt undone to reveal the sharp lines of his collarbone. his jacket was slung carelessly over one shoulder, held by a single finger. he looked messy in a way that felt entirely intentional, entirely dangerous.
you froze, your fingers hovering over the keys. do not look at his neck. do not think about the archive room. "i'm just finishing up." you said, your voice tight, forcing that rigid wall between you even though the floor was completely dead. "i'm leaving in five minutes."
"there's no rush." he murmured, stepping fully into your cubicle space. but he didn't stop at the edge this time. he walked right up to the side of your chair, dropping his jacket onto the empty desk divider next to you. "the building doesn't lock down until midnight, anyway."
you kept your eyes fixed on the screen, your heart hammering a stupid rhythm against your ribs. "i want to get home, though."
jungwon didn't answer. instead, he reached past your shoulder, his bare forearm brushing lightly against your sleeve as he picked up the single sheet of paper that had printed out. the brief friction of his skin against yours felt like an electric shock, making your breath hitch in your throat.
he leaned back against the edge of your desk, trapping you in your seat, his dark eyes looking down at the paper in his hands. "you made a mistake on the logistics section." he said softly.
"what?" your head snapped up before you could stop yourself, defense mechanism kicking in. "no, i didn't. i checked the numbers twice."
"look right here." he leaned down, his face suddenly entirely too close to yours. you could see the tiny flecks of dark brown in his eyes and the immaculate line of his jaw. he pointed his long finger at a row of data on your monitor, his hand hovering right next to your mouse. "you put the shipping code under the wrong department head."
you looked at the screen, your mind entirely blank, completely unable to process the numbers because his chest was practically brushing against your shoulder. "it's... it's a minor formatting issue. i can fix it on monday."
"why wait until monday?" jungwon whispered. his voice dropped into that private register that made your skin prickle. he didn't look at the screen anymore. he was looking directly at your mouth, his gaze heavy, dark, and completely unblinking. "i'm right here. let me help you with it."
he placed his hand directly over yours on the mouse. his palm was warm, his fingers large and heavy as they entirely covered your smaller ones. your pulse gave a sickening lurch. he wasn't being gentle. he wasn't doing that soft, attentive routine he did all the time. his grip was firm, holding your hand in place on the plastic casing, forcing you to feel the solid weight of him.
"jungwon." you breathed, a panicky sound escaping your throat. you tried to pull your hand back, but his fingers tightened just enough to keep you pinned.
"shhh." he murmured, using the exact same low tone he had used on sarah in the dark. "you're always trying to push me away, y/n. why is that? i'm just trying to be a good coworker."
the blatant lie made a suffocating knot form in your throat. he was mocking you. he knew you knew exactly what he was, and he was using his body to deliberately test how much you could take before your walls completely crumbled.
"let go of my hand." you whispered, your voice shaking, although you tried with everything you had to keep it cold.
jungwon didn't move. he leaned in even closer, his breath warm against your cheek, his eyes darkening into something ravenous as he watched the frantic pulse fluttering in your neck. "and if i don't?" he asked softly, a tiny, dangerous smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "what are you going to do, y/n? call the supervisor? tell them i'm being too nice to you?"
you couldn't breathe. the sheer weight of him was entirely too much, trapping you between the hard edge of your desk and the solid heat of his chest. your fingers were frozen beneath his palm, your skin tingling everywhere it connected with his.
"i'll tell them exactly what you are." you whispered, the words slipping out before you could stop them. your voice was entirely too thinned out by the frantic beating of your heart, but you kept your eyes fixed on his chin, refusing to look up into the dark trap of his gaze. "i'll tell them you're a fraud, jungwon."
for a long second, the quiet of the fourteenth floor felt absolute. the hum of the ventilation system seemed to fade into nothing. then, jungwon let out a low, breathy laugh. it wasn't his public laugh — the quiet, pleasant one that made people lean over their desk dividers. this one was dark, raspy, and too dangerous. his hand didn't leave yours. instead, his fingers shifted, sliding down the sides of your hand to lock his fingers securely through yours, pinning your palm flat against the desk surface now.
"a fraud." he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating straight through the small space between your faces. he leaned down further, his lips so close to the shell of your ear that you could feel the slight brush of his dark hair against your temple. "and who do you think is going to believe you, y/n? the supervisors? the girls in marketing? they love me. i make their lives so easy."
he was right. it was the most humiliating part of the whole thing. if you went to anyone, you would look like the unhinged one. you would be the bitter, detached girl who couldn't handle a popular coworker offering to help her with a formatting error.
"they think you're nice." you breathed, your teeth biting down on the inside of your cheek until it throbbed. "but you're just... you just use everyone."
you expected him to pull back, expected him to get angry or play dumb. but as you finally forced your eyes up to meet his, your breath caught. jungwon was staring down at you with a look that made your entire stomach dissolve into chaos. his face wasn't sweet at all anymore. his jaw was set, his dark eyes wide and completely unblinking, tracking the frantic movement of your lips. his chest was heaving slightly, the top buttons of his shirt pulling apart just enough for your eyes to instinctively look down for a second.
he didn't look insulted. he looked violently fascinated. "you really do see right through it, don't you?" he whispered, his thumb slowly tracing a firm line across the back of your knuckles. his grip on your hand tightened, a sudden show of strength that made your pulse give a silly flutter. "everyone on this floor is so boring, to be honest. they just take whatever i give them. but you... you sit here and watch me, and you hate me so much." he leaned in until his nose almost brushed against yours, his gaze dropping to your mouth again with a hunger that felt entirely too explicit for a fluorescent lit cubicle. "you think i'm just being fake nice to be convenient. but the truth is, y/n... i've been waiting for you to look at me like this for months."
he shifted his weight, his thigh pressing firmly against the side of your knee, anchoring you into the chair. the mask was entirely gone, shattered on the desk between you, and you were left staring at the raw, calculating control underneath. and to be honest with yourself, it was the most terrifyingly attractive thing you had ever felt.
"now…" jungwon whispered, his thumb digging slightly into your wrist, right over the frantic jumping of your pulse. "are you going to fix this spreadsheet for me, or are we going to do something else?"
you refused to let him win. you refused to soften a single fraction. "i'm fixing the spreadsheet." you whispered, your voice tight and entirely thinned out, but you forced your eyes back to the monitor, desperately trying to focus on the green lines of the cells. you tried to pull your fingers out from beneath his palm, but jungwon’s grip remained firm, his fingers locked securely through yours, pinning your hand against the mouse. a breathy hum left his throat, the vibration of it traveling straight from his chest into your shoulder where his body was pressed against yours.
"then do it." he murmured, his voice dropping into that private register that made the skin on your arms prickle with a dangerous heat. "go ahead, y/n. fix it."
your left hand trembled as you reached for the keyboard, your mind racing to remember the correct shipping codes through the suffocating fog of his proximity. he was making it entirely impossible on purpose. he leaned down further, his head tilting until his lips were just a fraction of an inch away from the sensitive skin below your ear, his warm breath fanning across your neck with every shallow exhale.
"you're entering the wrong code." he whispered against your skin, his thumb shifting to press a slow, deliberate circle right over the pulse in your wrist. "look at the screen. you're messing up the formatting again because you're too busy trying to pretend i'm not here."
"i'm not pretending anything." you breathed, your teeth biting down on the inside of your cheek until you felt a sharp sting. you deleted the typo, your fingers hitting the keys with a defensive force. you weren't going to look at his collarbone. you weren't going to turn your head and let his mouth catch yours. you kept your gaze locked onto the data, your entire body stiff as iron against the solid warmth of his chest.
you clicked the save icon, the sharp sound of the mouse loud in the dead quiet of the fourteenth floor. "it's done. the data is clean. now let go of my hand, jungwon."
jungwon didn't move. he stayed exactly where he was for a long, agonizing second, his dark eyes wide and unblinking as he tracked the tight line of your jaw. you hadn't leaned into him. you hadn't given him that ruined look he was so used to consuming from the rest of the floor.
and as you finally forced your head around to glare at him, refusing to back down, you saw the exact moment his expression shifted. the mocking smile completely vanished from his lips. his jaw tightened, his dark eyes clouding over with a ravenous frustration that made your stomach dissolve into absolute chaos. he looked entirely consumed by the fact that you were still fighting him, his chest heaving slightly as his grip on your laced fingers tightened until it hurt. you were willing to choke on your own pride before you ever gave him the compliance he wanted.
"you really aren't going to give in, are you?" he whispered, his raspy voice shaking just enough to let the dark intensity underneath slip through. he leaned in until his nose brushed against yours, his gaze dropping to your parted lips with an explicit hunger that made your knees go entirely weak in the chair. "you're going to sit here and look at me like you want to kill me, even when you're completely burning up underneath my hands."
"i told you, jungwon." you whispered back, your fingers tightening around his despite yourself, your armor cracking at the seams even as you held the wall up between you.
jungwon let out another ragged breath, his thumb digging hard into your wrist as a possessive heat bloomed across his beautiful face. "we have time anyway, y/n."
he slowly released his grip, his fingers sliding away from yours with agonizing slowness, leaving your skin tingling and entirely too cold in the sudden absence of his warmth. he picked up his jacket from the divider, throwing it back over his shoulder with that effortless fluidness. he didn't say another word. he just gave you one last, unblinking look — a silent promise wrapped in a calculated package — before turning on his heel and vanishing into the darkness of the elevator lobby. you sat there for a long time, the silence of the empty office pressing heavy against your ears.
the weekend had been a blur of suffocating self-loathing. you had spent forty eight hours pacing your apartment, scrubbing at the wrist where his thumb had dug into your pulse, trying to wash away the phantom weight of his hand. you felt physically sickened by your own body’s betrayal. that silly, pathetic flutter your heart had given when he leaned in — it felt like a stain. you had always prided yourself on being the independent one, the girl who didn't get sucked into office politics or hollow, fleeting infatuations. you were supposed to be safe because you were invisible. but jungwon had stripped that safety away in a matter of minutes, leaving you raw, exposed, and terrified of your own hidden vulnerabilities.
you knew exactly what he was doing. you kept repeating it like a prayer to keep yourself sane: he doesn't want you. he doesn't want you. he was just a predator who hated that one specific prey wouldn't run into his trap. he was a perfectionist, and your coldness was an ugly smudge on his immaculate record of floor wide adoration.
by monday morning, the internal friction had left you entirely exhausted, the dark circles under your eyes barely hidden by makeup. the bright lights of the office hit your eyes like a physical blow. it was already buzzing with the usual post weekend energy, typing and mindless small talk filling the air. you kept your head down, your shoulders hunched as you walked to your cubicle, feeling incredibly small, like a soldier walking back into a minefield with a cardboard shield.
and then, you saw him. he was standing by the central filing cabinets, completely surrounded. he was wearing a crisp, dark navy shirt today, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal his pale forearms. he was currently leaning over to look at a folder held by jake from accounting, his hand resting heavily on his shoulder, squeezing it in a gesture that looked entirely supportive and friendly. but you watched the way jungwon’s eyes moved — sharp, analytical, tracking the supervisor who was walking past them. the second the supervisor glanced over, jungwon shifted his posture, offering a bright smile that made him look like the hardest working, most compliant employee on the entire payroll.
twenty minutes later, jungwon was at the reception desk. you watched, your heart hammering a painful rhythm against your ribs, as he leaned over the counter to speak to the new temp. his hand rested casually on the edge of her desk, his thumb making a slow, absentminded circle against the wood — the exact same gesture he had used on your knuckles friday night. the temp was completely flushed, her eyes wide as she nodded along to whatever he was whispering. you watched how he helped her carry a heavy box of promotional materials, his body intentionally brushing against hers as they walked through the narrow aisle. it made your stomach turn over in a violent wave of disgust and profound anxiety. he was doing it right in front of you. he didn't even care about hiding his promiscuity or his transactional nature anymore. in fact, it felt like he was putting on a performance specifically for your benefit. he was showing you how easily he could buy anyone on this floor, men and women alike, with a single smile or a well timed touch, using them up until they were empty and then moving on to the next.
you clutched your coffee mug so hard your knuckles turned white, a toxic mixture of anger and panic rising in your throat. you felt like you were suffocating under the weight of your own awareness. you were the only one who saw the rot beneath the golden boy facade, and the sheer isolation of that knowledge was driving you insane. you were terrified that if you kept watching the casual ease with which he dismantled people’s boundaries, the gravity of his control would eventually pull you under too.
