ia

Eda 19

[hoondrop]

a/n: nth to do at work and my system has gone to the IT dept so I'm stuck here with a lot of free time on my hands. so here is a jake hard thought based on a gif shared by loml @jaylaxies

the cool metal of his pendant clinking against his collarbone is always the first sound that tells you you’re completely at his mercy. jake is looming over you on the mattress, his dark hair falling forward into his eyes, obscuring the intensity of his gaze as his hand works relentlessly between your thighs.

his long, thick fingers are already deep inside your dripping pussy, pumping in a way that has your hips helplessly twitching up against his palm. the room is quiet save for the wet squelch of your own juices being churned around his knuckles. you are completely drenched, your breath coming in short ragged pants through your parted lips.

jake looks down at you, his chest heaving, eyes dark and blown out as he watches your face twist with pleasure. a deeply perverted smirk touches his lips when he notices your gaze flicking up to the silver pendant dangling just inches above your nose.

"you want it already, don't you?" jake purrs, his voice dropping into a low gravelly rasp that vibrates straight down to your core. "you're so greedy for it whenever you're this horny.... it's all in your eyes, baby"

without pulling his fingers out of your soaking cunt, he reaches up with his free hand and unclasps the chain from around his neck. he holds the heavy metal pendant right in front of his lips, his eyes locking onto yours as he lazily licks his tongue across the iron, coating it in his warm saliva, before leaning down to press a soft, bruising kiss directly to the metal.

"let's make it taste even better for you" he whispers, eyebrow cocking, matching the way the corner of his mouth lifts up.

he drags the chain down your torso, the cool metal sending a violent shiver through your overheated skin, until he presses the heavy pendant directly against your drenched and pulsing folds.

"ahh.. jake...nggh..cold- it's s'cold"

a sharp, hiss breaks from your teeth, your back arching off the bed. the contrast of the semi cool metal pressing directly onto your hyper-sensitive clit has your thighs twitching. "ahh.. jake...nggh..cold- it's s'cold" jake lets out a guttural groan, smearing the pendant aggressively up and down your wet slit, deliberately coating the entire piece of metal in your thick, sticky arousal until it’s glistening under the dim light.

"fuck, look how much you're leaking all over it" he slurs, his fingers inside you giving a sudden deep lunge that bottoms out, forcing a whimpering sob from your lips. "it's completely covered in your sweet juices, baby... looks so fucking delicious for me"

he pulls his drenched fingers out of you with a loud and wet pop, leaving your hole gaping and throbbing for him. he quickly clasps the wet, sticky necklace back around his own neck, the cool iron now dripping with your own pussy juice against his chest.

before you can even catch your breath, jake hooks your knees over his broad shoulders, his large hands clamping onto your waist with a white-knuckled grip. he aligns the thick heavy head of his cock right against your drenched opening and pushes his hips forward, burying his entire length inside you in one thrust.

"jake, ple- fuck" you cry out, your fingers instantly digging into his biceps as your walls stretch wide to accommodate his full girth.

"yeah, take it all... haah... take your man's dick, good baby" jake gasps into your neck, losing all control as he picks up a frantic pace, hammering into you with a deafening, wet slap-slap-slap noise.

as he hovers directly over you, his chest rising and falling in heavy gasps, the silver necklace swings wildly with every single thrust. the pendant dangles right in front of your dazed, glassy face, glistening under the light, your own sticky arousal dripping off the cold metal and landing directly onto your parted, panting lips.

the sight and taste of it messes with your remaining sanity. you wait for the exact moment his hips lunge forward, and shamelessly, desperately,, your tongue darts upwards, catching the wet iron pendant perfectly between your lips and pulling it down into your mouth.

you suck on it heavily, your tongue swirling around the metal, tasting the intoxicating mix of his previous spit and your own taste. "look at me..you like that jakey...? feels so good baby"

jake looks down and freezes for a split second, his expression completely shattering into one of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. his eyes roll back into his head, a growl tearing from his throat as he sees you looking up at him with ruined and glazed eyes, your mouth completely wrapped around his necklace while he continues to stuff your pussy.

"f-fuck... baby...nggh" he whimpers, his voice cracking as your pussy clamps around his dick from the sheer intensity of the act. "you look so fucking dirty like this. sucking on my chain while i ruin your cunt... such a good slut for me, aren't you baby..."

he drops his heavy chest flat against yours, his mouth crashing down onto your jawline, leaving a trail of wet, sloppy kisses while his hips pick up an even faster, more animalistic pace, desperate to lose his entire warm load inside you while you keep his pendant locked tight between your teeth.

[icupsaki]

may you never forget me

synopsis: in which heeseung spots you in the crowd and realises that his past lover has been reincarnated once again. however this time around, he definitely isn't letting you go.

pairing: idol!lee heeseung x f!reader

genre: historical (joseon era) au, modern au, romance, past lovers, red string theory (sort of), bittersweet, reincarnation, dual timeline, vampire!heeseung

cw: angst, major character death, blood/violence, attempted suicide, implied that reader has depression, age gap relationship, fluff, yearning from both sides, porn with plot, unprotected sex, power dynamics, unestablished relationships, dubcon (heeseung uses vampire hypnosis once), dom/sub, oral (m receiving), fingering, choking, rough sex, manhandling but it’s consensual, possessive!heeseung, slight breathplay, overstimulation, biting, spanking, brat tamer(?)!heeseung, implied multiple rounds, sort of emotional manipulation on heeseung's side, reader is also hinted to have social anxiety, heeseung takes advantage of this, no use of y/n, semi proofread (sorry for any mistakes)

word count: around 19k (i don't even know how this happened)

MDNI

the stadium pulsed with noise.

lights flashed across thousands of raised phones, white and silver beams sweeping over the crowd like waves. somewhere to your right, a girl was crying so hard she could barely scream his name out anymore.

but that was understandable, in your eyes at least.

it was lee heeseung, after all.

on the massive screen above the stage, his face appeared again alongside his members, sweat-damp hair falling into dark eyes, breath uneven from dancing all night.

you were so close to the stage, standing in the pit. your throat burned from screaming too, though your voice had long disappeared many songs ago.

heeseung drew you in so much, but it almost didn't feel voluntary. not in the way that you were being forced to like him, but in the way that you felt as if you were bound to love him. your chest ached so violently watching him smile that you had to press a hand against it.

heeseung steps forward, microphone lifted effortlessly as the opening notes of the final chorus rang through the stadium. the cameras follow him with ease. for a moment, he tilts his head slightly, eyes skimming over the crowd out of habit.

that's when his eyes land on you.

you think it's just a lucky glance, him simply sparing his gaze across the sea of people like usual. he never pulls away.

for a second, his expression falters, and that's when you can confirm that his eyes are on you. it's subtle enough for nobody else to notice, as he pulls away shortly after.

your breath catches in your throat from the way he looked at you like he knew you somehow, which would be impossible. maybe you reminded him of somebody?

heeseung avoids your side of the stage for a remainder of the night, only returning toward the end. every time he drifts near that side again, his gaze stays deliberately elsewhere, toward the upper sections, the cameras, his members, anywhere but you.

idols are trained to look everywhere. to make every fan feel seen, but he avoids your eyes so carefully it almost feels intentional.

by the final song, you’ve nearly convinced yourself you imagined the entire thing. maybe he wasn't looking at you at all.

confetti spills from the ceiling in silver streams, disappearing beneath flashing lights and deafening screams. the members bow beside him, smiling breathlessly as they thank the crowd.

after he bows too, he looks up, straight at you.

you blink, your heart pounding extra hard. this time, the hurt in his expression is unmistakeable. he looks like he's in some sort of pain.

the concert is basically over after that, and enhypen say good bye to all of their fans. you go home, tired after the commute home. you can't stop thinking of the way heeseung looked at you tonight, even if it was just you being delusional.

you don't fall asleep like you usually do. at first, you lie on your back staring at the ceiling, phone face-down beside you, unable to get anywhere after shutting your eyes.

every time you try to think about something else, your mind slips back to him, despite being exhausted. you turn onto your side, pulling the blanket up even though you’re not even cold. the concert noise fades in your memory.

your thoughts slow down, one by one, finally. the room around you gets softer at the edges. eventually, your grip on the blanket loosens without you noticing.

right before you fully drift off, there’s one last strange, quiet image that slips through your mind.

it's similar to falling snow behind your eyes.

snow falls quietly onto dark stone next to you.

"is it really that time of the year already, joo-mi?" you ask, reaching your hand out to let more snow fall onto the palm of your hand.

your servant, joo-mi, stands next to you, nodding her head. "i believe so, my lady."

"it's colder than i remember. compared to last year, at least." you mumble, watching how the flakes of snow dissolve on your skin.

you curl your fingers slightly, as if you might be able to hold onto the winter itself. the courtyard is empty at this late hour apart from you and joo-mi. oh, and the singular guard standing at the entrance.

shifting beside you, joo-mi lowers her gaze respectfully. "winter has arrived earlier, my lady. the elders mentioned that it would be a long one."

you hum softly in response, though your attention is already elsewhere. the mountains beyond the perimeters of the estate.

you stare at them for a moment longer than you mean to.

there is something about them tonight. something that draws you in. anywhere away from this place would do you justice, honestly. you were extremely bored.

and unfortunately expected to be wed to a noble boy by the end of this year. gross.

a gust of wind moves through the courtyard, brushing cold against your cheeks.

joo-mi shifts closer instinctively. “my lady, shall we return inside? the wind is growing harsher. i don't want you to grow ill."

you don’t answer her question, gaze drifting across the courtyard. specifically, back to the guard at the front gate, half-shadowed beneath the light.

"joo-mi, why is there only one tonight?" you look up at her, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity. the guard doesn't look familiar anyway. he was young, you could tell by his stature. it wasn't the usual older guard that took the night shift, and there was meant to be two.

joo-mi follows your gaze again, hesitating for only a moment before answering. “i believe one of the guards fell ill earlier today, my lady. the replacement was assigned on short notice.”

you turn your head back, uncaring. "i want to go back inside now."

joo-mi bows her head immediately. “of course, my lady.”

she steps forward at once, adjusting her pace to yours as you begin to turn away from the courtyard.

the cold bites at your skin for one last moment before the warmth of the estate corridors begins to surround you instead. joo-mi follows behind closely, blowing out the candle she was previously using when the two of you were outside.

joo-mi escorts you to your room, opening the door for you. you thank her.

"my lady, you have a long day tomorrow. you should rest well tonight."

you step into your room, the door sliding shut behind you with a soft thud that echoes through the hallways. the warmth inside your room is immediate.

“of course,” you reply quietly, voice muffled. you walk in further, slipping out of your outer layer. "you should rest as well, joo-mi."

"yes, my lady. good night." her footsteps slowly retreat down the slim hallway, footsteps pattering against the wood.

you sit at the edge of your bed for a moment, hands resting loosely in your lap. you weren't tired at all, unfortunately. but, you required an escort everywhere in this estate - per your father's requests.

you had no choice but to fall asleep. there was nothing else to do, after all. every single novel sitting on the shelf beside you had been read, along with every puzzle. you truly were bored.

eventually, you lie back, pulling the blanket over you. the fabric is warm, making you feel sleepier.

the lantern light from earlier has long since dimmed, leaving the room in a soft, peaceful ambience. apart from the sound of the harsh wind from outside.

your breathing slows without you noticing.

your eyes drift toward the ceiling, before shutting on reflex and falling asleep.

the next morning you awake to soft knocks on your door, tapping once.

then again, a little more carefully. “my lady?” joo-mi’s voice filters through the wood, familiar and steady.

light spills faintly through the edges of your curtains, revealing the morning sun before you can even open your eyes properly.

"you can come in," you say, mid yawn, stretching your arms up into the air.

there's a brief pause before your door slides open, but when it does, joo-mi is on the other side. joo-mi steps in quietly, already composed, her hands folded in front of her as she keeps her gaze respectfully lowered.

"did you sleep well, my lady?" she smiles softly at you, which reminds you of her age. she was only a few years your senior.

you’re still half-lost in sleep as you sit up, hair slightly disheveled, blinking at the brightness leaking through the curtains. you cling to the warmth of the blankets.

"i think so." you mumble, stretching your arms again before letting them drop lazily into your lap.

joo-mi moves further into the room, already beginning her routine without needing instruction, picking up your garments from yesterday and folding them. she folds out each crease with care, before replacing those garments with new ones for you today.

"are you excited for today, my lady?" joo-mi asks from behind you, tone cheerful. "you'll be going out town."

you were excited at first when you heard the news, but when you found out your father was practically sending an entire army to supervise you, your feelings on it dulled.

but now, the word feels slightly dull on your tongue as you speak them. "sure."

joo-mi continues folding your garments with calm efficiency, laying out today’s clothing with care before turning back toward you.

“you seemed pleased when you were told,” she adds, glancing at you over her shoulder. “it is the market district, is it not? there will be many new sights.”

market district? there wasn't much you were interested in, to be honest. you weren't the most outgoing.

"yes.." you say slowly, coming out quieter than initially intended. your fingers tug slightly at the edge of the blanket, resisting the urge to pull them back over yourself.

it should be exciting.

it is exciting.

but you can barely bring yourself to care. you look at joo-mi, "do you think father would let me skip this today?"

joo-mi looks at you, not expecting the question as her hands pausing mid-fold.

“my lady…” she begins carefully, as if choosing each word to avoid sounding like a reprimand. “your father has been preparing for this trip for some time. i don't think he would be happy...if it were to be postponed.

but you already knew that.

joo-mi he sets your garments down neatly before stepping closer, her tone softening again. “is something troubling you this morning?”

the question lingers in the air.

you open your mouth to answer, but nothing comes out immediately. because there isn’t a clear reason, nothing you can point to and name properly.

"no, there isn't, joo-mi." you reassure, "i'll go. can i change now?" you ask her, standing up, shuffling the bedsheets off your lower half.

joo-mi relaxes slightly at your response, the tension in her expression smoothing back into its usual calm composure. “of course, my lady,” she says gently. “i'll start preparing your bath."

she bows her head and steps toward the door, pausing only long enough to glance back once more, before slipping out and closing it softly behind her.

you stand, stretching once more as the last remnants of sleep finally leave your body. the bed creaks softly as you move away from it, the warmth of the blankets already fading behind you.

then there’s a soft knock.

“come in,” you say.

the door slides open, and joo-mi appears once more, her hands neatly folded in front of her.

“my lady,” she says gently, “your bath is ready for you.” you nod once at her words, still lost in the lingering haze of sleep.

you follow her down the cold hallway, a familiar path to your private bathroom. joo-mi opens the door for you, revealing a steaming hot bath. the warmth spills out into the hallway the moment the door opens, contrasting the air behind you.

steam curls lazily into the corridor. the bath inside has been prepared as you like it.

joo-mi steps aside respectfully, keeping her gaze lowered. “my lady, I will be just outside if you need anything.” she bows, before stepping out of the room and leaving.

the sound of the latch clicks softly, and you are alone. you move closer to the bath slowly.

you take off your garments, before taking a step into the water, sinking your entire body in shortly after. the warm water ripples around you, surrounding your entire body - practically easing your muscles after only a minute of being submerged.

you sink in a little deeper as the steam around you rises, relaxing your body without your permission. you stay in that bath for around twenty minutes, simply basking in the warm water.

stepping out, you wrap a towel around yourself, calling for joo-mi. "joo-mi, can i have my clothes?"

she pushes the door to the side gently, draping you in something that resembles an overcoat, temporarily shielding you from the cold. nobody was allowed to enter your chambers anyway, so she escorts you back to your room.

upon entering, she reaches for your clothing that she had previously laid out, before coming behind you and helping you change into them.

joo-mi moves behind you with quiet efficiency, her hands careful as she helps you out of the bath wrap and into the layers she had prepared earlier.

you stand still, letting her work.

it's a smooth and easy process, as always. both you and joo-mi had gotten used to this already, it was a daily routine after all.

she takes a step back after she finishes, admiring you and her work. all your sleeves were aligned properly, as well as your folds being smoothed down. "my lady," she gasps quietly, "you look so beautiful, especially today."

her words bring a small smile to your lips, "thank you, joo-mi. you're the reason for that."

a light pink dusts her cheeks, "thank you, my lady - but i only played a small role. i only ensure what is already there is brought out properly,” she adds more softly, smoothing the front of her sleeves out of habit. “you have always been beautiful, my lady.”

joo-mi steps back slightly, then reaches for the last piece of your outer layer, holding it up for you to slip into. you do exactly that, and she smooths out the final layer.

joo-mi gently tugs at the fabric, ensuring that it's fitted perfectly as you outstretch your arms. "i'm done, my lady. are you ready to step out? the carriage should be ready for us."

you let your arms fall back to your sides, nodding as you slip your shoes on. "if i must. let's go."

joo-mi opens the door for you, sliding it once again. the rhythm of your footsteps blends softly with Joo-mi’s as you move through the corridor.

joo-mi walks just half a step behind you, as always, careful not to overtake or fall too far back.

“the carriage is waiting at the front gate,” she says gently. “your father has already left instructions for your escort.”

you hum faintly in response, gaze forward, "you are coming with me today, right?" you ask her, double checking.

"yes, my lady. i should be accompanying you today. i wasn't made aware of any change of plans." joo-mi says, walking down onto the footpath with you.

servants pass in the opposite direction occasionally, bowing quickly as you go by.

as you near the entrance hall, you slow slightly without meaning to, you can see the carriage from here now.

joo-mi notices immediately. “my lady?”

you blink once, then continue walking. “It’s nothing.” but the hesitance in your step tells her everything. your eyes linger ahead for just a moment longer than necessary, you see a lot of people you don't know surrounding the gate.

behind you, joo-mi’s steps remain steady, but her voice softens slightly when she speaks again.

“it will be a busy day,” she says. “but I will be with you.” she reassures. you continue walking forwards, catching the attention of the servants preparing the carriage.

there’s a brief shift in movement as they straighten, bowing as you approach.

the air outside brushes against your skin, a servant lowers his head. “my lady.” you acknowledge it lightly.

one of them quickly moves to open the carriage door properly, while another steps aside to clear your path. you thank him quietly, taking the hand he offered to you to step into the carriage.

you don't recognise any of the guards accompanying you today, unfortunately. joo-mi steps in afterwards, sitting across from you.

outside, the courtyard continues with it's movement, guards taking their positions, as well as double checking the horses.

a few minutes pass, and you finally feel the carriage moving. you peer slightly outside, seeing the front gates to the estate opening.

as the carriage begins to move, joo-mi continues speaking, pointing out small things about your journey, like the scenery. you nod, engaging in conversation with her.

the market should be around an hours drive on a carriage, so around ten minutes you decide to just take a small nap. you were pretty tired anyway, despite only having woken up a short while ago.'

after it feels like you've only shut your eyes for five minutes when joo-mi calls out for you. "my lady?" she asks softly, "we're nearly there."

you wink an eye open, sitting up as you smooth yourself over. "thank you," you mumble, covering your mouth with your palm as you yawn.

you sit in silence, your arm sitting atop your stomach as you lean into the chair behind you. pushing the curtain back with your other hand, you look around, seeing the bustling markets.

the sound hits you first, plenty of voice overlapping, as well as vendors calling out to customers. an uncomfortable feeling sits at the bottom of your topic.

your chest tightens faintly, though you don’t understand why. the carriage rolls forward again before the thought can settle properly.

you swallow once more, as your gaze tracks across it all without really landing anywhere for too long. too many faces, too many directions, too many things happening at once to properly follow.

you feel very aware of your body all of the sudden. joo-mi speaks softly across from you, but you only catch part of it, she's saying something about the market being way busier than expected.

you sit back slightly, letting the curtain fall a little more into place as you nod, like you're on auto-pilot. the carriage comes to a stop, and around thirty seconds after the door opens.

your fingernails dig into your palms unknowingly, making you bleed. joo-mi looks at you, not noticing the injury but just the tense expression on your face. "are you alright, my lady?"

snapping your head back to her, "i'm fine, yes. you can go out first." joo-mi looks at you like you're insane. you were a higher status, that meant you were meant to exit the carriage first.

"are you sure, my lady? it's against the rules-" joo-mi asks, unsure. you cut her off, "i insist."

joo-mi hesitates for only a second longer, then bows her head and steps down carefully from the carriage.

you take a deep breath. you remain seated for a moment longer, your hand is still curled tightly in your lap, though you don’t register the sting properly until the air shifts again.

a shadow falls near the carriage step. it isn't large enough to beg for attention, but it defiinitely catches yours.

a guard stands there. he's young and composed.

his uniform is simple, outer guard markings visible but unadorned. he doesn’t speak at first.

he’s looking at you, offering a small smile as he bows in your direction. he extends a hand, “allow me, my lady,” he says.

you stare at his hand, which stays steady, palm open, waiting without pressure. you stand up after contemplating for a few seconds, placing your hand in his.

his grip is careful, firm enough to support you, light enough not to feel so restrictive. he helps you step down from the carriage.

when your feet meet the ground, he releases you immediately, stepping back into proper distance as if nothing more than protocol has occurred. “thank you, my lady,” he says, lowering his gaze respectfully.

he bows again, making you nod in acknowledgement. "..thank you." you speak quietly, walking over to joo-mi.

you can feel eyes on you from everywhere. it wasn't everyday that a member of a noble family attended a marketplace. you felt bashful under all their gazes.

people glance as you pass, some quick, some lingering just a little too long before they remember themselves and look away. it makes your shoulders tighten without permission, your posture subtly shifting as you try to make yourself feel smaller.

joo-mi notices, stepping half a pace closer so she can speak without anyone else hearing.

“this way, my lady,” she guides gently. “the main stalls are just ahead. It will be less crowded there

joo-mi offers you a smile, you return it partially. "what was that guard's name?" you ask, referring to the one that had helped you down from the carriage.

joo-mi blinks slightly at the question, as if she hadn’t expected your attention to linger there. “the guard?” she repeats softly, glancing over her shoulder in the direction you came from.

the young man is already stepping back into position near the carriage. you turn your head, and he's already looking - flashing you a smile. you turn back.

“i believe he is one of the newer outer guards assigned to the rotation,” she says thoughtfully. “he was brought in recently, so i haven't heard his name often. but," she trails off, "i think his name is lee heeseung."

you nod in acknowledgement, before walking off in the direction of a stall you deem as interesting enough.

the stall is crowded with fabric and jewellery, you think some of it looks pretty. joo-mi follows close behind as you stop in front of it, the merchant immediately straightening up at the sight of your clothing.

"my lady," he greets, bowing in front of you. "please, take your time looking."

you nod politely, already shifting your gaze down toward the display in front of you. there are strings of beads, along with other accessories such as embroidered scarves and such.

joo-mi points to one of the scarves of your favourite colour, “my lady, this would look beautiful on you.” she reaches over, lifting a ribbon between her fingers.

glancing at the ribbon briefly, you hum in agreement. "do you think i should take it?"

joo-mi nods, looking down in respect. "if you wish to, my lady."

you wave your hand, turning back to the merchant. "i would like one of these." you gesture to the ribbon in joo-mi's hands, and he nods immediately.

the merchant bows quickly, almost relieved at your decision. “of course, my lady. i will wrap it immediately.”

he reaches under the counter, retrieving another ribbon of the same colour. he lays it neatly on a small cloth before beginning to fold it with practiced precision.

you turn your head away, disinterested in the process. unfortunately for you, your father had asked you to stay out the whole day - besides nightfall, of course.

joo-mi pays for the ribbon using the money pouch given to her by your father. "my lady, would you like me to have these added to your belongings in the carriage?"

you look at her, nodding. "yes."

the merchant ties the ribbon carefully, placing it into a small paper wrapping before sliding it forward. “thank you for your purchase, my lady.”

joo-mi takes it first, holding it securely before turning back to you. she steps closer to you, "we should continue, my lady. the market will only start to get busier."

with a defeated sigh, you nod. "if we must. when will we be able to go back?" you ask her, glancing back at the carriage.

"i'm sure we can leave when you would like, my lady." joo-mi responds softly.

you glance back toward the carriage again. it sits a little further down the street now, partially visible between moving bodies and stalls. the guards remain stationed around.

the idea of already returning feels like a waste.

you begin walking, joo-mi trails after you. she notices your hesitation without commenting on it. instead, she adjusts her pace to match yours as you start walking again.

“we do not need to stay long,” she adds softly. “just enough for you to see what you wish. your father only asked that you are properly escorted and return before evening."

you nod, humming.

"joo-mi, do you want anything from these stalls?" you ask, turning to her. the question catches her off guard.

she blinks once, clearly not expecting the question at all.

for a moment, she actually hesitates, before quickly lowering her gaze.

“my lady…i am not here to purchase anything,” she says gently, as if reminding both you and herself of her position.

you keep walking, watching her for a reaction.

joo-mi adjusts her sleeves slightly, composing herself again. “if you are asking out of kindness, then i am grateful."

she pauses again, "but i do not need anything."

eyes forward, you hum. "that isn't what i asked, joo-mi.

“my lady,” she says carefully, “your visit is for you. It is not necessary for me to-"

the look that you give her makes her pause, cheeks heating up. "i suppose i could look around, if you truly wish that."

you nod, "please do. none of this interests me, and i would rather rest at the carriage."

joo-mi nods, "i understand. i'll escort you back, my lady." she guides you through the crowd, subtly choosing paths where you'll avoid the densest parts of the market.

soon, the carriage comes back into view, waiting exactly where you left it. the guards are still stationed in their positions.

"thank you." you look at her once you're standing next to the carriage. she hesitates for a brief moment, as if still unsure whether she’s truly allowed to separate from you in a place like this.

“if you are certain,” she adds softly, “i will not be long.”

one of the guards bows to you, opening the door and allowing you entry to the carriage. "welcome back, my lady."

looking back at joo-mi, you give a small, dismissive wave of your hand. “go.”

that seems to reassure her.

joo-mi straightens, composing herself again into her usual calm composure. “i will remain within sight. if you need anything, call for me immediately.”

you nod once in response. she bows, then steps away into the market.

the guard shuts the door, and you sit in there peacefully. the outside noise dulls immediately, and you sigh in relief.

there's a knock on the door, soft. as if whoever is outside is waiting for permission rather than demanding attention.

a masculine voice follows, lowered slightly just loud enough for you to hear. “my lady.”

you don't recognise it immediately, but you sit up.

"you can open the door." a few seconds after, the door is slid open softly.

you blink when you realise it's the same guard from before, lee heeseung.

you take in his face properly this time. his face is gentle in structure, and you would consider him to be handsome. he seems to be somewhere around your age too.

when he speaks again, his voice is steady, but softer than you expect. “my lady,” he says, carefully. “i apologise if i disturbed you. i only wished to ensure you were well.”

you look at him, tilting your head in confusion slightly at his concern, "no, you didn't disturb me."

you pause in thought. joo-mi was going to be a while at the market's, right? you use your chin, gesturing to the seat before you. "come in. i'm bored."

there’s a brief pause outside the carriage. his face contorts into one of confusion, as if he’s double checking whether or not he heard you correctly.

"my lady?" his voice rings again, making you glance back at him. "inside the...carriage?"

"yes," you say simply. "unless that’s a problem."

"no, of course not, my lady." he steps onto the upper platform. once inside, he lowers himself into the space opposite you.

for a moment, neither of you speak.

"close the door, please." you ask softly, leaning back into your seat. he reaches over, shutting the door. the carriage feels smaller with him inside, but not uncomfortable.

he glances briefly toward you, then quickly lowers his gaze again, as if remembering himself.

"i apologise if this is improper," he says quietly. "i'm still on duty."

you look at him, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. "i am the one that asked you to come inside, no?"

a faint pause, "yes, my lady."

that makes you exhale, almost amused.

"then talk to me." you say. "joo-mi’s not here, and i’m not doing anything."

he blinks once at that, before locking eyes with you. it's like he's locked your gaze onto his own, because you're unable to pull away.

heat crawls slowly through your body, it starts low in your chest, feeling strange. you sit up, re-adjusting your body.

"talk?" he repeats, like he’s making sure he understood the request correctly.

"yes," you confirm. "anything. i don’t care."

he shifts in his seat, thinking. "most of my days are unevenful, my lady. i'm not sure what you'd like to hear."

you tilt your head. "then tell me uneventful things."

when he doesn't respond, flustered, you scoff. you lean forward, pointing to his hand - where there is clear injury. it looks like the palm of his hand was sliced open by something.

"tell me what happened to your hand. i want to know." his attention drops instantly to where you’re pointing. then he reacts subtly, almost too late. he curls his fingers slightly as if to hide it, but stopping before he fully closes his hand. the injury is still visible. a clean, uneven cut across his palm, recently dressed but already faintly stained through the edge of the wrapping.

"it's nothing serious, my lady." he starts, voice careful and even. "just apart of my duties."

"what part of your duties requires you to have bleeding hands?" you look at him, raising an eyebrow.

"my duties involve assisting wherever needed," he says after a moment, voice steady. “not all tasks will be predictable. the crate was heavier than expected. i misjudged it when securing the corner."

"you mean to tell me that a crate cut you open like a fish?" you blink, seeing through his lie.

you hold out your hand, "give me your hand." he hesitates for only a fraction of a second, just enough to register that you’re actually serious, before carefully shifting his injured hand forward.

he places it in your open palm.

up close, the cut is clearer. not deep enough to be life-threatening, but enough to sting sharply. the dressing around it is already slightly worn at the edges, clearly not tended to properly.

"this was clearly done by a knife." you look at him, running a finger gently over the wound. he flinches, and you notice.

you press down harder, and a small whimper leaves his lips. his shoulders stiffen, his jaw clenches tightly.

"my lady," he says quietly, "it hurts when you do that.."

you hum, smoothing your finger up and down the bandage. "but," you look up at him, "you like that, don't you?"

he doesn’t pull away, but his fingers tense in your hold, like he’s forcing himself not to react more.

"i asked you a question." you say, catching his attention once again.

he looks up at you, and that same fire burns through your lower abdomen now. "i am not sure how to respond to that, my lady." he admits bashfully.

"with honesty," you say, dropping his hand from your grasp.

"then yes. it felt nice, coming from you my lady." there’s no playfulness in his tone.

you blink in surprise that he was actually honest. you hum softly, leaning back in your seat.

the heat in your body is bothering you now. it's too strong to ignore, like someone struck a match beneath your ribs and let the flame burn.

"..are you permanently assigned to me?" you ask, turning back to him.

the question seems to catch him slightly off guard. he straightens a little, as if adjusting back into duty.

“i am assigned to the outer escort rotation for your household,” he answers carefully. “so, not permanently, my lady. i rotate between posts. but while you are outside the estate, i am your escort."

"who gave you those orders?" you ask him, a small pout forming on your face.

his gaze flickers up for a moment. “…is there a concern, my lady?”

"answer my question first." you nudge his calf with your foot gently.

"…the head of the estate guard rotation," he replies carefully. "the order came through your household steward, under your father’s direction."

"ignore them." you wave your hand dismissively. "i want you on my rotation. you are staying with me."

it looks like he genuinely doesn’t process the words properly.

he nearly chokes, "pardon me, my lady?" he doesn't believe he heard you correctly.

his gaze flickers up briefly, then away again. "do you mean… during today’s escort duty?"

"i want you to escort me everywhere, anytime i want." you speak softly, resting your chin on your hand. “not random guards i don’t know.”

"…that is not a simple request," he says carefully. his posture straightens slightly.

"escort assignments are rotated to prevent overexposure and maintain security protocol."

you barely process his words, "i don't care. you're on my team from now on."

"..my lady," he says carefully, "that is not something I can decide." for a second, he looks genuinely uncertain how to respond without overstepping or possibly offending you.

glancing back at him, you notice the fear on his face. "oh, relax. if it makes you feel any better, i'll ask my father about it."

"…if your father approves a reassignment," he says slowly, "then I will follow the order given."

his eyes lift briefly to yours. "however, escort rotations are handled for security reasons. consistency with a single guard is not usually recommended."

he hesitates, before speaking softly again, "that said… I will not refuse a direct instruction if it is officially issued."

"it's officially issued by me that you are with me from now on." you reply quickly, sitting up.

"may I ask what makes you certain about this decision, my lady?" he asks.

"you entertain me." you admit honestly. "what's your name?" you weren't one hundred percent sure if joo-mi even had the correct name.

"lee heeseung, my lady." he bows his head in respect.

your gaze drifts back to his face again, and reluctantly, you have to admit it probably influenced your decision a little too.

because unfortunately for you, heeseung is extremely attractive.

but for some reason, you can't stop this insatiable feeling that you got when you first looked heeseung in the eyes. and no, it wasn't just because of his pretty face.

you sigh softly, and heeseung notices the agitation.

"my lady, are you feeling alright?" he asks softly, leaning closer.

you shake your head, "it feels so hot in here," you say, leaning back. you start to fan yourself, "..i feel so hot."

"would you like me to call somebody, my lady?" he asks softly, leaning a bit closer. as soon as he does that, you feel your lower region ache.

"..no." you sit-up, shaking your head. would it be shameful of you to ask a guard to relieve you? it’s definitely a breach of contract somehow, but that was for your father to worry about, not you.

"..come here." you ultimately decide, making space for him next to you.

heeseung obliges, blinking innocently. you almost feel bad for taking advantage of your position.

your cheeks heat up, and they’re about to burn brighter at the request you’re about to make. lowering your voice to a whisper, you speak. "..i want you to touch me."

heeseung’s eyes widen. "did i hear you correctly, my lady? you want me to touch-"

you cut him off immediately, clamping a hand over his big mouth. when you trust him to be silent again, you remove your hand.

"keep it down, will you?" you hiss, sighing. "..you know what, never mind."

you begin to fan yourself again, ignoring him out of embarrassment. after a few seconds, heeseung speaks up again.

"my lady," he starts, but you don’t turn toward him. heeseung calls out for you again, which finally makes you turn your head.

"what?" you glare at him, a soft frown on your lips.

"if you were asking me to relieve you,” he whispers this time, leaning closer. “i’d be willing to oblige you.”

you stare at him for a second, trying not to shy away from his gaze. taking a deep breath, you nod. “..please.”

“do i have permission to touch you, my lady?” you nod instantly, feeling the ache between your legs grow even more.

heeseung’s hands are immediately on yours. one hand slides under your robes to your front, spreading your thighs apart. he cups your pussy possessively.

his fingers are gentle at first, pushing your underwear to the side as he rubs at your folds with feather-light touches. he teases your entrance, circling but not penetrating.

you groan in annoyance at this, making him apologise swiftly, “sorry, my lady.” an apology leaves his lips, yes, but you don't miss the stupid grin on his face as he says it.

your wetness coats his fingers as he continues exploring your folds. “you’re so wet already,” he whispers softly, almost in admiration. it’s embarrassing - the way he's just gawking at the slick connecting his fingers to your cunt.

“can you keep it down?” you whisper back, turning your head away shyly.

“of course, my lady.” he agrees, shuffling closer to you. he lifts your thigh, granting him easier access to your slit. heeseung slip a single finger into you, letting out a quiet groan at the tightness wrapped around his finger.

you bring your hand to your own mouth to conceal your noises. heeseung pumps his finger slowly, revelling in your soft gasps and whimpers despite you attempting to muffle the noises.

a second finger joins the first, stretching you deliciously as he curls them just right - hitting that spongy spot. your toes curl, a louder whimper slipping from your lips.

when his thumb finds your clit, rubbing firm circles, your hand grips onto his wrist, nails digging into his skin.

that doesn’t stop his ministrations, though. heeseung continues to pump his fingers in and out of your sopping heat steadily.

“w-wait,” you whimper out, making him glance up at you. you use your hand to tug at his uniform, pressing your lips against his.

heeseung kisses you back hungrily, tongue delving into your mouth to taste you. he continues to move his fingers in you, redoubling his efforts even.

his thumb flicks over your clit rapidly, making you squeeze your thighs around his wrist. he can’t really move his fingers in and out if you do that, so he opts to curl his fingers inside you, finding that special spot that makes your toes curl.

he swallows a loud moan that definitely would’ve left your lips. when he finally pulls back, you’re both panting hard.

“my lady,” heeseung breathes out, “i can’t pleasure you if you keep shutting me out like this.” he breathes out, referring to the leg lock you currently have his wrist in.

you apologise softly, “i-i’m sorry,” you sputter, “it was just..a lot.” a smirk appears on heeseung’s lips at your words.

“my lady,” he speaks, and you look at him. “may i be granted permission to make you feel as good as you possibly can?”

you stare at him, confused at first. “you want permission to do anything?” heeseung nods at your words.

you’re hesitant, but he seems to know what he’s been doing this whole time. “..fine - i grant you permission."

he withdraws his fingers. heeseung grabs both of your wrists with one hand, holding them against your chest. he backs you further up into the seat, spreading your thighs with his knee.

now that you’re spread out for him, he plunges his fingers back in - making you gasp.

his pace is brutal now, practically fingerblasting you. the way his fingers piston in and out of your dripping pussy create obscene squelches that fill the usual silence of the carriage.

you squirm, thighs shaking the slighest. as a result of trying to silence yourself, you bite your lip so hard it actually starts bleeding. heeseung’s eyes lighten up at that.

heeseung leans in, “keep it down, my lady. otherwise the both of us will get into trouble.” he whispers, lips grazing the side of your ear.

you nod, whimpering softly. “i-i’m, ah- sorry.”

his thumb makes it’s way back to your clit, rubbing harder and firmer circles now. you can’t hold it back, your pussy fluttering around his digits. your stomach tightens, and after a few seconds - the coil releases, and you gush all over his fingers.

heeseung slowly pulls his fingers out as you pant softly, he also releases your wrists.

“did that satisfy you, my lady?” heeseung asks, and you can’t help but notice the cocky tone in his voice. you're still catching your breath though, so you don't care to humble him.

you hum softly, nodding in agreement. “..satisfied? yes, very.”

heeseung pats your robes back down, fixing your clothing for you. you also comb your fingers through your hair, trying to make it look like it did previously.

the atmosphere definitely probably smells like sex, it’s a confined space after all. you sit back, trying to catch your breath.

a knock breaks the moment. the both of you pause.

heeseung straightens immediately, posture resetting into something more formal.

"yes?" you ask softly, a little worried whoever it was at the door could tell what just went down.

"my lady, may i come in?" it was joo-mi.

"you may." you respond sitting back properly.

the latch clicks, and the door opens just enough for her to step inside. she pauses for half a second when she notices heeseung already seated opposite you, then quickly smooths her expression back into composure.

whatever thought flickers across her face is gone almost immediately, replaced with her usual expression.

“my lady,” she greets, bowing her head slightly.

"did you find what you were looking for, joo-mi?"

“yes, my lady,” she answers softly, a smile creeping up onto her face. “the stalls were as expected. i did not require much time. thank you for letting me do that." she bows her head again in appreciation.

her eyes flick briefly toward the space opposite you, just for a moment, not lingering.

“i also ensured your purchase was added safely to the carriage,” she adds, referring to the ribbon.

heeseung begins to move as if to stand, but joo-mi lightly raises a hand.

“stay seated,” she says politely, not unkindly. “there is no need to adjust for me."

"no, joo-mi, you can have your seat back." you correct. you look at heeseung, "you may leave. thank you for your time."

“understood, my lady,” he says at once. he stands, bowing his head. careful not to bump anything in the confined space of the carriage, his posture resets as he steps out of the carriage.

joo-mi glances toward you, a small teasing smirk on her face. it’s very subtle.

you notice it though. “what?” you ask immediately, eyes narrowing slightly.

“nothing, my lady.” she replies quickly, patting down the fabric of her sleeves in an attempt to smooth it out.

you stare at her, meanwhile she avoids your gaze. that lasts for around two seconds before she eventually loses composure, and ultimately makes eye contact with you.

“you seemed rather interested in that guard.” she says lightly.

you blink once. “i was just speaking with him.”

“yes,” joo-mi agrees, nodding her head. “for some amount of time.”

“there was nothing else for me to do while waiting.”

she hums, straightening her lips. the sound itself is enough to make your expression flatten.

joo-mi lowers her gaze politely again, though her small grin never disappears.

“he is very handsome,” she adds after a moment.

you immediately look away toward the carriage curtains, out the window. “that had nothing to do with it.”

“..of course, my lady.” joo-mi agrees out of respect, despite seeing through your lie.

outside, the faint sound of guards shifting into position can be heard.

“we will be departing shortly, my lady,” she says gently, and you nod.

“are we going back to the estate?” you ask, unsure of what you’re even doing next.

“we can go wherever you’d like, my lady.” joo-mi says, reaching for the handle of the door. “would you like me to ask the guards to take us elsewhere?”

"no." you shake your head, "i want to go back home, please."

joo-mi pauses for a split second, but nods anyway. "of course, my lady." there’s no disappointment in her voice or an attempt to persuade you otherwise.

she slides the carriage door open slightly and relays the instruction to the guards outside.

“we will return to the estate.” voices from outside respond to her in acknowledgment.

movement outside the carriage begins. through the small opening of the carriage window, you briefly catch sight of heeseung again near the escort line. snow catches faintly in his dark hair before melting almost immediately.

joo-mi reaches for the carriage door, closing it once more. inside, warmth settles around you again, quieter now than before.

joo-mi sits across from you, studying your expression carefully before speaking.

“was the market too much today?” she asks gently.

you stare at your hands for a second before answering. "a little, yes."

she nods like she already knew. “then going home is the right choice.”

outside, the carriage finally begins moving again. you sit back in your chair, shutting your eyes. your breathing gradually slows with the movement of the carriage.

the next moment, or it feels as though, you awaken. joo-mi is calling out for you, “my lady,” joo-mi says gently. “we’re back.”

your eyes open slowly. for a second, everything feels blurred together, but you blink, once, twice - and it's clearer.

you straighten slightly in your seat, rubbing at one eye tiredly.

“…already?” your voice comes out softer than intended, still heavy with sleep.

“you slept through most of the journey home, my lady.”

you glance briefly toward the curtained window beside you. it’s darker outside now than before, evening fully settled over the estate grounds.

"how is it already evening? we left early morning, no?" for some reason, your chest feels oddly light. you take another look, genuinely perplexed.

joo-mi pauses at that. “…we did.”

you pull the curtain aside slightly, staring out at the estate grounds again. lanterns have already been lit along the pathways, their warm glow reflects against the snow.

your confusion deepens. the market trip hadn’t felt long enough for this and neither had the ride home. you glance back toward joo-mi. “how long was i asleep?”

she blinks, then slowly looks toward the carriage window herself, as though only now properly registering the darkness outside. “…i’m not certain,” she admits quietly.

you kind of just stare at her, before letting your shoulders loosen in carelessness. whatever.

the thing is, joo-mi is always certain. always aware of time, schedules, routes. but now even she looks unsettled, gaze lingering toward the evening sky outside the carriage. “it should not be this late,” she says after a moment, mumbling to herself more than to you.

the carriage door opens, a different guard stands outside this time, one you vaguely recognize from the estate grounds but not by name. "my lady," he says respectfully, extending a hand out to you. "we have arrived back at the estate."

you take his hand, stepping down from the platform. "tell me, how is it night already?" you ask the guard, making him furrow his eyebrows in confusion.

"you have been out of the estate the whole day, my lady." he responds casually. that makes you pause mid-step, your grip loosens slightly as you look up at him, perplexed.

you glance around once instinctively, everything feels strangely quiet. all of the guards that had originally come with you were surrounding the carriage, preparing for it to be put away, but heeseung was nowhere to be seen.

"hm." you hum, letting go of the guard's hand. "thank you."

“of course, my lady,” he replies, dipping his head in acknowledgement.

but your memory doesn’t feel like a full day, it feels put together, like it was fake or something, maybe.

joo-mi steps closer behind you, noticing your expression immediately. “my lady?” she asks softly. “are you feeling unwell again?”

the guard shifts his stance slightly, attentive now but not alarmed.

you blink once, then slowly shake your head. "no,” you say, though it comes out uncertain even to your own ears. "i'm fine. i would like to return to my quarters, please."

this was strange. there was no way it would've cost you the entire day to ride to the market, spend some time there, and return. you should've had the entire afternoon and more left, so why was nobody questioning it?

behind you, joo-mi steps closer, falling naturally into pace as you begin walking toward the estate doors.

“shall I prepare warm water for you again?” she asks gently, as if nothing about the day was unusual at all.

as the doors of the estate open ahead of you, you shake your head. "yes, please."

joo-mi nods her head in acknowledgment, walking down the empty hallway with you. she escorts you to your room, she pauses, bowing her head slightly. “i will return shortly with your bath,” she says.

you nod, already half distracted, fingers intertwining with each other as if to calm yourself. “thank you.”

joo-mi walks off, and you take a seat on one of the chairs near the window, letting your hands rest in your lap.

you sort of daze off until she comes back.

being a noblewoman was boring in a way that never really changed. always waiting, always being prepared for something that never quite felt like it belonged to you.

there was nothing for you to do except sit, behave, and eventually be married off into another household that would decide your next set of rules for you. there was nothing you were allowed to do alone, either.

your father had noticed. he tried to entertain you in your own way, but you assumed it was hard considering there was nobody around your age within the estate aside from joo-mi. your father wouldn't allow for it. it was a surprise that he was agreeing to marry you off this year, but he probably deemed you as old enough.

she was kind and familiar, but still part of the structure of your life, not outside it. there wasn’t really anyone who felt like they existed in your world without purpose or permission. joo-mi wasn't there because she enjoyed your company, she was there because she had to be.

you barely saw your father either, and your mother was dead. it didn't hurt much to think about now, it was many years ago.

your father never moved on, though. he never really let you drift too far from his grasp. after the death of your mother, something in him must have tightened

you let out a small breath, leaning back slightly in your chair. boring wasn’t even the right word anymore. it honestly felt like you were already dead, but unluckily in hell. your punishment was eternal boredom.

a soft knock catches your attention, and you turn toward the door.

"my lady?" joo-mi calls quietly, "your bath is ready. may i come in?"

you blink once, "come in."

the door opens almost immediately.

joo-mi steps inside, “i’ve prepared it at the temperature you prefer,” she says gently.

you nod, standing up from where you're sat.

joo-mi hesitates for just a moment before speaking again, her voice softer now. "you seem tired, my lady. would you like me to stay nearby you while you bathe?"

"no, thank you, joo-mi." you politely decline as she closes the door to your room behind you. "i'd prefer if i was alone."

joo-mi nods, escorting you to the bathroom, she opens the door for you. "It's ready for you, my lady."

joo-mi remains behind you, hands folded. “i will be just outside if you need anything,” she adds softly.

you nod at her words, before walking in and shutting the door behind you.

you exhale slowly, slipping off the outer material of your gown. you're about to take off the next layer of clothing as well, but you pause.

your mind backtracks to what you thought about earlier, and you didn't want to marry some random man.

your left foot touches the water, then your right follows, sinking in slowly until you’re ankle deep in the bath.

the idea of marriage lingers again at the back of your mind. it's not like getting married would make you any happier. if anything, it would make you feel worse. it makes your gut feel weird. like the concept of a life like that belongs to another version of you that isn’t standing here right now.

the water rises as you lower yourself into the bath, still fully clothed. the fabric clings to your skin as it absorbs the hot water. you settle in until you’re fully seated.

if you disappeared, then you wouldn't be obligated to do anything your father asked you of.

plus, it's not like he'd even notice if his daughter was gone or not. despite living within the same estate, massive or not, you only saw him once a few months.

and even then, the conversations between the two of you are brief, structured, and formal. like a meeting arranged between obligations rather than a father and daughter talking.

you sink further in, water up to your collarbones now.

you thought of joo-mi. maybe she would be sad if you were to leave her, but she would get over it ultimately. the two of you weren't friends, she was an employee to your father.

the bath remains still around you, only small ripples forming when you shift slightly. your thoughts don’t feel loud anymore.

they feel… flat.

there's no substance behind them, they don't feel real. you don't even notice yourself sinking further into the water, the hot steam coming from it applying warm pressure onto your face.

it reaches your jaw, then your lips, which you clamp shut. then your nose, and you stop inhaling.

you shut your eyes too when the water comes up high enough. before you know it, you're fully submerged in it, drowning peacefully.

you think it's peaceful at least, till it's not.

your lungs start to burn, hurting your insides like an uncontrolled fire. on instinct, you straighten quickly, pulling yourself more upright in the bath and lifting your face fully above the water, coughing and sputtering.

your hands press lightly against the edge of the tub for stability.

joo-mi's voice rings from outside, alarmed. "my lady, are you alright in there?"

you don't look up, eyes forward on the water before you. tears start to leak from those same eyes. "..i'm fine, thank you." your voice comes out steadier than you thought it would, to be honest.

on the other side of the door, you hear her shift closer. “are you sure?” she asks again, more carefully this time. she isn't pressuring you into answering, but she doesn't sound convinced.

"yes, i'm fine." you feel more tears streaming down your cheeks. "please leave. i want to be completely alone."

joo-mi speaks again, quieter than before. “..as you wish, my lady.” you hear her foot steps retreating down the hallway, echoing.

your eyes sting before you even fully register it, and it isn't because of the bath water entering them. you shut your eyes, trying to force it away. you stay still, hands remaining braced against the bath’s edge until your breathing begins to settle again, hiccuping softly.

there's footsteps approaching, but you don't register it, even though it sounds like they're already in the same room as you.

then, a light brush of fingers moving the hair stuck to your face. that makes you blink wide open, meeting familiar eyes.

it's heeseung, the guard from earlier, crouching before you. he wasn't supposed to or allowed to be here. you flinch back instinctively.

he pulls his fingers back too, his expression blank. but he doesn't look the same, something about his face is off.

"why are you crying, pretty girl?" he speaks, tone way more mature than when you had previously spoken to him. your throat tightens before you can answer.

heeseung tilts his head slightly, studying you when you don't answer. "is it your father again?" he reaches forward again, hand cupping the side of your face, thumb stroking your cheekbones gently.

"what..? what are you talking about?" you don't bother moving back this time, simply letting him touch you. you didn't care enough at this point. it all felt like a dream, anyway.

"you know what i'm talking about." he says your name after, whispering it softly. he drops his hand from your face. his hand lowers to his side, fingers flexing once like he’s resisting the urge to reach for you again.

"do you want me to kill him?"

the words don’t even settle properly before your face twists in disbelief.

your eyebrows furrow, and you look up at him like he's insane, which he must be for threatening to kill a nobleman.

"have you gone insane?" it comes out sharper than you meant it to, but it fits the way your chest is suddenly tight again. this time not from crying, but from the genuine shock you felt from his words.

heeseung doesn’t react the way you expect. there is no denial, or embarrassment, or any hint of backtracking his words. instead, his gaze is steady on you, face unreadable.

"no. what makes you think that?" his words make you lean back further into the bath away from him. suddenly you regret sending joo-mi off.

heeseung sighs, still crouched before you. "don't look at me like that, god." he clenches his teeth, and that's when you see the sharp fang.

he isn't normal, he isn't a human.

for a second, everything goes too still. even the water feels like it’s stopped moving around you.

heeseung notices immediately. he exhales through his nose, slower this time. his jaw loosens, but the damage is already done

your breath catches so hard it hurts. your eyes widen, and you try pull yourself out of the water. you've barely made it anywhere before your slammed onto the floor chest first with supernatural strength, upper body out of the water but your lower half is not.

a pained whimper leaves your lips, cold tile presses against your cheek, wet hair sticking to your skin. it was painful and overstimulating.

“hey.” his voice is different now, deeper. he sounds annoyed, almost. "stop moving."

you stop, stilling your body. the grip he had on your back relents, and he let's go entirely. "why are you doing this to me?" you mumble out, tired.

in the small amount of time he had you pinned down, it felt like you were about to die, and you already concluded you wouldn't have even minded at this point.

"i'm not doing this to you." his gaze drops to your body, clothes tightly clung to your frame. "you panicked. i just didn't want you to hurt yourself."

you deem it safe enough to turn, sitting up on your rear. "i meant, why are you here, doing this to me?" you use your hands to gesture to everything.

he ignores your question, leaning in again. his fingers touch the damage done to your face from him slamming you down so hard. it was cut slightly, and would definitely bruise.

"don't cry." his thumb wipes at a tear you didn't even know you had. "does it hurt?"

you shake your head, surprising yourself as to why you're so relaxed about this. heeseung shuts his eyes, almost as if he's savouring something.

"i'm sorry, i didn't want to do this so soon." you're about to question him on whatever that means, but he's on you before you can open your mouth.

he leans in, jaw angled to fit your neck. you feel his lips graze, tongue licking a spot on your neck and it tickles. the ticklish feeling is soon over after you feel something sharp sink into your neck, hard and fast.

you nearly scream, but he quickly covers your mouth with the palm of his hand. tears stream down your face from the pain, but he doesn't stop.

he continues sucking, your blood, you presume. the pretty man you wanted as a guard wasn't as innocent as you deemed he was. he was a blood-sucking vampire.

the moment his fangs pierced through your skin, a wave of euphoria is sent right through his body. his throat bobs with each swallow, the sound of him sucking echoing through the quiet room, aside from your pained gasps. the hunger that had been clawing at his insides for centuries started to subside.

heeseung could feel your heartbeat fluttering rapidly. he could hear it too.

your limbs feel weak, especially your hands. they're on his chest and shoulder, trying to push him away but it doesn't work. he grabs one of your wrists, then the other, holding them with his fingers.

your head doesn't feel any better, completely dizzy. you feel as if you're about to pass out, but he pulls away. blood leaks from his perfect lips, he licks at it before it can drip onto the floor. heeseung's hand catches the back of your head before it can fall to the floor.

"you taste so sweet," he reminisces, resisting the urge to go back for seconds. using his hand on the back of your head, he brings you closer to him - licking a stripe up on your open wounds slowly, not letting any go to waste.

"that was payback for earlier in the carriage." you can barely hold eye contact, feeling drained. heeseung notices you about to pass out, but he shakes your head, jolting you back. "no, you can't pass out on me now, baby."

you almost don't catch the pet name, not that you could bring yourself to care anyway. eyes landing on him, they focus.

"who are you..?" you gasp out weakly, slowly regaining your strength.

that small smile appears again, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. if anything, it looks like it hurts him to make it at all.

“hmm,” he exhales softly, almost disappointed, but not in you. more so in the situation.

he looks away for a second, jaw tightening as if he’s frustrated. “it's okay, you’re not supposed to remember everything at once anyway,” he adds, softer. “it doesn’t work like that.”

you have zero clue on what he could be talking about, but before you can even ask him, he sighs again.

his face looks like he's contemplating something, chewing his lip before finally settling. he leans in, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "i'll be back for you, don't worry." the way he says your name feels so intimate in the moment, despite it coming from a random man. or well, you thought he was a random man.

heeseung lowers you onto the cold tiles gently, before purposefully knocking a vase to the floor. it echoes through the bathroom, and it's safe to assume it echoes through the hallway enough to be heard from outside.

panicked footsteps come toward the bathroom, and heeseung winks at you, before disappearing in thin air. you gawk.

what the hell just happened?

you barely have anytime to think before joo-mi's voice comes from the other side of the door. "my lady! are you alright in there?"

you don't reply, hoping she'll get the hint to come in and help you, in which she does. "my apologises, my lady, but i have to prioritises your safety." she pushes open the door.

when she sees you laying on the floor, joo-mi immediately rushes over. "my lady!" her hands hover for half a second, before she carefully touches your shoulder, checking you over with precision.

“are you hurt?” she asks quickly, voice controlled but clearly shaken. “can you breathe properly?” her hands push your hair away, in attempt to keep it neat but then her eyes widen.

she sees the two holes in your neck, bite marks.

"oh my god." her hand freezes mid motion in your hair.

then she pulls back slightly, eyes locking onto your neck properly now. the bite marks are unmistakable. joo-mi's expression shifts fast, shock going to alarmed.

"my lady,” she says quickly, helping you upright gently. "don't move. i'll be back soon. you're safe now." she stands.

the door shuts behind her with a decisive click, leaving the bathroom in silence.

the awful sting and dull ache at your neck, pulsing was a simple reminder that what happened wasn’t a dream or panic or confusion.

it was actually real.

your body feels heavy in a different way now. it wasn't just weakness, but exhaustion catching up all at once. the kind that makes even sitting upright feel like effort.

you wanted to go to sleep.

joo-mi returns quickly with your estate's apothecary, as well as your father's steward.

joo-mi returns first, and behind her is the estate’s apothecary. your father’s steward follows close after, his expression immediately hardening the moment he sees the state of you.

“move aside,” the apothecary says quickly, dropping to his knees beside you without hesitation. he looks at your neck, then your face, then your pulse point.

"what happened here?" the steward asks, to which nobody responds.

“bite marks,” the apothecary says simply, already reaching for bandages and a small vial. “they are recent. not deep enough to be fatal, but she’s lost blood.”

“i found her like this,” she says, voice clearly on edge. “someone was in the room.”

the steward’s expression hardens immediately. “no one enters this wing without being cleared, and the guards would have seen them.

the apothecary gently tilts your chin, taking in the severity of your wounding.

suddenly, you feel a harsh pang on the side of your temples. it's sudden enough that your breath catches slightly before you can stop it. you hear voices around you speaking, and a pair of arms catching you before you fall.

shutting your eyes, you feel everything around you blur.

you wake up in your office cubicle, hair sprawled all over. a thin layer of sweat sticks to your neck and forehead, and when you try to move, your head throbs sharply, a dull, lingering ache right behind your temples.

what a weird dream.

the girl in it seemed so familiar though. like her face and the feeling of her presence felt so real.

and not to mention heeseung being in your dream, as some weird, freaked out vampire.

the dream version of him had felt familiar though. familiar in a way that got under your skin. even thinking of him in that concept made your chest tighten.

had you gotten way too deep into the enhypen loophole? should you go get some therapy..? maybe this was the aftermath of going to a concert, or something.

you stare at the black screen of your computer a while longer, trying to recount everything that happened.

“…what the hell,” you mutter under your breath.

it felt so real.

you exhale through your nose, letting it go as you always do when a dream doesn’t make sense to you.

your hand reaches for your neck, where the bite happened. you aren't expecting much, just skin. maybe some sweat from sleeping awkwardly at your desk.

but the moment your fingertips press beneath your jaw, pain flares sharply. you blink, sitting up properly. pulling out your phone, you open up the front camera, angling it toward your neck.

there's nothing. no bite marks, or bruising. it's just your skin.

a breath leaves your lungs shakily, somewhere between relief and embarrassment. “right,” you mutter quietly to yourself. “obviously.”

shrugging it off, you pat your hair down. you stand, stretching your arms. the weirdest part of all of this was that the headache you just had is practically gone. as if it were never there in the first place.

another thing you noticed was that it wasn't typical of you to have dreams midday. it was typically only when you were sleeping through the night.

it was pretty late at night now, and nobody else was at the office aside from a few of your co-workers. the building felt different at this hour.

picking up your items and putting them into your bag, sliding notebooks and loose items into your bag one by one. your mind keeps circling back to the dream.

a voice calling you “my lady." you pause briefly, then zip your bag shut.

no point overthinking it. you stand, shoulders rolling back as you sling the bag over one arm and glance around the office one last time.

you start walking toward the exit, your footsteps echo softly down the corridor, footsteps echoing in the near empty building.

and for a brief second, just as you pass the glass reflection of the hallway windows, it almost feels like you’re not entirely alone like you assumed.

but when you turn your head, there’s nothing there, just your reflection. was your mind playing tricks on you?

okay, you felt weird now. that weird headache was back too, but it was way worse this time.

a sharp pulse comes from behind your temples so suddenly that your vision blurs for a second. you stop walking immediately, one hand catching the edge of the hallway wall before your knees can fully give out beneath you.

that doesn't really help though, because they do give out and the next thing you know, you hit the floor once again. your knees hit first, then your shoulder catches awkwardly against the carpeted floor of the corridor hard enough to force the air from your lungs.

the pain sparks throughout your body, but it’s overtaken immediately by the pounding in your head. what was happening? this was honestly starting to annoy you, all the constant deliriousness and sudden passing out.

another pulse of pain blooms behind your eyes. the tension eases from your body, and your eyes slip shut. the last thing you register before consciousness leaves you entirely is the feeling of someone kneeling beside you.

when you wake up, you're in the infirmary. the first thing you take in is the smell. herbs. the scent is strong enough to sting your nose slightly.

you open your eyes, vision immediately being filled with the sight of a wooden ceiling. your gaze travels downwards, and you notice the heavy blankets laid out on top of you.

you push yourself up too quickly and instantly regret it when dizziness washes through your body. a hand reaches out, steadying you.

“my lady.” it's joo-mi. relief floods her face so fast. "you’re awake,” she breathes out.

she’s kneeling beside the bedding laid out in the infirmary room, hair slightly disheveled, which gives you the impression that she hasn't rested since you passed out. there are dark circles beneath her eyes now you don’t remember being there before.

joo-mi's here but even your own father isn't. typical.

"joo-mi," you sit up, slower this time. "what happened..?" your throat feels dry when you speak. "how long have i been out for?"

“you've been out for three days after you collapsed,” she says gently. “the apothecary said the blood loss and shock caused you to pass out."

your fingers reach up, ghosting over where the bite would've been. this time, your fingers come in contact with bandages, making you wince.

joo-mi notices immediately. “my lady,” she says softly, leaning closer. “be careful. the apothecary said not to touch the dressing.”

your hand instinctively flies down, "my apologies."

giving you a reassuring look, joo-mi shakes your head. "it's alright, my lady." she leans down, sitting back down on her knees. "the estate has been secured, so don't worry about anything."

"thank you, joo-mi." you say, genuinely grateful for her concern."

joo-mi’s expression softens immediately at your thanks. “it is my duty to care for you, my lady,” she says quietly. "though, if it is alright with you, may i ask what happened? do you remember your attacker, my lady?"

your eyes snap back to her, "my attacker..?" memories flash back. yeah, you were attacked by a vampire, and he put you into danger but your curiosity took over.

"that wasn’t enough to bring your memory back?"

yes, he hurt you. the bandages around your neck were proof of that.

why had he spoken to you like he already knew you? why did he sound disappointed instead of surprised when you didn’t remember him?

and the worst of all, why did part of you feel like you should?

joo-mi notices your distant expression immediately. “my lady?” she asks softly, concern creeping back into her voice.

you blink, "i don't remember." you admit, looking down at your lap. "how am

her expression softens as she watches you lower your gaze to your lap, "that's alright my lady. are you feeling hungry? your food is ready, i just have to go and get it."

when she mentions it, there is a faint emptiness in your stomach. you nod, "a little."

joo-mi rises from her knees, patting her skirt down, her expression filled with relief. "that's good. the apothecary said you should eat as soon as possible."

then she slides the door open quietly and disappears into the corridor. "i'll be back soon, my lady."

the infirmary falls silent again.

you're sat in bed, staring at the wall in front of you. your body still feels heavy from exhaustion, so you finally exhale and lean back slightly against the bedding. then the candle beside the far wall flickers, and the temperature in the room drops.

a quiet voice breaks the silence from somewhere behind you. "why didn't you tell her the truth?"

your pulse jumps instantly.

when you turn your head, heeseung's standing in the darkened corner as if he's been standing there since forever. his expression is calm as he steps closer toward you.

“how did you—”

“you think the guards can stop me?" heeseung says quietly, his gaze drifts briefly toward the bandages around your neck.

your lips form a small pout, annoyed at heeseung's ego. "fine. why are you here?"

"i wanted to see you." his honesty confuses you. had he not tried to kill you just a few days ago?

it's almost like he read your thoughts. "i know how that sounds," he says quietly, looking back at your neck. "but if I intended to kill you, you wouldn’t be alive right now."

instead, your curiosity returns. “why did you bite me?” you ask, voice flat out of annoyance. heeseung's been avoiding telling you the truth this whole time, and it's irritating.

"i thought that it would help you remember me. it did last time."

your brows knit together immediately, "last time?" you repeat, sharper now. heeseung's expression shifts, hurt washes over his features.

"..you’re not supposed to be remembering it in pieces," he says quietly. "it’s supposed to come back all at once."

he exhales softly, before speaking again.

"and I was trying to make sure you didn’t forget me again." heeseung comes closer to you, but you don't flinch away this time. you believed him when he said he would've killed you if he actually wanted to.

the space between you feels different this time, not dangerous or threatening. heeseung reaches out, cupping your cheek. his touch is surprisingly gentle this time.

'please don't snap my neck.'

that's all you're thinking of at this current moment. heeseung's face contorts into something similar of hurt, even though you never said it out loud. it's like he read your mind or something.

you know, he probably can read your mind. he's a vampire, why wouldn't you think of that? that explains it all, to be honest - how he's been able to recognise how you're feeling constantly.

vampires were controversial anyway.

half the court didn’t even believe they existed anymore, despite their being clear evidence of it such as old records sealed away in restricted archives or unexplained deaths. you always believed they were real, anyway.

your father hated them. a vampire is what took your mother away, after all. the details were never fully explained to you, anyway.

so you grew up with the idea already carved into your mind - that they were real, and they were dangerous, and they were the reason something important in your life had already been taken away. in theory, you should hate him and you should be terrified.

you should've been calling for guards the second he appeared inside this room.

your father would be horrified. the mere idea of you willingly sitting this close to a vampire would probably send him into a fit of rage severe enough for the entire estate to hear.

the thought comes bitterly this time.

because where even was he? you nearly died. your focus snaps back to heeseung, and suddenly the closeness feels too noticeable again. he drops his hand from your face, instead, he shifts and sits down beside you on the edge of the bed.

"so, you really don’t remember me." heeseung says quietly.

you frown immediately. “why do you keep saying that? that isn't giving me much insight."

"because it’s true."

your brows knit together. "i told you already, i don’t know what you’re talking about."

his gaze is unreadable for a second, but then he looks back, locking eyes with you. "in your past life,” he says quietly, "you were mine." your eyes widen.

heeseung's words settle in your stomach, it feels weird. "..yours?" you almost didn't believe it. a presumably centuries old vampire was claiming that you were his wife in your past life, how crazy did that sound? you stare at him, blankly. "you don't actually expect me to believe you, right?"

heeseung scoffs softly and straightens up from where he’d been leaning closer to you.

"i mean," he says dryly, "not really. you were a lot easier to convince last time."

his words make you pause instantly. "last time?" you repeat slowly. then your expression changes. "..how many times has this happened?"

for the first time since entering the infirmary, heeseung goes completely silent. as if he’s debating whether answering honestly is a good idea.

"heeseung, answer me."

his gaze lowers briefly before lifting back to yours again. "..three."

your eyes widen immediately. "three?!" you whisper harshly, breaking composure for the first time. "you’re telling me i've died three times?"

"you've reincarnated three times." he corrects softly.

"that isn't any better."

a faint flicker of amusement almost appears on his face before disappearing just as quickly.

"i mean, you remembered faster the second time," he murmurs, almost to himself.

you stare at him in disbelief. he continues, "but that time, you did throw a vase at my head."

your face scrunches up slightly, ignoring his dig at you. "how have i died three times? have you killed me all three?" you scoff.

heeseung is taken aback by your question, maybe even offended that you'd even assume that. "why would i kill my lover?"

before you can respond, he reaches over. his fingers settle against your forehead. you tense slightly on instinct, but all he does is flick it gently. "silly girl. you really do think the worst of me, hm?"

you feel a little disrespected that he thought he could just do that and get away with it. you were a noblewoman, after all.

something in you reacts immediately, you swat his hand away. "don’t do that." you snap, more offended than frightened now. you straighten slightly in bed, "i'm a noblewoman, you can't just touch me like that."

that earns a slight tilt of his head. "but you let me touch you back in the carriage, hm?" he says teasingly, making your face burn red.

"you still react the same way," heeseung mumbles. it feels weird that he's comparing you to yourself, yet you don't remember being her.

"how did you even manage to find out it was me?" you ask, curious about the whole reincarnation thing. heeseung looks a little surprised at your question. "does that mean you knew the whole time in the carriage? were you the one that manipulated with the time of day?" you continue spouting, making him press a finger to your lips, shutting you up effectively.

your words come faster as you think through it, the questions stacking on top of each other until you barely pause for breath.

"oh, so you noticed the time was off?" heeseung smiles, pulling his finger away.

"how could i not? and answer my other question - how did you know it was me?"

