"I'm learning how to love myself" @kimnamjoonsday - Tumblr Blog

Captive [1/2]

Pairing: Namjoon x reader

Genre: Corporate AU (investment banking)

Summary: You’ve got your shit together. Smart, sharp, god complex. And then Managing Director Kim Namjoon decides to take you down a couple pegs. All the way down to your knees.

Tags: oral sex, spanking, choking, face sitting, anal sex, double penetration, sex toys, size kink, age gap, ~implied corruption kink, ~implied sugar daddy, sub/dom undertones, light bondage, power imbalance, bigdick!namjoon, dom!namjoon, AU where Namjoon has a driver’s license

Masterlist

[Part 2]

It’s a bit past 2AM by the time you duck into the club. And as expected, your team has already bailed.

“Where are you guys?” you text Jungkook, who you’ve saved as Yonsei Dipshit #1.

“Dick wet, chat later,” Yonsei Dipshit #1 returns.

You snort, derisive. A flash of pain cracks over your temple as you stuff your phone back in your pocket. Working 18-hour days chasing circular references on Excel does that to a person. You might as well order a drink, you think, now that you're already here. It’s the least you deserve.

“Hello,” you wave at the bartender, hoisting yourself up onto a barstool.

He doesn’t see you.

That’s fine. It happens a lot. You’re short. You’re tiny. Even with your four-inch heels, your feet won’t touch the ground when you wiggle yourself onto the stool. Behold! Jimin christened you, your second week at work. Our cute, lethal machine of war!

“Hey!” you yell, a little louder, to no effect. The bartender turns in the opposite direction.

“Excuse me,” comes a voice from behind you, and this time the bartender jumps.

You jump, too, spinning around so fast you lose your balance a bit. A hand comes to steady you at your waist.

And the hand belongs, judging by the overpriced suit and the perfectly coiffed hair, to yet another finance asswad.

“What do you want to drink?” finance asswad asks. He’s obnoxiously tall, and so broad that all you can see for a moment is his chest.

“I can get my own,” you inform him, pushing his hand off of your side. You turn back to the bartender, who has now rushed over at full attention. “Three shots of tequila please.”

“I’ll have another whiskey,” finance asswad says, flashing a bill with way too many zeros.

OK, so he’s one of those.

“What do you want?” You ask him.

He regards you quietly for a moment. Those eyes behind his thick-framed glasses seem reptilian, somehow, when he grins. “You don’t look like you’re having a good time.”

The drinks show up. You take a shot and bite into the lime. The guy waits for you to speak, patient, and reaches for his drink.

“I’m having a great time,” you say, about to take another shot when something wet touches your elbow. It takes you a moment to realize that his lowball glass has tipped over the counter.

In a second, the liquid runs down the front of your blouse, pooling into your lap, on your freshly dry-cleaned skirt.

“Oh God,” the guy says, eyes wide. “Wow, fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” you say. He chuckles sheepishly, face scrunched together in self-abnegation. It kind of takes the corporate polish off of him, and for a split second… you don’t hate it. “I’ll need to get changed.”

“Right,” he agrees, shrugging off his suit jacket to hold over your lap, and your attention catches on that languid flex of his muscles, straining tight against the fabric of his shirt. You can see the sinew in his neck, the way his starched collar cuts into his Adam’s apple when he speaks. “Honestly, I’m so sorry. I’ll get your dry cleaning bill.”

Up close, he smells good, like alcohol, but also something earthy. And yeah, he’s attractive. Maturely so. You’d be blind not to admit it. That jawline, those huge hands.

You think about it. It has been a while since you’ve last gotten laid.

After another shot, you tell him, “I’m going to need a ride home.”

“Of course,” he says, earnest. “I’m Namjoon, by the way,”

You look at him, interest weaning thinner by the minute. “Cool. Thanks.”

Judging by the way he can barely look you in the eye, you figure he’s probably a senior analyst. Maybe associate, with the Porsche he drives. But it doesn’t matter who he is. You don’t intend to see him again.

“Nice place,” he says, as you shove him over your bed.

“I know,” you say, busying yourself with his belt.