"y/n." his voice came from directly behind your chair, low and entirely smooth. your entire body went rigid as iron and your breath trapped itself in your lungs. the sudden rush of adrenaline made your ears ring. jungwon stepped around the edge of your cubicle, holding a stack of laminated division charts. he didn't touch you, he didn't even lean over your desk. he stood just far away enough to keep up appearances for the rest of the floor, but his presence felt massive, completely blocking out the light.
he looked down at you, his dark eyes wide and entirely hollow of the warmth he had just been flashing at the marketing team. his face was a mask of perfect, professional indifference, but the sharp line of his jaw was tight. "the department head requested the updated logistics flow by noon." he said softly, his public voice neat and polite. but then, he paused, his gaze slowly dropping to your hands, watching the tiny, uncontrollable tremor in your fingers as you tried to set your coffee mug down. the corner of his mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, with a quiet satisfaction.
he leaned in just an inch, his voice dropping into that private register that belonged only to the dark corners of the office. "did you have trouble sleeping over the weekend, y/n?"
the question was a psychological knife, twisting right into the center of your internal turmoil. he knew. he knew he had occupied your thoughts for forty eight hours. he was taunting you with the fact that even when he wasn't there, he was still successfully invading your space, still slowly breaking down your mental walls from the inside out.
you swallowed the bitter taste of panic, forcing your eyes up to meet his chin, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking into his eyes. you drew a sharp breath, pulling your corporate wall up with every ounce of strength you had left. "i'm fine, jungwon." you whispered, your voice thinned out but completely cold, completely detached. "the logistics flow will be in the system by eleven thirty. you can check it then."
jungwon stayed perfectly still for a second, his dark eyes burning into the side of your face, analyzing the rigid posture, the tight set of your mouth, the desperate pride you were clinging to. he didn't push, he didn't need to. he just tapped the laminated charts against the edge of your divider with a quiet, hollow click. "perfect." he murmured, his raspy tone thinning back into his polite, public persona. "i'll be looking forward to seeing your work."
as he turned and walked away, immediately falling into an easy conversation with a passing manager, you let out a trembling breath, your hands shaking so badly you had to press them flat against the desk to make them stop. you were safe for now, but the suffocating realization settled deep into your chest — the game was only getting heavier, and the cost of keeping your walls up was starting to tear you apart.
by the time the mandatory department dinner rolled around on thursday night, the tension inside your chest had turned into a living, breathing thing.
the restaurant was loud, suffocatingly warm, and thick with the heavy scent of grilled pork and cheap soju. green bottles were already multiplying across the long wooden tables like a plague. everyone was shedding their corporate skin with a sloppy speed, the supervisors shouting over the sizzle of the meat, your colleagues giggling too loudly as they mixed beer and liquor.
you sat near the end of the table, actively trying to dissolve into the background. you were drinking faster than usual. it was a stupid, dangerous mistake, but the alcohol was the only thing capable of dulling the exhausting edge of your hyper-vigilance. you just wanted to numb the looping thoughts of him, but alcohol also made your walls sluggish. and across the grill, through the rising smoke and the chaotic haze of the room, yang jungwon was putting on a masterclass.
he looked disgusting in his perfection. he had stayed sober enough to maintain his position as the table's golden savior — expertly flipping the meat for the senior manager, laughing at the supervisor’s terrible jokes, pouring drinks with a practiced tilt of his wrist. he was the perfect employee, the perfect junior colleague, distributing his easy warmth so seamlessly that the entire top end of the table was practically vibrating under his influence.
but every time he leaned back to let a manager speak, his dark eyes would cut straight through the smoke, locking onto your face. his gaze was heavy, tracking the rhythmic movement of your glass as you emptied it again and again. there was no warmth in his face when he looked at you. just that quiet, analytical hunger.
"y/n, you're being way too quiet tonight." jay from project management slid into the empty space on your left. “seriously, you're always so locked away in your cubicle." he laughed, leaning in to bump his shoulder against yours. it was a clumsy, drunken gesture, but it felt normal. "you need to hang out with us more. let me pour you another one."
"maybe i should." you giggled, the sound light and loose even to your own ears. the alcohol made you sloppy, made you want to lean into the easy comfort of someone who didn't have a hidden agenda. you picked up your small glass and held it out with both hands, giving him a bright, genuine smile. "you're right. i work too hard."
jay beamed, his eyes crinkling as he filled your glass. he let his hand linger against yours for a second too long as he set the bottle down, his arm casually settling over the back of your wooden bench, his fingers lightly brushing the fabric of your blouse. you didn't pull away. instead, you tilted your head up, laughing at a stupid joke he made about the logistics manager, completely letting your guard drop. it felt intoxicating to be normal. to prove to yourself — and to the person sitting across the grill — that you weren't trapped in his little bubble.
but across the table, the atmosphere had silently shifted. jungwon was suddenly drinking too tonight. he wasn't perfectly sober anymore. his tie was long gone, the top three buttons of his navy shirt undone, and there was a faint flush spreading across his neck and the sharp lines of his collarbone.
it happened so fast you almost missed it. jungwon had been in the middle of nodding politely to a story the senior supervisor was telling. when you looked at him again, his entire posture was dead rigid. his jaw set so hard the muscle in his cheek twitched violently. for a terrifying second, the golden boy mask shattered completely, leaving a look of such icy malice on his face that your breath trapped itself in your throat.
he didn't make a scene. he was too smart for that. instead, he stood up smoothly, a polite, apologetic smile instantly snapping back onto his features as he addressed the supervisor. "i'll go grab a few more bottles of the premium plum wine from the front." jungwon murmured, his public voice light and accommodating. "the department head mentioned he wanted to try it."
you watched him walk away, your heart violently hammering against your ribs. you thought you were safe. you thought the distance would give you room to breathe.
but less than three minutes later, the chaotic seating arrangement of the table shifted as a group of managers left to use the restroom. when a space cleared out directly opposite you and jay, a shadow fell over the wood.
jungwon sat down. he placed three new bottles on the table with a quiet, hollow click. he didn't look at you. he focused entirely on jay, his face twisted into an expression of intense camaraderie that felt entirely too sharp to be real.
"jay." jungwon said, his voice smooth but dropping into a lower cadence that somehow cut through the noise of the restaurant. "you're taking care of our quietest team member? that's really responsible of you."
"jungwon! man, you're the best." jay cheered, completely oblivious to the danger sitting three feet away from him. he pulled his arm off your chair to reach for his glass. "i'm just telling y/n she needs to loosen up!"
"is that so?" jungwon murmured. he picked up a fresh bottle of soju, his long, pale fingers wrapping around the green glass with an unyielding grip. he leaned forward, his dark eyes locked onto jay’s face. "well, if you're going to keep her company, you have to keep up with her. let me pour you a proper drink."
what followed was a brutal, quiet execution. jungwon didn't let jay breathe. using his fake nice, attentive persona like a weapon, he continuously filled jay’s glass the exact second it touched the table, egging him on with soft compliments and subtle challenges that jay’s drunken pride couldn't refuse. jungwon was pouring double shots, mixing combinations, acting like the ultimate hype man while remaining entirely sober himself.
it was horrifyingly calculated. jungwon was weaponizing the floor compliance against jay, using his popularity to entirely dismantle the guy right in front of your face. and he was doing it with a terrifying, quiet ferocity.
within twenty minutes, jay’s head dropped heavily onto his folded arms on the table, his eyes rolling shut as he muttered an incoherent string of nonsense before completely passing out cold.
the noise of the restaurant seemed to swell around your ears, the shouting and laughter of the remaining coworkers forming a thick barrier of isolation around your corner of the table. jay was asleep on your left. the manager on your right was entirely engrossed in a loud argument about quarterly logistics.
you were left completely alone with him.
jungwon slowly set his empty glass down. the bright, helpful coworker expression vanished from his face like smoke, leaving his features cold, sharp, and ravenous. he leaned forward across the low wooden table, his chest almost touching the edge, his dark eyes wide as they pinned you to your seat.
"he touches everyone, you know?" jungwon whispered, his voice dropping into that raspy, private register that made your skin prickle. "jay. he does it in the hallways too. he's very careless with his hands."
you clutched your small soju glass, your fingers shaking so badly the clear liquid sloshed over the rim. the alcohol in your system was making your head spin, making your internal turmoil twist into something heavy and desperate. "he was just... he was just being friendly. unlike you."
jungwon let out a low laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "friendly."
before you could register his movement, his leg shifted beneath the low table. his thigh pressed firmly, violently against your knee, locking your legs together under the shadow of the thick tablecloth. the sudden heat of his body against yours sent a violent jolt of adrenaline straight down your spine. you tried to pull back, but he angled his leg, anchoring you into the wooden bench so tightly you couldn't move an inch without drawing the attention of the entire table.
"you let him touch your shoulder." jungwon murmured, his gaze dropping to your mouth, his jaw setting as his voice became thick with a suffocating jealousy. he reached his hand under the table, his long fingers wrapping firmly around your wrist, his thumb digging hard into the soft skin right over your jumping pulse. "you sat here and let a sloppy, useless drunk put his hands on you. but when i touch you, y/n... you look like you're about to lose your mind."
"let go." you breathed, a panicky whisper that was completely swallowed by the roar of the restaurant. your teeth bit into your lip, your eyes darting to the supervisor just three seats away, terrified of a scene, terrified of what would happen if anyone looked down. "jungwon, stop. someone will see."
"let them look." he whispered back, his grip on your wrist tightening until it was almost a bruise, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against your skin. his face was inches from yours now, his breath warm, smelling faintly of the plum wine. "they won't see anything. they only see what i want them to see. you know that better than anyone, y/n."
he leaned in just a fraction further, his eyes tracking the chaotic, terrified rise and fall of your chest. he was entirely consumed by his own control, entirely irritated that someone else had crossed the boundary he had marked for himself.
"i told you on friday night, y/n." he murmured, his raspy voice vibrating straight through your bones as his leg pressed harder against your knee. "we have time."
the words hung in the space between your faces, heavy with the sweet, stinging scent of plum wine and the absolute certainty of his control. your mind was screaming at you to pull away, to make a scene, to slap his hand away from your wrist. but the alcohol had turned your blood to lead, making your body feel too heavy, too responsive to the solid pressure of his thigh against your knee. you were trapped between the suffocating heat of his gaze and the hidden reality of his hands beneath the table.
"hey, jungwon! y/n! what are you two whispering about over there?" the sudden voice of the senior manager cut through the noise of the restaurant like a blunt axe. the spell didn't just break, it evaporated. before your heart could even finish its next frantic thud, the shift in jungwon was instantaneous. his fingers slid off your wrist with a terrifyingly casual slowness, his leg smoothly retracting from yours under the cover of the tablecloth. by the time you managed to look up, blinking past the dizzying fog of the soju, jungwon was already leaning back in his seat. his face had instantly transformed back into the picture of polite, boyish innocence — the dark hunger wiped clean from his eyes as if it had never been there at all.
"just making sure y/n is doing okay, sir." jungwon said, his public voice smooth, light, and perfectly pitched to carry over the chatter. he offered the manager a dimpled smile. "i think the logistics data has her a bit worn out this week. i was just offering to take over her morning reports tomorrow so she can catch her breath."
"ah, look at our jungwon! always taking care of the team." the manager cheered, raising his glass in a sloppy toast. "a true asset to the department!"
you sat there, your hand still trembling against the cold wood where his fingers had just been pinned. the unadulterated fraudulence of it made you feel physically sick. he had just systematically dismantled jay, pinned you to your seat with a terrifying display of drunken jealousy, and threatened you into absolute silence. and within three seconds, he had the entire top end of the table practically singing his praises.
to your delight, the dinner dissolved into the chaotic logistics of departure shortly after. managers were pouring into taxis, people were laughing loudly on the sidewalk, and jay was being thrown into the back of a coworker's car, still completely dead to the world.
you stood on the pavement, the cool night air hitting your flushed skin, making the alcohol hit your head in a dizzying wave. you felt completely hollowed out, your internal walls not just cracked, but entirely reduced to ash.
you're going to sit here and look at me like you want to kill me, even when you're completely burning up underneath my hands.
his words from the cubicle, mixed with the phantom weight of his hand on your knee tonight, looped through your mind like a toxic rhythm. the worst part — the absolute most humiliating, terrifying part of the entire night — was the realization that you had burned. when his hand had tightened on your wrist, when his thigh had locked yours into the bench, a hidden part of your chest had given a shameful lurch. you hated his fake nice routines, you hated how he ruined people for his own convenience, but the raw, unfiltered gravity of his attention when the mask came off was becoming completely addictive.
you were terrified of him. but you were starting to be much more terrified of yourself.
"your taxi is here, y/n." his voice came from the shadow right beside you. jungwon had his hands slid casually into his slacks pockets, his jacket slung over his shoulder. he stepped forward, opening the door of the yellow cab for you with the textbook gallantry of a good coworker. but as you moved past him, your shoulder brushing against his chest, he didn't back up. he stayed entirely too close, his eyes locking onto yours in the dim light of the street.