"..you always reincarnate into the same body." he begins quietly. "of course it changes with circumstances - like age, but i can always tell that it's you." heeseung sighs softly, a small smirk creeping up onto his face. "and you always smell the same."

if you were stupid, you definitely would've missed the seductive tone in his voice, making you flinch back slightly. "..that is inappropriate."

"you're my wife, why would it be?" the words land flatly, like it's the easiest thing for him to say.

a small blush covers the apple of your cheeks, making you look away in retaliation. "not in this life," you scoff.

"that can be easily arranged, baby." heeseung says, leaning over, picking your chin up between his fingers - making you look at him.

you wrap your fingers around his wrist, attempting to pull him away but he doesn't relent, making you give up pretty easily. "..there isn't a chance that i would've willingly married a pervert like you."

heeseung smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. instead of responding, he leans in, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, you freeze.

"relax, pretty." heeseung reassures gently, punctuating his words with a slow, deliberate lick along your jugular. the bandages are thin, and you can feel his fangs grazing the sensitive skin without breaking it. your face is beet red at this point, and you're sweating nervously.

he nuzzles further into the crook of your neck, body nearly on top of yours. you're tensed up, but heeseung doesn't care. after all, you're still the same woman he's loved all this time. "you'll let me have another taste, right? i've missed you. you took ages to come back this time around."

heeseung's fingers lightly push at the bandages around your neck when you don't respond, continuing to speak, "i didn't mean for last time to be so rough," he admits, pressing a soft kiss to the side of your neck. "i was just caught up in the moment."

he lifts his head from your neck, making eye contact with you. from this angle, he looked harmless - you had trusted that face once, or at least, something in you reacts like you had.

you take a deep breath, overwhelmed. "will you leave me alone if i let you..?"

"no." heeseung replies back simply, "you're mine again. why would i let you go once more?" his answer makes you scoff.

he leans back in once more, one hand slides down the side of you and rests at your hip, fingers squeezing gently.

"why would you even bother asking if you were just gonna do it anyway?" you mumble in annoyance. heeseung doesn't respond verbally. you can feel his fangs graze across your pulse again, marking exactly where it's gonna hurt. his empty hand grabs the back of your head gently, fingers tangling in your hair.

in one swift motion, he sinks his sharp teeth into the soft flesh of your neck. a soft whimper leaves your lips as you shut your eyes, trying to bear with the pain. you can almost exactly how much blood is leaving your body with each second. his fingers dig into your hip, pulling you closer to him, you shuffle forward with no surrender.

footsteps cut through the corridor outside, fast and urgent. the door slide open sharply.

"my lady!" joo-mi rushes in first, breath caught, eyes instantly locking onto you. relief flashes across her face for half a second before it tightens into panic when she sees heeseung beside you.

right behind her walks in the estate apothecary follows quickly, already holding a prepared medical kit, a guard following closely behind.

and then your father. he stops at the threshold.

for a moment, the entire room is silent. his eyes take in everything at once. you're sitting weakly in bed as heeseung drains the life essence out of you.

heeseung finally pulls away, caring enough to turn back at the audience watching the two of you. you slump back onto the pillows, exhausted.

the air in the room shifts immediately. "..step away from her," your father says, voice low.

joo-mi moves forward quickly, but the guard pulls her back by the arm protectively. the apothecary doesn’t speak, but his grip tightens around his kit in fear.

heeseung, however, doesn’t rush to defend himself, he simply looks at your father, blood dripping out of his mouth, down his chin. a small grin forms onto his face, "i was waiting for you to arrive." heeseung says quietly.

the guard shifts forward half a step, hand near his weapon. "i said to step away." your father speaks again, making heeseung stand, hands up in mock surrender.

your father's eyes narrow at the movement like it still isn’t enough. "..a vampire," he says quietly, like the word itself is offensive.

heeseung doesn't even react, just taking a slow step back from your bed. that only seems to confirm everything in your father's mind.

"you dare stand in my daughter’s room," your father continues, voice tightening with restrained rage, "after what your kind has done to this family?"

heeseung sighs as if talking to these people were a chore.

your father doesn’t look away from heeseung for even a second. "i should have you executed where you stand." he says coldly.

"you could try." heeseung says, tone full of arrogance, which seems to upset your father further. you shut your eyes, barely able to remain conscious at this point.

"you think immortality makes you untouchable?" your father asks, "you're a lowly creature."

heeseung tilts his head slightly, ignoring his insult. "no," he says simply, "but experience does."

heeseung’s eyes drift briefly toward you again, the expression on his face changes. his eyes soften slightly.

before the guard can even draw his weapon, heeseung's gone - just like that.

your father's expression hardens immediately. "search the estate," he orders sharply.

the guard bows, "yes sir." he leaves the room immediately.

joo-mi finally rushes fully to your bedside the second heeseung is gone, kneeling beside you quickly. "my lady, are you hurt?" she asks in a rush, eyes searching over you anxiously.

you barely respond, a small hum leaving your lips.

the apothecary steps forward, examining your form, "please remain still," he says carefully, though his voice sounds slightly shaken.

your father stays where he is, still staring at the empty spot heeseung disappeared from. his gaze shifts over to you, jaw clenched.

"has she been bitten?" your father asks, not bothering to come any closer.

the apothecary hesitates but nods, "yes, she has, my lord."

your father doesn't speak for a moment, but after around thirty seconds he speaks. "call the executioner, now." you barely register his words, but did he really think he had the power to kill heeseung?

both the apothecary and joo-mi snap their heads toward your father. "what? my lord, you don't mean to-"

your father finally looks at you properly now, and something about his expression makes unease crawl beneath your skin. but it isn't grief, or is it relief that you survived.

it's calculation.

"yes, i do." your father interrupts the apothecary. "she's a risk." he finishes coldly.

for a second, you genuinely think you misheard him.

joo-mi looks horrified. "my lord," she says quickly, voice shaking slightly, "the lady was attacked, she is not at fault-"

"you think I don’t know what vampires do?" your father snaps.

silence fills the room immediately afterward. the apothecary's face is as pale as a ghost's.

your father's gaze remains fixed on you now, unwavering. "if he fed from her," he says, each word clipped and controlled, "then we do not know what he could have left behind."

joo-mi instinctively moves closer to your bedside.

"my lord, respectfully, there has been no sign of corruption," the apothecary says carefully. "her pulse is stable, her condition-"

"that creature stood beside her bed like he belonged there," your father says angrily. "and she let him."

that accusation stings you more than you expected. probably because it was actually true. weakly, you find your voice. "father.."

he doesn't even look at you.

"i want her gone by tonight." he says coldly, "make it quick."

"my lord, please, she is your daughter." joo-mi pleads, but he doesn't even listen to that. he walks out of the room after that.

the apothecary gives you a sympathetic look, and joo-mi already has tears falling down her cheeks.

they continue to stream freely down her face as she rushes closer to your bedside, grabbing your hands carefully like she’s terrified you’ll disappear if she lets go. "my lady.." her voice cracks badly. "i'm sorry, i should've been here with you."

you can barely process what just happened. your father had just ordered your execution.

"joo-mi, please." the apothecary pulls her away gently. he leans closer to you. "my lady, please forgive me." your throat tightens at his words.

fear suddenly floods your chest, sharp enough to cut through the exhaustion. the apothecary’s hands tremble as he uncaps a small vial.

a vial is pressed to your lips, before you are made to drink it.

"please," the apothecary says quietly, and somehow the grief in his voice is worse than if he sounded cold. "drink."

your body feels way too weak to fight properly. the liquid pours into your mouth bitter and burning, sliding down your throat before you can try turn away.

you can hear joo-mi's sobs. the apothecary shuts his eyes, as if he himself doesn't want to watch it.

"i added something to make you sleep first," he murmurs. "you should not feel much pain."

the edges of your vision darken slowly as the medicine settles deeper into your system. one thought repeats quietly in your mind.

'heeseung said he wouldn’t let you go again.'

those are the last words you ever think in that life time before your eyes shut for the last time.

there's low humming somewhere nearby. you assume it's air conditioning.

when you wake up again, you're in an unfamiliar room. your eyes open slowly. then you sit up abruptly, and almost immediately regret it. pain throbs behind your temples hard enough to make you wince.

"fuck.." you mutter, voice hoarse. the word sounds foreign after hearing nothing but formal speech for what felt like days. that was definitely the longest dream you'd had in ages. it was so strange.

you couldn't control yourself at all. it was like a series of events all played out for you. plus, you don't think you've ever died in a dream before - assuming that's what happened in the end.

your breathing quickens slightly as you look around properly now. this room wasn't the infirmary, it was a bedroom. modern-style, and completely unfamiliar.

you glance over. a dark hoodie hangs over the back of the chair nearby. from the looks of it, it belonged to a male. you sit up now, alarmed. the worst possibilities come to mind - did you get assaulted after you passed out..?

pushing the blanket draped over you off, you notice all of your clothes are still on and intact. your hand flies immediately to your neck, no andages this time. but the skin there still feels sensitive beneath your fingertips.

you sigh in relief, standing up. you take hesitant steps toward the bedroom door, pressing an ear to it. your legs still feel slightly weak beneath you, but at least they hold your weight this time.

surprisingly, there was no noise on the other side of it.

leaning back, your hand reaches for the handle, turning softly, not wanting to make any noise. the door opens with only the faintest click.

you peek out cautiously first, it's just an empty hallway.

your gaze flicks toward the front door instinctively, which you can barely see from here. it's locked.

three separate locks, actually.

"..okay," you whisper under your breath. that's mildly concerning.

you step out further anyway, bare feet silent against the floor. you gawk, actually - staring at your bare feet, because you definitely weren't the one to remove your shoes or socks.

a voice suddenly comes from somewhere behind you, "most people wait until they fully recover before they try to escape, you know?"

you nearly jump out of your skin.

spinning around sharply, you're met with lee heeseung - except this time, his hair isn't black. it's burgundy, definitely not natural like the last time you saw him.

well, that was in a dream to be fair.

your heart races, feeling heavy.

it's him.

the heeseung plastered across billboards, album photocards shoved into your drawers, performances you’d replayed at two in the morning when you couldn’t sleep.

your actual, real-life idol. your brain feels like it short-circuits.

"did all that work?" heeseung speaks again, leaning closer. this time, he doesn't hesitate to grab you by the waist, smashing his lips against yours in a bruising kiss. his tongue forces it's way past your teeth, kissing you like he's trying to devour you whole and begging for forgiveness all at the same time.

you're dizzy, and confused. did he get the wrong girl? you kiss him back either way. one hand fists your hair gently, angling your head to deepen the kiss further. the other roams on your lower back, before finally resting on your hips.

when heeseung finally breaks away, you're both panting. he rests his forehead against yours, eyes heavy-lidded with clear desire. "i'm sorry for doing that to you." his jaw clenches in anger, like he's remembering a bad memory. "i never forgave myself after that day."

you blink, "..what?" you pant, out of breath. "doing what to me?"

heeseung tilts his head, pulling his head away but his hands are still on you, as if he's scared that if he lets go you'll disappear again. "hm." he inhales, "your dream. it was real. it was your memories in your past life."

for a second, your brain refuses to accept the sentence. real?

you stare at him, searching his face for any sign of joking. there isn't any. "what, you're actually a vampire and i've been reincarnated multiple times?" you joke, but heeseung's face is dead serious.

after a few seconds, he parts his lips, flashing his fangs.

your throat tightens at the sight.

"that doesn’t make sense," you whisper. "tell me something that happened in the dream, then."

"you let me get you off in the carriage." he says, a smug grin on his face as the words leave his mouth. your face heats up at the embarrassing memory.

"okay," you fold almost immediately. "i believe you." heeseung looks relieved at your words, but a little surprised too. to be honest though, you sort of believed in the whole red-string theory. if he's found you multiple times in each life time, then maybe it was meant to be.

that same teasing smirk you saw in your dream re-appears on his face.

"i think that's the shortest amount of time it's ever taken me to convince you." he says. "you're getting better at it."

you think about his words. you were a huge fan of him, at least in this life time, there wouldn't be a reason for you to deny him. he was the bias in your favourite group, after all. his voice interrupts your thoughts.

"oh, so you're a fan of my work?" heeseung asks coyly, leaning in closer. you lean back instinctively, face feeling hot.

"..you can't use your mind-reading thing against me." memories of your dream flash-back to you. mainly when heeseung left you to die, kind of.

heeseung opens his mouth to speak, but you cut him off. "mind you, you're basically the reason i died, and you bit me twice without my permission."

the teasing in heeseung’s face doesn’t disappear, but it softens. "i'm sorry." he wraps his arms around you, bringing you closer to him. you indulge in his touch, but then he opens his mouth again. "plus, i asked you the second time."

you scoff, pulling away. "if my memory serves me correctly, i said no and you bit me anyway."

a guilty expression washes over his face. "you're right. i'm sorry, baby." the pet-name catches you off guard. especially since it's coming from lee heeseung of all people. maybe this was a dream too, and you were going to wake up disappointed.

"it isn't a dream." heeseung says, sounding a little frustrated. his fingers graze your jaw, before grabbing your face, squishing your cheeks together firmly, but gently. "do i have to prove that to you?"

you're taken aback, eyes widening slightly. his lips are on yours before you can even fully register the meaning of his words. his kiss isn't as gentle as it was previously though. his fangs graze your bottom lip, barely, but still cutting the muscle open. his tongue swipes, licking up any blood that seeps out of the cut. heeseung's hands slide into your hair, angling your head to deepen the kiss as he presses your back against the wall.

when he finally breaks away, saliva connecting your slick lips, you're both left panting. his eyes are half lidded, looking at you with clear desire.

“let me make it up to you,” heeseung murmurs, voice low. “let me show you how sorry i am for letting you go. for how much i need you.”

one of his hand trails down your side, resting on your waist. that same cold hand of his slides underneath your shirt, making you flinch as his palms skim over the soft skin of your stomach and ribs. he tugs at the fabric, silently demanding more access to you.

this time, he actually waits for an answer.

you blink in surprise at first, but nod when you see his pleading eyes.

“fuck, you taste so good," he rasps, ducking his head to press hot, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and down your neck. “i’ve wanted this for so long..."

he nips at your pulse point, before soothing the sting with his tongue. heeseung makes no move to bite you this time, simply just sucking hickeys onto your neck as his hands explore your body.

he grabs your hand, dragging you to his living room. heeseung guides you backwards until the back of your legs hit the couch, causing you to sit down.

he follows, settling between your parted thighs. “tell me what you want, baby.” heeseung coaxes, looking up at you through his lashes. “i’ll give you anything."

this was all happening so quickly, you felt dizzy. you snap back into reality. clearing your throat, you realised you were in control here clearly, so you might as well take advantage of it.

when you don't respond, heeseung sighs - before grabbing your wrists, pinning them above your head. "i was trying to be gentle, since i haven't fucked you for centuries, but you make it so hard to resist."

heeseung leans closer, pressing his body against yours. his cock throbbed painfully in his sweat pants, slowly losing self-control with each second. you can't ignore the feeling of his hard-on eagerly touching you, still separated with the layers of both of your clothing.

"i had to wait hundreds of years for this," he whispers lowly, "for you to be under me once again."

heeseung misses your past lives together. he misses the way you used to writhe underneath him, hearing you moan his name over and over again. he learnt exactly what made you whimper, learnt exactly where your g-spot was, and how to make your legs shake. how else did you get off so quickly back in the carriage?

heeseung's hand snakes down past the band of your skirt. you were still dressed in your office uniform, after all. he can feel the heat radiating from your pussy, even your arousal was evident through the thin fabric. "i don't want to upset you again," he begins, he mumbles against your neck, "so, i'll ask this time. will you let me fuck you?"

you make eye contact with him, and all the blood in your body goes straight to your heart, pumping furiously. folding, you nod. "..okay."

heeseung grins, releasing your wrists. you're confused, but then before you can react, you're manhandled onto your stomach.

"what-" you start to speak, but heeseung cuts you off. "shh, just relax." he murmurs, hands gripping your hips firmly, thumbs digging into the soft flesh. one of his hands slides around to the front, going underneath the waistband of your skirt.

his fingers rub against your panties, thumb specifically going for your clit. heeseung lets out a soft groan when he feels how damp you are. "you're so wet for me, yet you act like you don't want this, hm?"

"can you just fuck me?" you hiss, embarrassed. you lift your hips slightly, trying to feel more than just teasing touches, but his fingers don't move.

he calls your name, voice low. "i don't appreciate you talking to me like that." you feel his fingers tangle into your hair, before tugging you backward. "i was going to be gentle with you, considering you haven't taken me in years."

heeseung's hand pushes your skirt up, making it bunch around at your waist. his palm comes down, spanking your ass. "but i guess you're still an eager slut, same as all of those years ago." a soft whimper leaves your lips.

"..why would you even say that?" you grumble, annoyed at the fact that he was not only degrading you, but also comparing you to another version of yourself again. it didn't exactly turn you off though.

his fingers hook in the waistband of your panties, practically ripping them off you. "why would i say that? because it's true." his hand comes back down. "spread your legs." his tone leaves no room for argument.

hesitantly, you spread your legs. heeseung wastes no time, his hand delivering another sharp spank, this time to your aching cunt. he groans at the sound of your startled gasp as a result of it, the noise sending a jolt of arousal straight to his dick.

a shaky sigh leaves his lips, and you can feel his presence step back. "on your knees." he says calmly, making your eyebrows knit in confusion. you look back at him, but he looks dead serious - it's kind of scary even.

you blink, but retreat, climbing off the couch, settling onto your knees. looking up, he's already looking down at you, expression impassive as he tugs at the waistband of his sweats.

your bare knees are already digging into the hardwood floor, making you shift slightly. heeseung reaches inside, freeing his dick - and making your eyes widen at the impressive size.

it was pretty though, in a weird way. his tip was a pretty pink, and a prominent vein went along the side of it.

"..you don't actually expect me to give you a blowjob, right?" you say, dumbfounded. it wasn't outrageously thick in girth, but the actual length of it looks like it could kill you maybe.

heeseung's hand reaches for the top of your scalp, he curls his fingers in your silky hair, gripping firmly but not painfully as he makes you look up at him. "does it look like i'm kidding?"

you gulp, the look on his face told you he definitely wasn't. with a slight tug of his hand, he guides you closer until the swollen head of his dick brushes against your bottom lip. "open your mouth, pretty."

the pet-name kind of eases your hesitance in a way. you part your lips, revealing the pink wetness of your tongue. heeseung applies steady pressure, slowly pushing past your lips and onto your tongue. the taste of his pre-cum floods your senses as he starts feeding you more of his dick, inch by inch.

"that's it.." heeseung groans, throwing his head back, holding you in place as he starts shallow thrusts. the hand in your hair tightens, forming a pony-tail with whatever hair is in grasp of his fingers.

you pull off, gagging when he starts to thrust. you aren't used to this, and his dick is way too big - hurting your jaw. heeseung allows you to compose yourself, reaching down with his other hand to wipe at a stray tear. "too big?" he snorts teasingly, making you glare up at him.

"shut up." you hiss, wrapping your fingers around his shaft again, taking him back into your mouth. heeseung hums approvingly at that.

"that's better.." he praises, moving the hair out of your face. he pants softly, starting to move his hips forward into your mouth. each thrust pushes him further past your stretched lips, the thick head of his dick nudging the back of your throat.

one of his hands remains tangled in your hair, setting the pace, while the other one traces along your jawline gently. that same hand drops lower, grazing over your neck as he feels it bulge slightly around his dick. drool escapes the corners of your mouth, coating your chin and dripping down onto your heaving chest, staining your blouse.

"you're taking me so well." heeseung whimpers softly, hand on your neck moving to your cheek as he strokes it gently. "guess your body still knows who it belongs to even after all this time."

you feel yourself getting light-headed from the lack of oxygen, and so you pull off. heeseung hesitantly lets you, watching the string of saliva that connects your lips to the swollen head of his cock.

"was that too much for you, baby?" heeseung strokes your hair gently, but his tone is nothing but condescending. ironic because the entire time he was trying not to cum as soon as you wrapped your lips around his tip.

his hand reaches back down underneath your skirt as you willingly part your legs for him. heeseung's fingers finding your most intimate area, spreading your slick folds open. "you're even wetter than before," he observes, almost snickering. "did sucking my dick really excite you that much?"

without waiting for a response, he pushes two thick fingers knuckle-deep into your sopping heat, pumping steadily as he stretches you open for him. you gasp, hands immediately gripping onto his forearm in an attempt to stabilise yourself. that makes him grin, leaning in to whisper into your ear. "i'm the only one who can make you feel like this, right?"

you weren't a virgin in this timeline, but he didn't need to know that. you nod at his words, "...yeah, of course." his eyebrows furrow, and at that you remember he can read minds. shit.

heeseung's thumb finds your clit, rubbing firm circles which coaxes more of your essence to coat his digits. his other hand has a bruising grip on your hip. heeseung's gaze is locked onto your face, taking in every micro-expression and breathy whimper that leaves your lips. "maybe i wasn't your first, but you'd be stupid to think i'd let someone else touch you ever again."

the pressure in your stomach increases, but he pulls his fingers out before you can even consider cumming. you open your mouth in protest, but he stuffs his fingers in, silencing you effectively.

he pulls his fingers out of your mouth. heeseung pulls you up and bends you back over the couch, stomach flat against it as he tugs your hips up with his hands. "you're so annoying," you whine, turning your head back to glare at him. "i was going to cum."

"you're about to cum soon, stop being impatient. you're not the one who's waited years." he snaps back, annoyed. heeseung's hand forces your head down into the pillows of the cushion, and that's when you feel his swollen tip press against your wet folds.

heeseung pushes in without any warning, bottoming out immediately, making you jolt as you moan into the pillows. your cunt immediately tries to push out the large intrusion by fluttering dramatically around his length as heeseung stills, letting you adjust.

he pulls your head up by your hair, letting you breathe. it kind of hurts in your lower region, making you exhale. "am i bleeding..?" you whimper out, internally hoping he'll say no.

"a bit, yeah." his fingers reach to your inner thigh, scooping up what you presume to be the blood, and you can hear him lick his fingers - ew. heeseung pushes your head back into the pillows, before withdrawing his hips, only to slam back harder. you choke.

heeseung says something to you, but you can barely register his words with his dick so far in you that you can basically feel it in your throat. he leans forward, pulling you up so your back is against his chest, his hand snaking around to press against the lower part of your tummy.

"nothing to say?" he whispers into your ear, moving his hips up again in a particularly hard thrust, making a loud cry leave your swollen lips. his hand drops further down, cupping your cunt as he rubs your clit.

you can barely stand, resting the back of your head against his shoulder. "..what? i-i didn't hear you." you mumble, tears welling up into your eyes.

heeseung leans forward, kissing the side of your neck. his fangs graze the skin again, but you can't lean away due to his arm on your collarbone keeping you pressed against him. "i said, you wouldn't mind if i take a sip now, right?"

you turn your head in rejection, unknowingly realising that it just gives him easier access to your neck. in turn heeseung takes that opportunity., sinking his fangs into your neck. he doesn't stop moving his dick in and out of you either.

you can't form thoughts as your vision starts to blur, unable to stop choked moans and whimpers from leaving your throat. it just feels way too good, even if this is his way of punishing you - using you like a personal fleshlight of sorts.

heeseung continues sucking on your neck, hand back on your lower stomach, pressing down as he feels himself in there. he pulls away, panting softly in your ear. "are you going to cum soon, pretty?"

you nod, completely putting all of your weight onto him and the couch as you can barely keep yourself up right. heeseung lets you lean onto him, increasing the fervour of his thrusts. your eyes roll into the back of your head as you feel him lick onto the wound he made on your neck.

"..t-that tickles, stop." you mumble out, gummy walls clenching down onto his cock at the feeling of him licking you.

heeseung pushes you back onto your stomach, following you as he pushes his weight onto you. he moves your hair from the side of your neck, kissing your jaw. "but baby, you just tightened up the second i did that." the pace of his thrusts increase, hips meeting against your ass each time. heeseung sucks a hickey onto your neck, licking over it once he deems it as perfect.

you feel lightheaded at this point, and you're on the brink of cumming. heeseung's hand wraps around your throat, applying light pressure there. his mouth moves down, biting your shoulder now. that's your breaking point, making you cum over his cock. "you taste even better like this.." he whines softly into your ear, pulling away from your shoulder.

your thighs shake underneath him, sobbing as you shut your eyes completely. heeseung doesn't stop though, whimpering softly into your ear as he re-doubles his efforts, trying to make himself cum.

"f-fuck," he whines, burying his face into the crook of your neck. every flutter of your tight walls contracting around him made his eyes roll back. your body twitches as heeseung continues, chasing his own release. you could basically feel every vein and ridge of his dick now, feeling extra sensitive because you just came.

heeseung's cock twitched inside you, before you feel him empty himself deep inside of you. he fills you completely, a loud moan leaving his lips at the same time, "i love you...you're mine." he pants out, mumbling against your neck, "you're mine only, nobody else gets to have you but me."

you honestly feel like you're about to pass out, slumping back into the couch. the combination of his rough treatment plus the blood sucking was enough to make you want to sleep. heeseung notices this.

he kisses the side of your cheek, "one more time?" the glare you shoot him afterwards gives him your answer, but heeseung doesn't relent, flipping you onto your back. "don't look at me like that. i'm just excited to finally have you back."

"hey, heeseung.." you call out tiredly, looking up at him. "why haven't you just turned me into a vampire already?" maybe it wasn't possible? who knows.

heeseung stares down at you, his pupils becoming bigger at your words. "..you never wanted me to turn you into one, even though i wanted to." he mumbles quietly, making your eyes widen.

before you can even process it properly, heeseung speaks again, too fast this time, like the words slipped out before he could stop them.

"..do you want me to?"

you blink.

the question hangs between you immediately. you? a vampire? the thought feels strange, almost unreal. you imagine the fangs, the immortality, oh and the blood. but somehow, your brain circles back to heeseung.

to staying beside him. to not dying while he remains exactly the same, waiting for your next return. "..i'm okay with it," you admit slowly. "if you want to, of course."

heeseung stares at you. his hand lifts instinctively, fingertips brushing lightly beneath your jaw before stopping himself halfway.

"you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that."

this literally took me ages and i literally was just gonna keep this in the drafts bc i couldn't stick w a consistent plot line so if there are any loopholes try ur best to ignore them 😭😭 i tried my best to proofread and make sure there wasn't any tho 🫶🫶

i wanted to have a try but im lowkey never writing smut again bc that shit was WAY too hard like there is just sm going on omfg, lowkey the reason this even took so long to write bc i just kept procrastinating it lol😭🤦‍♀️

🤏 was this close to just deactivating during and after writing the smut..

[simjakedly]

mark me yours - l.hs (part 3)

— a spin-off from love me (k)not

main masterlist | part 1 | part 2

synopsis. heeseung finally knows the taste of betrayal.

pairing. alpha!heeseung x omega!female reader

genre(s). omegaverse, fated mates, strangers-to-lovers, fluff, angst, smut

warnings. MDNI (there'll be a warning cut), heavy angst, alpha!jay being our target again i'm so sorry this is the last time i promise!, tw: nosebleed, softdom!heeseung because i love soft doms, p in v, fingering, missionary AND doggy because why not, unprotected sex (haih pls just don't), loss of virginity, nipple sucking, body worshipping, BITING, MARKING, BITE-MARK, heeseung cries a lot good lord but he deserves it lowkey, LIKE BONNIE AND CLYDE MAKIN' LOVEEE (insert hoonwon's voice), yes they make love your honour, and yes it's a happy ending your honour, not beta read we die like injang, tumblr pls stop with your 1000 blocks limit im gna come at you!!! lmk if i missed anything :>

word count. 15,175 words

note. i'm sorryyyyyyy for the delay sjshidshk here's the last part!!! thank you for showing this series your love and support <3

It’s finally the day of the competition.

Yet you haven’t heard from Heeseung for days.

You try not to make it obvious, nor to show how much you care. Not when Jungwon wouldn’t say anything either.

The younger alpha has been replacing Heeseung instead, walking you home while chatting about anything but the elephant in the room.  

Or, in your case, the wolf in your universe.

There’s a lump of disappointment lodging in your chest whenever you think about it. You think that Heeseung has finally given up on trying to make up. You think that you’ve been too indifferent and unintentionally have pushed him away further than the two of you have ever been.

You don’t know why the thought makes you feel bitter.

“Our pitching is next,” Jungwon whispers next to you, snapping you out of your thoughts. You watch the group before you begin their pitching presentation.

In the first stage, the pitching was done in separate rooms to make it less time-consuming. But your group has advanced to the final stage, and now you have to convince five professionals from the business industry why your business idea is better than three other groups in front of hundreds of audience.

The image makes your blazer suddenly feel too tight around your ribs. You shift, trying not to think about the eyes watching every movement of the participants sitting on the far end of the stage.

Where the hell did this many people come from, anyway? You never see this crowd in lecture halls!

“Y/N. You’re nervous.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“Well, you don’t really smell like you’re relaxed right now.”

You purse your lips. Jungwon is right, of course, except you actually feel like your nerves are on the edge of bursting.

You’re not exactly good with stage fright. Especially in front of all these people whose names sound way too dramatic, like they don’t belong to the normal citizens like you. Their eyes are too penetrative, like they’re already figuring out every single doubt and nerves in your body, ready to tackle with impossible-to-answer questions.

You move in your seat again, trying to find comfort. But the seat is too hard for your tailbone. Beside you, Jungwon leans closer, speaking over the speaker blasting by your ears.

“Are you going to Jake hyung’s after party tonight?”

“His after party?” your eyebrows shoot up. Then you remember the invitation and something inside you sinks.

“Oh. Right. It’s his birthday today, right?”

And Heeseung must be there, you think bitterly, unaware of the withering daisies now wafting from your neck. They’re close friends, after all.

You don’t understand why, or you maybe actually do, but the lump in your chest only gets bigger. Really, you shouldn’t expect much by a man. They’ll always prioritise their homeboys over you in every way, your brain adds to the fuel.

Jungwon chuckles when he sees your frown, showing off his perfect dimples that could disarm any opponent. 

Something clicks in your mind. Yeap. That’s right. You just need to force Jungwon to smile in front of the judges and surely—

“Relax, Heeseung hyung’s daisy. Look to your right.”

You don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of his name finally being mentioned by the younger alpha, or the flutter in your chest at being called his daisy—but your head whips so fast in that direction, heart ramming behind your ribs.

Seated at the front row, standing out too much due to his handsome features and not-so-subtle hair colour, is Lee Heeseung. From where you sit, you can’t really make out his expression. 

But the alpha is already staring at you, burgundy hair swept back neatly to expose his forehead. A small curve of his lips quirks up like he’s been expecting you to notice him.

You sit dumbly as he gives you a tiny wave, not sure what to do now that the alpha is actually here. 

Here. To watch your group presentation and not there: To celebrate Jake’s birthday at his party.

For the first time in weeks, you feel your omega stirs and you almost choke.

“It’s our turn!” 

You inhale sharply, snapping your eyes back to the centre of the stage. The previous group is already receiving applause and walking towards the other end of the stage to join the audience. 

Okay. It’s actually your turn.

You feel sick to your stomach. You almost miss it when Jungwon nudges at you to stand, smoothing down his own blazer as he shoots you a dimpled smile. On the way to the centre of the stage, your mind is nothing more than a whirlwind of overthinking.

Trailing after Jungwon in your heels is nerve-wracking because what if you trip?

Bowing down to greet the judges and audience is scary because what if you lose your balance?

Staring back at the audience is distressing because what if they silently judge your makeup?

But all thoughts fly out the window when you meet eyes with Heeseung again.

As if the noise in your head suddenly vanishes, you can feel your frantic mind quieting down and your breathing, previously quite erratic, steadies without so much effort. 

And it only happens when Heeseung holds your gaze, trusting and comforting all at the same time.

It’s like the stage was a tidal wave and Heeseung was the shore that keeps you safe.

Your omega stirs again.

Before you know it, Jungwon is already passing the mic to you. You take in a shaky breath, sweaty palms almost slippery, and imagine that every cell in your brain is filing up your speech in a neat line.

Despite your worries, everything goes well.

Your presentation goes on without a hitch and it ends exactly the way your best-scenario imagination does. You even manage to answer one out of five questions from the panel, and you can’t help the pride swelling in your chest when your group is announced as the first runner-up of the competition.

It’s a national-level competition, so being in the top three is already satisfactory for you and your group members, who were lowballing to only bring home participation certificates.

“First runner up is good enough! Congrats!” you squeal, almost hugging Jungwon in your excitement. The alpha dodges you as if you were a bullet, eyes darting to somewhere behind your head.

“Hey. You dodged my hug,” you huff.

“I have no intention to challenge a dominant alpha,” Jungwon gives you a teasing smile and wiggles his eyebrows. You raise yours, and before you can ask what he means by that, Jungwon is already raising his hand and waving at someone.  

“Heeseung hyung! Your daisy is here!”

Your daisy. Heeseung hyung’s daisy. 

His daisy.

Crimson red blooms across your cheeks, and your heart decides to skip a few beats you think it’s going to fall to the floor from how fast it's pounding.

Jungwon is fast to grab your shoulders and turn you around, like a proud parent introducing their child to their conglomerate friends. Your protest dies in your throat once your eyes settle on Heeseung’s approaching figure.

He’s donning a white dress shirt with slightly rolled-up sleeves, exposing his smooth forearms and athin silver bracelet. A dark gray vest, tailored and buttoned neatly hugs his frame snugly, showing off his narrow waist. There’s a big bouquet of pink roses held close to his chest, handled delicately like it’s something sacred.

His eyes, round and soft around the edges, are already trained on you. A wide smile curves up his lips, charming and disarming you’re sure the omegas around you are stealing glances.

Inside, your omega stirs again.

“Hi, Y/N.” He holds out the bouquet to you, his smiling turning shy. “For you.”

You take it slowly, admiring the beautiful petals. There are tiny daisies filling up the spaces between the roses and you feel something tug at your heartstring.

 “Thank you, Heeseung. How’ve you been?”

Closer, only now do you notice the lack of colour in his face. His cheeks are losing its radiant flush, and his lips are void of its usual pinkish hue. There’s a slight delay before he responds and his smile comes slower than usual.

Something feels off. Not obvious enough to name, but it’s enough to make your chest tighten.

As if noticing your stare, Heeseung tries to cover his face. He raises his hand and pretends to cough.

“I was quite sick,” he says after a moment, trying to sound casual. He gives you a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry that I didn’t show up without any updates.”

“It’s okay,” you softly say. You don’t know if it’s truly okay, though, because now your heart thinks that there’s something wrong. 

Is he hiding something from you?

“I came to see you,” he says, like it’s the only place he’s ever meant to be. “I didn’t want to miss it. Congratulations, Y/N.”

He really came for you. Not for Jungwon or anyone. Not to Jake or anyone. But for you.

You can faintly hear your omega murmuring something, but your racing heart is louder than any noise in your head.

You’re about to reply when Jungwon inserts himself into the conversation, announcing his presence like a royal entering a ball.

“Thank you, hyung! I know we were great.” Jungwon says way too loudly, forcing Heeseung to shake hands with him. You let out a laugh while Heeseung only rolls his eyes.

“You too, Jungwon.”

“Anyway, why don’t we take a picture?” Jungwon, ever the trusted wingman, wiggles an eyebrow at Heeseung, hoping that you won’t notice. You actually do, but for some reason, you don’t say anything against it.

Heeseung studies your face. “Can I take a picture with you, Y/N?”

You hesitate for a second, heat sweeping across your cheeks before you nod. “Sure.”

Jungwon instantly pushes you in Heeseung’s direction. The dominant alpha, not expecting his accomplice to take such a bold move, catches you by the elbows instinctively. His fast reflexes are proving to be useful in the situation.

“Okay, look at the camera. Y/N, don’t be so stiff!”

Jungwon, that menace. One of these days you’re gonna beat his ass for sure.

“Heeseung hyung, is that a GDP gap? Get closer!”

“I’m sorry about him,” Heeseung whispers into your ears and chuckles breathily. Something kicks in your heart. “He’s a bit annoying, right?”

You just cannot hold your tongue. “He is, and I had to stick around with him when you weren’t around,” you catch yourself saying and silently curse yourself. Beside you, Heeseung stills for a second.

Why are you already whining to him? Fuck these stupid feelings, man. You’re still mad at him!

But Heeseung doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, his grin only gets wider. He leans down further, hot breath brushing against the shell of your ears.

“I’ll keep trying,” he murmurs, edged with his usual determination. “Even if you don’t let me.”

You try not to notice that Jungwon has been silently snapping the candid moments. You also try to ignore the way your heart beats like a war drum. You try not to think too much about the manly pheromones coming from Heeseung—the cinnamon and sea salt that are awakening old memories, and the way his taller shoulder brushes yours.

“On three!” Jungwon interrupts, a boyish smirk on his face. You quickly clear your throat and smile at the camera.

“Two!”

Heeseung’s left shoulder bumps into you softly from behind, angling his body to face you. His hand hovers a safe distance from the back of your waist, not touching you even by accident like he’s afraid even that would be too much.

“One!”

As the flash goes off and you hold the bouquet dearly to your chest, you quietly wonder when it stopped hurting so much.

The next morning, you’re awakened by the sound of Yujin squealing and thumping on your door.

“Y/N! Get your fucking ass out now!”

The urgency in her voice makes you jolt awake and scramble to your feet. With sleepiness still clinging to your lashes, you stumble to the door, mentally preparing yourself to punch a robber.

“Yujin! What is it?!” you ask, voice hoarse but still laced with panic.

“Did you already make up with Heeseung?!”

You pause and stand there dumbly, hazy mind slowly clearing up at her sudden interrogation. With the biggest question mark on your face, you blurt out, “Huh?”

“Heeseung posted you on his Instagram!”

“Huh?”

“Y/N! He never posted girls on his account!” Yujin screams in your face, looking more excited than ever. “Fucking hell, open your damn phone!”

Yujin rushes into your room, flipping your pillows where she knows you always keep your phone despite the electromagnet radiation that she warns you about. She unlocks the screen by shoving it into your bleary face and hits the pink-purple-orange gradient icon quickly.

“There!”

You blink the blurriness away from your eyes, adjusting to the bright screen in your face. Yujin waits impatiently, gauging your reaction with wide eyes.

On the screen is the picture you took last night. You haven’t checked the result yet because you were quickly ushered away to take group pictures with other participants after and by the time you reached home, you were out the moment your head hit the pillow.

But now, you realise, the picture turns out really well. 

Heeseung stands taller than you, a close-lipped smile spreading wide across his face as he stood proud and protective beside you. You have a similar smile mirroring his, leaned into him in a way that hinted at familiarity and domesticity. The pop of colour from the roses makes the picture look more alive, and the colour filter he used makes it look almost nostalgic.

An ancient feeling, like a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled, blooms in your chest. You stare at the picture longer than intended, then read the caption he typed in cursive.

‘smarty daisy did it again.’

You re-read it once. Then twice. The soft declaration, the hints on intimacy makes your omega purr in delight. Nobody has ever called you daisy, especially their daisy, but here Heeseung is: calling you his daisy like he’s just found a new favourite flower.

“Yujin…”

To your surprise, Yujin replies with a sniffle. When you look up, her eyes are already glossed over.

“Yujin? Why are you…”

“I’m sorry I got emotional,” Yujin cuts in, laughing it off like a funny joke with a shaky voice. 

“It’s just—I never met true mates. And while the circumstances between you two weren’t great, I’m just so glad  that you have an alpha willing to amend his mistakes.”

You can already feel your eyes watering.

“Yujin…”

Yujin takes your hands in her hold and urges you to sit on the mattress with her. It’s silent for a moment, and you take the chance to stare at the picture again.

It’s an Instagram story, but there is already a long line of comments. You read through each one of them, curiosity getting the best of you.

narin.kim no fucking way

jakesimisimiya hey so u ditched me ON MY BDAY

jeyipark @jakesimisimiya talk to me i am his lawyer

just.jungwon cute cute cuteeeee wonder who took the pic tho

evanlee @just.jungwon she is cute

nishimurariki welcome to the simp club

sunooyaa it’s time to ask me if my back hurts from carrying this ship

Every comment makes your breath feel shorter. You try hard to bite back a smile and ignore the small flutter in your chest, not noticing the way Yujin observes everything. When she eventually speaks, her voice has dropped to a serious tone.

“Have you forgiven him?”

You tear your eyes away from your phone, taking a moment to reply. Then, with a shake of your head, you reply, “No. Not yet, I think.”

It’s not a whole lie. While the human part of you has already forgiven him, your omega is still giving you radio silence. But for now, you decide to keep it to yourself first—the way your omega has been more responsive these days, albeit slowly and slightly.

“That’s good,” Yujin nods. “Forgiveness should come from your heart. You shouldn’t force it just because you feel bad for him.”

The words land like a gentle reminder tucking you in a warm blanket. You don’t say anything and look back at the screen, thumb hovering over the reply box. The gears of your mind start turning, looking for a polite way to thank the alpha.

Then, softly, Yujin continues, making your head spin with the weight of her words for the rest of the day.

“But when it’s really time to forgive him, I hope you don’t run away from it too.”

You end up reposting Heeseung’s story and hide.

The attention is quite heavy for you, to be honest. You’ve never been the centre of that many eyes, not since in the backyard of Jake’s frat house.

You never dare ask Heeseung as well. A reply of, ‘Thank you Heeseung’ is all you can manage, keeping the rest of the sentence to yourself.

‘Why did you post only me?’

You’re not blind. You see the chaos he created from that single post. The notorious alpha who doesn’t do relationships, who always prioritises his friends over girls is suddenly skipping Jake’s birthday to see a boring competition and posting a picture with the omega he came for. You become a hot sensation overnight—people just can’t stop talking about it.

Because of that, thoughts about him become even more frequent and inevitably, your heart starts to melt at how persistent he is.

It’s been more than a month yet Heeseung doesn’t falter. He keeps choosing you in routine. He keeps choosing you in public.

And, apparently, he chooses you in private, too.

You don’t mean to overhear the conversation, really. You’re just leaving the restroom during practice break, about to have lunch with Rei when you see two shadows disappearing around the corner. Your heart almost stops.

Seeing Heeseung and Narin together brings back old wounds that almost makes you lose your mind. Your quiet omega has been tugging you to follow, to see what the alpha is doing with the omega that your wolf has marked with a red ink on her forehead.

So you follow them quietly, covering your scent gland with a hand in hope to hide your presence. With your back to the wall, you hold your breath as you hear the conversation between the two of them.

“—on, Heeseung. You left things unfinished that night.” Narin’s voice is the one you hear first, frustration spilling into her tone.

“I don’t intend to finish it,” Heeseung replies, always sounding calm and composed. It painfully reminds you of the talk you had with him after the tournament.

“Why? You always sleep with different people. Why did I never get a chance?” Narin scoffs, disbelieving. “And they've been saying that you’ve stopped!”

“I have. I don’t do that anymore.”

“Is it because of Y/N?”

Your ear perks up. Damn bro, they’re now talking about you. It slips from your mind sometimes, about how childish Narin can be. Something akin to anticipation builds up in your chest, waiting for Heeseung’s reply.

“Yes,” he answers, firm and fast. “I’m pursuing her right now. I hope that’s clear.”

There is silence from Narin, but the spike in her scent sours the atmosphere almost instantly. While you, well, you try not to feel so giddy about it.

“Are you stupid? Her? Didn’t she cut the—”

“What happened between Y/N and I is a private matter of our hearts. It’s not your business,” Heeseung cuts in sharply with a bite to his voice. Your omega shifts inside you. “Are you done? Because I’m leaving.”

Panic ensues in your system at the thought of being caught eavesdropping. Your mind scrambles for escape, so without thinking you almost sprint to the vending machine at the end of the hallway and pretend to buy a drink.

Acting like you don’t notice them while catching your breath proves to be the hardest sport for you yet. You stare blankly at the vending machine, unaware of the grape juice sitting right under your nose and fully aware of the manly pheromones approaching you.

Thank Goddess that he smells like himself only. You think you’re going to break down if Narin’s scent clings onto him.

“Are you thinking of a different drink?” Heeseung murmurs softly, standing beside you and mimicking you staring at the machine.

You steal a glance at him, feeling the movement of your wolf becoming more responsive and bold. Behind your ribs, your heart is galloping like a horse.

“No. I still like grape juice.”

“Mhm, okay,” Heeseung fishes out his wallet and makes the purchase like it’s routine. The impact of the can dropping can’t even beat the loud pulse racing in your ears. Heeseung opens the can with one hand.

“For you.”

“Thank you.”

You take it, fingers brushing his. You try not to overthink the sparks the touch sends to your system and quietly drink, feeling his eyes boring into the side of your face.

“Y/N, I have something to tell you,” he begins, this time sounding slightly nervous. “Narin and I talked just now.”

Oh. Okay. He’s actually coming clean about it.

You didn’t expect that at all.

You nod, still not looking at him. Heeseung takes a second to himself, like he’s plotting something, then before you know it, he’s already moving to stand in front of you, bending his body to be on your eye-level. 

You almost choke and take a step back.

“Heeseung?”

“I need you to look into my eyes,” he licks his lips, holding your eyes with his intense gaze. “Because I need you to know that you’re the only omega I like and I’m pursuing.”

The sincerity in his voice is almost too much, but you find savouring it instead.

“And I made that clear to her just now.”

Is he trying to reassure you?

You search his face, and all you can see in those dark eyes is utter devotion and determination.

It makes your chest tighten.

“I’m serious, Y/N. I will keep trying no matter what.”

You can only hum and nod, failing to find your voice.

“Okay.”

Heeseung shoots you with a small grin and straightens up. He glances at his smartwatch and frowns.

“I have to skip tonight’s practice. There’s a meeting about the upcoming music festival,” he says, looking at you with furrowed eyebrows. “I’ll find someone to walk you home.”

“It’s okay. I’ll use the Safe Night Walk service,” you politely decline, already sick of hearing Jungwon talking about his lifelong crush on some noona that won’t see him as a man every time he walks you home.

Seriously, you don’t blame that omega. Jungwon is really cute, it’s hard to see him more than a kitty cat.

Heeseung’s face, on the other hand, twists into confusion before a look of understanding crosses his face. 

Safe Night Walk is a service provided by the omega activist club of your university. The purpose is pretty self-explanatory, where any omega who’d like to go home at night can request an alpha to keep them safe. It’s pretty well-known for how rigid the alpha selection process is, seeing as the new president of the club is the fiercest to hold the title yet, making the service the most credible it has ever been.

Which is probably why Heeseung agrees to it too easily.

“Oh, right. Jay also tried for the selection, but he never told me if he passed or not,” Heeseung pauses, pondering about something.

“Sunghoon also signed up for it and we know each other. Do you want me to contact him?”

You wave a hand. “It’s fine. I’ll get someone when it’s time to go home.”

It’s quite hard to convince the alpha that you don’t need his friend’s service, but Heeseung eventually relents. He gives you a fond smile, walking backwards and not breaking eye contact.

“Call me if no alpha is available.”

“Okay.”

“I will run to you in ten minutes. No—five minutes.”

Your heart stutters, but your face remains neutral. “As if you can do that.”

Heeseung grins. The easy affection etched in his features is almost too scary for you to bear.

“For you, I will.”

The shared apartment is quiet save for the track playing from his producer room. Heeseung lies down on his couch, staring at the ceiling in silence. His lyrics notebook sits idly on the coffee table, open and now forgotten. Outside, the rain pouring down does nothing to wash down his guilt.

He had lied to you.

He just came back from a doctor appointment, not a meeting about any festival. A checkup meant to follow up with his condition after the night he collapsed in Jay’s arms.

‘You only have two weeks to win the omega back. If nothing succeeds, you must cut the one-sided bond, Heeseung-ssi.”

Heeseung only wants to do one thing and cutting the bond is not an option. 

It’s better for him to die being yours than to live being nothing to you.

“I’m sorry,” he quietly mutters to the empty space.

“I ran away again,” he swallows thickly. “I’m still the old Heeseung in some ways. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

The pitter-patter of the rain is the only sound he receives back, thickening the guilt spilling over his chest.

He grazes the scent gland with the tip of his finger. It pulses slowly, faintly, like a calm before a storm. A storm that is just turning the key and entering the door.

“I’m home,” Jay announces, toeing off his shoes. There are tiny droplets of rain in his hoodie, but that’s not what catches Heeseung’s attention.

It’s the scent that lingers in his citrusy pheromones.

Soft daisies and sweet honey—unmistakingly you.

Jay smells like you.

Something churns violently in his stomach. 

Every silent breakdown, every secret insecurity of his best friend comes crashing down on him. His blood roars in his ears that Heeseung believes he’s seeing red.

In that one single sniff that he picks up with his sensitive nose, Heeseung almost thinks that the floor holding his weight is crumbling down. 

He springs up to sit, eyes narrowing down in his friend’s direction. His alpha is already growling, ready to take the other alpha down in a fight.

Jay, still oblivious to the storm building inside the house, throws Heeseung a smile. 

“Hee, just now—”

“Park Jongseong,” Heeseung starts slowly, trying to hide the hurt in his voice as he stands and approaches him slowly. “Why the fuck do you smell like her?”

Jay’s expression turns into confusion. He sniffs at the collar of his hoodie and—oh.

Oh.

Heeseung can’t stand the look of realisation on his face. It’s like being left out of something that should be his, something that only he should know and have. His chest twists sharply and before he can stop himself, he’s already shoving Jay into the wall, fists trembling with restraint.

“Jay,” he breathes out, his voice treading the edges of fear and heartbreak. “Please tell me why the fuck am I smelling Y/N on your right now.”

Despite his anger, Heeseung’s voice sounds way too broken. Anxiety cracks through his demeanour, and for a moment, Heeseung’s not sure if he wants to hear Jay’s answer. There is a thin veil of tears glossing over his eyes and his scent gland is throbbing violently, shooting pain all over his body.

It’s almost like he was back in the backyard, watching you scream in pain as you smelled another woman on him. Heeseung sobs, hating himself even more than he ever did.

Was this how you felt that night?

Jay claws at the hands around his collar, almost gasping for air.

“Heeseung—it’s not what you think—”

“Then tell me! Fuck!” he shouts, eyes pleading Jay desperately to prove him wrong.

The longer he smells the blend of your scent with Jay’s pheromones, the dizzier his head gets. His frantic heart is buzzing with the thoughts of being replaced, of losing yet another chance to make things right, of losing you.

His self-esteem, already in pieces since that tragic night, is filled with doubt and uncertainty to the brim.

Not you, please. Heeseung quietly prays. Please not you, Jay.

“I walked her home!” Jay yells, face red from how tight Heeseung’s gripping his collar. His wolf whines at the unexpected aggression from his closest alpha, confused and wounded from being treated like an enemy. “She used the Safe Night Walk service and I was one of the alphas on duty.”

Hearing that, Heeseung’s grip loosens a fraction, trying desperately to believe his friend.

“It’s raining so I lent her my hoodie.” Jay quietly mutters, losing the previous edge. There’s a look of hurt on his face now that he fails to mask. He searches Heeseung’s tearful face, dread growing in his chest.

Despite the aggression, Jay cannot find it in him to be upset when all he can see in his friend is fear and hurt.

“Please, Heeseung. I will never betray you like that.”

Heeseung bites his lips until it bleeds and finally lets go. Jay almost drops down to the floor, clawing at his throat for relief. His neck has turned deep red, bruised from Heeseung’s grip. 

Heeseung is strong even when he never admits it, the dominant traits in him giving him the advantage when his wolf is riled up. Jay is lucky that Heeseung didn’t use his commanding voice—he would’ve been helpless if it happened.

But deep down, Jay knows that Heeseung would never do that to him. They’re best friends, after all.

The air is thick and heavy with a dominant alpha’s wrath. Heeseung doesn’t even realise how sharp his scent has turned until he finds himself struggling to breathe.

There’s a ringing silence between the two alphas. Jay is still on the floor, chest heaving rapidly as he tries to process. Heeseung, on the other hand, is on the verge of breaking apart.

Quietly, the alpha mutters an apology.

“I’m sorry.”

Heeseung leaves the house in a storm of cinnamon and tearful bergamot, slamming the door so hard the frame rattles.

He’s never felt closer to death than tonight.

You take your time with your skincare. Or rather, you’re actually zoning out while tapping toner into your skin.

Your conversation with Jay still lingers in the back of your mind.

“Thank you for giving him a chance, Y/N. I was scared that you wouldn’t.”

What would happen if you didn’t?

You sigh and stare into the mirror. You’re freshly out of the shower and in your comfiest pajamas, yet a hint of Jay’s pheromones is still there. It seems that the rain doesn’t wash it away; it only makes it stick longer.

Inside, your omega shifts uncomfortably, unsettled by the scent of the foreign alpha. You roll your eyes.

“I know you hate it, but it can’t be helped when we haven’t forgiven him yet.” You grunt, capping your bottled product. “I mean, I already did, but since you’re like, my other half, I can’t just—”

Forgiven.

The toner slips from your hand and clatters on the floor. 

Your lungs freeze. 

“...What?”

I want to forgive him.

Slowly, a habit that you’re already accustomed to since that night, you place a hand on your chest. Your omega’s presence is more tangible now, like she’s finally arose from her deep slumber.

And she’s finally talking to you.

“Are you sure?” you start slowly, not wanting to offend the fragile soul. “We can take more time, you don’t have to feel rushed—”

I want my alpha, Y/N. I forgive him and I hope you do, too.

Every word fails you in that moment. You stand alone in your room, with only your wolf as your lifelong companion. There’s a strange feeling in your heart.

Something ancient. Something sacred. Something freeing.

A ghost of a smile grazes your lips.

“Idiot. I told you, didn’t I? The stubborn one out of the two of us is you.”

He hurt us badly, Y/N. Of course I had to stand on business.

“It’s better that you did,” you hum, finally feeling like a weight has been lifted off your shoulder. “Or else I probably won’t see this side of him and will only remember him as a bad alpha.”

Your omega doesn’t reply. In return, there’s a soft pulsing in your scent gland; something that hasn’t occurred in so long. You gasp.

But before you can process it, your phone rings, the noise slicing through the atmosphere sharply. You frown when you see that it’s your next-door neighbour, a fellow floormate that likes to borrow your detergent.

“Hello?”

“Y/N, oh my Goddess. Don’t come out!” she whisper-shouts, panic evident in her voice. “There’s an alpha outside of your door right now and he smells so bad. I think he’s dangerous. We’re about to call the security.”

Your heart drops. “What? Who?”

There’s a sound of movement and whispering before you hear a gasp.

“Okay, what the hell. It’s actually Heeseung and he’s crying,” your floormate says in disbelief. You, on the other hand, are in bigger disbelief.

Heeseung? Didn’t Yujin already let him know that you’re home?

Your feet are already padding across the tiles of your apartment, heart beating in your lungs. 

“Y/N…I think you need to come out. He’s not moving at all.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

Your sweaty palm trembles at the doorknob. Heeseung’s pheromones, thick and definitely smells distressed—which explains why your neighbour said that he smells bad—seeps through the gap between the door and the floor. But he doesn’t knock, like he’s here only to feel your presence.

Your omega whines, restless from the distressed pheromones, eager to comfort. You take a deep breath before you yank the door open.

The scene that greets you almost makes you speechless.

Heeseung stands in front of you, head hanging low like he’s trying to make himself smaller. The hallways are filled with slightly open doors and heads peeking out; all the omegas and betas living on this floor are definitely curious about the distress-smelling alpha and his omega.

“Heeseung?”

He doesn’t respond at first. His breaths come out uneven—too sharp, too shallow—like his lungs have forgotten to work properly. For a second, you think he doesn’t hear you.

But then, he lifts his gaze slightly, holding back a storm behind his eyes as he looks into yours. His nose flares, and then his scent turns more sour.

“Heeseung?”

There, lingering too faintly under your body wash, your lotion, and your own scent like it’s already fading out slowly—is Jay’s pheromones.

Something finally shatters in his chest.

“You smell like him.”

His voice is grim and shaky, tugging at your heartstrings. You immediately know what he’s referring to and for some reason, an ugly feeling twists in yiur gut.

But before you can respond, Heeseung already drops to his knees. 

A chorus of gasps is heard across the hallways. The bystanders are no longer caring about being seen eavesdropping. You think you even see a phone directed your way, but it’s the least of your concern now.

“Heeseung—”

“I can take anything you do to me,” Heeseung’s voice cracks, barely holding it together. “I can take any punishment you want to give me but not this.”

Heeseung cranes his neck. Trails of tears clinging to his lashes are falling his nose, his cheeks, the side of his face, down to the floor.

“Please, not him. Please—I beg you.”

His face crumples, like he’s imagining the sight of you and Jay together in his mind.

“I can’t—” his breath stutters, chest heaving like it’s caving in on itself. “I can’t do it, Y/N. I thought I could take it. I thought I deserved it, but—”

His fingers curl into the fabric of his pants, knuckles turning white.

“It hurts,” he chokes out, voice breaking into something almost unrecognisable. “It hurts so fucking bad.”

Your heart lurches.

Because you know.

You know exactly what he’s feeling.

The suffocating ache. The betrayal that sits in your lungs and refuses to let you breathe. The way your mind spirals, painting images you don’t want to see but can’t stop imagining.

It’s the same pain.

The same one he put you through.

Heeseung lets out a broken sound, shaking his head like he’s trying to rid himself of it.

“I get it now,” he whispers, more to himself than to you. “I get why you looked at me like that. I get why you—”

Heeseung cuts himself off. This time, a more pained, more broken noise slips past his lips.

“I get why you ended it.”

Everything hurts. His scent gland is angry red, throbbing endlessly like a sign of the real ending. His head pounds sharply and his lungs—oh Goddess, Heeseung can’t breathe.

His body sways. Instinctively, you crouch down to his level and catch him before he can fall. Panic fills up your system when a trickle of crimson blood starts peeking out of his nose.

No. No, please no. Not this again.

You cup his face, thumbs brushing his cheeks shakily. You turn your face and shout at your neighbour to call the ambulance or anyone—you just can’t let this happen.

You can’t let Heeseung go through the same pain you did.

“Heeseung, please don’t close your eyes.”

His head weighs heavier as he lolls forward, eyes almost snapping shut. You let his head rest on your shoulder, not caring about the blood now staining your shirt. Hot tears brim along your lashline.

“Heeseung, please—”

“Please forgive me,” Heeseung whispers weakly into your ears. The pain is unbearable, crushing his bones and penetrating his system like a sharp-end disease—an inevitable reaction from smelling another alpha on you.

So this is what you went through, he thinks wistfully. You must be in so much pain.

“Please forgive me, Y/N.”

“Where’s the ambulance?!” You finally break, cheeks wet with tears. Heeseung has completely gone still in your embrace, adding panic to your system. You reach out to hold his face.

“No, no, please.”

The lower part of his face is smudged red. His eyes close shut, still leaking out his tears even in his unconsciousness.

You let out an ugly sob, feeling utterly broken and scared.

“I forgive you, Heeseung. Please.”

You’re so fucking scared. Scared of losing yet another life you could’ve had when you were so close to having it.

Scared of not having the chance to love and to be loved again, this time with the person your soul chooses and not because fate says so.

“Please don’t leave me again.”

When Heeseung comes to, you’re holding his hands, zoning out.

There’s a distant look in your expression. A thin air of sad, wilted daisies lingers, no doubt wafting from you. His wolf, having just woken up like him, immediately shifts restlessly in his chest at the scent.

Your thumb brushes over his knuckles absentmindedly, tracing the veins like you’re memorising something before it disappears again.

He stays quiet, letting his eyes trace every curve of your features. The pretty slope of your nose, the soft swell of your cheeks, the petals of your lips. Then they stop at your puffy eyes.

Something inside him twists uncomfortably.

Why does he always make you cry?

You don’t even notice that he’s awake yet, too lost in your head as you stare at the beige wall of the ward. Not until he squeezes your hand back, eager and nervous to see if you’ll return it back or let go.

When you feel the grip tighten, your eyes snap back to him. And then, like a small win that heals something in his heart, you squeeze his hand back.

Heeseung almost breaks down.

“You’re awake,” you say in relief and move to stand. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Heeseung obeys, never finding it in him to go against your words anymore. But his hand never lets go. He savours every second that you let him hold you—the closest he’s ever touched you since the night he saved you.

He doesn’t let go even as the doctor does a checkup on him. The doctor comes in with Jay, who looks as disheveled as he is. There’s an awkward atmosphere between the two alphas, but neither dares to say anything and lets the doctor do his job.

He was unconscious for twelve hours, apparently.

“The scenting from your omega helped speed up the recovery process,” the doctor elaborates. Heeseung steals a glance at you, gauging your reaction, but your face remains neutral. 

It’s no wonder that he’s been feeling at peace since waking up—you had been scenting him when he was out.

“You just need to stay for a blood test and then you’re good to go,” the doctor continues, flashing him with a reassuring smile.

Murmurs of thank-yous ripple in the room as the three of you watch the doctor take his leave. Shortly after, the tension returns, and it’s almost obvious to you that the suffocating air comes from the two best friends.

Jay shifts on his feet awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. “I’m gonna grab us lunch.”

Which leaves him alone with you in the room.

Heeseung braves himself and takes a look at you, but you’re already staring at him. Your stare unsettles him, like you’re waiting for him to confess for a crime he didn’t know yet he committed.

“How are you feeling?” you ask instead.

“I—I think I’m good. Yeah,” Heeseung says quickly, a bit taken aback. He watches as you nod, then inspect his face by blinking closer, oblivious to the way he almost explodes from the proximity.

When satisfied, you lean back slightly, but still keep a close distance with him.

“Heeseung.”

The temperature suddenly drops, and the serious look on your face damn near makes him cry. Heeseung tries to mask his panic.

Did he do something wrong again? Fuck. He messed up, didn’t he?

“Hm?”

You take a shaky breath. “Jay told me about everything.”

Heeseung freezes. Everything?

Everything as in the fight that almost broke out last night? Everything as in how pathetic he is for you, which shouldn’t be so shocking or earth-shattering because he is pathetic and a loser for you?

Or everything as in his worsening health condition?

For a moment, you just stare at him. But the more seconds pass, the more obvious it is that you’re holding back tears.

“About the two options you had.”

Heeseung stops breathing. True to his speculation, it is about his health condition. About the fate that he has to choose, about the options that stand between mercy and cruelty.

“Why didn't you tell me? No—” you shake your head, your grip on his hand trembling greatly. His lips remain shut.

“Why didn’t you just cut the bond?”

The sadness dripping in your scent feels almost physical. You hang your head low, enveloping the two of you with the distressed scent of your pheromones. A low whine echoes in your chest, not heard but felt. Your omega is just as destroyed as you are, utterly horrified from the choice he made.

What if you never forgive him? What would become of him? 

Heeseung brushes his thumb over your hand consciously, trying to seep his own calming pheromones into your troubled scent. It helps, he notices, as the tremble in your hands subsides, breath evening out.

Then, with a raw honesty, he answers.

“Because I didn’t want a life where you don’t exist in it.”

There’s a lump in your throat but you swallow it down, refusing to break now that you have the chance to understand. To understand the equally wounded alpha in front of you, flawed yet still trying. 

“I know that sounds selfish,” he adds quickly. “It is. I was choosing myself when I said that.”

You shake your head, tears threatening to escape. “You could’ve died, no—you almost died, Heeseung.” 

“I know.”

Heeseung doesn’t argue. He looks down to your joined hands, branding his brain with the image. A soft smile appears on his lips. He wishes he could hold your hands more often.

“I just…” he exhales shakily. “I thought if I let go of the bond, it would be like I never got the chance to love you at all.”

You squeeze his hand. Your alpha, you realise, is just as soft as you are. He’s always been. It was just misunderstood and misdirected—his flaws that almost cost you your life. You resented him for it, ran from him to avoid it, made it hard for him to save yourself.

But in the end, quietly, tenderly—you find yourself forgiving him.

You understand now; what he was afraid of.

For Heeseung who used to live in short-lived attachments and practiced detachment, loving someone would sound like a too-big responsibility for him. Too lost in his own fear—fear of loving someone so much they could have power over you—he made choices that hurt you.

It doesn’t justify his actions, nor did it undo everything. But understanding him softens the pain.

“You’re so stupid,” you finally whisper, but it breaks halfway through. Heeseung looks almost hurt from your comment.

“I already forgave you.”

His head snaps up but you don’t look at him.

You take your time to speak. “I already did for a while. I was just waiting for my omega to open up her heart,” you chance him a glance and smile wistfully. 

“And she did just before you came to my door last night.”

A beat of silence passes by. Heeseung can’t seem to find his voice, too stunned with the sudden grace being granted upon him. 

He searches your face. For any lies, for any possible fabrication. He’s desperate to know if this was all just fragments of his dream, if you were just a manifestation of his desperation to be forgiven.

But you’re real. You’re breathing, and you’re telling him that you’ve forgiven him.

“Is this…true?” he asks, voice sounding breathy. “Don’t forgive me just because you feel bad, Y/N. I can’t live with that.”

“No, you didn’t force me,” you shake your head, returning his gaze with built-up courage.

“You earned it.”

Your scent softens, sweeter now that you finally let it out. Like the anger finally loosens its grip on your chest, you can feel your omega melts, her walls crumbling piece by piece.

Heeseung stares at you, mouth slightly agape. The weight he’s been carrying finally cracks and finally, finally—breathing finally comes easy for him now that his chest loosens.

His alpha paws at him in joy.

“Thank you, Y/N. I—” his voice cracks, and so do the tears he’s been holding back. “Oh my Goddess—thank you for forgiving me.”

Heeseung hesitates before he slowly wraps an arm around your shoulder, gauging your reaction. When you don’t push him away, he pulls you closer and you let yourself fall into his embrace.

Heeseung buries his nose in your hair, and the familiar scent of daisies and honey and your hair wash only makes him sob harder.

“Can we try again? Please?”

You nod, wrapping your arms around his waist, smiling into the hug.

“Mhm. Let’s try again.”

Trying again with Heeseung is soft and gentle.

Heeseung doesn’t change. If anything, he becomes more present than ever. If there was hesitation in his action before, he seems more confident to initiate things now.

Holding hands when you’re together. Tucking your hair behind your ears because ‘it hides your beautiful face’. Carrying your bag before you can even greet him properly. Bringing you food and trying to bake, even when you receive complaints from Jay about his oven almost catching on fire. But honestly, out of every failed experiments he did in the kitchen, it’s his ramyeon that you love the most.

And you always get it for free, presented like a five-star Michelin with radish and perfectly-made half-boiled egg. ‘Girlfriend privileges’ is what Sunoo called it, as he and the other alphas eat from their cup noodles.

With forgiveness, conversations come easy. Talking about everything and nothing with Heeseung is like trying to map a land. You finally get to know the story behind his jersey number. 

‘My mom always tells me that I’m her number one,’ he told you when you asked, rubbing his thumb over your knuckles. ‘It sticks until now, but I know that he said that only because I was sulking about being the second son—they love my brother more, to be fair!’

You never thought that Heeseung could be cute and adorable. But the two now fit his description perfectly.

Sometimes, his old habits crawl back. Heeseung still finds it hard to tell you about things that bother him, still trying to run away from ugly emotions that make him feel vulnerable.

Just like right now, Heeseung is trying so hard not to pout as he watches his teammates grab a cookie from the Tupperware you bring.

When Riki reaches for a third, his resolve finally cracks and he slaps the alpha’s hand away.

“That’s enough, you greedy alpha. Shoo!”

You stifle a laugh, basking in the rare occasion where Heeseung shows his emotion almost openly like this. He doesn’t like sharing, of course, but he says nothing—which unsettles you a bit.

“Are you mad?” You finally ask after pulling him out for some privacy.

He doesn’t reply. Heeseung takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, then shakes his head.

“I’m not mad.”

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” you coax him again, reminding yourself that Heeseung is still trying to unlearn some of his bad habits. “I can’t fix anything if you don’t tell me.”

Heeseung gnaws at his lips and avoids your eyes. He knows, with a devastating resignation, that he could never refuse if he looks. So he doesn’t look.

But your scent does the same damage anyway. It’s sweet, it’s too intoxicating and Heeseung can feel himself melt even before he can protest.