“Are you still in school?” he asks, conversational, while you dig his cock out of his briefs.

“Yeah,” you say, and don’t care to expand on it. There is a bigger problem at hand.

You pretend like it’s not a problem, like you’ve seen it before, but that doesn’t stop your heart from sinking into your belly. Even only half-hard, the guy’s massive. Your fingers can hardly close around him, you realize.

“You OK?” he checks. Your ceiling light glares off of his glasses. It makes him look so dumb--and if you were honest, you’d rather die before you’d let a nerd like him have the upper hand.

“Yeah,” you snap, gruff, and quickly run your tongue along his shaft as if you have something to prove. You wrap your mouth over his head. But then you can’t go any deeper. Just a third of the way down and his cock’s already shoved into the back of your throat, thick and hot and near suffocating. What the fuck, you think, as you bob your head over him, feeling him swell bigger inside your mouth, pressing your tongue down, shoving your jaw wide open. How is this possible.

“Are you sure?” he asks again, looking concerned.

And it’s your fault, you know it is. It’s your god complex, your massively oversized ego, the occupational hazard of being competitive. But you’d rather die before you admit you can’t.

Sure you can.

You inhale, sharp, and you climb over him. The bed creaks beneath your weight as you settle over his hips and for a moment, you stop.

You’ve actually never ridden anyone before. You’ve seen it in porn, and it looked simple, but straddling this man, who’s so much wider than you that your hips feel like it might just split apart around his thighs... it seems you have no idea what to do.

“Hey,” he says, again, a wry, unreadable grin spreading over his face. “Do you want me to--”

“Fuck off,” you snarl. You grab at his cock and line it up against your cunt and, fuck, the stretch . “I can handle it.”

You say that but you freeze anyways, tentatively, midair, wondering if your pussy might actually just rip open around him. Although--surely that can’t happen, right. It’s not a big deal. It’s got to fit.

You lower yourself a single extra millimeter and the answer is no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t fit. You can’t take this. Something wet hits your arm and you realize, all of a sudden, that you’re drooling.

What the hell.

“Do you need a hand?” Namjoon asks, his giant hands running up your thighs, so big that they just wrap around the whole of your leg. You can feel him palming at your ass, swallowing both cheeks with ease. Without warning, he starts kneading your ass, almost coaxingly, and it makes you shiver, makes your core swell with need. You hate it.

“What hand,” you huff, derisive, attempting to move. And god, his cock somehow twitches larger inside of you.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, frustrated, chewing on your lip. There are tears welling in your eyes and all you can think about is how humiliating this whole thing is. Looking like an idiot in front of this awkward, clumsy, middle-managing loser--

“Sure,” he says, and one hand comes back around you, his thumb dipping easily over your clit. “If you can manage.”

And that’s when it finally occurs to you that he’s doing this on purpose. He knows you’re fronting. That you’re just an inexperienced college brat, that you’ve only slept with maybe three guys, tops, and that as much as you’re feigning otherwise, you’re overwhelmed. He can tell, obviously, with the graceless way you’ve been carrying yourself. He knows all this and he’s just laying there, watching you for fun.

He rubs at your clit, slow, firm, and the abrupt, needy whine that comes from you surprises you both.

“Do you want help?” he asks, soft, albeit with no room for negotiation.

“Fuck off,” you mutter, biting into your lip.

Namjoon holds you by your hips and repeats, more clearly, looking you dead in the eye, “Do you want help?”

There’s something authoritative about his tone and you have no idea what you’re doing when you nod, on instinct, lip untucking from under your teeth. It feels swollen and tingly and Namjoon stares at it for a moment.

And then he snaps his hips up into you, fucks all the way up. All at once. You try grasping onto his shoulders for leverage for a second but your arms buck, hardly able to hold you upright.

It’s almost as if his cock is stretching you to fit his shape, shoving everything inside of you out to make space. Your mind is rammed so full with pleasure and pain it makes you choke, takes you an eternity to figure out how to hiss, “what the fuck--”

“Get up,” he tells you. He’s different now. The smile has disappeared from his expression. He says, eyes dark. “Sit.”