"get some rest tonight." he murmured, his raspy voice dropping low enough that the driver couldn't hear. his thumb slowly traced a firm line across the leather of the car door, right next to your hip. "i'll see you in the office early tomorrow. don't be late."
you slid into the backseat without a word, your fingers curling tightly into your palms as the door clicked shut between you. as the taxi pulled away into the traffic, you looked back through the rear window. jungwon was still standing on the curb, completely alone in the yellow glow of the streetlamp, watching your car disappear with a look of absolute, calculating patience.
the hangover wasn’t just a physical ache, it was a psychological weight that made the 6:45 am sunlight feel like an interrogation. you had deliberately arrived a full hour before the rest of the department, desperate to find a moment of absolute isolation to gather the shattered pieces of your composure. the office floor was an eerie ghost town of dark computer screens and silent corridors. the only sound was the mechanical hum of the industrial printer in the copy room at the far end of the hall. you stood in front of it, watching the updated logistics charts slide smoothly into the tray, one by one.
eleven thirty? no. you were going to leave it on his desk before the clock even struck eight. you needed to reclaim some semblance of control.
the heavy glass door of the copy room clicked, making your heart skip a painful beat. you didn’t turn around immediately, your eyes freezing on the shifting reflection in the dark glass window of the courtyard outside.
jungwon stepped into the room. he didn't rush toward you. he closed the door with a slow, deliberate click, his dark eyes instantly locking onto the back of your neck. he had already shed his suit jacket, his white dress shirt crisp and immaculate, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms with casual neatness. he looked entirely rested, completely untouched by the poison of the night before.
"you're early." he murmured. his voice was already in that register. there was no marketing team here. no senior managers. just the heavy thrum of the printer and the suffocating gravity of his presence.
"i told you it would be ready." you said, your voice tighter than you intended. you reached out to grab the stack of papers from the tray, keeping your back turned to him, desperately using the documents as a shield.
you heard the slow, measured sound of his dress shoes against the linoleum. he stopped just a step behind you. he didn't touch you yet. instead, he leaned forward slightly, his shadow completely engulfing yours as he looked over your shoulder at the printer tray. the heat radiating from his chest was immense, close enough that you could feel the faint movement of his shirt fabric against your back every time he took a breath.
"the logistics flow." jungwon mused softly, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin behind your ear, making the tiny hairs on your arms stand up. "always so efficient, y/n. always running away into your work the moment things get too heavy."
you swallowed hard, your fingers tightening around the edge of the paper tray until your knuckles turned white. "i'm just doing my job. you can take the files and go."
"is that what you want?" he asked. the question was low, quiet, and laced with a terrifying patience. he reached out, his long fingers slowly sliding into the tray right next to yours. he didn't grab the papers. instead, the side of his index finger brushed against yours, a light, almost imperceptible contact that sent an electric jolt straight down your spine.
you flinched, trying to pull your hand back, but jungwon was faster. his hand turned, his fingers trapping your wrist against the plastic edge of the tray. he didn't squeeze. he just held you there with the weight of his palm, his thumb resting directly over your pulse point, feeling the erratic thudding of your heart.
"you're still shaking." he whispered, his tone dropping into something dark and dangerously satisfied. "just like last night. did you think the morning air would make you forget how it felt?"
you refused to turn around, keeping your face fixed on the blinking light of the copy machine, but your breathing was already turning shallow. "jungwon, stop. someone will come in. the cleaning staff-"
"the cleaning staff finished thirty minutes ago." he interrupted smoothly, his voice a calm barrier that shut out the rest of the world. he took a half step closer, his chest fully pressing into your back now, the solid weight of his body anchoring you against the counter. "we have time. i told you that, didn't i?"
he slowly let go of your wrist, but before you could draw a breath of relief, his hand moved up to your shoulder. his long fingers settled over the fabric of your blouse, his thumb tracing the exact spot where jay's hand had lingered the night before. the pressure was firm, heavy, and intensely possessive, as if he were systematically erasing anyone else's touch from your skin.
"tell me, y/n." jungwon murmured, his jaw brushing against the side of your hair as he leaned in, his voice a raspy vibration that rattled through your bones. "when you were sitting across from me last night, letting him lean into your space... were you thinking about how much harder i would touch you when we were alone?"
the question hung in the warm, enclosed air of the copy room, heavy and explicit. your heart hitched, a fractured sound escaping your throat before you could stop it. you squeezed your eyes shut, hating how instantly your body reacted to the proximity, hating the dizzying rush of heat that flooded your veins despite the icy hangover. "i wasn't thinking about you." you lied, the whisper thin and trembling against the steady hum of the printer.
jungwon let out a low hum against your neck. it wasn't a laugh, it was a sound of pure, clinical amusement. he didn't call you a liar, he didn't need to. instead, his hand slid slowly down from your shoulder, his palm tracing the rigid line of your spine through the fabric of your blazer. the movement was agonizingly gradual, every millimeter of his touch deliberate, testing your resistance, feeling the way your muscles locked tight under his hands.
when his palm reached the small of your back, he paused. he leaned his weight into you just a fraction more, the solid plane of his chest flattening completely against your shoulder blades. the sheer heat of him seemed to melt straight through your corporate layers. "you're so tense." he whispered, his lips brushing the sensitive skin right below your earlobe. you shivered violently, your hands blindly gripping the edge of the printer counter behind you. "relax for me, y/n. we aren't at the table anymore. there's no senior manager to save you this time."
his other hand came up, his long fingers sliding under your chin. he didn't force you to turn around yet. he just tilted your head back slightly, exposing the vulnerable line of your throat. his thumb stroked the soft skin right over your jumping pulse, his touch agonizingly light, a stark contrast to the crushing weight of his body pressing you into the counter. "look at the glass." he murmured softly, a quiet command.
your eyes automatically opened, flickering to the dark reflection in the courtyard window directly ahead. through the dim glass, you could see the two of you — completely tangled together in the shadow of the industrial machine. your head was tilted back against his shoulder, your face flushed and eyes wide with a desperate panic. jungwon was looking at your reflection, his dark eyes hollowed of all his polite warmth, filled instead with that sharp satisfaction. he looked entirely in control. he looked like he owned the very air you were breathing.
"see that?" jungwon whispered, his thumb moving up to trace the trembling outline of your lower lip. "this is exactly how you looked in my head all weekend. desperate. trapped. completely at my mercy." he slowly turned your face toward him, forcing you to break eye contact with the reflection and look directly at his actual features. up close, the golden boy mask was entirely gone. his jaw was set, a heavy intensity clouding his eyes as his gaze dropped to your mouth. he didn't kiss you. he just hovered there, his breath hot and shallow against your lips, letting the tension build until it felt like a physical wire snapping between you.
"jungwon." you breathed, your voice a desperate plea, though even you didn't know if you were begging him to stop or begging him to finally end the torture.
"i'm listening." he murmured, his raspy voice dropping into an even lower register as his hand slid from your chin down to the collar of your blouse, his fingers lightly brushing the exposed skin of your collarbone. "tell me what you want, y/n. tell me to stop. let me hear you say it."
“c-can’t.” you said between pants, feeling too overwhelmed by his presence to remember how to breathe properly.
“you can’t or you won’t? come on, we both know you can. this is a safe place, y/n.” jungwon spoke in a mocking tone, his fingers trailing lower until they hooked into the top edge of your camisole, pulling the silk taut against your skin. “it’s just you and me. no one is going to walk through that door and catch you admitting it.”
the condescending arrogance in his voice hit you like a bucket of ice water. he wasn't just trying to touch you, he was trying to break you. he wanted the satisfaction of hearing you completely dismantle your own walls for his ego.
you swallowed down the panic, forcing your hands flat against his chest. you didn't lean into him. instead, you locked your elbows, pushing back against the solid weight of his frame with every ounce of strength you had left. "i can't because it's pathetic." you said, your voice cracking slightly but carrying a sudden coldness. you forced your eyes up to meet his, refusing to let him see you blink. "you're pathetic, jungwon."
the mocking smile vanished from his face instantly. his dark eyes went wide, then narrowed into two dangerous, icy slits. the absolute stillness that came over him was terrifying. "what did you say?" he murmured, his voice dropping so low it was almost entirely swallowed by the hum of the printer.
"y-you heard me." you breathed, your chest heaving against his palms, your fingers curling into the crisp cotton of his shirt as you fought to keep the distance between your faces. "you spend all week playing the perfect, golden boy coworker, but you're so deeply insecure that the second someone else touches my shoulder, you have to lock me in a room just to force yourself into my head. you didn't lock this door because you're in control. you locked it because you're terrified i'll walk right past your cubicle and not play your little game."
the silence that followed was suffocating. the air in the copy room turned completely hostile. you could feel the violent thudding of his heart beneath your palms — rapid, uneven, and entirely unmasked. you had ripped the skin right off his pride, and for a split second, you saw a flash of genuine fury in his eyes.
his hand at your collar didn't loosen. it tightened, his knuckles digging hard against your collarbone as he slammed his other hand flat on the counter directly over your papers, the heavy bang echoing off the concrete walls. he leaned his entire weight forward, completely crushing your attempt to hold him back, his chest pinning your hands right against his own sternum.
"you think you know me?" jungwon rasped, his face inches from yours, his breath ragged and hot against your mouth. the polite cadence of his voice was completely gone, replaced by a gravelly edge that made your spine freeze. "you think i'm doing this because i'm insecure?"
"let go of me." you demanded, your voice rising, your thighs straining against the solid line of his legs as he anchored you into the machine. you twisted your wrist, trying to tear yourself out of his space, but he didn't give you a single inch of air.
"i told you to say the word 'stop', y/n." he whispered, his jaw setting so hard the muscle in his cheek violently pulsed. his lips brushed against yours with a bruising friction as he spoke, his grip on your waist beneath your shirt turning tight enough to leave marks. "but you didn't say it. you used your mouth to bite at me instead, because you know exactly what happens to those neat little walls of yours the second you actually let me touch you."
your breath caught, the bruising friction of his lips leaving a stinging, electric heat behind. you wanted to spit another insult directly into his face, wanted to tear at the pristine cotton of his shirt just to force his heavy frame off yours, but the sheer physical mass of him was completely overwhelming. he was breathing heavily, his chest expanding and compressing violently against your pinned hands, forcing you to feel every single furious heartbeat.
"i don't want you touching me." you choked out, your voice dropping to a whisper as you tried to wrench your waist out of his grip. you twisted your hips, a sharp effort to break his hold, but his fingers only dug deeper into your skin. his palm slid completely beneath the hem of your shirt, his bare, burning skin making direct contact with the small of your back. the unmediated warmth made you flinch, your spine arching instinctively into his touch even as your mind screamed at you to pull away. he anchored you so firmly against the metal counter that you could feel the hard line of his thigh locking your knees together.
jungwon let out a low, rough sound from the back of his throat. the territorial anger in his eyes didn't vanish, but it shifted, darkening until his pupils practically swallowed the brown of his irises. he liked the fight. he liked that you were clawing for control, because it meant you were entirely consumed by him. "then tell me to stop." he murmured, his voice dropping into that breathless cadence that sent a terrifying ache straight down your lower stomach. he leaned his head down, his lips dragging slowly along the tense line of your jaw, down to the sensitive skin right beneath your ear. "say the word, y/n. tell me you hate this. tell me you want me to let go and go back to my desk."
you bit your lip so hard the iron taste of copper flared on your tongue again. you couldn't say it. the word was physically stuck in your throat, choking you, because deep beneath the suffocating layers of your panic and your rage, the leaden weight in your veins was turning into a pulsing heat. the absolute restriction of your corporate clothes — the tight pencil skirt restricting your movement, the stiff fabric of your blouse pinned against his chest — only made the raw reality of his bare hand on your waist feel a thousand times more scandalous.
"see?" jungwon whispered, his hot breath blooming against your skin as his teeth agonizingly grazed the soft lobe of your ear.
a violent shudder racked your entire frame, and he caught it instantly. his grip on your hip shifted, his palm sliding slowly up the curve of your ribcage, his thumb tracing the spaces between your ribs with a slow pressure that made your breathing fail completely.
"your mouth says one thing," he rasped, his nose dragging across your cheek as he pulled back just enough to look at you. "but your body is begging me not to listen to you."