He finally relents. “Okay,” he sighs.

Heeseung reaches out and takes your fingers in his, clutching at your smaller ones like a lifeline.

“Y/N…” he starts, contemplating his words, unconsciously pouting. “Can’t you bake only for me and not…share?”

You bite back a grin.

“See? It isn’t hard to tell me,” you squeeze his hand. “You can tell me anything, Heeseung. I will always listen.”

Heeseung gives you a pouty nod.

As for him, Heeseung thinks he was never happier than he is right now. 

There’s a strange satisfaction blooming in his chest every time he does something for you. 

Be it walking you home, or waiting at the lobby of your apartment to walk to the campus together. Or feeding you food and having a can of grape juice always ready for you. 

All the things he used to avoid—doing domestic things, having one person to devote all his attention and affection to—they become things that bring his heart at ease now.

And Heeseung loves being taller than you. He loves when you have to look up to talk to him, or the way you can easily hide your face in his chest when he says something corny. The way he can reach the higher shelf for you and become useful to you. He loves towering over you because every time he does it, he can’t help but notice the sweet spike in your scent.

You love it too.

Over time, the two of you get closer than ever. Every brush of hands, every bump of shoulders, every laughter shared—they only bring you back to him, and him to you. And slowly, like a prophecy finally meeting its destiny, the red thread finds its way back to you.

“Are you sure about this?”

You’re now standing in between his legs while Heeseung sits on the mattress of his bed, craning his neck to search your face.

Your fingers pause in his hair when you feel a faint pulse beneath his skin. 

A reminder that he’s still hurting from the one-sided bond. A reminder of the weight of fate tying the two of you.

Heeseung could’ve walked away like you did. He could’ve defied his wolf and cut the bond. But he did nothing of those.

He’s still here, still choosing you in every way you keep choosing him.

“I want this, Heeseung,” you whisper back, carding your fingers through his burgundy hair.  “I’ve never been so sure.”

One of the things that the both of you learn more about the relationship is the importance of the sacred bond. This time, you’re no longer running away or denying it—you and Heeseung take time to learn about its history, about the nature of the bond—and in your case, about how to fix the broken bond.

“It must come from your wolves,” you remember Jay’s mom saying. “And only then can you commemorate the bond and heal it for good.”

Commemorating, in this context, is to finally mate with your alpha. 

It’s a big leap in the relationship, especially since you’re every way inexperienced. Heeseung knows this; which is why he never rushed you and let himself take the hit of the broken bond.

To the Goddess, without the commemoration, the bond is still considered one-sided. It results in Heeseung still experiencing pain from time to time and, after another nosebleed pre-game and out of care for your alpha, you decide you’re done taking your own time.

Your omega holds the sentiment as you, not having the heart to let the alpha suffer for your own sake.

Noticing your silence, Heeseung grabs your wrist gently and brings it to his nose. He starts nosing at the tender skin, pumping out his calm pheromones as he bathes you in his scent.

“Have you been with anyone else before?”

You hesitate. Then, with a shy smile, you shake your head.

“No.”

Contrary to your expectation, Heeseung stills immediately. His face crumples slightly and his phereomones—previously calming and comforting—suddenly takes a sour turn.

You frown. “Heeseung?” You hold his face, heart clenching at his trembling lips. “What’s wrong?”

When he looks up to you, there are silent tears spilling down his cheeks. It alerts you almost immediately.

“Hee?”

“I—” Heeseung takes a deep breath, but his lips wobble, betraying his effort to remain calm.

“I touched people like it didn’t mean anything,” his voice breaks. Heeseung closes his eyes, like the mere looking into your eyes was too much for him to bear. “And now you’re standing here like this is something sacred and I—” 

When you understand what he means, you can feel your own heart breaking.

“Heeseung…”

“Why are you letting me handle something this—precious? I—I don’t deserve you, Y/N. I never did.”

“Please don’t say that,” you coo at him, wiping his tears with the pad of your thumb. 

“I chose you knowing everything you’ve done,” you whisper. “Not because you’re perfect, but because you’re trying.” 

Heeseung leans into your touch, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he doesn’t. Like the warmth of your touch is the only thing that keeps him grounded. A comfortable silence falls upon you two, full of warm understanding and acceptance.

“Thank you,” Heeseung kisses your palm, long and gentle. “Thank you, Y/N. I mean it.”

A smile creeps up your face. You lean down to kiss his forehead.

“Come and sit here,” Heeseung pats his thighs. You pause for a moment, already getting shy from the proximity. But deep down, you can’t deny that you want this.

Slowly, you descend onto his lap, straddling his thighs. Heeseung pulls you closer by your hips, eliciting a soft gasp from your lips. He lets out a breathy chuckle.

“Are you comfortable?” he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah,” then you pause. “I’m not heavy, am I? Are you comfortable?”

Heeseung hums. “Your weight is perfect for me, baby.”

The term of endearment makes warmth bloom across your cheeks. Heeseung gazes at you fondly, his nose already inching closer to where your scent smells the strongest.

He takes a lungful of your sweet scent—daisies and honey—and almost groans from the feeling of it. His favourite scent in the world. It’s been so long since he got to have you like this, so he keeps scenting you like he’s taking his fill.

“Your scent—you smell so good, Y/N.”

He lets his nose graze your scent gland. Once, twice, before brushing it with small, slow licks. You clutch at his shoulders, sparks bursting from the touch.

“Mhh!”

Heeseung trails up wet kisses up the column of your neck, dragging his tongue along your skin, savouring the soft gasps leaving your parted lips. His grip on your waist tightens, nails digging into your camisole while you try not to lose your mind over the foreign sensation.

Everywhere Heeseung touches with his lips is hot, sending strange, tingly feelings up your spine. It’s wet and it should make you recoil, but you find yourself loving it, already wanting more.

Heeseung stops when he reaches your lips, hot breath brushing against the soft pair. His eyes, now hooded and dark, are losing their round shape, like he, too, is already unraveling from just this.

“I’m gonna kiss you now, my daisy,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to your parted lips, open and so inviting. Something churns inside your stomach, always keening when being called his daisy.

Then you nod, granting him permission.

“Please kiss me, Heeseung.”

There’s a tiny quirk of a smile, before he finally closes the gap between your mouths. He’s careful, caressing the plump of your lips with his own, tentatively and slowly at first, before he captures your mouth in his. You close your eyes.

Heeseung kisses you like it’s sacred. He moves slowly, allowing you to follow his pace and getting used to the feeling of his mouth on yours. It’s gentle and sweet. It’s everything you have imagined sharing a kiss with a lover. 

His lips, soft and wider than yours, easily dominate the kiss with a flick of his tongue.

Your lips part in a gasp and Heeseung takes the chance to prod his tongue in, licking into every corner of your mouth like he’s been starved for you. You clasp a hand in his hair, losing your pace as Heeseung takes over.

With each passing second, the kiss turns into a needier one and you grow hotter. It’s messy now, with drool leaking down your chin and the noises you make getting louder. When you start to feel lightheaded, you tap his shoulders, lungs burning from the lack of breath. 

Heeseung lingers for a second, as if he never wants to let go, before detaching from your lips.

He looks absolutely wrecked. His lips are shiny with spit, panting into your mouth like he needs more.

“Need some air?” he whispers, voice hoarse, caressing your waist tenderly. You nod, catching your breath before you lean in and try to kiss him again.

This time, Heeseung lets you take the lead, grabbing your hips tight enough to ground himself. You mouth at the corner of his lips, peppering kisses across the pinkish skin before he loses his patience and starts kissing back, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth.

Pulling you flush against his own hips, Heeseung is desperate to feel you closer. The scent of his pheromones is taking a richer, darker tone, dripping with building arousal. He wants to stay like this forever—wants to memorise every taste, every curve of your lips, and carve it into his memory.

You’re unraveling just as fast. Driven by a deeper need to feel each other and more, you pool your arms around his neck and pull him closer, instinctively bucking your hips to soothe the ache between your legs.

Beneath you, Heeseung freezes. A strangled groan catches at the back of his throat, his fingers digging into your hips. His head is on cloud nine; he can’t believe you just did what you did, feeling his own lust slowly getting thicker.

Then, as if testing, you roll your hips again.

This time, the sound that leaves his throat is deep and ragged. Heeseung bites his lips, brows pinched together, his restraint visible through the veins popping in his neck.

“Y/N,” he rasps, voice strained. “Good? Comfortable?"

Your eyes, dazed and glossed over, look into his eyes and you nod. You move your hips again, chasing the delicious friction like a lifeline. “More.”

“Fuck,” Heeseung curses under his breath. 

Wordlessly, he snakes an arm around your waist and flips your position. Your back meets the mattress before you can process it, the impact punching a breath out of your lungs. Heeseung hovers over you, chest heaving rapidly, heated gaze raking over your body like he’s already dreamed of this many times.

“Heeseung,” you sigh, lifting your arms to his nape, already hating the distance. “Want you closer.”

Heeseung thinks he’s still in a dreamland, because there’s no way you’re lying down under him, hair splayed like a halo, asking him for more. Your lips, kiss-bruised and bitten-raw from the previous makeout session, are parted in a soft gasp, looking every bit like his wet dream.

No. This is better than any of his dreams.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes out as if he’s in a daze, a willing hostage to your magical spell. “Fuck, I just—I just love you so much.”

The confession lands like a feather drifting through the air. Your breath catches in your throat, searching for Heeseung’s eyes and almost tearing up when you see only devotion and sincerity in his gaze.

“Heeseung…”

“My precious daisy,” Heeseung lowers down and gives a smooch to the back of your ear. Your breath hitches. “My sweet, sweet honey.”

Another wave of heat pools between your legs. His voice—oh Goddess, his sweet and sultry voice in your ears, accompanied by such adoration is almost too much. You whine, clutching his shirt in a desperate grip.

“What do you need, baby?” Heeseung breathes hard into your ears, his own voice almost cracking from restraint. “Tell me, hm?”

“Need you to touch me.”

He barely stops nibbling on the sensitive skin of your earlobe. “Where do you need me?”

You grab one of his wrists and bring it to where you need him most. The moment his fingers touch your soaked sweatpants, Heeseung lets out a deep, throaty groan. He pulls away slightly just to catch the expression you make—mouth agape, eyes closing shut—as he presses a finger on your cunt.

“Here? You like it here?”

“Y-Yes—” You purse your lips, pleading eyes peering into his dark gaze. “Please—More, please.”

Heeseung holds back a smirk. “You’re so good to me,” he purrs, his alpha swelling with pride and arousal. “I’m gonna give you everything you ask for, hm?”

Heeseung slips his hand into your panties and curses out loud at the wet sensation on his fingers. 

“Fuck, Y/N—you’re leaking.”

He props himself on one arm. His long, slender fingers stroke your folds, the wet sound of your arousal filling the room. You claw at his upper arms and arch your hips, letting out a broken breath.

“H-Heeseung!” 

A deep growl rumbles in his chest. Heeseung leans down and peppers kisses all over your cheeks as he flicks his thumb over your clit. The high-pitched, whiny moan that you let out makes his twitching cock kick and drool, already begging to be freed.

“Does that feel good?” he rasps, nudging at your hole with the tip of finger. The tight hole is almost sucking his finger in, eliciting a breathless moan out of your lungs.

You nod frantically, desperate to feel anything inside.

“‘Feels so good, alpha.”

“Mhm,” he purrs, circling your gaping hole lightly, teasingly. “I’m gonna put it in slow and nice for you and you’re gonna take it, ‘kay?”

You suck in your bottom lips, heat pooling low in your stomach at the deep timbre of his voice.

“Yes. Please give it to me.”

Heeseung almost melts at the big eyes you’re giving him. He gives you a soft peck and speaks against your mouth, “Tell me if it hurts, Y/N. I will stop immediately.”

When you give him the green light to go, Heeseung slowly pushes his middle finger in, fighting back a loud moan at the feeling of your walls sucking him in. He pauses for a moment, gauging for any discomfort in your face, and then starts pumping in and out gently when he sees only pleasure.

It feels strange and uncomfortable at first; having something inside you. But the subtle feeling of pain is slowly disappearing the longer he shoves his finger in. His thumb, eager to please you, keeps circling your swollen nub, adding to the building sensation in your stomach.

Before you know it, you’re already leaking out more slick. Your head thrashes to your left and right, breathy moans spilling out of your lips.

“Ngh—fuck—Hee—“

Heeseung forces himself to stay still; forces himself to breathe at the sight of you unraveling and so, so pliant under his touch, even when all he wants to do is ruin you. He inserts another finger, the additional stretch burns so good that you almost cry.

“Heeseung!”

The alpha lets out a heavy, ragged breath as his fingers skillfully scissor you open, willing your walls to loosen for him. His lips fall open as he watches you fist the mattress with a tight grip, eyes fluttering shut from pleasure.

Heeseung thinks he’s about to come just from watching your erotic expressions alone.

“Ah—ah—ngh!” You squirm and whine and writhe, throat scratchy from how long you’ve been keeping your mouth open. 

Heeseung’s eyes darken as he takes in the way the straps of your camisole fall down your shoulders. The soft swell of your chest moves up and down in a rapid breathing, nipples peeking out just enough to tease.

Fuck—you’re a sight to behold.

He can’t think straight, not when every sense is filled up with your thick, heady scent. Your slick, where it smells the strongest, is now pouring out of your gaping hole in waves and drenching his fingers down to his wrist, making the tent in his pants tighten painfully.

“I’m gonna add one more—fuck,” Heeseung almost chuckles in disbelief at the way your body sucks him in. “Your cunt is a little greedy, baby. Might just take all my fingers in.”

You’re already a mess of broken moans and high-pitched, ‘ah—ah—fuck’. The sensation is becoming too much. You have fingered yourself before, but they don’t have the girth of Heeseung’s long and slender ones; reaching deep inside where you can’t get before, or the roughness of the pad of his thumb circling on your clit relentlessly—bringing you closer to the edge faster than you can think.

Heeseung can already feel it. Your greedy little hole is catching at his fingers even tighter, signalling how close you are to cumming. He leans down, latching his mouth on your neck and littering it with bruising kisses that are going to leave marks, increasing the speed of his wrist until your hips lift off the mattress.

“H-Hee—! I’m—God, fuck—“

“Give it to me, my daisy,” he whispers, voice hoarse and rough from arousal, thumb flicking faster. “That’s it. Give everything to me.”

Heeseung watches closely as you close your eyes and mouth falls open as you come, the erotica of everything almost makes his neglected cock bust out. A feeling of intense ecstasy floods your system, crashing through your body, slick gushing out in waves upon delicious waves.

The alpha slows down the movements of his wrist, thumb circling lazily as he lets you ride out the high. He’s already dizzy from your pheromones, so sweet and inviting, that he almost pushes you into oversensitivity.

He plops out his fingers and puts it into his mouth, tongue lapping at the nectarine of your slick like a thirsty dog. His alpha hums in satisfaction at the sweet taste of his omega’s come, all drenched and warm just for him.

“Fuck, Y/N,” Heeseung hovers over your body again, now kissing you hard in pent-up hunger. “I wanna eat you out so badly but I just can’t wait anymore.”

You hum into the kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue. Heeseung parts for a moment, jagged breathing hitting your lips warm as he stares into your eyes. His gaze softens.

“Are you okay?”

You nod. “‘M’kay.”

Heeseung nuzzles his cheek against yours, hands sliding up and down your waist before slipping under your camisole and cups your breasts. You let out a half-shocked gasp.

“Can you take more, baby?” He murmurs against your ears, teetering on the edge of sanity as he listens to the sinful sounds leaving your mouth. “Can you take my big, fat knot this time?”

You can’t find your voice, too lost in pleasure as Heeseung kneads your breasts and plays with your nipples. Heeseung drags his tongue along your earlobe, desperate to hear you more.

“Look at these perky tits,” he says as he drags down your camisole, letting it bunch around your waist. His mouth gapes at the way the plump flesh spilling over his fingers, so soft and yielding. “Fuck—you’re so beautiful, Y/N, I will fucking cry.”

“Nnggh!” You cry out when he latches his mouth on your left nub. He sucks and grazes his teeth on your hardened nipple, never breaking eye contact, the wet sensation sending heat straight to your core. 

“Hee!” Your hand flies into his hair when he sucks particularly hard at the bottom swell of your breast, marking his territory. His rough fingers fondle your right tit, rolling the perky nub with reverent attention that makes you clamp your thighs shut.

You squirm, feeling another pool of slick gathering. “H-Heeseung—!”

“Oh, fuck, baby,” he lets go with a pop, lips shiny and slick with his own spit. “Please say my name like that again,” he requests, simultaneously rolling his hips to gauge your reaction.

As he expected—your body, so sensitive and pliant in his hold—immediately writhes from the friction. Heeseung watches with awe, nose twitching as another wave of your scent floods the room, mixing with the sultry accent of his cinnamon and seasalt almost too perfectly.

“Heeseung!”

Heeseung feels so dizzy. His thoughts are only filled with your name, your voice, and your pretty, pretty face that contorts in pleasure when he grinds more. His crotch area is already so fucking wet from pre-cum and your arousal that he thinks he’s losing a chance at any decent and coherent thoughts.

He gives you another roll, and when the name that leaves your swollen lips comes out broken and high-pitched, Heeseung decides that he can’t take it anymore.

“I’m gonna fuck you now, my daisy,” he rasps, leaving one last mark on your cleavage before sitting up. He helps you out of your clothes, marvelling in the way your body trusts him completely.

You’re all soft lines and gentle curves. Heeseung loses his breath as he traces his eyes from the soft mounds of your chest—littered red from his markings, to the narrow pinch of your waist, and the flare of your hips. He caresses the flesh with his hands, gripping it like a love handle as he revels in the contrast of his tanned, big hands on your soft, unblemished skin.

And your pussy—fuck, it’s still glistening from your previous climax and his ministrations, and is now getting wetter under his heated gaze alone.

But it’s the look in your eyes that completely undoes him—pure trust and devotion only for him that he so damn near cries.

“So beautiful,” he praises again, unable to stop the word from flowing out of his mouth. He slides down his hands down your thighs, groping the supple flesh, almost moaning from the sheer softness of it.

“Every inch of you is perfect, baby,” he husks, intoxicated by your pheromones invading his senses.

You hold your breath, peering up at the dominant alpha through your lashes. In a moment of such vulnerability, your chest is filled with affection and trust only for the man now handling your body with care, as if your body was made of porcelain.

My alpha, your wolf purrs inside, heart pounding into your chest.

You spread your thighs wider, so inviting and pliant.

“Alpha,” you mewl, nervously looking up at him. “Please.”

Heeseung can feel his dick twitching from the sight alone. With a swift movement, his shirt is already discarded, thrown somewhere on the floor.

“Say it clearly, baby. Tell me what you need.”

Heeseung fumbles with the strings of his sweatpants as his hooded gaze bores into your hazy one, hissing when his aching cock is finally springing free from the confines of his pants. 

You almost drool at the sight of his weeping cock, standing tall and proud against his abdomen. Its tip is angry red, leaking precum down the length of prominent, bulging veins. Your hole flutters with dripping need.

The words come out so easily now that your pussy is pulsing with an aching need to be filled.

“Please fuck me, Heeseung.”

Heeseung’s lips are bitten raw from restraint, his jaw tight as he forces himself not to move—not to give in to the urge to push forward and lose himself inside you. But before he can move to get a condom from the drawer, your hand snaps to his wrist, shaking your head no.

“Just—just do it,” you bite your lips trying not to squirm under his darkening gaze. “I want to feel you.”

It takes everything in him to stay still—to not reach for you, not pull you back, not ruin this by losing control. Heeseung looks for any doubt in your face.

“Are you sure, baby?”

“Mhm,” you tug at his wrist, guiding his hand to cup your pussy. Heeseung almost combusts right then and there.

“Quick, Heeseung. Need you here.”

“Oh my fucking God—” Heeseung curses under his breath, trying to remain calm. But his body betrays him, his muscles tensing, breath unsteady, as he forces himself to stay where he is.  

He sits taller, his thumb rubbing your clit teasingly. His other hand strokes his cock lazily, flicking his wrist around the erection and hisses when more precum drools out.

The whole time, he doesn’t let go of your eyes, taking in every micro-expressions you make like a greedy man. You’re so sensitive, so expressive, and so, so wet—always so eager to shower him with more slick and more of your sultry moaning.

He aligns his cock in between your folds, grinding the bulbous head against your swollen clit. A choked moan escapes both of you, too fucked over the pleasure. Another gush of slick trickles down your hole, intensifying your scent.

“Heeseung—”

“Shh, baby, I know,” Heeseung coos at the tears pooling along your lashline. He reaches out to wipe it, torn between guilt and absolutely fucking pleasure that he feels from seeing you break apart at his hand like this.

“I’m gonna be gentle, yeah?” He rasps, still rolling his hips, gathering your slick around the tip of his cock. 

He trails his fingers down your wrists before pinning them over your head, hovering over you completely like an eclipse. Then, after what felt like a lifetime, Heeseung finally pushes in.

He doesn’t move after that.

A broken breath leaves him, forehead dropping to your shoulder as if the effort of holding himself back is physically weighing on him. His grip on your wrists tightens just slightly, seeking something to ground him to the moment. Beneath him, you’re trembling from the mix of pain and pleasure, the latter outweighing the former.

“Y/N…” he exhales, voice rough, almost unsteady. “Look at me.”

There’s something in the way he says it. It’s not commanding or urgent, like  he really needs to see you or he’ll fall apart.

You turn your head, meeting his gaze, your expression soft but overwhelmed, lips parted as you try to steady your breathing. It stings, but not enough for you to pull away. Heeseung did a good job at preparing you.

He searches your face like it’s the only thing anchoring him.

“Am I—” he swallows, jaw tightening. “Am I hurting you?”

You shake your head, even though the feeling is new, intense, more than you expected. But the way he’s holding himself back, the way he’s watching you like this could fall apart at any second—it steadies you. Heeseung is so careful, so scared of hurting you that it almost makes you cry.

“It’s… okay,” you whisper, fingers twitching under his hold. “Don’t stop.”

His eyes squeeze shut for a second, like he’s bracing himself, like your trust is something he has to deserve in real time.

“Slow,” he mutters to himself more than to you. “Gotta go slow…”

He barely shifts, testing, careful, measured. Like every movement is something he has to think through instead of give in to. He sinks in another inch, mind floating from the tight sensation of your hole. A strained sound slips past his lips, low and wrecked, his control slipping just enough to show.

“God…” he breathes, almost shaking. “You feel—”

He cuts himself off, jaw clenching hard, like even finishing that sentence would push him too far.

Instead, his hand comes down to your waist, grounding himself there, thumb brushing absentmindedly against your skin like he needs something soft to hold onto.

You can feel it—how much he’s holding back. Not just physically, but everything. The way his body tenses with every tiny movement, the way his breathing keeps stuttering like he’s constantly pulling himself back from the edge as he pushes inside, inch by inch.

And something in your chest tightens.

“You can move,” you murmur softly, a little unsure, but still wanting. Wanting him, wanting every side of him and not just this careful version of him.

His head lifts immediately.

“No,” he says, almost too quickly. Then his voice grows softer. “Not if you’re not ready.”

Your brows knit slightly, a small shake of your head.

“I am,” you insist, voice quiet but certain. “I trust you.”

Your declaration hits deeper than anything else.

For a moment, he just looks at you—really looks—like he’s trying to understand how you can still say that to him. Then his grip tightens again; a firm grip that anchors you to the moment.

“Okay,” he breathes.

And this time, when he moves, it’s still slow—but there’s something underneath it now. Not just restraint, but a crack in it. A quiet, dangerous edge that slips through no matter how hard he tries to hold it back.

His forehead presses to yours, breaths tangling, uneven.

“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmurs, softer now. “Anything—you tell me, yeah?”

You nod, already clutching onto him, already feeling yourself giving in to the rhythm he’s so carefully trying to control.

God, Heeseung tries not to lose himself completely. Chanting ‘Go slow, go fucking slow,’ like a mantra in his head is proving to be the hardest test he’s ever been through.

But he still tries—even when it starts slipping crack by crack.

You can feel it in the way his pace stays measured, like every pound into your walls is a calculated move. It makes your heart flutter, really, but you want more. 

You don’t know how to say it without sounding desperate, but your body knows you better. Instinctively, you clench around his cock. The action is not fully registered in your head until Heeseung’s rhythm falters.

“Y/N…” he exhales, your name catching in his throat like it’s too much for him to hold.

“More,” your fingers tighten around his arms, pulling him impossibly closer. “More, please.”

You tighten your walls again, drawing a shuddering gasp from him. His head drops forward as his control stutters, cock twitching inside you.

“Don’t,” he starts, half-warning and half-whining, “Don’t do that or I’m—”

You can’t stand it anymore. You meet his thrust, hitting his navel with yours, gasping because the sensation feels too good. A broken groan leaves him, deep and absolutely fucking wrecked.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, gripping your hips tighter. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

Heeseung kisses up the length of your neck, leaving more marks before he props his arms. When you catch his eyes, something flickers in that heated gaze, like his control is finally slipping away, snapping with the way he pistons his cock into you. You choke out a breath.

“Okay?” he asks, still worrying. You nod frantically, desperately. 

“Yes—please—more—”

Heeseung does it again. Again and again and again until all there’s left is the sound of your broken gasps and the wet, filthy noise of his balls hitting your hole. 

“Still—fuck—still okay?” he asks, voice rough, barely held together.

You can’t form any coherent thoughts, so you nod again, breathless and more certain this time. “Please…don’t stop.”

Heeseung lets out a curse, lifting your hips slightly before continuing pounding into you, faster and harder. A high-pitched moan rips from your throat, the new angle hitting the spot that has you seeing stars.

He watches your face, his own contorting in pleasure, setting a pace that has you blabbering out broken words and more drool.

You feel so full. His cock is so deep inside you, filling you up to the hilt. It’s a strange feeling, but it’s also so, so addictive that you just want more, more, and more. It’s the only thing you can ask for: “More, more—Heeseung—ah—please.”

Heeseung leans down, taking your earlobe into his mouth, alternating his pace between achingly slow rolls of his hips and harsh, sharp thrusts, whispering hotly into your ears.

“You’re taking me so well.”

“So fucking tight, baby, fuck.”

“My daisy. My honey. My everything.”

The heat in your stomach intensifies, building up like a tidal wave waiting to crash. Your nails dig into his biceps, meeting his heated gaze with your glassy one.

“Mate with me, Heeseung. Please.”

Heeseung almost stops, but you’re fast to hook your legs around his waist, urging him to continue. He continues with slower grinding, locking eyes with you.

It’s finally time to seal the bond for good. But even in the haze of pleasure and nirvana, all Heeseung cares about is your well-being.

“Now, baby?” he whispers in between thrusts. He catches your jaw in his hand, thumb brushing your cheeks softly. He knows it’s bound to happen tonight anyway, but if he can save you from the pain longer, he will. “It will sting, sweetheart. I don’t want to hurt you.”

You nod, never felt more sure than now. You lean up to kiss him, breath mingling hotly before you look into his eyes.

“I trust you, Heeseung,” you whisper back. You grind back into him, hips stuttering when his cock thrusts almost sharply into your cunt. 

With broken gasps, you finally say it. “Please mark me yours.”

Heeseung almost tears up from the sheer weight of your words. 

Trust. Yours. Mine.

Something that the old him would’ve never imagined wanting and needing.

But here, as your starry eyes gazing into his teary gaze, Heeseung’s never felt so full and complete. He doesn’t even know that he was capable of loving someone this much; of this overwhelming affection that he has only for you.

A single drop of tears slides down his cheek as he kisses you again, trying to convey his emotions into the sweet touch. You respond just as reverent, understanding him without words being spoken.

“Do you trust me?” he murmurs against your mouth. His hips are slowing down, getting lost in the warm sensation of your breath and your sweetening scent.

You give him a peck. “I do.”

Heeseung smiles fondly. He leaves one last kiss on your forehead before he sits up,  pulling out of you at the same time. You almost whine at the loss of touch, but he’s quick to reassure you.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

Then, with a dominating strength that makes your stomach flutter, he grabs your waist and flips you over. You arch your back almost instinctively, shoving your ass in the air. Heeseung groans, his alpha howling in pride at seeing his omega presenting like this. His jaw clenches from restraint, absolutely close to losing his mind over this sight of you.

His cock slips back in easily. Heeseung splays a hand over the skin between your shoulders, pushing you gently into the mattress.

You glance over your shoulders, wiggling your ass and pushing it further into his face. “Like this, Heeseungie?”

Heeseung bites his lips, mouth salivating from the sight. “Yeah, baby.” He is so fucking turned on. “I’m gonna move now, yeah?”

At the single movement of your head, Heeseung is already thrusting inside, barely holding himself back. The new angle gives more access to his cock to hit places you didn’t know exist in your walls, sending sparks of electricity to your nerves.

“Ah, ah—nnghh!! Heeseungie!” 

“Keep saying my name like that, baby,” Heeseung drools over the jiggles of your round ass. He kneads the flesh with his thick fingers, moaning at the dimples his nails make by digging into it.

“So soft. So beautiful,” he grinds and rolls his hips, leaning down to bite down on your buttcheeks. You clench around him. “So responsive for me. God—you’re perfect, Y/N.”

“I’m—I’m close—”

“Oh, I can feel it, baby,” Heeseung grunts through his teeth. Your walls keep sucking him back in, as if refusing to let go. “I’m close too—fuck.”

Heeseung picks up his pace, his muscles flexing as he, too, almost reaches his high. He leans down, broad chest meeting your back and noses at your pulsing scent gland, sweat dripping down his chin.

It’s intoxicating, the way your scent blends in with his pheromones, like a perfect match made in heaven—which might not be so far from the truth. He is your true mate, after all, written in the prophecy for God knows how long.

He can feel how close you’re getting, your whining turning needier and messier. His canines sharpen slowly, readying himself to mark you.

You drool into the mattress, incoherent words leaving your mouth. The coil in your stomach tightens, so close to snapping, so close to bringing you over the edge.

And it’s with a flick of his thumb over your clit that you finally give. You go still, shockwaves of your release rippling through your body, pulling Heeseung with you as he cums, spraying your insides white.

Following his promise, Heeseung chooses that exact moment to sink his teeth in your nape, right over where your scent gland is. You yelp, body trembling from the intense feeling of pain and pleasure.

The feeling is otherworldly—like something inside you finally clicks into place.

A warmth blooms from where he’s marked you, spreading through your body in slow, overwhelming waves. It’s not just the sensation—it’s him. You can feel him in a way you’ve never felt before, like his presence has settled beneath your skin, threading into every part of you. 

Your fingers clutch at the sheets, breath stuttering as something inside you tightens and softens. You feel complete, like the quiet ache you never noticed has finally disappeared.

Heeseung groans softly against your skin, almost like he feels it too—like the bond snaps into place just as strongly on his end. His hold on you tightens, not possessive, but grounding, as if he needs to make sure you’re real, that this is real.

He quickly laps at the blood and the wound, tongue gentle now, almost reverent as he soothes the mark he’s just made. His hips slow down, now grinding into you lazily to ride out the wave before you mewl from oversensitivity.

He pulls out after a while and gently turns you back to face him. As soon as he locks eyes with you, Heeseung’s composure breaks instantly, tears spilling down his cheeks. He catches your lips in a wet kiss.

“My daisy,” he cries, cradling your jaw and never intending to let go. “Oh Goddess—I love you so much.”

His voice, broken and gasping with gratitude and relief, moves your heart in ways that unravel you just the same. You kiss back just as hard, heart finally full and complete.

Your omega purrs in satisfaction, and to your surprise, you can almost hear another wolf echoing back to yours. 

It doesn’t take a genius to know that it’s Heeseung’s wolf—your alpha, finally and wholly yours.

Heeseung breaks the kiss only to rest his forehead against yours. Your scent gland pulses, but this time, it’s gentle and grounding, like a mark of a new beginning; a bond now finally healed and sealed.

“Y/N,” he breathes out against your mouth. “Don’t get tired of me yet, okay? I… I cherish you so much. ‘I love you’ doesn’t feel like enough.” 

You let out a soft giggle and pull him closer, sealing your lips with his again.

“Then don’t say anything. Show me, my alpha…show me that we belong to each other.”

As moonlight spills into the bedroom, a blessing from the Goddess for the mated pair, the sheets bear witness to the moment two fractured souls finally become one.

You wake up before Heeseung.

Trying to remove his arms from your waist proves to be a real challenge; the alpha refuses to let you go even in his sleep. You chuckle softly and plant a kiss on his forehead before slipping out of the blanket.

Standing on slightly wobbly legs, you drift into the kitchen, your throat screaming for water. You let the sunshine hit your skin, highlighting your afterglow, as you down a whole glass of water.

The house is quiet. Jay, with the intention to give the two of you privacy, has gone to visit his parents for the weekend. You silently thank him for it. You don’t want to know how awkward it’d be if he has to hear all the noises you made last night.

Just as you’re about to return to Heeseung’s warm embrace, your eyes catch a sign on another door. It’s located at the end of the hallway, a few paces away from Heeseung’s and Jay’s bedrooms. It’s almost unnoticeable, but the name on the sign is what intrigues you to go closer.

EVAN LEE

Evan? That’s Heeseung’s English name.

You know it’s an invasion of privacy, but your wolf is nagging at you to go. So, with almost zero reluctancy, you let yourself inside.

It’s his producer room, you guess, judging from the equipment filling up the space. You let your eyes roam, smiling to yourself when you catch random things that just scream Heeseung.

There are two frames of pictures hanging on the wall, one of his family and another one of him and Jay. The two looked younger, more reckless, a given when you notice the uniform they were wearing. High-school Jay with a neat shirt, tucked in and collar buttoned up while high-school Heeseung was missing his tie. They were smiling bright, already so handsome from such a young age.

You look at the random stickers on his PC—basketball, white cats, and alphabet stickers that are arranged into ‘NI-KI’. 

A pair of headphones sit on the table, each ear decorated with different aesthetics. The left one is full of flowers, tiny stickers of ‘ddeonu’ are left as watermark, while the other is just one big orange cat sticker, and instead of leaving his name in a way that doesn’t stain, Jungwon actually signed with a marker pen.

You laugh, wondering what might be Heeseung’s reaction when that menace did that. It’s Sony, after all, and judging from the sleek design—it’s definitely pricey. But knowing how soft Heeseung is for Jungwon, he probably just let it slide because ‘Jungwonnie is cute’.

This room is so full of everything Heeseung loves. His passion for music and basketball, his affection for his close friends. A thought, not unkindly or bitter, crosses your mind: you cannot wait to leave traces of you here, too—something of yours, beside everything he already loves. 

Just as you’re about to leave, something in the corner stops you in your tracks. It’s a notebook, hidden under a keyboard, like it’s never meant to be found.

You walk over and look at the notebook, breath catching in your throat when you read the cover.

For my daisy.

Is this for you?

With trembling fingers—a result from your pounding heart—you flip the cover. There’s handwriting, unmistakably Heeseung’s, filling up the first page.

These are my silent apologies to the girl I lost. I was too late to love you when you still loved me, but I promise myself that I will start and continue loving you, even when I can no longer hear your echo until the very end.

P.s. park jongseong stop making fun of me this will become a hit album TRUST!

Just like what the note has said, the notebook is full of song lyrics. Each line, each intended melody, each scribble left in the margin—every one of them is meant for you, intended for you, and just for you.

Your vision blurs, heart tightening so painfully it almost aches—because this wasn’t just regret. It was love. Quiet, enduring, and yours all along. 

Heeseung didn’t know how to stay or to cherish—but he’s been unlearning every single bad habit for you. Through your resentment, through your tears, through your silences, until finally, your omega was willing to open up and give him another chance at love.

Your chest swells with affection and pride, echoing with only the name of the alpha.

You reach for a pen and flip back to the first page, leaving your first ever trace in his producer room.

p.s. i love you more, my cinnamon alpha. 

andddd that's the end of it!!1 thank you once again and until next time <3

dividers from: @cursed-carmine <3

permanent taglist: @kristynaaah @seungiesdoll @in-somnias-world @rikismists @loviseamms @ikeupop

fic taglist 1: @bingka @twocupsofsuga @rayofsunshineeee @all4moi @cutehoons02 @barbiecuedotcom @kitteaasstuff @sosocide @lhspeachie @sooooobean @vmpiricou @st4rg1rlies @itsmesofia @dazedinadream @yenienha @fullsunncity @kookieterry @isa942572 @jikookvfans @corroprisz @taesnumber1 @goosemantheweeb @wndrlndhee @jakey1115 @d0llddeonu @zijoan @mheretoreadff @ezekiel-bublz @pomeranyan @mono-for-real

[heejamas]

THE SWEET ESCAPE

────── you're tired of being princess peach: the perfect life, the perfect husband, the suffocating routine. for months you've been secretly fucking heeseung, the bowser: fake kidnappings that turn into real, filthy nights of rough bondage, his mouth devouring you, his cock claiming you while you pretend to resist.

➛ pairing: bowser! heeseung x princess peach! reader | ➛ genre: mario bros au, smut (mdni!!), i would say crack fic bc come on, cheating, rivals to lovers, pwp, secret relationship | #nowplaying: the sweet escape - gwen stefani | you right - doja cat | big girls don't cry - enhypen | the weekend - sza | bad guy - billie eilish | ➛ word count: 5.8k

➛ warnings: smut (mdni!!!), piv, unprotected sex, monster fucking, kidnapping roleplay, bondage, spanking, oral sex (m & f receiving), deepthroating, rough sex, dirty talk, humiliation (public ish / voyeuristic), anal play, cuckolding, dom brat tamer! heeseung, infidelity, cheating (reader is married to mario loll), consensual dub-con (fake kipnapping roleplay), yandere behavior, mild pain play

➛ ronnie's notes: ok so i just wanted to write heeseung as bowser and make the reader absolutely rail him (or get railed by him whatever floats your boat) idk what else to say tbh but this is a 5k words drabble and not really proofread wrote that in 3 days but we ball..... enjoy i guess lmao

IT'S NOT EASY BEING PRINCESS PEACH. you've been rotting in this castle for months. your castle i mean — with the stained glass windows and the gardens that bloom and the marble floors. it's beautiful, but it's suffocating.

your dress is gorgeous, silk and lace and embroidery that took someone weeks to finish. but it weighs a ton, and the corset digs in just enough to remind you that looking the part isn't the same as wanting to play it. your heels scrape marble when you pace (which you do a lot, especially lately) until the sound gets so deep under your skin you want to scream.

your husband has been gone for a week. some mission in the mushroom forest, maybe, something about goombas. you stopped listening halfway through. the toads check on you every few hours like clockwork. bring tea you don't drink, ask if you need anything. you smile and say no and then they leave. they tried to save you the first few times. they don't anymore. and your husband — god, your husband probably thinks you're still waiting with your hands folded, hopeful, counting on him. but you stopped counting weeks ago.

and then you wait.

because heeseung always comes back. and he doesn't break down the door this time.

he just walks in, boots heavy on stone slowly like he's got all the time in the world. the chandeliers shake a little even though he's trying to be quiet — they always do when he's around, like the whole castle recognizes his presence and tenses up. you hear the clink of metal. he stops in the doorway of your oversized bedroom, with his hands in his pockets, dark hair falling into his eyes. looking at you like he's double checking he's got the right princess, the right tower, the right night.

you don't scream, damn you don't even flinch. you just sit up straighter on the edge of the bed, smooth your skirt once, and say calmly, almost bored:

"you're late."

heeseung grins, lazy and shameless.

"had to wait for your boyfriend to leave first," he says, stepping inside. the door clicks shut behind him but he doesn't lock it. "he's real chatty, you know that? i almost felt bad."

"you don't feel bad about anything."

"true." he walks closer slowly. the floor creaks under his weight and you feel it more than hear it. "but i could pretend, you know, for you."

you tilt your head slightly and let the crown sit crooked. a strand of hair falls across your face and you don't fix it. "the toads are gonna notice i'm gone soon," you say. not worried, just factual.

"good." he stops right in front of you now. close enough that you have to tilt your chin up to look at him. "that's the whole point, isn't it, princess?"

you raise an eyebrow. "remind me again why we're doing this?"

"because," heeseung says, voice dropping lower, rougher, "you man's gotta come save you. and you gotta be stolen. and i gotta be the bad guy." he leans down just slightly. "it's all very tragic."

"right." your lips twitch with almost a smile. "so tragic."

"heartbreaking, really."

"and the part where you tie me up and drag me out of here kicking and screaming?"

his grin sharpens, all teeth. "that's my favorite part, baby."

he doesn't answer right away. just reaches behind him and pulls out rope this time, thick, rough hemp. he lets it uncoil slowly in his hand, dragging across the floor with that low rasp that makes your stomach flip. his hands reach your hips, gripping, and then he turns you around, looping the rope once around your wrists, crossed behind you. his fingers brush your skin as he works. 

"last time you used the chain." you muttered.

"last time i wasn't worried about evidence." he tugs the knot tighter. "gotta make it look like you fought back."

you tilt your head so you can see his face. "what if i don't fight?"

he pauses and looks at you with that dark, lazy amusement. "then we improvise." another loop, higher this time, binding your forearms together. "you can scream in the hallway. thrash a little. toads eat that shit up."

you flex your fingers and feel the rope pull. "you like this too much."

"maybe." he finishes the knot at the small of your back, then comes around to face you. crouches down so you're eye level. "but you're letting me. so."

you hold his gaze. "he's gonna see these," you say quietly. 

heeseung tucks that loose strand behind your ear with the knuckle of his index finger first — slow drag, rough skin catching lightly on the shell of your ear before he switches to his thumb. it lingers there on your cheekbone, pressing just firm enough that you feel the callus from whatever weapons he swings when he’s not playing villain. "who fucking cares? tell him i was rough," he says, voice pitched low and close. "that you begged me to stop. cried a little maybe." his thumb slides down, traces the curve of your jaw, then hooks under your chin to tilt your face up higher. "and while he’s kissing it better you’ll be thinking about how i tied you up spread out on your own bed, skirt shoved to your waist, while he was out playing hero somewhere stupid."

your breath snags in your throat and he hears it. his eyes flick down to your mouth for half a second then back up. "you’re the worst," you whisper and it comes out shaky.

"yeah." he stands in one smooth motion, yanks the rope upward like it weighs nothing. he steadies you with a hand on your hop, fingers digging in deep enough to leave crescent marks through the silk “but you keep letting me come back right?” he adds.

he steps behind you then. both hands on your wrists now — rough palms sliding up your forearms, checking the rope. he tugs each coil tighter until the hemp bites red lines into your skin. his thumbs press into the pulse points at your inner wrists, feeling how fast your blood’s moving. then he leans in close — chest to your back, hips slotting against your ass — and reaches around to adjust the front of your dress where it’s slipping off one shoulder. his knuckles graze the swell of your breast on purpose as he pulls the fabric back up, just enough to tease the edge of your nipple through the corset.

“i’ll mark you real good tonight,” he murmurs against the side of your neck. hot breath and his teeth scraping once over your earlobe. "he’ll see these tomorrow and think you fought like hell.”

he steps back, grabs the chain from his belt. he drapes it over your shoulder slow — heavy links sliding across your collarbone, cool against flushed skin — then lets one end trail down between your breasts like a deliberate path. his fingers follow it for a second, brushing the valley there, pressing just hard enough you feel it in your nipples. "for effect," heeseung smirks. “and because you like the sound it makes when you move.”

you roll your eyes but the smile’s already there. "so what, you just carry me out screaming?"

"that’s the plan.” he hooks one arm under your knees, the other around your upper back, and lifts you like you’re nothing. the motion forces your thighs apart around his waist, rope pulling your arms tight behind you so your chest arches forward into him. your bound wrists dig into the small of your back; the angle makes your hips tilt up, cunt pressing right against the hard ridge of his belt buckle through your dress. he shifts you higher on purpose — one quick bounce — so the metal grinds against your clit for a split second. you choke on a sound that’s half gasp, half moan.

“you ready?” he asks, his voice wrecked already.

you lean in, lips brushing his ear. “make it convincing. he’s gotta hear it from the next kingdom over.”

heeseung’s grin splits wide. “oh don’t worry, princess.”

he kicks the door open so hard the frame rattles. strides into the hallway, boots slamming marble in steady rhythm. you count two heartbeats and then scream loud and raw, the sound echoing off stone walls like you’re being torn apart. you thrash, your hips rolling against him more than fighting, thighs squeezing his sides, heels kicking once into his thigh. the rope creaks with every twist; the chain clinks against your chest. he doesn’t flinch, just clamps his arm tighter under your ass — fingers splaying wide, one slipping between your thighs from behind to press flat against your soaked cunt through the silk. he rubs once — slow, firm circle right over your clit — while he keeps walking.

“that’s it,” he mutters against your hair, so low no one else hears. “sell it, pretty. scream like i’m ruining you…”

you do, louder. wetter sounds slipping between your fake cries every time his fingers grind against you with his next step. and the whole castle hears the princess being stolen while the monster carries her out like she belongs to him.

heeseung doesn’t slow down until the castle gates are long behind you. the night air hits cold against your flushed skin as he crosses the bridge, then ducks into the shadowed path that leads straight to his domain — the dark, jagged spires of bowser’s keep. the drawbridge groans open without him even asking; the lava moat bubbles low and angry below.

inside it’s warmer and the stone walls pulse with heat from the torches and the underground fires. he carries you through echoing corridors, past chained goombas who don’t even glance up, until he hits the spiral staircase to the tallest tower. he shifts you roughly and flips you over his shoulder. your wrists still tied tight and your ass is up and your thigh is framing his neck.

the first step up the stairs jolts you. his shoulder digs into your stomach, forcing a real huff out of you. then his free hand comes down — hard, open palmed slap right across your bare ass cheek and the sound cracks through the stairwell. you yelp, legs kicking once on instinct.

"quiet down," he growls, but there’s a grin in it. another slap sharper, catching the sensitive underside where thigh meets ass. your cunt clenches hard around nothing; you feel the slick slide down your inner thigh. "here you don’t need to keep screaming for your husband anymore, princess." another slap and this one lingers, his palm stays pressed flat, fingers curling in to squeeze the stinging flesh. he spreads you a little with the grip, thumb brushing the edge of your dripping slit from behind. “no more lying about how wet you get when i take you.” his voice drops darker. “just you, spread out, begging the monster to fuck his pretty little traitor.”

you moan muffled against his back and he laughs mean. he keeps climbing, every few steps another slap, alternating cheeks, building the heat until your skin’s hot and throbbing, every smack sending fresh sparks straight to your clit.

by the time he reaches the top, your thighs are shaking. he kicks the heavy door open and it bangs against the wall and strides straight to the massive four poster bed in the center of the chamber with black sheets and red velvet hangings.

he doesn’t set you down gentle, he throws you. you land on your back with a bounce, wrists still bound behind you, forcing your shoulders to arch, tits pushed up against the tight corset. the dress is a mess — hiked to your hips, soaked silk clinging between your legs. he stands at the foot of the bed with his eyes raking over you slowly. heeseung's chest heaving a little from the stairs, belt already half undone.

"look at you," he says and his voice is rough and mocking. "princess peach, all tied up and dripping in my bed. what would your husband say if he saw his perfect wife like this? legs open, cunt leaking for the monster who just kidnapped her."

you try to close your thighs, more tease than resistance, but heeseung grabs your ankles, yanks them apart, your knees hooked over his elbows. the rope pulls tighter behind your back and you whimper. "don't even try," he warns you as he drops to his knees between your legs. "you're not going anywhere."

heeseung doesn't pull your dress up further, instead, he just ducks his head under the silk skirt, like it's a veil, his shoulder forcing your thighs wider. his hot breath hits your clit first, then his tongue, flat, with a slow drag from your entrance all the way up, tasting every inch of the mess you've made. he groans against you like hés starving. "fuck, this pussy tastes so good," he mutters into your cunt. "sweet and dripping, all f'me."

then he really dives in, his tongue pushing inside you, fucking you open while his nose grinds against your clit. you arch hard and he just grips your hips tighter, nails digging crescents into your ass to hold you down. he sucks your clit into his month, then releases it with a wet pop, only to lick broad stripes again. the sounds are loud, he's slurping and sucking and your own choked moans are mixing with the wet smack of his mouth.

his hands keep your thigh pinned wide, his thumb spreading your lips open so he can get deeper. "scream for real this time," he orders, his voice muffled against your pussy. he pulls back just enough to spit on your clit, then drives back in. "let the whole fucking tower hear hoe much you love getting eaten out by the bad guy."

your hips grind up into his mouth harder now, the rope pining your arms so tight behind your back, that every buck makes the hemp scrape fresh burns into your wrists, but you don't care. you chase it, thighs clamping around his head. "f-fuck heeseung, —" you gasp. "please don't stop—"

he pulls back just enough to make you whine, and he smirks from under the skirt. "who said you get to tell me what do do, princess?" his voice is mean and his fingers dig harder into your ass, bruising. "you're the one tied up, baby. the one cheating on her hero husband with my tongue buried in her cunt. shut up and take it."

you giggle, and kick your heel lightly into his back. "make me."

so he does. he dives back in rougher, his tongue flicking fast and relentless over your clit, two fingers shoving inside of you without warning, curling hard and pumping deep. his free hand slaps your inner thigh and then he holds it open wider. "that's right," he growls against your folds. "keep running that pretty mouth, see what it gets you."

you're responsive now — every lick pulls a sound out of you. moans turn into whimpers, your hips rolling messy and urgent. "harder— hee, please, fuck—" you're begging, thighs shaking harder around his ears. he sucks your clit between his teeth and you shatter. whole body seizing up, cunt clenching around his fingers as you cum hard. a raw cry rips out of your throat and you flood his mouth, your vision spotting white. he doesn't stop, just laps you through it, his tongue slow and filthy now, drinking every drop of you. your hips twitch and even though you're oversensitive you grind down anyway because it hurts so good.

when you finally slump back, he pulls out from under the skirt and stands up slowly, at the foot of the bed. his face was wrecked — his lips were red, his chin dripping, his eyes dark but still fixed on you like a prey. he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand but his gaze doesn't leave yours. "look at the mess you've made," he says. "cumming all over the monster's face, while your husband is out there saving the day. how pathetic."

your bratty fire sparks back, so you bite your lip and shift on the bed, pushing yourself up to sitting, your knees together like you're trying to play innocent. "yeah? then why are you so hard?"

your eyes drop to the bulge straining his pants, and heeseung's jaw ticks. he steps closer and towers you from the edge of the bed. he grabs your chin hard, bruising, his fingers still slick with you, and forces your face up. "on your knees," he orders.

but you don't move, instead, you just stare up at him, defiant. "make me."

his grip tightens, he yanks you forward by the chin until you're sliding off the bed, your knees hitting the stone floor with a thud. you're so much smaller like this on your knees, looking up at his bigger frame, his boots plant wide on either side of your thighs, basically caging you in. "yeah, that's better," he mutters. his thumb smears your own wetness across your bottom lip. "brats like you belong down here anyway."

you lick if off slowly, eyes locked on his. "fuck you, heeseung."

"you will." and then he lets go of your chin, his hands moving to his belt, unbuckling it completely. he pulls the zipper down slowly and he shoves his pants open, pulls himself out — he's thick, hard, huge, veins pulsing under your gaze. you almost drool at the sight, pre cum beads at the tip already, and he strokes once, base to head, unhurried. "open," he says.

you make him wait a second longer just to be a brat. "what if he walks in right now?" you murmur, your lips almost brushing the tip of his cock. "sees me on my knees mouth full of his rival's cock?"

heeseung growls and grabs the back of your head, his fingers tangling hard in your hair, and pushes in without warning, filling your mouth deep. "then he would know what a cheating little slut his wife really is," he hisses. he holds you there for a second, feeling your throat adjusting to his size. "now suck this cock, princess."

you moan around him and he starts moving, your tongue swirling messy under his shaft, cheeks hollowing as you take him deeper. your spit slicks him up quickly, dripping down your chin onto your chest. he's thick enough it aches your jaw, but you push through, looking up at him the whole time. "that's it," he mutters, with his hips rocking forward. "choke on it. pretend it's his — but we both know you'd rather have mine." his free hand cups your jaw, thumb pressing into the bulge where he's filling you. "gonna cum down your throat and send you back to him with my taste still on your tongue."

you hum in agreement and suck harder, heeseung's grip tightens on your hair, and he rocks forward letting you feel every thick inch sliding deeper, until the tip of his cock bumps the back of your throat. "relax that pretty mouth," he mutters. "you're gonna take it all princes, you know how, don't you?"

so you try, your throat working, but when he pushes the last inch in, your eyes water instantly. your nose is pressed to his pelvis and you make a muffled wet sound around him, half protest and half moan. he groans with his hips twitching forward. "fuck, that's it — feel how deep i am?" he holds you there a second longer than you can handle, feeling your throat squeezing him. he pulls back just enough for you to drag in a shaky breath through your nose before sliding back in, slower this time.

"look up at me," he orders. so you do, and your lashes are wet, tears clinging, but you blink up at him anyway. "good girl. your husband is never gonna get this version of his princess, is he?"

you shake your head and whine around his cock, and then he starts fucking your mouth for real. every thrust bumps the back of your throat making your gag reflex flutter. spit bubbles at the corners of your mouth and drips down onto your chest. "fuck, you're taking it so well." your eyes are rolling back a little when he grinds in deep and holds, but then he speeds up, chasing it. "gonna cum—" he warns. "gonna fill that mouth and you're gonna swallow every drop, you hear me princess?"

you moan in agreement and he loses it, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing thick on your throat as he comes hard. you swallow reflexively, throat working around him, milking every last bit. when he's done, he doesn't pull out gentle, he yanks your head back by the hair, his cock slipping free with a wet pop. strings of spit and cum connect your lips to the tip for a second.

you gasp, coughing once, your chest heavy. "up," he snaps. his hand is still fisted in your hair and he hauls you up to your feet. your legs shake, your knees weak from kneeling so long but he doesn't care. he spins you around fast, shoves your face down onto the bed. your bound arms twist awkwardly under you; cheek pressed to the sheets, your ass up, dress still bunched around your waist.

he kicks your thighs wider apart. one hand plants between your shoulder blades, pinning you down hard. the other grips your hip. you whimper whiny, your hips rocking back instinctively. "heeseung — please —"

"please what?" he mocks. then he leans over you, his chest to your back, his cock still hard and sliding between your folds. he teases your entrance without pushing in. "please fuck your cheating cunt? please make you forget your fucking husband exists?"

"yes—" you whine, voice breaking. "please, just — i need it, i need you—"

he laughs and slams in in one brutal thrust, bottoming out so deep your breath punches out of you. the stretch burns so good and you're still sensitive from cumming earlier, walls fluttering around his cock. "fuck you're tight," he grits out and starts moving roughly in a punishing rhythm. hips snapping hard enough the bed frame creaks. every thrust jolts you forward, face smushing into the sheets. "taking me so good even after i fucked your throat raw— greedy little thing."

you moan into the mattress pushing back to meet him as best you can with your arms tied. “harder — please, heeseung—”

he slaps your ass once then grips both hips, yanking you back onto him with every stroke. “you want it harder princess?” his voice was  strained. “you just take it. take it and think about how you’re gonna crawl back to him tomorrow with my cum leaking out of you.”

your whines turn higher, needier. “gonna — gonna feel you all day—”

"damn right you will." he angles deeper and hits that spot that makes your toes curl. one hand slides up and wraps around the rope binding your wrists and he uses it like a handle, pulling your shoulders back, arching you harder. "scream for me again, let the whole fucking castle know who owns this pussy."

you do, while he fucks you rough and relentless, claiming every inch like he's marking territory your husband will never touch again. heeseung's hips snap harder now, faster, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the room like a filthy rhythm. your whines turn desperate, high pitched, every thrust punching the air out of your lungs. "f-fuck — too deep, hee —" you gasp.

he laughs darkly and breathless, one hand sliding up your sweat slick back to fist your hair again. "to deep? you're fucking soaked, princess, dripping down my balls." his voice is wrecked and mean, his hips grinding in deep circles. "bet you never cum this hard on his tiny dick. that's why you keep letting me steal you, huh? you need a real monster cock to stretch this cheating pussy?"

you're right on the edge — walls fluttering tight around him, clit throbbing from the friction every time his hips slam. "heeseung — i'm gonna — please"

that's when the door bursts open and slams against the wall with a crack. in waddles this short, stocky guy, his red hat crooked, his mustache twitching, overalls dirt streaked from whatever dumb quest he was on. his eyes go wide, his face flushing redder than his shirt as he freezes in the doorway. the little gloves on his hands clench into fists but he doesn't move. he just stands there, staring at the scene: you face down on the bed, ass up, bound arms pinned, your dress ruined and shoved to your waist while heeseung fucks you from behind.

heeseung doesn't stop, doesn't even slow down. if anything he goes even harder, his thrusts turning brutal, cock slamming so deep you feel it in your guts, and the obscene squelch of your cunt taking him deep fills the silence in the room. he glances over at the intruder, smirks wide and feral and then he turns back to you like the guy's not even there.

"oh look," he drawls, voice loud and mocking. "your little hero showed up early, probably thought he was gonna rescue his perfect princess." he yanks your hair back harder, forcing your head up so you're looking right at the door, right at him. tears streak your cheeks from the overstimulation and you bite your lip, but a moan slips out anyway, raw and needy. "tell him how good it feels, baby, come on. tell him you're creaming all over my cock instead of waiting for his pathetic ass."

your husband stammers something high pitched italian accented gibberish, his face twisting in horror and humiliation. his eyes dark from your flushed wrecked expression to where heeseung's thick cock disappears into you, slick and shining, his balls slapping your clit with every rough pound. your husband takes a step forward, then stops, his hands shaking like he doesn't even know what to do.

you try to speak, but heeseung cuts you off with a hard slap on your ass. your cunt clenching hard around him from the sting, and you whimper, your hips pushing back on instinct. "heeseung, f-fuck—"

"don't lie to him now baby," heeseung growls, leaning over closer, chest to your back, his mouth hot against your ear. "tell your husband the truth, tell him how you beg me to tie you up and fuck you raw every time. how his wife's pussy milks my cock." he punctuates each word with a deep thrust — in, out, in — making your tits bounce under the corset.

your husband's face crumples and he backs up a step, muttering something and then he spins on his heels and bolts out the door, slamming it shut behind him so hard the torches flicker. heeseung bursts out laughing and immediately pick up the pace, his hips pistoning faster now. "poor little guy," he mocks, chuckling under his breath.

his hand slides down from your hip, his fingers slick with your arousal, and without warning he presses one thick digit against your asshole, slowly at first, circling the tight rim before pushing in knuckle deep in one smooth slide. you jolt forward with a chocked whine, whole body clenching around both his cock and digit. the stretch burns, making everything feel even filthier.

"fuck you just squeezed me so tight," heeseung groans against your ear, finger curling inside you in slow, teasing pumps matching the brutal rhythm of his thrusts. "you like that, huh? my finger in your ass while i fuck this cheating pussy raw?"

you can't form words, just moans and whimpers, face pressed into the sheets now, drool pooling under your cheek. your hips push back chasing both sensations and heeseung laughs again, darker this time and twists his finger deeper. "answer me, princess," he demands. "tell me you love being stuffed full like a dirty little slut while your husband's probably crying somewhere."

"y-yes—" you sob, voice wrecked. "fuck yes — i love it, hee, please don't stop—"

"that's my girl," he hisses, stretching you wider with his finger while his cock pound relentless. "now cum for me, princess, cum hard on this cock."

and you do instantly, walls clamping down like a vice, your whole body shaking as the orgasm rips through you. "heeseung — fuck yes—" you sob, your voice whiny, gushing wet around him in hot pulses. he groans loud and follow right after, burying deep with one last brutal thrust. his cock throbbing, spilling thick ropes of cum inside you, filling you up until it leaks out around him, dripping down your thighs in warm, sticky rails.

heeseung collapses over you for a second, his chest heaving against your back, his cock still twitching inside you as the last pulses fade. his breath fans hot across your shoulder before he finally exhales. he pulls out carefully, watching the thick white spill out of you the second he bottoms out. it drips slow down your thighs, mixing with your own slick. he groans low at the sight, his thumb brushing once over your asshole down your swollen folds just to spread it wider, like he's admiring his work.

"that's my good girl," heeseung murmurs, the mean edge softening. he flips you over gentle, his hands under your shoulders, easing you onto your back so the rope doesn't dig in worse. your arms ache when they finally relax forward and he notices, and his fingers work the knots loose one by one, careful not to yank, rubbing slow circles over the red welts left behind. "fuck look at theses marks," he says. "gonna bruise so pretty tomorrow."

you shiver at the thought. he leans down and presses a slow open mouthed kiss to each wrist, his tongue flicking over the rope burns like he's soothing them and claiming them at the same time. then he hits back on his heels, his eyes raking over the rest of you: corset still half laced, dress a crumpled ruin around your waist, crown long gone somewhere on the floor.

"c'mere," he says, sliding his arms under your knees and back. he lift you like you weigh nothing, cradling you against his chest. your head lolls onto his shoulder, you're boneless and wrecked and still leaking him down your thighs. he carries you across the room, past the heavy velvet curtains into the attached bath chamber.

the tub's massive, black marble, filled and steaming with hot water that smells of something herbal like he planned this part too. he stops at the edge, still holding you, and sets you down on your feet gently, steadying you with his hands on your hips when your legs wobble. "easy there. let's get this off," he murmurs, his fingers finding the laces of your corset, working them loose one by one, slowly pulling out the silk loosen around your ribs. you breathe deeper, and then he peels the ruined dress down, no rush and no roughness. he strips down every last layer gently until you're completely bare.

he stands again, his eyes dark but soft as he takes you in. he doesn't say anything filthy this time, just leans in and kisses the corner of your mouth, soft. he scoops you back and lowers you into the sub carefully. the hot water stings the fresh mark on your wrists and the raw skins of your ask for a moment, then melts into soothing warmth that makes your whole body loosen.

heeseung strips himself next, armor pieces first, his leather straps undone, shirt tugged over his head in one smooth motion, revealing the hard lines on his chest, the faint scars that look like old battle marks. pants down next, kicked off with his boots, and he's bare in seconds, his cock still semi hard, his thighs thick and his skin flushed from everything you just did.

he slides in behind you after, water sloshing over the rim. his long legs bracketing yours, chest to your back, pulling you in until you're resting against him completely. his arms come around you — one hand splayed low on your stomach, the other dipping under the surface to rest between your thighs, possessive but careful.

"relax baby," he murmurs against your ear softly. "let me clean you up, mhm?" he reaches for a cloth on the edge and dips it, squeezes warm water over your shoulders. he watches it run down your collarbone, between your tits and his hand follows, soapy now, sliding over your skin in long strokes. his hands roam over down your arms, careful over the rope marks. across your stomach, and then, between your thighs.

you tense when his fingers brush your cunt still sensitive and swollen but he shushes you. "easy, princess, i'm just washing you." but his touch lingers. two fingers part your folds gently, rinsing away the mess he left, thumb grazing your clit in slow barely there circles. you whimper, hips twitching up into his hand on instinct.

he chuckles low, his breath hot on your neck. "still needy huh? after all that?" he presses a kiss to the side of your throat, then another lower, teeth grazing your pulse. "good, means you're mine."

his hand keeps moving, washing and teasing, never quite enough to make you cum again but enough to keep you trembling. the other hand slides up to your neck, thumb under your jaw, tilting your head back so he can kiss you properly. he kisses you slowly and deeply, his tongue sliding against yours like he's tasting the last of himself on you.

when he pulls back, water dripping from his hair onto your shoulder, his voice drops quieter, rougher. "i want you to be my princess now," he says, his voice raw. "for real this time. not the fake kidnapping bullshit, just… you. here with me, no more going back to him."

you swallow, his fingers are still between your legs, but not moving now, just resting there. "say it baby," he whispers, lips brushing your ear. "say you're mine, please."

your breath hitches. you turn your head just enough to meet his eyes. "i'm yours, heeseung," you murmur, your voice small but sure.

heeseung exhales hard through his nose and kisses you again, harder this time, and his hand finally moves. his fingers slipping inside you slow, curling gentle but deep, his thumb pressing firm on your clit. "good job baby," he growls against your mouth. "now cum for me one more time, mhm?"

so you do — arching back against him, water sloshing over the edge, moaning soft and broken into his kiss while his fingers work you open and claim you all over again.

your husband will never know you spent the whole night tied up and desperate under the guy he thinks is his enemy. at least, it's not that hard being princess peach anymore.

perm taglist: @rairaiblog @nqdirr @iyoonjh @saeris-world @jayparked @solonenova @izzyy-stuff  @gh9sty @xoenhalover @bambiens @hoonsocks @jaeyunflix @jakesimfromstatefarm @hoonieyun

author's notes: idk what so say sorry that was freaky af hope u liked it???????

[lac4ygal]

༊*·˚SUNDOWN, DARLIN’ 이희승

‎ ❝ I once believed love would be black and white ‎ ‎But it's golden ❞

°❀࿔ PAIRINGS. (이희승) x 𝒻 !reader

°❀࿔ SUMMARY. You came to Castillo Creek, Texas with a suitcase and a job offer you took because it was the furthest thing away from everything you knew. You didn’t come for the man who owns Sunrise Ranch and has the gorgeous smile. You didn’t come for his gap-toothed, too-perceptive young boy. But Castillo Creek has a way of giving you what you need before you know you need it. And some people, it turns out, are worth staying for.

°❀࿔ WARNINGS. angst with resolution, mild angst, brief mention of a broken engagement, past relationship, brief emotional manipulation from an ex, themes of running from your past, slow burn tension, explicit sexual content (+18 minors dni), penetrative sex, kissing, soft domestic content, found family themes, mentions of abandonment, fluff to the max

°❀࿔ WORD COUNT. 29.6k

°❀࿔ LACEYS NOTE. this has been brewing in my drafts for at least a week and i finally bothered to finish it. took me so long bc of the news about heesueng but i wish him well on his solo journey and will still support him! ENHAOT7! anyway, i hope this fic heals something within you all and the domestic bliss of it makes me so happy and giddy. comments, feedback, reblogs and likes keep me writing, feel free to send ask too! enjoy honies!

The bus drops you at the edge of nowhere.

That’s not entirely fair — the sign reads Castillo Creek, Pop. 412 in sun-bleached letters, and there is, technically, a street. One of them. It runs maybe four blocks before it gives up and dissolves into dust and open sky, flanked on either side by a hardware store, a diner with a hand-painted sign, a church with a crooked steeple, and a general store with a rocking chair out front that currently holds an old man who has not looked up from his newspaper since the bus wheezed to a stop.

You step down onto the road and the heat hits you like a physical thing.

Chicago in September is crisp. Leaves turning, wind off the lake, the smell of the city sharpening into something almost bearable. You have lived your whole life in that particular kind of autumn and you are standing here now in what should by all rights be the tail end of summer and the ground is baking. The sky is enormous. There are no buildings tall enough to interrupt it, nothing to cut the blue into manageable pieces, and for a moment you just stand there with your suitcase at your feet and your hat in your hand and feel very, very small.

“You the new schoolteacher?” You turn. A young man — can’t be more than nineteen — is leaning against the side of the bus stop with his arms crossed and his dark hair falling into his eyes. He’s got a look on his face that isn’t quite a smile but is clearly thinking about becoming one.

“That obvious?” you say.

“You’ve got a suitcase and a look on your face like you’re trying to figure out if you made a terrible mistake.” He pushes off the wall and picks up your larger bag before you can protest. “Riki. I work out at Sunrise Ranch but I’m in town most days. Mr. Lee sent me to check if you’d arrived.”

You blink. “Someone was expecting me?”

“Mrs. Calloway at the boarding house would’ve had your room ready since Tuesday,” he says, already walking. “Small town. News travels.”

You pick up your smaller case and follow him. Mrs. Calloway. The name lands somewhere behind your sternum and sits there, inert. Just a name. A common enough name. You are done flinching at common names. “I’m Y/N,” you say.

“I know,” Riki says, not unkindly. “Everyone does.”