You still for a moment, uncertain, heart in your throat. The way he looks at you--it doesn’t make sense but--it’s intimidating. You avert your eyes, face hot. His hand finds your chin anyways, drags you back to meet his eyes.

His hand dips lower, tracing down the line of your neck. He tugs apart the bow of your blouse and says, watching your collar fall open, “don’t look away.”

“Shut up,” you mumble, weak.

Namjoon only has to run his thumb along the edge of your pelvis bone once and, like a fucking dog, you obey. You whimper as you right yourself over him, taking in more of him, until his cock pushes so deep into you it makes your head spin. And with the way he’s watching you, careful, reverent, as if he’s trying to take you apart, it makes your whole body tense.

“Stay still,” he says, rolling his hips up into you. You don’t mean to, but that immense pressure of his cock shoving your walls away has your body jolting and toppling into him.

And Namjoon, out of nowhere, spanks you. Spanks you hard.

“Wh--,” you gasp, faltering for a moment, that wet lick of pain so foreign against your ass you don’t even know how to verbalize it. You’ve never been spanked before, never been punished, not once in your life. “Why are you spanking me?”

Namjoon doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He just grabs the meat of your ass and keeps fucking you like that, long, hard strokes, slow and steady. Like a machine. And it’s a matter of biology really that you fall into him again, eyes glazed over, panting and crying for him to slow down.

But then he just spanks you again, jaw clenched, as if he can’t see that you’re completely fucking losing it in front of him. And the pain, the sharpness of it makes your pussy clamp down so hard around him. But his cock is so insanely fat and hard and there’s nowhere for it to go but shove straight into your spot, into right where it makes your legs tremble.

“I’m,” you gasp, “I’m coming.”

For a moment, there’s this amused kind of look on Namjoon’s face. It’s gone in a blink and he says, fucking you still with that cruel, meticulous pace, “Don’t come until I say you can.”

“Please,” you say, only it sounds like a mewl. And god, you sound so filthy and desperate, “please let me co--”

Namjoon’s hand lands on your ass again, so hard you can feel your cheeks shake from the impact. You really tried hard not to, because you know Namjoon wouldn’t hesitate, but the pain, the shame , only sends another rush of pleasure flooding into your core, thick and viscous and undammable. The next thing you know, your hips have jerked up on their own and--

you didn’t even know you could squirt

--and Namjoon’s hand is on your neck.

“What did I say,” he warns, without a single inflection in his voice.

You can feel his grip tightening over your vocal chord, his thumb pressing slowly into your jugular. You swallow, blood running cold and hot all at once, brain still seizing from your orgasm. You can’t quite understand him but you know you’ve done something wrong. The way he’s looking at you makes you feel so small. So tiny.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter, breathless, voice pitched and cracked, so shocked and so--you’d die before you admit this but--turned on.

Namjoon just scoffs, a corner of his lips tugging up, wry and mean. He lifts you off of him with his hands on your hips, and you let him throw you onto your belly, like a doll. It all happens so fast, the way he has your hips canted up, how he squeezes at your ass, his big hands pulling your cheeks apart. His fingers stroke down your slit, chasing your slick that dribbles off your clit in globs.

And then he slams into you. He fucks you harder now, wordlessly, his cock pistoning into you so fast he has to pull you back into him with his hand in your hair, forcing you to take all of him. He comes, you think, at some point, because you can hear him grunting, can feel his hips stuttering. But he doesn’t stop. He just fucks his come into you, then back out of you, until you can feel it wet on your thighs.

At some point, your elbows buck and you fall face-first into your pillow. You think you want to say something smart, probably, something to prove that you’re not a fucking fleshlight. Only he’s fucking you too hard for anything more than drool and tears and the most pathetic-sounding moans to leak out of your mouth. Not a single thought is left in your head. When he binds your wrists behind you and pulls you up with a single stupidly big hand, all that comes out of your mouth is, “please.”

“Please what?” Namjoon laughs, in complete control. “You want to come over my cock again? Forgot your lesson?”

“Please,” you cry out, feeling so fucking humiliated and needy at the same time, so close to the edge you’d beg for it. “Pleasepleaseplease.”

Namjoon thinks about it for a second. “No.”