"i'm not... begging you for anything." you gasped out, your hands finally curling into his shirt, using the grip to try and violently shove him back. when he didn't budge, you tried to bring your knee up, a clumsy attempt to force some space between your lower bodies.
jungwon anticipated it instantly. he shifted his weight, his heavy thigh sliding higher, crowding directly between yours under the cover of your skirt and pinning your legs completely against the lower panel of the printer. the sudden, deep pressure of his leg against the most sensitive part of you sent a violent shockwave straight up your spine.
your eyes flew open, a broken gasp tearing from your throat before you could stop it, your fingers tightening into the cotton of his shirt so hard the seams strained.
jungwon froze. his dark eyes snapped back up to yours, wide and completely wild, his own breath hitching loudly in the quiet room. the mocking arrogance was entirely dead, replaced by a raw, desperate hunger that made his features look sharper, darker, and completely undone. he looked down at your parted lips, his jaw clenching so hard the muscle violently throbbed.
"y/n." he rasped, his voice breaking on your name, the sound so private and broken it made your chest ache. his hand on your ribs slid higher, his thumb lightly brushing the underside of your breast through the silk, his touch no longer calculated, but shaking with the exact same tremor he had mocked you for just minutes ago. "look what you do to me. look at what you're making me do."
your eyes past his shoulder, completely freezing on the frosted glass pane of the door. the sheer terror of a shadow appearing out there made your entire chest lock up, your lungs refusing to expand. "jungwon, the elevator." you breathed, the words a frantic stutter against his chin. "i-i heard the chime. early shifts start at seven. someone is on the floor. let go, please, someone is going to-"
he didn’t even flinch at the mention of the corridor outside. if anything, the risk only seemed to strip away the very last of his restraint. his hand beneath your shirt slid lower, his long fingers hooking directly into the waistband of your skirt. with a slow pressure, his palm slipped completely underneath the fabric, his bare skin making direct contact with the sensitive curve of your hip. you let out a strangled gasp at the sudden touch, the sound instantly muffled as he crowded his chest harder against yours, burying his face in the crook of your neck. "let them walk in." he whispered, his voice a dark vibration that rolled straight through your skin.
his lips dragged heavily along your throat, sucking lightly at the soft skin right over your pulse point until you shivered so violently your fingers lost their grip on his shirt. your knees completely gave out, your lower body turning to lead. but you didn’t fall as the solid mass of his thigh wedged deeply between yours, riding high against your crotch under the cover of your tangled skirts. he shifted his weight, the blunt, agonizingly slow friction of his leg pressing directly into the aching center of your heat.
and then, through the heavy thrum of the printer, you heard it. the distant, rhythmic click of dress shoes on the floor down the hall. someone was walking toward the supply wing. panic flared white-hot in your stomach, a chaotic rush of adrenaline that made you violently struggle against him. you shoved your palms against his hard chest, twisting your hips in a desperate effort to tear yourself away from his leg before the footsteps could get closer. "jungwon, they're coming down the corridor.” you whimpered, your voice cracking with a very real, suffocating terror. "stop, please, the lights are on, they'll see our shadows through the glass-"
instead of pulling back, jungwon grabbed both of your wrists in a single, iron grip, forcing your hands down and pinning them flat against the cold metal counter behind your hips. you were completely exposed, your back arched over the machine, your chest heaving past your open blouse as he looked down at you with ravenous eyes. his free hand slid down from your hip, his fingers disappearing entirely beneath the hem of your skirt. the fabric hitched up past your thighs as his palm moved upward, tracing the bare skin of your inner thigh with a terrifyingly deliberate speed. you tried to lock your legs together, to bite down on the heat, but his knee pushed harder between yours, forcing you open, anchoring you so tightly against the counter that you couldn’t move a single inch.
the footsteps outside grew louder, pausing just a few meters away near the central cubicles. "jungwon, please." you cried out in a breathless plea, tears of sheer panic pricking the corners of your eyes as you stared at the door, expecting the handle to turn at any second.
he leaned down until his lips were hovering a millimeter away from yours, catching the frantic, terrified pants breaking from your mouth. his long fingers slid past the lace edge of your underwear, his knuckles brushing against your damp skin, finding the slick, embarrassingly hot reality of how ruined you already were for him. "then don't make a sound." he murmured, his jaw clenching as his fingers slowly slid inside you, making you give a helpless lurch against his hand. his dark eyes burned into yours, completely unhinged, as he whispered into your lips. "if you breathe too loud, y/n, they're going to hear you."
the words died in your throat, instantly choked out by the agonizingly deep, slow stretch of his fingers moving inside you. a sharp tremor racked your lower body, your hips lifting off the counter in a desperate reflex to escape the overwhelming intrusion. but jungwon wouldn't let you move. his iron grip on your wrists clamped down harder against the metal, the cold surface biting into your skin while his heavy thigh pinned your knees wide apart, keeping you utterly trapped against his hand.
outside, the distinct sound of a drawer opening cut through the heavy silence of the floor. a binder was pulled out, the plastic rings clicking open, just on the other side of the thin wall. tears of sheer panic spilled over your lashes, blurring your vision as you stared at the door. your mouth parted to let out a ragged sob of fear, but jungwon immediately leaned down, sealing his lips over yours to capture the sound before it could even form. the kiss was bruising and desperate, an unyielding barrier that completely swallowed your frantic pants.
beneath your skirt, his hand began to move with an agonizingly slow, rhythmic friction. each stroke was a deliberate torture, his fingers sliding deeply into your aching heat before curling slightly, deliberately targeting the sensitive walls within you. your core clenched violently around his touch, a shameful wetness coating his knuckles as your body betrayed your terror, adapting instantly to his rhythm.
jungwon let out a shuddering breath through his nose, his forehead pressing hard against yours as he kept his mouth locked over yours. you could taste the faint hint of mint and the raw heat of his desire, his jaw working against yours as his thumb found the swollen bundle of nerves at the apex of your thighs. he pressed down firmly, moving in a tight, heavy circle that sent a devastating jolt of pure pleasure straight up your spine.
you buckled against him, your fingers spasming within his tight grip, trying to claw at the counter to find some anchor. a muffled, high pitched whimper leaked into his mouth, your chest heaving violently against his sternum as the edge of an inevitable climax began to tighten in your lower stomach. you twisted your face away from his, trying to breathe, trying to beg him to stop before you lost control entirely.
"please." you mouthed against his jaw, your voice nothing more than a silent puff of air. "jungwon, they'll hear."
the rustle of papers outside paused again. the heavy sound of a sigh carried through the quiet corridor, followed by the slow, turning scrape of dress shoes. they were moving again, their footsteps pacing closer to the copy room door this time, the shadow growing larger against the frosted glass pane.
jungwon's eyes snapped open, dark and completely wild with the illicit thrill of the risk. he didn't pull his hand back. instead, his fingers drove deeper, hooking into you with a possessive speed that made your hips violently jerk against his thigh. his mouth came right back to your ear, his teeth grazing the sensitive lobe as he whispered in a ragged tone.
"hold it in." he breathed, the words a cutting command against your wet skin. "if you make a sound right now, they're going to open this door."
the shadow on the frosted glass stopped directly in front of the entrance. the silhouette was sharp, the distinct outline of a hand reaching out toward the silver handle visible through the pane. panic turned into absolute, paralyzing ice in your veins. your eyes stretched wide, staring at the shifting metal of the handle, waiting for the distinct click of the lock to draw their attention. you wanted to vanish into the floor, wanted to claw your way out of his grip, but your body was entirely failing you.
beneath your skirt, jungwon didn't give you a single second to process the terror. his thumb pressed down with a heavy force against your core, while his fingers drove into your slick heat with a sudden, relentless pace. the friction was overwhelming, a wave of pleasure fracturing your mind completely and turning the fear into something dangerously volatile.
a suffocating sob rose from your chest, your mouth opening in a silent, desperate scream for him to stop, to let you breathe, to save you from the imminent ruin. but jungwon caught your face with his free hand, his palm clamping hard over your mouth to stifle the sound before it could leave your lips. his long fingers dug into your cheeks, forcing your head back against his shoulder as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.
you buckled violently against his palm, your hips jerking upward as the intense contraction of a climax slammed into your lower stomach. it was an agonizing, silent explosion. your core clamped down ruthlessly around his moving fingers, pulsing in tight waves that had you trembling from head to toe. the sheer intensity of it made your vision go dark at the edges, your body shaking helplessly against the hard metal counter while every single muffled gasp was completely crushed into the skin of his hand.
outside, the door handle gave a sharp, sudden rattle. someone was trying to push it open, but jungwon didn't pull back. he let out a ragged groan against your collarbone, his jaw clenching so hard the bone looked sharp as his fingers curled deeply inside you, absorbing the violent spasms of your release. his dark eyes flickered to the rattling handle, a dangerous, completely unhinged intensity clouding his features as he listened to the muffled voice outside mutter an annoyed curse about the door being jammed.
the footsteps finally turned away, the heavy sound of dress shoes retreating back down the long corridor toward the main elevators.
only when the silence of the office floor returned did jungwon slowly slide his wet fingers out from beneath your skirt. his palm remained firmly over your mouth for a few seconds longer, catching the broken pants that tore from your throat as your legs turned to water. you collapsed heavily against his chest, completely ruined, with nothing but the mechanical hum of the printer to fill the space between you.
he slowly lowered his hand from your mouth, his fingers brushing lightly against your wet lips. you immediately turned your head away, drawing in a ragged breath that trembled in your chest. the silence of the copy room returned, thick and suffocating.
you tried to smooth down your skirt with shaking hands, your fingers catching on the wrinkled fabric. the reality of what had just happened — and how close you had come to being caught — settled heavily in your stomach. a sharp knot of anxiety and resentment tightened in your throat.
"let me go." you whispered, refusing to look at him as you pushed weakly against his chest. "someone else will be here soon. the department starts filling up in ten minutes."
jungwon didn't move. he stood perfectly still, his chest expanding slowly against your palms as he looked down at you. the sharp, mocking arrogance was gone, replaced by a quiet, heavy intensity that felt far more dangerous. he looked at your flushed cheeks, your swollen lips, and the way your chest was still heaving. he was breathing heavily too, his usual immaculate composure slightly frayed, his tie shifted slightly to the side.
"you're still burning up." he murmured softly, his voice dropping into that low, raspy register. he reached out, his long fingers catching your jaw and gently but firmly turning your face back toward him. "and you're still looking at the door."
"because this is insane!" you gritted out, a tear of frustration finally slipping down your cheek. "you locked me in a copy room. anyone could have walked in. you could have ruined everything."
he didn't answer right away. he just stared at you, his dark eyes tracking the tear down your cheek before his gaze dropped back to your mouth. the silence stretched between you, heavy with everything left unsaid. there was a quiet weight to his presence, an undeniable gravity that made it impossible to truly step away even though his grip on your wrists had loosened.
slowly, his hand slid from your jaw down to the open collar of your blouse. his knuckles brushed against your collarbone, making you flinch, but you didn't pull away. your body was still humming from the release, completely sensitized, and the cool air of the room against your damp skin only made his touch feel warmer.
"i didn't ruin it." he whispered, his thumb lightly tracing the center of your lower lip. his other hand settled on your hip, his fingers digging into the fabric of your skirt, pulling your lower body back flush against his thigh. "and we aren't finished."
the quiet certainty in his voice made your heart skip a beat. you glanced at the frosted glass of the door again, the terror of being seen mixing with the pulsing ache that was already rebuilding in your lower stomach.
jungwon reached down, his fingers working efficiently at the buckle of his belt. the metallic click sounded incredibly loud in the small room. he didn't make a scene, he just looked at you with a calm, dark focus that made your knees feel weak all over again. he unzipped his slacks, his thick, rigid length freeing itself against your thigh. he hooked his hand under your knee, lifting your leg slightly to anchor it against his hip, his eyes never leaving yours as he guided himself directly against your wet opening.
"quiet, y/n." he murmured, his breath hot against your face as he leaned his weight forward. "keep your eyes on me."
he sank into you slowly, a deliberate pressure that made your eyes stretch wide as he filled you completely. a choked gasp caught in your throat, your fingers instantly digging into the hard fabric of his shoulders to keep from crying out. the stretch was immense, a burning ache that immediately sent a trembling wave of heat straight to your core.
jungwon let out a low, shaky exhale against your lips, his jaw tight as he paused, letting your tight walls adjust to the thick length of his cock. he didn't move for a long moment, simply holding you pinned against the printer, his gaze locked ruthlessly onto yours. you could see the subtle fracture in his calm facade — the way his pupils were completely dilated, the rapid pulse jumping in his neck, the sheer heat radiating from his skin.