—

Main Street — the only street, really, though two dirt roads branch off it like afterthoughts — is quiet in the way that feels inhabited rather than empty. A woman sweeps her front step and nods at you. Two men outside the hardware store pause their conversation to watch you pass with open, unapologetic curiosity. A little girl with two braids chases a dog around the side of the church and neither of them pays you any attention at all, which you find oddly comforting.

The diner is called Park’s and it has a specials board in the window that reads Tuesday: Peach Pie in chalk letters, and through the glass you can see red vinyl booths and a long counter with spinning stools and a man behind it who catches your eye through the window and raises a coffee pot in greeting like he’s been expecting you too. “That’s Jay,” Riki says, following your gaze. “He’ll want to talk your ear off. I’d give yourself a day before you go in or you’ll never get unpacked.”

“Is everyone here this—” you search for the word.

“Friendly?” Riki offers.

“I was going to say informed.”

He considers this. “Yeah,” he says. “Both.”

The boarding house sits at the end of the main street where the road widens slightly, a two-storey white clapboard building with a porch and a wind chime and flower boxes in the windows. It is, you think, the most aggressively quaint thing you have ever seen in your life. You grew up in an apartment on the fourth floor of a building that smelled like other people’s cooking and city rain and you are trying very hard not to let your face say anything impolite about wind chimes.

Mrs. Della, the landlady — not a Calloway, you exhale quietly — is a broad warm woman in her sixties with silver hair and flour on her apron who opens the door before you knock and says “There she is” like you’re something she ordered and is pleased to find arrived undamaged. “Come in, come in, you must be half dead from that bus.” She takes your smaller case clean out of your hand. “Riki, you staying for supper?”

“Can’t,” he says, setting your larger bag inside the door. He looks at you briefly, something almost like reassurance in it. “You’ll be alright here,” he says, which is a strange thing to say and which you believe immediately, and then he’s back down the porch steps and heading up the road with his hands in his pockets.

“Good boy,” Mrs. Della says, watching him go. “Lee Heeseung took him in two years back, gives him work and a roof. That man would give you the shirt off his back.” She says it the way people say things that are simply true, established fact, no elaboration required, and ushers you inside before you can ask who Lee Heeseung is.

Your room is small and clean and has a window that looks out over the back garden and a field beyond it and then nothing but flat land and sky all the way to the horizon. The bed has a quilt on it in yellow and white. There is a writing desk and a lamp and a hook on the back of the door.

You sit on the edge of the bed and let the quiet settle around you. In Chicago there is always noise — traffic and neighbours and the radiator banging in winter and the el train every twelve minutes rattling the windows. You have slept to that noise your whole life. This quiet is a different texture entirely. Crickets, somewhere. Wind moving through something dry. The distant low sound of what might be cattle.

You think about the apartment you gave up. The life you gave up — or that was given up on — and the way the story circulated, the whispers at the school where you’d taught for three years, the way your mother had said maybe if you’d been less difficult, Y/N, as though your own broken engagement was a character flaw you’d displayed in public. You’d applied for twenty-seven jobs in towns you’d never heard of. Castillo Creek, Texas was the one that wrote back.

You lie back on the yellow quilt and look at the ceiling and think: New soil. See what grows.

In the morning Mrs. Della makes you eggs and biscuits and coffee so strong it makes your eyes water and tells you that the schoolhouse is two blocks north, that school starts Monday which gives you four days to settle, that the previous teacher Miss Hargrove retired to be closer to her sister in San Antonio and left her lesson plans in the desk drawer, and that if you need anything at all you are to ask and not to be proud about it. “We don’t stand on ceremony here,” she says, refilling your cup. “You’ll find people are plain. They say what they mean.”

“That’s refreshing,” you say, and mean it more than she knows.

“You’ll fit in fine,” she says, in the same tone Riki used last night, that same easy certainty, and you don’t know yet whether Castillo Creek is simply a town full of optimists or whether they can see something in you that you can’t currently see in yourself.

After breakfast you walk the street. Slowly, no destination, just learning the shape of the place. The hardware store is run by a man named Gus who shakes your hand and calls you ma’am and means it respectfully. The general store has everything from canned peaches to horse liniment arranged with cheerful illogic on its shelves. The church noticeboard has a harvest dance announced for the first week of October, hand-lettered on card. A tabby cat sleeps on the post office step and does not move when you step over it.

You end up at Park’s because you are not made of stone and the peach pie in the window has been watching you since yesterday. The bell above the door chimes when you push it open. The diner smells like coffee and something frying and woodsmoke and the particular warm smell of a place that has been feeding people for a long time. Three of the booths are occupied — two older men playing cards over the remains of breakfast, a young woman nursing a baby and reading a magazine, a teenager staring out the window like he’s being paid for it.

The man behind the counter looks up and grins like you’ve just won something. “There she is,” he says, which is apparently how everyone in this town greets you. He’s handsome in an easy, untroubled way — dark eyes, an apron over his shirt, the kind of smile that has probably never caused him a day’s trouble because it is entirely, disarmingly genuine. “Jay Park. Welcome to Castillo Creek, and more importantly, welcome to my diner. Sit anywhere. Coffee?”

“Please,” you say, sliding onto a counter stool. “Y/N.”

“I know.” He’s already pouring. “The whole town knows. Don’t let that spook you — it’s not menacing, we’re just starved for news.” He sets the cup in front of you. “You surviving Mrs. Della’s biscuits?”

“They’re extraordinary.”

“Don’t tell her I said this but mine are better.” He leans on the counter. “How are you finding it so far?”

“I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours.”

“First impressions.”

You wrap your hands around the coffee cup. Outside the window the main street sits quiet in the morning sun, dust turning gold where the light hits it, a man on horseback moving slow at the far end of the road, hat low against the glare. “It’s very quiet,” you say.

“City girl.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“The accent gives you away a little,” he says, not unkindly. “Chicago?”

“Born and raised.”

He nods like this explains something. “You’ll either love it here or you’ll be back on the bus in a month. There’s not usually an in-between.” He tilts his head, studying you with the frank, comfortable curiosity of a man who talks to everyone and has learned to read them quickly. “My money’s on love it.”

“Why?”

“You ordered coffee before you ordered pie,” he says. “Practical. And you’re still here instead of back at the boarding house wondering what you’ve done. Means you’re the kind of person who walks toward things.”

You look at him for a moment. “You do this with everyone?”

“Do what?”

“Make them feel like you’ve known them for years.”

Jay grins, unabashed. “Only the interesting ones.” He reaches under the counter and produces a plate with a slice of peach pie on it, sets it in front of you without asking. “On the house. Welcome to town.”

You eat the pie. It is, genuinely, one of the best things you’ve ever tasted, which you tell him, and he looks so pleased about it that you find yourself smiling for what feels like the first time in a long time — the real kind, not the composed kind you’ve been wearing since spring.

You are still there an hour later when the bell above the door chimes and a man walks in. You notice the hat first. Worn tan leather, shaped by years and weather, pushed back just enough to see his face.

Then the face — and it is, unfairly, a lot of face: dark eyes, jaw that belongs in a painting, and a smile that appears when he spots Jay like the sun deciding to come out from behind something. He is tall and lean in the way of men who work with their bodies, wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled and boots with actual dust on them, and he moves through the diner like a man who is completely comfortable taking up space, not arrogantly, just — naturally. Like the room fits him.

Half the diner looks up when he walks in. You notice this and then notice that he doesn’t seem to notice it. “Heeseung,” Jay says. “You’re late.”

“Riki let one of the mares out this morning,” the man says, dropping onto the stool two down from you. “Had to get her back in before she ate the garden.” His voice has the particular warm drawl of a man who has lived in Texas his whole life, the vowels long and unhurried. He glances over — and for just a moment, before the smile arrives, you see him register you. A quick, frank, unguarded look. Then the smile.

It is, you think distantly, a remarkably good smile. “You must be the new schoolteacher,” he says.

“So I’ve been told,” you say.

He huffs a quiet laugh and extends a hand across the empty stool between you. “Lee Heeseung. I run Sunrise Ranch, out east of town.” A pause, then, easy as breathing: “Welcome to Castillo Creek, darlin’.”

The darlin’ lands warmly, casually, the way he probably says it to everyone. You shake his hand. His grip is firm and his palm is calloused and he lets go at exactly the right moment. “Y/N,” you say.

“Pretty name,” he says, and turns back to Jay to ask about the lunch special, and that is that.

You finish your pie. You say goodbye to Jay, who tells you to come back tomorrow, and nod to Heeseung, who tips his hat slightly without looking up from his coffee, and you push out into the dry Texas morning with the bell chiming behind you and the sky enormous overhead. You think: new soil.

You walk back toward the boarding house and do not think about the smile. (You try.)

—

The schoolhouse is a single rectangular building painted white, sitting back from the road behind a low wooden fence with a gate that sticks. There is a bell above the door on a rope, a covered porch with two steps, and six windows along each side that let in long rectangles of morning light. Inside: four rows of desks, a blackboard, a bookshelf with a sadly depleted top shelf, a globe with a crack running through the Pacific, a teacher’s desk at the front with a chair that wobbles on its left leg, and the lesson plans Miss Hargrove left in the drawer, written in such small precise handwriting that you have to hold them close to the lamp to read them.

You spend the weekend getting acquainted with it. You rearrange the desks slightly — four rows feels regimented for fourteen children ranging from five to eleven — into a looser configuration that won’t make the little ones feel like they’re waiting to be sentenced. You find chalk in the wrong drawer and a box of coloured pencils in the right one. You fix the gate with a piece of wire you find coiled on the porch. You read Miss Hargrove’s lesson plans and her notes on each child, written in the margins in that same small hand: Clara D. — very bright, reads above her level. Tommy H. — struggles with numbers but never says so. Eli L. — clever, restless, tests limits. Handle firmly but don’t let him know you’re doing it.

You read that last one twice. Eli L.

You’d heard the name once already, briefly, the way you hear a lot of names in a town like this — someone mentioning someone else in passing, the social web of a small place where everyone is connected to everyone by approximately two degrees. Riki worked at Sunrise Ranch. Sunrise Ranch belonged to Lee Heeseung. Lee Heeseung had a son. Clever, restless, tests limits.

You put the lesson plans back in the drawer, look at the rearranged desks.

Monday morning arrives with the particular clarity of a sky that has not clouded in weeks. You are at the schoolhouse by seven-thirty. You write your name on the board — Miss Y/N — and you stand at the front and look at the empty desks and do something you haven’t let yourself do since you stepped off that bus: you feel, briefly and privately, afraid. Not of the children, not of the job — you have been a teacher for three years and you are good at it, this you know — but of the starting over. Of the standing in a room and introducing yourself to people who don’t know you yet and hoping that this time, in this place, what they learn about you is something you’ve chosen.

You take a breath. You put your composed face on. You go stand on the porch to watch them arrive.

They come in ones and twos, mostly walked by mothers who linger at the gate with polite curiosity to get a look at you, a few by fathers, one or two on their own who are clearly old enough to have decided they don’t need walking. The little ones are solemn and wide-eyed. The older ones are watchful. They file onto the porch and past you with varying degrees of shyness, and you smile at each of them and say good morning, and most of them say it back.

The boy who doesn’t say it back arrives at eight on the dot, alone. He is small for seven — wiry and dark-haired with his father’s eyes and a gap where one of his front teeth used to be — and he walks through the gate with his lunch pail swinging and his chin up with the specific energy of a child who has decided in advance that he is not going to be impressed. He stops at the foot of the porch steps and looks up at you.

You look down at him. “Good morning,” you say.

He considers you. His gaze is frank and assessing in a way that reminds you immediately, disconcertingly, of his father. “You talk funny,” he says.

Behind him, two of the other children go very still in that particular way children do when someone has said the thing everyone was thinking. “I do,” you agree pleasantly. “Good morning.”

He blinks — he was expecting something else, you can tell — and then, almost against his will: “Morning.” He goes inside. You allow yourself precisely one second of satisfaction and then follow him in.

Their names, as you learn them through the morning: Clara, Tommy, Ruth, Beau, Ida, Jesse, Mae, Henry, Grace, Daniel, Lottie, Patrick, Susie, and Eli. Fourteen children, five to eleven, in one room with one teacher, which is simply the way of it in a town this size and which you knew going in and which presents itself as exactly the specific beautiful chaos you anticipated.

The little ones need different work from the older ones, the older ones need to be trusted enough not to resent the time you spend with the younger, and the whole arrangement requires a kind of orchestrated independence that takes most new teachers a month to establish.

You have it running by lunch. This is not arrogance. It is three years of practice and the lesson plans of Miss Hargrove, who clearly knew what she was doing, and the children themselves, who are — beneath the shyness and the staring — genuinely good. Clara reads to the two youngest while you work arithmetic with the middle group. Tommy, who struggles with numbers and has clearly been told by someone who loves him to hide it, relaxes visibly when you kneel beside his desk and show him the same problem three different ways without making it a thing. Grace, who is eleven and takes her seniority seriously, helps you hand out the coloured pencils for the afternoon drawing exercise with the gravity of someone performing a civic duty.

Eli sits in the second row and does exactly enough work to be technically compliant and spends the rest of the time studying you like you’re a puzzle he’s deciding whether to bother solving. He is not disruptive. He does not cause trouble, exactly. He just — watches. And occasionally says something, not quite under his breath, that makes the children near him stifle laughter, and when you look at him he is already looking at the ceiling or his pencil or the middle distance, expression perfectly innocent.

At half past two he raises his hand for the first time. You are, cautiously, relieved. “Yes, Eli?”

“How come you don’t say cahn’t like us?” he says. “You say can’t like it’s short.” The room goes quiet with interest.

“Because I grew up in Chicago,” you say. “People talk differently there.”

“Why?”

“That’s a good question. Different places develop different ways of speaking over time depending on who settled there and where they came from originally. It’s called a dialect.”

He turns this over. “So you’re not talking wrong, you’re just talking different.”

“That’s exactly right.”

He seems to file this away somewhere. He looks at his desk, then back up at you. “My dad says Chicago’s real big.”

“It is.”

“Did you like it?”

There is nothing loaded in the question — he is seven, he is simply curious — but the room is listening and you have a composed face for exactly this and you use it. “I did,” you say. “But I like it here too. Different things to like.” You hold his gaze for just a moment. “Good question, Eli.” He ducks his head in a way that might, if you’re reading it right, be pleased.

You let them out at three o’clock. They pour off the porch like water and scatter in every direction — some toward the main street, some down the side road, a few collected by waiting parents at the gate. You stand on the porch and watch them go with the pleasant exhausted satisfaction of a good first day, the kind where you know the shape of things now even if the details are still forming.

The last child through the gate is Eli, lunch pail swinging again, cap pushed back on his head. He pauses at the gate and turns back. “Miss?” he calls.

“Yes?”

He looks at you for a moment, that assessing look. Then: “You fixed the gate.”

“It was sticking,” you say. He nods, apparently satisfied with this. And then he’s gone, off down the road at a trot, and you lean against the porch post and look at the empty yard and the long afternoon light making everything gold and think that clever, restless, tests limits is right but that the note should have also said watching everything, deciding what to do with it.

Jay brings you pie. Not in the diner — he appears at the boarding house at half past five with a covered plate and the energy of a man who has been wanting to ask you about your day since approximately eight that morning. Mrs. Della lets him in with the equanimity of someone accustomed to Jay Park appearing with baked goods and sets an extra cup on the table. “Well?” he says, sitting down across from you with the plate between you, which you note he has not uncovered, clearly operating on the pie as leverage.

“Well,” you say.

“First day.” He tilts his head. “Good? Bad? You still here, which is promising.”

“Good,” you say honestly. “They’re good kids.”

“They are.” He uncovers the plate — cherry, this time. “Any trouble?”

You think of dark eyes and a gap-toothed grin and you talk funny. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Jay smiles, something knowing in it. “Eli Lee give you a hard time?”

“He was perfectly behaved.”

“That’s almost worse, honestly.” He leans back in his chair. “He’s a good kid. He just — tests people. Wants to know if you’re going to stay.” He says it lightly but you hear something underneath it, something careful. “His last teacher, Miss Hargrove, he adored her by the end. Took him a month.”

“I’ve got time,” you say.

Jay looks at you the way he did that first morning at the counter, that frank easy assessment. “You know Heeseung came into the diner after you left Friday,” he says, with the absolute casualness of a man deploying information he has been sitting on for days.

You cut into the pie. “Did he.”

“Asked how you seemed. Whether you looked settled.” Jay’s expression is the picture of innocence. “Just being neighbourly.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Mm.” Jay drinks his coffee. “He doesn’t usually ask.”

You eat your cherry pie and look at Jay Park over your fork and decide that you like him enormously and that he is also going to be an absolute menace and that these two things are entirely compatible. “Thank you for the pie,” you say.

Jay grins. “Anytime, darlin’.”

The word lands differently in his mouth — friendly, careless, the way you’d expect. The way it probably sounds from everyone. You eat your pie and don’t think about the way it sounded Friday morning on a counter stool two seats down from you, unhurried and warm, like the man saying it had all the time in the world.

Wednesday afternoon you are erasing the board after the children have gone when you hear the gate. You turn, chalk dust on your hands, and Heeseung Lee is coming through it.

He has his hat in his hand this time — held at his side, the gesture you will come to learn is his version of courtesy, the small deliberate thing he does when he’s on someone else’s ground. He is in his work clothes, boots dusty, shirt with the sleeves rolled like the first time you saw him, and he is looking at the schoolhouse with a particular quiet expression that you can’t read yet. “Mr. Lee,” you say from the porch.

He looks up. “Miss Y/N.” The smile comes easy and unhurried, the same one from the diner, and you are annoyed to find that it works just as well the second time. “Hope I’m not disturbing.”

“Not at all.” You dust the chalk from your hands on your apron. “Is something wrong?”

“No, ma’am.” He reaches the foot of the steps and stops there, which you note — he doesn’t come up onto the porch uninvited, just stands at the bottom with his hat in his hand. “Eli mentioned you fixed the gate.”

You blink. “It was sticking.”

“I know. I kept meaning to get to it.” He looks at the gate briefly and back at you. “Just wanted to thank you. And to say — he told me about the dialect conversation.”

“Oh?”

“He came home and used the word dialect four times at supper.” Something warm moves through his expression. “He hasn’t stopped asking questions about Chicago.”

You lean against the porch post. “He’s very bright.”

“I know,” Heeseung says, quietly, the way parents say things about their children when they’re proud and trying not to make a production of it. “He can be a handful.”

“He’s been fine,” you say, and mean it. “He’s testing me. I don’t mind being tested.”

Heeseung looks at you for a moment — that same brief, unguarded register you caught in the diner, there and then gone. “Miss Hargrove said the same thing about him.” A pause. “She was right, and so are you.” He puts his hat back on, settling it with the ease of long habit. “I won’t keep you. Just — thank you. For the gate and for the patience.”

“It’s my job,” you say.

“The gate wasn’t,” he says simply, and tips his hat, and walks back through it — and you notice, as he goes, that he lifts the handle the right way so it doesn’t stick on him. He knew how it worked. He just hadn’t gotten to it.

You stand on the porch for a moment after he’s gone, chalk dust still on your apron, the afternoon light going gold and long across the schoolyard. Alright, you think. But it’s a different alright than the one on the bus.

—

You learn the rhythms of Castillo Creek the way you learn anything new — by paying attention. Monday through Friday the main street wakes slowly, the diner first, Jay’s lights on before six and the smell of coffee reaching the boarding house if the wind is right. The general store opens at seven, the hardware store at eight. The church bell rings at nine for no reason anyone can explain except that it always has.

Afternoons are quiet in the way that heat makes things quiet, everyone retreating into shade, and then around four the street comes back to life — horses at the post, trucks pulling in, the sound of voices carrying in the dry air. Evenings on the boarding house porch: crickets, the occasional distant sound of music from the diner where Jay sometimes puts a record on after hours, the sky going colours you don’t have names for yet.

Weekends the ranch hands come into town. This is when you first understand that Sunrise Ranch is not a small operation. Saturday morning and there are three trucks parked outside the general store and Jay’s counter is full and the voices are different — louder, easier, the particular looseness of men at the end of a working week. You are becoming a recognisable figure on the main street now, two weeks in, and people nod or wave or say morning, Miss Y/N with the comfortable familiarity of a town that has decided you belong, or is at least willing to extend the provisional assumption.

Riki finds you at the general store on the second Saturday, reaching for a tin on a high shelf. “Here,” he says, getting it down for you without ceremony.

“Thank you.” You put it in your basket. “How’s the mare?”

He blinks, then remembers. “Back in her paddock. She does it once a month like clockwork.” He falls into step beside you toward the counter, hands in his pockets. “How’s Eli?”

“Getting there,” you say.

Riki’s mouth twitches. “He told me you knew what a dialect was.”

“He told his father the same thing four times at supper, apparently.”

“Five times,” Riki says. “I was there. Mr. Lee made him use it in a sentence correctly before he could have dessert.” Something soft moves through his expression — fond and private, the look of someone describing a home. “He does that. Makes it a game so Eli doesn’t know he’s being taught.”

You look at him. “You live at the ranch?”

“Have done for two years.” He picks up a paper bag of something from the counter and adds it to your basket without asking, then pays for it along with his own things before you can protest. “Mr. Lee offered me the room off the stable when I first got here. Said I could work it off.” A pause. “I haven’t worked it off yet. I don’t think he’s keeping count.”

You think of the gate. Of a man standing at the foot of porch steps with his hat in his hand, not coming up unless invited. “He seems like a good man,” you say, carefully.

Riki looks at you with the frank, uncomplicated assessment of a nineteen-year-old who has not yet learned to be oblique. “He’s the best man I know,” he says simply. And then the door opens and two of the other ranch hands come in and Riki’s face shifts back into something easier and the conversation moves on, but you carry that best man I know out of the store with you and into the bright Saturday morning and find that you believe it without quite knowing why.

The invitation comes through Eli. It is a Thursday, three weeks into term, and Eli has — incrementally, perceptibly, in the way of a child who makes decisions slowly and then commits to them entirely — decided that you are acceptable. This has manifested in: asking you approximately forty questions about Chicago over the course of various lunchtimes, showing you a drawing he did of his horse with the air of someone bestowing an honour, correcting Tommy’s arithmetic before you can get there and then looking at you to see if you’ll mind, and most recently appointing himself the unofficial distributor of coloured pencils, a role Grace has had to be diplomatically persuaded to share.

On Thursday he stays behind after the others have gone.

You are at your desk reviewing the week’s work when you become aware that he is still in his seat, lunch pail on the desk in front of him, regarding you with his father’s eyes and an expression of elaborate casualness. “Yes, Eli?” you say, without looking up.

A pause. “My dad says you should come see the ranch.”

You look up. He is studying his lunch pail. “He said if you wanted. He said don’t make it a thing.” He glances up at you briefly. “I’m supposed to say it like it’s my idea.”

You press your lips together very firmly. “Whose idea was it?”

Eli considers the ethics of this for a moment. “Both,” he decides. “I said you’d like the horses and he said he’d been meaning to ask.” He picks up his lunch pail. “Saturday morning. Riki said he’d make sure the good horses are out.”

You look at this seven-year-old boy with his gap-toothed earnestness and his father’s dark eyes and the absolute transparency of a child who is not yet old enough to be a convincing liar and feel something in your chest do something inconvenient. “Saturday morning,” you say.

Eli nods, satisfied, and slides off his chair. At the door he pauses. “Miss?”

“Yes?”

“Dad said wear boots if you have them.” A beat. “Do you have boots?”

“I’ll manage,” you say. He looks doubtful but lets it go.

You do not have boots.

Mrs. Della solves this problem on Friday evening by producing a pair from somewhere in the back of a wardrobe that fit you well enough and have clearly belonged to several people before you, worn in and comfortable in the way of things that have been used properly. She does not make a fuss about it. She sets them by your door and says “for your visit to the ranch” with the serenity of a woman who knew this was coming before you did, which you are beginning to understand is simply Mrs. Della’s relationship with information.

Saturday morning is cooler than usual, a thin cloud cover cutting the worst of the heat, and you walk the road east of town with Mrs. Della’s boots on your feet and the particular feeling of a person going somewhere they haven’t decided how to feel about yet.

Sunrise Ranch announces itself before you reach it. The land opens up, the scrub giving way to fenced pasture, horses moving slow in the morning light — four, five, you count seven in the near paddock — and then the gate with Sunrise in iron letters across the top, and beyond it a long low ranch house in weathered timber, a stable block, a water tower, a barn with its doors open, and the general cheerful disorder of a working property.

Eli appears from nowhere, running. “You came,” he says, like this was uncertain, and then immediately: “You have boots.” He looks at them. “They’re okay.”

“Thank you,” you say gravely.

“Come see Maple.” He is already walking, assuming you’ll follow, which you do. “Maple’s mine. Dad got her for me last year. She’s brown.” He says this last detail with enormous authority, as though colour is the primary criterion for horse quality.

“Is she,” you say.

“She’s the best one.” He pushes open the stable door. “Don’t tell Riki’s horse.”

The stable smells of hay and horses and something warm and animal that is not unpleasant, and the light comes through the high windows in long dusty bars, and Maple is indeed brown and does indeed regard you with the large patient eyes of a creature who has learned that humans are mostly harmless if you wait them out. Eli shows her off with the proprietorial pride of a small boy who has been trusted with something real, and you let him lead you through every detail — her feeding schedule, her preferred brushing side, the way she does something with her ears when she’s happy — and listen properly, because he is telling you something important about himself by telling you about the horse. “She’s beautiful,” you say, and mean it.

Eli glows. “Yeah,” he agrees. He strokes her nose. “Dad taught me to ride on her. Well — on her and Scout. Scout’s too big for me yet but I can get on him if someone helps.”

“Who’s Scout?”

“Mine,” says a voice behind you. You turn. Heeseung is in the stable doorway, hat on, a coffee cup in one hand, backlit by the morning in a way that is doing no one any favours. He looks at you with that easy unhurried expression and then at Eli. “You showing her around properly?”

“I was getting to the rest,” Eli says, with dignity.

“Sure you were.” Heeseung’s gaze moves back to you. “Morning. Glad you came.” He says it simply, no particular weight on it, and holds out the second coffee cup that you hadn’t noticed he was holding. “Mrs. Della said you take it black.”

You take the cup. “She told you that?”

“Jay told me. Mrs. Della told Jay.” He lifts a shoulder. “Small town.”

You drink the coffee. It is good — strong and dark and made by someone who takes it seriously. “Thank you.”

“Thank Eli,” he says. “It was mostly his idea.”

“He told me,” you say.

Heeseung looks at his son with an expression of fond resignation. “Did he.” Eli, sensing this conversation is edging toward accountability, has become very interested in Maple’s left ear.

He shows you the ranch himself, Eli orbiting ahead and behind like a satellite, Riki appearing occasionally from whatever task he’s been given and nodding at you with the quiet approval of someone whose opinion you hadn’t realised you were seeking.

Heeseung walks beside you with his coffee and talks about the land with the ease of a man who has known it his whole life — the pasture his father planted, the fence line he extended six years ago, the water table, the horses by name and temperament, the rhythm of the seasons out here where seasons are more about rain than temperature. He is not performing. That is the thing you notice, watching him from the corner of your eye as he points out the far ridge where the light hits different at sunset. He is simply telling you, the way people talk about things they love when they’re comfortable enough to let it show. “How long has your family been here?” you ask.

“Three generations,” he says. “My grandfather broke the land. My father ran it until—” a brief pause, easy enough that you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention “—until I was ready to.” He looks out at the pasture. “I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

“I used to think that about Chicago,” you say, before you mean to.

He glances at you. “What changed?”

The morning light is warm on the fence rail where you’ve stopped. The horses move slow in the paddock. Eli is attempting to convince Riki to let him ride something he’s probably not supposed to, and Riki is maintaining a very patient no. “Things do,” you say. “Change.”

It is not an answer and you both know it. But Heeseung doesn’t push — just nods once, slow, and looks back out at the pasture, and the silence that follows is the comfortable kind. The kind you don’t feel obligated to fill.

“Scout,” he says, after a moment. You follow his gaze. A large grey horse has appeared at the paddock fence — appeared is the right word, horses move quietly for their size, you’re learning — and is regarding you with the same patient assessment as Maple, though with more authority behind it.

“He’s enormous,” you say.

“He’s a gentleman,” Heeseung says. “Come here.” You follow him to the fence. Scout watches you approach with ears forward. Heeseung holds out his hand and the horse drops his nose into it with the ease of long familiarity, a small exhale of breath like a greeting. “Give him your hand,” Heeseung says. “Palm up.”

You do. Scout sniffs your palm, his breath warm and grass-scented, and then shifts his nose slightly to nudge at your wrist, which makes you laugh — actually laugh, surprised out of it, the unguarded kind. Heeseung is watching you when you look up. He looks away just a moment too late, back to Scout, and settles his hand on the horse’s neck. “He likes you,” he says.

“Or he wants something.”

“Same thing, with horses.” The corner of his mouth lifts. He rubs Scout’s neck once and steps back from the fence. “You ride?”

“No.”

“You want to?”

You look at Scout. Scout looks at you. He is very large and very calm and the morning is soft and there is coffee going warm in your hand and no one in this field knows anything about you except that you fixed a gate and knew the word dialect and took your coffee black. “Yes,” you say.

He doesn’t put you on Scout — that comes later, he says, and something in the later is easy and assuming in a way that you notice and don’t examine — but on a smaller bay mare named Honey who is, in Eli’s expert opinion, basically a chair, she’s so calm, which Heeseung overrules diplomatically.

He helps you up with one hand steadying the stirrup and one hand briefly at your waist — functional, impersonal, the practiced efficiency of someone who has helped people onto horses many times — and then steps back and talks you through it. Heels down. Hands soft. Don’t grip with your knees. Breathe.

You walk Honey around the paddock twice with Heeseung at her head and Eli on the fence calling encouragement that is mostly suggestions about how you’re holding the reins wrong. By the third pass Heeseung drops back and lets you go alone, and there is a specific feeling in that — in him deciding you’re ready, stepping back, watching from the fence with his arms resting on the top rail and his hat low — that you don’t have a name for but that sits somewhere behind your sternum and stays there. “You’re a natural,” he calls.

“She’s a chair,” you call back, and hear him laugh from across the paddock, a real one, the kind that alters the whole shape of his face.

Eli says “I said that” with great indignation.

You stay until noon. It isn’t planned. It is the accumulation of small things: Eli deciding you needed to see the barn cat’s new kittens, the kittens being an objectively compelling argument for staying, Riki appearing with a plate of something Mrs. Lee — Heeseung’s housekeeper, an iron-haired woman named Bea who has been with the ranch for twenty years — had left covered on the kitchen table. You all eat on the porch in the late morning sun, Eli wedged between you and Heeseung with a kitten in his lap that he has named Chicago with the satisfied look of someone cementing an inside joke.

It is — easy. Unreasonably easy for a woman who has spent two months being careful about everything.

Heeseung sits with his ankle crossed over his knee and doesn’t push any conversations and doesn’t fill silences that don’t need filling and listens when you talk in the particular way that makes you feel actually heard rather than waited out. Once, when Eli says something that makes you laugh, he catches it — the laugh — in that peripheral way, not staring, just noticing, and then looks deliberately at something else. You notice him noticing. You look at something else too.

He walks you back to the gate at noon. Eli has been redirected to afternoon chores with the selective enthusiasm of a child who has negotiated the terms. Riki raises a hand from the stable door. The horses stand easy in the afternoon quiet.

At the gate Heeseung stops and holds it open — it swings cleanly, well-oiled, this one — and tips his hat. “Thank you for coming,” he says. “Eli’s been talking about this since Thursday.”

“Only since Thursday?” you say.

He smiles. God, that smile. “Since Tuesday,” he admits. “I told him to wait.”

You step through the gate and turn. He’s on the other side of it, hat tipped forward, the morning light going warm gold over the ranch behind him. Scout visible in the paddock beyond, Maple beside him. “Thank you for the coffee,” you say. “And the riding lesson.”

“Anytime,” he says. And then, easy as breathing, the way he always does it, like it costs him nothing: “You’re welcome here, darlin’. Any time you want.”

You walk the road back to town with the borrowed boots and the feeling of a morning that opened up something you hadn’t known was closed. Behind you the gate swings shut, clean on its hinge. New soil, you think. See what grows.

—

October arrives like an exhale. The heat doesn’t break exactly — you’re learning it doesn’t really break here, not the way it does in Chicago where summer ends with a week of storms and then suddenly you need a coat — but it softens. The mornings are cooler now, the light coming in at a different angle, and the scrub on the edge of town goes colours you weren’t expecting: amber and rust and a dry pale gold that isn’t quite like anything you’ve seen before. Mrs. Della puts a second quilt on your bed. The church noticeboard updates the harvest dance announcement with a date: Saturday, October 12th. All welcome. Bring a dish.

You have been in Castillo Creek six weeks. You know, now, which floorboard in the schoolhouse creaks and how to avoid it during silent reading so you don’t startle the little ones. You know that Tommy is left-handed and was made to switch and that this is why his numbers come out backwards sometimes, and you have quietly, without making it a thing, begun letting him work with his left hand and watching his shoulders drop two inches with relief. You know that Clara will read anything you put in front of her and that the shelf of books in the schoolhouse is genuinely inadequate and that you have written to the county school board about this and received in response a letter of such elaborate non-commitment that you have started a separate fund from your own salary, small but growing. You know that Eli Lee will behave perfectly for four days and then on the fifth do something just left of the line — not malicious, never malicious, just testing — and that the correct response is to look at him steadily and say his name once, and he will subside, and on day six he will be angelic in a way that is clearly an apology.

You know that Jay’s cherry pie is better than his peach, that Riki takes his coffee with enough sugar to make your teeth hurt, that Bea at the ranch makes the best biscuits in Texas and would probably agree with you about this if you said so, that the tabby cat on the post office step is named Gerald and will accept exactly one ear scratch before moving to bite you. You know that Heeseung Lee tips his hat to every woman on the main street and that it means something different when he does it to you, and you have not examined this too closely because you are being careful and new soil takes time and you are not here to start anything. You are just noticing. That’s all.

Eli asks you about your family on a Tuesday. It is lunchtime, the other children spread across the yard in the October sun, and Eli has taken to eating his lunch on the porch steps near where you stand with your coffee. This started without announcement — one day he was in the yard, the next he was on the steps — and you have not remarked on it because remarking on it would make him self-conscious about having done something soft. “Do you miss Chicago?” he asks, through a mouthful of whatever Bea has packed him.

“Sometimes,” you say. It’s true. You miss the lake. The particular smell of the city in November. The diner near your old apartment that made pierogi on Thursdays.

“What do you miss?”

“The lake,” you say. “Lake Michigan. It’s enormous — like an inland sea. You can stand at the edge and not see the other side.”

Eli processes this. “We have the creek,” he offers.

“I know. I like the creek.”

He nods, satisfied that the comparison comes out even. Then: “Do you have family there?”

“My parents,” you say. “A brother.”

“Do they visit?”

You think of your mother’s voice on the telephone — the one call you’ve made since arriving, standing in the general store with the receiver pressed to your ear, your mother saying when are you coming home in the tone that meant you’ve made your point now. “Not yet,” you say.

Eli swings his feet against the step. “My grandma visits sometimes. Dad’s mom. She lives in Austin.” He picks at his lunch. “I don’t have a mom,” he says, with the casual directness of a child who has been saying this long enough that it no longer feels like a wound, just a fact. “She went away.”

Your chest does something careful and quiet. “I know,” you say, gently. “I’m sorry.”

“Dad says she got sick,” Eli says. “But I think—” he stops. Looks at the yard. Starts again: “I think that’s not the whole story. But he doesn’t want me to be sad so he says it that way.” He looks up at you with those dark perceptive eyes. “Do you think that’s bad? To say a not-whole story?”

You look at this seven-year-old boy who is so much older than seven in the specific ways that loss makes children old, and you think about not-whole stories and composed faces and she wanted a simpler life and how many versions of the truth are actually just the parts you can bear to carry in public.

“I think,” you say carefully, “that sometimes people tell not-whole stories because they’re trying to protect someone they love. And I think when you’re older you’ll understand the rest, and your dad will tell it to you when you’re ready.” You meet his eyes. “Does that make sense?”

Eli thinks about it seriously, which is the only way he thinks about things. “Yeah,” he says. Then: “You’re smart.”

“Thank you.”

“Dad thinks so too.” He says it with absolute offhand innocence and takes a large bite of his sandwich and looks at the yard, and you look at the middle distance and drink your coffee and say nothing at all.

The thing about a small town is that the architecture of people’s lives is visible in a way it never is in a city. In Chicago you could live next door to someone for three years and know nothing about them. Here the walls are thin by design — not maliciously, just the natural result of everyone’s business being conducted in the same four blocks, the same diner, the same church on Sundays, the same post office queue. You learn things about people without trying. You learn them through Jay, who is a font of town history delivered in the register of casual conversation, and through Mrs. Della, whose knowledge of Castillo Creek extends back forty years and who shares it in the same tone she uses to describe the weather — matter of fact, no particular drama.

This is how you learn that Heeseung Lee has been running the ranch alone since he was twenty-six. That his father died the year before Eli was born, and his mother moved to Austin to be near her sister, and Heeseung stayed because someone had to and because the land was in him the way some things get into people.

That Clara — his wife, Eli’s mother — left when Eli was two. Jay tells you this on a Wednesday evening when you’ve stayed past closing, helping him wipe down the counter because you were in the middle of a conversation and neither of you wanted to stop it, and he says it quietly, without the gossipy relish he sometimes deploys for lesser information. He says it like he’s trusting you with something.

“She wasn’t unhappy,” Jay says, wiping the same spot twice. “Or — she was, but not because of him. She was a person who needed more than this place could give her and she stayed too long trying to want what she had and then she left.” He sets down the cloth. “Eli was two. Heeseung — he didn’t fall apart. That’s the thing about him. He just. Kept going.” He looks at the counter. “He hasn’t let anyone close since. Not like that.”

You are quiet for a moment. “Why are you telling me this?”

Jay looks at you with his frank dark eyes and the expression of a man who has thought carefully about what he’s going to say. “Because you’re going to be around for a while,” he says. “And I think you should know who he is. The real shape of him.” A pause. “And because he asked about you again today.”

“Jay—”

“He asked if you seemed settled,” Jay says. “Same question as before. He asks it like it’s nothing.” He picks the cloth back up. “Heeseung doesn’t ask about people, is the thing. He notices them. He listens. But he doesn’t ask.” He looks at you. “He’s asking about you.”

You go home to the boarding house and sit at your writing desk for a long time without writing anything.

—

The week before the harvest dance, Eli presents you with a drawing.

This is not unprecedented — he has given you two previous drawings, one of Maple and one of what you eventually identified as the schoolhouse, rendered in the bold confident lines of a child who draws from feeling rather than observation. This one he places on your desk at the end of Friday with the elaborate casualness he deploys for things that matter to him.

You wait until the room is empty before you look at it. It is two figures. One small, one tall. The small one has a gap in its teeth rendered in careful pencil. The tall one has long hair and is wearing — you look closer — a dress with a collar, which is clearly you. They are standing in front of something you take a moment to identify as the paddock fence, and between them, taking up most of the page, is a horse. Brown. Maple, you think, though the horse has been given an expression of benevolent authority that transcends species.

At the bottom, in the large uneven letters of a child still mastering the relationship between thought and handwriting: MISS YN AND ELI. FRIENDS.

You sit with that for a long moment. Then you take a piece of tape and put it on the wall beside the blackboard, where you can see it from your desk, and you go home for the weekend with something warm sitting in your chest that you don’t try to name.

Saturday, the day before the harvest dance, you are in Jay’s diner mid-morning when Heeseung comes in. This is not unusual. He comes in most Saturday mornings, sometimes with Riki, sometimes alone, and you have in six weeks arrived at a kind of comfortable parallel presence with him — you are often there, he is often there, you talk easily when you talk and don’t force it when you don’t, and Jay watches the whole thing with the serene satisfaction of a man who has predicted an outcome and is waiting for everyone else to catch up.

Today he comes in alone and sits at the counter and orders coffee and then turns to you with his hat on the stool beside him and says: “You going to the dance tomorrow?”

“Mrs. Della seems to think I’m obligated,” you say.

The corner of his mouth. “She’s not wrong. First harvest dance as a Castillo Creek resident is non-negotiable.” He turns his coffee cup in his hands. “It’s good. They do it right.”

“Do you go every year?”

“Every year.” He pauses. “I usually take Eli for the first part. He passes out around nine and I bring him home and come back.”

“Who looks after him?”

“Bea stays late.” He glances at you sidelong. “She has opinions about the dance. Mostly that someone should be dancing and it might as well be me.”

You smile. “Sound advice.”

“Mm.” He is quiet for a moment in the comfortable way he does quiet. Then: “Would you want to — go over together? You and me and Eli. He’d like that.”

The way he says it: simple, direct, no particular performance of casualness but no weight on it either. Just an offer, made plainly. You look at him. He is looking at his coffee cup with the expression of a man who has said the thing and is now waiting without making it a big deal either way. “Yes,” you say. “I’d like that.”

He nods, once, and drinks his coffee, and Jay behind the counter turns to do something at the back shelf that absolutely does not require his attention, and the diner is warm and smells of coffee and something frying and outside the Texas October is going gold in the morning light.

That afternoon you go back to the boarding house and sit on the edge of the bed and look at the window.

Outside: the field, the flat land, the sky. You think about Richard. You do this less than you used to — the thinking about Richard — which is itself a kind of measurement of how much has shifted in six weeks. He is still there, the way a bruise is there: faded but present when you press on it, the particular combination of shame and anger that comes from having your own story told about you rather than by you. The thing he did was not dramatic. That is almost the worst of it. He simply — ended the engagement, and then explained it in a way that made people look at you, and you could not stay in a city where everyone was deciding what version of you to believe.

You think about what Jay said: He asks about you. You think about Eli’s drawing on the wall beside the blackboard. You think about a gate that swings clean on its hinge, and a man who knew how it worked all along.

You are being careful. You are allowed to be careful. A woman who has had her story taken from her is allowed to be careful about who she gives it back to. But you are also — and this is newer, tentative, growing in the way things grow in new soil when they finally get enough light — you are also here. Present, in this room, in this town, in this life that is beginning to feel less like a retreat and more like an arrival.

You look at the field and the sky until the light goes gold and then rose and then the soft dark blue of a Texas evening. Tomorrow there is a dance. Heeseung Lee is going to take you and his son and bring you home after, and this is a simple thing, a neighbourly thing, a Castillo Creek thing where everything means less than it would mean somewhere else.

Or it means exactly as much as it means, and you’re just going to have to find out.

Eli arrives at the boarding house at six o’clock exactly.

You hear him before you see him — the gate, then footsteps on the porch, then a knock that has clearly been practiced for being the right amount of grown-up. You come downstairs to find Mrs. Della already at the door with the expression of a woman who has been waiting for this moment since approximately Tuesday.

Eli is in a white shirt with the collar buttoned and his hair combed flat in a way that will not survive the evening. He is holding his hat in both hands the way his father holds his, you notice — at his side, turned slightly. He looks up at you and his face does something he can’t quite control, a brightness that he immediately tamps down into dignity. “Dad’s outside,” he says.

“You look very smart,” you tell him.

He stands slightly taller. “Bea made me tuck in,” he says, in the tone of a man who has suffered and endured. Behind you Mrs. Della makes a sound that is definitely not a laugh.

You have worn the blue dress. You own three dresses suitable for an evening out and the blue one has a collar and buttons down the front and a skirt that moves when you walk and it is the one that makes you feel most like yourself, which is the only criterion that matters tonight. You have your hair down, which you don’t do at school, and Mrs. Della’s good earrings which she pressed on you with the firmness of a woman who will not be argued with about earrings.

You step out onto the porch. Heeseung is at the foot of the steps. He is in a dark shirt, clean boots, his hat. He looks up when you come out and there is a moment — brief, unguarded — where his expression does something he doesn’t quite catch before the easy steadiness comes back. His eyes move over you once, quickly, and then he looks at Eli.

“Hat,” he says. Eli puts his hat on. “Good.” Heeseung looks back at you, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Miss Y/N,” he says. “You look real nice.”

“Thank you,” you say. “So do you.”

He makes a small sound, not quite dismissive, like a man who doesn’t know what to do with a compliment offered plainly and has decided not to examine it. He offers his arm — an old-fashioned gesture, natural on him — and you take it, and Eli immediately takes your other hand with the confidence of someone who has decided this is simply how the arrangement works, and the three of you walk down the road toward the lights and the music already drifting from the community hall at the end of the street.

The harvest dance is, as advertised, done right. The community hall is a low timber building you’ve walked past without knowing what it was, and tonight it is strung with lanterns and smells of sawdust and food and the particular excitement of a town that doesn’t get many occasions. Tables along the walls hold enough food to feed Castillo Creek twice over — Mrs. Della has contributed a peach cobbler, which you carried over earlier, and it is already half gone. A four-piece band is set up at the far end: fiddle, guitar, upright bass, a woman on piano who plays with her whole body. The dancing has already started, couples moving on the cleared floor, children weaving between adult legs at the edges.

The town turns to look when you walk in. Not unpleasantly — it is the small-town version of a head-turn, curious and warm, the collective noting of Heeseung Lee with the new schoolteacher that you can feel passing through the room like a current. Several women note it with expressions ranging from warmly approving to something more carefully neutral, which tells you what Jay has already told you about the general feeling toward the man beside you.

Heeseung appears to notice none of it. He steers you toward Jay, who is leaning against the far wall with a plate of food and the expression of a man who has been looking forward to tonight for reasons that are entirely about watching other people. “Well,” Jay says, looking between you with magnificent restraint, “don’t you both clean up nice.”

“Food’s good,” Heeseung says, ignoring this.

“I made the cornbread.”

“I know. I already had some.” He looks at Eli, who has been scanning the room with the efficient tactical assessment of a child locating friends. “Stay where I can see you.”

Eli is already gone. Heeseung watches him go with the particular expression of a parent who knows better than to fight it and has positioned himself where he can see the whole room.

The evening unfolds the way good evenings do: without agenda, in the accumulation of small moments. You eat. Jay introduces you to people you haven’t met, which turns out to be fewer than you expected — you know more of Castillo Creek than you realised, the six weeks of main street mornings and school gate conversations having done their quiet work. Mr. and Mrs. Holt from the farm to the north, who have a daughter in your class — Ruth, the one who does everything left-handed and ambidextrously, a fact you have been admiring for weeks. Old Pete from the hardware store, who shakes your hand and says “you fixed the school gate” with the respect of a man who rates practical competence above most other virtues. The minister’s wife, who is warm and enormous and has clearly decided you are good people and broadcasts this to the room through sheer force of conviction.

Heeseung stays near you without being beside you constantly — he moves through the room the way you’ve noticed he does, at ease everywhere, known to everyone, the smile given genuinely and the name remembered for everyone he talks to. Women approach him with the practised ease of long familiarity and he is warm and kind to all of them and doesn’t linger with any of them and drifts back in your direction after each one with the reliability of water finding level. Jay watches this and eats his cornbread and says nothing, which from Jay is extremely loud.

Eli reappears at intervals to report on things of importance: that Tommy has had four pieces of pie, that someone’s dog has got in and is under the far table, that the fiddle player has a hole in his boot which Eli finds compelling for reasons he can’t fully articulate. Each time he appears he is slightly more dishevelled — the collar loosened by degree, the hair no longer remotely flat, a smear of something on his cuff that you choose not to investigate.

The ninth time he appears he is pulling someone by the hand. “Miss Y/N,” he says, with great ceremony, “this is my friend Cody. Cody, this is my teacher. She’s from Chicago and she knows what a dialect is.”

Cody, who is approximately Eli’s age and has the look of a child who has eaten too much pie, nods with solemnity. “What’s a dialect?” he asks you. You explain it, briefly, and both boys listen with their heads slightly tilted, and Heeseung beside you makes a sound very low in his chest that is a laugh he has decided not to have.

The boys disappear again. You look up at Heeseung. He is already looking somewhere else, but his mouth is still doing the almost-laugh. “He’s been telling people that for weeks,” he says. “The dialect thing.”

“I know,” you say. “Grace told me he explained it to the minister’s wife.” The laugh escapes this time, quiet and genuine, and the shape it makes of his face is something you file away without meaning to.

The band shifts tempo around eight. The faster songs have been running for most of the evening — the kind of music that makes your feet move without asking — and now the fiddle drops into something slower, longer, the bass underneath it steady and low. Couples move differently on the floor. The children at the edges drift toward the food tables.

You are by the lantern at the far wall when Heeseung appears beside you. “Dance with me,” he says.

Not would you like to or may I have this — just dance with me, quiet and direct, the way he says most things, like an offer that trusts you to say no if you want to. You look at him. The lantern light is warm on his face, the hat casting a slight shadow, and he is watching you with the patient steadiness that is simply how he is — unhurried, undemanding, there. “Alright,” you say.

He takes your hand and leads you to the floor and puts his other hand at your waist, and you are aware of the warm weight of it through the blue dress, and you put your hand on his shoulder and you dance.

He is good at it. Not showy — he doesn’t have the look of a man who thinks about whether he’s good at things — but easy and sure, the same way he moves through everything. He leads without being heavy about it, and after the first few measures you stop thinking and just follow, and the music goes slow and the lanterns are warm and the whole room is soft at the edges. “You’re surprised I can dance,” he says.

“A little,” you admit.

“My mother’s doing.” Something fond in it. “She said a man who can’t dance is a man who doesn’t know how to listen.” He tilts his head slightly. “She’s right about most things.”

“She sounds formidable.”

“She’d like you.” He says it simply, without apparent awareness of what it implies, and you think: he means it exactly as plainly as he said it, which is somehow more significant than if he’d been trying.

You dance without talking for a while. The fiddle goes somewhere low and sweet. Around you other couples turn slowly, and across the room you can see Jay watching with the expression of a man witnessing the inevitable and finding it satisfying. “Can I ask you something?” Heeseung says.

“Yes.”

“Why Castillo Creek?” He looks at you — not the look he uses on everyone, the warm social look, but something quieter and more direct, the look you’ve caught a few times when he doesn’t know you’re watching. “Of all the places.”

“It was the furthest,” you say. You’ve given this answer before, half-answer that it is, and you feel him register the incompleteness of it.

He doesn’t push. He nods once, slow. “Were you running from something?” he asks. Gently. No judgment in it, just the question, open-handed.

The music turns. You consider him — the steadiness of him, the patience, the careful way he holds you on the dance floor like something he doesn’t want to break but also doesn’t want to handle too gingerly. “Yes,” you say. First time you’ve said it plainly.

He absorbs this. “You don’t have to tell me what,” he says.

“I know.”

“But if you ever want to—” he stops. Starts again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I’m not going anywhere. Said so simply, with no particular weight on it, just a fact, and yet it lands in you somewhere deep and quiet and stays there like something settling.

“Thank you,” you say. He nods. You dance.

Eli falls asleep in a chair at half past eight. Not gracefully — he is mid-sentence, apparently, Cody reports, about something to do with the dog, and then he simply isn’t anymore. He is curled in the chair with his hat over his face in a pose of complete unconscious dignity, and Heeseung looks at him for a moment with an expression that is purely and simply love, uncomplicated by anything else. “I’ll take him home,” he says.

“Of course.” You help him get the boy upright — Eli stirs briefly, says something about the dog, and goes back under — and Heeseung lifts him with the ease of long practice, the boy’s head dropping onto his shoulder.

“Come back,” Jay says, appearing from nowhere.

“Give me twenty minutes,” Heeseung says. He looks at you over Eli’s sleeping head. “Will you—” a pause, something careful in it. “Will you still be here?”

“Yes,” you say. He holds your gaze for a moment. Then he nods, and carries his son home through the warm October night, and you go back to Jay and the music and the lanterns and the feeling of a hand at your waist that you can still feel even though it’s gone.

“Well,” says Jay.

“Don’t,” you say. He puts his hands up, peaceable, and hands you a glass of lemonade. But he is smiling.

Heeseung is back in eighteen minutes. You are talking to Mrs. Holt when you see him come through the door, hat resettled, and he finds you in the room immediately — doesn’t scan for you, just finds you, the way you find a light when you walk into a dark room. He comes over and Mrs. Holt makes a gracious excuse and leaves, and he stands beside you and accepts the glass of lemonade you’ve been holding for him without either of you remarking on why you knew to have it.

The band starts something slow again. Heeseung looks at you. You look at him. “Again?” he says.

“Again,” you say.

This time when he puts his hand at your waist you don’t catalogue it, don’t file it, don’t hold it at a careful distance to examine later. You just — let it be what it is, warm and steady and real, his hand and your shoulder and the fiddle going slow and the lanterns burning low, and if the space between you is slightly less than it was the first time then neither of you mentions it.

You dance until the band stops for a break and then you get food and eat it on the hall steps in the cool October night and talk — easily, unhurriedly — about nothing much and everything, the ranch and the classroom and things you’ve read and things you’ve seen, the way a conversation goes when two people discover they have more to say to each other than they anticipated.

At some point you become aware that the music has started again inside and neither of you has moved to go back in. At some point after that you become aware that your shoulders are nearly touching on the step and neither of you has moved apart.

The night is clear, stars enormous in that Texas sky that has too much room in it, the music muffled through the wall, and Heeseung is talking about the ranch in winter and you are listening and also listening to the warm unhurried sound of his voice and the night is soft and something is very quietly happening, the way things happen in new soil: without announcement, without drama, just the steady irresistible work of growing.

He walks you home at eleven. The street is quiet, the dance still going distantly, the air cool and smelling of dust and something dry and sweet. He walks beside you with his hands in his pockets and you walk with your arms crossed against the chill and at the boarding house gate you stop. He is looking at you.

The porch light is on — Mrs. Della — and in it his face is all warm shadow and that particular steadiness, and you are aware that this is a moment, the kind that has a before and after, and that you are both standing in it. “I had a good night,” you say.

“Me too,” he says. Quiet. Sincere. A pause. The street is empty. The stars are doing what they do.

He reaches out — slowly, deliberately, giving you every opportunity — and tucks a strand of hair back from your face, his fingers barely grazing your cheek, and it is such a small thing, so careful, and it takes your breath in a way that no grand gesture ever has. He drops his hand. “Goodnight, darlin’,” he says. Soft. Just yours.

“Goodnight,” you say. He tips his hat and walks back down the street and you watch him go and then you go inside and you sit on the edge of your bed in the dark and you press your fingers to your cheek where his hand was.

Outside the stars are enormous. New soil, you think. Something’s growing.

—

Nothing is said. This is the thing about Heeseung Lee — he does not press. He does not arrive at the schoolhouse the next morning with declarations or at Jay’s diner with meaningful looks or at the boarding house gate with anything that requires you to respond to it formally. He simply — continues. Being present in the way he is always present, warm and steady and unhurried, and the only difference after the harvest dance is a slight calibration in the frequency with which he finds reasons to be near you, and the way the darlin’ sounds when it’s only the two of you, lower and more deliberate, like a word that has been renegotiated.

You continue also. Teaching, reading, eating Jay’s pie, watching the season turn. But you are aware of him now in a way that has moved past noticing into something more like — waiting. Not anxiously. Just the particular heightened attention of a person who has begun to understand that something is being built, slowly, with care, and who has decided to trust the pace of it.

Eli notices. Of course Eli notices. He is seven and perceptive and he has his father’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything directly — he is too clever for direct — but the quality of his watching changes. He begins positioning himself as a reason for the two of you to be in the same place. Dad, can Miss Y/N come see the new foal. Miss, Dad says you should have Bea’s recipe for the cornbread. The transparent architecture of a child conducting an operation he believes to be covert, and which you and Heeseung have both silently agreed to treat as such because he is seven and it is working and no one is going to be the one to make him stop.

The new foal is three weeks old when Eli invites you to see it, and it has not yet decided what its legs are for. Eli brings you to the ranch on the second Saturday of October — I asked Dad and he said yes and also that it was fine if you were busy but you’re not busy, right? — and the foal is in the small paddock nearest the stable, bewilderingly long-limbed, a dark bay that will probably lighten as she grows. She looks at you when you approach the fence with the expression of a creature that has been in the world twenty-one days and has not yet accumulated the patience to find humans interesting. “She doesn’t have a name yet,” Eli says. “Dad said I could name her.”

“What are you thinking?”

He has clearly been thinking about it for days and has not decided, which is unusual for him — he is not generally a boy who holds back opinions. He leans on the fence rail and watches the foal with unusual gravity. “It has to be right,” he says.

“It does,” you agree. Heeseung is on the other side of Eli, his arms resting on the fence, watching the foal with the particular quiet warmth he reserves for the ranch and for his son. He glances over Eli’s head at you and something passes between you — amusement, tenderness, the shared appreciation of a child being serious about something — and it is so easy, so natural, that for a moment you don’t know what to do with how easy it is.

“What about Chicago?” Eli says. Casually. You look at him. He is studying the foal. “The horse you name,” Heeseung adds. “The barn cat?”

“The barn cat’s name is Chicago,” you tell Heeseung.

“I know,” he says. He is looking at the foal. His mouth is doing the thing. “He named it the day you came to the ranch.”

Eli has achieved maximum innocence, his face a study in disinterest.

“I think Chicago is a good name,” you say. The foal, as if in response, takes three uncertain steps and sits down abruptly.

Eli looks at his father. His father looks at you. You look at the foal, sitting in the dirt with its legs at improbable angles and its ears pricked forward as if this was entirely the plan. You all three start laughing at the same moment.

Riki makes coffee. This has become a thing — the coffee on the porch, the late morning sun, the ranch quiet around you. You have been to Sunrise Ranch four times now and each time it has arranged itself into the same comfortable shape: Eli showing you something, Heeseung nearby, Riki appearing and disappearing like a benevolent ghost, Bea’s food involved at some point, the afternoon light eventually demanding that you walk back to town.

Today Riki sits on the porch steps with his cup and looks out at the paddock where Chicago the foal is attempting, again, to organise her legs. “She’s going to be good,” he says, about the foal. “Look at the shoulder on her.”

“You know horses?” you ask.

“Mr. Lee taught me.” He says it simply, the way he says most things about Heeseung, with that uncomplicated weight of someone describing a fact that is also a debt he’s decided he’s glad to owe. “When I first came here I didn’t know anything about any of this. I just needed work.” He drinks his coffee. “He didn’t ask a lot of questions. He said: here’s the work, here’s the room, the rest we’ll figure out. And then he just — showed me things. Every day. How to work the land, how to read a horse, how to fix what breaks.” A pause. “He does that. Shows rather than tells.”

You think of the riding lesson. Heels down. Hands soft. Don’t grip. Breathe. And then stepping back and watching from the fence to see what you’d do on your own. “Yes,” you say. “He does.”

Riki glances at you with his dark eyes and the particular directness of someone who is not quite nineteen yet and hasn’t learned to be oblique about what he observes. “He’s happy,” he says. “More than usual. I thought you should know.”

You look at your coffee cup. The morning is warm and still.

“Thank you, Riki,” you say. He nods and goes back to watching the foal, and the matter is settled, and you sit on the porch of Sunrise Ranch in the October sun and feel the particular quiet terror of something you want very much beginning to feel possible.

—

The almost-kiss happens on a Wednesday. It is not planned. It is not even exactly an almost-kiss, which is perhaps the most honest thing about it — it is more a moment in which a kiss becomes a possibility that both of you become aware of simultaneously, and the awareness itself is so charged that it amounts to nearly the same thing.

You have stayed late at the schoolhouse marking reading assessments, the kind of work that requires the particular quiet of an empty room, and you are still there at five when you hear the gate and look up to see Heeseung coming through it with something in his hand. He stops at the foot of the steps. “Bea sent this.” He holds up a cloth-wrapped parcel. “She made too much.”

Bea, you have come to understand, always makes too much. This is not accidental. “Tell her thank you,” you say.

“You tell her. She likes you more than she likes me.” He comes up the steps — this is newer, the coming up the steps, the crossing of the porch — and you open the door and he follows you inside because the light is going and neither of you suggests he leave.

He sets the parcel on your desk and looks at the wall beside the blackboard. Eli’s drawing. He looks at it for a long moment without saying anything. “He gave it to me on a Friday,” you say. “I put it up that evening.”

Heeseung is quiet. In the low afternoon light his profile is — you don’t look directly. You tidy the papers on your desk. But you are aware of him in the specific physical way you have been aware of him since the harvest dance, a warmth that doesn’t require proximity to function, that exists simply because he is in the room. “He doesn’t give drawings to people,” Heeseung says, finally.

“I know.”

“He gave one to Jay once.” A pause. “Jay cried.”

“Did he?” You let out an amused breath.

“He’ll tell you he didn’t.” He turns from the wall and the small distance of the schoolroom is between you, both of you standing in the last of the afternoon light through the windows, the assessment papers on the desk and Bea’s parcel beside them and the drawing on the wall. “You’ve been good for him,” he says. “For Eli.”

“He’s been good for me,” you say. Heeseung looks at you. The directness of it, steady and warm and something beneath it that is no longer entirely hidden from you — something careful and wanting and very, very controlled.

He takes a step. Just one. The room is small and one step is a significant renegotiation of the space between you, and you are aware of your own stillness, the way you are not moving away, the way you are — you realise — leaning, fractionally, toward him.

His hand comes up. The same gesture as the gate night — slow, deliberate, no ambiguity about the intention — and his fingers brush your jaw, not your cheek this time but your jaw, tilting your face up very slightly. He looks at you. You look at him. The moment is right there, the exact shape of it, and you can feel his breath and the warmth of his hand and the whole quiet room holding itself still— the gate.

You both hear it. A second later: footsteps on the porch, and Eli’s voice, Dad? Riki said you came here, and the door opens.

Heeseung’s hand drops. He steps back — not hastily, not guilty, just back — and turns toward the door as Eli comes through it with his schoolbag still on his shoulder from wherever he’s been, looking between the two of you with eyes that miss nothing.

“Bea sent food,” Heeseung says.

Eli looks at the parcel. Looks at you. Looks at his father. He is seven years old and he has the perceptive assessment of someone three times that age and you watch him put something together behind his eyes and decide, with great and deliberate charity, not to say it. “Okay,” he says. He drops his bag. “Can I have some?”

—

November comes in quietly. The cold arrives properly now, the mornings sharp, the light later. You have a proper coat from the general store — Castillo Creek wool, practically indestructible, Mrs. Della’s recommendation — and your own boots now, bought from the hardware store with the heel worn to fit your foot. You are, you realise one morning walking to the schoolhouse in the frost, no longer performing belonging. You just — belong. In the small ordinary way of someone who knows which floorboards creak and which gate sticks and which order to say good morning to the main street in. This is a thing you didn’t know you needed until you had it.

The children change too — they are yours now, fully, in the way a class becomes yours when they’ve stopped watching you to see if you’ll stay and started simply assuming you will. Tommy does his arithmetic left-handed and his numbers come out clean. Clara has read everything on the bookshelf and you’ve started lending her your own. The new books arrived last week from the county — three boxes, more than you expected, apparently the board received two letters — and the morning you unpacked them Eli said did you write two letters? and you said the second one was more strongly worded and he looked at you with pure satisfaction and said good.

Grace organises the shelf. Eli helps whether or not he’s asked. The little ones treat the new books with the reverence of sacred objects, which is the correct response.

The second time it almost happens is on your porch. Heeseung walks you home from the diner on a Friday — you’ve fallen into this, the Friday evenings at Jay’s that end with him walking you the two blocks home — and at the gate he stops, as he always does, and you turn, as you always do.

But tonight is different. Maybe it’s the cold, the way it makes the air sharp and close. Maybe it’s the week that’s been — Eli had a difficult day on Tuesday, something about a boy from another farm saying something about his mother, and he’d been quiet for three days until this evening when he’d appeared at Jay’s with Heeseung and been loud enough to make up for it, and you’d watched Heeseung watch his son come back to himself and felt something in your chest pull tight with feeling.

Maybe it’s just that you’re tired of the careful distance and your body is making decisions your head hasn’t approved.

You are at the gate and he is looking at you and the cold is making your breath visible between you and you say, before you’ve decided to: “You could come in.” He goes still. “For coffee,” you say. “Mrs. Della makes it before bed. She won’t mind.”

He looks at you for a long moment. The street is empty and dark and cold and the porch light is on and he is — you watch him weigh something, watch the careful consideration of a man who has learned the cost of moving without thinking, and you wait, and you don’t take it back.

“Not tonight,” he says. Quietly. Not as a rejection — the quality of it is entirely different from rejection, warm and regretful and something else, something that sounds almost like not yet. His eyes hold yours. “But—” he stops.

“But?” you say.

His hand finds yours, briefly, in the cold — not holding, just his fingers over yours for a moment, warm against the chill, a contact so small it might be nothing and is absolutely not nothing. “Soon,” he says.

You look at your hands. His fingers over yours. “Okay,” you say.

He squeezes once and lets go and steps back. Tips his hat. “Goodnight, darlin’.”

“Goodnight.” You go inside. You stand in the hallway for a moment with your hand held against your chest. Soon, you think.

Outside, his footsteps on the road, going home.

Tuesday in the third week of November, after school, after everyone has gone, the room is empty and the light low and you are at your desk and Heeseung has come — ostensibly to fix the wobbling chair leg, he appeared with a tool and a particular determined expression — and has fixed it and straightened up and you are still at the desk and the room is quiet and the space between you is approximately nothing.

He looks at you. You look at him. You say: “Heeseung.” Just his name. No question in it, no instruction, just the sound of it in the empty room, and something in him — the careful controlled something — gives way.

He crosses the room and his hands find your face and he kisses you.

Gently. Almost unbearably gently for a man who has been waiting this long — his mouth soft on yours, one hand curved around your jaw and one in your hair, the kiss slow and thorough and so tender that you feel it behind your eyes. He kisses you like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it, like he’s been thinking about exactly this and is in no hurry now that he’s here.

You make a sound, quiet and involuntary, and his hands tighten slightly in your hair — controlled, so controlled — and then he pulls back just enough to look at you, your face between his hands, his forehead almost touching yours. “Been wanting to do that,” he says, low, “since the diner.”

“The first morning?” you say. Your voice is not entirely steady.

“The first morning,” he confirms.

You pull him back down. This kiss is different — less tender, more certain, the both of you having established the territory now and moving through it with more confidence. His hands stay in your hair and at your jaw and you have one hand in his shirt and one on his arm and the chair leg is fixed and the school room is empty and the afternoon is going dark outside the windows.

Eventually — reluctantly — you separate. He rests his forehead against yours. His breathing is not entirely steady either, which you find deeply satisfying. His thumb moves along your jaw, once. “Eli’s at the ranch,” he says.

“I know.”

“Riki’s with him.”

“I know.” He pulls back enough to look at you properly. The expression on his face is something you haven’t seen before — open, unguarded, the steadiness still there but with something warmer beneath it, something that has stopped being controlled.

You look at him. This man who fixes things slowly and holds gates open and walks beside you without filling every silence and has been waiting, you realise, as carefully as you have — the both of you circling something real at a respectful distance because you both know the cost of getting it wrong. “Not here,” you say. “Not yet.”

He nods immediately, no argument, no pressure. “No.” He straightens. His hand drops from your jaw to your shoulder, rests there for a moment. “Soon.”

“Soon,” you agree.

He kisses you once more — brief, deliberate, a punctuation — and steps back and picks up his tool from the floor. At the door he pauses with his hand on the frame. “Fixed the chair,” he says.

“Thank you,” you say.

The corner of his mouth. He puts his hat on. He goes. You sit in the fixed chair in the empty schoolroom with your fingers at your lips and the particular feeling of someone standing at the very edge of something they’ve been walking toward for a long time.

Outside: Castillo Creek, going dark, going cold, going quiet. Inside: something beginning.

—

You don’t see him come in — you’re at the schoolhouse, mid-morning, working fractions with the older children while the little ones do their letters — but the town sees him, which amounts to the same thing. A black car, which is the first thing, because nobody in Castillo Creek drives a black car, everyone drives trucks with dust on them, and a black car with city plates sitting outside the boarding house is the kind of thing that travels the length of the main street in approximately four minutes.

Jay tells you at lunch. He appears at the schoolhouse gate during the midday break with his hands in his apron pockets and the expression of a man who has information he doesn’t want to deliver but will, because not delivering it would be worse. “Someone checked into Mrs. Della’s this morning,” he says.