He keeps fucking you like that, for what feels like hours. You black out when he finally finds the mercy to put a hand on your clit and after you come to again, you find that he’s still thrusting into you, groaning quietly into your shoulder. Then his mouth is on your ear, on your neck. It feels good, somehow. Feels like he’s marking you up. There’s come and slick between your legs and on your bedsheet, sticking onto your belly.

It’s a long time before he finally lets you go. By then you’re far too fucked out to move. Even your jaw is sore, somehow, and your pussy feels bruised and used. And, maybe, you don’t hate it.

“Hang on,” Namjoon says. You can feel his weight lifting off the bed.

He returns with one of your bathroom towels. You can see it steaming in the darkness of your room. Without a word, he slips his hand between your thighs and starts to wipe you off.

If you have even an ounce of energy left, you would tell him to fuck off. Since you don’t, you just lay there and let him do what he wants.

“Are you staying?” You ask, eventually, despite yourself.

Namjoon throws the towel into the laundry hamper and then there’s a large, warm hand on your head. He gives you a pat, like you’re five years old. You hate it, sort of.

From the corner of your eye, you can see him throwing on his jacket and smoothing the wrinkles out of his dress shirt. He opens his wallet, leaves a fat wad of cash on your nightstand.

“For the dry cleaning,” he explains, as if he knows you’d be offended otherwise. And yeah, you would.

“I don’t need it,” you say, after a moment, already half-asleep. But then the front door clicks.

He’s gone.

“We waited until midnight and left,” Jimin explains, the noise of the morning Starbucks crowd forcing him to raise his voice into a shout. He’s an associate, two whole levels above you on the org chart, and he technically doesn’t need to apologize to the likes of you. That said, Jimin’s simply nice like that. “Sorry. Hope you weren’t too disappointed.”

“It’s fine,” you yell back, as the barista continues to call out names for pick up. You don’t have to tell him, you know, except you hate it when people feel bad for you. “I got laid, so I’m not mad.”

Intrigued, Jimin leans against the wall and asks, “Oh yeah? Who?”

“Not sure,” you shrug. “Some middle-managing virgin, probably.”

“Regardless,” Jimin shakes his head. “Well done.”

Just as you’re about to respond, the barista calls out, “Namjoon-ssi! Kim Namjoon-ssi!”

You lift your brows. “Actually, the guy was also--”

“Excuse me.”

And, like a nightmare, Namjoon squeezes beside you.

He grabs at the drink, then returns with a simple nod. Somehow, in daylight, he’s even more built than you remembered. There’s something imposing about his presence. He towers over Jimin and says, “Hey, Jimin.”

“Director Kim, sir,” Jimin says, eyes wide, though yours feel like they’re about to pop out of your skull. “Good to see you.”

Namjoon’s eyes flick to you for an instant, that exact same wry expression he had last night. He turns back to Jimin and says, “Ready for the weekend?”

“Yes, sir.” Jimin laughs, too loud. He reads whatever unnerved expression there is on your face and says, "Have you met our new managing director yet?"

You’re not an idiot. You fully intend to respond, except you can’t seem to find the nerve. You’ve met managing directors before. Obviously, you have. The problem is you haven’t slept with them before, and you certainly have never called one of them a middle-managing virgin, straight to their face.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Namjoon says, before he steps away. “I look forward to working with you.”

You watch dumbly as a herd of VPs tails him into the elevator lobby, a flurry of leather lace-ups snapping endlessly against the marble tiles.

“What’s wrong with you?” Jimin asks, handing you your latte.

The truth is you don’t know, either.

It’s a whole week before you run into Namjoon again, and you would be lying if you said you haven’t been waiting for it. A part of you thinks, naively, that Namjoon might be surprised to see you.

But he’s not. He’s got his A-team clustered around him, and he doesn’t even seem to notice you.

“Pardon,” you say, as you brush past Namjoon. Your shoulder bumps against his arm. For an absurd moment, you hang back, expecting him to at least recognize you.

He doesn’t respond. Just levels you with a cold, hard stare.

“It’s not infeasible,” Yoongi says, from beside him.