"look at me." he whispered again, his voice a gravelly thread.
you forced yourself to keep eye contact, even as a distant telephone began to ring out in the main bullpen, a stark reminder that the office was slowly coming to life. every second he stayed inside you felt like a countdown to absolute disaster.
slowly, jungwon began to move. he pulled back just far enough to tease, before driving back in with a deep thrust that tilted your hips back against the counter. the friction was agonizingly perfect, hitting the exact spot his fingers had ruined just minutes before. your back arched instinctively, a desperate, muffled whimper escaping your lips before you could stop it.
instantly, jungwon’s hand came up, his palm pressing firmly over your mouth to stifle the sound. he didn't stop his rhythm. he kept the pace slow and bruising, his hips grinding into yours with a steady desperation that left you entirely breathless. under the cover of your hitched up skirt, the wet, sliding sound of his entry felt dangerously loud in the quiet room.
“shhhh. see how easy it was? mmh?” the vibration of his low voice hummed right against your ear, the condescending edge returning but wrapped in a breathless desperation that betrayed how deeply he was actually unraveling. you shook your head against his palm, a muffled protest dying against his skin as he drove into you again, harder this time. the blunt force of his hips bottoming out against yours made your vision blur, the intense internal friction striking a cord of pure pleasure that threatened to snap your remaining restraint.
he liked the resistance, but he liked your body's compliance even more. his fingers shifted slightly on your face, his thumb digging into the soft flesh of your cheek to keep you looking directly at him while his lower body maintained that punishing rhythm. the slick friction between your thighs was getting louder with every thrust, a scandalous sound that made your face burn with a fresh wave of shame.
outside, the distinct whine of the main printer network warming up echoed through the wall. someone had just logged into their computer at a nearby cubicle. the floor was officially waking up.
jungwon noticed it too. his eyes narrowed, a dangerous thrill flashing through his gaze as he leaned in even closer, his chest completely crushing your pinned hands against his sternum. he pulled out almost completely, a cruel, agonizingly slow withdrawal that left you feeling hollow and aching, before he slammed back in all the way to the hilt.
a loud, broken gasp was completely smothered by his hand, your hips jerking helplessly against his heavy thigh as a sudden wave of heat coiled tightly in your lower stomach.
"you're shaking." he murmured against his own palm, his breath hot and damp over your mouth as his pace finally began to quicken, losing its calculated restraint. his jaw was set so hard the muscle violently pulsed, his own breathing breaking into uneven pants against your neck. "look at you. you're so tight around me. tell me how pathetic i am now, y/n."
he didn't wait for an answer, nor did he give you the room to form one. he lifted your leg a fraction higher, anchoring you ruthlessly against his hip as his thrusts became faster, deeper, and entirely unmasked. every heavy push drove you closer to another ruinous collapse, your fingers clawing uselessly at his shoulders as you fought to keep from making a single sound that would bring the office crashing down around you.
your teeth sank directly into the meat of his palm, a desperate, vicious bite to keep from screaming as another brutal thrust hit your core. jungwon let out a gravelly hiss against your ear, but he didn't pull his hand away. if anything, the sharp pain only made his grip on your face tighten, his fingers digging into your jaw with a bruising force that kept your head pinned back against the metal machine. his hips didn't slow down for a fraction of a second, they slammed into yours with an unhinged speed that had the heavy industrial printer rattling faintly beneath your lower back.
the wet, sticky friction between your thighs was unbearable, a visual and physical ruin that made your mind spin with a sickening blend of terror and intense pleasure. outside, the heavy click of a ceramic mug hitting a desk sounded just feet away from the copy room door.
"jungwon... mmmph." you tried to speak against his skin, your words muffled into an unidentifiable whine as your hips violently buckled. you were getting too close, the coiled heat in your stomach tightening into a knot so sharp it made your knees completely lose their strength. you were going to fall apart right there, right into his hands, with half the marketing team just beyond the frosted glass.
he pulled his hand down from your mouth just a millimeter, his eyes wild and dark, entirely consumed by the sight of your ruined, weeping expression. "say it." he rasped, his voice an unraveled mess as he drove himself into you to the absolute hilt, over and over. "tell me what you want me to do before someone opens this door, y/n. tell me."
"please." you choked out, your voice a pathetic whisper, your fingers tearing at the crisp fabric of his shirt as the impending wave crashed over you. "hurry... jungwon, please, they're right outside."
a low, triumphant growl tore from the back of his throat. he didn't play the mocking gentleman anymore, he just grabbed your other thigh, completely lifting you off the counter as his thrusts became deep, blind, and ruthlessly heavy. your core clenched around him in violent contractions, a silent climax shattering your posture as you buried your face into his neck, biting his collarbone to swallow the ragged scream tearing from your lungs.
jungwon gave two more desperate shoves into your pulsing heat, his whole body locking up as a low groan escaped his lips. he buried his face in your hair, his length twitching deeply inside you as he filled you completely, his chest heaving against your crushed ribs.
the silence that followed was heavy and deafening, save for the frantic synchronicity of your breathing. he kept you lifted against him for a long moment, his body trembling slightly from the sheer force of his release as his weight anchored you firmly to the edge of the metal counter. outside, the murmur of two coworkers talking about their weekend plans drifted through the drywall, their voices casual, entirely unaware of the absolute ruin taking place just inches away.
slowly, the tension began to drain from jungwon’s rigid frame. he let out a shuddering exhale against your temple, his forehead resting heavily against yours as his grip on your thighs loosened just enough to let your heels touch the floor again. your knees immediately buckled, your legs feeling like jelly, and you had to clutch the front of his shirt just to keep your balance.
"stay still." he murmured, his voice incredibly low and rough, stripped entirely of its usual smooth cadence.
he didn't pull out of you immediately. instead, his hands slid up from your thighs to your waist, his thumbs tracing the small of your back beneath your shirt as he waited for the aftershocks of your climax to finally subside. every tiny, involuntary twitch of your inner muscles made his jaw clench, a lingering heat still humming between your lower bodies.
the internal turmoil in your chest was suffocating. you felt exposed, completely unraveled, and the sharp sting of shame was already beginning to fight its way through the fading haze of pleasure. you had begged him. you had completely dismantled your own walls and given him exactly what he wanted just because you were terrified of being caught.
"let me down." you whispered, your voice raw and completely spent, your eyes fixed strictly on the silver buttons of his vest. you couldn't bring yourself to look at his face, not with the sticky reality of what you had just done settling between your thighs.
jungwon didn't argue. with a careful shift of his weight, he slid out of you. the sudden absence of his heat made you shiver, a cold drop of moisture tracing its way down your inner thigh as the fabric of your underwear snapped back into place, damp and ruined.
he stepped back just half an inch, his fingers lingering on your hips for a split second before he reached down to fix his trousers. the click of his belt buckle sounded agonizingly permanent, signaling the immediate return of the corporate world you had both just violently stepped out of. jungwon reached around you without a word, his long fingers smoothly pressing the button on the top console of the copier. the machine came alive with a loud whir, instantly printing the remaining pages of your presentation, the rhythmic thumping of the paper tray filling the tense silence between you.
it was a clean, jarring transition back to reality. you immediately smoothed down your pencil skirt, your hands still trembling so violently that you could barely straighten the hem over your knees. you tucked your blouse back into the waistband with clumsy movements, your heart still hammering against your ribs from the sheer panic of the hallway voices. the dampness between your thighs was a humiliating reminder of what had just happened, but you forced yourself to ignore it, turning your back to him to gather the freshly printed documents from the tray.
behind you, the rustle of fabric signaled jungwon fixing his tie. when you finally turned around, the wild animal from moments ago was completely gone.
he was standing by the door, adjusting the cuffs of his pristine white shirt, his expression perfectly unreadable. his jaw was no longer clenched, his breathing had completely evened out, and the immaculate, polite golden boy facade was back in place as if it had never left. if it weren't for the slight flush lingering on his neck and the faint scent of your shared heat in the small room, you could have easily convinced yourself you imagined the whole thing. he reached for the silver handle, unlocking the door with a practiced click that felt devastatingly casual.
"the quarterly reports for the marketing team are on your desk, right?" he asked, his voice returning to that smooth, pleasant tone he used during morning meetings. there was no trace of the gravelly whisper that had just ruined you against the counter.
you swallowed the thick lump of shame in your throat, clutching the stack of papers against your chest like a shield. "yes. i'll review them before the noon briefing."
"perfect. let's make sure the formatting is correct before we present to the board." he replied, giving you a polite, professional nod.
he opened the door, stepping out into the bright, bustling corridor without a single backward glance, immediately greeting a passing manager with his charming smile. you stood alone in the dim room for a second longer, your legs still shaking, forced to step right out behind him and pretend the neat little walls of your corporate life hadn't just been completely shattered.
the transition was so seamless it made your stomach turn. you stepped out into the hallway a few paces behind him, the fluorescent lights of the main floor hitting your eyes with a punishing brightness. the office was alive now. the low hum of chatter, the sharp clacking of keyboards, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air as if the world hadn't completely shifted on its axis over the last twenty minutes.
you walked past the central cubicles, your thigh muscles tightening painfully with every step, a constant, physical reminder of his weight pinning you down. it was terrifying how normal everything looked. you could feel the damp silk of your underwear clinging to your skin, a secret weight, while jungwon walked a few meters ahead of you with a perfectly straight spine, smoothly dropping off a folder at the reception desk.
he didn't look back at you. not once.
when you reached your desk, you sat down a little too quickly, a small gasp catching in your throat as your sensitized skin made contact with the cold chair. you immediately pulled the stack of warm printer papers in front of you, staring blindly at the columns of numbers. your mind was a chaotic, spinning mess of internal noise. how is he doing that? you thought, your fingers trembling as you gripped your pen. how is he just sitting there?
across the small divider, you could see the top of his dark head as he settled into his own desk. he adjusted his monitor, clicked his mouse, and reached for his pen with the exact same calm precision he displayed every single morning.
in the weeks that followed, the absolute silence between you became a far more brutal punishment than any of his condescending words in the copy room.
the facade didn't break. not that day, not the next, and not during the endless string of standard departmental meetings that dragged on through the middle of the month. jungwon went back to being the perfect golden boy of the floor. he passed you files with a polite, entirely blank nod. he answered your emails with professional efficiency. if your fingers accidentally brushed over a shared document during a briefing, his hand would retract instantly, his expression remaining so utterly detached you started to wonder if you had hallucinated the entire thing again.
but the physical memory of him refused to fade. every time you walked past that specific frosted glass door in the morning, your stomach would drop, a phantom warmth blooming low in your belly. you hated how your eyes automatically tracked him through the glass partition of his cubicle, how you caught yourself memorizing the slight roll of his sleeves or the sharp line of his jaw when he leaned over his desk.
you were drowning in the quiet, agonizing space he had put between you, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but jungwon simply refused to acknowledge it. your biggest fear had actually come true and you couldn’t do much about it.
until a rainy tuesday three weeks later. the rest of the team had already left for a corporate dinner you had skipped, leaving the floor dark and empty save for the steady hum of the fluorescent lights above your desk. you were typing a final report, your shoulders tense, when a shadow suddenly fell across your papers.
you snapped your head up. jungwon was standing on the other side of your partition, his trench coat slung over his arm, his briefcase already in hand. he looked exactly like he did every evening — immaculate, composed, completely out of reach.
"i'm locking up the main floor." he said, his voice carrying that pleasant cadence that had kept you at a distance for twenty one days. "are you finishing up soon, y/n?"
you swallowed hard, your fingers freezing over the keys as the sheer, suffocating weight of his presence hit you all at once. the weeks of forced indifference, the stolen glances, and the burning shame of that morning in the supply closet flared hot in your chest. "i have ten minutes left." you managed to say, forcing your voice to stay even, refusing to let him see how much his simple proximity was making your pulse race. "you don't have to wait for me."
jungwon didn't move. he stood perfectly still in the dim aisle, his dark eyes fixed on your face. for a long second, the silence stretched between you, thick with the unspoken reality of what you had done against that counter.
then, very slowly, his gaze dropped to your mouth. it was the first real break in his mask in a month. his jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek giving a sharp pulse, and the familiar, dangerous intensity flooded his eyes, clouding the brown until they looked almost entirely black. he wasn't looking at a coworker anymore. he was looking at you the exact same way he had right before he pinned your wrists to the metal.