You are eating a sandwich on the porch steps. “Who?”

“Man from Chicago.” He watches your face. “Name of Calloway.”

The sandwich stops being something you’re interested in. Jay sees it — the thing that happens to your face, the quick controlled shutting-down of it, the composed face coming up like a shutter. He sees it and his expression does something careful and angry on your behalf. “Richard,” you say. Not a question.

“Mrs. Della said he asked for you by name.” Jay’s voice is even, but only just. “Said he was an old friend.”

You set the sandwich down on the step beside you. In the yard the children are playing — Eli is attempting to teach Cody something that involves a great deal of running, unclear objective, self-invented rules — and the sound of them is bright and ordinary and very far away from the thing that is happening in your chest. “How long is he staying?” you say.

“Didn’t say.” Jay pauses. “You don’t have to see him. I mean it. You don’t have to do a single thing.”

“I know, Jay.” You look at the yard. Eli has apparently won whatever the game was and is explaining this to Cody with both hands. “Thank you for telling me.”

Jay looks at you for a long moment with the expression of a man who wants to say more and knows you well enough to know not to. “I’ll be at the diner,” he says. “All night if you need.” He goes. You sit on the steps and watch the children play and breathe.

You see Richard in town at four o’clock. You don’t plan it — or rather you plan to not plan it, to go home the back way and avoid the main street, but you have never been a person who runs from things indefinitely, which is different from a person who retreats to regroup, which is what Castillo Creek was supposed to be, and the distinction matters to you.

So you walk the main street at four. He is outside the general store. Six months since you’ve seen him and he looks exactly the same, which is the particular cruelty of certain kinds of men — Richard Calloway at thirty has the same easy handsomeness he had at twenty-five, the good jaw and the good clothes and the way of standing that broadcasts money without appearing to try. He is talking to Mr. Gus from the hardware store with the particular charm he deploys on strangers, warm and attentive, and Mr. Gus, who is a perfectly reasonable man, appears to be finding him perfectly reasonable.

Richard sees you at the same moment you see him. “Y/N,” he says. He says it the way he’s always said your name — with a kind of ownership, like the name is his to use, like he coined it. Six months ago that sound did something to you. Now it does something different: a cold clarity, like being fully awake.

“Richard,” you say. Mr. Gus, sensing something, makes a gracious excuse and goes inside.

Richard crosses the distance between you with that easy unhurried gait. He is looking at you the way he always looked at you — the assessing look, cataloguing, deciding what he’s working with. He looks at your coat, your boots, the dust on them. “You look well,” he says.

“What are you doing here?”

No preamble. His expression flickers — he expected something else, you can tell, some version of the composed uncertainty he knew how to work with — and then recalibrates. “I wanted to see you.” He tilts his head. “I’ve been worried. Your mother has been worried.”

“My mother knows where I am.”

“She knows where you are.” He glances around — the main street, the hardware store, the distant sound of the diner — with an expression that is almost too carefully neutral. “She’s less certain about why.”

“I am,” you say. “Certain about why.”

Something moves through his expression. Not hurt — Richard doesn’t do hurt, exactly, he does the performance of it — but something more like recalculation. He has come here with a script and you are not following it and he is deciding which page to go to next. “Can we talk?” he says. “Properly. Not — here.”

“Not today,” you say.

“Y/N—”

“I need to get home,” you say. “I have work to do.” You walk past him. You feel his gaze on your back the whole length of the street and you keep your spine straight and your pace even and you do not look back, and you turn the corner to the boarding house and you stand in the hallway for thirty seconds with your hand flat against the wall.

Then you go upstairs and sit at your desk and write lesson plans for the following week with the particular furious focus of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing and exactly why.

He stays.

This is what you didn’t account for — or what you knew, somewhere, and didn’t want to know: that Richard Calloway does not come somewhere and leave without getting what he came for, because Richard Calloway has not, in thirty years of life, not gotten a thing he came for. He is patient in the manner of a man who has never had to be truly patient, which is a different thing from Heeseung’s patience — Heeseung’s patience is the patience of someone who understands that good things take the time they take. Richard’s patience is the patience of someone who is simply waiting for the situation to arrange itself correctly.

He is in the diner on Friday morning when you come in. He has clearly been there a while — Jay’s expression when you walk in tells you everything, the tight professional smile of a man maintaining composure in his own establishment — and Richard stands when he sees you with the automatic courtesy of old money and gestures at the booth across from him like you’ve just arrived somewhere he owns.

You sit at the counter instead. Jay puts coffee in front of you without being asked and goes to the back. Richard slides onto the stool beside you. “Your friend doesn’t like me,” he says pleasantly.

“Jay doesn’t know you,” you say. “He’s good at people.”

A flicker. “I see you haven’t lost your—” he pauses, finds the word “—sharpness.”

“I’ve been busy,” you say. “Teaching.”

“Yes.” He turns his cup in his hands. This is a gesture you know — he does it when he’s choosing his approach, the hand movement while he thinks. “You’re a good teacher, Y/N. You were always good at it. You could be doing it in Chicago. Somewhere with—” he doesn’t finish it but you hear it: resources, standing, people like us.

“I like it here,” you say.

“You’ve been here two months.”

“Ten weeks.”

“Ten weeks,” he says. “In a town with four hundred people.” He looks at you sidelong. “Is this really what you want? Or is it just — the furthest you could get?”

The question lands because he knows you well enough to know it might. You drink your coffee.

“Both,” you say. “And then it became what I wanted.”

He is quiet for a moment. Then, lower, the charm dialed back, something more direct underneath: “I made a mistake.” You look at him. “The way I handled things,” he says. “The way I — let people talk.” He meets your eyes. “I should have been clearer. About what happened.”

“What did happen, Richard?” you say. “Tell me your version.”

Something careful moves through his face. “We weren’t right for each other. I should have said that, instead of—”

“Instead of implying that I was unstable,” you say pleasantly. “Instead of telling your mother that I had become erratic, which she told her friends, which—” you stop. The composed face. “You know what was said. You know what it cost me.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “I want to make it right.”

“By coming here,” you say. “To this town with four hundred people where I have managed, without your help, to make a life.”

He looks at you. His jaw is set slightly. “Come home,” he says. “That’s all I’m asking. Come home and we can—”

“No,” you say. Quietly. No drama. Just no, the way you should have been saying it for the two years you spent trying to become something that would satisfy him.

You finish your coffee. You put the money on the counter. You stand. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your visit,” you say. “The peach pie is very good.” You walk out. Behind you the bell chimes.

You don’t tell Heeseung. This is the thing you’ll come back to later — not telling him. It’s not deception, exactly, or you tell yourself it isn’t. It is the particular guarded instinct of a woman who has had her story taken from her once and is not ready yet to hand it to someone else to hold, even someone she trusts, even someone whose hands are the careful kind.

But Castillo Creek is four hundred people and a black city car parked on the main street and Richard Calloway has his father’s charm and the town is talking.

Jay doesn’t tell him either — you don’t have to ask, Jay simply knows — but Jay also cannot control what a town talks about, and towns talk.

You are outside the schoolhouse at half past four, gate latched behind you, walking toward the main street, and Richard is there.

He has been doing this — appearing at the edges of your day, not enough to be a confrontation, enough to be a reminder. Outside the general store, at the end of the street when you’re walking from the diner, once at the boarding house gate, though he didn’t approach that time, just stood at the end of the road as you went in.

Today he is at the corner near the schoolhouse and when you come through the gate he falls into step beside you. “I need you to stop,” you say.

“I just want to talk.”

“We’ve talked.”

“Y/N.” He takes your arm. Not hard — he’s never hard, that’s not how he operates, Richard operates through persistence and charm and the slow rewriting of reality until you can’t find the original — his hand on your arm, a familiar gesture from a thousand ordinary moments, the gesture of someone who knows where your arm is.

“Let go,” you say.

He does. Immediately, palms up, the gesture of a reasonable man. “I’m sorry. I just—”

“Richard.” Quietly. Firmly. “Go home.”

You step around him and walk. You don’t see Heeseung at the end of the street. But he sees you.

He doesn’t come to the diner on Friday. This is the first Friday in all the weeks you’ve been here that he doesn’t come. Jay notices — of course Jay notices, Jay notices everything — and he watches the door and watches you and keeps your cup full and doesn’t say anything, which from Jay means he is thinking very carefully about what not to say. You notice the absence like a change in weather. A front coming in.

He doesn’t come on Saturday either. Eli is in town — you see him outside the general store with Riki, who gives you a look you can’t fully interpret, something complicated — and Eli waves but doesn’t run over, which is so unlike him that something cold and certain settles in your stomach. You go to Jay. “What does he think he saw?” you say.

Jay is wiping the counter. He wipes it for a while. “Man from the city with his hand on your arm,” he says finally. “Outside the schoolhouse.”

“Richard grabbed my arm. I told him to let go. He did.”

“I know that.”

“Heeseung doesn’t.”

Jay sets down the cloth. He looks at you with the expression of a man who cares about two people who are being stupid at each other and has to navigate this carefully. “He didn’t ask me,” he says. “Which tells you something. If he thought it was nothing he would’ve asked.” You look at the counter. “He’s not angry,” Jay says. “He’s just — he’s gone back inside himself. The way he does.” He pauses. “You know about Clara.”

“I know she left.”

“He watched her talk to someone for a week before she told him she was going. He came home one day and she was packed.” Jay says it plainly, not for drama, just because you need to know the shape of what’s happening. “He doesn’t — he doesn’t do this consciously. It’s just where he goes. When it looks like someone’s about to leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” you say.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t know why Richard is here.”

“No.”

You are quiet for a moment. The diner is warm around you, the smell of coffee and the distant sound of the radio, and outside the window the main street is grey and cold under the November sky. “I should have told him,” you say.

“Yes,” Jay says, not unkindly. “You should have.”

—

Riki appears at the boarding house in the early morning of Sunday with his hands in his pockets and the look of someone who has decided to do something and is committed to seeing it through. You sit on the porch together in the cold and he looks at the street. “He’s not eating properly,” Riki says.

“Riki—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad. I’m saying it because you should know what’s happening over there.” He looks at his hands. “He got up at four this morning and went out to the fence line and I don’t know when he came back.” He pauses. “Eli asked him why you hadn’t visited and he said you were probably busy. Eli didn’t believe him. He’s seven and he didn’t believe him.” You close your eyes briefly. “The man from the city,” Riki says. “Who is he?”

“My ex-fiancé,” you say. “He came here to bring me back. I told him no. What Heeseung saw—” you stop. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

Riki is quiet for a moment. “He won’t ask,” he says. “He’ll just—” he does a gesture, a closing-in, both hands coming together. “He’ll just decide it’s already over and start making peace with it. He does it fast. He had a lot of practice.”

The cold is sharp on the porch and the street is empty and you think about a man up at four in the morning walking a fence line alone. “I’m going to the ranch,” you say.

Riki stands. “Good,” he says. Simply. And goes back down the porch steps and up the road, and you watch him go and then you go inside and put your coat on.

The ranch is quiet in the Sunday morning. Heeseung is at the paddock fence when you come through the gate — you know his shape at this distance now, the particular way he stands, the hat — and he turns when he hears you and goes very still. You walk toward him. The cold air is clean and the horses move slow in the paddock and the sky is white and enormous.

You stop at the fence beside him. He looks at you — that careful, closed look, the inside-self look that Jay described, and underneath it something that is trying very hard to be nothing and isn’t.

“His name is Richard Calloway,” you say. “He was my fiancé. He ended our engagement and made sure the story that circulated made me look like the problem. I came here because I needed to be somewhere no one knew that story.” You look at the paddock. “He came here to bring me back. I told him no. What you saw — he took my arm. I told him to let go. He did. And then I walked away.” Heeseung is very quiet beside you.

“I should have told you he was here,” you say. “I know that. I was—” you stop. Find the honest word. “I was holding it. My own story. I’ve had it taken from me before and I wasn’t ready to hand it to someone else yet, even someone I—” you stop again.

The paddock. The white sky. Chicago the foal, visible at the far end, picking her way through the grass. “Even someone I trust,” you finish.

A long silence. “He’s gone?” Heeseung says. His voice is careful. Controlled.

“He left yesterday morning,” you say. “Mrs. Della told me.”

Another silence. You can hear him breathing beside you, and the sound of it — the slight unevenness of it — tells you more than anything he’s said. “I thought—” he starts. Stops. Jaw tight. Starts again: “When I saw him with his hand on your arm I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” you say, gently. “I know why you thought it.”

He looks at you then. The inside face, still there, but cracking slightly at the edges. “I don’t do this well,” he says. “The—” he stops. “I’m not good at trusting that people—” another stop. He takes his hat off and turns it in his hands, looking at the brim. “I had six years of practice at being fine on my own and I got good at it.”

“I know,” you say.

“And then you came here,” he says. Quietly. “And Eli drew you on his wall.” Your chest does the thing it does. “And I started—” he stops again. The hat in his hands. “Getting bad at being fine on my own.”

You reach out and put your hand over his on the fence rail. Just your hand over his, the way he did at the boarding house gate in the cold, that same small warm contact. He looks at your hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” you say. “I fixed the gate. I’m staying.”

Something in him — the closed, careful, six-years-practiced something — gives. Not all at once, not dramatically. Just a breath, long and slow, and his hand turning under yours so his fingers can close around it. “Okay,” he says.

You stand at the fence in the cold white morning with his hand around yours and the horses moving slow in the paddock and the whole quiet ranch around you.

“I have to tell you something else,” you say.

“Alright.”

“I’ve been in love with you since approximately the harvest dance,” you say. “Possibly since the coffee in the stable. I’m not sure of the exact date.”

Heeseung is quiet for one moment. Then he makes a sound — low and startled and something that becomes a laugh, helpless, the kind that alters his whole face — and he pulls you toward him, one hand at the back of your head, and presses his mouth to your hair, your temple, and holds you there against the paddock fence in the November cold. “The coffee in the stable,” he says, into your hair.

“You’d already made two cups,” you say. “You knew I was coming.”

He laughs again, quieter. His arm is around you and his chin is on your head and across the paddock Chicago the foal is watching you both with enormous disinterested eyes. “Since the diner,” he says. “The first morning.”

“I know,” you say.

“You know?”

“You looked at me before you smiled,” you say. “Just for a second. Before the smile came. That’s when I knew.”

He pulls back enough to look at you. His expression — open, unguarded, the steadiness still there but warm all the way through now, nothing held back. “Lord,” he says softly. “You see everything.”

“I’m a teacher,” you say. “It’s the job.”

He kisses you. Right there at the paddock fence in the cold, his hand in your hair and yours in his coat, and it is nothing like the gentle kiss in the schoolroom — it is certain and warm and long and he kisses you like a man who has been holding something carefully for a very long time and has finally been told he can put it down.

When you separate, eventually, you are both slightly breathless. “Darlin’,” he says, low, the word doing what it does when it’s just yours.

“Yes?” you say.

“Come inside,” he says. “Bea made enough breakfast for six people and Eli is going to absolutely lose his mind when he sees you.”

You laugh. You take his hand. You go inside and Eli does, in fact, lose his mind. Not loudly — he is not a loud child, not in the way of tantrums or theatrics — but in the specific Eli way, which is a brightness that takes over his whole face before he can manage it, and then the immediate, instinctive suppression of it into dignity, and then the dignity failing completely because he is seven and some things are too good to be dignified about.

He is at the kitchen table with Bea when you come through the door behind Heeseung, still holding his hand, which Eli clocks immediately with the particular alertness of a child who has been waiting for exactly this data point. His eyes go to your joined hands. Then to your face. Then to his father’s face. Then back to your hands.

Bea, who misses nothing and reacts to nothing, sets a plate on the table. “Sit down,” she says. “Food’s hot.” Eli sits down. He is vibrating slightly.

You sit across from him. Heeseung sits beside you, easy, his knee against yours under the table. Bea puts coffee in front of you without being asked and goes back to the stove. Eli looks at you. “Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says. Carefully. Then, unable to help it: “Are you staying for breakfast?”

“If that’s alright.”

“It’s alright,” he says, very quickly. He picks up his fork. He puts it down. He looks at his father with the expression of a child requiring confirmation of something he doesn’t want to ask directly. Heeseung looks at him steadily. “Yes,” he says.

Eli picks up his fork again. He eats a bite of egg with enormous composure. Then: “I told Cody you’d probably end up friends.”

“Did you,” Heeseung says.

“I said probably.” He cuts a piece of biscuit with careful precision. “Cody said maybe.” He looks at you. “I was right.”

“You usually are,” you say.

This pleases him so deeply that he has to look at his plate to manage it. Bea, at the stove, makes a sound that is not quite a laugh but contains one.

Breakfast at Sunrise Ranch on a Sunday morning. This is what it is: the kitchen warm from the stove, the windows fogged slightly at the corners, Bea moving with the unhurried authority of someone who has run this kitchen for twenty years and will run it twenty more. Eli eating and talking and eating and talking, a stream of school information directed primarily at you — Tommy can do multiplication now and Clara finished the new books already, both of them and Grace thinks she should be in charge of the globe but the globe has a crack in it so it seems unfair — and Heeseung beside you, knee against yours, drinking his coffee and listening to his son with that expression, the open unguarded one, the love-without-complication one.

Once, while Eli is telling you about the globe, Heeseung’s hand finds yours under the table. He doesn’t look at you when he does it. He is looking at Eli. His thumb moves once across your knuckles and stays. You look at Eli and listen about the globe.

After breakfast Eli disappears outside — Riki materialises to take him to the stable, the easy choreography of a household that has its rhythms — and Bea goes to do something elsewhere in the house with pointed discretion, and you are alone in the kitchen with Heeseung and the remains of breakfast and the Sunday morning quiet.

He refills your coffee. He sits back down, closer this time, turned toward you slightly, his arm along the back of your chair. “Tell me about him,” he says. “If you want. Richard.”

You look at your cup. “I don’t want to spend the morning on Richard.”

“No,” he agrees. “But I want to understand what he did. What you were carrying when you came here.” His voice is even. “Not for any reason except I want to know what it cost you. Because I think it cost you a lot and I don’t think many people asked.”

You look at him. The steadiness of him, and underneath it now, openly, the warmth. You tell him. Not everything — there is no everything yet, some things need more time and more trust before they become speakable — but the shape of it: the engagement, the ending of it, the way the story moved through their social world with Richard’s fingerprints invisible on it, the school where you’d taught finding reasons to see you differently, your mother’s voice on the phone saying maybe if you’d been less. The twenty-seven job applications. Castillo Creek writing back.

Heeseung listens the way he always listens — completely, without filling the pauses, without deciding what your story means before you’ve finished telling it.

When you’re done he is quiet for a moment. “He came here thinking you’d go back,” he says.

“Yes.”

“And you—”

“I was never going back.” You look at him. “I think I knew that before he arrived. I think Castillo Creek stopped being a retreat and started being — this — weeks ago. I just hadn’t said it out loud yet.”

Heeseung nods, slow. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear with the same careful deliberateness he always uses — the gesture that gives you time to move away, that assumes nothing — and leaves his hand curved at your jaw. “He doesn’t get to have this,” he says. Quietly. “What happened to you back there. He doesn’t get to have the last word on it.”

“He doesn’t,” you agree.

“You fixed a gate,” Heeseung says. “You wrote two letters to the school board. You put a drawing on your wall.” His thumb at your jaw, the lightest movement. “You’re not someone who needed rescuing.”

“No,” you say. “I’m not.”

“Good,” he says. And kisses you, soft and brief, like a conclusion.

—

The weeks that follow are the best of your life.

You will think this later and it will surprise you — not the fact of it but the simplicity of it, that best can be made of such ordinary material. Morning coffee. The schoolhouse. Eli’s questions at lunch. Jay’s diner on Friday evenings. The ranch on Saturdays, your boots by the stable door, your coffee cup with the small chip in the handle that has become yours without anyone saying so.

Heeseung walks you home from the diner on Fridays and comes in now — Mrs. Della receives him with the satisfaction of someone whose predictions are being validated in real time — and they drink coffee at the kitchen table, all three of them, and talk until late, and then he walks back to the ranch and you watch him from the porch.

He kisses you in ordinary places: at the boarding house gate, in Jay’s diner when Jay has turned to the back shelf, at the paddock fence with one arm over the rail and one around you. He kisses you like someone who is very aware of what he has and intends to be careful with it. Tender, deliberate, thorough. You are, you think, going to have to do something about the thorough.

It happens on a Saturday in early December. Eli is in town with Riki — a deliberate arrangement, you’ll think later, with the particular transparency of a child who is also operating a long game — and Bea has gone to her sister’s for the weekend, and the ranch is quiet and cold and yours.

You come over in the morning with the box of marking you’d told yourself you’d do at the kitchen table, which is true, and which you do, for approximately forty minutes while Heeseung works at the desk in the adjoining room doing ranch accounts. The domestic ordinariness of it — the scratch of his pen, the occasional sound of a horse outside, the winter light — is the kind of thing you want to press into memory and keep.

Then the pen stops. You hear his chair. His footsteps. He appears in the kitchen doorway and leans against the frame and looks at you. “You’re not working,” you say, without looking up.

“I finished,” he says.

“I haven’t.”

“How much is left?”

You look at the stack. “Some.”

“Y/N.” You look up. He is in the doorway with his arms crossed and that expression — the warm one, the open one, the one that has nothing controlled about it — and the morning light behind him and the whole quiet ranch around you.

“Come here,” he says. You put your pen down. You go.

He kisses you in the hallway, backed against the wall with one hand braced beside your head and one at your waist, and it is immediately different from all the careful public kisses — there is nothing held back in it, nothing managing itself, just his mouth on yours and the warmth of him and the knowledge that there is no gate, no Eli, no diner bell, nowhere either of you needs to be.

You pull him closer by the front of his shirt. He makes a sound low in his chest — something between a groan and an exhale, the sound of a man whose patience has run its full course — and his hand moves from your waist to your hip and presses there, firm and deliberate. “Heeseung,” you say, against his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says. Like he knows.

“Bedroom,” you say. He pulls back enough to look at you — checking, the way he always checks, that you mean what you say — and you look back at him clearly, no ambiguity, and he makes that sound again and takes your hand and takes you there.

His bedroom is the ranch made interior: worn timber, a quilt in faded colours, the window looking out over the paddock. Clean and spare and entirely his. It smells like him — something warm and outdoor and specific, the smell you’ve catalogued without meaning to over months of being near him.

You sit on the edge of the bed and he stands in front of you and you reach up and take his hat off and set it on the nightstand. He looks down at you with that open expression, the warmth all the way through. “You’ve wanted to do that for a while,” he says.

“Since the diner,” you say. “The first morning.”

He laughs, surprised out of it, and cups your face in both hands and tilts it up and kisses you — but then he slows, and the kiss goes gentle again, the unbearable gentleness, and you feel it in your throat. “I want to take my time,” he says, against your mouth. Low. Deliberate. “That alright?”

You think about six months of composure and careful distances and soon and not yet. “Yes,” you say. “But you should know I’m not going to be patient about it.”

The corner of his mouth, close to yours. “That a fact.”

“Fair warning.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the soft place below your ear, taking his time as advertised and apparently fully at peace with the consequences of this, and you grip his shirt and close your eyes and let him.

He undresses you slowly.Each button on the front of your dress — his fingers finding each one, unhurried, like he has nowhere to be in the world except here — and watching his face while he does it: the focus, the deliberateness, the slight tension in his jaw that tells you the patience is real but not effortless. “You’re staring,” you say.

“Yes,” he agrees, without apology. When the dress is off he looks at you in the winter light from the window and the expression on his face — unhidden, unmanaged — does something to you more immediately than any touch. “Lord,” he says, soft. Same word as the paddock. Different weight.

“Your turn,” you say, and reach for his shirt buttons. He lets you. He watches you work through them with the stillness of a man exercising enormous self-control, and when you push the shirt off his shoulders you let your hands sit on his chest for a moment — warm skin, the steady beat of his heart beneath your palms — and look up at him.

“Hi,” you say. Something breaks open in his face. He pulls you up and against him and holds you there, skin to skin, his arms around you and his face in your hair, and you feel him breathe.

“Hi,” he says. Into your hair. Low and wrecked and yours.

He keeps his word about taking his time. He lays you back and moves over you and learns you slowly — his mouth at your throat, your collarbone, lower, taking inventory with the thoroughness of a man who intends to know exactly what he’s doing and is not embarrassed about the methodology. He finds the places that make you make sounds and stays there, patient, deliberate, until you are gripping the quilt. “Heeseung—”

“Mm,” he says. Not a response. A sound of someone occupied.

“I said I wouldn’t be patient—”

“I heard you.” He looks up at you from where he is, and the look on his face — dark-eyed, certain, that half-smile with intent behind it — dismantles you completely. “I’m getting there, darlin’.”

The darlin’. In that voice, in this room, low and deliberate. Just yours. “You are going to be the death of me,” you say.

“Not the plan,” he says, and goes back to what he was doing.

When his fingers find you you are already slick and wanting, six months of tension and patience and soon and careful distances arriving at this, and the sound you make is entirely involuntary. He stills. “Okay?” he says.

“Yes,” you say. “Please.”

He watches your face while he works — that focused look, reading you the way he reads everything, paying attention — and his fingers are skilled and patient and exactly right, and you are aware of him watching you come apart under his hands and aware that you don’t mind, that the composed face is nowhere and you don’t miss it. “That’s it,” he says, low, when your hips lift toward him. “There you go.” The voice. The drawl. The absolute certainty of him.

You come with his name in your mouth and his hand at your hip steadying you and his eyes on your face the whole time, and he works you through it with the same thoroughness he brought to everything else, and when you’re done he presses his mouth to your temple and stays there. “Good?” he says.

“Don’t be smug,” you say.

He laughs. “Not smug.”

“You’re a little smug.”

“Maybe a little.” He pulls back to look at you, and the smugness is there, yes, but underneath it something so warm and open that it cancels the smugness out entirely. “You’re beautiful,” he says. Simply. The way he says things that are just true. You reach up and pull him down. You have him on his back.

This is where you reclaim the pace — you swing your leg over and sit up and look down at him and watch his face do something entirely new, an expression you haven’t seen before: surprise, quickly followed by want, and underneath both of them something that is trying to be collected and isn’t. “Hi,” you say.

“Hi,” he says. His hands find your hips. He is, you note with satisfaction, not as composed as he was.

You move — slowly, deliberately — and watch his jaw set and his hands tighten on your hips and his head press back into the pillow. There is a specific pleasure in this that has nothing to do with the physical, or not only — the pleasure of watching Lee Heeseung, who is patient and steady and controlled, lose every one of those things because of you. “Lord,” he says, choked.

“Mm,” you say. His own syllable, returned.

“Y/N—”

“I heard you,” you say. “I’m getting there.”

He makes a sound that is half a groan and half a laugh and his grip on your hips tightens and his hips roll up to meet you and the laugh is gone, replaced by something lower and more urgent. “You’re—” he starts.

“I know,” you say.

“No, I mean you’re—” he stops again, jaw tight, eyes dark, looking up at you with the expression of a man whose vocabulary has been significantly reduced. “God, darlin’—”

His hand leaves your hip and finds your hair and pulls you down and kisses you deep and then his arms wrap around you and he rolls you over and you go, laughing, and then the laughing stops because he is looking at you with that expression still, wrecked and warm, and moves and you stop thinking about anything at all.

Afterward the ranch is quiet around you. You are in the faded quilt and his arm is around you and your head is on his chest and you can hear his heartbeat, slower now, and outside the paddock the horses move in the winter afternoon. His hand is in your hair, a slow absent movement. “That wasn’t what I expected,” he says.

“What did you expect?”

A pause. “Not that,” he says, and you can hear the smile in it.

You prop yourself up to look at him. He is looking at the ceiling with an expression of serene disbelief. “You look like a man who’s had a revelation,” you say.

“Something like that.” He looks at you, and the expression shifts into the warm open one, the real one. “You’re something else,” he says.

“Is that a complaint?”

“No,” he says. Definitively. “Not even close.”

You lie back down. His arm comes back around you. “Eli’s back at four,” you say.

“I know.”

“I should probably be at the kitchen table with my marking.”

“Probably,” he agrees, and makes no move to change the current arrangement. You lie in the quiet ranch afternoon and listen to his heartbeat and the horses and the winter silence and feel — you take inventory carefully, the way you do when something feels too good to trust yet — feel, genuinely and completely, right. In this room, in this town, in this life that was built from the furthest-job-offer and a broken gate and a man who made two cups of coffee because he knew you were coming.

“Heeseung,” you say. “I’m staying,” you say. “I know I said it at the fence. I’m saying it again.”

His arm tightens. Just once. “I know,” he says.

“I want you to know it,” you say. “Really know it. Not — hope it. Know it.”

A silence. His heartbeat steady under your ear. “I know it,” he says. Quietly. And then: “I’m not going anywhere either.”

I’m not going anywhere. First time he said it, at the harvest dance, it was an offer. Now it is something else — an answer, a matching of weight, the both of you putting the same thing down on the same table and deciding to trust it.

Outside: the paddock, the winter sky, Chicago the foal grown enough now to move with some authority, her dark coat catching the low December light.

Inside: the quilt, the heartbeat, the quiet. New soil, you think, for the last time that way. Because it isn’t new anymore. It’s just — yours. The roots are in. The thing has grown.

You stay exactly where you are until three forty-five, and then you get up and go back to your marking, and when Eli comes home at four and finds you at the kitchen table with your papers and his father making coffee at the stove he looks between you both with the assessment of a child who has gotten what he wanted and finds the result satisfactory.

He sits down across from you and opens his schoolbag. “I have reading,” he announces.

“Do it, then,” his father says.

Eli opens his book. You mark your papers. Heeseung brings coffee and goes back to the stove. The kitchen is warm and smells like dinner starting and outside the winter light is going gold over Sunrise Ranch. Eli reads three pages and then looks up. “Miss?” he says.

“Mm?”

“Are you staying for dinner?”

You look at Heeseung. He is at the stove and not looking at you but the back of his neck says everything. “If that’s alright,” you say.

Eli looks back at his book with an expression of profound satisfaction. “It’s alright,” he says.

—

December in Castillo Creek is cold and clear and strung with the particular quiet of a place that doesn’t make much noise about the holidays but means them deeply. The church puts candles in its windows. The general store gets a pine wreath on the door. Jay hangs lights along the diner’s front awning — coloured glass, old, the kind that have been on the same string for fifteen years and still work because Jay is meticulous about the things that matter to him. Mrs. Della bakes for a week straight and distributes the results to the whole street, appearing at doors with tins and brooking no argument.

The schoolhouse gets a paper chain. This is Eli’s doing — he arrives one Monday in the first week of December with a paper bag of coloured strips and announces to the class that they are making a paper chain, his tone suggesting this is non-negotiable, which it is. Grace organises the distribution of strips by colour. Tommy figures out the interlinking system and explains it to the little ones with unexpected patience. Eli and Clara argue about whether it should go across the windows or along the beams and settle on both, and by Friday afternoon the schoolhouse has been transformed by fourteen pairs of hands into something festive and faintly chaotic and entirely theirs.

You stand at the back of the room on Friday and look at it. Two months, you think. Ten weeks. The number Eli’s father said and you corrected, that first confrontation with Richard outside the general store that feels like it happened to someone in a different chapter of a different book.

You have been here three months now. You look at the paper chain and the drawings on the wall — Eli’s has been joined by two others, unsolicited offerings left on your desk on separate Mondays, one from Lottie of what appears to be you and a horse, one from Tommy of the schoolhouse with everyone standing outside it, their names printed carefully above their heads — and something in your chest is so full it has nowhere to go. You put your coat on and lock up and walk home in the cold.

Heeseung takes you riding properly for the first time on a Saturday in the second week of December. Scout this time — not Honey, not the chair — and you get on him in the yard with Heeseung holding the bridle and talking you through it, that same teaching voice, patient and specific and trusting you to get there. Scout is large and entirely calm and turns out to have a gait so smooth it borders on considerate.

“Told you he was a gentleman,” Heeseung says, walking beside you for the first few minutes.

“You can let go,” you say.

“I know.” He does. Steps back. Watches. You ride Scout to the end of the paddock and back, and then around the perimeter, and somewhere in the second circuit you stop thinking about what your hands are doing and just ride, and the feeling of it — the size of the animal beneath you, the cold air, the ranch open around you in the winter morning — is the kind of feeling you didn’t know you were missing until it arrived.

Heeseung is at the fence when you come back, arms resting on the rail, watching you with that expression he gets when he’s pleased about something and not performing it. “Well?” he says.

“He’s better than Honey,” you say.

“Don’t let Honey hear that.”

You dismount — not elegantly, but functionally, which is an improvement — and Scout drops his nose to Heeseung’s shoulder in greeting and Heeseung rubs his neck without looking away from you. “There’s a place I want to show you,” he says. “If you’re up for a longer ride.”

“How long?”

“Hour out. Hour back.” He tilts his head. “Worth it.”

You look at Scout. Scout looks at you with patient equine agreement. “Alright,” you say.

He takes you east, past the fence line, up into the low hills where the land changes from flat scrub to something rougher and more interesting, the winter grass pale gold, the sky enormous and white-edged. They ride side by side where the terrain allows and single file where it doesn’t, Heeseung ahead on the narrow parts, and he doesn’t talk much on the way, just rides, and you learn something about him in the riding — the ease of it, how completely at home he is moving through this land, how he and Scout communicate in small adjustments with no visible negotiation.

The place he wants to show you is at the top of the second hill. It is, simply, a view: the whole of the valley below, Castillo Creek visible as a cluster of shapes in the distance, the ranch a paler geometry of buildings and fence lines to the west, and beyond everything the flat enormous Texas horizon going all the way to where the sky meets the earth. You sit on Scout at the top of the hill and look at it. “Oh,” you say.

“Yeah,” he says.

The winter light is doing something particular to the valley — low and golden and very clear, the kind of light that makes everything look more itself than usual. You can see the creek, barely, a dark thread through the scrub. You can see, or imagine you can see, the white corner of the schoolhouse.

“My father used to bring me here,” Heeseung says. Beside you now, Scout and his horse standing easy. “When I was Eli’s age. Said if you ever got confused about what mattered you could come up here and look at it.”

“Does it work?”

“Every time.” He looks at the valley. “I came here a lot after Clara left. Trying to—” a pause “—get the proportion of things right.”

You look at him. He is looking at the valley with that quiet expression, the one that belongs to this land and this ranch and the private life he’s lived in them. “Did it help?” you say.

“Eventually.” He glances at you. “Took a while.”

You look back at the valley. Castillo Creek in the winter light. The white edge of the sky. “I want to bring Eli here,” you say. “When he’s old enough to—” you stop, aware suddenly of what you’ve just said — the assumption in it, the future in it, the easy taking-for-granted of a thing that is still, technically, new.

But Heeseung isn’t looking at the valley anymore. He is looking at you. “He’d like that,” he says. Simply. No performance of casualness, no careful management. Just the statement, meaning everything it means.

You look at him. He looks at you. The horses stand easy in the winter wind. “I love you,” you say. First time, on a hilltop in December with the whole valley below you, because it is true and it has been true for long enough that not saying it has become its own kind of dishonesty.

Heeseung is quiet for a moment. Then he reaches across the space between the horses and finds your hand and holds it, his thumb moving across your knuckles in the way it does. “I love you,” he says. “Been a while since I said that to anyone.” He looks at your joined hands. “Feels different this time.”

“Different how?”

He considers this with the seriousness he brings to things that matter. “Steadier,” he says. “Like saying something I already knew instead of something I was hoping would be true.”

You look at the valley and his hand around yours and the winter sky and the whole quiet particular life you have landed in, with its paper chains and borrowed boots and gap-toothed boy and a man who makes two cups of coffee because he knows you’re coming. “Steadier,” you agree.

Christmas at the ranch. This is not planned either — or it is planned by everyone except you, you discover, Mrs. Della and Bea and Jay all operating in quiet coordination, the whole thing arriving complete and inevitable on Christmas morning when Heeseung appears at the boarding house at ten with Eli and Riki and the truck and says “come to the ranch” in the same simple offering voice he uses for everything. Mrs. Della has already sent the cobbler ahead.

The day is the kitchen and the table extended to fit everyone — Jay materialises at noon with cornbread and the particular satisfaction of a man in his preferred social configuration — and Eli opening things with the focused efficiency of a child who has been patient about this for weeks, and Riki eating more than anyone else and not being asked about it, and Bea’s food, and the fire in the front room where you end up in the afternoon, the cold coming down outside and the ranch warm and close around you all.

Eli falls asleep in the armchair at four, his new book open on his chest. Jay catches your eye across the room and very deliberately does not look at Heeseung beside you on the sofa, which is Jay at his most ostentatious.

Riki carries Eli to bed with the long-practiced ease of someone who has done it before. Bea goes home to her sister. Jay stays for dinner and then takes himself off with the timing of a man who knows exactly when he’s no longer needed, and then it is just you and Heeseung in the front room with the fire going low.

He has his arm around you. Your feet are tucked up on the sofa. Outside the ranch is quiet and cold and dark. “Good day,” he says.

“Very good day,” you say.

He presses his mouth to your hair. “Stay,” he says. “Tonight. Eli’s asleep. You can take the—”

“Yes,” you say.

A pause. “I was going to say the spare—”

“I know what you were going to say,” you say. “Yes.” His arm tightens. He laughs, low and warm, into your hair. You don’t take the spare room.

—

January comes cold and clear. The new year settles over Castillo Creek with the quiet confidence of a place that has seen many of them and expects to see many more. The schoolhouse reopens the second week of January and the children arrive back with the particular energy of people who have been inside for two weeks and have run out of patience with it. Eli is approximately three inches taller, which you mention, and he tells you seriously that Bea measured him on the door frame and he grew one inch and you are not to exaggerate.

Tommy’s numbers are clean and confident now, left-handed from the start, and you watch him work through a column of addition with the ease of someone who has finally been given the right tool for the job, and feel the specific satisfaction of a teacher who has solved the right problem.

Clara has started writing stories. She brings you the first one on a Thursday in a folded piece of paper, her best handwriting, three pages, a story about a girl who goes on a journey and comes back changed. She stands by your desk while you read it and doesn’t pretend not to care about your response, which you respect enormously. It is good — genuinely good, the instinct for story already there, the voice already hers. “This is wonderful,” you tell her.

“Really?” she says, in the voice of a child who already knows but needs to hear it.

“Really.” You set it on the desk. “Have you shown your parents?”

“Not yet.” She folds the paper back up carefully. “I wanted to know if it was good first.”

“It’s good,” you say. “Show them. And write me another one.” Clara goes back to her seat with her story in her hand and the particular glow of a person who has been given something real to carry.

On the last Friday in January, Jay closes the diner early. He does this without explanation, just turns the sign and pours three glasses of something that is not coffee and sets them on the counter, and looks at you and Heeseung on opposite stools and says: “I want to make a toast.”

“Jay,” Heeseung says.

“I’m serious. I’ve been waiting for the right moment and I’ve decided this is it.” He picks up his glass. “To the new schoolteacher. Who fixed the gate,” Jay says, overriding you. “And stayed when she didn’t have to. And who—” he stops, and something moves through his expression that is not the easy social warmth but something deeper and more real “—who is good for this town. And for the specific people in it who needed good things to happen to them.”

He looks at Heeseung when he says the last part. Heeseung is looking at the counter. The back of his neck does the thing. “To Castillo Creek,” Jay says. “And to people who stay.”

You pick up your glass. Heeseung picks up his. “To Castillo Creek,” you say.

Jay grins. You all three drink. “Right,” Jay says, setting his glass down with a decisive click. “Now. Heeseung. Are you going to ask her or are you going to make me wait another six months.”

The diner goes very quiet. Heeseung looks at Jay with the expression of a man who is going to have a word with his best friend at a later date. Jay looks back with the expression of a man who has no regrets. “Ask me what?” you say.

Heeseung turns to you. He is — you watch the careful management dissolve, replaced by something undefended, the real face he’s been showing you more and more since December, since the hilltop, since steadier. He looks at you for a moment and then he does something you haven’t seen him do: he reaches into his shirt pocket. “I was going to do this differently,” he says.

“Jay ruined it?”

“Jay ruined it,” he agrees, without looking at Jay, who has the good grace to say nothing.

What’s in his pocket is not a ring box — not the velvet-and-presentation kind. It is a ring wrapped in a piece of cloth, unwrapped in his palm: gold, simple, a small band with a detail you can’t quite see yet. His mother’s, you’ll learn later. The one his grandmother brought from her own mother and passed down and which his mother pressed into his hand the Christmas before last and said when it’s right, you’ll know. He holds it in his palm and looks at you. “I know this is fast,” he says.

“It’s not,” you say. “It’s been since the diner.”

The corner of his mouth. “Since the diner,” he says. “I’ve been—” he stops. Tries again. “I don’t have a speech. I thought I’d have one by now but I don’t.” He looks at the ring in his hand. “I know what kind of person you are. I’ve watched you for four months and I know.” He looks up at you. “You fixed things that weren’t yours to fix. You stayed when it would have been easier to go. You put a drawing on your wall.” He closes his hand briefly around the ring, then opens it again. “My son thinks the sun rises and sets with you, which is—” his voice does something “—which is not a small thing. Coming from him.”

You are doing everything in your power to hold your face together and succeeding imperfectly. “I love you,” he says. “And I would very much like you to stay. Not just in the town. Here. At the ranch.” He holds the ring out toward you, steadily, his hand not moving. “With us.”

The diner. The coloured lights along the awning. Jay, very carefully, looking at the ceiling. You look at Heeseung Lee with his mother’s ring in his palm and his whole face open and waiting and none of the patience effortless anymore, all of it visible, the hope and the care and the barely-controlled terror of a man asking for the thing he wants most. “Yes,” you say.

Jay makes a sound. Heeseung lets out a breath that has been held since approximately November.

He puts the ring on your finger — it fits, which is either luck or fate or Bea, who you will later determine took one of your gloves to a jeweller in the next town, bless her — and then he holds your hand and looks at it and then at you, and the expression on his face is something you will carry for the rest of your life: unguarded and certain and entirely, quietly, happy. “Finally,” says Jay, with enormous feeling.

“I’m going to fire you,” Heeseung says.

“You don’t employ me.”

“I’m going to stop eating here.”

“You were here yesterday and you’re here now.” You are laughing, you realise. Both of you are laughing, your hand in both of his, and Jay is pouring more of the not-coffee and the diner lights are warm and outside Castillo Creek is cold and dark and going about its business.

Eli knows before you tell him. You don’t know how — this is simply a thing about Eli, that he knows things — but when you and Heeseung sit down with him on Saturday morning at the kitchen table with the specific parental gravity of people who have something to say, he looks at you both and then at your hand and then back at you and says: “Are you going to live here now?”

“If you’re alright with it,” you say.

He looks at his cereal. He stirs it. He does this for long enough that something uncertain stirs in you, the awareness that this is a seven-year-old boy whose mother left and whose life is about to change and who is allowed to have feelings about that. “Eli,” Heeseung says, gently. “You can say whatever you’re thinking.”

Eli looks up. His face is doing several things. “I just,” he starts. Stops. “I named the foal Chicago,” he says. “Before. I named it before because—” he stops again. Stirs his cereal. “I wanted you to stay from the beginning,” he says, quickly, like getting a thing out before he can change his mind. “I knew you were good before Dad did. I told Riki.”

“What did Riki say?” you ask.

“He said he knew too.” Eli looks at you. “Are you going to be my—” he stops at the word, turns it over, decides something. “Are you going to be my mom?”

The kitchen is very quiet. You look at this boy — gap-toothed, dark-eyed, too perceptive for his own good, who named a foal after a city to make you feel at home, who put FRIENDS at the bottom of a drawing in careful uneven letters — and your composed face is absolutely nowhere to be found. “I would very much like to,” you say. “If you want that.”

Eli looks at his cereal for a moment. Then he gets down from his chair and comes around the table and climbs into your lap, which he has never done before, and sits there with the specific decision of a child who has made up his mind. “Okay,” he says. You put your arms around him.

Across the table Heeseung has his hand over his mouth and is looking at the ceiling, which is the composed face losing, and you have never loved him more than right now. Eli, from your lap: “Can I still call you Miss at school?”

“You have to call me Miss at school,” you say.

“Good,” he says. “’Cause Cody would be weird about it.”

Riki takes the news with characteristic economy. He looks at your hand. He looks at Heeseung. He looks at you. He nods once, slowly, like a man confirming a long-held suspicion. “I told Eli in October,” he says. “That you were going to stay.”

“You told me in October,” you say. “That he was happy. More than usual.”

Riki looks between you both. “Yeah,” he says. He picks up his coffee and goes back toward the stable. Then, over his shoulder, not quite casually enough: “About time.”

February. The foal is four months old and has decided what her legs are for and uses them constantly, her dark coat catching the winter light where it falls across the paddock. Eli visits her every day before and after school and maintains a detailed running report on her progress that he delivers at the dinner table with the authority of someone who considers herself the foremost expert on Chicago specifically.

Your things have migrated slowly from the boarding house to the ranch over the course of January, the natural movement of a life toward where it belongs — books first, then the rest, Mrs. Della receiving each removal with the particular warm satisfaction of a woman who considers herself personally responsible for the outcome and is not incorrect.

Your coat is on the hook by the ranch door. Your coffee cup — chipped handle, yours — is in the cupboard. Your books are on the shelf in the front room, mixed in with Heeseung’s without ceremony, which is the most domestically intimate thing you’ve ever done and which undoes you slightly every time you look at it.

The drawing is still on the schoolhouse wall. It will stay there. You’ve decided this. Miss Y/N and Eli. Friends. Let every child who comes through that room see it — the evidence that teachers are people who belong somewhere, that belonging is a thing that can be built, that a drawing on a wall can be the most important document in a room full of books.

The last Friday in February, you and Heeseung are at Jay’s after closing. This is the usual arrangement — Jay with his counter, you on the stools, the diner warm and the street dark outside. But tonight Jay has put a record on, something slow, and the coloured lights along the awning are on outside, and it is, you think, the same scene as nearly five months ago except that nothing is the same at all. “Dance with me,” Heeseung says. The same words as the harvest dance. The same quiet directness. You get off the stool.

He takes your hand and you dance in Jay’s empty diner to the slow record, your hand on his shoulder and his at your waist and the ring on your finger catching the light when you turn. Jay watches from behind the counter with the expression of a man who has everything he wanted from this situation and finds it entirely satisfactory. “First dance,” you say. “You said your mother taught you.”

“She did.”

“I want to meet her.”

His hand at your waist, warm and firm. “She’s coming in March,” he says. “She’s been asking since October.”

“October,” you say.

“Eli told her about the dialect conversation.” His mouth at your temple. “She said anyone who could get Eli to use the word dialect correctly in a sentence was worth meeting.”

“High bar,” you say.

“For her, yes.” He pulls back slightly to look at you. The expression — open, warm, steady all the way down. “She’s going to love you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” he says. Simply. “She knows people. Runs in the family.”

You think of a seven-year-old boy naming a foal Chicago in October. Knowing before anyone else. “Apparently it does,” you say. He smiles — the real one, the full one, the one that you catalogued on a diner stool on your first morning in Castillo Creek and have been cataloguing ever since, the one that is different when it’s just yours — and turns you slowly on the diner floor.

Outside: Castillo Creek, cold and clear, the stars doing their enormous Texas thing. The main street quiet, the church dark, the boarding house where you no longer live, the schoolhouse with its paper chain long since taken down and its drawing still on the wall. Inside: the music, the lights, the man, the ring, the dancing. New soil, you think, for the very last time and immediately think: no. Not new anymore. Just home.

—

Spring comes to Castillo Creek the way it comes to places that have earned it. Not dramatically — no single morning where you wake and everything is different — but incrementally, the way the best things happen: a degree warmer each week, the scrub going from pale gold to something greener at the edges, the creek running higher with the snowmelt from somewhere distant and northern. The horses grow restless in the way of animals that can smell a season changing. Chicago the foal gallops the length of the paddock every morning for no reason except that the air tastes different and her legs are finally, fully hers.

The schoolhouse gets its windows opened for the first time since October. This is a significant event. The children treat it as such, orienting their desks subtly toward the new rectangles of warm air, their attention drifting pleasurably to the sounds coming in — birdsong, wind, the distant sound of someone on the main street calling to someone else. You allow this. Spring arriving through classroom windows is an education of its own kind.

Eli sits at his desk on the first warm Friday and tilts his face toward the window with his eyes closed and the expression of a person receiving something they’ve been waiting for. “Eli,” you say.

“I’m thinking,” he says, without opening his eyes. You carry on.

Margaret Lee arrives on a Tuesday in the second week of March. She is not what you expected, which means you had built an expectation without realising it — some composite of your own mother and the idea of a woman who raised Heeseung, formidable and warm. Margaret Lee is both of these things and also neither of them, which is the way of people who exceed the categories you’ve prepared.

She is small. This is the first surprise — Heeseung is tall and she is small, barely to his shoulder, which he accommodates with the automatic ease of someone who has been bending toward her his whole life. She has grey-streaked hair and her son’s dark eyes and the particular posture of a woman who has decided exactly who she is and arranged herself accordingly. She steps down from the bus and looks at the main street of Castillo Creek and then at you, standing beside her son at the bus stop, and her face does something quick and assessing and then opens entirely. “There she is,” she says.

Heeseung looks at you. You look at Heeseung. “I feel like people keep saying that to me,” you say.

Margaret Lee laughs — genuine and sudden, the same quality of laugh as her son’s, the kind that alters the whole face — and takes both your hands in hers. “Lee Heeseung has been talking about you since October,” she says, without preamble. “He didn’t know he was doing it. He thought he was just giving me news from the town.” She pats your hands and releases them and looks at her son. “He mentioned you in every single letter.”

“Mama,” Heeseung says.

“The schoolteacher fixed the gate,” she says, in a perfect impression of neutrality. “‘The schoolteacher came to see the ranch. The schoolteacher can ride.’” She picks up her bag. “Every letter, Lee. Every one.”

“I’m aware,” he says.

“He thought I didn’t notice,” she tells you.

“I’m standing right here,” he says.

“I know, baby.” She pats his arm and walks toward the truck. You fall into step beside her and catch, from the corner of your eye, Heeseung’s expression — the exasperated tender helpless expression of a man who loves his mother and is entirely at her mercy and has made his peace with both of these facts. You like her immediately and completely.

She stays two weeks and in those two weeks she does the following: reorganises the kitchen at the ranch in a way that Bea approves of and Heeseung adapts to without complaint, teaches Eli three card games of increasing moral dubiousness, tells you four stories about Heeseung’s childhood that he would prefer you not to have, sits with you on the porch every morning with coffee and talks to you the way women talk when they’ve decided to trust each other — plainly, without ornament.

On the fourth morning she says: “Tell me about before.” You look at the paddock. Chicago the foal. The pale spring sky. “Before Castillo Creek,” she says. “If you want. You don’t have to.”

You think about before. The specific weight of it, which has changed — not lighter exactly, but different, the weight distributed differently now, held up by more points of contact so no single place takes all of it. You tell her.

She listens the way her son listens — completely, without deciding what it means before you’re done. When you finish she is quiet for a moment. “My husband left me once,” she says. “Heeseung’s father. We were young, we had a fight about something I can’t even remember now, and he left and I thought — that was that.” She looks at the paddock. “He came back in three days. But those three days I understood something I didn’t know before. That some people leave to see if you’ll chase them. And some people leave because they’re gone.” She looks at you. “The man you described sounds like the second kind.”

“He is,” you say.

“Good,” she says. “Those ones you let go.” She drinks her coffee. “My son is the staying kind. In case you didn’t know.”

“I know,” you say.

She looks at your ring. “My mother wore that for fifty-three years,” she says. “She said the secret was that you had to choose each other every day. Not just at the beginning.” She looks up at you. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” you say. Without hesitation.

She nods. She looks at the paddock. “Good,” she says again. And that is that, and you drink your coffee together in the spring morning, and when Heeseung appears in the doorway looking for his mother she looks at him with the expression of a woman who has conducted her own assessment and is satisfied with the results, and he looks between you both with the wariness of a man who knows he has been discussed and decides not to ask.

The last week of March brings something you didn’t anticipate: a letter from the county school board. You open it at your desk on a Thursday afternoon while the children are doing their reading, and it takes you two passes through it to understand what it says, and then you put it down flat on the desk and look at the middle distance.

“Miss?” Eli, from the second row. The class has the particular sharpening of attention that occurs when a teacher does something unexpected.

“Keep reading,” you say. You pick up the letter and read it a third time.

A school is being built. A larger one, two rooms, in the next town along — not Castillo Creek, but a town of similar size twenty miles east. The county board is expanding provision across the region. They need a head teacher for the new school. They have, they write, been impressed by the correspondence and the results from Castillo Creek. They are writing to offer the position to you. You fold the letter.

You teach the afternoon out. You fix a disagreement between Patrick and Beau about a coloured pencil. You listen to the little ones read and hear in Grace’s oral assessment that her comprehension has jumped significantly since January and make a note to tell her parents. You let them out at three and stand on the porch and watch them go.

Then you go home to the ranch. Heeseung is at the paddock fence when you arrive. He turns when he hears the gate and reads something in your face immediately — not worry, just attention, the way he attends to you when something is different. “What happened?”

You hand him the letter. He reads it. His face is careful while he reads, the deliberate neutrality of a man withholding response until he understands what he’s responding to. He folds it when he’s done and holds it and looks at the paddock. “Twenty miles,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Head teacher.”

“Yes.”

He turns the folded letter in his hands. He looks at the horizon, the flat Texas line, and then at you. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know yet,” you say honestly. “I only just read it.”

He nods. He unfolds the letter and folds it again the other way, a thinking gesture. “It’s a good offer,” he says.

“I know.”

“The children here—” he starts.

“Would have a new teacher,” you say. “Someone good. Someone who needs a start.”

Like you needed a start. Neither of you says it but it’s there. “Twenty miles is a commute,” he says. “Not impossible.”

“No.”

He looks at you steadily. “Whatever you want to do,” he says. “I mean that.”

“I know you do.” You take the letter back, fold it into your pocket. “I need to think.”

He nods. He turns back to the paddock and after a moment his arm comes around you, easy and present, and you stand at the fence together while Chicago runs the length of the paddock for the joy of running and the spring evening comes down gold over Sunrise Ranch.

You think for three days. You think about the schoolhouse and the paper chain and Tommy’s clean left-handed numbers and Clara’s stories and Eli’s drawing on the wall. You think about fourteen children who have become yours in the particular way children become yours when you’ve solved them, when you know which problems are the real ones underneath the presenting ones, when you know who reads above their level and who is covering for a difficulty and who is going to do something surprising one day.

You think about what it would mean to build something from the beginning. Two rooms. New intake. The particular freedom and weight of being the person who sets the tone before there is a tone. You think about twenty miles and a commute and a husband with a ranch and a son who is eight in May. You think about what you came here to do and whether you’ve done it and what comes next.

On the third evening you tell Heeseung. “I’m going to turn it down,” you say.

He is at the kitchen table. He looks up. “Because of us?” he says, carefully.

“No,” you say. “Because of me.” You sit down across from him. “I came here to start over. And I have. And this—” you gesture, vaguely, at the kitchen, the ranch, the everything “—this is what I was starting over toward, even when I didn’t know it. I’m not done here. Castillo Creek isn’t done.” You look at him. “Clara is going to be a writer. I’m not done with Clara.”

Heeseung looks at you for a long moment. “You’re sure?” he says.

“I’m sure.”

He nods. Something in him settles — not the relief of a man who was afraid you’d go, because he’s past that, but the quieter thing, the satisfaction of a man watching someone he loves make a choice that is fully hers. “Write them a good letter,” he says.

“I will,” you say. “Strongly worded.” The corner of his mouth.

You write the letter on Saturday morning at the kitchen table, Eli doing his homework across from you with the focused efficiency of a child who has been told that homework-before-fun is a rule and has decided to take it seriously, Heeseung somewhere on the ranch, the spring morning coming through the window.

You thank them. You decline clearly. You recommend, in the final paragraph, that they consider expanding the library provision at existing schools before building new ones, and include three specific data points about reading outcomes, because some habits are simply who you are now. You seal the envelope. Eli looks up. “Done?”

“Done,” you say.

“What was it?”

“A job offer,” you say. “A bigger school.”

He looks at you. “Are you going?”

“No.”

He looks back at his homework. He does another line of arithmetic. Then, without looking up: “Good,” he says, in the tone of a person confirming the correct outcome. You put the letter in your pocket and drink your coffee and watch the spring morning come through the window, and outside Chicago the foal runs the paddock in the new warm air, her legs entirely hers, her name written on the sky.

May brings Eli’s birthday. He is eight. This is a serious number, he has informed you, because eight is when you can help with the real work on the ranch, not just the small stuff, and Heeseung has responded to this with the expression of a man who knows his son and has been quietly preparing for this specific negotiation for some time.

Riki gets up at dawn to decorate the stable on the day — this is Riki’s doing entirely, streamers in the ranch colours, a sign that says 8 in letters that are clearly Riki’s work and not a calligrapher’s but are heartfelt — and Eli discovers it at six-thirty when he goes to check on Chicago and comes back into the kitchen with the expression of a person who has been given something real.

Jay brings cake. Margaret, who has come back for the occasion — this is not a small thing, the coming back, and you watch Heeseung receive his mother at the bus stop with the quiet particular gratitude of an adult child who is still his mother’s, will always be — Margaret brings a present wrapped in brown paper and a ribbon, which Eli opens with the concentrated focus of someone who intends to remember the opening.

Inside: a pocket watch, old and gold, with an inscription on the back. Eli reads it. His lips move. He looks at his grandmother. “What does it say?” you ask him, gently.

He holds it out to you. You take it and read the back: Go steady. Go kind. Go far.

“It was your grandfather’s,” Margaret says. “And his father’s before that.”

Eli takes it back. He holds it in both palms and looks at it for a long moment with that Eli expression, the one where he is processing something bigger than seven-going-on-eight years of life have quite prepared him for. Then he closes his hands around it and looks at his grandmother and says: “Thank you.” No gap-toothed performance. No dignity management. Just the real thing, plain and clear.

Margaret cups his face in one hand. “You’re welcome, baby,” she says. Heeseung, beside you, takes your hand.

After the cake and the streamers and the stable and Riki being beaten at three card games by an eight-year-old, after Margaret and Jay have gone and Riki has taken himself off to give the evening its shape, you are at the paddock fence with Heeseung in the last of the May light.

Eli is with Chicago. He has had his horse for a year now and the relationship has settled into its permanent form: mutual trust, complete understanding, the particular bond between a child and an animal that is its own language. He is telling her something, pressed to her neck, and she is standing completely still with her ears forward in the way that means she is listening. “He’s going to be extraordinary,” you say.

Heeseung looks at his son. “He already is,” he says. He says it simply, no performance of it, just the fact. You lean into him. His arm comes around you.

The May evening is warm and going golden, the long Texas light doing what it does to the land, making everything more itself, more vivid, more worth looking at. The ranch in the evening — the fence lines, the water tower, the barn with its doors open, the horses in the paddock, Chicago standing still for an eight-year-old boy who is telling her his secrets. “Thank you,” you say.

“For what?”

“For the coffee,” you say. “That first morning. For making two cups.”

He looks at you. The smile — the full one, the real one, the one that is different when it’s just yours, that has been yours since a diner stool in September. “You noticed that,” he says.

“First morning,” you say. “I noticed everything first morning.”

He shakes his head slightly, the almost-laugh. His arm tightens around you. “Jay cried when I told him,” he says. “About the coffee.”

“Jay cried about Eli’s drawing.”

“Jay cries about a lot of things,” Heeseung says, affectionately.

“He does,” you agree. “It’s one of his best qualities.”

Eli has turned from Chicago now and is watching you both from across the paddock with the expression of a child conducting a quiet and ongoing assessment of the results of his work. He catches you looking and raises one hand in a small wave. You raise your hand back. He turns back to Chicago. Heeseung presses his mouth to your temple. Stays there. “Darlin’,” he says.

“Mm.”

“Come inside,” he says. “Bea left dinner.” You stay exactly one more minute — the warm arm around you, the evening light, the boy and the horse, the whole quiet extraordinary ordinary life of it — and then you go inside together, through the gate that swings clean on its hinge, into the ranch that smells like dinner and woodsmoke and home.

Behind you the sun goes down over Castillo Creek in all the colours you don’t have names for yet.

You’re staying. You’ll learn them.

This is home.

°❀࿔ TAGLIST. @kristynaaah @yuudaiinhs @urlocalengene @woninlove @n4n4files @jimineepaboya @grdientlips @hooniluhv @afanok @engenewilstaykon @yumi-yearns @seungiesdoll (just ask to be added to perm taglist lovelies)

[hoonkitti]

save a horse, ride a cowboy ─ ˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊

what's better than riding a big horse? ride the owner, and his bigger horse!

𓊆박성훈 x fem reader𓊇 i make a lot of noise 'cause the girls they are so pretty. riding up and down broadway. on my old stud leroy. and the girls say, "save a horse, ride a cowboy!" everybody says, "save a horse, ride a cowboy!" ─ save a horse ride a cowboy, big & rich ⫶ 𐔌masterlist꒱

𓆩♡𓆪 you know i have to. i have to. speedrun the crap out of this <3 !! this is so nasty ahwhejdxj so just brace yourself for little plot n just filth >.< i hope you guys enjoy it nonetheless~ as usual, reblogs, comments, likes, and asks are soo appreciated!

word count 10k warning advisory cheating, sexual tension is crazy, light possessive behaviour, lots of flirting, he's so fucking hot, they're so down bad for one another but adult style, innaccurate cowboy jargons, i don't proofread the smut because i'm shy smut advisory more fucking than plot, making out all the fuckin' time, sunghoon has a big cock sorry, pussy eating/licking, squirting, fellatio, throat fucking, fucking against the countertop, face sitting, cowgirl (duh!), mating press, creampie, lots of dirty talking, profanity, reader orgasms a lot, reader's a lil bratty, dom!hoon, fucking while wearing the cowboy hat yeehaw >.<

“what the fuck…?” 

the car sputtered one last time before the engine died completely, rolling to a pathetic stop on the empty stretch of highway. dust kicked up around the tires as you gripped the steering wheel tighter. 

“no, no, no—come on!” you slammed your palm against the wheel, once, twice, the horn blaring uselessly into the dry air. the dashboard lights flickering like it’s mocking you before going dark. 

dead.

just completely dead.

you twisted the key in the ignition again—nothing. not even a weak cough or a vibration—just silence. “baby, seriously? now?” your voice cracked with frustration as you let your forehead thud against the steering wheel—once, twice—hands gripping the wheel. 

“i just got you out of the workshop!” 

you were already running late, even dressed up nicer than usual—your baby tees that weren't oil stained for once, the one that hugged your curves just right, paired with shorts that fit, and the delicate necklace your boyfriend had given you last month. 

not to mention, your hair was done, a touch of makeup—with that fluttery feeling in your tummy because tonight was supposed to be special. weeks of texting, late–night calls, finally seeing him again…

and now you were stuck on the side of some forgotten highway with a dead car and no signal. 

you let out a shaky breath. thank god the sun wasn’t dipping yet—it was only around 4 p.m. there was plenty of daylight left, hours before the sky would think about turning purple orange. that bought you time to get some help and inform your boyfriend the car was broken.

except…

your phone had no signal.

“oh my gosh—is this a joke?” you shook your phone again, tapping the surface on your palm in hopes it’d suddenly receive a signal from somewhere. when it didn’t—you tossed your phone to the side, landing on the passenger seat. 

“okay… okay yn, think,” you muttered to yourself, leaning back and rubbing your temples. pop the hood? you weren’t a mechanic—you’d only do damage to the car. or wait it out—someone had to drive by eventually, right? 

you stared out the windshield at the empty road stretching both ways, the quiet was almost too loud. your eyes trailed up to the little hill. you could walk a little ways to see if you could find higher ground for signal?

but it’s so… high and your last meal was a brunch that was almost four hours ago…

sit here and… hope?

you reached for the door handle, about to step out and at least look like you were doing something, when a sound caught your ear—clearer and closer.

hoofbeats.

steady… unhurried… like the rider itself had all the time in the world. 

you froze, hand still on the handle, and watched from the rearview mirror as he emerged fully into view.

a lone rider on a sleek black horse, moving along the edge of the highway. dark jacket opened over a fitted black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. his black cowboy hat pulled low, shadowing his face just enough to make your stomach flip with curiosity.

the way he sat on the saddle—straight–backed, relaxed but controlled—that quiet confidence dripping off him. 

the man guided the horse closer, slowing to a stop a respectful distance from your car. the animal snorted softly, tossing its head to the side, and the rider leaned forward to calm it with a gentle pat on the neck.

then—those dark eyes lifted to meet yours through the mirror.

sharp. intense.

your breath hitched in your lungs—he swung down from the saddle effortlessly, boots hitting the ground with a soft thud. tall—taller than you’d expected—long legs, lean build … biceps… the kind of presence that made the wide–open desert space around you feel suddenly smaller.

he adjusted his hat with one hand, the other holding reins loosely, and took a few slow steps toward your opened passenger window.

“hey there,” he said, voice low and smooth like… whiskey over ice, a faint tint drawl curling around the edges. he tilted his head just slightly, studying you—and the dead car—with calm interest.

“car troublin’ ya?”

your mouth went dry and you swore you forgot how to breathe. up close—he was even more fuckin’ striking. high cheekbones, honey skin glowing in the sunlight, lips pressed into a subtle line that hinted at amusement. 

you… you didn’t know who this guy was—but fuck, he’s fucking hot. 

you swallowed, managing a small nod. “y—yeah,” you finally said, voice coming out softer than you meant. “it just… died. won’t start—and there’s no signal out here.”

his gaze flicked to your phone on the passenger seat, then back to you. one corner of his mouth lifted.

“mind if i take a look?” 

you gave him a small nod—he knew you’d say yes anyway, what option did you have? he stepped toward the front of the car. you popped the hood from inside, the latch clicking, then pushed the door open and climbed out.

the warm, dry, afternoon air hitting your skin.

sunghoon moved with that same unhurried motion, grace, looping the reins over his horse’s neck so she stayed put. he took off his jacket and rolled off his sleeves a little higher as he approached the engine, revealing his… toned forearms and biceps dusted with dust and sunlight.

you tried not to stare.

he leaned over the hood, one had bracing against the metal, the other tracing—his index and middle fingers—along the battery cables, checking connections… peering at belts and fluids… things that a pretty girl like you wouldn’t and shouldn’t know anyway. 

those nice… slender fingers… suited being somewhere… better.

your eyes travelled at the way his black shirt stretched across his back and shoulders when he shifted… the light caught the sharp line of his jaw. 

you stood a few feet away, arms loosely crossed against your chest, pretending to care about the car—but there’s a better view before you.

“battery looks fine,” he murmured, almost to himself. he straightened slightly, wiping a smudge of grease onto his jeans without care, then glanced over at you.

his eyes lingered.

not that… quick check–in if you were okay; but that slow… deliberate… lingering sweep—down the length of you. sunghoon swallowed in the baby blue baby tee clinging softly to your frame, the way your hair fell across your shoulders, the faint flush rising on your cheeks.

sunghoon tried so hard—so fucking hard—to not let his eyes fall onto the dip of your cleavage.

he failed.

when his gaze came back up to meet yours, he made it so obvious he was checking you out. there was something dark and unreadable flickering behind those orbs. curiousity—interest, something warmer than… the polite stranger act.

you shifted, suddenly hyper–aware of how close he was, how the faint scent of leather and sun–warmed skin drifted on the breeze. 

“there’s a leak,” he said finally, tipping his chin toward your engine. “that’s why she overheated and shut down.” his tone was matter–of–fact, but he held your eyes longer than necessary made it feel anything but casual.

“...oh,” you managed, stepping closer—to see what he was pointing at—but honestly, just really drawn into his aura. you were so close to see the faint sheen at his temple, the way his lashes cast shadows. you were so close sunghoon could see the droplets of sweat trailing down the side of your neck, the way your upper teeth caught on your bottom lip.

he didn’t move. 

instead, sunghoon stayed leaned against your car, arms loosely folded, watching you—not the engine—so painfully obvious it made your pulse flutter. 

wow—you had no idea what’s leaking… in terms of the car, at least.