Namjoon turns to him. “Very funny,” he says, and walks right past you.

Later that day, around 8PM, after most of the floor has emptied out, after even the cleaner has come and gone, you finally find the balls to type out an email. It’s stupid, you know. It’s really fucking stupid. There’s a chance his assistant might see it before he does. But if you play it safe--

You send it off, palms clammy against your mouse. No subject, just a short “hello” in the body.

There’s no response, for a whole minute. You sit there, staring at your cursor. You check your outbox, then go to grab some water. Namjoon’s office light is still on.

There’s no answer when you’re back. There’s no answer three hours later. Not even at 3AM, after you’ve finished running Jimin’s model five times, triple-checked the font sizes and text alignment on Jungkook’s report.

With nothing left to do, you call a cab home. You can still see the light on in Namjoon’s office as you ride away.

He’s probably still working, you think. The guys like to say that MDs have it easy. All they have to do is play a billion rounds of golf. It seems Namjoon’s different though, and of course he would be.

You take a shower and decide to stop thinking about him. There are loads of other rocks tangling into your thoughts. Your electives for next term, your graduation thesis, recruiting for a permanent position, whether Jimin would write you a strong enough reference.

As you step out of the shower, you hear a knock from the entrance.

You almost don’t think it’s real--no one else has ever been here before, other than Namjoon--but then it comes again.

You throw a towel around yourself and pad barefoot to the front door. From the eye hole, you can see that it’s Namjoon.

And god, the way your heart rate spikes.

Your hand almost doesn’t feel like your own as you fiddle with the lock and pull the door open.

And just like that, all of a sudden, Namjoon is there.

“Hi,” you start, but Namjoon doesn’t respond. He takes one step forward, so close that you have to stumble backwards to look up at him. “I didn’t think--”

He puts his hand on your neck. His thumb glides over your collarbone, then up each ridge of your larynx, pressing down just hard enough for you to stop breathing.

“You should watch yourself,” he says, soft. All you can register is his scent, that intoxicating mix of earth and sandalwood and then he takes one more step forward. He bends down to meet you eye to eye.

You swallow, dizzy. In the back of your mind, you wonder what he would do if you let go of your towel. If he’d let you kiss him. If he’d throw you against the wall, if he’d fuck you apart.

He’s not close enough. You look up at him through your lashes, cunt throbbing so hard it nearly hurts, pleading for him to just touch you, to fill you up again.

But his grip tightens around your throat. You don’t dare move. Not an inch. You can’t even blink. Somehow he’s conditioned you so bad your skin is ice cold and your head is swimming just at that pressure of his thumb against your jugular.

“You understand?” he asks, letting you go. His thumb trails up to your mouth, and that’s when you realize you’d been biting down on your lower lip. He frees it, watches it come out pink and swollen, and the way he pauses at the sight of you makes you feel insane.

“Yes,” you gasp, finally remembering to breathe.

“Good,” he says, lips quirking into a slow, near imperceptible smirk, and then he takes his hand away.

And he’s gone.

You stare at the corridor, long after it has emptied. There’s something stirring inside of you, furious and completely insatiable.

You don’t even make it to your bed. You just shut the door and fuck yourself on your fingers right there against it, swearing quietly as you come.

As always, your model is solid work. You know it. You wouldn’t submit anything less. Jimin takes all of fifteen minutes to click through it, makes a few calls, drags Yoongi into his office. By lunch hour, they’re both at your desk.

“Yah, war machine,” Jimin calls, smacking you on the head with a rolled-up pitch book. “Congrats. You’re going to fuck a lot of people over.”

“You built the model?” Yoongi asks, arms crossed. It’s the first time a VP has stepped onto the floor, and you can see a few other interns sneaking surreptitious glances at him from behind their monitors. “Shouldn’t you be formatting pitch decks? Why’s Jimin making you build models?”

“I triple-checked the numbers,” you say defensively. Jungkook scoots closer, eager to catch Yoongi’s attention, so you add, “Jungkook did too.”

Yoongi doesn’t even look at Jungkook. “Which school are you from?”

“SNU,” you tell him.

Yoongi scoffs at that, dismissive, “Of course you are.”