"ten minutes." he murmured, his voice dropping into that low register that made your spine instantly freeze. he didn't step closer, and he didn't touch you, but the territorial, heavy grip of his eyes felt like a physical weight against your skin. "i'll be by the elevators." he turned and walked away before you could breathe, his dress shoes clicking sharply against the floor, leaving you trembling in the empty office with the terrifying realization that the walls you had spent weeks building hadn't actually kept anything out.
after those agonizing ten minutes quickly passed, the elevator doors slid shut with a synchronized click, leaving the two of you entirely alone in the descending steel box.
the silence was thick, pressing heavily against your eardrums as the floor numbers ticked downward. you stood in the corner, clutching the strap of your bag with white-knuckled intensity, your eyes glued to the polished metal doors. you could feel the suffocating friction of his presence just two feet away. your mind was a chaotic, spinning mess of internal noise, replaying the dark look he had just given you across your desk. did he mean it? is he going to do something? you glanced at him from beneath your lashes, your heart hammering against your ribs.
jungwon was leaning casually against the handrail, one hand slid carelessly into his trouser pocket while the other held his briefcase. his eyes were fixed on the digital display above the door, his expression completely blank, perfectly smooth, and utterly nonchalant. the raspy voice from three minutes ago might as well have belonged to a ghost. his jaw was loose, his breathing perfectly rhythmic.
a sickening knot of realization twisted sharply in your stomach. he doesn't care. the thought hit you like a physical blow, draining the residual heat from your veins and replacing it with a hollow ache. the fierce, territorial grip of his eyes back at your cubicle hadn't been a confession or a break in his mask — it was just a reflex. a passing thought. he was just playing with you, testing to see if he still had that terrifying gravity over your body, and you had shown him your absolute ruin in a single second. you had let him see how easily he could freeze you when you had vehemently swore it could never happen, while he didn't even have the decency to let his composure slip for more than a heartbeat.
the elevator chimed, the doors sliding open to reveal the dim, echoing expanse of the underground parking garage. jungwon straightened up smoothly, stepping out onto the concrete without waiting for you. his easy strides carried him toward his sleek sedan, his coat swinging slightly with the movement. he looked so effortlessly out of your reach, a pristine corporate entity who hadn't spent the last three weeks drowning in the memory of your slick heat coating his knuckles. to him, it was just another day. it was just an empty office floor.
"drive safe, y/n." he called out over his shoulder, his voice carrying that entirely detached cadence as he unlocked his car with a distant beep. he didn't look back to see your expression. he just slid into the driver's seat, closing the door with a definitive thud that echoed through the empty garage, leaving you standing under the flickering lights, completely hollowed out by his indifference.
you didn’t move until the taillights of his car disappeared up the concrete ramp, leaving the garage in a darker quiet. the bite of the underground air finally pierced through the numbness in your chest, forcing a shaky breath from your throat. you hated him. you hated him so deeply in that moment, but more than anything, you hated the pathetic way your skin still felt too tight, still humming with a desperate, unearned adrenaline just because he had looked at your mouth.
it was a game, you reminded yourself as you unlocked your own car, your fingers stiff against the steering wheel. just a power trip. you had spent three weeks thinking you were sharing a suffocating secret, drowning in the memory of his fingers, while he had probably forgotten the exact color of the underwear he had pushed aside.
the next morning, you arrived early, your spine perfectly straight, your eyes cold. you had spent the entire night rebuilding your own walls, cementing them with the raw humiliation of his easy departure.
and jungwon made it incredibly easy for you to believe the lie.
over the next two weeks, you watched him play his part with a terrifying, flawless precision. he still was the department's golden boy, the immaculate genius every higher-up adored and every intern whispered about. you sat at your desk and watched him smile charmingly at the new girl from hr, leaning just close enough to make her blush while he explained the expense report system. you heard the rumors through the office grapevine — how he had been seen leaving a lounge downtown with a senior designer from product development last friday, his jacket slung over his arm, looking effortlessly smooth.
he still was methodical. he still was calculated. he picked them apart, charmed them, used them, and then returned to his desk on monday morning without a single hair out of place. you were nothing special to him. you were just a checkbox in his sick need for control, a momentary lapse where he wanted to see if he could break the one person who didn't look at him like he hung the moon.
so you needed to stop looking. you treated him like a piece of office furniture — functional, necessary, and completely uninteresting. when he passed you files, you didn't look at his eyes. when he emailed you, you replied with one word confirmations. you forced yourself to believe you were completely over it.
but because you were the only one who actually saw past the perfect golden armor, you were the only one who noticed the tiny, almost invisible cracks.
it started with his posture. jungwon always sat perfectly straight, but lately, whenever jay came over to your desk to laugh and linger a little too long, jungwon’s broad shoulders would turn entirely rigid behind his partition. his keyboard would go dead silent. he wouldn't turn around, he wouldn't break his perfect facade, but his pen would stop clicking, hovering over his paperwork until jay finally walked away.
then came the morning briefings. he would sit at the head of the conference table, smoothly delivering metrics to the team with his usual pleasant, charming tone. everyone was captivated. but your eyes were fixed on his hands. while his voice was perfectly steady, his thumb was repeatedly tracing the silver band of his watch — a restless motion he only did when he was deeply unsettled. and once, just once, when you leaned forward to grab a printout, his eyes flickered down to your collarbone, his jaw tightening so hard the muscle violently pulsed before he smoothly transitioned to the next slide.
on friday afternoon, right before clock out, the office was buzzing with the energy of the weekend, people packing up their bags and making loud plans. jungwon was surrounded by three girls from marketing, holding court near the elevators, offering them that effortless, dimpled smile that always made them giggle. from your desk, he looked completely unbothered, entirely back to his usual routine of being the untouchable favorite.
you quietly zipped your bag, sliding your chair back to leave through the side exit, wanting to avoid the elevator crowd entirely.
as you walked past the main copy room — the very room that still made your stomach drop every time you glanced at the frosted glass — the door suddenly clicked open a fraction of an inch.
you paused, your heart skipping a beat. jungwon was inside, dropping off a stack of recycled papers. he hadn't seen you yet. he was completely alone, away from his audience, and for a split second, the charming golden boy was entirely dead. his head was down, his chest heaving in a slow breath that looked incredibly heavy. his fingers were gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles were stark white. the exact spot where he had pinned your wrists.
you took a step back, your shoes scuffing lightly against the floor. jungwon’s head snapped up. through the gap in the door, his dark eyes locked onto yours. the pleasant, fake sweet mask he had been wearing at the elevators just two minutes ago was completely shattered, replaced by a hollowed out frustration that made your breath hitch. he didn't move, and he didn't say a word. you both just stood there, the heavy silence of the copy room bleeding out into the hallway, cutting straight through the distant chatter of the office.
his eyes didn't leave yours. the unhinged intensity you thought you had imagined was right there, clouding the brown of his pupils until they looked almost black. his knuckles remained white against the counter, his broad shoulders rising and falling with that same heavy breath. it was a silent confession he couldn't take back, a glaring proof that while he was out there playing the untouchable prince, he was secretly rotting in the exact same memory that had been torturing you for weeks.
he’s losing, the realization hit your chest with a dizzying jolt. he’s pretending just as hard as i am. but then, almost as quickly as it had shattered, his mask began to piece itself back together. you could see the exact moment his calculating mind took over. his fingers slowly uncurled from the edge of the counter, his spine straightening into that familiar, impeccable posture. he let out a dismissive breath through his nose, his jaw tightening into a smooth, even line as he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt.
by the time he took a step toward the doorway, it all was gone, replaced once again by the flawless colleague. "going home?" he asked, his voice sliding effortlessly back into that casual tone that made your stomach turn. he didn't lean in, and he didn't look at your mouth. he just stepped out into the hallway, pulling the copy room door shut behind him with a definitive click.
"yes." you managed to say, your voice flat, your fingers tightening around the strap of your bag. you hated how your heart was still hammering against your ribs, how your body still reacted to his proximity even when his eyes were completely blank again.
"good. enjoy the weekend, y/n." he replied, giving you an entirely standard nod that you would see him give any other staff member.
he turned on his heel and walked right back toward the elevators, smoothly slipping back into the crowd of marketing girls who were still waiting for him. as you walked away through the side exit, your chest ached with a burning confusion. he was still that same fake, dangerous boy, completely unreachable, but you were pretty sure of what you saw. the immaculate armor had a leak, and for the first time in a month, you didn’t seem to be the only one suffocating.
you spent the entire weekend trapped in the memory of those three seconds. no matter how hard you tried to push it away — whether you were cleaning your apartment or staring blindly at the television — all you could see was the unraveled frustration in his eyes before his mask snapped back into place. it changed everything. you had spent weeks drowning in shame, convinced you were the only one broken by what had happened, while he just smoothly moved on to the next person. but now it seemed like his nonchalance was just as fake as his charming, dimpled smile.
by monday morning, the office atmosphere felt different, charged with a quiet, invisible current that only the two of you could feel. you sat at your desk, keeping your head down, but you didn't feel like a victim anymore. the dynamic had subtly shifted. when jungwon arrived, he was back to his usual routine — laughing politely at a manager's bad joke, offering a sweet, effortless greeting to the receptionist. but as he walked past your partition to get to his desk, you didn't look away this time. you kept your eyes fixed on your screen, perfectly still, letting your deliberate indifference hang in the air like a wall.
you heard the distinct slide of his briefcase hitting his desk, followed by a sudden silence. he didn't sit down right away.
for a long, tense minute, the only sound between your cubicles was the low hum of the air conditioner. you could feel his gaze burning through the small gap in the divider, heavy and demanding, practically begging you to look up and give him the validation he always took from you. but you didn't give him a single inch. you casually reached for your ceramic mug, took a slow sip of your coffee, and clicked on your email spreadsheet. the keys of his keyboard suddenly rattled under his fingers with a force that was just a fraction too aggressive for his usual methodical rhythm.
around eleven, jay strolled over to your desk, leaning his hip against the edge of your partition with a lazy grin. "hey, y/n. a few of us are grabbing lunch down at that new bistro by the plaza later. you should come. i'll even cover your dessert if you help me look over the Q2 projections afterwards."
you offered jay a genuine smile, leaning back in your chair. "sure, jay. that sounds really nice, actually. let me just finish up this report."
"perfect. it's a date, then." jay joked, giving you a playful wink before turning to leave.
the exact second jay's footsteps faded down the hall, the quiet clicking of jungwon's keyboard completely stopped. the silence from his cubicle was suffocating, thick with a sudden, icy hostility that made the hairs on your arms stand up.
a moment later, your inbox chimed with a new notification:
From: Yang Jungwon
To: Y/N
Subject: Q2 Presentation Formatting
Please bring the physical drafts of the marketing presentation to the main archive room on B1. There are inconsistencies in the data layout that need to be corrected immediately before the afternoon briefing.
your heart gave a violent thud against your ribs. the archive room. that windowless, isolated space in the basement where almost no one went during the day. you stared at the text on your screen, your fingers freezing over your mouse as the internal turmoil flared white-hot in your chest all over again. he was pulling the strings, falling back on his authority because his perfect, fake sweet persona wasn't working on you. he was desperate to get you behind a closed door, desperate to find out if he still held that volatile gravity over your body.
you slowly printed out the sheets, the rhythmic thumping of the machine sounding like a countdown. you gathered the warm papers against your chest, your knees feeling slightly weak as you stood up, forced to walk toward the elevators and find out exactly how much further his flawless armor was going to crack.
the basement air hit you first — cool, damp, and smelling faintly of dust and old paper.
the heavy steel door of the archive room clicked shut behind you with an echoing thud that made your chest tighten. it was completely isolated down there, rows of high metal shelves stretching out under the harsh buzz of fluorescent tubes. you walked down the center aisle, the physical drafts clutched tightly against your chest like a shield, your heels clicking softly on the smooth concrete.
jungwon was already there. he was standing by a long metal sorting table at the back of the room, casually flipping through a thick folder. his suit jacket was off, draped neatly over the back of a nearby chair, and the sleeves of his crisp white shirt were rolled up to his elbows with that effortless precision.
"you said there were inconsistencies." you said, your voice cutting through the silence. you kept it flat, professional, and entirely devoid of the breathy panic you knew he was used to extracting from you. you stepped up to the opposite side of the wide metal table, sliding the stack of papers across the cold surface between you.
jungwon didn't look up immediately. he slowly finished the line he was reading, tapped his pen against the table twice, and then finally raised his eyes.
the forced nonchalance in his gaze was breathtakingly thin, but he held it together. the pleasant, fake nice colleague was perfectly intact. "slide four." he murmured, his voice smooth, though it carried a quiet weight that felt incredibly heavy in the small room. "the formatting doesn't match the logistics ledger. we can't present sloppy work to the board."
"it's not sloppy." you replied smoothly, leaning your palms against the edge of the table, deliberately matching his unbothered posture. "jay reviewed the data layout with me last week. he said it was perfect."
the mention of his name hit the air like a live wire. jungwon’s fingers tightened around his pen for a fraction of a second, his knuckles turning pale before he relaxed his grip. he didn't snap, and he didn't raise his voice. instead, he leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the metal table, looking at you with a calm, analytical focus that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
"jay doesn't sign off on your department's metrics." jungwon said, his tone dropping into a slightly lower register that sent a phantom shiver down your spine. "i do. if he wants to audit your work, he can do it through the proper channels. until then, i need you to align these numbers."