“you headed somewhere importan’?” he asked, voice dropping a fraction lower. his gaze flicked to your lips, then back up before you caught it. you swallowed. “mmhm. i… was supposed to meet… someone.”

a beat. 

sunghoon’s head tilted slightly, the corner of his mouth twitched into the tiniest smirk. “must be real disappointed right now,” he said, soft and slow, eyes never leaving yours. your breath hitched and the tension coiled tighter, warm and heavy in your chest… spreading lower.

“i—it’s okay,” you said quickly, the words tumbling out shy and a little breathless. your laugh soft and nervous as you tucked a strand of hair. “they’ll understand.”

his eyes stayed on you for a beat, dropping down just a little on your collarbone—but that faint smirk deepened just enough to make your tummy flip. after what felt like hours, sunghoon pushed off your yellow car, straightening to his full height that just towered over you.

“sunghoon,” he said simply, extending his hand. his voice was low, steady. 

sunghoon, you rolled his name mindlessly in the back of your mind, tasting his name on your tongue. “mmhm,” you slipped your hand into his—warm and rough against your bare, softer skin—his grip firm but careful, thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles.

the contact lingered, and neither of you pulled away first. 

“yn,” you answered. 

“yn,” he repeated, tasting the name like he was trying it out. a small nod, almost approving. sunghoon licked his lips before continuing. “pretty name for a pretty girl stuck on the side of the road.”

heat rushed to your cheeks and you quickly glanced away, pretending to look at the engine, but you could feel his gaze still on you. it’s so unfair, you thought. 

you broke it first. “well,” sunghoon sighed, closing the hood with a gentle thud, wiping his hands on his handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket. “car’s ain’t gonna fix themselves out here. leaking like that—you’re not drivin’ anywhere tonight without coolant.” 

you bit your lip, shaking your head, glancing at the empty hallway. “yeah… i figured.”

sunghoon looked at you—pity girl—then at his horse, then back at you—something flashed in his eyes. 

“look,” he said, running his fingers through his dark locks. “i’ve got tools back at the ranch. spare house, too. it’s only a couple miles down the road.” he tilted his head slightly, making his gaze feel more intense. 

“you can ride with me. get it fixed before dark, get your back on your way.”

your heart stuttered. ride with him..? ride him? on the horse? or…?

he must’ve seen the question in your eyes because the corner of his mouth lifted again. “my girl can take us both. or i can lead and walk, and you just sit pretty.” 

you swallowed, glancing at the sun still high enough in the sky, the golden light catching on his shirt. then your gaze flicked back to the horse—big, calm, but still a horse…

what about… stranger danger…? 

the thought slipped out before you could stop it, soft and uncertain, fingers twisting around the hem of your baby tee. 

“um… what about stranger danger?” you asked, half laughing to cover your nerves, cheeks heating up again. you supposed you could just… ask this kind sunghoon stranger to return with a pipe… or something…

“i mean, i don’t know you—you don’t know me… and you want me to just… hop on your horse and ride off to your ranch?”

sunghoon paused. for a second, his expression didn’t really change, but the corner of his mouth curved. he’d find your worry both endearing and adorable. 

cute.

“fair,” he said, shrugging. there was no defensiveness, or offense in it at all. he let his hand drop to his side, giving you space. “if you’re wonderin’ or scared, i get it. pretty girl alone out here—i’d be worried too.”

he glanced down the road in the direction he’d come from, then back at you.

“i live just a couple miles that way,” he continued, nodding toward a faint dirt turnoff you hadn’t noticed before. “there’s a diner right off the main road before you even get to my ranch—folks and ladies there know me.” 

a small huff escaped him. 

“or,” he added, tilting his head slightly, eyes softening. “we can walk the whole way. i’ll lead the way slow. you stay ten feet back if you want, i’ll even let you hold the reins.”

he said it completely serious too… like your comfort truly mattered more than getting back quickly. the sincerity in his voice, the way he didn’t push or be weird about it—just offering—made something in your chest loosen.

you looked at him again—you supposed… there was no point in waiting for other help to come by—and your heart gave a traitorous little thud. 

“mm… okay. lead me the way.”

you slipped your hand out—and his fingers closed around yours and he guided you toward his horse. the animal watched you with dark eyes—much like the owner—ears flicking as you approached. 

“easy now,” sunghoon murmured, more to the horse than you, running his hand down her neck. “snow’s gentle, she won’t throw you.”

he turned to you, smiling. “you ever been on a horse before?”

you shook your head, laughing nervously. “never… not even once—never had a reason to.”

a soft huff escaped him—almost a chuckle. “first time for everything.”

sunghoon moved to the side, cupping his hands together in a boost. “left foot here, grab the saddle horn and swing your right leg over it when i lift.” 

your heart pounded, but you did as he said. sunghoon’s hands settled on your waist as he hoisted you up, strong and sure, and then you were in the saddle—legs dangling awkwardly, gripping the horn.

“eek—!”

he chuckled, swung behind you in a motion he’d done a billion times, settling in close—really close. his chest brushed your back as he reached around you for the reins, thighs framing yours, the heat of him immediately and overwhelming. 

“you good?” sunghoon asked, voice low near your ear. you swallowed the lump in your throat, his warm breath hitting the shell of your ear. “m—mmhm,” you managed, hyper aware of every little shift and contact. 

sunghoon’s arm circled loosely around your waist just to steady you on the horse—and you felt the subtle shift of his body as he nudged the horse forward with his heels. 

snow started walking and rolling—making you sway instinctively. you tensed, gripping the horn harder.

“relax,” he said quietly, breathing now against the side of your neck. “lean back a little, i got you.”

you eased against him just slightly. his arm tightened the tiniest bit in response—reassured. the horse settled into a rhythm along the edge of the highway, hooves clopping against the dirt. the sun was still bright, golden, warm breeze carrying the scent of dry grass and… him.

for a minute, neither of you spoke. 

until sunghoon broke it.

“so… where were you headed, dressed up like that?”

you laughed softly, glancing down at your baby tee and your nice jeans. “just… meeting someone.” sunghoon hummed, a deep sound that vibrated against your back from how close he was. “poor lad, waitin’ somewhere wonderin’ where you are right now.” 

“probably,” you bit your lip, suppressing back a smile. 

another beat. 

his thumb brushed idly against the rein near your hip. “must be somethin’ special between you two,” he murmured, humming. “to get you out here lookin’ this pretty.”

your cheeks burned. you turned your head just enough to catch him—sharp line of his jaw… the brim of his hat shadowing his eyes.

“mayhaps,” you said softly. “could be i just like dressing up sometimes.”

sunghoon let out a quiet breath of laughter. “fair enough.”

snow kept walking, carrying you both on her strong body. you shifted slightly, getting used to the rhythm, and you slowly realised you weren’t as scared anymore. 

actually… it felt kind of nice. the warmth of sunghoon, the strength of his arms, the quiet that didn’t feel awkward at all. 

“so…” you said after a moment, corner of your lips twitched into a teasing smirk. “you do this often? rescue stranded girls on horseback?” 

his lips curved—just a little. “first time of everything.”

you smiled despite yourself. “lucky me, then.”

he didn’t answer right away, just tightened his arm a fraction, guiding snow off the highway and onto the dirt path leading to the ranch. “yeah,” he said finally, voice warm against your ear. 

“lucky me.”

——

sunghoon reached up for you, hands settling on your waist again—firm and steady—lifting you down like you weighed a feather. your boots hit the ground, but his hands lingered a second longer than necessary before he let go.

“welcome to the house,” he said dryly, gesturing at the perfect tidy yard. a faint smile tugged at his lips as he tied the reins. “come on in, i’ll grab you something while i check the garage.”

he led you up the porch steps and pushed open the front foor—no lock, you noticed. must be safe around here, you thought, humming. the cool air inside hit you—the faint smell of coffee and wood floors.

“make yourself at home,” sunghoon said, tipping off his hat and hanging it on a hook. his dark hair fell slightly messier without it, a few strands brushing his forehead. “water, iced tea, lemon—fridge it through there.” he nodded toward the open kitchen.

“i’ll be in the garage. shouldn’t take long.”

his space was simple and tidy—leather couch facing a fireplace, shelves lined with books and framed photos of … sunghoon and his friends. his six other friends. equally as fine. a worn acoustic guitar leaned in one corner, blankets folded neatly over the couch arm.

no clutter, nothing sterile either. 

just him.

you wandered through the big picture window overlooking the fields, the late–afternoon light pouring in soft. a few horses grazed in the distance. 

everything was peaceful in a way the city never was. 

the glass of lemonade cold in your hand as you turned slowly. your eyes landed on a small cluster of framed photos near the front door—one of sunghoon on horseback, younger; another him with an older man who shared the same features. must’ve been his father. 

you didn’t realise you’d drifted closer, drawn in by that smile on his face. you were standing right in front of it, lemonade tilted slightly in your grip—completely lost in the photo,

when the door swung open.

sunghoon stepped inside, grease smudged rag in one hand, the other pushing the door wide—and you startled hard.

the glass jerked in your fingers—cold lemonade sloshed over the rim, splashing down the front of your baby tee in a sticky streak that soaked straight through the thin fabric. 

“oh—gosh—” you gasped, jumping back a step, holding the glass out. sunghoon’s eyes widened half a second before he was moving, closing the door behind him with his boot and crossing to you.

“fuck, sorry—didn’t mean to scare ya’,” he said, voice rushed, already reaching for the rag in his hand. but it was dirty, so he stopped. “gosh, you okay?”

you laughed, breathless, embarrassed heat flooding your face. the lemonade left a cold, clinging patch right… across your front. “it’s fine, i wasn’t paying attention,” you mumbled, dabbing at the stain with your fingers instead. 

“was looking at your pictures.”

he didn’t move back, didn’t look away. the air between you felt suddenly too small and cold again… despite everything burning. 

“i’ve got spare shirts in the laundry room,” he said after a beat, eyes dropping to the stain—pervert—once more before meeting yours again. “clean ones, if you want to change.”

you nodded slowly, heart thudding in against your ribs. 

“mm.. yeah, sure,” you said softly, glancing up to him from underneath your lashes. “that… might be good.” 

——

you peeled off your soaked baby tee, the sticky lemonade making it cling uncomfortably. you’re only grateful your bra was there to soak the rest before the liquid reached your skin. 

his… white shirt was huge—falling halfway down your thighs and completely covering your shorts, sleeves past your elbows, the collar loose enough to slip off one shoulder if you weren’t careful. 

it smelled like sunghoon—clean cotton and traces of wood musk.

“... nice,” you caught your reflection in the small mirror above your dryer and laughed quietly to yourself. you looked swallowed whole by it.

just then, your eyes landed on something else through the reflection—his brown cowboy hat, hanging on a hook just inside the door. the different one from what he wore earlier. you bit your lip, glancing toward the door.

no signs of him.

just for fun, you never wore a cowboy hat before.

you reached up on your tippy toes and plucked it off the hook, settling in your head. it was too big, obviously—sliding down over your eyebrows until you had to tip it back with a finger. 

to be honest, you looked kinda… hot. yeah—seductive, almost. 

you smoothed his shirt down, adjusted the hat, and pushed the door open. 

sunghoon was leaning just against the kitchen counter, arms loosely crossed, looking down at his boots—but the second you stepped out, his head lifted.

and he froze. 

his gaze swept over you—deliberately. the—his—oversized shirt hanging loose on your smaller frame, the hem brushing your thighs (only the little ripped strands of your shorts were showing up), the way the fabric draped over your shoulders.

that… hat tilting playfully on your head.

everything about him stilled. even the air felt heavier. his pants got tighter.

“everything’s… big,” you giggled, laughing to break the sudden tension, tugging at the sleeve that swallowed your hand. you gave a small spin, the shirt flaring slightly—you held the hat by the brim. 

“like, really big.”

he didn’t laugh. didn’t even smile at first.

sunghoon just stared, his eyes darker than before, jaw tight, lips… wet. 

then he pushed off the counter, closing the distance in one slow step. 

“yeah?” he murmured, voice rougher, dropping an octave lower… low enough that you swore it vibrated in your chest. sunghoon reached out, fingers brushing the brim of the—his—hat, adjusting it slightly so it sat better.

so he could see your pretty face clearer.

his thumb grazed your temple as he did. 

“looks better on you.” 

your breath caught. he was close again—too close—hand lingering near your face. you could feel the heat radiating off him, the faint scent of his musk and sweat filling every inch of space between you.

he didn’t step back.

he took a slow step forward—then another.

until your back met the wall with a soft thud, the cool wood at your spine contrasting to what’s warming you up in front of you. the hat tilted slightly on your head as you tipped it back to look up at him, and his eyes—heavy lidded—locked onto yours.

“r—really?” 

his hand dropped from the brim, trailing down the side of your neck, over the loose collar of his shirt on you, until his palm settled at your waist. fingers splayed wide—possessive—puling you in just a fraction closer.

then his hand went lower, skimming the curve of your hip, thumb pressing lightly into the dip above your shorts. 

you didn’t want to move.

your hands came up instantly, fingers curling into the front of his black shirt, feeling his heart thumping under your palms. 

“mmhm,” sunghoon leaned in, forehead almost touching yours, breath warm against your lips. “you’ve been driving me crazy since i saw you in that car,” he said, voice low. “now you’re in my shirt, my hat—lookin’ like you belong here or somethin’.”

your lips parted, but no words came—just a soft, shaky exhale.

his gaze dropped to your mouth. 

“you do this often?” sunghoon murmured, his fingers drumming your skin. “wreck your car hopin’ some stranger’ll come along and fix it?”

you felt the words more than heard them… the teasing edge softened by the way his thumb traced your hip. 

“only cowboys like you,” you whispered, the words barely out before—

sunghoon closed that tiny gap.

he slammed his lips against yours—evoking a soft, surprised gasp out of you—his hand slid from your hip to the small of your back, pressing you flush against him and positioning his knee in between your legs. 

you melted almost instantly into his mouth, hands sliding up his chest to wrap around his neck, pulling him down as sunghoon angled his head to kiss you harder and deeper. his tongue traced your bottom lip, teasing, then slipped inside when you gasped for him—slow, hot, unhurried. 

it made your knees buckle and weak. 

sunghoon groaned quietly when you tagged at his hair, the sound rumbling through his chest into yours. “ngh—hngh—” you moaned into his mouth, tugging him down. the hat titled precariously; but he caught it with one hand, readjusting it on top of your head without breaking the kiss. 

both of his hands were back on you—one splayed across your lower back, the other cupping your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek, lifting your head up. sunghoon glided his tongue along your row of teeth, tasting you slow and thorough. 

a low hum rumbled in his chest when you parted for him, your own tongue meeting his in a slick curl that made you tighten your grip around his shirt. “hah—s—sunghoon,” you breathed out. your salivas mixed, messy and hot, a thin strand connecting your lips when he pulled back just enough to breathe—

only to dive back in harder, swallowing every little whimper and moan. 

sunghoon kissed like he worked for it… having complete control like he would with snow—angling your head to take it deeper how he wanted it to be. your back arched against the wall as his hand on your lower back slid lower, palm running along the globe of your ass before it spread over the curve of your hip.

“ah—,” you gasped as he pressed forward. you felt the head line of his cock beneath his jeans against your stomach—he was just as wrecked as you were.

sunghoon broke the kiss only to drag his mouth along your jaw, teeth scraping at the sensitive spot under your ear before coming back to your lips, no less filthy than before—long and wet and deep that left you dizzy.

your pussy was growing crazily wet and warm—heat pooling your tummy as you began grinding and rubbing yourself on his knee. 

“still wanna get that car fixed?” he whispered, teasing against your swollen mouth, lips brushing but not quite kissing.

you panted, looking up at him through half lidded eyes, before answering by pulling him back in, kissing him open–mouthed and desperate, fingers threading through his hair to keep him there. he groaned into you, low and raw, and kissed you back just as deep.

sunghoon’s hands roamed—down your sides, slipping into the loose fabric of his shirt on you—until he suddenly spun you around in a smooth motion—your palms hitting the kitchen counter with a slap. 

“hngh—?” you gasped as he pressed in behind you, chest to your back, hips slotting against you. sunghoon didn’t stop kissing you—his strong… bigger hand came up to your jaw, fingers curled around your soft jaw as he turned your head sideways so he could claim your mouth from this new angle.

deep.. messy, relentless—the other hand splayed across your tummy, pulling you flush.

“fuck,” he murmured, grinding slow and deliberate against the curve of your ass through your shorts, the friction sending sparks down your cunt. a low rumble vibrated from his chest as he rolled his hips again, his hard on pressing hard between your asscheeks. 

sunghoon’s lips broke from yours to drag wet kisses along your exposed side of your neck, teeth grazing the skin as he left angry lovebites before he turned your face toward him again, capturing your mouth in another horny kiss. 

all while his hips kept that rhythm—rubbing against you, clothed but undeniably fucking horny. “you feel what you’re doin’ to me?” 

you could only whimper in response, arching your back and pushing against him—eliciting a groan out him, deeper, his hips snapping forward—so fucking hard—before he slowed.

you pulled back to catch your breath, knees weakening as you braced yourself on your forearms. the words slipped out before you could stop them—half plea, half teasing.

“are you going to keep humpin’ me, or are you going to let me ride you, cowboy?” 

the air went still for a beat.

the corner of his lips twitched—and so did his eye—sunghoon scoffed dryly. you barely had time to register the shift in his energy and demeanour before his palm cracked against your ass through the denim. 

not gentle.

a firm, stinging smack echoed in the kitchen made you gasp, jolting forward against the corner. 

“watch that mouth,” he hummed low against your ear, body still pinned, his hand caressing the globe of your ass where he’d just smacked them. “you don’t get to call the shots just yet.” 

you breath hitched at the first rush of the sting, at the command of his voice. you bit your lip to keep another bratty remark to yourself—but failed to hide the way your hips rolled back against him. 

he huffed before he moved—hands gripping your thighs to keep you steady, turning you just enough to guide you back against the counter before he sank down. 

slowly.

until sunghoon was on his knees behind you, eye level with the curve of your ass, one palm smoothing over the spot he’d just smacked. “i’ll tell you what to do,” he murmured, thumbs hooking into the waistband of your jeans. he didn’t ask; just straight up unbuttoned them with a quick flick of his slender fingers and tugged everything down in one drag—

jeans and panties together—until they pooled at your knees. 

“mmmh,” cool air hit your skin, but only for a second before his warm hands were back on your asscheeks, spreading them apart from behind. “hold still, pretty girl,” he muttered—and just like that—

his mouth was on your cunt. 

no teasing and no hesitation—just confidence dripping down like your juices down your thighs. sunghoon licked a long, flat stripe up your centre, groaning low at the taste that he’d been starving for. “ungh—oh gosh,” you gasped, knees buckling on his face as you gripped the counter harder, shaky moans slipping out.

sunghoon’s tongue circled your clit from behind—once, twice—sucking the little pea in pressure that made your hips jerk back against his face. “fuckin’ hell, so sweet,” he rasped. his strong arm banded across your lower tummy, locking you in place—on his handsome face, sharp nose digging between your ass.

he didn’t let you move or shift as much as he slipped his tongue inside your cunt—sliding back up, in and out, flicking, and swirling around inside. “s—sunghoon, sunghoon,” you moaned softly, eyes fluttering. 

wet sounds filled up his kitchen, filthy and so fucking obscenely loud—his mouth working you open, lips sealing like he’s making out with your pussy lips now before it moved around your clit again and again, sucking until your thighs trembled.

he sucked and tugged the pea towards him. 

it’s something you’ve never, not in the years of your life, ever experienced. every time you tried to push back down for more, sunghoon only tightened his hold and slowed down like he’s telling you that you’re not in charge here. 

then, he dragged his tongue in lazy, torturous strokes until you whined, before speeding up suddenly—fast with relentless flicks that had you gasping his name. “your tongue feels s’good, oh fuck,” 

his free hand came up between your legs, two fingers sliding into you without warning, stretching you tight cunt and curling deep and stroking in time with his tongue. the combo wrecked you badly—your head dropped forward, forehead pressing to the cool counter as your toe curled inwards on itself.

“w—what—?! oh, fuck, sunghoon—” 

he hummed against you, the vibration sending sparks in your tummy, and doubled down. “gotta stretch you out before i give you the real thing,” he murmured against your wet cunt, sucking hard, fingers thrusting faster, pressing on that spongy spot inside. 

your legs shook as you began subtly riding on his two fingers as he flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue. “‘m cumming, wanna cum, cum—,” you whined adorably, chest heaving as pleasure swelled up in your gut.

“mmhm—?” sunghoon hummed teasingly, you felt the corner of his lips twitched. you tightened around his fingers—walls spasming around his digits. sunghoon curled his fingers inside and traced his name against your walls. 

he’s so fucking filthy, it’s disgustingly hot.

an ecstasy tidal wave quickly rushed over you—and before you knew it, your walls pulsated before you came right on his fingers and tongue, against his face. “oh fuck—!” you cried out sharply, curling your hands into fists as you hung your head low.

every limbs of yours felt like jelly, your body twitched—clenching around him as he licked you through every pulse, gulping down your juices and squirt that trailed down your inner thighs. 

“fuck, you’re so sweet, so good,” he moaned, slowly pulling his fingers out that left you empty almost instantly, pussy squeezing the thin air. your thighs trembled in pleasure as sunghoon spread your asscheeks with his wet fingers, pressing one last slow, deliberate long lick from your sensitive clit up to your entrance. 

“good girl,” he whispered, hands smoothed up your sides before rising behind you. 

“now… about that ride you wanted…”

you turned in his arms, still buzzing, still twitching, legs unsteady. sunghoon’s eyes were swimming with lust, lips slick and swollen from you. the hard line of him pressed against your hip through his jeans—impossible to ignore. 

a slow, wicked smile tugged at your mouth as you sank down now—your turn, mirroring the way he’d just knelt for you—until you were on your knees in front of him. 

sunghoon’s breath hitched, hand automatically coming up to lift the brim of his hat to look at your face. you looked up at him from under your curled lashes, palms sliding up his thighs, feeling his cock tense and twitch under denim. 

“fair’s fair, cowboy,”

he exhaled a rough laugh, thumb brushing your bottom lip. “you don’t have to—”

but you were already popping the button on his jeans, dragging the zipper down slow enough to make him groan—preparing himself. “don’t have to what?” you asked innocently, tugging everything down just enough, and his—

his cock sprang free—thick, heavy, flicked dark and already leaking precum at the tip. 

your eyes widened and your breath hitched, his cock throbbed right in front of your eyes—it casted shadow over your face. your lips parted, a gasp escaped your lips.

sunghoon was fucking big—no, huge—the biggest you’ve ever seen before. 

you could tell it was painful for him from the way his cock twitched in neediness, a low hiss escaped from his lips. “shit… surprised?” 

you wet your lips before swallowing the lump in your throat. there was… almost no way it’d fit in your mouth, much less your pussy. but you wrapped your hands around him—even with both hands, it still wasn’t enough to hold his whole cock—stroking once, twice, feeling him throb in your grip.

sunghoon’s head tipped back slightly, jaw clenched, but his eyes stayed locked on you. 

you continued jerking him off in your hands, dragging every skin, feeling every veins, milking more of his precum that trailed on the side of your hands. “i thought only horses have big cocks…” you murmured before leaning in—tongue flicking out to taste the bead at the head, salty and warm—before taking him into your mouth in one slow slide.

“but i guess their owners have too…?” 

“fuck—” the curse tore out of him, low and husky, fingers tightening at your hair as his hat tipped to the side a little. he didn’t push, just holding as you took him in deeper, lips stretching around him. 

you only managed to take half of his cock inside your mouth before pulling back almost all the way, tongue swirling around the tip, then took him again, deeper this time, cheeks hollowing. sunghoon tasted manly—sweaty, but not the nasty kind. just… a man. 

his hips twitched, but he let you set the pace yourself. you worked him slow at first—wet, messy suckings, hand twisting in strokes at the base at the same time as your mouth—then faster, taking him in as far as you could until the tip hit your uvula, and your eyes watered.

“yn, fuck,” he groaned your name. your mouth was warm and wet, like entering a slimy, hot pond, cock totally engulfed in your saliva. it felt heavenly. you were disheveled and messy—but still so hot. glossy and smudged lipstick over your lips, leaving a pink ring mark around his cock with your flushed cheeks.

every time you pulled off to breathe, you looked up—watching his handsome face, thick brown furrowing, lips parted before his canines dragged the bottom lip, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he fought not to thrust and fuck your mouth.

you hummed around him, the vibration sending sparks up his cock that made it twitch and he cursed again, “just like that,” he murmured.

you took him inside your mouth again, this time picking up your speed and pace in sucking him—the tip hitting the back of your throat, causing you to gag and roll your eyes behind. 

his veins glided along your wet tongue, sunghoon squeezed his eyes shut as wet, clicky sounds filled the space. sunghoon falls into his temptation and thrusts his hips upward, hitch in his breath as you deepthroat him. 

“shit, ‘m cummin, fuck,” 

his whole body went rigid, hips jerking shallowly before spilling hot down your throat, pulse after pulse. your eyes widened but didn’t pull away, taking it all. contrasting from how soft you hummed around him while he shuddered through it, curses and your name tumbling from his lips.

your throat worked in gulps as you swallowed his milk down, hands steadying his thighs. sunghoon sagged back against the counter, chest heaving as you eased off low—lips sliding along his cock until he slipped free with a pop.

a thin strand of cum and spit connected you before breaking.

“hah… hngh,” you looked up at him, wiping the corner of your mouth with your thumb before slipping it inside your mouth to lick it clean, a smug little smile tugging at your messy lips. sunghoon stared down at you, breathing ragged, furrowing. 

“jesus fuckin’ christ,” he muttered, running his hand down his face before reaching down to haul you up by your arms until you were pressed against him, foreheads touching. “you’re g’nna kill me.”

then he kissed you—deep, filthy—combining both the taste of him and you on your tongue and groaning into it. his hands slid down to grip your thighs, turning and lifting you easily onto the counter. 

“my turn again,” he murmured, hiking up your—his—shirt until it bunched at your waist. you were fully exposed to him from the hips down. “i ain’t stoppin’, so don’t tell me to.”

you only whimpered in response as sunghoon’s palm splayed across your lower stomach, holding you while the other hand wrapped around his cock, guiding himself to your entrance. the head of his cock scooped your slickness.

sunghoon teased you by slipping in just the head, stretching you and barely enough to evoke a soft gasp from your lips. from behind, he smirked at your reaction, looking down at how your slick hung down from his cock. 

“easy now,” he muttered, hissing as finally pushed in slow. the stretch was immediate though, thick and burning in the best way possible. you gasped aloud, head falling forward, fingers clawing at the granite as he sank deeper—inch by inch—until he almost bottomed out with a low, guttural groan against your neck.

“oh my fuckin’ god, sunghoon,” you cried out, feeling him in your stomach. “shit, you’re perfect,” he rasped, pulling back almost all the way before snapping his hips forward, hard—burying all his inches inside you. the slap of skin echoed in the kitchen as your body jolted forward with the force, the hat you’re wearing tipped sideways.

he set a relentless, needy pace from the start—deep and punishing thrusts that had you moaning and crying with every slam, his hand on your stomach pressed down his bulging cock through your flesh, feeling the skin swelling.

his other hand gripped your hip, steadying you while his fingers dug hard enough to bruise, pulling you back to meet every roll of his hips. “so goddamn tight,” he hissed, teeth grazing your shoulder. 

“takin’ me like you’re made for me.”

every thrust only dragged your walls, the head slamming and bullying that soft spot inside you, forming a wave of pleasure that coiled tighter and tighter until you’re left trembling against the counter. your breath hitched, babbling his name.

“more—more, more, more,” you whined. sunghoon didn’t let you up, his fingers moved down to work on your clit, rolling and rubbing his middle finger on that little pea as his hips snapped forward without mercy. 

sunghoon’s so horny it’s fucking crazy—he fucked into you deep and hard, every thrust punching air from your lungs. sweat beaded along his neck, rolled down his collarbone; dark hair stuck to his forehead—barely leashed hunger. 

he was always like this when he finally snapped—weeks, sometimes months, of nothing but endless ranch work and journey, early mornings, late nights, calloused hands busy with fences and horses and hay to even think about getting laid. 

there’s almost no time for bars, patience for games (although he liked to indulge himself in dart games), just pure, pent up need stacking higher and higher. 

so when you showed up—pretty, stranded, looking at him with those wide, pleading eyes, spilling lemonade down your shirt and ending up in his clothes and hat, space, hands…

 a girl like you, soft and city–sweet and practically begging to be taught how the town works, walking straight into his world—he couldn’t have stopped if he tried. he didn’t want to stop. 

a guttural sound tore out of him when you tightened, fingers rubbing your clit harder, pressing down. “fuck—take it,” he rasped. “take every fuckin’ inch,” 

you gasped, blossoming with excitement and arousal. your pleasure spills out in trembling moans, breathy cries mixing with the echo of your skin slapping together. “fuck, fuck, it feels so good, hoonie,” 

his eyes twitched before he delivered a smack against your asscheeck, the flesh jiggling before he quickly smoothed it down with his hand. “good,” he panted, clamping his teeth down on your shoulder. the sound of his balls slapping against your cunt reverberated through the kitchen. 

“wanna cum, a—again, please,” you pleaded, lips parting as you hung your head down. his cock was able to delve deeper from this position of your leg on the countertop, spreading your thighs further. “hm—? cummin’ again already?” sunghoon chuckled softly, slamming and bucking his hips up that the tip slammed against your cervix.

you nodded eagerly, whimpering. you’re so overstimulated—couldn’t think straight at the way your pussy spasmed around his throbbing length. “please, please i wanna cum real bad,” you whined, pleading. 

sunghoon dragged his nails and held your hips, his cock dragged against your velvety walls. “show me,” his words broke apart, the rhythm of his hips frantic and desperate. he wasn’t as close to cumming, and he wished to keep fucking you—but he supposed city girls didn’t have a lot of stamina. 

“cum on my fuckin’ cock, baby,”

you cursed out loud as a gush of warm liquid squirted out and down on your thighs—and his cock totally engulfed him warm and wet. he was buried so deep inside you, not moving as much to allow you to steady yourself. 

the orgasm crashed over you like a tsunami—overwhelmingly relentless. your vision whited out at the edges, walls clenching around him in rhythmic pulses, milking him, pulling him deeper like your body refused to let go. 

heat bloomed low in your tummy and spread in shocks as your body twitched, slumping on the counter. “oh gosh—oh my gosh,” you whimpered, thighs trembling, breath sharp, desperate gasps.

“fuck—look at you,” sunghoon rasped, fingers digging into your hips as he thrust through your climax, chasing his own release in the tight, slick grip—still not pulling out. “soakin’ me like that…” 

you felt vulnerable and claimed—there was no fucking way any other men can ever come close to this—sunghoon, his demeanour, his energy, his cock—ever again. not your boyfriend, not any boys anywhere. 

the wet mess between your legs proof of how thoroughly he done fucked you up.

“hngh—ah, i…” your words trailed off as you panted, pussy twitching around his cock… you stayed like that for a long moment—bent over his counter, wearing his shirt, his hat—his chest heaving against your back. 

sunghoon caressed the globe of your asscheek, spreading to see his wet cock and the way your squirt dripped down on his tiles. “you what?”

you shook your head, biting your bottom lip to stifle another whimper, then turned your head just enough to meet his gaze—eyes glassy, cheek adorably flushed, with that little bratty smile.

“i still haven’t ridden the cowboy…” 

sunghoon’s eyes widened for a fraction before a grin spread across his face.

“oh darlin’,” he chuckled softly. “you’re takin’ the reins.”

——

“oh fuck—!”

the sound tore out of you, high and whimpery as sunghoon licked straight up between your pussy lips one long stroke. no teasing this time—just pure filth and hunger. his tongue plunged inside you, swirling and thrusting back and forth inside your cunt, lips sealing around to suck hard.

your hands flew to the wooden headboard for balance, gripping the wood, hips rocking instinctively against his handsome face. the tip of his nose brushed your clit every time you moved. 

sunghoon groaned into you, the vibration going up your cunt. his hand held your hips from falling, the other wrapped around his throbbing cock, jerking off the taste of your cunt and the sound of your moans. 

wet sounds filled this room now, his nose brushing your clit as he devoured you from below. 

“hoonie—fuuuckkkk,” you whimpered, head falling back as you quickly held the hat on your head. sunghoon insisted—begged—you keep it on your head. said it’s fuckin’ hot, said you’re—

his.

sunghoon answered by clamping his teeth down on your flesh, not hard that it’s painful, but enough for you to feel the pressure and his canines. his one hand left your hip to reach up and palm your tits, thumb flicking the nipple while he sucked your clit relentless. 

there’s no way you could last much longer. not like this—not with him eating and tongue–fucking you like a straved man. 

and from the way his hips rolled up in his grip, cock leaking against his hand—he was loving every second of it. 

“hoonie, here it is’, oh jesus,” your voice broke as you grind harder. the orgasm hit like a bungee—your whole body tensed as your thighs trembled and kept his head locked between you as you came hard down on his face. 

a rush of warmth flooded out of you again, coating his mouth, chin, and sunghoon licked you clean, drinking your liquid down. your legs gave out completely and you sagged forward against the headboard, panting, shaking, the aftershocks rippling through you as he gentled his tongue in soothing licks to ease you.

slowly, sunghoon lifted you off him—guiding you down to straddle on his hips again. his face was slick with you, lips red and swollen, eyes dark and triumphant as he looked at you—hair a mess, tipped hat, chest heaving. 

your nipples perked up.

“fuck,” he rasped, cupping your tits. “you taste even better the second time.”

you collapsed forward onto his chest, feeling his cock hard and hot against your stomach. 

sunghoon wrapped his arms around you, one hand stroking your back, the other tangling in your hair. “ready to be a cowgirl, babe?” he murmured against your temple, hips rolling up once—his cock glided against your tummy. “or you need another minute?” he teased.

you whimpered and shook your head, already shifting your hips and straightening your spine. you placed your hands on his toned chest, biting your lip. 

“no more minutes,” you murmured, flicking your thumbs over his nipples. “i want my cowboy now.”

he grinned, rolling his eyes playfully. 

“then take him.” 

you didn’t need to be told twice.

you sank down slowly at first—teasing the head along your folds, coating, moving your hips and drawing it out until his hands gripped your hips. silent warning to not tease him—he ain’t the strongest soldier here.

you giggled softly before taking him in one smooth drop, all the way to the hilt.

“ngh—!” the stretch burned perfectly, filling and stretching you up that you both groaned at the same time at the pleasure. your head tipped back slightly, his fingers digging into the flesh. sunghoon was thick, hot, throbbing inside and you felt every inch as you adjusted, walls fluttering around him.

you were pretty, tight, warm—wrapping around him nicely.

“fuck,” he hissed, eyes squeezing shut before he opened them again, watching the lewd expression on your face. “juuust like that… ride me, pretty cowgirl,” 

you began—rolling your hips in deep, lazy circles, grinding down so he hit every spot inside on every pass. your hands braced on his chest, nails dragging lightly over his skin as you lifted yourself and sank back down.

like a cowgirl—sunghoon let you lead for a while; watching you through half lidded eyes, one hand slipping up to play with your tits, thumb teasing your nipple in the same breath as your movements. the other stayed on your hip, guiding but not controlling. 

he lets you take what you want.

but that only lasted a while.

you started moving faster, riding, hoping (more like a bunny, than a cowgirl)—tits bouncing so lewdly, pitchy little ah, ah ah’s moans escaping your lips. the slap of skin got louder, his cock disappeared as quick as he saw it.

sunghoon couldn’t stay still anymore.

his hips snapped up to meet you halfway, driving deeper, harder, making your cries louder as pleasure spiked suddenly. 

“that’s it,” his voice wrecked, sitting up suddenly so you were chest to chest, his hands on your hips as he lifted you up and down on his cock, pulling you down harder onto every thrust. 

“fuckin’ ride me just like that—use me,”

you clung to his shoulders, nails biting into his skin, moving together in a frantic rhythm. your sweat dripped down on his skin as his did too, sunghoon’s mouth found your neck where he sucked marks into your skin as you clenched tighter. 

“hoonie, hoonie, so good, feels s’good,” you whimpered, holding his hat on your head with one hand, the other wrapped around his neck.

“come on,” he chuckled low and filthy against your throat, your head tipped back. one of his hands palmed your tits, pinching your perky bud. “keep ridin’ me like that. fuck—takin’ my cock so good. you’re made for this ranch—made for me,”

you nodded, his balls slapping the curve of your ass as you go—giggling—just mind fucked over his cock. 

“love it, don’t cha?” he kept going with his filthy talks, breath hot against your skin. “love bouncin’ on a cowboy you just met, creamin’ all over him while your little guy’s waitin’ somewhere,” sunghoon hummed, lips grazing the slope of your shoulder. 

“bet he’s never fucked you this good—never made this pussy cream so many times in one evening.”

you moaned louder, clenching at his voice and words. he grinned against your neck, thrusting up harder to meet you. 

“say it,” he rasped, rolling your nipple slow and mean between his fingerpads. “tell me how good you’re gettin’ it.”

“hoonie—” you whined, walls fluttering wildly. 

“say it,” he coaxed, hands dropping to grip your ass, guiding you faster, deeper. “tell me whose cock you’re gonna be thinkin’ about from now on,”

you were too far gone to care—pleasure coiling tight and how low in your tummy. “yours,” you gasped, hat tilting crooked as you slammed down faster. “only yours—hoonie, fuck—only you, wanna be yours,” 

sunghoon’s cock twitched. “that’s my girl,” he praised, voice dripping sin, hips snapping. “cream this cock again. milk me—let me feel that pretty pussy.”

and with his mouth on your collarbone, fingers twisting your nipple, his thick cock dragging your velvety walls—you came.

your whole body seized—back arching, a broken cry tearing from your throat. another rush of warmth flooded out of you, soaking where you joined, dripping down his length and onto his thighs. the fourth orgasm rolled through you, thighs shaking. 

sunghoon groaned as well, holding you tight but he didn’t follow you over the edge—not yet. the night is still young, after all. his cock throbbed inside, impossibly harder, slick with release, but he gritted his teeth, letting you ride the aftershocks while he stayed buried. 

“hngh—i—hah,” you slumped forward, panting against his chest, hat slipping sideways. sunghoon caught it and settled it back on your head. “came so pretty for me,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your temple.

“but i’m not done with you yet.”

he didn’t give you much time to recover before his arms hooked under your knees and he flipped you onto your back. the air left your lungs as your body bounced lightly on his mattress. “hm—?” 

sunghoon folded you in half, knees pushed to your shoulders, hips tilted up—completely open, bare, exposed, and pinned beneath him in a deep, filthy—

mating press.

the hat finally tumbled off your head and onto the pillow. you barely noticed before sunghoon picked it up and wore it himself.

sunghoon loomed over you, dark hair falling into his eyes, cock still rock–hard and wet as he nudged back inside in a slow thrust. the new angle dragged him deeper than before—stretching you wide, pressing and making your eyes roll back from pleasure. 

“fuck… look at ya,” he chuckled, hips rolling slow to let you feel every thick inch. “takin’ me so deep… pussy made for me, wasn’t it?”

you could only nod and whimper, looking up at him with doe, glassy eyes and swollen lips from clamping down. you looked so fucking feastible like this—body filled with his lovebites, nipples perky and red from pinching, your sweaty and glossy skin—

so perfect.

sunghoon only meant to help a poor stranded girl with her broke down car, he swore—but he supposed ending the day with a girl didn’t sound so bad.

he began moving—long, solid hard strokes that punched the air from your lungs each time he pulled up. the position left you no room to move, no escape from the overwhelming fullness, every thrust driving him against your g–spot. 

sweat dripped down from his brow onto your chest—sunghoon crashed his lips against yours in open mouthed kisses with tongue involved. “tell me again,” he snapped his hips to draw a cry out of you. “who’s makin’ you feel this good?”

“you—hoonie, only you—,” the words slipped out rushly. sunghoon chuckled, the headboard knocked against the wall from the way your folded body rocked with every thrust, breasts bouncing. sunghoon gripped the backs of your thighs to keep you spread wide and pinned.

“gonna ruin you for anyone else,” he rasped, eyes locked on where you joined—his cock disappeared inside you over and over. “everytime you close your eyes, you’re g’nna remember how deep i got, how hard i fucked you, how many times i made this tight pussy come.”

your heart thumped, tummy’s doing cartwheels at his words. “yes! please, please, please—’m cumming!” you gasped, back arching as you dragged your nails down his shoulders. sunghoon’s relentless thrusts hitting your soft spot without mercy. 

the coil snapped again—you came with a cry of his name, walls clamping down around him in tight, waves, another nth gush of warmth soaking you both as you whole body shook helplessly in his hold.

“fuck,” sunghoon cursed filthy, fucking you turned erratic as he chased his own high. a few more deep, brutal strokes and burying himself to the hilt—sunghoon spilled inside of you, pulsing hot and endless streaks of semen, hips jerking through every wave. 

he held your hips up, milking himself dry as your pussy spasmed around him, squeezing every last drop. “shit… shit…” he panted, staying pressed for a long moment as he lazily thrusted his cum inside.

both of you panted, trembling, sweat slick, and spent. your body twitched in pleasure, eyes fluttering shut as you catch your breath. slowly, carefully, sunghoon eased your legs down, letting them fall open around his hips as he pulled his cock out.

cum dribbled down your puffy, swollen cunt, messy—sliding down your folds and onto his sheets beneath you. more followed as your body slumped down.

sunghoon’s gaze dropped between your legs before back on your face—his hand gently stroking your thigh like he couldn’t stop touching you. his cowboy hat tilted crookedly on his head, casting a shadow over his eyes as he fixed it. 

you whimpered—too sensitive and overstimulated—but didn’t pry him off when he pushed his cum lazily inside just to watch you shiver. finally, sunghoon leaned down, lips brushing to exhaustedly kiss you—your lips, cheeks, and temple.

“you okay, darlin’?” he murmured, arms wrapped around you, pulling you into his chest as he rolled to the side. sunghoon tucked you against him, tangling your legs together. 

you nodded into his neck, fingers tracing idly. “more than okay.” you murmured, “never been better.” sunghoon huffed a hum, kissing the top of your head. 

“good,” he said simply, voice low in the dim room. “‘cause car’s definitely ain’t gettin’ fixed anytime soon,” he murmured, pulling the blanket to cover the two of you. “means ‘m keepin’ you here till mornin’. maybe longer.”

the last of the daylight had faded into deep twilight.

oh well—

your… ex boyfriend waiting somewhere could sit tight and wonder all he wanted; his plans had been bucked off the trail the moment the real cowboy rode in. 

this filly had found her herd, and she wasn’t wandering back to any old pasture soon.

you supposed some breakdowns are just detours to exactly where you’re meant to end up.

𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ♡໒꒱.°⑅ @yenienha @hoonsocks @imnotyizhuo @nesquikluvr @hhoneyhan @jjongsies @s3ouln1 @hiddencavernsun @stellargolden @astelunar @somuchdard @eirlyscloud @slu33yblushlace @solonenova @jinsuus <3

[leejenowrld-deactivated20260419]

masked souls — p.sh

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 — 27k words

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 — footman, servant sunghoon x rich! reader

𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 — in a world where every glance is a transaction and every touch risks ruin, you—daughter of the province’s richest family—are haunted by a masked stranger who claims you on all hallows’ eve, then vanishes. months later, park sunghoon appears as lowborn staff in your father’s estate. you fall for him, unaware he’s the same man you loved and lost. forbidden passion grows, shadowed by secrets, hunger, and a class divide that could destroy you both. only when every mask is stripped away do you learn if love can survive the cost of truth, or if fate always demands you choose between duty and desire.

𝐒𝐌𝐔𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — explicit smut throughout: oral sex (fem receiving), face-sitting, spit play, cockwarming, rough riding, choking, slapping, hair-pulling, possessive dirty talk, public risk, mirror sex, breeding kink, marking, rimming, dom/sub undertones, heavy degradation, “daddy” kink, masked seduction, exhibitionism, rough handling, possessive language, lots of choking, spiting, rutting/grinding, oral fixation (kissing, biting, licking), marking (bruises, biting), power play, filthy talk, strong body worship, creampie, art kink (sketching nude, being watched/drawn), breast/nipple worship, face riding, 

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 — regency romance with a modern bite; lush prose and period-accurate setting; class divide at the heart of every conflict; sunghoon is an orphan and servant, reader is the diamond of the season; arranged marriage plotlines; themes of shame, rebellion, and longing. heeseung and readers mama are asses in this, heavy focus on masks and masquerades, literal and social; family betrayal, mother-daughter war, public humiliation, found family and sisterly love; recurring metaphors of drowning, blooming, haunted houses, hunger, waves, and rebirth; explicit exploration of female desire, autonomy, and societal ruin; darkness, euphoria, and gothic sensuality, regency world, masquerade ball, atmospheric and dark fairytale tone, heavy autumn/halloween motifs, social anxiety, suffocation, inherited trauma, public scrutiny, reputation, gossip, instant obsession, mutual “seeing” beneath masks, longing for escape, aching to be seen, self-revelation, risking everything for desire, forbidden romance, themes of poverty, belonging, survival, emotional and sexual awakening, moonlit lake rendezvous, emotional rawness, references to parental loss, orphanhood, references to childhood trauma, art as confession, performance vs authenticity, desperate defiance, rebellion against gender/class, exposure of secrets, emotionally explicit dialogue, heavy subtext. inspirations: jane eyre, titanic, rebecca, bridgerton, dangerous liaisons, dark gothic romance; keep in mind this is set in the regency era therefore the dialogue and writing style very much represents that.

listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 here <3 … “i don’t belong to anyone”

dedicated to the masked and the mute, the souls who ache to tear off silk and speak their wildest, truest name into the dark.

𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐘 𝐄𝐑𝐀, 𝟏𝟗𝟐𝟑

The music swells like a tide you cannot out-swim, violins cresting overhead while the ballroom’s chandeliers blaze with a thousand trembling tapers. Gold-leaf mirrors multiply the light until every polished surface gleams like a waterfront at dawn, yet you feel none of the warmth: only the chill of expectation lapping at your ankles, pulling, pulling. Around you, silken masks ripple through the crowd, russet like dying leaves, black as chimney soot, gilded enough to blind. Courtiers drift past in perfumed currents, each bow and curtsy rehearsed to the syllable, each smile sharpened to a social weapon. The scent of spiced apples drifts in from the terrace bonfires, mingling with rain damp stone; it should be comforting, but to you it is only the perfume of a world intent on preserving you like fruit in syrup, sweet, motionless, sealed.

You pause at the crest of the great staircase, the balustrade’s marble cold beneath your gloved palm, and study the scene below as though it were a stage awaiting its unwilling marionette. Candles blaze along the cornice, their flames reflected in a hundred gilt mirrors so that the ballroom glitters like a hall of suns but every face is eclipsed, half-hooded by velvet dominoes, beaked by Venetian leather, feather-shrouded, pearl-rimmed. The ton drifts in layered orbit, planets disguised as comets, their laughter bright as falsified starlight while unseen hands, matriarchs, dowagers, gossip columnists, tug silken strings to keep each body moving in its approved parabola. You glimpse Lord Everfield’s unmistakable height disguised by a ruby wolf’s mask; Lady Whitting’s ice-blue gown hovers beside him like moonlit mist. Yet beneath every jeweled creature lurks the same anatomy of ambition, the same glinting teeth. Though the chandeliers roar with light, shadows cling to hems and sleeve-cuffs; demons wear lace tonight, and monsters sip ratafia from crystal coupes.

It is All Hallows’ Eve, the only night when the ton’s proudest families can shed propriety like a skin and slip, masked and disguised, through corridors of rumor and shadow. Invitations fluttered like ravens for weeks, sealed in wax, stamped with the sigil of House Bexley, summoning every titled name and ambitious cousin to a spectacle at the estate so lavish it seems conjured from a fever dream. Tonight, beneath arches twined with ivy and flame, the ballroom glimmers with secrets more than diamonds; reputation wears a masquerade of velvet and gilt, old vendettas and forbidden longings swirl in disguise, and each guest drifts through candlelight as if hoping, just for this one witching hour, to be hidden from their own story. Masks are both armor and license, here, a duchess can become a fox, a scoundrel might waltz with virtue, and every whispered promise dissolves with the dawn. It’s a festival of illusion, of longing cloaked in finery, where no one quite knows who anyone truly is and that, above all, is the true thrill of the night.

“Back straight, darling, shoulders back, chin an inch higher.” Your mother materialises at your side, fan opening with a snap sharp as a guillotine. She’s dressed in imperial violet, black jet dripping from her ears like frozen midnight; her posture is so exacting it bends the air around her. Two gloved fingers nudge your elbow inward, arranging you as one adjusts a puppet’s strings. “Turn slightly. Yes—there. The Duke of Everfield occupies the eastern alcove; let him see the line of your neck. Now smile, as though delight were your natural state.”

You obey: one obedient arc of lips, though the silver and gold mask presses like a gag against your cheeks, sparkling without breath. “Mama, the ribbons cut,” you murmur, but she dismisses softness like an ill-bred cousin.

“Nonsense.” Her voice is velvet pulled taut over a frame of steel. “Discomfort is the polish of refinement. If your cheeks smart, imagine how brightly they will glow.” She tilts her head, inspecting you the way jewelers search for flaws. A single pearl drop trembles at her left earlobe; it mirrors the tremor in your breath. “You will dance first with Lord Bexley, then with Viscount Harrow. Afterward, allow Everfield a waltz. He is here expressly to study the… prospects.” The briefest pause, knuckles whitening around her closed fan, your future reduced to a ledger entry.

Below, a string quartet strikes the opening chords of a country reel; the floor seethes with gold and russet masks, each swirl of silk a cresting wave that threatens to swallow you. The scent of bonfire smoke, apples, damp leaves, a hint of singed sugar, drifts through opened French doors. A footman coughs somewhere below, and you seize the sound like a lifeline. “Might I have one turn about the terrace first? The heat is—”

Your mother’s grip is the real tether, her polished nails an iron anchor at your wrist. “Heat is a sign of vital company,” she murmurs when you long for fresh air. “Remember, the ton does not pity a lady who seeks shadows. Remember what happened to Lady Ferndale when she fainted at her own presentation? A fortnight of pity, then a lifetime of jokes.”

Your pulse drums in your throat, fainting suddenly feels like rebellion worth courting but you incline your head as instructed. She lays two fingers beneath your chin, guiding it higher, and the gesture is so gentle, so publicly motherly, that no one sees the command hidden there. “Keep the mask on until midnight,” she murmurs, gaze sliding past you toward the crowd swelling at the foot of the stairs. “Mystery flatters a pretty girl. Exposure flatters no one.”

“Of course, Mama,” you whisper, every word tasting of saltwater and silk. When she glides away, her back a column of unyielding pride, you feel the space she occupied collapse inward, a vacuum aching to be filled with air you are not permitted to breathe. Below, violins strike a bright, gaudy chord, and the chandelier flames shudder like caught moths. You descend the final steps alone, each slippered footfall an echo of her command: smile, sparkle, suffocate—politely.

She releases you with a final pat beneath your chin, a gesture tender to any distant eye, barbed within and glides away, herself a flawless automaton wound tight by decades of expectation. Alone atop the stair, you breathe once, twice, as if preparing to dive beneath waves that will not part. The violins rise, a tide of polished sound, and at last you descend—slipper, slipper, slipper—into the glittering underworld. Your gown foams behind you in pearled swells; your pulse pounds like oars against a coffin-bright sea. Somewhere a coxcomb laughs behind a jester’s mask, and for a heartbeat you wonder who among these glittering spectres might notice a diamond sinking quietly to the ballroom’s marble floor.

You descend into the ballroom with the poise bred into you since childhood, every inch of your bearing dictated by a century’s worth of bloodlines, titles, and expectation. You wear a mask of midnight silk, silver-threaded, faceted with pearls along the cheekbones, its beauty a prison, its shape forged by every hope you are meant to smother. The hush that spreads through the crowd is palpable; heads turn, voices hush, the string quartet falters and resumes as though afraid to interrupt the procession. You sense all those eyes pressing in from every tier of the golden gallery, drawn by your name, your fortune, your myth, daughter of the Marquess of Seohwa, heir to the autumn diamond, the very star on which every lesser constellation has pinned their hope for a grand alliance. You walk with your younger sister at your side, her hand trembling, her own mask feathered and fragile, while your own stride is graceful and measured, though your lungs are tight as your corset. Every step glides across the marble like a ship in orbit, close enough to touch the shore, forever drifting from it.

The air beneath the chandeliers is thick with gold dust, candlewax, and the glimmer of autumn’s last sweetness, smoke from garden bonfires seeps beneath the gilded doors, mingling with the sharp perfume of rival debutantes and the briny sweat of ambitious men. Masks of every persuasion, velvet foxes, gilded birds, sapphire dragons, conceal more than faces; they hide secrets, hunger, grief, every unfinished wish. Your mask is a silken gate, glittering for the crowd yet forged of quiet iron within, its lacework filigree a cage that presses cool against your skin, fencing in the wild pulse that aches for moorland winds, for uncurated laughter, for any untamed shore where duty’s eyes might fail to follow. 

You drift, untethered, through the sea of laughter and violins, each swirl of your skirt a wave in a galaxy of strangers; though you are known by all, you feel like a ghost orbiting a sun no one can see. The world’s richest girls cluster in jealous constellations, their mothers watching with predatory smiles, while the gentlemen, sons of dukes, heirs to fortunes, titled scoundrels, crowd toward you in a living tide, each elbowing the next to claim a dance.

A gentleman with hair like dark honey bows low, his mask gleaming. “Might I beg for your first dance, Lady Y/N?” he inquires, voice dripping with practiced charm. You incline your head, smiling courteously and unyielding. “I regret, sir, my dance card is already much encumbered.” 

Another suitor, younger and more nervous, presses closer. “My lady—your mother promised—” 

You cut him off with a gentle shake of your head, the silver mask glinting. “Perhaps later, Mr. Wilton.” 

The whispers ripple out, “she is even lovelier in the flesh… Such fortune… Will she choose Lord Devon or the Viscount?” 

Your sister slips her hand into yours, voice trembling. “They all stare as if you are a comet, ready to burn them up.” 

You squeeze her fingers, only half-smiling. “Let them. Comets don’t belong to anyone.”

The violins begin a minor-key waltz, their strings trembling like spider-silk stretched across a graveyard gate, and at once the ballroom shifts from gilded brilliance to autumn twilight. Notes drift through the candelabra smoke with a faint scent of applewood and burning leaves, the orchestra conjuring October ghosts beneath the chandeliers. A harvest moon of lamplight settles over the parquet, turning every swirling skirt into a slow-moving shadow, every jeweled mask into a flicker of lantern flame. Gentlemen glide toward you as though drawn by occult compass, gloves poised to claim your waist, while ladies wheel round, half envy, half wonder, hoping to witness the moment the season’s diamond is finally taken. Yet as the music coils tighter, cellos pulsing like a distant heart beneath the violins’ silver cry, you feel no tether, no anchor, only an expanding ache beneath your corset, as if each measured chord is prying loose another fastening. The melody praises possession, but every rise and fall of the bow insists you were never fashioned to be held. You float at the dance’s turning point, a blue star untouched by gravity, every hopeful suitor merely an eclipse passing briefly across your glow, the entire room circling while you remain unclaimed, untethered, and unearthly alone.

Above, your mother stands at the edge of the balcony, her posture regal, her eyes sharp as a falcon’s. She watches you like a jewel on the auction block, lips pressed into a line as she surveys your every interaction. Her voice floats down between songs, commanding and clipped: “Smile, dearest. This is your night, you must shine.” You obey, turning your lips up just so, even as your mind aches to flee. Your father’s old friends nod approvingly, matrons calculate dowries, a pair of twins in emerald whisper and giggle behind their lace fans. Your body is among them, but your mind drifts above, seeking something—someone—who might cut through the haze of wealth and expectation, who might recognize the girl behind the mask, not just the legacy she wears.

Though your slippers glide dutifully across the mirrored floor, a truer self hovers just beyond your skin, restless as a bird pressing against gilded bars. You sense, without understanding, a shift in the unseen currents, a whisper of salt on the perfumed air, as if somewhere past the chandeliers a raw wind has found a crack in the walls and is slipping inside to test each ribbon and rule. The ballroom’s golden haze feels suddenly thin, a gauze that might tear with one firm breath, and your heart stutters in anticipation of a presence not yet revealed: someone fashioned of open sky rather than cut crystal, someone who would speak in the language of tides and rooftops and rain instead of pedigrees and dowries. You cannot name him, you have never set eyes upon him, yet you feel his approach the way a flower senses sunrise, petals already stirring before dawn. Somewhere beyond the masks and etiquette, beyond the white gloves that brush your sleeve in practiced greeting, a hand you have not met is reaching, ready to unfasten every clasp of duty and guide you toward the first inhalation of ungoverned air.

You drift to the ballroom’s fringe as though swept there by an undertow, every measured breath turning brackish in your lungs. Candles shimmer through cut-glass sconces, casting wavering ribbons of gold that ripple over your gown, yet the light doesn’t warm; it refracts, splintering until each bright note of the quartet sounds like water hammering a hull. Conversation eddies around you, another titled name, another speculation on your future, while your corset cinches tighter, a velvet weight that drags you beneath the glittering surface. You taste panic like salt on your tongue. You picture yourself submerged beneath the parquet, skirts blooming in slow tide while the chandeliers glitter far above like a drowned sky, and you think, If I do not breathe soon, I will shatter.

You pause at the edge of a colonnade, heart thrumming wild and uneven, watching the world spin on without you. For a moment you consider slipping out into the night, letting the cold autumn air bite your skin and remind you you’re still alive, not just a beautiful relic on display. It is agony to stand here, a living canvas painted in the colors your mother chose, pearled silk, gold-dusted cheeks, diamonds catching in your hair, while eyes roam over you with the same hunger they reserve for an heirloom or a prize. The men appraise, the women judge, and you feel your worth reduced to a glimmer of gemstone and the pedigree printed beneath your family crest.

Each conversation has begun and ended the same: an assessment of your lineage, your dowry, the particular shade of your eyes in the candlelight. No one asks about the books you love, or the wildness that tugs at your spirit when you look out into the storm. They see only Lady Y/N, daughter of the Marquess of Seohwa, the diamond of the season, the sum of every expectation and nothing more. It leaves you hollow, brittle as spun glass, so adored and so profoundly unseen that you might as well be a statue in your family’s gallery. You wonder if anyone here has ever wanted to touch what lies beneath the varnish, to learn the shape of your yearning, your fear, your barely concealed rebellion.

The urge to disappear swells with every shallow greeting, every insincere bow and painted smile. Names slide off tongues with gloved precision, cataloguing your worth as though you were a diamond in a merchant’s ledger, not a woman with skin that prickles and lungs that ache. You nod, you curtsy, you murmur polite nothings, but inside your ribcage, something claws, panic sharpening beneath the pearls. Your breath goes thin and ragged. Chandeliers blur into glare, the room narrowing to a pinhole, air thick as velvet, suffocating in its beauty. You focus on your own hands, knuckles bloodless, twisting your rings until the metal bites. You blink at the laughter, the spinning dancers, but the world recedes, a thousand leagues distant, unreachable through the crush of expectation.

A tide of dread drags at your ankles, and the thought blooms: what if you screamed? What if you bolted for the door, mask and all, vanishing into the wild night, a ghost slipping between lamplight and shadow? Your chest compresses, cold and slick as a cellar. In your mind’s eye you see yourself shattering, glass on marble, silk caught in thorns, a girl dissolved into nothing but a whisper of longing. The darkness behind your mask tastes like iron, sharp and secret. At this moment, you are certain no one here will ever see you. Not truly. Not as you ache to be seen.

And then, as if conjured by the ache beneath your ribs, you catch the shift of movement in your peripheral vision, a figure, neither ostentatious nor invisible, whose arrival registers first as a subtle realignment of the room’s gravity. Even before he speaks, before you look up, your breath finds an unexpected, slow rhythm, as if some deep animal part of you recognizes the change in pressure, the promise of rain before the first drop falls. He stands just beyond the wash of candlelight, the darkness of his attire, tailored, understated, infinitely more dangerous for its lack of ornament, making the pearls of your gown and the gold of your mask gleam sharper by contrast.

His mask is matte obsidian with a thread of starlight curling along the temple, fitting so close it could be a secret he’s daring you to guess. He’s handsome in a way that is quiet, difficult to catalog, the bones of his face catching light only when he tips his head in contemplation. His mouth, carved in a line between amusement and severity, looks built for secrets; his hair, ink-dark and loose at the nape, betrays no anxiety about fitting in with the foppish crowd. He seems untouched by the weight of expectation, posture languid, hands bare save for a single strip of black leather around one wrist, a detail you notice without understanding why it matters. When he shifts, the world around you hushes, as though the entire ballroom is holding its breath.

It is only after a moment, after you realize the ache in your chest has softened, the chokehold of the room slackened, that you realize your body is responding to his presence as if to the answer of a prayer you did not dare speak. You inhale, and it doesn’t scald. There’s the faintest trace of something wild in him: the scent of smoke and rain, the look of a man who belongs to the forest after midnight, not to the bright halls of the ton. He doesn’t rush toward you, doesn’t hover, he simply exists, magnetic and unhurried, allowing you the space to find your own shape in the wake of his arrival.

A tremor of recognition shudders through you, not the kind that comes from memory, but the kind that comes from fate’s invisible thread being tugged, gently, for the very first time. He’s fresh air and shadow, gravity and risk; he’s not a suitor in pursuit, but a force the universe has sent, unknowingly, to pull you from the slow drowning you have lived all your life. In his nearness, you feel something in yourself shift, something restless, something forbidden, something finally, achingly awake.

He stops beside you without the stiff choreography of a court bow, offering only the tilt of his head, as if to say he has found something curious in an otherwise predictable vista. “Strange,” he murmurs, voice low, warmed by a hint of laughter, “how the grandest room in England can still run short of oxygen.” The words flutter against your ear like a secret wind, and you turn fully, mask catching candleflame, to find his gaze fixed not on your diamonds, but on the tremor you hadn’t realized quivered in your gloved fingertips. 

You gather your composure, spine straight as a mast, yet your voice drifts softer than intended. “Perhaps the air is simply too crowded with expectation.” 

The reply is meant to sting, to push him off balance, but he only smiles behind his mask, a crescent you feel more than see and answers, “Then one must carve out breathing room with a little daring.”

Your pulse leaps, wild and shameless, the brush of his nearness turning every thought molten and needy. When his hand finds yours, it’s not chaste, it’s a claiming, thumb stroking along your wrist, skin to skin, rough warmth against your fevered pulse. His grip is gentle but sure, and the shock of real touch, unmasked, unpermitted, sends a gasp fluttering between your lips. You don’t even mean to breathe in such an unguarded matter, but you let out a broken sound, half-sigh, half-plea, as he draws you closer, his palm spanning your knuckles, possessive, promising. Your free hand trembles, desperate for anchor, and without thinking you rest it on his chest, fingers sinking into midnight cloth, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat beneath. The air between you charges, static, breathless, a thousand hands at your waist, but only his touch matters. His thumb brushes higher, teasing the tender skin inside your wrist, and the ache in your chest finds its echo in your hips, restless, wanting, helplessly exposed. 

“Forgive the liberty,” he says, tone softening, “but I could not stand by while a lady battles invisible seas.” 

A laugh escapes you, quiet, startled, entirely unpolished, rising like a bubble to the surface. “And are you, sir, in the habit of rescuing strangers from drowning?” 

He leans just close enough for the faint scent of rain-soaked cedar to reach you. “Only when the tide is worth braving,” he replies, the compliment cloaked in playful neutrality, too deft for censure.

Silence stretches, luminous as the space between lightning and thunder, while violins swell behind you in another mournful swell of strings. Around the edges of your vision, the masked revelers whirl, oblivious, yet the two of you stand motionless at the eye of the masquerade’s storm, tethered by a single breath. You cannot see his eyes through the darkness of the mask, yet you feel their weight, patient as moonlight on restless water. For one suspended moment you do not think of titles or dowries or the Marquess of Wolhwa’s heir; you think only of the stranger’s hand steadying the tremor in yours and of the sound the sea might make if it chose to sigh in relief.

You’re painfully aware of every inch between your bodies, the brush of his knuckles sending waves through your blood, your breath catching and breaking against his mouth when he leans in, daring you with the barest smirk, “Tell me, darling, what do you crave most tonight?” It’s a question that hangs between your bodies, heavier than pearls, every nerve in you screaming for him to close the gap and make good on the promise in his eyes.

A hush falls between you, violins sighing somewhere distant. In that pause, he studies you, not with the hungry appraisal you’ve suffered all season, but with the meticulous reverence of a cartographer mapping a new shore. “If I may,” he murmurs, his eyes flickering downward just once, “your necklace, does it serve as armor or as a beacon tonight?” The pendant glints in the hollow of your throat, a sliver of moon against bare skin. 

You resist the urge to cover it, meeting his gaze squarely. “This night, sir, it is both. Armor for the eyes that see only surface, a beacon for anyone who dares the depths.”

He smiles, slow and knowing, his mouth lingering at the edge of laughter. “Then let me hope I am counted among the latter. For all the light in this ballroom, I find myself drawn to what shimmers in the shadows.” His words send a shiver up your spine, something far more potent than a compliment, more like a secret folded between the syllables.

The room, for all its brightness and chatter, feels suddenly hollow, a painted stage set for your private play. He leans in, close enough that you catch the clean, wild scent of cedar and rain on his skin, the ghost of autumn wind in his coat. “Tell me truly, my lady,” he asks, voice velveted with intimacy, “is it not wearying, to be so perfectly adorned, so constantly seen and yet so seldom known?” There is nothing sly in the question, only a kind of ache that mirrors your own.

Your lips part on a soft exhale, heart beating wild beneath the mask and silk. “I have grown accustomed to being admired, sir, but not to being understood. Tonight, for the first time, I wonder if I might prefer the latter.” The confession is a risk, one you would never offer to any other, but here, in candlelight, veiled and unnamed, it slips free.

His hand hovers near yours, the distance charged and humming, but he doesn’t seize or claim. Instead, he lets his knuckles rest on the marble balustrade beside yours, an invitation without demand. “Then let us remain mysteries a while longer,” he proposes, and there is laughter tucked in the words, “for I would rather be a secret you choose to keep than a prize to be displayed.”

Your bodies angle together in the flickering glow, shadows dancing across his mask and pooling at your feet. You reach for a glass of champagne as a footman passes, only to find his hand there at the same instant, his fingers brushing your wrist, warm and steady, the touch a quiet thunderclap. “Forgive me,” he says, with mock solemnity, “it seems the fates conspire to throw us together.”

The moment lingers, charged and heady. “Perhaps they do,” you answer, your voice lower than you mean, tasting the danger and the desire tangled in his presence. You both linger in that perfect, unscripted hush, everything in the room blurring but the pull between your bodies, like a tide, inevitable, and finally answering the drowning with a promise of air.

He holds your gaze, his thumb brushing the inside of your wrist, dangerously close to your pulse. “The way you look at me, I could believe you want to be stolen away,” he murmurs, his words just soft enough for no one else to hear, voice velvet and unhurried. “Or is it my imagination, my lady, that your mask hides a hunger the rest of them cannot even fathom?”

You feel your composure fray, a flush blooming beneath the silk and gold of your mask, shame and desire twined together. “You speak as if you already know me,” you say, sharper than intended, drawing your hand back just a breath, though not far enough to break the contact. Your fingers curl unconsciously around the delicate chain of your necklace, his eyes flick down, catching the motion, lingering for a heartbeat at the rise and fall of your chest.

“Perhaps I do,” he counters, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he leans even closer, letting the crowd swallow you both in their shadows. “Or perhaps I simply wish to.” His gloved hand traces a line up your forearm, sending shivers through the layers of tulle and lace. “Would it frighten you, princess, if I confessed that I want to learn every secret your eyes keep locked behind that mask?”