“The numbers are the numbers,” you insist, stubborn.

“We know the math checks out. That’s the problem,” Jimin says, and shoves Jungkook back by the arm of his swivel chair. “What’s on your calendar at 3?”

“There’s a kick-off meeting for the IBEX evaluation.”

“Ditch it,” Yoongi decides, without missing a beat.

“You’re coming with us,” Jimin says. He pulls himself up from the edge of your table. Yoongi flashes him a scowl, which Jimin returns with a shrug. As they walk away, Jimin calls over one shoulder, “Find a better blazer, for fuck’s sake!”

“Blazer?” Jungkook pauses, then gapes, in awe. “Oh, fuck . He’s going to take you to the senior leadership meeting.”

Hard as you try to look unimpressed, you can still feel your palms growing clammy. “It’s not a big deal, dipshit.”

Jungkook just laughs.

You show up at the senior leadership meeting in a brand new blazer. Jimin motions for you to sit beside him and Yoongi, who makes a marginal effort to acknowledge your presence. There are fewer people than you expected. Slight hellos are exchanged between the other six, seven people in the room. Never in your life have you felt more out of place.

“Is this the leadership meeting?” you ask Jimin, quiet.

Jimin’s brows fly up. “No. Who said that?”

“What’s this for then?” you ask, thumbing at the corner of your printout.

“For your work, kiddo,” Yoongi says, tepid.

You frown, feeling increasingly out of your depth. You built the model. You know what it said. The volatilities fell a rough 10-15% outside the limits of the conventional VAR model. You extrapolated the numbers out a year, and the chart… oh.

At some point, the door opens a crack. The person outside exchanges a few more words with someone in the corridor, terse and monotone, and immediately the entire room freezes. Yoongi uncrosses his legs and, beside you, Jimin sits up pin-straight. The tension feels tangible enough to be cut with a knife.

“Afternoon gents,” Namjoon says, as he strolls in. His gaze glosses over you and he adds, slowly, “lady.”

By and large, the table rushes to stand in greeting. Namjoon waves them down before they have a chance. He drops into his seat, then accidentally knocks over a water bottle.

The room breaks into awkward laughter. Someone actually lunges out of his chair to help Namjoon grab it.

“Well,” Namjoon grins, sheepish, all charm. He takes back the bottle with a nod of thanks. “That’s one problem mitigated.”

No one finds the nerve to respond, so Namjoon leans into his chair and flips the presentation booklet open. And just like that, it’s like he’s become someone else. There’s this ruthless, menacing edge to his smile. The room drops twenty degrees.

“I have been informed,” he says, thumbing through the pages idly, “that we have a more urgent problem, so urgent that it should have been addressed months ago. So why doesn’t someone take a stab at explaining it to me?”

“If you flip to page six,” Yoongi starts, but Namjoon waves him off.

“I’d like to hear from the person who put this together,” Namjoon says, reading your name off the cover of the print-out. “Is (Y/N) here today?”

“Sir?” Yoongi says, voice uncharacteristically pitched.

“The analyst,” Namjoon repeats, tossing the print-out to the table. “I’d like to speak to the analyst who stumbled across this mess.”

“That’s (Y/N),” Jimin says.

Namjoon looks down the table at you, as does everyone else around the room. Yoongi nods at you to go ahead.

“Sir,” you mumble, rising to a tentative half-squat, not sure if you’re meant to sit or stand.

“How old are you, (Y/N)-ssi?” Namjoon asks, tapping his pen against his temple.

“Twenty-one, sir.”

“Please call me Namjoon,” he says, easy. “So, (Y/N). Give me a little rope here. How would you interpret this problem for which we have all been summoned here today?”

“Yes sir,” you respond, mainly to the table. “The firm has been packaging products that combine several different tranches of rating classification of one tradable security. These products take about two months to layer, thus we have them on our books longer than we’d ideally like to, especially as we’ve managed to push the leverage beyond what we might otherwise be allowed to do... thus posing a challenge. From a risk management standpoint. Sir.”

“And what size of a challenge would that be?” Namjoon asks, dropping one end of his pen onto the table.