"i'll fix it at my desk, then." you said, reaching out to pull the papers back toward yourself, desperate to break the suffocating gravity of his presence.
but jungwon didn't let go of his side of the papers. his hand clamped down flat on the top sheet, trapping the documents against the metal. his dark eyes locked onto yours. the silence stretched between you and you could see the faint pulse jumping in his neck, the slight tightness in his jaw.
"we have an hour before the briefing, y/n." he murmured, his voice losing just a bit of its polished edge. "do it here. i need to verify it in real time."
you swallowed hard, your internal turmoil flaring white hot. you wanted to push back, wanted to call him out on his transparent power play, but the sheer, addictive thrill of having his unmasked attention kept you rooted to the spot. without breaking eye contact, you slowly pulled your laptop out of your bag, setting it on the cold metal table.
for the next ten minutes, the only sound in the archive room was the rhythmic clicking of your keyboard. you sat on a metal stool, keeping your posture rigid. jungwon remained directly across from you, ostensibly reviewing his ledger, but you could feel his eyes tracking every minor movement of your fingers, the way your collarbone shifted when you breathed, the tension in your shoulders. it was an agonizing tug of war, a silent battle of attrition to see who would fold first.
"done." you finally said, your voice sounding a little too thin in the quiet room. you pushed the laptop an inch forward. "the metrics are aligned."
jungwon closed his folder. instead of leaning over the table to look at the screen, he walked around it. every step he took felt impossibly loud. he didn't stop until he was standing right beside your stool, so close that his thigh brushed against your shoulder. his expensive scent entirely crowded out the musty smell of the basement, sending a treacherous wave of heat straight to your lower stomach. you froze, your hands resting rigidly in your lap, refusing to look up at him.
he leaned down, planting one hand on the metal table right next to your laptop, the other resting on the back of your stool, entirely caging you in. "is this what jay taught you?" jungwon murmured, his voice a mocking rasp right next to your ear. he wasn't even looking at the screen. his gaze was fixed on the side of your neck. "because the margins are still off."
"the margins are standard." you gritted out, your fingers curling into fists in your lap to keep them from trembling. the forced proximity was destroying your composure. "he actually knows how to work with the team, jungwon. unlike some people, he doesn't just use everyone around him for a power trip."
the air in the room completely stalled. jungwon let out a slow, sharp breath that fanned across your cheek. he didn't pull away. instead, he leaned in a fraction closer, the polished golden boy facade finally cracking.
"you're trying so hard, y/n." he whispered, his voice dark and utterly devoid of his usual corporate charm. "ignoring me in the hallways. sending one word emails. letting jay buy you coffee just to see if i'll react."
"i'm not trying to do anything." you shot back, finally turning your head to glare at him. it was a mistake. his face was mere inches from yours, his dark eyes completely consumed by that familiar intensity. the memory of his hand over your mouth, his hips crushing yours against the counter, suddenly screamed in the silence between you. "i just don't care about you anymore."
"liar." the word was a soft, cruel accusation. his eyes dropped to your lips, tracking the way they parted on a shaky intake of breath. his hand shifted from the back of your stool, his long fingers lightly grazing the sensitive skin at the nape of your neck beneath your hair. "you care so much it's eating you alive.”
you wanted to shove him away. you wanted to slap him. but as his thumb brushed over your pulse point, feeling the hammering rhythm of your heart, a humiliating ache bloomed in your chest. the fight drained out of you, replaced by a suffocating yearning that you had spent an entire month trying to kill.
"then stop playing games." you whispered, your voice cracking, a raw confession slipping out before you could stop it. "stop looking at me like that if you're just going to go back upstairs and pretend i don't exist. or are you just doing all this to humiliate me and keep your ego intact?"
jungwon’s jaw locked. the muscle jumped violently beneath his skin, his eyes darkening into an absolute void as he stared down at you, the agonizing space between your lips separated by nothing but a few inches of cold basement air. the silence stretched for a long second, the harsh buzz of the lights above ringing in your ears like a warning.
"my ego." he repeated, the words tearing out of his throat in a harsh whisper. "you think my ego is intact."
his hand slid from the nape of your neck, his fingers tangling violently into the roots of your hair as he forced your head back. the movement was sharp, possessive, snapping the very last thread of your composure. he stepped right between your parted knees, the metal legs of your stool scraping loudly against the concrete as he dragged you inches closer to the edge of the table.
the solid warmth of his body pressed flush against your inner thighs, sending a blinding wave of heat straight to your center. you let out a choked gasp, your hands flying up to grip the lapels of his shirt, entirely unsure if you were trying to push him away or pull him closer.
"i haven't slept a full night in a month." he breathed against your mouth, his chest heaving against yours. the immaculate, calculating golden boy was completely gone, dissolving into someone desperate, unraveled, and entirely out of control. "i sit at my desk and watch you look right through me, and it takes every single ounce of my self control not to drag you under it and remind you exactly what you sounded like choking on my fingers."
your heart was hammering so violently it physically hurt. you stared up into his dark, ruined eyes, the resentment that had protected you for weeks crumbling into dust under the sheer weight of his confession.
"you want to know why i pretend, y/n? you want to know why i walk away?" jungwon continued, his voice dropping into a venomous growl, his thumb digging bruisingly into your jawline.
a hot tear of sheer, overwhelming frustration finally broke free, tracing down your cheek. "why?" you whispered pathetically, your walls completely dismantled.
"because if i let myself drop the act," he rasped, his gaze dropping to your mouth before flickering back up, pitch black and starving. "if i let myself actually think about how slick and ruined you were for me... how perfectly you clamped down on my cock while you begged me to hurry... i wouldn't just lock you in a copy room. i would bend you over every single desk on that floor and fuck that cold attitude right out of you until you couldn't drive home."
he didn't give you a chance to breathe, let alone answer. his mouth crashed down onto yours with a devastating force. it wasn't the teasing, mocking kiss from before. it was messy, filthy, and completely starved. his lips parted yours violently, his tongue driving deep into your mouth to swallow the broken sound that tore from your throat. he tasted like black coffee and unadulterated need.
the fight instantly drained out of your muscles. your hands, which had been clenched against his chest, completely surrendered, your fingers sliding up to fist into the crisp fabric at his shoulders. you kissed him back just as desperately, your body arching into his heat, chasing the exact friction that had been torturing your memory for weeks.
a low groan vibrated deep in his chest. he let go of your hair, wrapping both of his arms tightly around your waist and physically lifting you off the stool. the papers on the table scattered onto the concrete floor as he slammed your back down onto the cold metal surface, his heavy frame immediately settling right between your legs.
"open for me." he growled against your lips, his hand already sliding ruthlessly up your thigh, pushing your skirt out of the way. "let me see if you've been aching for it as badly as i have."
his hand didn't bother with being gentle. his long fingers dragged up your inner thigh, snagging on the lace of your underwear. he hooked two fingers under the damp fabric and shoved it aside with an almost violent tug. the cool basement air hit your exposed core for a fraction of a second before his blunt fingers pressed directly against your slick heat.
a shuddering breath tore from his lungs. he let his forehead drop against your shoulder, his chest heaving as he felt exactly how ready you were for him. "fuck." he rasped, his voice vibrating against your collarbone. he slid one thick finger deep inside you, the wet, obscene sound echoing loudly in the quiet room. "you're completely soaked. you were sitting at your desk acting like i didn't exist while you were dripping wet for me, mmh?"
"jungwon-" you whimpered, your hips jerking instinctively upward to chase his hand. the humiliation of being so easily exposed was entirely drowned out by the blinding relief of finally having him touch you again.
"we have twenty minutes until the briefing." he muttered, his dark eyes snapping back up to yours, feral and unyielding. "i'm going to ruin you so badly you won't be able to look at that projector screen without shaking." he didn't waste another second. his free hand dropped to his waist, the sharp clink of his belt buckle sounding like a starting gun. he tore his zipper down, freeing his erect cock before gripping your hips with bruising force. he dragged you to the very edge of the sorting table, your lower half completely suspended off the metal as you instinctively wrapped your legs around his waist to anchor yourself.
he didn't tease. he just lined himself up, gripped your thighs tightly, and sank into you with one deep, ruthless thrust that buried him to the absolute hilt. a loud, broken scream tore from your throat, but he swallowed it instantly, his mouth crashing back down onto yours. the stretch was agonizingly perfect. the contrast of the freezing metal table biting into your shoulder blades and the burning heat of him completely filling you made your mind entirely short circuit.
he broke the kiss just to catch his breath, his jaw clenched so tight the bone looked sharp enough to cut. "fuck, y/n." he groaned, his head falling back as his hips locked against yours for a second, absorbing the suffocating grip of your inner walls. "you're so tight."
and then he started to move. there was no methodical pacing, no calculated restraint. he fucked you with a frantic, punishing desperation, his hips pulling back only to slam into you with a heavy, wet slap that echoed obscenely off the metal shelves. the heavy sorting table actually rattled under his weight, every brutal thrust driving you backward, forcing your hands to claw helplessly at the ruined fabric of his shirt.
"jungwon, p-please. it's too fast." you choked out, your vision blurring with white hot tears as the friction immediately dialed up to an unbearable intensity. your core was already so sensitized from weeks of yearning that every time he bottomed out inside of you, a violent tremor shot straight through your stomach.
"it's not fast enough." he growled, his hand sliding up to grip your throat — not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to assert his absolute control, his thumb resting heavily over your racing pulse. he stared down at you, his immaculate hair falling messily over his forehead, his dark eyes tracking every single expression that crossed your ruined face. "let go for me. fall apart right here, before we have to go back upstairs and pretend."
you couldn't hold on even if you tried. the ticking clock, the danger of the basement door, and the overwhelming reality of him finally taking what you both wanted completely shattered your restraint. your nails dug into his forearms, a high, desperate whine leaving your lips as your internal walls began to violently contract.
"that's it." he rasped, his pace turning blind and relentless as he felt your climax begin to milk him. "take it. take all of it."
you completely broke, a ragged sob tearing from your chest as the climax rippled through you, your core clamping down on his rigid length in relentless waves. jungwon let out a deep, guttural groan, his control instantly snapping as he gave one final brutal shove before burying his face in your neck, spilling hotly deep inside you as his entire body locked up against yours.
the absolute silence of the basement returned with a deafening weight, broken only by the frantic synch of your breathing.
he stayed buried deep inside you for a heavy moment, his chest heaving against you, his pulse hammering a violent rhythm against your neck where his face was still buried. the heat radiating from his skin was staggering, a stark contrast to the freezing metal table biting into your spine. inside you, the last of his frantic twitches subsided, leaving behind a pulsing warmth that made your head spin with a sickening cocktail of euphoria and crashing panic.
ten minutes. your mind violently jolted back to the clock. we have ten minutes.
slowly, the rigid tension began to bleed out of jungwon’s frame. he let out a shuddering exhale against your skin, his forehead coming to rest heavily against your shoulder. when he finally pulled back, the physical separation felt brutal. he slid out of you with a wet friction that made your inner muscles helplessly twitch, a drop of moisture immediately coming down your inner thigh just like the first time.
the transition back to reality was instant, cold, and utterly terrifying again.
jungwon didn't say a word. he stepped back just half an inch, his long fingers lingering on your hip for a fraction of a second before he reached down to fix his clothes. you watched him through blurred vision as he pulled his sleeves back down, buttoning his cuffs with steady movements. his hair was messy, a few dark strands falling over his eyes, and a telltale flush covered his cheeks, but his expression was already shutting down. the feral man who had just pinned you to a metal table was being buried alive once again, brick by brick, right before your eyes.
"fix your skirt." he murmured, his voice incredibly low, still carrying a rough edge that he was clearly trying to smooth over. he didn't look at your face. he was looking at his watch. "we have less than ten minutes to get to the conference room."
the casual nonchalance of his tone made your stomach violently turn. you scrambled off the table, your legs shaking so violently that your heels nearly buckled the moment they hit the concrete floor. you immediately turned your back to him, your hands trembling as you tucked your blouse back into your waistband, smoothing down the wrinkled fabric of your skirt with silly, panicked movements. the sticky reality of what he had just left inside you was a burning weight between your thighs, but you obliged yourself to not think about it, desperately trying to swallow the thick lump of shame and yearning clogging your throat.
he's doing it again, you thought, your chest aching with a raw, suffocating turmoil. he just used me to vent a month of frustration, and now he's putting the mask back on.
when you forced yourself to turn around, the illusion was almost perfect. jungwon had donned his jacket, straightened his collar, and run a hand through his hair to guide it back into its immaculate style. once more, you could have convinced yourself it all had been a hallucination.
he picked up the scattered presentation slides from the floor, tapping the edge of the papers against the table to align them perfectly. "the data layout looks completely standard now." he said, his voice sliding effortlessly back into that tone he used for the board of directors. he extended the stack of papers toward you, his hand perfectly steady. "make sure you hand these to the department head as soon as we walk in."
you took the papers, your fingers brushing against his for a fraction of a second. you expected him to pull away, expected the ice — but his fingers tightened subtly over yours, pinning the pages between you for one agonizing heartbeat.
his eyes locked onto yours, pitch black and harboring a quiet promise that completely contradicted his polite posture. i'm not finished with you, his gaze whispered, loud and clear, before he smoothly let go.