A shudder escapes you, involuntary, the music and candlelight spinning dizzy in the glass of your mind. You’re used to men declaring what they want to take; this one offers what he wants to know. “And if I told you that I am not as brave as I appear?” you whisper, half plea, half dare, your voice wavering with the gravity of desire. “What if the sea you see in me is nothing but a shallow pool, longing to be storm-tossed and deepened by someone reckless enough to try?”

His answering smile is all teeth and hunger, no apology at all. “Then let me be the storm,” he says, every syllable sliding against your skin, “and may tonight drown all the others you have ever known.” His hand slips lower, slow, deliberate, coming to rest on the curve of your hip, public yet hidden in the shadows between columns, both of you shielded from prying eyes but bare to each other. The press of his palm is a promise, the first true touch you’ve ever let linger, and it leaves you trembling, aching, desperate for him to draw you further out, further in.

A breathless hush gathers in the narrow space between your bodies, as though the ballroom itself pauses to see whether you will flee or step closer. He straightens, offering himself with a curiously formal elegance that cannot quite disguise the intensity simmering beneath it. “May I have the honor of the next waltz, my lady.” His voice is low and even, yet the question feels weighted with possibility, as if the very floor might tilt beneath you should you accept. The gold and velvet whirl of guests recedes into a distant shimmer.  For a moment you stare at his outstretched hand, pulse fluttering in your throat like a bird deciding whether to trust the sky. The waltz lilts in your ears, every note a summons. He tilts his head, his mask half in shadow, voice pitched just for you. “Will you brave the tide with me, or would you rather linger on the shore?”

Your lips part in a breath you barely mean to take. “I have grown weary of the shore, sir,” you reply softly, letting your gloved fingers settle into his palm. The contact is electric, startling, tender, immediate, your pulse thundering in your ears. “Lead me where you will.”

He bows, just enough for you alone to see the glint of a smile beneath his mask. “Then I shall endeavor to make it a voyage worth remembering,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing a secret circle against your knuckles as he guides you toward the waiting ocean of the dance floor.

He guides you toward the centre of the floor, each step a deliberate invitation to abandon gravity. The orchestra draws a silken bow across the opening bars, and the crowd parts, curious, forming a luminous ring of candlelight and masked faces. All your life you have measured distance from suitors in chaperoned inches, yet the stranger slides a steady palm to the small of your back and, with a softness that borders on reverence, draws you near. Heat pools where his fingers rest, seeping through satin and stays, dissolving every rigid instruction ever drilled into your spine. Your other hand finds his shoulder, and beneath the elegant wool of his coat you feel the solid promise of strength, as though he could carry you through any current.

When he pivots you into the first turn, the room tilts, chandeliers blurring into constellations that spin around the two of you alone. He moves with effortless surety, guiding rather than leading, his breath a hush near your ear, coaxing you to trust the music and your own untried hunger. Each time the dance narrows the distance, your skirts brush his polished boots, and the faintest scrape of silk against wool steals another fragment of composure. You feel the unyielding line of his thigh against yours in the close step, the subtle roll of muscle beneath fine fabric, and a spark leaps through every nerve. Your heart pounds hard enough that you fear he will feel it. If he does, he gives no sign, only lets the corners of his mouth curve with quiet satisfaction, a man proud to have found rhythm with the sea’s most elusive tide.

You lift your gaze to meet his eyes through the slits of that dark mask, and the candlelight strikes midnight sparks in their depths. The music swells, yet you barely hear it above the rush of your own breathing. For the first time since childhood you forget the weight of your title, the careful posture of the diamond of the season. Expectations slide from your shoulders like an unwanted cloak and you think, wildly, that masks might be the only honest garments in this room. Each spin carries you further from shore, yet in his arms you feel no fear, only the exhilarating rise of a wave you have longed to meet. You are aware of whispers at the edge of the dance floor—speculation, envy, scandal—but they sound distant, muffled by the roar of desire and the impossible peace that settles in your chest when he murmurs, almost to himself, “Breathe, my siren. The sea is ours tonight.”

You move with him into the golden heart of the ballroom, the crowd parting as if the music itself wills it so, and suddenly the world shrinks to the press of his hand at your waist and the sure, guiding sweep of his palm over your spine. The touch is possessive but never cruel, gloved and warm, fingers splaying slightly as if to map every shiver beneath your skin. Your other hand settles on his shoulder, and he draws you so close you feel the silent laugh trapped in his chest each time the violins build. Your bodies fit in a way that is not accidental, hip to hip, his thigh between yours, every measured step more confession than choreography. The heat of him seeps through satin and silk, kindling at the small of your back and threading up your ribs; your breath, shallow and wanting, comes in time to the pulse beneath his collarbone.

Eyes meet through the shadows of your masks, and the world falls away. He holds your gaze with a hunger that is almost indecent for so public a setting, and yet he never once looks away. The room blurs, candles spin into comets, gossip fades to hush, and you’re left with the silent thunder between your heartbeats and the press of his body against yours. Every turn is a seduction, every sway a promise. His thumb brushes the exposed skin above your glove, an idle, languorous stroke that leaves you dizzy.

He leans in, voice intimate, his breath warm against your ear. “I confess, I never cared for these ancestral faces staring down from their gilded tombs. They judge, but I find their silence merciful, kinder than most of your admirers tonight.” He dares a wicked glance up at a painted Marquess glaring down from the wall, smirks, and turns you with a flourish that makes your skirts billow between your legs, the press of his thigh leaving nothing to the imagination.

You dare a smile, breathless, your voice pitched for him alone. “You’re scandalously good at waltzing sir—altogether too bold for a man I have never met before this night.”

He grins, eyes flashing beneath the mask. “And you, my lady, are altogether too intoxicating for any man’s peace of mind. I fear I am ruined already. If I am wicked, it is only that you bring it forth in me.”

Your cheeks flush, nerves burning as his fingers tighten ever so slightly at your hip, anchoring you with a promise you feel everywhere. “Careful, sir. I may be tempted to believe you mean it.”

He leans in until his mouth hovers above your ear, the barest graze of lips on the shell. “Would you wish me otherwise?” he murmurs, his thumb tracing fire at your waist. “Because, darling, I have never danced so close to salvation.”

The waltz spins you together, the music rises, and you realize you are breathless not from exertion, but from being seen—truly seen—and from wanting him in ways the ton would never forgive. For a fleeting moment, you’re not the Marquess’s daughter or the diamond of the season, but simply a woman with her pulse racing under a stranger’s hand, wishing the night would never end.

The music crests, and with it, the pressure of his hand slides a fraction lower on your back, the world sharpening into the bright, cutting edge of awareness, every watcher’s gaze lancing through the gilt haze of the ballroom, every whisper shivering along your spine. You realize, with a jolt, that the circle of onlookers has drawn closer, the matrons and would-be suitors and jealous wallflowers alike hungrily following each step, their collective attention as heavy and invasive as the brocade clinging to your skin. It is as though the entire ton has spun this moment for its own pleasure, eager to witness you either falter or ignite.

You find yourself trembling, not from fear, but from the reckless thrill of being alive in your own body, of having defied every polite rule and every silent warning. You are no longer invisible, and for the first time, you crave neither the safety of obscurity nor the empty glory of attention, but the danger of being truly wanted.

As the music fades, he slows you in a lingering turn, and then, with a grace that belies the riot of tension thrumming between you, he bends his head, his lips almost grazing the shell of your ear. “There is a door,” he murmurs, voice thick with invitation, “just beyond the marble arch, into the moonlit garden. Should you care to breathe freer air, I will wait.” His thumb draws a secret promise against your waist, holding you steady even as the world teeters. “Only say yes, and you need not return to the masquerade… unless you wish it.”

Your pulse races, the hush of the ballroom pressing in, as if the crowd itself senses you hover at the precipice. The question is alive in his eyes, burning as fiercely as your own want, will you risk reputation, security, everything you have been trained to value, for the hope of something real, something hungry and raw and entirely yours? You look at him—really look—and see the challenge, the safety, the wild possibility, and the mercy of escape. For the first time tonight, your smile is real. “Lead the way,” you whisper, surrender and challenge threaded into every syllable, and when his hand tightens around yours, the electric charge nearly undoes you.

He catches your gaze, a slow smile blooming, something boyish and wild, but shot through with a man’s unflinching intent. There’s a dimple at the corner of his mouth, but the way he looks at you is anything but innocent; it’s a promise, molten and dark, that he means to make you his accomplice in whatever comes next. His hand never leaves your waist, sliding just a touch lower, thumb tracing the bare skin beneath your stays with an intimacy no one else in this ballroom would dare.

“Come with me,” he murmurs, voice pitched for your ears alone, velvet-soft but edged with hunger. His fingers lace through yours, rough and steady, pulling you into the slipstream of his heat and certainty. “I cannot watch you vanish into the crowd again, not when I’ve only just begun to find out how you taste. Let me have you, just for tonight. Let the rest of the world be damned.”

His touch is bold, he doesn’t let you hover at the threshold. He draws you close, so close you can feel the beat of his heart against your shoulder, his lips grazing the edge of your mask, breath warm against your cheek. For a moment, you let yourself sway against him, every sense sharpened by the secret thrill of being chosen, not for your name or fortune, but for the way your body fits his, for the raw want pulsing in the space between your mouths.

He guides you through the marble archway with a possessive gentleness, a hand warm at the small of your back, the other still entwined with yours. “I promise you, my lady,” he whispers, as the doors close behind you and the music of the ton recedes to a memory, “I will make you forget every rule, every gaze, every reason to hide. Tonight, you’re mine, and I intend to worship every breath you take.”

He leads you out past the lantern-lit archway and down a stone path slicked with autumn dew, the cold nipping at your exposed collarbones. The gardens beyond the ballroom unfurl like a myth made real: hedges cut in swirling parabolas, marble nymphs half-swallowed by climbing ivy, roses blown open in the late October chill. The air is heavy with petrichor and woodsmoke, sharper than anything inside; you breathe in and feel almost giddy, as if every leaf in the orchard is whispering that this is your first taste of freedom. Silver light pools beneath the labyrinth of apple trees and, far beyond, the haunted hush of the old folly beckons, a secret place for secrets. Your fingers stay threaded through his, pulse matching his stride, neither of you speaking as the party’s music drifts out behind you, a waltz warped by distance, sweet and a little lonely. For a moment you glance back, nerves flaring as you imagine your mother’s eyes on your retreating figure, but his hand tightens in yours. He stops you beneath the shadow of an ancient willow, and you look up to find his face only inches from yours, the mask still dividing you from the rest of the world, making him yours alone.

You let your head tip back and exhale, eyes searching the stars that shiver above the topiary, every breath thick with relief. “I have lived at these balls since I was a child,” you say, voice soft as moth wings. “But I have never once dared to step outside, not properly. Isn’t it strange? All these years, all this beauty, and I’ve never been allowed to taste it.”

He draws you in, guiding your other hand to his chest, the warmth seeping through velvet and linen, and hums with a crooked smile. “Then I am honored to be your first transgression, my lady. What do you think of the world beyond the ballroom, does it live up to legend?” His thumb strokes circles over your knuckles, and in the hush, you notice his breathing is just as shallow as yours.

“I think I have been missing everything,” you admit, a laugh escaping, fragile and genuine. “All my life I have been told the world is dangerous, that my only safety is in the gilded cage. But out here, the air feels different. I can finally breathe.” You hesitate, then glance at him, your words rushing out: “Back there, I felt like I was drowning. Smiling until my cheeks hurt, listening to men praise my name and my title but never once asking what I love, or what frightens me, or what I want. No one sees beneath the mask, not even my own mother.”

He listens as though he could unravel every knot in your chest with patience alone, his gaze devouring you in the moonlight, unflinching, hungry, impossibly gentle. His mask catches a sliver of silver from the lanterns, but nothing shields the intensity of his focus. “Tell me, what frightens you?” he murmurs, low, “What do you want, what do you love?” The questions slip between you like silk ribbons, winding around your wrists, tugging you closer. Something in the way he asks, so honest and unhurried, strips you bare more completely than any hand ever could.

A gasp tumbles out, startled and involuntary, and you feel your body sway toward his as though drawn by a tide. You’ve spent your whole life dancing in circles, smiling when you’re meant to, loving what you’re told to, shrinking yourself to fit the outline of a legend. Now, the words bubble up reckless, confessional, your voice trembling and breathless with the effort of stepping naked into his attention. “What frightens me?” you echo, lashes fluttering. “Being invisible. Living and dying as someone’s ornament, never seen for who I am beneath the surface. I am afraid of silence, of rooms where my laughter means nothing, of hands that hold only my name, never my heart.”

You press closer, your chest grazing his, heat blooming where your bodies nearly touch. “And what do I want? Tonight, I want to be undone. I want to be selfish for once. I want to touch and be touched, to be kissed for myself, not for my father’s fortune, not for the marquessate, but because someone truly wants me.” Your voice falters, cheeks burning, but you force yourself to go on. “I want to remember how it feels to hunger, to ache, to risk something just because it sets my blood on fire. I want to lose myself, and maybe find out what’s left when the mask comes off.”

His fingers flex around yours, anchoring you as the confession breaks loose. Your breath stutters in your throat, and you realize you’re trembling, every secret tumbling out in the hush of the garden, where only the wind and this masked stranger can hear you. “And what I love…” you whisper, voice nearly breaking, “I love stories that end in escape. I love the idea of belonging, not as property, but as possibility, of being wanted so fiercely it feels like salvation, not a sentence. I love—” Your lips part, words failing as emotion crests, and the only sound between you is your breathing, shallow and raw, desperate for something you’ve never dared to crave until now. He lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles so reverent you gasp again, eyes burning, and for a moment you are unmasked entirely, ruined and radiant, and so achingly alive you think you could weep.

Sunghoon’s hand rises, tentative at first, then certain as his knuckles trace the line of your jaw, lingering at the fragile corner where your mask gives way to bare skin. The air thickens with longing, the autumn chill dissipating in the heat that sparks where he touches you. He turns your face toward him, and in the hush between heartbeats, you see a flicker of his own undoing, a hunger and ache as raw as your own.

“You look alive now,” he whispers, and this time his voice is stripped of every mask, the words trembling with something wounded, desperate, reverent. His thumb finds your pulse and lingers, pressing gently, as if committing the rhythm to memory. “It suits you,” he breathes, gaze dropping to your parted lips, lingering, burning. “Far more than any diamond or dowry ever could. I saw you—truly saw you—the moment you walked in. Not the legend, not the daughter, but the woman who wanted to breathe. I’ve never wanted anything more than to see that woman come alive.”

The garden dissolves into blurred golds and midnight shadows, nothing left but the gravity between your bodies, the heat of his hand at your throat, the promise of a kiss hovering in the cool, electric air. For a single, breathless moment, you’re suspended, neither mistress nor mask, just yearning and the stranger who meets it, as if the world has shrunk to the curve of your lips and the question that hangs between you: will you let him see you, and will you let yourself be seen?

You shiver, not from cold, but from the heat curling low in your belly, from the way he sees you without even trying. “And you? What do you want?” you venture, searching the shadowed lines of his mask. “You seem as though you belong here, but not quite. I cannot guess your station, or your secrets.”

He grins, and it is quicksilver, charming and evasive. “I am a man of little consequence, I assure you. I prefer to listen rather than speak of myself.” A pause, a flicker of something dark in his eyes. “But tonight, I will confess one truth: I have never wanted to be anyone but who I am with you. Not a lord, not a scoundrel, not even a guest at this masquerade. Just a man lucky enough to find you in the garden.”

For a moment, you want to pry, to ask what he hides, why his accent slips sometimes, why he carries himself like someone who’s had to fight for every inch. But he tugs you gently forward, back into a patch of moonlit grass where the shadows of the orchard and the spill of candlelight from the ballroom windows create a private stage. Somewhere, the strains of the quartet rise up, haunting and half-mournful, and he turns you into his arms once more, beginning a slow, secret waltz for only the stars to witness.

You lean into him, heart pounding, letting yourself sway and drift. “It is cold,” you say, unable to stop the words trembling in your mouth, “but you are terribly warm.”

He laughs, and the sound rumbles in his chest beneath your palm. “Allow me to be your fire tonight, darling. Let them gossip as they will, the night belongs to us.”

The garden closes around you like a living spell, hedges arching overhead until the night itself feels cathedral-tall. Lanterns carved into grinning pumpkins lean along the paths, their candlelit mouths flickering orange against the blue hush of moonlight. Shadows dance over marble nymphs and topiary beasts, turning them into silent familiars that bear witness to your rebellion. The willow where you pause sways in a breathless hush, its curtain of silver leaves whispering secrets only October would dare to keep. Far off, bonfire smoke curls through the air, tasting of singed applewood and memory; nearer, the music from the ballroom drifts like distant witch-song, violins in a minor key, half mournful, half exultant, echoing through the hedges as though the masquerade itself has followed you, masked and curious, into this wilder world.

Each heartbeat feels like a stolen drum in the hush, and every place his fingers find, your pulse, the hollow beneath your jaw, the curve of your waist, sparks as if struck by flint. Your mask, once a prison of pearl and gold, now feels like a charm worked by moonlight, granting you license to become something untamed and difficult to name. The air vibrates with unseen wings: moths circling lanterns, leaves skittering like quicksilver spirits. Somewhere a night bird calls, sharp and solitary, and the sound threads through your blood, urging you to shed the last remnants of obedience like leaves in a storm.

His breath ghosts over your cheek, carrying the loam-rich scent of damp earth and cedar smoke. “Look about you,” he murmurs, his voice pitched low, roughened by awe. “Even the shadows dress in finery tonight. It would be sacrilege to leave this magic unexplored.” His hand slips lower along your spine, just enough to draw you nearer, and you realize the night has become a masquerade all its own, one where the masks of birth and duty have no dominion, where the only rule is hunger answering hunger. The lantern light paints his obsidian mask with restless flame, making him half-devil, half-guardian, entirely irresistible.

You tilt your head back, moonlight silvering the arch of your throat, and breathe as though tasting freedom for the first time. The flower beds exhale the last perfume of autumn, crushed rose, bruised chrysanthemum, damp violet and you feel something ancient stir beneath your skin, a wildness older than titles or dowries. In the ballroom, you were a diamond; here, beneath Halloween’s thinning veil, you’re starlight skimming dark water, bright and uncatchable. “If this is sacrilege,” you whisper, your voice trembling with wonder, “then I would gladly be damned a hundred times over.”

The waltz slips from formality into something that barely remembers choreography, the world condensing into the tension spun between your bodies. His hand drifts from the polite bracket of your waist, fingertips skimming the arch of your back with a touch too gentle to be accidental. Each step pulls you closer, your breasts brushing his chest, your mask tilted so your breath ghosts hot across the curve of his cheek. Every turn is an orbit that tightens, a pulse that thunders in your throat, until you’re sure he must feel it beneath his palm. Your fingers knot in his, seeking anchor even as your knees threaten to buckle. The moan you swallow is not for pain but for relief, relief that at last, someone is holding you as though you were made for more than display, as though every inch of you is craved.

His thigh nudges between yours, guiding you into a rhythm that is less dance and more seduction, the music nothing but a low, relentless tide beneath the racket of your own need. The air is thick with the perfume of crushed petals and autumn spice, and every exhale from him lands on your skin like a spell: “You are not what I expected,” he whispers, his mouth so close you feel the promise in his words rather than hear them. “I saw you—truly saw you—the moment you entered, lost among wolves and kings, wearing a mask with more courage than any sword. I have not wanted anything in years the way I want you tonight.” 

There’s something dark and unguarded in the way he claims it, something that shudders through you and makes your breath catch in a gasped reply, “You have no right—” but the protest dissolves into longing.

You find yourselves stilled, breath mingling, bodies pressed into the shadowed corner beyond the blaze of candelabras, and for a moment, the world seems to hush in reverence. He gazes at you as if painting a memory onto his soul, his eyes drinking you in, his jaw tight with a hunger held barely in check, a silent vow that he will not let this night slip into forgetfulness. The music slows; your heart does not. You have never felt so seen, so transparent, or so wanted.

Then, his voice, low and thick with need, “May I have the honour, my lady?” His thumb strokes the edge of your jaw, trembling ever so slightly. “May I kiss you, here, where all the world might witness how beautiful you are when you let yourself be wild?”

Your answer hovers in the breathless dark, a single, trembling word. “Yes.”

He takes your answer as an invitation and claim, crashing his mouth to yours with a force that knocks all thought from your head. You gasp as his hand fists in your hair, dragging your mouth wider, his tongue plunging deep, hot and searching, tasting you like a secret long denied. You melt against him, shameless, letting your moan spill into his mouth, breath broken and needy, clutching at his lapels to keep upright as your knees threaten to give out.

His other hand slides down the small of your back, cupping your ass, pulling you flush to him, grinding you against the thick, aching line of his cock. You whimper at the sensation, your skirts rucked high, his thigh pressing between yours, your body already pulsing, slick, desperate for more. He groans into your mouth, biting at your lower lip, tongue lapping inside, as though he wants to eat every sound you make. You bite back, greedy, tangling your tongue with his, sucking him deeper, wanting him everywhere.

He lifts you, makes you stand on your tiptoes, letting your breasts crush against his chest. His palm slips beneath your bodice, callused thumb rolling over your nipple, making you cry out, all decorum lost, the garden echoing with the wet, filthy sounds of your kissing. His hips rut up, grinding the hard ridge of him right against your core, heat and want surging through every inch of you. Your hands scrabble at his shoulders, tugging him closer, as if you could crawl inside him, breath coming in gasps, the scent of his skin and the taste of him drowning you in sensation.

He breaks for air, only to drag his lips down your neck, nipping and sucking, teeth leaving bruises, proof that you were here, that you are his tonight. You tangle your fingers in his hair, dragging him back to your mouth, devouring him, all tongue and spit and need, hips grinding shamelessly as his hand slides under your skirts, squeezing your bare thigh, knuckles brushing the heat between your legs. You can’t stop moaning, can’t stop rocking against him, wanting more, needing everything, the entire world narrowed to the wild, desperate, perfect collision of your bodies and mouths under the masquerade’s haunted, watching moon.

You’re breathless, lips bruised and slippery, mouths seeking each other with the greed of parched wanderers at a midnight spring. Each gasp is muffled by the crush of his mouth, every moan a secret lost to the shadows, to the perfumed darkness beneath the willows. His hands are everywhere at once, cradling your jaw as if you are spun sugar, tangling in the riot of your hair, thumb pressed reverently at the hollow of your throat as though he could count the secrets trembling there. The world reels about you, garden lanterns blurring to a dreamy haze; the music inside falls away, leaving only the desperate cadence of your bodies, his thigh fitted between your own, silk bunched high as you arch into the rough stone and the rougher insistence of his touch.

You have never been seen like this, never been worshipped, devoured, adored with the solemn, lawless attention of a man who would gladly be damned for the taste of your skin. His lips find the line of your jaw, the sweet curve behind your ear, his voice rumbling low and ruined against your fevered pulse. “Do not lie to me, masked enchantress,” he whispers, teeth grazing your earlobe with a hunger both dangerous and tender. “Tell me, what is it you truly long for, when every eye is turned away and you are nothing but your own wild heart?”

The confessions break from your lips in gasping, shameless syllables, every one a pearl of scandal and fever. “I wish for you to undress me in body and in soul, here beneath these godless stars. I want to be undone—yes, thoroughly—by your hands, your mouth, your cock, until I am unfit for polite company and unfit to think of any man but you. Let me be yours, if only for this midnight hour. Possess me, claim me, ruin me so utterly that no lesson, no virtue, no fortune could ever restore me to innocence. I crave to be known, worshipped, mastered, taught pleasure by your body alone, until I can remember nothing of duty, nothing of honour, nothing but how it feels to have you within me, making me yours.”

He groans, guttural and possessive, his palm sliding beneath the whalebone and lace, mapping the bare heat of your skin as though branding you to memory. “You speak as if you have never been touched—never been cherished—never been claimed.” His mouth drags over your collarbone, tongue tasting the salt and the trembling defiance there. You clutch at him, nails digging crescents through fine linen, grinding yourself shamelessly against his thigh until you are slick and frantic, body a livewire of desperate want.

You shudder beneath his touch, your voice catching in your throat, half-strangled by shame and delight. “I have not, sir,” you admit, every word trembling and breathless, the admission falling between you like a secret dropped into holy water. “No man has ever dared. No hand has ever sought the true shape of me, never beneath all this silk, never where I ache to be known.”

You arch helplessly into his hand, your hips circling against his thigh, eyes wet with need and newness. “All my life, I have been watched, paraded, guarded, kept… but never touched, never ruined.” Your next words are a gasp, cheeks burning, mouth searching blindly for his, “Please—show me how it feels to be wanted, to be claimed, to be made yours. Make me remember you every time I close my eyes, every night henceforth.” His answering groan is low and reverent, lips and hands devouring you as if to carve his mark into the flesh he has so long been forbidden.

You barely make it through the dark tangle of boxwood and bone-white statuary before his hand claims your wrist, urgency crackling in every step. Lanterns bob beyond the hedges, a flicker of orange fire and laughter haunting the periphery, but here, behind the ancient balustrade veiled in shadow, you are hidden from the world’s eyes, if only just. Your breath fogs in the cool night, every sense raw and exposed, your body trembling with the knowledge that anyone might stumble upon you at any moment, and for once, the risk only heightens your hunger. You feel him press you back, the stone biting cold against your spine, his palm heavy on your hip, mask to mask, your lips brushing, panting, as he murmurs, “So eager for ruination, little one? Shall I be cruel enough to do it here, where any lord or lady of the ton might find you shattered and gasping for me?”

His hand drifts with maddening leisure up the slope of your thigh, parting silk and petticoats, seeking bare heat. You gasp, pulse stuttering, the sound shamefully loud in the hush, only for his palm to cover your mouth. “Hush now,” he whispers, the command warm and velvet at your ear, “mustn’t wake the sleeping monsters, not yet.” His fingers, deft and unyielding, slip between your thighs, and you buck against him, masked eyes wide, clinging to his shoulders as though you might tumble straight off the edge of the world. You whimper beneath his hand, your moans muffled and broken, hips writhing as he circles your slick, aching entrance, a filthy promise in every stroke.

You clutch at him, nails raking over wool and linen, desperate for purchase. The balustrade digs into your back, a cruel reminder of your captivity, but you do not care; you would let him ruin you a hundred times in this spot if only to keep his touch, his filthy words, his breathless laughter as you writhe for him. “So sweet—so hungry for disgrace,” he growls, his mouth grazing your ear, “does it please you, my darling, to know any soul passing by might glimpse you coming apart on my hand? Do you wish to be seen, to be caught in the act of your own undoing?”

You nod, frantic, body arching, your thighs falling open for him as his fingers thrust inside, slow and deliberate, knuckles curling to find that place that makes you choke on your own moans. “My god—sir—” you gasp, voice shaking, the words nearly lost beneath the hum of distant music. His thumb finds your bud and presses ruthlessly, drawing circles until your legs begin to tremble, your head thrown back, hair spilling wild over your shoulders. “Such wantonness, from the diamond of the season,” he murmurs, mock-scandalized, “what would your mother say, to see her perfect girl fucked like this in the moonlight?”

A footstep crunches the gravel just beyond the hedge, and terror slices through pleasure, a servant, a gentleman, perhaps your own sister?—but his grip only tightens, palm at your throat now, holding you in place as his fingers fuck you harder. “Do not make a sound,” he hisses, and you obey, eyes blown wide, teeth sinking into your own glove to keep from crying out as your body spasms around him, the sensation dangerously close to blasphemy. “You’re mine now, little wraith,” he breathes, tongue lapping at the sweat on your temple, “all that you are, ruined for anyone else, marked for me alone.”

He drops to his knees in the dew-wet grass, unbothered by the filth, hands bracing your hips, pulling you to the very edge of the balustrade, skirt hiked indecently high. Your breath stutters as his mouth finds the inside of your thigh, teeth scraping tender flesh, his voice muffled by lust and reverence both. “Let me taste what the ton shall never have,” he mutters, the words a wicked prayer, and his tongue parts you, slick and hot and devastating, licking you open with the devotion of a starving man. You clutch the stone behind you, grinding helplessly against his mouth, shuddering every time his tongue flicks your clit, every time he groans against you, every time you remember where you are and who might be watching.

Your gown is gathered high, petticoats in disarray, and the night wind tickles your exposed skin, but all sensation narrows to the burning point where his mouth claims you. He parts your thighs with reverence and impatience, pressing his nose into the heat of you, breathing in your scent as though it might sustain him. His tongue, deft and hungry, circles your clit in slow, lazy swirls, teasing until your hips buck in protest, then flattening wide and firm to lap at you in long, languid strokes. Every movement is deliberate, he alternates gentle flicks and broad, consuming laps, mapping every fold, every quiver, every gasp that escapes you. His lips close around your bud, sucking softly, then hard, tongue flickering in maddening patterns, driving you higher and higher until your head tips back, mask skewed, fingers tangled in his hair. The garden’s scent, wet earth, night-blooming jasmine, the faint smoke of distant torches, mixes with the heat and musk rising from your skin. His teeth graze you, a threat and a promise, before his tongue plunges inside, fucking you slow, letting you feel every inch of his devotion.

The world contracts to the wet velvet of his mouth and the rough silk of your own breath. He grips your thighs, thumbs pressing bruises into soft flesh, holding you wide open to his gaze, to the night, to your own humiliation and glory. His tongue is relentless, he works you over with practiced precision, tracing circles, drawing patterns, fucking you with the flat and point of his tongue, sometimes slow and savoring, sometimes fast and frantic when you start to tremble. He noses deeper, tongue thrusting in and out, every wet, obscene noise swallowed by the night, your arousal slick on his lips and chin. He devours you, worships you, reduces you to sensation and shuddering muscle, his own hunger written in the way his fingers dig in, urging you to grind harder, give him more, let him taste every drop. When your thighs threaten to close around his head, he growls low, forcing you wider, mouth never leaving you, tongue never ceasing its merciless rhythm until you’re shivering, crying out, the world splintering into stars behind your eyes, and you fall apart for him, open, wild, and entirely his.

Your mask tilts askew, breath fogging behind it, but you do not care. All that matters is the rhythm of his tongue, the relentless pressure of his hands, the way he devours you as though he would crawl inside and wear your pleasure as his own. His teeth graze your inner thigh, his tongue plunging deep, and you sob, the sound half-ecstasy, half-terror. “Do you feel it, my siren?” he murmurs, lips sticky with your arousal, “the darkness wrapping round us, the night itself complicit in your undoing?”

Your climax hits with shocking force, rolling through you in great, choking waves. He licks you through it, never letting up, his hands bruising your hips, holding you open for him, for the night, for the garden itself. You keen into the velvet air, fingers twisting in his hair, your whole body seizing in pleasure, vision sparkling at the edges. It is blasphemous, perfect, and you cannot imagine ever being clean again. He only stands, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and drags you into a searing kiss, shoving his tongue between your lips so you taste yourself on him, the mark of your own ruin.

The world outside the garden blurs to darkness and music, the hush of autumn leaves barely covering the heavy, lewd sounds of sex. His fingers, slick from your wetness, grip the inside of your knee and drag your skirt higher, baring you to the night, to him, to the moonlight that glimmers across the flushed, swollen head of his cock. You see it in a flash, broad, thick, flushed dark, veined and glistening with need. The sight makes you gasp, nerves turning electric and wild, your body clenching tight with anticipation and panic in equal measure.

He has you caged against the balustrade, the old stone cold and damp through your thin silk, the hedges rising around you like the dark ramparts of some forbidden fairyland. The air is thick with the heady scent of night-blooming jasmine, roses trampled underfoot, earth and autumn and candlewax. His palm is braced beside your head, trapping you, and the other cups your jaw, thumb brushing the frantic pulse beneath your skin. “I would have you, if you let me,” he rasps, breath trembling, voice pitched low enough that the words seem to vibrate inside your chest. “Say the word, and I shall give you every sin you have ever dared to dream. Or tell me to stop, and I will vanish into the night and you shall remain untouched, your virtue intact, your secrets safe with me.” His eyes burn behind the mask, fever-bright, searching every flicker of doubt in your gaze, every stutter in your breath, every quiver of your mouth.

You can hardly breathe for the want in you, for the ache of being so seen and so desired. Your fingers tangle in the lapel of his coat, knuckles white, the rest of the world falling away until it is only him, the stranger, the night, and the wild music of your own heart. “Take me,” you whisper, voice thick with need and terror, your words half-lost in the hush of the garden, “take me past every rule and every reason. Take me to the stars. Ruin me for every dawn that follows, but let me remember what it means to feel alive.” You arch into his hold, skirts falling away, mask still pressed to your face, willing, trembling, utterly at his mercy. He groans, a sound torn from the root of him, and bends to claim your lips again, fierce and possessive, his whole body shaking with restraint and reckless longing. All around you, the shadows watch in silence, the world spinning on the axis of your surrender.

He holds you against the cold, moss-veined balustrade, the stone rough beneath your thighs, your ruined skirts pushed up to your waist, naked to the moon and masked shadows. The garden is a fever-dream of scent and sound: wild roses crushed underfoot, distant violins moaning their secret agony, the air trembling with the danger of discovery. His hand claims your hip, thumb pressing bruises deep enough to haunt you for weeks, his other arm banded tight around your waist to keep you from slipping away. He leans in close, forehead pressed to yours, his breath hot and wild as he strokes his cock along your soaked cunt, smearing your slick over swollen folds, head nudging your clit, every movement slow and deliberate, a promise and a threat in one. “You’re trembling for me already, precious,” he rasps, voice thick with awe and hunger, “I can feel you shake all the way down. Say you want this, say you want to be my good girl.” His cock throbs in his hand, leaving you slick and open, the heat of him searing where your thighs part for him, desperate and obscene in the candlelight.

He watches your face, eyes dark behind the mask, searching for the fear and finding only need. You nod, breath shattering, mouth parted as you try to take him in, to believe the stretch of his thick cock teasing your entrance. He eases forward, not yet inside, just grinding the head up and down your slit, letting pre-come smear across your skin, making you burn and writhe and plead. “So eager, aren’t you?” he taunts, the praise sharp and soft all at once. “Such a little debutante, undone by cock before the roses are even in full bloom.” You arch into him, whimpering, cunt pulsing, thighs clenching helplessly. He gathers you up in his arms, one hand splayed wide over your spine, the other steadying your hip as he finally, finally pushes inside. The tip splits you open, thick and slow, the stretch a white-hot agony that makes you gasp, makes your eyes flutter and roll back. “Easy now,” he murmurs, thumb finding your clit, rubbing slow circles as your cunt squeezes him, fighting and yielding all at once, “let me in, darling, let me ruin you like you asked.”

He rocks deeper, inch by inch, the intrusion sharp and unyielding at first, your body fluttering around the impossible thickness, every muscle clenching and trembling. You gasp, nails digging crescent moons into his shoulders, the pain making you sob, the pleasure rolling in after like a storm tide. “Please—” you choke, “oh, please, I can’t—” but he hushes you with a filthy, claiming kiss, tongue forcing your mouth open, swallowing every whimper and gasp. 

“That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it,” he coaxes, voice brutal and beautiful, “open up for me, take every inch. You’re mine now. Say it.” 

You sob, words breaking apart as your cunt stretches, taking more and more of him, the pressure so much it feels like you’ll split apart. “I’m yours,” you pant, “I want it, I want all of you—please, more, please—” and he groans, hips snapping forward, burying himself another inch, the heat of his cock branding you inside and out.

Every inch is a beautiful agony, your body stretched to its very limits, trembling between wanting to escape and wanting to disappear into him, dissolve, be swallowed whole. Your nails carve half-moons into his skin, your skirt bunched uselessly around your waist, your thighs shaking with the effort of taking him. You gasp, voice raw and torn, “You’re—oh, god, you’re too much—” and your words blur into a needy, helpless laugh, wet with tears. 

He hushes you, mouth soft and reverent at your ear, hands gentle but unyielding as he pushes in, coaxing you open. “Shhh, let me, darling. I know you feel it. I know you want it—all of me. You’re made to hold me, just like this.” He rocks deeper, the head of his cock parting you, a slow relentless stretch that makes your whole body flutter and ache and cling.

Every thick inch of his cock is exquisite torment, an alchemy of ache and ecstasy as your bodies strive to close every fraction of distance that has ever existed between two souls. His cock breaches you slow as moonrise, widening you until there is no space left for air, for thought, only the white-hot ribbon of him, threading you together. You clutch his shoulders like a drowning swimmer clings to the mast, nails scoring crescents that bleed heat into his skin, each gasp a mingled prayer and profanity. “Too much—yet not enough,” you breathe, the words breaking on a laugh that trembles with tears, and he hushes you with reverence. 

His lips drift over your temple, your cheek, your parted mouth, gathering every ragged exhale as though he means to return it sweeter. “You were fashioned to sheath me,” he murmurs, voice rough silk, “to cradle every inch, to feel me pulse beneath your heart.” He rocks deeper, easing, coaxing, and the burn unfurls into molten surrender, your walls fluttering, then yielding, until you feel him seated so impossibly deep it seems your ribs must widen to house him. The world tilts; you swear you can taste him in your lungs, feel him thud against the quick of your pulse, as though your very blood has begun to carry him.

Tears shine in your lashes as you obey, feeling the steady, living heat of him pulsing under your skin, as if he has taken up residence in the very cradle of your being. Your thighs quiver around his hips, your spine arches, and for a heartbeat the night vanishes: there is only the steady drum of two bodies fused, his lips roaming in hushed worship, your moans melting into his mouth. In that pocket of moonlit stillness, you’re no longer debutante and stranger, you’re a single, trembling creature, shaped by desire, sustained by the dizzy miracle of holding and being held, of enclosing and being enclosed, until you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.

You cling to him, body arching, trying to take more, feeling the burn and the pleasure, the blinding brightness of being filled. It’s like drowning and surfacing at once; you press your forehead to his, eyes squeezed shut, your mouth finding his cheek, his jaw, his neck, anywhere you can reach. “Don’t stop, please—please, I want it all, I want you,” you whisper, almost frantic, feeling every trembling inch as he sinks deeper, his cock impossibly thick, forcing you wider. 

You whimper, every nerve ending alive, your cunt spasming around him, half begging, half desperate. “That’s it, just like that, take me,” he croons, voice thick and dark, “let me in, let me make you mine.” His hands cup your face, his breath tangled with yours, and you feel yourself shatter, opening for him, letting him in until you swear you can feel him in your throat, your whole body shaped around the length of him.

He pauses, his body pressed flush to yours, chests rising and falling together, his arms caging you, his cock pulsing deep inside your slick heat. His lips move over every inch of your face, your neck, your shoulder, pressing kisses as if mapping you to memory. “Perfect. You’re perfect like this,” he whispers, every word a blessing, a curse, a vow. He slides your trembling hand down, guiding your palm over your lower belly, holding you there, making you feel how far he’s reached. “Feel that, love? All the way in. That’s where I belong. That’s where you belong. Right here.” Your tears slip free, your moans caught between his kisses and your own open-mouthed gasps, the world narrowing to the place where you join, where your bodies fuse and neither of you will ever be the same.

He drives into you with fast, rolling thrusts that grind the thick length of him against your deepest ache, each rapid motion erasing space in a fevered oath written in flesh.  His hips rock in an unhurried cadence, cock dragging out until only the swollen head clings to your entrance, then surging back in with a heavy, seated push that knocks a gasp from your lungs straight into his open mouth. Your masks collide, lacquer scraping lacquer, the irony sharp: two hidden faces, yet nowhere on earth could two bodies be more bared, more impossibly twined. Breath mingles through silk and velvet as he sets a sinful rhythm, withdraw, plunge, grind, your thighs cinched tight around his waist, his groan pitched low in your throat, your moan swallowed on his tongue. Each stroke smears heat and wetness, each grind sends a shiver through the stone beneath you, until the garden seems to sway to the tempo of two masqueraders laid as naked as truth beneath their ornate disguise.

He doesn’t stop moving, even as you struggle to breathe, as your body adjusts to the thickness, the burn melting slowly into an aching, pulsing fullness. “That’s my good girl,” he growls, teeth grazing the shell of your ear, “you take me so well, so fucking tight—no one else will ever fuck you like this.” His words are dark honey, thick and filthy, pouring into your veins, and you writhe for him, wanton and greedy, chasing every inch. He pins your wrists above your head, holding you helpless, grinding in slow, punishing circles, the head of his cock catching on every tender spot inside you. “You want to be ruined?” he breathes, “then take it—take everything I give you.” He presses harder, hips rolling, the friction building until you’re gasping, sobbing his name, grinding shamelessly down onto him, slick running in rivers down your thighs.

His cock drags against your walls, impossibly deep, filling you to the hilt as you whimper and beg and arch against the balustrade. The garden is spinning around you, the stone digging into your back, the music inside distant and wild. You can feel every vein, every pulse, every twitch of him inside you, the thick stretch making you ache and flutter. He kisses you again, biting your lip, tasting your cry as you writhe in his hold, every nerve ending alive with want. “That’s it, darling, give it to me,” he urges, “let me see you fall apart.” You do, trembling, head falling back, hips rocking as he finally bottoms out, cock fully sheathed inside you, thick and hard and unyielding. You shudder, cunt gripping him, tears burning behind your eyes as he holds you open, body stretched and ruined just for him.

He leans in, mouth hot at your throat, biting bruises over your pulse, his hands everywhere, palming your breasts, pinching your nipples, marking you with teeth and tongue. “You’re mine now,” he whispers, so low it feels like a curse, “mine to fuck, mine to keep, mine to ruin. Say it, say you’re mine.” 

You sob, desperate, gasping, “Yours—yours, only yours, please—” and he thrusts harder, pace picking up, every movement raw and relentless. He fucks you slow and deep, every inch a claiming, every drag a new promise written into your body, your cunt slick and swollen, stretched around his cock as if you were made for this, made for him.

Your bodies slam together, the balustrade rattling beneath your hips, the night alive with the wet, obscene sounds of fucking. You clutch at him, dragging him closer, nails raking his back, masks pressed together so you can taste every sound, every gasp, every filthy word he whispers into your mouth. “I want to see you fall apart for me, want to watch you break on my cock,” he murmurs, hips snapping, the rhythm punishing and perfect. You cry out, half-choked, every thrust punching the air from your lungs, your cunt spasming around him, milking him deeper with every desperate, frantic clench.

You urge him on, faster, harder, desperate now for the violence and the heat, your bodies slamming together in the velvet-dark of the garden, every collision of skin and bone and silk a thunderclap against the quiet decorum of the masquerade. His cock splits you open, thick and unforgiving, and you arch into him with abandon, heels digging mercilessly into the flex of his back. Your name is a secret whimper lost against his jaw, your mask shifting askew as he buries his face in your throat, breathing you in like he’ll starve if he ever lets go. His hands are everywhere, one fisted in the ruin of your skirts, the other braced against the stone, holding you steady for every bruising thrust and his mouth never leaves you for long, drinking down every sob and gasp and broken plea. You feel yourself unraveling, dizzy and burning, every nerve lit and raw, every moan echoing off marble and leaves and night air.

He tells you, between thrusts, just how tight you are, how impossibly good you feel, his voice hoarse and wicked, spitting filth and reverence into your ear. “No one will ever touch you like this. No one will ever taste you, hear you fall apart, see you tremble just for me.” Each stroke is possessive, raw, a kind of claiming that brands you to him with every slick, hungry snap of his hips. The pleasure crests again and again, tidal and wild, leaving you sobbing, begging, clutching at his coat, at his hair, desperate for more even as your body shatters and reforms around him. He fucks you through it, through your shaking, through your cries, his hands soothing and relentless, his mouth never far from yours, until the only world that exists is the one you make together in the shadows, masked, breathless, impossibly close.

He doesn’t let you go, he spins you, quick and sure, pressing your chest to the cold stone balustrade, your gown bunched up around your waist, the night air biting your skin where he’s left you bare. He sinks back into you in one fluid, hungry motion, filling you up so deep you can barely breathe, every inch a perfect, brutal stretch. His hands grip your hips, steadying you as he drives in, the angle sharp and punishing, cock dragging over every oversensitized nerve, your moans spilling out, half-muffled against your arm as you bite down to keep from crying out too loud. He leans forward, his chest flush against your back, breath hot in your ear, and he growls, “You feel that, darling? You feel me inside you? No one’s ever going to fuck you like this, no one’s ever going to ruin you the way I do. You’re mine now, every gasp, every shudder, every drop.”

The world narrows to this rhythm, the relentless, merciless thrusts, your body breaking and remaking itself around him, slick and shaking, your mask slipping sideways as you choke out his name. “Please—please, I need—” you sob, voice ragged and lost, and he answers with a filthy promise, fucking you harder, deeper, until you’re crying, begging, every muscle strung tight and wild. 

“Come for me, good girl,” he urges, low and wicked, “let me feel you, let me have it.” You do—your climax rips through you, sudden and catastrophic, your cunt fluttering and gripping him, drawing him deeper as you fall apart, body shaking, vision gone white at the edges.

He doesn’t stop, his rhythm stutters and then breaks as he chases you over the edge, a rough groan pressed into your neck as his hands tighten on your hips, holding you exactly where he wants you. “Take it,” he grits out, cock swelling and throbbing as he pours himself into you, pulse after pulse of heat, filling you so full it drips down your thighs. He stays buried to the hilt, chest heaving, hands roaming over your body as you both come down, ruined and trembling, still tangled together in the shadows, the garden spinning around you. You’re left gasping, held close, the echo of his voice and the thick warmth inside you the only proof that tonight was real, a secret, indelible, burning brand that no mask or morning will ever take away.

He gathers you up in strong arms, heedless of propriety, carrying you through the winding garden paths and into the hushed corridors of the house, the air cooling as you pass from moonlight to flickering candle glow. The garden spins past in a blur of jasmine perfume and lantern glow, moonlight strobing across your skin like silver brushstrokes. With each powerful stride the temperature shifts, cool night giving way to the warm hush of candlelit corridors, the ancestral walls pulsing with secrets. His stride is sure, almost arrogant, as if he knows every inch of this ancestral estate, every shortcut and shadowed alcove. Something flickers uneasily in your chest, why, if he is so familiar with these halls, have you never seen him at any gathering, never heard his name whispered among the eligible sons of the ton? How can he navigate this labyrinth so unnerringly? The question barely has time to form before he’s shouldered open a hidden door and dropped you, boneless and dizzy, onto the cool silk of a bed, his mouth descending to reclaim yours, all urgency and heat. He presses you down, hands greedy, lips trailing fire along your neck, your collarbone, as he rids you both of the last constraints of costume, until nothing but skin and longing remains.

Candle flames jitter in the draught, painting your bare limbs in gold. When he presses you back into the sheets, his palm slides from throat to breastbone in a single, reverent stroke, as though charting constellations across your skin. You arch, body turned comet, while his lips blaze a path over your collarbone, your sternum, lower still, until he is half worshipper, half storm, breath hot as he murmurs praises against the tender underside of your breast. He presses you into the silk-dressed mattress as though lowering an offering to the firmament, and then follows, mouth capturing yours in a ravenous kiss that tastes of autumn air and forbidden wine.

He settles into the pillows and guides you astride him, thighs spread wide to cradle the thick, glistening length of his cock. He sinks back against the pillows, dark eyes smoldering, cock glistening and proud, and draws you into his lap, guiding your thighs wide around his hips. The sensation is heady, bare flesh against flesh, the raw, vulnerable slickness where he fills you again, slow and hungry, every inch dragging through swollen, spent heat. You gasp, hands braced against his chest, eyes flying open as the burn returns, sharper, sweeter than before. “Ride me, darling,” he commands, voice low and rough, hands finding your waist, guiding your rhythm as you rock and bounce, moaning, gasping, the sound of skin on skin echoing in the velvet hush of the hidden room. He’s relentless, mouth latching to your breasts, sucking and biting until you arch and shudder, his tongue flicking over your nipple while he thrusts up into you, possessive, worshipful. You clutch at him, hair spilling wild, mask askew, body trembling as pleasure builds, liquid and unrestrained.

The first glide is slow, as if the heavens themselves pause to watch, your slick heat enveloping him inch by deliberate inch until the stretch sings with pleasure-pain, a bright line of fire drawn between stars. You brace against his chest, fingertips splayed over the thrum of his heart, and begin to rise and fall, a celestial pendulum. Each descent drags a guttural moan from his throat; each ascent leaves you trembling, drunk on the friction, on the incandescent fullness that anchors you to him.

The room fills with music of your own making—skin meeting skin, bedsheets rustling like distant wings, your breath a high, quavering aria that echoes beneath the vaulted ceiling. He meets your rhythm with upward thrusts, hands spanning your waist, steering you with possessive tenderness. His mouth finds your nipple, sucking hard, teeth grazing until sparks burst behind your eyes; you cry out, hair tumbling wild, mask slipping askew so starlight slants across your flushed face. Pleasure coils luminous and furious at your spine, threatening to break you open like a meteor shower.

Faster now—hips snapping, bodies slick, your climax building in shimmering waves. He growls proclamations against your sternum, vows that no other man will ever feel you seize around them like this, or taste the constellations that burst across your skin. You believe him; the night believes him. You surge, sobbing, every muscle drawn taut, and the world narrows to the place where you join, two anonymous souls, masked yet unbearably revealed, until the universe tilts and spills you into light.

Your release comes in a blinding rush, body arching, trembling, the heat between your thighs cresting into helpless, gasping waves. You hear a ragged moan, his, or yours, you cannot say and then he’s surging up into you, hands tangled ruthlessly in your hair, forcing your gaze to his as you shatter around him. He laughs, low and scandalous, voice thick with triumph and hunger, “Look at you—drenched, debauched, riding my cock like you were born for it. Is this what you dream of in your gilded cage? Is this what the Marquess’s darling daughter truly craves, being filled, owned, made a mess of by a man you should never have touched?”

The words are so brazen, so obscene, that you freeze, shame and raw pleasure warring in your blood. Instinct takes over, chin lifting, spine snapping taut, you reach for the brittle dignity drilled into you since childhood, every lesson of propriety crowding your tongue. “You presume far too much, sir,” you manage, though your breath hitches, mask slipping, cheeks aflame. “No lady of standing—”

He cuts you off with a brutal thrust, cock twitching deep as he spills inside you, groaning like a curse pressed to your throat. “You may wear your manners like a shield, darling,” he pants, still moving, still greedy for every aftershock, “but your body knows the truth. You are ruinous. You are wild. And no rule in all the ton will ever make you forget this.” You cling to him, stunned and shattered, the weight of what you’ve done settling with every pulse of his seed inside you, every lingering stroke of his hands over your ruined composure.

You’re riding him still, thighs quaking, the filth and heat of your joining echoing in the hidden hush, your cunt gripping and milking him for every last drop, his release leaking out around the thick root of his cock, making you both slick and wild and reckless. He sits up into you, every muscle taut, eyes gone feral behind the obsidian mask, and you realise you’ve never known a night so bare, so brazen, so alive. With one sudden, desperate motion, he seizes your mask, fingers plunging into your hair, and tears it from your face, hungry to see you unfiltered, gasping, ruined, dazzling in the low candlelight. The world stalls. Moonlight floods your newly bared features, and you feel time itself bow beneath the hush, as though every star beyond the rafters is pausing to behold you.

You see the shock and awe crack through his careful composure, his hands trembling as he frames your cheeks, his thumbs worshipping every trembling line of your lips, your cheekbones, your jaw. “Sweet heaven—look at you,” he groans, reverence and hunger twined into one. “No painter in the courts of Europe ever dreamed a vision so radiant. No sculptor ever caught such wild grace.” His voice falters, rough and almost worshipful, and his eyes, unmasked, undimmed, devour you as if he could memorize you into eternity, as if this moment is holy, forbidden, a spell that will ruin him for all others. The praise vibrates through your bones; his cock throbs inside you, still pulsing with the last aftershocks of release, slicking your thighs with his spend as you grind down, hungry for every breath.

You have never been studied so wholly—his eyes devour the curve of your brows, the quiver at your throat, the high flush blooming over your breasts. He traces each detail with adoring fingertips, as though fearful you might vanish if left unmapped.  You feel stripped raw, heart stuttering, and yet for the first time you feel beautiful, truly seen, not as a daughter of legacy, not as a prize to be won, but as a living, wanting woman, flesh and fire and heartbeat. His hands cannot keep still, mapping every inch of your face and throat and shoulder, tracing the sweat that beads at your temple, the wild curls clinging to your neck, the arch of your collarbone. “You are everything,” he breathes, a confession and a vow, “everything I have ever ached for. I could die in this moment and call it a life fulfilled.”

“You eclipse the very night,” he murmurs, kissing a path along your jaw while his palms roam your hips, urging you to ride harder, faster, so your bodies slap together in desperate music. “Let them paint kingdoms and cathedrals, nothing will live in my mind but this vision, this perfect, ruined goddess astride me.” The words tumble you into a whirl of lightheaded bliss. Every roll of your hips sends sparks ricocheting up your spine, your breasts brushing his mouth, his tongue circling a nipple before he sucks it deep, drawing a ragged cry. You clench around him, slick pulse fluttering in helpless rhythm to his praise, and he groans, thrusting up to meet your descent, driving himself deeper, anchoring an arm around your waist so not a gasp slips past unclaimed. “Mine,” he breathes between suckling kisses, the word a benediction and a brand. “Mine, and more beautiful unmasked than sin itself.”

You shake with wonder, with shame, with hunger, feeling yourself dissolve into his touch, into the darkness and the light. For all the frenzy and filth of the act, the ache of his cock still deep inside you, the true devastation is here: naked, unmasked, wanting, you’re no longer a myth or a rumour or a shadow in silk. You are real, and in his gaze, ravished, worshipped, ruined, you find a kind of glory you never dreamed possible.

Something unspools inside you, shame, fear, centuries of etiquette and in their place rises a wild, soaring rapture. You touch his face, fingertips chasing the planes of his cheek, the strong line of his jaw, memorising him with equal hunger, though his mask remains. You ache to know every secret, yet when you reach to free him of his disguise, he catches your wrist with teasing steel. “Not yet,” he purrs, a dark promise flickering in his eyes. “Indulge me this mystery a moment longer, my dazzling ruin. Dawn will peel us bare soon enough.” The tension hangs, a bright, electric thread between revelation and restraint, while the rhythm of your bodies continues, urgent as starlight falling through stained glass, sealing the night’s scandal into the hush of candle-smoke and breath.

You draw him down for a final, trembling kiss, no hunger now, only reverence, your lips brushing his with the hush of a vow. Candle-glow gilds your flushed cheeks and the tender swell of your mouth, still swollen from his worship; moonlight catches the fine sheen of perspiration at your hairline, jewels of salt against the soft pulse of your throat. He grazes a knuckle over the slope of your jaw, tracing the path of a fallen curl, lingering at the faint tremor of your lashes where tears have dried to silver. He drinks in every detail, the dusk-rose heat beneath your skin, the tiny beauty mark near your temple, the way your lower lip quivers when his thumb ghosts across it, memorising you with the desperation of a man engraving a saint onto his own bones. When he finally finds his breath, the practiced lilt of courtly English fractures, dropping into a huskier, rough-edged register. “Sweet heaven, you’re the death of me, love”—so raw and stunned it betrays the polished mask he has worn all night, though the words and tone blur past your ears, lost to the haze of his lingering thrusts and the thunder of your own heartbeat.

“Promise me,” you breathe, fingers curling at the ribbon ties of his disguise, “swear you will not vanish with the dawn, that you will seek me, whatever the cost. That you will seek me no matter what mask I wear, no matter the walls between us.”

He stills your hand, tightening his grip as though the silk of your skin is already slipping from his grasp. “I give you my word,” he replies, each syllable steeped in velvet gravity, “that the sun itself shall tire before I surrender the memory of you. Upon my very soul, I shall find you, even if the world would keep us apart. No masquerade, no father’s fortune, no palace wall will keep you from me—not when you are the only air I know how to breathe.”

Yet even as he speaks, shadows gather at the open doorway, as if summoned by the secret on his tongue. He presses one last kiss to the corner of your mouth, a brand as soft as sorrow, then pulls away, the mask cutting a sweep of midnight across those unknowable eyes. You drift into a languid, dream-heavy sleep with his body still joined to yours, your leg thrown over his hip, his cock resting warm and thick inside the tender pulse he has claimed. His heartbeat is a gentle drum beneath your ear, the hush of his breath tangling with yours as candle-flames gutter low. Wrapped in his coat, lulled by the faint scent of cedar and musk, you surrender to a darkness that feels almost like safety, his arm curved possessively around your waist, fingers splayed over the soft rise of your belly as though to keep every stolen memory from slipping away.

Hours later, chill dawn light slants across the chamber and you start awake, reaching instinctively for heat that is no longer there. The sheets are cool, the space beside you emptier than a lie, your body still aching and slick where he filled you. On the pillow rests the only proof the night was real: his mask of matte obsidian, its ribbon frayed, a single silver star dangling loose at the temple. You cradle it in trembling hands, breath catching on the faint imprint of his warmth, and feel the sharp ache of a promise already unraveling, its remnants no more substantial than candle smoke at first light.

𝐒𝐈𝐗 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑

You have not seen the masked man since the night the world shifted, since the masquerade drenched in rain and music and secrecy, when desire swept you so far from shore you fear you may never truly return. His mask, obsidian velvet, lined with silver, the eyeholes still haunted by your own reflection, remains hidden in the deepest drawer of your vanity, wrapped in a scrap of midnight silk. It is a relic now, talisman and curse, the only evidence of a fevered, impossible night you have never dared to recount aloud. Each morning, you wake to its weight, remembering the shape of his mouth pressed to yours, the wild ache of being truly seen, truly ruined. Sometimes you press the mask to your lips, as if by some miracle the velvet will taste of him, and will call him back.

No one suspects the truth of what happened behind the roses and the willow trees, least of all your mother, who grows more insistent by the day. She prowls the drawing rooms and corridors, her gaze sharp as frost, a ledger of potential husbands etched into every sigh and glance. “You must accept, Y/N,” she urges, voice low and urgent as she adjusts your sleeve or critiques your hair, “before your bloom fades, before the world forgets your beauty and your worth.” The men who gather in your father’s study are growing more desperate, their ambition bared and cruel beneath layers of charm. They come bearing flowers and fortunes and hungry eyes, and you deny them all, heart locked in a memory no one else can touch.

Rumors swirl through the ton like autumn leaves, crisp and malicious. “She’s holding out for a ghost,” the ladies whisper behind gloved hands, eyes narrowed as you glide past. “What ruinous thing happened on All Hallows’ Eve?” The men are less kind, speculating in sharp, lewd tones, your virtue, your worth, the secret that keeps you aloof. You hear it all, and each word tightens the loneliness around your ribs. No one guesses the truth: that your body has been awakened, not destroyed, that you are ruined only in the sense that you will never again settle for the small, cold world you once called home.

The loss is a silent shroud that shapes you, hidden from the world’s hungry gaze. Each morning is a dim echo, every evening a waiting room for what will never return. Your mother’s lectures, the endless parade of suitors, the gilded emptiness of your life, they all fade in the shadow of that single night. Some days you wonder if you dreamed him: the masked man, the wild garden, the heat of his body, the way he promised, I will find you, no matter the mask, no matter the walls. But when you slip the mask from its hiding place and press it to your chest, the ache is sharp and real. You know you have not dreamed. You know you’re not the same. Every day since, you have measured against that memory: that you were wanted, that you belonged, even if only for a single, ruined, glorious night.

Even now, months later, the ache that lives beneath your ribs is two-edged, part fury, part longing, a storm that has never quite stilled. Sometimes you seethe, blaming him for the way he vanished, for the vow he pressed to your lips and then broke before the dawn, for making you feel—if only for an hour—like someone worth risking everything for. Yet just as often you find yourself gentled by longing, making excuses in the quiet hush before sleep: perhaps fate intervened, perhaps duty or disaster or the iron lattice of class wrenched him away before he could keep his promise. You are old enough to know how cruel life can be, how rarely it bows to the fever of a single night. Still, no wisdom or resignation can temper your craving for him, the way your body remembers his hands, the way your soul aches to believe that somewhere, he remembers you too.

Night swallows the estate in velvet hush, rain threading down the glass like silver grief. You sit before your vanity, candle guttering low, shadows flickering across your bare shoulders. The mask waits in your lap, cold, heavy, decadent, its black filigree glinting in the unsteady light. You let your fingers explore the lines he touched, the sharp curve against your cheekbone, the subtle warmth of worn silk where his hand once pressed it into your hair. Sometimes you bring it to your mouth, lips parted, breathing him in, as if the memory of his scent might seep through and save you from this longing.

You close your eyes, letting the night conjure what the day would have you forget. “Look at you—so wanton, so exquisite. You were made to be fucked like this, weren’t you?” The words play in your mind, burned behind your eyelids as surely as the imprint of his hands on your skin. Your breath stutters; your thighs shift, seeking friction. “Promise me you’ll find me when this night is over. Even if you don’t know my name. Even if I’m just a memory.” Your hand slips beneath the hem of your nightgown, fingers trembling, hips arching toward the cool glass of the vanity mirror. In the wavering candlelight, you see yourself: flushed, hollow-eyed, undone, the mask pressed to your cheek like a lover’s palm.

You remember the heat of his mouth, the rasp of his voice tangled in your hair. “No one’s ever touched you like this before, have they?”—the ferocity with which he claimed you, the reverence in every curse and praise. Your body remembers too, slick and throbbing, starved for the wildness he showed you that night in the garden. You grind your palm between your legs, biting your lip to muffle any sound. Rain drums harder against the window, thunder echoing the ache deep in your belly. You gasp, clutching the mask tighter, feeling his phantom hands pinning you down, his cock splitting you open, the ragged growl in your ear—“I swear it. No matter what mask you wear, no matter how high your father’s walls, I’ll find you, little siren. I’ll always come for you.”

It’s only your own hand, your own pulse, but the mask makes you believe. The finish comes sudden and shuddering, your body curling tight around a memory you can’t lay to rest. Your mouth shapes his name, lost to the dark, a prayer and a curse all at once. When your breath finally slows, you press the mask to your chest, blinking back tears, a vow etched into your bones: you will not let him become a ghost. Not yet. You hide the mask in your drawer, but you can’t hide the want, alive and dangerous and waiting, just beneath your skin.

The breakfast room is all chilly grandeur and order, high-ceilinged, hung with heavy oil portraits of stern ancestors whose gazes seem to weigh every bite. Sunlight struggles through the tall mullioned windows, smudging gold across a table set for twelve, though only half the places are occupied. The china is Wedgwood, rimmed with blue, and the cutlery polished so finely that it gleams even in the gray morning light. Everywhere, there is proof of legacy: the family crest stitched into linen napkins, a row of silver toast racks, a squat teapot breathing steam onto a tray of apricot jam, clotted cream, honey in a glass pot sticky at the rim. Footmen in muted livery glide soundlessly, replenishing the breadbasket, plaited loaves, sugared buns, dark rye, while the scent of poached eggs, roasted tomatoes, and softly curling ham suffuses the air. The table itself is a battlefield of etiquette, the quiet clatter of knives and the susurrus of murmured conversation polished to a mirror shine by centuries of expectation.

Beneath all this civility, though, is a restlessness, your rebellion not loud but woven in the details. You’re late, hair tumbled into a knot that’s come half undone, a single ribbon dangling at your nape. Your dress is wrinkled at the hip, a trace of ink stains one wrist from the book you read by candlelight, and your eyes are rimmed red from a sleepless night you dare not explain. Even the way you spear a strawberry, recklessly, without waiting for tea to be poured, marks you as out of step, as though you’re determined to taste something forbidden before the day can close its jaws around you. The footman who pours your tea glances at you, unsure, as though he can sense the current of mutiny that simmers beneath your quiet.

Your mother sits at the far end of the table, every inch of her posture a lesson in discipline, fingers folded just so on her napkin. Her eyes sweep over you, critical and coldly exacting. “You seem tired, Y/N. You’d do well to rest, Lord Heeseung will call this afternoon.” The words hang in the air, both warning and command. Around you, the other guests and siblings shrink a little, measuring their own silences. Every word your mother utters is weighted with expectation: perfect posture, perfect hair, perfect smiles for the servants. “You were always so obedient as a child. What has gotten into you lately? I do hope you’re not reading those dreadful novels again.”

Your smile is faint, a flicker of rebellion brightening your gaze as you glance up from your plate. “Perhaps I am, Mama. It’s a comfort, to read stories about women who choose their own destinies.” Her lips pinch tighter, the air in the room contracting, but beneath the guilty heat in your chest, you feel a secret surge of pride, quiet, but stubborn, the first real taste of freedom in weeks.

Your fork scrapes against porcelain, the sound sharp in the uneasy hush. Your mother watches you with an air of disappointment that cuts deeper than any rebuke, fingers drumming a silent tattoo on the linen. “I do wonder, Y/N, if you have any notion of the world’s reality outside these walls,” she says, her voice glinting with disdain. “You seem determined to test the limits of my patience and my reputation. Every suitor is turned away, every opportunity squandered. You sit at this table as if the world owes you its indulgence. I have never seen a child so spoiled by her own good fortune.”

You stiffen, temper flaring as you lay your cutlery aside. “Spoiled?” The word lands like a slap. “For wanting to choose my own life, instead of being handed off to the highest bidder? For wanting—” you falter, fighting the urge to shout, “—just a moment to breathe, Mama, without being told who I am and who I must become?”

A hush falls, all eyes darting between you and your mother as though you have set a match to the powder keg beneath the table. Your mother’s nostrils flare, mouth drawn tight. “Mind your tongue, Y/N. If you persist in this selfishness, you will ruin us all. There are girls in this county who would sell their souls to sit where you do now. And you—ungrateful, unbiddable—”

“Mama—” A small voice interjects, wavering but clear. Your little sister sits hunched at the edge of her seat, hands folded primly but knuckles white, braids askew over her shoulders. “Y/N’s not ungrateful.” Her words are awkward, brave in a way only an eleven-year-old can be, eyes darting between you and your mother, willing herself not to shrink. “She just wants to be happy. You always tell us to speak our hearts, and she— she’s just doing what you taught us.”

The room tightens, a breath held. Your mother’s glare sweeps over your sister, ready to quash rebellion, but your little sister only meets her gaze, chin tilting higher. For a moment, the tension softens, and you reach for her hand under the table, a silent thank you, a promise that you will keep fighting, if not for yourself, then for the girl beside you who is already learning how to be brave.

Every day, you grow a little bolder, your rebellion no longer hidden in sighs and silence. At dinner, you let your hair tumble loose down your back, a subtle defiance, soft waves falling where your mother’s pins would have tamed them. You ignore Lord Heeseung’s rehearsed compliments, replying in half-sentences, watching the discomfort flicker in his carefully schooled face. Later, when the house is busy with callers and clattering trays, you slip away to the gardens, your little sister in tow, scaling the lower branches of the old oak tree, laughing breathless as leaves tangle in your skirts. Mud streaks your petticoat, grass stains your palms, and the wind in your hair feels like a memory of the wild, unscripted night that will not let you go.

Your mother’s voice carries from the terrace, sharp and affronted. “Y/N! A lady does not sully herself with dirt. What would the neighbors think?”—but the words roll off your shoulders like rain, leaving behind only the faintest chill. Each time you break a rule, each time you let laughter ring free or let your fingers linger over a page of forbidden novels by the lake, you feel a step closer to the self you almost became in the arms of the masked man.

At dusk, with the sky bruised and gold, you sit before your vanity and stare at your reflection, the mask pressed to your cheek. The woman gazing back is not the flawless diamond your mother parades before the ton; her eyes are bright, cheeks flushed, lips parted in secret, haunted longing. You trace the mask’s curves and whisper to your reflection—soft but certain. “I am more than a diamond, more than a title, more than my mother’s legacy.” You let your fingertips drift to your own throat, remembering the words he left burned into your skin, the imprint of his hands and the promise of more. The masked man has marked you, not just in body, but in the marrow of your defiance. Every small rebellion is a silent vow that you will never again surrender all that you are, not for gold, nor title, nor anyone’s approval.