You look to Yoongi, who tells Namjoon in your stead, “Four and a half billion, Director Kim.”

“And this four and a half billion dollar problem was discovered by an analyst,” Namjoon says, icy. He taps his pen again, and the entire room flinches.

Jimin’s face is so drained of blood it almost looks white. “She’s an intern, Director Kim.”

“Really,” Namjoon says, gaze flitting to you. He pulls his glasses off and rests them beside his pen. “How impressive.”

There’s a beat, and then Yoongi leans over and says, “You can go now.”

You scramble up from your seat, tottering like a newborn giraffe in your heels. Your blazer cuts into your neck, stiff, heavy with the weight of the room’s attention on you.

Just as you’re about to slide out the door, Namjoon says, “we hope to see you back with us.”

Your face burns all the way back to your desk.

“What happened after that?” you ask Yoongi, the next morning. There was a flurry of emails in your inbox last night, until the crack of dawn. Since then, it’s been quiet. A decision has been made, you suppose, whatever it is.

“Can’t tell you,” Yoongi shrugs. His eye circles are so deep they nearly look black. “You’ll probably see it in the news. Give it a week or two.”

And of course that’s how it is. Even associates like Jimin are just number crunchers. It would be years before you are allowed any line of sight into the strategy side of things.

“Do you know how long Namjoon has been in banking?” You ask.

“He was in my cohort. So… eight, nine years,” Yoongi says. As the elevator doors slide closed, he adds, “Don’t try to fuck him though.”

You scoff, “what?”

“Don’t sleep with him,” Yoongi warns, watching the corner screen flash with infographics. Weather today is 32 degC. Samsung pushes a new phone to market. “I saw the way you were looking at him.”

“Jesus,” you bristle, tone sharper than you meant for it to be, “I’m not stupid enough to shit where I eat, Yoongi.”

Yoongi side-eyes you. “One would have to be a hell of an asshole to make managing director in anything less than fourteen years.”

He leans in a little closer, whispering into your ear, “You know how long it took Namjoon though?”

You look at him.

Yoongi says, as the elevator doors slide open, “Seven.”

You’re halfway to your office when Yoongi continues, offhandedly, “He’d turn you inside out and you wouldn’t even know it, kiddo.”

The term-end tailgate party is held at some ridiculously expensive club downtown. All the big-name partners show up, even a few guys from Japan. Shouts of laughter and whooping erupt, occasionally, from the different crowds scattered over the floor. You work the crowd, shaking hands, racking up participation points in the old corporate circle-jerk tradition.

Ten minutes pass, then twenty. You don’t mean to look, but it’s not hard to tell that Namjoon’s not there.

“I heard he’s in New York,” Jungkook says when you swing by the bar. “Hey, you wanna go somewhere quieter?”

It takes a moment for you to register the question. You bark out a laugh, “Dude, are you seriously hitting on me?”

Jungkook nurses his beer and grins at you, toothy. “Why not? We’re not working together anymore.”

You consider it. It’s not like you’re tied down. Not like anyone would care, who you fuck. And Jungkook is sweet and handsome and just dumb enough. A fling with him would never be complicated.

“I’ve got to go home and register for classes,” you tell him, slapping him on the shoulder. “Raincheck, Yonsei Dipshit.”

You ditch the party an hour early to drop by the office. There’s a pile of transition documents you should clean up and no, it’s not important. But there’s nothing else to do at home. And besides, you’re addicted to the work. The crushing stress and anxiety.

You’re just about to flip an email to Jimin when a weight presses into the back of your chair.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Namjoon says. You jump so fast you bang your knee into your filing cabinet.

Tonight Namjoon’s got his sleeves rolled up, no glasses. Looks tired, just a shadow of the man you saw in the conference room. His bangs have come loosened and sweep over his face as he leans over you to glance at your monitor. “Work-life balance is important.”

“I don’t happen to subscribe to that,” you say, but it comes out in a muted squeak. God, how embarrassing.

“You don’t seem to subscribe to much,” Namjoon says, whatever that means.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?” you choke out, after a while.

The corner of Namjoon’s mouth closest to you tugs up, “Wasn’t aware you’re keeping tabs on my whereabouts.”