"let's go." jungwon said, offering you a polite nod as he turned toward the heavy steel door. "we can't be late for the briefing."
he pushed the door open, stepping out into the hallway without a single backward glance. you stood alone in the dim archive room for one second longer, trying to steady your breath, before you stepped right out behind him — forced to walk into a crowded elevator and pretend your entire world hadn't just been ruined in the basement.
the briefing passed in a blinding blur. you sat three chairs down from him at the long mahogany table, your knees locked tightly together, trying to focus on the projector screen while the slow warmth of what he had left inside you cooled against your thighs. jungwon was flawless. he pointed at the data slides with his silver pen, spoke in that bright, capable way the executives loved, and didn't look at you a single time.
that afternoon was the first brick laid in a structure that would systematically hollow you out over the next four weeks. the basement hadn't been a momentary break in his mask. instead, it became the blueprint for a toxic, unspoken routine that established itself entirely through the company’s internal server. neither of you ever spoke a word about it out loud. there were no late night texts, no lingering looks, and absolutely no acknowledgment of the ruin you shared. jungwon kept the boundary line thick and visible, and you, out of a desperate, clawing need to save your own pride, matched his stride.
you learned to read the language of his casual invitations. it always started with a generic email notification flashing on your monitor. the subject lines were always pristine, completely invisible to anyone else — archival cross-reference, logistics ledger review, updated q3 formatting. but the timing was calculated with a terrifying precision. it was always 7:15 am, before the front desk receptionist clocked in, or 8:30 pm, when the main floor lights auto dimmed and the cleaning crew was still three levels above.
the locations shifted, but the suffocating friction remained the same. a vacant corporate lounge on the 14th floor, a narrow, windowless supply vault behind the server racks, the deep corner of a private office after the heavy blinds were twisted shut against the city.
and every single time, the pattern was a torturous loop. you would walk into the designated room with your jaw clenched, your heart hammering an angry rhythm against your ribs, determined to prove you were just as detached as he was. jungwon would be waiting, looking immaculate, his expression completely blank as he gave you some casual instruction. you would pretend you didn't care. he would pretend he didn't care.
then, the air would stall. the forced nonchalance would burn away into that unhinged intensity, and he would drag you against a desk or pin you against a wall. he was filthy in the dark, using a venomous rasp to whisper things that made your blood boil with a sickening mix of shame and desperate desire. he would take everything your body pathetically yearned for, running the clock down to the absolute last second.
and the exact heartbeat his release was over, the ice returned.
he would slide out of you, fix his trousers, and adjust his silk tie in the mirror without saying a single word. by the time you stepped back out into the hallway, he would already be five paces ahead of you, his hands slid carelessly into his pockets, ready to greet a manager with a charming nod.
that was the part that was slowly driving you insane — the terrifying precision of his dual reality, and the rotting hurt it left in your chest.
during the day, you had to sit at your desk and watch him play the department's golden boy. you watched him lean over the reception desk, giving the new girls that fake sweet look that made them stammer. you heard all the gossip about who he did or did not fuck. to the rest of the world, he was pristine. you were nothing special to him, just a hidden variable in his daily schedule, a convenient way to vent his corporate frustration because you were the only one who didn't look at him like that.
you wanted to scream at him. you wanted to slap the casual, empty smile right off his face in the morning briefings. you wanted to ask him if you were just a tool, if he even remembered your name when he wasn't burying his face in your neck. but the rules of the game you had both entered meant you couldn't say a single word. to voice the hurt would mean admitting that his effortless shifts between the office prince and the private monster were breaking you. it would mean admitting that while he was just having a casual, physical release, you were drowning in him. if you showed a single crack in your composure, he would win. he would see your ruin, give you that polite, standard nod, and walk away entirely. so you swallowed the pain until it tasted like battery acid, cementing your face into the same blank indifference he wore so well.
by the end of the month, your internal mess had stretched your nerves to a breaking point. the careless act was getting heavier, the unspoken friction between your cubicles turning into an icy wall that made the entire floor feel unsafe.
it was a thursday evening, the clock creeping just past 8:45 pm. the department was dead silent, the only sound the steady drumming of rain against the floor to ceiling glass windows.
your monitor flashed white in the darkened space:
From: Yang Jungwon
To: Y/N
Subject: Late Invoice Discrepancy
Please bring the physical Q3 budget folders to the archive room immediately for verification.
your fingers shook against the mouse. there was no discrepancy. he was just stressed from the executive board meeting he had endured that afternoon, and he wanted to use you to burn it off.
you slowly stood up, gathering the heavy folders against your chest like a shield. your knees felt weak, your blood running thick with that familiar adrenaline as you walked down the darkened hallway toward the archive room.
through the glass partition, you could see his silhouette. jungwon had his jacket off, his white shirt slightly loosened at the collar, his hands slid deep into his trouser pockets. he looked completely composed, a picture of solitary corporate elegance. you pushed the heavy door open, stepping into the room. the quiet click of the latch closing behind you sounded like a definitive thud in the silence.
jungwon didn't turn around. he let the quiet stretch between you, the casual indifference of his posture practically mocking the storm raging in your chest.
"close the door, y/n." he murmured smoothly, his side profile showing the faint, dangerous ghost of a smirk. "and lock it."
you didn't move. the plastic folders were cold against your chest, a brittle barrier between your hammering ribs and the quiet expanse of the room. your thumb hovered near the edge of the first tab, freezing. for a whole month, your hand would have already reached backward, blindly finding the lock, twisting it shut without a second thought because the pathetic craving inside you always won. but tonight, the ache in your throat felt heavier than any other ache.
"i said," jungwon murmured, his tone dropping just a fraction, the smooth corporate tone beginning to fray at the edges as he slowly turned his head to look at you. "lock the door."
he was waiting for you to fold. he was waiting for the familiar routine to click into place — the cold glances, the sudden slam against the wall, the filthy whispers that would temporarily numb the hollow feeling in your chest. he looked so infuriatingly untouched, standing there with his sleeves rolled up, entirely confident that you would slide right into your designated role in his schedule.
"no." you said. the word was small, barely a whisper against the relentless drumming of the rain outside, but it felt like a gunshot in the dead silence of the room.
jungwon’s brows twitched, his head turning fully toward you now. his hands stayed in his pockets, his posture still maintaining that unbothered stance, but his dark eyes sharpened, tracking the slight tremor in your shoulders. "what?"
"i'm not locking it." you said, your voice growing steadier, though the raw edge of it was impossible to hide now. you walked forward, but you didn't stop close to him. you slammed the folders down on the edge of the table, the loud smack echoing off the metal shelves. "the metrics are on page twelve. if there's a discrepancy, find it yourself. i'm leaving."
you turned on your heel, your chest burning, ready to walk out before the humiliation of your own tears could fully expose you. but jungwon was faster. the casual nonchalance vanished in a heartbeat. his hand shot out of his pocket, his fingers wrapping around your wrist with a bruising grip that violently pulled you back into his space. the expensive scent of his cologne crowded your senses instantly, a suffocating reminder of every single desk, wall, and floor he had claimed you on over the last four weeks.
"what is this?" he growled, his voice dropping into that venomous rasp, his face mere inches from yours. his pupils were blown, the feral, starving frustration finally breaking through his mask. "you don't get to just walk out, y/n. you received the email. you came down here. don't start playing games now."
"i'm not playing games, jungwon!" you choked out, the resentment finally fracturing your voice as you tried to violently wrenched your wrist from his grip. he didn't budge. his fingers only tightened, pinning you against his chest until you could feel the furious thudding of his own heart. "i'm done. i can't do this anymore."
"can't do what?" he muttered, his gaze dropping to your mouth, his breathing turning shallow and ragged as he leaned in closer. his hips subtly pressed forward, trying to force your body into the familiar, addictive submission it always succumbed to. "you want this just as badly as i do. you're shaking right now. let me lock the door and-"
"no!" a hot tear finally spilled over your eyelashes, tracing a humiliating path down your cheek, and the sight of it made jungwon instantly freeze. your chest heaved, the walls you had spent a month building completely crumbling into dust right in front of him. "i can't keep pretending. i can't watch you smile at the interns in the morning, listen to them talk about who you went home with on friday, and then come down here in the dark just so you can use me to burn off your stress."
jungwon’s jaw locked, the muscle pulsing violently under his skin. his grip on your wrist didn't slacken, but he stopped pushing into you, his dark eyes staring down at your face with a jarring intensity that looked almost like panic.
"it's ruining me." you whispered, your voice cracking completely, the raw truth tasting like ash on your tongue. "you get to slide right back into your perfect little suit and walk away like nothing happened, and i'm left sitting at my desk feeling entirely hollowed out. if it's just a casual release for you, fine. find someone else. because it's breaking me, and i'm not going to let you do it anymore."
the silence that followed was suffocating, heavy with the weight of the rules you had just permanently shattered. jungwon didn't move. he didn't give you a polite nod, and he didn't let go of your wrist. he just stared at you, his chest heaving. for a fraction of a second, he looked genuinely caught off guard, but then, the tension in his jaw completely vanished. the momentary panic in his dark eyes melted away, replaced by a calculating amusement that made your stomach violently drop.
jungwon let out a low, breathless chuckle. he didn't pull you in aggressively. instead, his grip on your wrist softened, his thumb slowly stroking over the hammering rhythm of your pulse.
"ruining you." he repeated, the words rolling off his tongue with a terrifyingly casual drawl. his gaze dropped from your tear stained eyes down to your chest, watching the way you were desperately trying to catch your breath. "you're acting like i'm dragging you down here against your will, y/n. but we both know that's a lie."
"jungwon-" you tried to step back, but his hand slid smoothly from your wrist to your hip, his long fingers completely encompassing the curve of your waist, holding you in place with effortless dominance.
"you hate that i smile at the interns? you hate that i don't look at you in the boardroom?" he murmured, leaning in until his lips were hovering just an inch from your ear. his suffocating scent wrapped around you like a vice. "that's just your pride talking, because your body tells a completely different story. you say this is breaking you, but you're shaking so hard you can barely stand. i haven't even touched you properly yet, and you're already completely soaked for me, aren't you?"
a hot, humiliating flush spread across your neck. you wanted to deny it, wanted to push him and scream that he was wrong, but your core was already pulsing with that familiar heat, reacting to the sheer proximity of his body just like a trained animal.
"i'm just giving you exactly what you need." he whispered nonchalantly, his free hand reaching up to casually brush a stray lock of hair behind your ear. "because we both know you sit at that desk all day, completely distracted, crossing your legs trying to chase the friction. you need me to pull you into these dark rooms. you need me to use you like this, because nobody else is ever going to fuck you the way i do."
he took a deliberate step back, creating a cold space between you. he slid his hands back into his trouser pockets, his expression returning to that flawless, untouchable corporate mask. "so go." jungwon said smoothly, gesturing toward the heavy metal door with a slight tilt of his head. "walk out, go home. but when you're lying in bed tonight, completely unsatisfied, touching yourself to the memory of what i did to you on this exact desk last tuesday... don't send me an email tomorrow begging me to fix it. because if you walk out that door right now, i'm never touching you again."
the silence in the archive room became deafening. you stared at him, fresh tears stinging your eyes, your mind screaming at you to run. he was so utterly callous. he was stripping away every last ounce of your dignity, reducing all your emotional bleeding into a basic, pathetic physical craving. he was gaslighting you, offering you an out that he fully knew you were entirely too weak to take.
because he was right. the thought of going home, of the cold sheets, of never feeling his heavy frame press you into a desk or hearing that venomous rasp against your neck ever again, felt physically agonizing. the addiction was already too deep in your veins. you couldn't survive the withdrawal.
a pathetic sound caught in your throat. the fight completely drained out of your muscles, the resentment suffocated by that blinding, toxic yearning.
you didn't say a word. you just turned around, your legs feeling extremely weak, and walked toward the door. you didn't open the handle. instead, your trembling fingers reached out, blindly finding the deadbolt, and twisted it until the familiar click echoed through the quiet room.
behind you, jungwon let out a dark, satisfied sigh.
"good girl." he murmured, the sharp metallic sound of his belt buckle clicking open signaling the absolute end of your resistance. "now get over here and hike that skirt up."