“I,” you swallow, mouth dry, throat clamping shut, and can’t remember what else to say. All you can remember is that look on his face when he stared you down from across the conference room. That cold, detached, disinterested smile. It makes your stomach twist.

“Next time,” Namjoon says. “Present the time interval in quarters. It’s cleaner.”

You blink, confused.

“Your report,” Namjoon clarifies. “Appendix C.”

You frown, trying not to look like you’re marveling at him, but even Yoongi doesn’t check the Appendix. You’re not sure if Yoongi is even aware that there is an appendix.

“And the assumption on the error term having a conditional mean of zero,” Namjoon says, handing you the book in his hand. Value at Risk. “It’s tenable. This is a good reference.”

You look at the book, then up at him. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Namjoon tilts his head, tugging at the knot of his tie. “Consider it a gift.”

You know which nerve you’re stepping on when you ask, “What for?”

Namjoon just straightens, and god, he’s so tall, this close up.

“To celebrate,” he says, obscurely, and pulls his tie off. He wraps it around his hand, in slow, methodical circles, and you can feel the fabric tightening against your neck. “Your freedom.”

After he leaves, you open the book.

Inside the front cover of the book are an address and a phone number.

In the first few weeks of class, between mentoring new students with summer recruitment and settling back into the academic rat race, you manage to finish Namjoon’s book. You know he probably didn’t expect you to read it, but you do it anyway--because the truth is, as a cut-throat bitch, your ego is the size of the continent, and you’d work your bones to dust before you’d allow anyone a leg up on you.

Which is why you read all the other books by the same author.

“Yonsei Dipshit here,” Jungkook texts you, one day. “Wanna catch a movie?”

You go. Jungkook makes out with you in the back. And it’s funny, but the only thing on your mind the whole time is how much you want his hand on your neck. The way Namjoon did it. How much you want him to--just--take you apart.

But Jungkook doesn’t. He just squeezes your breast shyly and asks if you want to go to his apartment. His roommates are asleep by now, he says.

You don’t remember what threadbare excuse you gave him, but the next thing you know, you’ve stepped out of a cab in front of a riverside condominium. You, too, are keenly aware of the sheer stupidity of the situation. You’ve shown up at your old MD’s residence, in the dead of the night, and for what?

“I can’t let you in without the resident’s consent,” the concierge says, looking bored.

“I’m just dropping off a book,” you tell her, insistent, and god, you hate how short you are. How small you are. How child-like.

“She’s with me,” Namjoon says, out of nowhere. He’s just stepped in from the revolving doors, shrugging off his coat. He folds it in one hand and smiles at the concierge, polite. “Thanks.”

Head completely blank, you follow him to the elevators. He lets you in first, then steps in after you.

Namjoon doesn’t say a word. He cards you into the twenty-fifth floor like he’s been expecting you. It’s just one level below the penthouse, you realize. Fuck, what are you doing here?

“Jorion’s okay,” you say abruptly, shoving the book back at him. It’s a line you’ve thought a thousand times over but suddenly it sounds so contrived. “Sweeting’s more practical.”

Namjoon blinks at you, lips curving. “You read Sweeting.”

The elevator opens.

Namjoon walks out, and it’s not entirely clear to you why you’re following him. Why you’re here, to begin with. You’re supposed to be in Jungkook’s apartment, getting fucked into his mattress like any other regular college kid. But instead, here you are, with a man probably a decade older than you, a man who makes you look like a dumb brat.

“Don’t condescend me,” you say, and even you can hear how immature you sound. “I’m not a fucking puppy.”

You wait for him to unlock his door.

At the entrance, as the door clicks shut, Namjoon turns to face you. He says, sharp and dry, “I would never.”

You stand rooted there for a moment, feeling completely out of your depth in your cheap sweater and your street market skirt and your grimy old walking shoes.

Then you say, “look, I don’t want this fucking build up--”

Without a word, Namjoon bangs you against the wall. He says, eyes flickering towards your mouth, “What do you want then? Tell me.”

So you say, heart in your throat, hardly loud enough to be heard, “I want you to fuck me.”