Each night, the world slips into silence and you return to your secret ritual, the mask hidden beneath your pillow, pulled out as the house sleeps and the moon slips cold through the curtains. You turn it over in your hands, tracing every curve, every worn edge, pressing the velvet lining to your lips as if by some magic his promise might stir from within. Sometimes you close your eyes and imagine the brush of his breath at your ear, the possessive press of his hands at your hips, the midnight garden thrumming with music and forbidden want. Sometimes you gasp his words back into the night, I shall find you, even if the world would keep us apart—and your body aches with the memory, an ache that blazes from your throat to your thighs.

You let yourself moan softly into the dark, the mask pressed to your mouth, as if his spirit could answer in kind, as if longing alone might summon him from the shadows. The mask becomes a sacred relic, the only proof that you were ever truly alive, truly wanted. And when the tremors pass, and the ache gives way to hush, you swear anew: you will not let him become only a ghost. You will find a way to be that woman again, the one who chose desire over duty, who shattered every rule just to feel the night thrum beneath her skin. Even if it means burning your own world to cinders, you promise yourself, you will not let her vanish.

The afternoon passes in a gentler hush than usual, the sense of surveillance a little faded as you and Minji retreat to the sun-warmed drawing room, embroidery hoops in hand, needlework scattered across your laps. She has been your closest friend since girlhood, patient, gentle, her laughter easy, her kindness legendary among the servants, her wisdom so quietly offered that even your mother grudgingly approves. She is everything you’re not, content with the world as it is, yet always there to catch you when you rebel against it. The fire crackles at your feet, the garden beyond the window painted gold by waning sun, and for the first time in days you almost feel yourself again.

She glances at you, brow quirked, as your needle falters for the third time. “You keep refusing perfectly good men, Y/N. Is your heart truly elsewhere?” Her voice is soft, but there’s a sharper glint beneath, the knowingness of someone who’s watched you unravel for months.

You hesitate, thread twisting in your restless fingers, then the ache becomes too much to bear alone. “I don’t want to live for someone else’s dream,” you murmur, voice low. “I keep thinking of… someone I met once. Someone who made me feel real. Not just admired, not just… wanted for what I could offer a man’s fortune. He saw me. Or at least, I think he did. I can’t stop thinking of that night, Minji. I have something to tell you, my life changed on ‘All Hallow’s Eve.’ I met a stranger in a mask, and I was everything I’m never allowed to be. Alive. Daring. Desired. We…” Your voice dips to a tremulous hush, cheeks burning as you confess the truth you’ve never told another soul. “He took me apart with his hands and mouth, with his words, made me feel things I never dreamed possible, made me want things I was always told to fear. It was only one night, just a handful of stolen hours but I feel as though I lost myself and found myself at once. Since then, I wake up aching for him, for the way I felt in his arms. I’ve touched myself with his mask pressed to my lips, chasing the memory of him just to feel alive. I know it’s mad, but I still want him. I still want the impossible but he’s vanished without leaving a single trace, apart from the mask he wore but what is one meant to do with a relic that conceals more than it reveals, when every longing in my soul is bent toward discovery, not disguise? I possess nothing of him but the mask he wore—and yet, it is both torment and talisman, for it hides the very face I ache to find.”

Minji listens with gentle gravity, needle pausing mid-stitch, her gaze searching your face for every trembling secret. She lets out a sigh, a tease caught somewhere between envy and honest worry. “One night, and he’s become your ghost? How can any real man ever compare?”

You laugh, the sound small, cracked with longing. “I’d rather be haunted by a ghost than wed to a man who only wants my name and dowry.”

She squeezes your hand, eyes brimming with fierce, loyal promise. “Then we will find you your own path, Y/N, even if we have to break every rule they set for us. I’ll help you—whatever it takes.” Yet all confessions, even the most daring, vanish into embers with the coming of night. For the very next evening, your world pivots on an axis you cannot see, not yet. Destiny’s hand hovers just beyond the hearth’s golden light, ready to shuffle the cast of your quiet tragedy and draw a stranger from the shadows.

The following week brings a shuffling of staff at Wolhwa Hall, your family’s ancestral seat, a mansion whose very stones are soaked in autumn rain and old money, looming over the district as the grandest estate for three counties. With Papa’s fortunes recovering after last season’s disasters, new faces arrive to fill roles left empty by the abrupt departures of trusted servants, scandal, illness, or mere ambition pulling them away. Your mother insists the changes will “restore the Hall’s reputation” and bring “fresh discipline to the household.” The staff are ushered in through the servants’ entrance, each quietly presented and assigned to their domains: the old stables, the morning room, the library’s sun-drenched gallery, the walled gardens fragrant with fallen apples and smoke.

You linger at the threshold of the west wing, where the new help gather for instructions. Jake, the new head footman, has the calm, capable bearing of an elder brother; he supervises the others with a gentle firmness, voice low and reassuring as he assigns duties for the day. Jungwon, junior valet, is all nerves and ambition, meticulous with a collar, but his hands tremble whenever your father passes by. Sunoo, the gardener’s apprentice, radiates a simple warmth; you often spy him coaxing green shoots from stubborn earth, his laughter tumbling across the hedgerows, making even your little sister smile. Ni-ki, kitchen boy, is a sprite, quick with a wink, forever plotting pranks that make even the cook mutter in grudging affection. Jay, a violinist recently commissioned for the season’s entertainments, is quiet, his gaze sharp and pensive; the music he weaves through the halls in the evening seems laced with secret longing.

And last—never quite at the centre of the group, yet impossible not to notice if you know where to look, is Sunghoon. A coachman and stableboy, but clearly bred to broader purpose: there is an edge to his carriage, a restless grace, a hunger that no plain livery can conceal. He moves with an assurance unusual for his station, polite but never servile, and his eyes, when they chance to meet yours, hold a flint-bright glint, dark and watchful, like someone who has known both hardship and beauty, and would not trade one for the other. He speaks little, does much, helps wherever he is needed: cleaning tack in the stables, hauling firewood to the kitchen, delivering messages through the labyrinthine halls. He is, you tell yourself, merely another servant, yet something in his laughter, the angle of his jaw in the morning sun, troubles the surface of your memory, stirring waters you had thought settled.

You notice, too, the way your mother’s gaze narrows when she sees him, how she calls him “trouble” in the clipped tone reserved for those she deems beneath the Hall. Your father, ever preoccupied, pays the new staff little mind, so long as duties are performed with efficiency. The other staff quickly learn to avoid drawing attention, blending into the house’s endless rhythms. It is only Sunghoon who remains a riddle, never quite invisible, never quite seen, a secret stitched into the seams of daily life.

The days at Wolhwa Hall fall into their old patterns, yet everything feels subtly altered. The stables echo with new voices, the kitchens smell brighter, the garden paths are swept clean by unfamiliar hands. But for you, it is the briefest glances, the scrape of a boot on the gravel, the echo of laughter beneath your window, the fleeting, wordless exchange in the corridor, that haunt you most. You wonder, not for the first time, why your heart stirs so violently for a man whose name you do not even know.

A bruise-dark sky presses low over Wolhwa Hall, the promise of rain glimmering in the breeze. Hoping to outrun the day’s suffocation, you slip from the terrace and thread your way to the south stables, an older wing of weather-grayed timber where the scent of hay and sweat and clean leather lingers like a half-remembered summer. Lanterns haven’t yet been lit; instead, late-afternoon light slants between rafters, striping the aisle in gold and shadow. The air is warm with horses’ breath. Chestnut Asterion nickers softly in his stall, stamping one white-socked hoof as if urging you closer, urging you toward flight.

You unfasten his rope just enough to stroke his sleek neck, but a sudden gust barrels through the open doors, lifting the edge of your riding skirt and wrenching your mother’s diamond locket from its velvet ribbon. It arcs like a fallen star, skittering across packed earth, straight beneath Asterion’s restless hooves. You lunge, skirts tangling around your boots, foot catching on a loose plank: the world tilts, the familiar snap of danger ringing in your ears.

A hand, rough, warm, unmistakably strong, catches your waist before you pitch forward, and another steadies the stall door, soothing the agitated horse with a low murmur. For a breathless heartbeat you hang suspended, half in his arms, half in disbelief. Sunghoon stands close enough that you feel the rise and fall of his chest, smell saddle soap and rain on his shirt. He should belong to the shadows here: a new groom among many, anonymous in plain livery. Yet the moment his fingers span your ribs, the world sharpens to him alone.

He sets you upright, but your balance wavers; his hand remains at your spine, anchoring you with scandalous steadiness. “Easy there,” he says, voice pitched low to calm horse and lady alike. A trace of something lyrical threads his consonants, too polished for a stableboy, too intimate for a stranger and the echo tugs dangerously at memory. Beneath Asterion’s stall gate, Sunghoon crouches and retrieves the locket, thumb brushing mud from the jeweled filigree. Its chain dangles, broken, between his fingers, symbol of old chains snapped by one reckless gust. He offers it wordlessly, palm upturned, and your gloved hand hovers, drawn and afraid all at once.

Your fingers meet over the relic, warm skin, cold diamonds and the hush in the stable thickens. Asterion exhales, steam curling between you like breath shared. Sunghoon’s gaze lifts; in that amber light his eyes look impossibly familiar: the color of wet earth beneath moonlit roses, the precise shade that watched you shatter in a garden six months ago. Recognition shivers through you, ghost-quiet but electric. Yet propriety slams its gate, he is livery, you are silk and you force your pulse to steady.

For the first time you meet him truly eye-to-eye, lantern light catching the planes of his face, and the sight steals the very breath from your lungs. Sunghoon’s hair is a rich, unruly sable, the sort that falls over his brow in damp curls after labour yet gleams like silk where the light grazes it; one stray lock clings to his temple and you fight the sudden, improper urge to smooth it back. His cheekbones are cut fine as marble, lending sharp grace to a mouth that is unexpectedly full, temptation shaped in soft pink against sun-browned skin. Thick, straight brows frame eyes the colour of rain-soaked earth: dark irises shot through with amber flecks that catch fire when he looks directly at you, as though some secret ember burns behind them. His lashes, far too long for fairness, cast delicate shadows that soften the severity of his gaze, while a faint scar along his jaw suggests mischief, or hardship, or both.

The rest of him is no less arresting. Broad shoulders stretch the plain livery coat, seams whispering over the hard slope of muscle earned in stables and fields, not fencing salons. When he shifts, the fabric pulls taut across his chest, mapping the rise of every breath, and you glimpse the strong column of his throat where a stubborn pulse flutters. You find yourself stunned—almost affronted—that a servant, a man born to wield muck-forks and currycombs, should wear such beauty so effortlessly. It overturns every genteel prejudice you have been spoon-fed: that elegance is bred in drawing rooms, that grace comes pinned to a title. Heat blooms in your cheeks at the thought, equal parts desire and indignation, yet you cannot look away. For a month he has moved through Wolhwa Hall like a shadow kept to the edges of your vision; only now, facing him in this hush of hay and half-light, do you comprehend the danger of what you never allowed yourself to see.

“Things lost out here,” he says, voice soft, “have a habit of staying hidden till they choose to be found.” The words hum with double meaning, as if he speaks not only of lockets but of hearts gone astray. You swallow, cheeks aflame despite the chill wind slipping through the boards.

“Thank you,” you manage, fastening the locket inside your gloved fist. It suddenly feels heavy, the weight of expectation, of vows broken and reborn. Sunghoon releases you, stepping back with a groom’s practiced deference, yet his fingers brush yours a heartbeat longer than custom allows, leaving a spark that leaps skin to bone. You should retreat, yet something roots you to the earth. “It seems,” you venture, voice pitched low, “that the orchard and the stables know more of secrets than any drawing-room.”

A shadow of a smile curves his mouth. “Horses keep confidences better than people, miss. They do not judge what they cannot name.”

You dare a step nearer, drawn as surely as a moth to fire. “And what of people who choose to remain unnamed?” you ask, pulse fluttering in your throat. “Do they keep confidences as faithfully?”

“For a price.” His gaze flickers, dark lashes lowering. “Sometimes that price is silence. Sometimes”—his eyes lift, catching yours—“the price is courage enough to unmask oneself.”

Your breath catches, an inexplicable thrum of recognition beneath his words. “Masks serve a purpose,” you say, trying for lightness. “They protect as much as they conceal.”

“Or imprison,” he murmurs. He glances to the locket, then back to you. “But perhaps some prisons are gilded enough to feel like safety.”

The rain begins in earnest, drumming on the stable roof, scattering hay-dust into the air. You shiver, though not from cold. “I should return before I am missed.”

He inclines his head, the gesture respectful yet intimate. “Then allow me to fetch a lantern to light your way, miss. The paths grow treacherous when the sky forgets its temper.”

You open your mouth to refuse, proper ladies do not walk with grooms but the storm crescendos, and propriety feels absurd against the thrill still dancing in your pulse. “Very well,” you whisper. He turns to retrieve the lantern, and for an instant your gaze clings to the breadth of his shoulders, the sure set of his stride. Somewhere, beneath the hammering rain and your mother’s distant rules, a vow stirs: if courage truly is the price of unmasking, then perhaps—just perhaps—you are ready to pay.

He returns with a brass stable-lamp, its bevelled glass glowing amber against the rain-drenched dark. Without speaking he lifts the hook, holding the light high so its circle falls between you, gilding each breath that ghosts the chill air. The path from stables to house is narrow and half-flooded; mud sucks at your boots, wet leaves whisper beneath your hem. Sunghoon tilts the lamp forward, free hand hovering near the small of your back, never quite touching, yet close enough that heat radiates through the sodden silk. Thunder rumbles over the moors, and every time lightning flares you glimpse him in stark profile: wet lashes, water-polished cheekbone, a trickle of rain carving the strong seam of his jaw. The silence between you is thick as honey, sweet with things unspoken, perilous with things imagined.

You clutch the broken locket inside your glove, feeling its diamond edge bite whenever your pulse jumps, which is often, for each step seems to echo that night six months past: the hush of a hidden garden; a hand steadying you in darkness; a voice murmuring danger and devotion in the same breath. You tell yourself this is folly, that the stranger you crave cannot possibly wear a groom’s wool coat and muddy boots, yet the idea lodges beneath your ribs, a secret knot tightening with every shared heartbeat. Rain beads on the lamp’s glass, refracting light across his knuckles where they curl around the handle, strong, deft, impossibly familiar. You long to ask a thousand questions and dare none; propriety holds your tongue while longing steals your breath.

At the pillared portico he pauses, lowering the lamp so shadows slip over his face and hide his eyes. For a moment neither of you moves, only the lantern flickers, only the rain speaks. Somewhere inside, a clock chimes the hour, sharp as a warning. You murmur a stiff thanks, gathering your sodden skirts, yet your hand stalls on the door latch, as if, just for one reckless heartbeat, you might turn, drop the locket, and demand the truth. But thunder growls overhead, servants’ footsteps sound beyond the threshold, and courage falters. You step across the marble sill, the great door swings shut, and the hall’s cold lamplight swallows you whole. Outside, the storm deepens, and in its rolling darkness a groom stands unmoving, lamp guttering in his grip, as though waiting for the world—or a memory—to crack wide open.

In the weeks that follow, your life becomes a haunted house, each corridor and garden path thick with shadows, every mundane errand flickering with the possibility of apparition. Sunghoon lingers at the edges of your days like a ghost too restless to leave, his presence stitched through the estate’s routines as surely as cobwebs drape the corners of old windows at All Hallows’ Eve. Every glance he casts your way feels like the hush before a candle gutters out, every shared silence thick as the air before midnight, when the world seems poised for revelation or ruin. You cannot help but wonder if you’re being watched by something older than longing, some wild, unquiet thing that once tasted freedom and now paces inside your chest, hungry for another glimpse of magic before the masks come off and morning breaks the spell.

You find yourself gravitating toward Park Sunghoon, the new coachman, though you would never dare call him by his given name aloud. At first, it’s little more than a trick of circumstance: a morning ride that just so happens to coincide with his tending to the bays, an afternoon in the orchard while he’s mending a fence, a lingering presence by the carriage house where he polishes bridles and reins. But over the following weeks, it becomes unmistakable: you engineer reasons to be near him, stalling at the stables under the guise of checking on your favorite mare, asking after a lost glove only he could have found, pausing longer than necessary when he brings you letters from the village. You trail the arc of his day with a hunger you can’t name, waiting by the kitchen door for the clatter of boots, letting your errands overlap his work, watching as he scrubs mud from the wheels or hauls crates for the cook.

You find yourself a willing captive to coincidence, letting your errands overlap with his hours, lingering in doorways just to watch Sunghoon scrub mud from the carriage wheels, sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms cabled with sinew and grit. Sometimes you watch from the window as he shoulders crates for the cook, the line of his back flexing beneath a sweat-damp shirt, other times, in the stables, he strips down to the waist, sun glinting off bronzed skin and oil-streaked muscle, hair in his eyes, jaw set as he wrestles a balky harness or soothes a skittish horse with a low, confident murmur. He fixes broken fences, mends torn leather, patches the roof, and shimmies up trees to rescue your little sister’s kite, every task handled with an ease that seems both artful and elemental. Even your father, whose memory for servants is notoriously absent, begins to nod approvingly, letting Sunghoon’s name slip into conversation with a respect he never grants the hired help. You catch yourself inventing reasons to be nearby: delivering messages to the stables, fetching a basket from the garden, pausing to ask about a horse’s fever or the best way to polish silver, any excuse just to watch him, shirtless and smudged, hands working with a mastery that makes your breath catch. Every new task becomes a stage for his quiet brilliance, and every accidental glimpse feels like a secret for you alone.

The estate is alive with a hundred tasks, plucking pears in the orchard, mending fences along the south pasture, mucking out the stables where the hay always smells sweet in the rain and you discover that Sunghoon does them all, as if the house and its lands answer to his quiet diligence. You convince yourself it’s coincidence, or that you are simply fond of the camaraderie among staff; you laugh with Ni-ki as he filches sweet buns, swap garden secrets with Sunoo, even let Jake, the head footman, regale you with his endless, brotherly advice. But none of them make your breath catch, none of them draw your gaze again and again like the man whose hands are always stained with earth, whose eyes spark whenever your paths cross.

You feel furious with yourself for this foolishness, for yearning after a ghost and finding yourself set aflame by a servant, a servant, for heaven’s sake, when you’re the Marquess of Wolhwa’s daughter, diamond of the season, trained to be nothing but untouchable. You repeat the lessons of your childhood like a mantra: milady does not mingle, milady does not yearn, milady does not notice the staff except to issue commands. Still, every time Sunghoon’s gaze meets yours and flinches away, something inside you wilts and burns at once. You curse your traitor heart, which aches for the man who vanished with the mask and aches doubly for the one who tends your horses and lets you feel, for the first time, entirely seen. Logic and pride insist it cannot be him. It’s easier, safer, to believe the fantasy ended with that night; easier to believe this longing is only madness, and not destiny.

You repress it all as best you can, swallowing curiosity and hunger and locking away the memory of what it felt like to be someone else—to be wanted, not for title or dowry, but for the wild, trembling woman you were behind a mask. Yet your wildness won’t die; it simmers beneath the surface, daring you to test your mother’s patience, to rebel in small, secret ways. The vigilance of your family feels sharper than ever, every breakfast a performance, every afternoon watched through the high windows. Yet every glance Sunghoon casts from the far side of the room, every accidental brush of his shoulder, is another note in a silent symphony only you can hear. He calls you “milady” with careful lips, but in his eyes there’s a language you’re desperate to learn. Silence becomes its own kind of devotion, longing contained, caged, worshipped from afar, because to do anything else would mean risking everything: your reputation, his livelihood, perhaps his very life.

Still, intimacy and tension creep in at the edges, threading themselves through the daily rituals of estate life. One morning you pass him a letter from your father, your fingers grazing as you exchange it; the spark that jumps between you is like live current, and Sunghoon looks away sharply, jaw clenched, but you catch the tremor in his throat. A slate-blue dawn finds you in the corridor outside the study, entrusted with a sealed letter for your father’s steward. Sunghoon appears from the shadows to take it onward, bowing just enough to satisfy decorum. As he reaches, his gloved hand brushes the inside of your wrist, lightning in miniature, bright and terrible. You glimpse the sudden constriction of his throat, the way his jaw tightens as though he’s tasted something forbidden. “Forgive me, milady,” he murmurs, voice pitched low. 

“No apology necessary,” you breathe, surprised by how husky your answer sounds. The letter is gone in an instant, yet the echo of skin on skin lingers, singeing the air long after he strides away.

Later that week, you cross the orchard and stumble upon a tableau of innocence and danger: your little sister perched too high in an apple tree, skirts tangled, squealing delight rather than fear. Sunghoon stands below, arms outstretched. “A leap of faith, Miss Hana,” he cajoles, warm laughter threading through the leaves. She drops; he catches her easily, spins her once, and sets her on the grass. His grin, unmasked, unguarded, flares like sunlight between the branches. Your pulse stutters. Heeseung, leaning against a nearby fence, sees it all: his brow darkens, jealousy curling like smoke. You smooth your expression into polite gratitude, but inside something fragile and treacherous glows.

The sky breaks open two days later, rain whipping the paddocks into puddled mirrors. You hurry to the stables and find Asterion half-rearing, whites of his eyes rimmed with fear. Sunghoon stands at the stall gate, one hand on the mare’s muzzle, murmuring nonsense that sounds like prayer. “Easy, old star. Easy.” When he senses you, he doesn’t startle; he only lifts his gaze, rainwater carving paths down his temples. “She remembers you,” he says, offering the reins. Your fingers close over his, leather slick and cold. For a breathless moment you stand shoulder-to-shoulder, both shivering, though whether from the storm or the charge between you, you cannot tell. The smell of wet horse and rain and him: it sinks into your bones like prophecy.

That evening, your mother scolds you for the state of your hem, mud-spattered, grass-stained, incontrovertible evidence of unsuitable wanderings. Her voice lashes, but as you cross the kitchen yard in retreat, you catch Sunghoon’s gaze by the pump. He can’t speak; servants never do when gentry pass. Yet he gives you the smallest curve of a smile, just one corner of his mouth, quick as the flight of a moth. It is not a pity. It is recognition, camaraderie, a vow stitched silently through the lowering dusk: I see you. You are not alone in this house of commandments. The smile flickers out, but it leaves a warmth beneath your ribs that even your mother’s disapproval cannot chill, it’s a silent promise that you are not alone in your rebellion, that someone sees the wildness you hide.

There are nights you cannot sleep, and when you wander the estate, you sometimes hear him humming, a familiar waltz, the same melody you danced to on All Hallows’ Eve, his silhouette bent over a saddle in the blue hush of starlight. The memory seizes you, so visceral it hurts; you almost call his name, almost reveal your cursed yet undeniable feelings, but your feet stay rooted in the shadows. And so the ache grows, knotting inside you: every turn of phrase that echoes a midnight whisper, every fleeting touch that conjures the garden’s heat. He speaks sometimes in riddles, hands you wildflowers that remind you of a night you’re meant to forget, yet your heart aches with the weight of it, torn between longing and guilt, silence and confession. Each day, you live for the next impossible moment, a breath, a glance, a brush of hands and all the while you burn with questions that cannot be asked, yearning for a love that cannot speak its name. 

The sun is dropping behind the trees, spilling honey-gold across your bedroom, where the curtains fall heavy as velvet theatre drapes. You stand at the centre of the room in a sea of silks, arms lifted as your mother’s maid yanks the corset strings tight. Each pull drags your waist narrower, stealing breath from your lungs, every knot a promise not to stray. Your dress tonight is the colour of moonstone, pale lavender, netted in silver embroidery, skirts gathered and falling in celestial layers around your feet. Opals wink at your throat, suspended from a fine platinum chain; matching earrings dangle, cold against your pulse. Your hair is a crown of waves pinned high, studded with pearls, a mask of gentle beauty and delicate rebellion. Mama’s own hands, bejeweled, capable, merciless, smooth a stray curl, her mouth set in a line that brooks no dissent.

Her voice is sweet as stewed quince, but each word drips with warning. “Do not fidget, darling, and do not let your face fall. Lord Heeseung’s family will be here within the hour, and you must look as though you desire nothing more than their company. Stand tall, yes, shoulders back, chin high. You are not some goose girl in the hay, you are the daughter of the Marquess, and tonight is your duty. This is not a night for stubbornness. You must smile. Do not contradict Lord Heeseung. Let him lead the conversation, let his mother see how perfectly you fit at his side.” She pauses, pinning your necklace with expert hands, her gaze searching your face for cracks. “If you embarrass me, you will regret it, do you understand? This proposal will secure your future, whether or not you are old enough to be grateful.”

You stare at your reflection in the gilt-edged mirror, not recognizing the glittering stranger who stares back. Every detail is perfect, dress, skin, pearls, eyes wide and tragic as any painted bride’s. Your lips tremble, and you press them together in a show of obedience. “Yes, Mama,” you murmur, voice a thread. The air feels tighter than the corset, heavy with things unsaid: I do not love him. I do not want this. I am tired of being chosen like a jewel and locked away.

Your mother sweeps behind you, fussing with invisible creases. “You will thank me someday. You will not find love in fairy tales and scandalous stories. You will find it in security, reputation, and duty. Tonight, you will smile.”

You let her words brush over you, brittle as frost, and for a moment you almost believe them. Almost. In truth, you agree to descend to this dinner because rebellion tonight is too costly, because your father’s estate weighs on your shoulders, because there is no other road open. The heartbreak is not in the acquiescence, it is in knowing you are too caged to refuse.

Yet beneath it all, shameful and secret, is the fluttering hope that you might catch a glimpse of Sunghoon, now only the stableboy in the eyes of the house. You hate yourself for it, but you crave the heat in his gaze, the accidental brush of hands, the silent, forbidden promise. Tonight, you dress for duty, but you survive for those moments: the wild spark behind the mask, the sense that you’re not lost, not yet. So you let your mother pin your beauty into place, steel yourself against the night, and promise yourself you will endure. Just long enough. Just until you find a way to breathe.

When evening comes, you’re already braced for battle beneath the surface of your calm. You move through the halls of the Wolhwa estate in silk and shadow, feeling the world constrict with every click of your slippers on polished marble, every nervous flutter in your chest. The dining room awaits, a golden cage for all its splendor, gilded and intimidating, hung with crystal chandeliers that cast the table in a thousand fractured stars. The table itself stretches nearly to the horizon, its expanse set with china and polished silver, every seat an island in the sea of expectation.

Your father presides at the head like a distant mountain, dignified, silent, approving when necessary, but always unmoved, always unyielding. His nods are law, his gaze a glacier: proud but cold. Your mother is the conductor of this careful performance, her presence sharp as cut glass, every movement orchestrated, every topic of conversation curiously weighted. She pours wine with the precision of a surgeon and her laugh, when it comes, is rare, soft but always measured, never careless. Your little sister sits at your left, swaddled in demure white, hands folded, chin up, eyes darting nervously to you for guidance. Her feet dangle, never quite reaching the polished floor, and she squeezes your hand beneath the linen when she senses your distress, a secret code passed between sisters. For her, the whole evening is a pageant, a future she doesn’t yet know to dread.

You are the diamond at the centerpiece, posed, polite, a portrait of composure. Every word you speak is chosen with care, every smile is a performance. Yet beneath your steady exterior, a current runs wild: your thoughts slip to that impossible night, to the masked man who taught you hunger and longing, to Sunghoon in the half-light of service. You scan the room again and again, heart stumbling every time a shadow matches the memory of a jawline you once worshipped in the dark.

Heeseung sits beside you, his attention thick and suffocating. He reeks of cologne and self-assurance, gold cufflinks winking at his wrists, posture calculated to impress. He leans in, closer than decorum allows, reeling off tales of hunting and horseflesh, as if you are a thoroughbred to be wooed and won. His mother, sharp-eyed and brittle as frost, laces her compliments with warnings, her laugh brittle as spun sugar, each word a performance for the benefit of your mother and the assembled guests. The meal proceeds with glacial formality, servants gliding in and out, each course more elaborate than the last. Heeseung snaps his fingers for service, barely masking his disdain. 

The cutlery glints beneath the flicker of candles, each fork and knife placed with military precision along the length of damask and crystal. Your mother sits ramrod-straight, spine a pillar of command, fingers wrapped white around the stem of her glass. She launches the evening with her favourite overture: family pride, the legacy of Wolhwa, a nod to the season’s charity ball. “We are, of course, so very fortunate,” she declares, casting her gaze down the table with the cool satisfaction of an empress. “And we must ensure, dearest, that our fortune benefits the right company.” Her eyes land on you, a gentle warning, all velvet and iron.

Lord Heeseung’s mother follows suit, prim and eager, sliding compliments down the table like poisoned bonbons. “Your daughter is a vision, Lady Wolhwa. I do hope she’s not kept too long from the dance floor this winter.” Her smile is so tight it might snap.

You manage a courteous nod, hands folded, lashes lowered. The words fall around you like raindrops on a window, heard, but never absorbed. Heeseung’s voice invades your reverie, sharp and unctuous. “I have every intention of keeping her entertained, madam. She has quite the taste for adventure, does she not?” He turns to you, eyes bright with expectation, waiting for laughter, for blush, for something performative.

You offer only a mild, indifferent smile. “Adventure is best when it surprises you, my lord.” Your voice is soft, polite, a mask. Your gaze, however, drifts away. Your heart is nowhere near the table.

Your father stirs, clearing his throat. “Let us not talk of adventures at the table,” he intones, but his eyes are far-off, as though even he would rather be elsewhere. Heeseung’s younger brother makes some forced comment about the weather and the quality of the year’s wine; his father grunts approval, a dull echo.

Beneath the thrum of conversation, you let your gaze flicker to the staff, Jake, moving quietly with the breadbasket; Jungwon, nervous but attentive, pouring water without a tremor; Sunoo, face bright as he carries away a dish. You meet each pair of eyes with a small nod, a whispered “thank you,” so quietly it startles them, nobles rarely address the help. A trace of a smile flickers between you and Sunoo, who almost drops a plate in surprise.

Your mother’s gaze sharpens, lips thinning at your attention to the servants. “Sit tall, Y/N. The world is watching.” She reaches over, straightening your knife. “You must always give your best impression. The right people notice everything.”

Heeseung laughs, drumming his fingers on the table. “She is quite the observer, isn’t she?” He leans in, too close, and you lean back with practiced grace, choosing instead to speak softly to your little sister about the pastries. The child grins, delighted at your attention, and you let her slip her hand into yours beneath the tablecloth.

For the rest of the meal, you drift, listening but not listening, smiling when expected, demurring when praised. Your mind wanders to the garden outside, the mask tucked away in your drawer, the sense of something missing. The servants pass behind you, silent shadows, and every time you look up you find their faces less invisible than before. It occurs to you, not for the first time, that it is the ones on the edges of the room, not the ones gathered at the table, who see the truth of things. It occurs to you that the finest masquerade is not the one held on All Hallows’ Eve, but this nightly pageant of crystal and silver, where the wealthy wear polished faces for masks while the servants, bare of gold yet rich in perception, stand at the edges and see everything the glitter cannot hide.

Jake commands the room with the assurance of a seasoned general: a discreet flick of his wrist signals when plates are cleared, a subtle nod releases the next course, each servant falling into line with silent, well-rehearsed discipline. Jungwon hovers at the perimeter, wary and meticulous, eyes darting to every goblet that threatens to empty. Ni-ki, ever the sprite, prowls behind your little sister’s chair, snatching her wayward napkin from mid-air before it kisses the carpet, earning a secret grin that has her stifling a giggle. Sunoo glides by with the breadbasket, warm loaves sending curls of comforting steam into the candlelight. Near the double doors stands Jay, violin case tucked beneath one arm, watchful as a sentinel poised to summon music at a moment’s notice.

For the first time, you truly see them: the fatigue bowing Jake’s shoulders, the fierce pride in Jungwon’s careful pour, the quick coded glances Ni-ki trades with Sunoo when a guest’s chair scrapes back too abruptly. You offer quiet smiles, murmured thank-yous that make Sunoo’s eyes shine and coax a startled blush to Jungwon’s cheeks. Each small exchange feels like tearing a stitch in the seam that separates worlds, rich and poor, master and servant, revealing a glimpse of shared humanity beneath.

The doors breathe open again, and Sunghoon enters with the decanter, tonight’s bearer of Chateau Latour, though he might as well be carrying thunder. Broad-shouldered, waist cinched by plain livery, he moves with unstudied grace; his curls have slipped free of their ribbon to frame his brow, damp from the kitchen’s warmth. As he approaches you, lamp-light gilds the strong line of his throat, the phantom sheen of muscle beneath linen, every inhale and exhale as measured as a lover’s caress. Heeseung watches him the way a hawk sizes prey, lifting his glass with theatrical disdain; when Sunghoon leans to pour, Heeseung dabs the rim with his napkin, smirking, a silent proclamation of superiority.

But the world shrinks to a pinpoint when Sunghoon tilts the bottle above your goblet. Your gaze collides with his, molten and breath-stealing; the steady ribbon of ruby wine seems an eternity in descent. His hand brushes the stem of your glass, just a whisper, yet heat spears through you so sharply your breath hitches into something perilously like a moan. You see his pupils flare, feel his knuckles tighten a fraction as though reining in a wild impulse. Somewhere beyond the blood-rush in your ears, your mother’s gaze sharpens, cold steel sliding from the shadows. She says nothing; she doesn’t need to. One arched brow, one fractionally narrowed eye, and the message rings clear as a death knell.

Sunghoon finishes the pour, throat working as he straightens. “Milady,” he murmurs, voice pitched so low the candles seem to flicker toward it. The single syllable thrums along your spine, a secret invocation. He slips away, but the charge remains: Heeseung’s smugness, your mother’s silent warning, your own composure cracking like thin ice over dark water. Around you, conversation swells, silver forks glint, crystal rings but each smile now feels knife-sharp, every glance barbed, as though the entire room senses the undercurrent you can no longer hide. And across the table, your mother’s gaze lingers, cold and assessing, an elegant assassin plotting her next strike, while Sunghoon’s retreating silhouette keeps your pulse galloping, a reminder that beneath velvet and etiquette you are nothing but ache, need, and dangerous, impossible want.

The dinner glides onward with the polished ease of a well-oiled guillotine. Conversation flits from the harvest to the hunting season until Lord Heeseung, refilling his own glass with theatrical flourish, turns his gaze toward the staff arrayed by the wall. “Efficient, certainly,” he drawls, letting his voice carry, “yet I have always wondered if this household prizes loyalty over competence. One can train a valet, after all, but breeding, breeding cannot be taught.” The slight is aimed at Sunghoon, who stands at a discreet remove with the decanter, expression schooled to blank deference. 

Heat flashes in your chest. You lift your chin, voice pleasantly cool. “Breeding is a curious metric, my lord. Some of the finest horses come from humble paddocks, yet outrun every gelding in the royal stables.” A beat of stunned silence follows, your mother’s wineglass pauses mid-air, before polite laughter ripples down the table. Heeseung’s smile cracks at the edges, but he bows his head as though conceding a clever jest.

Your mother seizes the lull. “Speaking of pedigrees,” she says sweetly, “it is an opportune moment to discuss the future. Lord Heeseung, have you settled your plans for the winter season?” His mother leans in, bright as a viper, and soon they are weaving a net of possibilities, country houses, trousseaus, heirs. You are drawn into their gaze like a moth held to a pin. “My daughter will, of course, make her decision before Christmas,” your mother pronounces. The words clamp around your throat like the corset’s final notch. You answer with a demure curve of lips, though your pulse thunders. From beneath the tablecloth, your little sister’s small hand finds yours, squeezing twice, a secret code for courage. Across the crystal and candlelight, Minji raises a brow, her supportive mischief hidden behind a sip of wine.

Just then a footman loses his grip on a tureen; porcelain shatters, broth splashes, an abrupt percussion that startles everyone. Your attention jerks to the servant’s stricken face, instinctively sympathetic, but your mother’s gaze spears you before you can rise. “Remain seated,” she murmurs, and her reprimand holds more sting than the crash itself. Jake steps forward, directing the cleanup with clipped efficiency, but you cannot help letting your eyes linger on the trembling junior footman as he bows apology after apology. Guilt rings in your ribs, a reminder that generosity in whispers is not the same as protection in daylight.

While the debris is cleared, Sunghoon circles the table with the decanter once more. Each time he stops at your elbow, the air changes texture, denser, sweeter, unbearable. He tips the bottle, and the scent of red fruit and cedar drifts between you; your pulse stutters as a single drop trembles on the lip, catching candlelight like blood before it slips into your glass. His fingers brush yours, no accident this time, but a deliberate brush of knuckle to knuckle, feather-light yet incendiary. Your breath snags; your lashes lift to find his gaze already locked on yours, dark and fathomless. In that heartbeat, conversation fades to a muffled drone. You see the quick rise of his chest, the almost-imperceptible parting of his lips, as if he, too, must drag air through a narrowed throat.

He moves on, but the back of his hand grazes the curve of your shoulder as he passes behind, an apology or a promise, you cannot tell. The touch lingers, blooming across your skin like a hidden brand. When you dare glance toward the sideboard, you catch him watching: eyes hooded, jaw tight, pulse visible at his throat. It is a look that strips away every polished surface, eye-contact so charged it feels obscene. You feel your own cheeks heat, your body answering despite satin and steel boning; want coils low and insistent, a ghost of that night in the garden. You snap your gaze to your plate just as Heeseung resumes his monologue, oblivious to the current crackling inches from his ear.

Wine flows, courses change, but the evening’s veneer grows thin as spun sugar. Every time Sunghoon enters your peripheral vision, the air hums: the faint brush of his coat against your chair, the subtle bend of his head to avoid your sleeve, the fleeting warmth of his hand steadying the decanter’s neck. Each near-contact is a stolen gasp, a fever dream enacted beneath the chandeliers while your mother plots alliances and Heeseung imagines vows. By the time the dessert service glides in, pear tart shimmering beneath crystalized sugar, you’re trembling beneath the brocade of your gown, certain that one more touch, one more glance, will shatter any mask you have left.

Your mother steers the conversation into a new realm, with all the subtlety of a general aligning her troops, to matters of legacy and futures. “Lord Heeseung,” she begins, voice honeyed yet unyielding, “it must comfort your family to know that your estates in Gyeongwon and Cheonghae will be united at last. Our own holdings would complement them admirably, should our households be joined this season.” Her meaning is clear as crystal, each syllable calibrated, her gaze flicking to you as though to remind a recalcitrant child of her lines.

Heeseung puffs with self-congratulation, gold cuff links flashing. “Indeed, Lady Wolhwa. Consolidation is the lifeblood of good stewardship. And what greater blessing than a bride so perfectly suited?” He turns, smiling as though you are an obedient hound that has fetched a prize.

The words grind against something raw inside you. You set your spoon down, porcelain clinking a fraction too sharply. “Forgive me, my lord,” you say, tone velvet-soft yet threaded with steel, “but a blessing is felt by both its givers and its recipients. I have yet to be consulted on whether I require such… consolidation.” The candlelight catches the tremor of your breath; your sister’s eyes widen in awe, Minji’s flicker with dangerous delight.

Silence snaps across the table like a drawn blade. Your mother’s smile does not falter, but her knuckles bleach white on her napkin. “Y/N, dearest, we speak of practicalities, not poetry. A daughter cannot afford caprice where inheritance is concerned.”

“I do not consider the right to choose capricious, Mama,” you reply, heat flaring beneath your calm. “Nor is it poetry to wish for—” your gaze drifts, unbidden, to Sunghoon’s unmoving figure at the wall “—compatibility of spirit as well as of acreage.”

Heeseung’s laugh is brittle. “Spirit is a pretty word for fancy, Lady Y/N. I assure you, affection grows swiftly in fertile ground.”

Your retort surges, but before the words can scorch the air, your father lays his fork aside with deliberate quiet. The long table stills; even the servants pause. “Enough,” the Marquess says, his voice low but resonant, a mountain stirring at last. His eyes, gray and cool, rest on your mother first, then on Heeseung, before settling on you with surprising gentleness. “My daughter’s future is not a contract to be signed in polite company over sugared pears. When she is ready to speak of her wishes, she will do so, in her own time, and to whom she pleases.”

Your mother inhales, prepared to counter, but the Marquess lifts a hand, a calm, irrevocable decree. “Peace, my dear. The matter is decided for tonight.” Then, to you alone, he inclines his head. “Eat, child. The hour grows late.” Relief floods your spine—blessed, unfamiliar—and gratitude warms your throat. Across the table, Heeseung’s grin falters, his ambition momentarily checked. Your mother folds her napkin with surgical precision, lips a thin line, but she obeys your father’s dictum. As conversation staggers back to safer channels, imports from London, the merits of the new train line, you steady your breathing, aware of Sunghoon’s quiet presence nearby. Though his gaze never lifts, you feel a silent acknowledgement pass between you: a flicker of something bright and dangerous, a shared knowledge that the mask has slipped and truth, however small, has been spoken aloud.

The meal stretches on, tension braided through every stifled word and clink of silver. Your mind refuses to settle; every movement Sunghoon makes, filling glasses, replacing dishes, hands deft as a conjurer’s, draws your gaze like iron to lodestone. Once, as you lean to pass a dish, his hand brushes yours, knuckles barely grazing the pale underside of your wrist. The contact is electric, a silent gasp that sizzles under your skin. For a moment, it feels as if you’re the only two in the room, a pair of masqueraders hidden in plain sight, longing curdled with longing. Beneath the flickering candlelight, you glance up; he stands in perfect composure, but his eyes, dark, unwavering, devastating, hold yours just a breath too long. The wine you sip burns hotter than any spirit, your thighs pressed together, desperate for relief he cannot yet give.

Heeseung, who has spent the last course picking at you with compliments that sound like claims, turns his sharpened tongue on the staff, each word meant to draw blood. “I cannot imagine the drudgery of such work, could you, Lady Y/N?” he drawls, nodding toward Sunghoon, who stands behind your chair, stoic and silent. “I suppose it takes a certain resignation. No birth, no connections, no land to speak of… Only strong arms and low expectations. What do you think, my lady, do you suppose the lower classes are grateful for such scraps? Or do they simply accept their place?” His mother tuts, delighted, and your mother flicks her fan in silent approval.

Sunghoon’s face is carved in composure, but you see the flicker in his jaw, the way his hand tightens minutely on the wine bottle. Still, he offers nothing in reply, no bite, no glimmer of anger, only a careful humility, a pride that cannot be sullied by insult. He is, you realize, truly poor, poorer than any of the other household boys who have fathers in service or cousins in the city. Sunghoon owns little more than the shirts on his back and the calluses on his hands. You have watched him these past weeks: patching roofs, hauling crates for the kitchen, soothing sick horses at dawn, and once even mending a broken gate with such skill that your father remarked, “That boy’s got more wit in his pinkie than most gentlemen have in their entire bloodline.” Yet, for all his gifts, he is paid little, kept in a cramped attic room at the very top of the house, his name never spoken at the table. When the other boys gamble their pennies on a Saturday night, Sunghoon listens quietly, carving bits of wood by candlelight, his laughter quieter, his hunger more carefully hidden. He has no title, no land, nothing but his own hands and the quiet, stubborn dignity of a man who has never relied on luck or legacy.

Your anger rises, a slow, tidal ache. The mask of civility slips. You set your fork down with a ringing clatter, the sound slicing through the silk of conversation. “You presume much, Lord Heeseung,” you say, voice cool as cut glass. “You equate wealth with worth, but I have seen more nobility in an hour’s honest labour than in a lifetime of inherited coin.” Heeseung blinks, affronted, but you do not let him speak. “The true measure of a man is not in the size of his estate, but in the weight of his character, the breadth of his heart. Sunghoon is a better man than any nobleman of the ton. He knows the work of the world, how to mend what is broken, care for those weaker, turn his hands to anything in need. He does not seek praise or power, yet I have watched him serve with humility, patience, and a gentleness you would not understand if you lived a hundred years in velvet and gold.”

The room freezes. Your mother’s eyes flash a warning, but you continue, voice trembling with the force of your conviction. “You speak of expectations, of place, of keeping to one’s station, as if these are virtues. But the world is crueler than you will ever know, Lord Heeseung. The ton worships masks, not faces; gold, not goodness. Yet it is men like Sunghoon, those who give more than they ever receive, who hold this house together, who turn duty into devotion, who know that love and loyalty can never be bought.” You rise, every muscle quivering, and look your mother in the eye. “I will not sit silent while virtue is mocked and cruelty crowned king. If this is rebellion, so be it. I would rather be shunned for truth than celebrated for falsehood.”

The hush that follows is absolute. Across the table, Sunghoon’s eyes find yours, luminous with gratitude and wonder, and in that gaze, you recognize the promise you made to yourself long ago: to be more than a diamond, more than a daughter, to be a woman who chooses her own heart, even when the world would rather see her burn.

“I confess myself puzzled, Lord Heeseung, at your estimation of nobility,” you say, voice steady but your pulse thrumming with wild defiance. “For I have seen more grace, more subtlety of character, in the smallest acts of our staff, yes, in Sunghoon, than in all the grand proclamations and peacocked airs paraded in these gilded halls. What you call poverty, I see as proof of resourcefulness; what you deem lowly, I know to be the mark of a man who has made himself by his own wit and labor. When the morning’s frost still clings to the windows, it is Sunghoon who brings in the wood, hands raw but sure, whose quiet diligence ensures this house runs as smoothly as any clock in the royal gallery. I have watched him coax a wild colt to gentleness with little more than a murmured word and the warmth of his palm, or calm my own little sister’s tears when she’s tumbled from a tree, his touch so gentle, so precise, it nearly startles the breath from me. He listens to the world, Lord Heeseung, and the world listens in return. He understands the unspoken languages of pain and hunger, of joy and need, in a way that no coin or crest could ever purchase.”

You turn, gaze flicking briefly to Sunghoon where he stands, then back to Heeseung, whose face is tight with barely-veiled outrage. “Perhaps, sir, it unsettles you to see a man possess such poise and capability, to witness strength that is neither bluster nor inherited, but born of necessity and desire, desire to serve, yes, but also to savor life’s pleasures in their simplest forms. Sunghoon knows the worth of a kind word, the solace of a lingering touch, the sanctity of holding silence in the right moment. He reads, he sings, he carves beauty from nothing but wood and patience. Whereas you, Lord Heeseung, measure worth in lands and titles, and look only at the surface, at the cut of a coat or the gleam of a ring, Sunghoon’s nobility is lived, not worn. You call yourself a gentleman, but I would sooner trust my reputation, my heart, even my body, to a man who has known hunger and risen above it, than to one who cannot see beyond his own reflection in a gilded mirror. Indeed, I would wager Sunghoon has more mastery in his little finger than you in your entire person, if only you had the humility to recognize it.”

Your mother sits frozen, lips parted in a sharp, indrawn breath, her gaze cutting like a blade through the candlelit hush. For a moment, all you see is the tightening of her knuckles on the table’s edge, the tremor in her throat as she fights to swallow both outrage and horror. “Y/N,” she breathes, voice quivering with barely-contained fury, “you forget yourself, this is not the place for such outbursts. Must you shame your father’s house in front of our guests? Enough of this sentimental nonsense about, about staff. You embarrass us all.”

Your father, stoic, a mountain unmoved by the weather, merely regards you with unreadable eyes. A muscle jumps in his jaw, his silvered brow furrowed, and for a long, perilous moment he says nothing at all. Then, quietly, the Marquess sets down his wine glass and fixes Lord Heeseung with a gaze that brooks no contradiction. “My daughter speaks as she was taught, Madam. If the measure of a man is in his conduct, we would all do well to observe our own before passing judgment.” There is no warmth in his voice, but neither is there rebuke. For the first time, you see a flicker of reluctant pride in the old man’s eyes.

Heeseung, cheeks flaming with humiliation, stabs at his roast with a ferocity meant to wound. “Perhaps in other households,” he sneers, “the help are permitted to forget their station. Here, I would expect the lady of the house to maintain some… standards. It’s unbecoming to wax poetic about one’s inferiors, Miss Y/N, no matter how charming their manners.” His words are brittle, desperate, clinging to dignity as though it might save him from your censure. He glances at his mother, seeking her support, but she can only sputter, eyes wide with scandal, clutching her pearls as if your words might leap from the table and stain her silk.

Your little sister’s eyes go wide, darting between you and your mother, and in a small, clear voice she says, “I think it’s brave.” There’s a tremor in her hands, but she tightens her palm into yours under the table once again, gripping tight, a silent plea and a promise of solidarity. You squeeze back, emboldened by the fragile courage blooming in her eyes.

Minji leans in, her expression soft with awe, a private smile tugging at her lips. “Well said,” she murmurs, just for you, her gaze fierce and loyal, pride and fear warring in her glance. Her chin lifts a fraction, as if daring anyone to cross you now.

But you are already leaning forward, refusing to let the moment wither. “Mama, it is you who taught me to value virtue, to admire wisdom and strength, and yet here you would have me ignore those very qualities when they appear in unexpected form? I will not do it. And Lord Heeseung, what is a gentleman, if not a man who honours all beneath his roof, who knows how to serve as well as to command? I have watched Sunghoon—yes, Sunghoon, for he has a name, not merely a title—work with dignity and skill, care for this household in a hundred invisible ways, offer kindness when no one is watching, protect what others take for granted. You speak of worth as though it were currency; I speak of it as something lived, something proven. If that makes me rebellious or unfit, so be it. I would rather be scorned for loving what is good and true than lauded for parroting empty praise.”

You draw a breath, shoulders squared, voice a melody of longing and righteous fire. “You cannot teach me to hunger for only what is safe, or to quiet the wildness in me that recognises greatness where others see only dust. The world is changing, whether you welcome it or not and I will not stand by while good men are crushed beneath the weight of old names and cold gold. If I must choose, let it be for love, for honesty, for the hope that we are not bound by the masks we wear, nor the walls we build.”

A charged silence thickens, all eyes pinned to you and the young man standing, still and proud, at the edge of the gilded light. For a moment Sunghoon says nothing, his jaw working, pulse visible in the hollow of his throat. His dark hair is tousled from the heat of the kitchen, the white of his shirt open at the throat, a patch of ink-black shadow at his collarbone. For the first time since he entered your household, he does not bow his head.

He sets the wine decanter down with careful, deliberate hands and lifts his gaze to yours, no longer a servant, not just a shadow in livery, but a man rendered incandescent by the truth of your words. “Forgive my boldness, my lady,” he says, voice low but steady, “but I will not stand silent when my honour is called into question, nor yours. I may be poor in coin and title, but I am rich in what matters, skill, integrity, loyalty, the quiet strength to endure what many here would not last a day facing.” He holds your gaze, something raw and reckless burning in his eyes, and you know he is speaking to you and only you, even as the whole table listens, scandalized.

He turns, unhurried, to Heeseung, meeting the lord’s sneer with a calm that borders on insolence. “I was not born to fine things, my lord, but I do not envy a man whose sense of worth is built on other men’s backs. In my life I have learned that the measure of a man is in the work of his hands and the truth of his word. It is not the coin in his pocket, nor the crest on his ring.”

A hush falls; you can hear every heartbeat in your chest, every tremor of longing, pride, and fear. Sunghoon’s voice softens, only for you: “If loving virtue is rebellion, let it be known I am a rebel to my core. If honouring you is a crime, I will bear the cost gladly. For there is not a man at this table, nor in all the grand halls of the ton, who could ever make me regret speaking truth in your presence. Nor loving you for it, however silently I must.” His eyes do not waver, and for one breathtaking moment, the mask between you is gone, nothing left but two souls, bare and unguarded, trembling on the edge of ruin and salvation.

The hush at the table is a living thing, a beast with its breath caught, every gaze riveted to the servant who has dared speak as an equal, as something more. Your father’s face is carved from stone, unmoving; your mother’s lips are bloodless, a line of disbelieving outrage. Heeseung’s eyes burn with affront, but even he is silenced by the force of Sunghoon’s words. You feel Minji’s hand close around yours beneath the table, the tremor of her support barely anchoring you to the moment. And then, as if the tension in the air were too taut for the world to bear, you reach for your wineglass, your fingers slip and crystal shatters against porcelain, red wine blooming across the linen in a stain like spilled blood. The sound is a shot through the heart of the gathering: gasps, cutlery clattering, the whole room recoiling.

You freeze, breath stuck in your throat, mortified. “I—I beg your pardon—” The words catch, heat flaring in your cheeks as you fumble for the fragments. 

But Sunghoon is at your side in an instant, dropping to one knee, his hands finding yours before you can brush the glass. “Please, m’lady—let me,” he says, voice velvet-soft, but there’s a razor edge to it, a warning and a plea all at once. “Don’t—don’t risk your hands. They are meant for far gentler things.” His fingers wrap around your wrist, his thumb tracing your pulse, steadying you. You both linger a moment too long, the tableau scandalous for all its innocence, a servant and his mistress, knelt together at the altar of broken glass and breathless want.

You glance around, but the world has narrowed to this secret orbit. Both your hands reach for the same shard, fingers brushing, electric and hungry. The air between you crackles, too charged for words. Your breath brushes the shell of his ear as you lean in, words soft as a promise but firm as a vow. “Meet me by the lake at midnight, at the old jetty where the willows weep. Please, Sunghoon… come to me.” Your voice trembles, all your longing and desperation laid bare in the stolen hush.

Sunghoon’s eyes flash dark and wild, his own breath stuttering as he nods, the promise sealed in the hush of your skin. “Midnight,” he whispers, reverent and aching. “I will come.” His hand slips away, lingering just long enough for your thumb to catch the rough pad of his palm, a secret vow passed palm to palm.You rise unsteadily, heart rattling in your chest, voice barely above a whisper as you excuse yourself: “Forgive me—I need some air.” You do not wait for permission; you barely hear your mother’s clipped protest or Heeseung’s sneer. You slip out, skirts brushing the marble, wine-stained and wild, pulse thundering as you disappear into the shadowed corridors of your ancestral home, knowing, for the first time since All Hallows’ Eve, that the night will not end in silence, but in a meeting beside the lake where destiny waits, patient and star-lit.

You arrive at the lake just after midnight, slipping from the warmth of candlelit halls into the silvered hush of night. The garden fades behind you, each footstep muffled by dew-soaked grass, the cold nipping at your ankles through fine silk slippers. The moon rides high and swollen above the water, painting the lake in shifting shades of argent and charcoal; low mist clings to the banks, veiling the world in a spectral haze. The willows lean close, their branches ghostly arms that stir and whisper in the breeze. The old wooden jetty stretches out into the lake like a secret, slick with night, the planks cold beneath your feet. All around you, the world is breathless, so quiet you can hear the distant creak of a boat’s rope, the slow lap of water, your own heart thundering like a drum.

You shiver, arms wrapped around yourself, breath hanging in little pearls of frost. Tonight you wear no jewels, no elaborate finery, just a soft velvet cloak thrown over your nightgown, the hem damp from the grass. The nightgown, a pale wisp of muslin, clings to your form, thin enough for the cold to bite, thin enough for your longing to feel naked. Beneath the cloak, your body is bare, every nerve awake, trembling with anticipation, your pulse a wild, erratic music. You’re more yourself than you have ever been, and yet, every moment waiting here is agony, stretched taut as a string ready to snap.

At last, footsteps disturb the hush, slow, deliberate, crunching over the pebbled path. A shape emerges from the shadows, his lantern swinging low in one hand, the other buried in his coat pocket. For a heartbeat you almost don’t recognize him: Sunghoon, but not as you’ve ever seen him before. He has left behind the plain livery of service and comes in a dark, open-collared shirt, sleeves rolled, a few buttons undone to reveal the sharp sweep of his collarbones and the strong line of his throat. He wears no cravat, no waistcoat, nothing to hide the pulse in his neck or the heat in his gaze. His hair is tousled by the wind, a lock falling across his brow; moonlight picks out the cut of his jaw, the curve of his mouth. He is both more dangerous and more beautiful than any fantasy you have conjured, his eyes never leaving yours as he steps onto the jetty, every inch of him radiating purpose, hunger, and the perilous thrill of the forbidden. For a moment you just stare, your breath caught between ribs, every muscle straining toward him. The night crackles, charged with everything you cannot say, yet.

You stand together on the jetty, bodies outlined in moonlight, the silence between you thick with everything left unsaid. The cold should bite, but you feel impossibly warm under Sunghoon’s gaze, the shadows hiding nothing between you. At first, your words are tentative, both of you circling around the memory of the dinner, as if it is too raw to touch directly.

Sunghoon’s voice is low, gravelly with emotion and restraint. “I hope I didn’t cause you trouble in there,” he murmurs, eyes flicking over your features as though trying to memorize every soft line. “It wasn’t my intention, but I can’t stand how they look at you—how they talk to you, as if you were a prize to be displayed.” His jaw flexes, the muscles in his neck tight. “Lord Heeseung and your mother…they have no idea who you truly are.” He says it with such quiet reverence, such heat beneath the words, you feel a flush climb your throat, even in the moon’s chill.

You breathe out a tremulous laugh, the sound dissolving between you, half-nervous, half longing. “You’re braver than anyone at that table, Sunghoon. I wish I could tell you how much that meant.” Your words falter, but he closes the distance, fingers sliding over your knuckles, tracing every ring, every scar, every tremor in your grip. Then, without warning, he lifts your hand to his lips—pressing a reverent kiss to the back, lingering, letting his breath warm your skin. The touch is devastating, a bolt of memory sparking through you: the masked stranger’s mouth on your wrist, that same trembling gasp caught in your lungs.

He kisses you again, lips soft but insistent, his eyes never leaving yours. It’s a moment loaded with meaning, both of you remembering—but neither daring to say. Your fingers curl in his, and your own breath escapes you as a half-swallowed moan, shame and hunger blending, the lake’s hush carrying it away. His thumb drags slow circles on your palm, and the air hums with the promise of what you once tasted and still crave, even if you pretend you don’t recognize its origin.

Before the night can tip further, your gaze snags on something tucked beneath his arm—a slim, battered sketchbook, corners worn soft with use. You blink, distracted from the heat that pools in your belly, your curiosity overtaking even desire for a heartbeat. “What’s that?” you ask, voice gentle, your fingers brushing the leather cover. Sunghoon hesitates, caught between secrecy and wanting to share, and the moment balances on the edge of confession—of revelation, of art, of everything you have not yet learned about the man before you.

You stand together on the jetty, bodies outlined in moonlight, the silence between you thick with everything left unsaid. The cold should bite, but you feel impossibly warm under Sunghoon’s gaze, the shadows hiding nothing between you. At first, your words are tentative, both of you circling around the memory of the dinner, as if it is too raw to touch directly.

Your voice is low, gravelly with emotion and restraint. “I hope I didn’t cause you trouble in there,” you murmur, eyes flicking over his features as though trying to memorize every soft line. “It wasn’t my intention, but I can’t stand how they look at you, how they talk to you, as if your wealth and status determine your worth.” Your jaw flexes, the muscles in your neck tight. “Lord Heeseung and my mother…they have no idea who you truly are.” You say it with such quiet reverence, such heat beneath the words, you feel a flush climb your throat, even in the moon’s chill.

He breathes out a tremulous laugh, the sound dissolving between the two of you, half-nervous, half longing. “You’re braver than anyone at that table, Y/N. I wish I could tell you how much that meant. I can’t thank you enough.” His words falter, but he closes the distance, fingers sliding over your knuckles, tracing every ring, every scar, every tremor in your grip. Then, without warning, he lifts your hand to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss to the back, lingering, letting his breath warm your skin. The touch is devastating, a bolt of memory sparking through you: the masked stranger’s mouth on your wrist, that same trembling gasp caught in your lungs.

He kisses you again, lips soft but insistent, his eyes never leaving yours. It’s a moment loaded with meaning, both of you remembering, but neither daring to say. Your fingers curl in his, and your own breath escapes you as a half-swallowed moan, shame and hunger blending, the lake’s hush carrying it away. His thumb drags slow circles on your palm, and the air hums with the promise of what you once tasted and still crave, even if you pretend you don’t recognize its origin.

Before the night can tip further, your gaze snags on something tucked beneath his arm, a slim, battered sketchbook, corners worn soft with use. You blink, distracted from the heat that pools in your belly, your curiosity overtaking even desire for a heartbeat. “What’s that?” you ask, voice gentle, your fingers brushing the leather cover. Sunghoon hesitates, caught between secrecy and wanting to share, and the moment balances on the edge of confession, of revelation, of art, of everything you have not yet learned about the man before you.

Sunghoon’s fingers hover at the edge of the sketchbook, reluctant, but when you graze the spine with curious fingertips, he relents, easing the worn leather cover open beneath the lantern’s glow. The first pages reveal quick, sure strokes: the east façade of Wolhwa House rendered in graphite, every cornice and climbing ivy vine captured with reverence; the orchard at dawn, mist stippled across the trees like powdered sugar; Asterion mid-rear, hooves blurred to suggest motion; Jake and Sunoo laughing over a basket of apples, their camaraderie alive in each line. You trace the paper gently, studying the texture of pencil on grain, astonished by how he gives permanence to fleeting moments most nobles never notice. These images are not mere studies, they are tiny devotions, proof that Sunghoon sees the estate as a living organism, every stone and laugh and hoofbeat worth remembering.

You turn another leaf and he suddenly, instinctively, reaches, to reclaim the book before it reveals too much. But your hand is quicker, and the lantern catches the sharp intake of his breath. Your fingers drift over the first revealed page, following his charcoal vision of you astride Asterion at full gallop. Sunghoon’s pencil has frozen the split-second when horse and rider merge: your own chin lifted in triumph, hair streaming like a war banner, skirts hiked scandalously high. He’s shaded every ripple of the stallion’s flank, every taut muscle in your leg, and—wickedly—hinted at the garter that peeks beneath the fabric. Through his eyes, you see yourself not as a dutiful lady, but as a storm breaking loose across open fields.

You turn the leaf and trace his study of you perched on a library window seat, nightdress slipped from one shoulder while you reach for a forbidden novel balanced beyond propriety’s grasp. In graphite and smudged ivory, candle-glow clings to sheer muslin so realistically you feel the phantom draft along your ankles. A small tumble of books lies at your knees, titles your mother would consign to flames. Under Sunghoon’s hand you become a secret scholar and shameless dreamer, lust and intellect in one unruly silhouette. Another page, and your breath knots: he has rendered you half-submerged in the copper bathing tub, steam swirling like specters about flushed skin. Water ripples in layered graphite, droplets sliding down the arch of your throat to pool between your breasts. One hand, sketched beneath the surface, suggests unspoken pleasure; the other rests on the tub’s rim, knuckles white with restraint. Through his stroke work you witness a woman who owns her body’s hungers, an intimacy no commissioned portrait ever dared confess.

You dare a final turn. Here you sit at your escritoire before dawn, corset strings loosened, wrists draped over them as though weighing bondage against freedom. Your hair spills over bare shoulders, nightgown gaping to reveal the faintest shadow of nipple. Blank stationery waits beneath an idle quill, while his shading makes the pallid windowlight a mirror of hesitation. Sunghoon has sketched longing itself: you, balanced between confession and silence, between the woman the ton demands and the one daring to breathe. Seeing yourself through his eyes steals the ground from beneath you. These are not drawings of a diamond to be bartered but living testaments to every spark you’ve tried to smother: fierce, curious, wanton, alive. Your fingertips tremble on the page as you look up, the lantern’s glow catching the question in your eyes. “Do you truly see me like this?”—while heat blooms in every place his charcoal has dared to linger.

He stiffens, shame and yearning warring in his eyes. “I ought not have drawn you, milady. It was—” He breaks off when you brush your thumb over the charcoal shadows of your own masked gaze, reverence and astonishment blooming in your chest. You study the lines he’s coaxed from black dust and paper, how even the smallest curve, your parted lips, the anxious light in your eyes, glimmers with life he has only ever reserved for you.

Turning the page, your breath catches as you’re met with an image achingly tender: your little sister, all coltish limbs and untamed hair, perched on the edge of a crumbling garden wall, Sunghoon crouched before her, his hand steadying her ankle. His head is bent, face gentled in a smile that transforms him, all the roughness and hunger in his features softening to something luminous and careful. The drawing is spare, every line a caress, the affection so plain it makes your throat tighten. You stare, hungry and startled, heat coiling low at the base of your spine as you realize how few men would ever stoop for a child’s scraped knee or listen with such patience to a girl’s rambling wonder. The sweetness of it undoes you, makes you want, fiercely and all at once, to press your face into the crook of his neck, to feel his hands steadying you with the same devotion. You have to swallow a gasp, the ache so sharp you nearly moan, hiding your mouth behind your wrist, suddenly desperate for him in ways you can barely name.

As you turn another leaf, color flares high in your cheeks, for here his pencil is far bolder: sketches of women, bare-breasted, limbs tangled, hips tilted, thighs parted beneath the illusion of rumpled sheets and careless shadows. The bodies are lush and confident, faces half-turned in laughter or hidden in bliss, and yet there is nothing cruel or leering in the renderings. You realize, pulse flickering hot, that Sunghoon sees women not as trophies or conquests, but as living muses, flesh, want, and joy immortalized with the same care he gives to wildflowers and rain-lit clouds. Still, the evidence is right before you, he has touched many, worshipped with eyes and hands and surely, you think, with mouth and cock. The thought sends shivers through you, jealousy and arousal tangled so tightly you almost want to tear the page out, to claim him, to make your own body the only one his hands will ever want again.

You tilt the sketchbook, studying the smudged corners where his thumb has lingered, seeing in these pages a thousand hidden stories, a life lived in observation, a man who has learned the world through longing and gentle ruin. The room is suddenly too small, the night at your back thick with secrets and possibility, and all you can do is stare at him, wide-eyed, while your heart rages with the hunger to be seen, touched, and drawn until you’re every secret he’s ever kept and every hunger he’s ever dared to name.

You trace each sketch with trembling fingers, feeling a comfort so deep it borders on ache, a sanctuary hidden in graphite and longing, in every line Sunghoon pressed to the page. You see yourself through his eyes, stripped of artifice and expectation, not a diamond for display but a living, breathing woman shaped by her own wildness and desire. For the first time, you feel truly safe, protected not by walls or fortune or reputation, but by the tenderness in his hands and the ache he spills across the paper. Every face, every body, every small act of gentleness, his steadying your sister, the curve of your smile caught in dusk, tells you he has craved you not just as a lover but as a refuge, somewhere to rest his own battered heart. You breathe him in, his sketches, his secrets, and the truth comes bright and certain as a lantern in the storm: this is what it means to be chosen, to be safe, to be wanted so wholly you could fall apart in his arms and know you will always, always be gathered close again.

Something else catches your attention: hidden in a corner, sketched so faintly you might miss it, it’s a crescent-shaped brooch, your mask’s celestial clasp, rendered in minute detail. Your heart flips, but you shove the thought aside; surely coincidence plays tricks. Instead, you lift your gaze, tears prickling with unfamiliar gratitude. “They are extraordinary,” you murmur. “You have given me back to myself.” When your voice wavers, he cups the back of your hand, brings it to his lips, and presses a kiss to your chilled knuckles, soft, lingering, possessive. His forehead follows, resting against yours, and in that hush the cloak slips from your shoulders, silk nightgown whispering against his linen. Cold vanishes; heat rushes in, pooled beneath your skin. 

You shift closer on the creaking jetty, lamplight flickering gold across his fingers where they clutch the sketchbook, your knees brushing. He watches the ripple of the moon across the water, and for the first time since you met, you dare to ask, voice barely more than breat. “Where did you learn to draw like this? Who taught you to see the world with such longing?”

He gives a quiet laugh, rough around the edges. “No one, truly. There was a woman in the village, she drew saints in chalk on chapel steps, but she couldn’t keep me, not after the fever came. My parents, they both died within a fortnight, it left me with nothing but the memory of their voices and a few scraps of wool.” He glances down, thumb tracing a worn edge of the paper. “I apprenticed wherever I could. I cleaned stables for supper, slept in haylofts. Sometimes, when the head groom wasn’t looking, I’d steal a bit of charcoal and sketch the horses in their stalls. Drawing let me hold on to things I lost, if only for an hour.”

Your hand comes to rest atop his, gentle and insistent. “And what of home? Did you ever find it again?”

Sunghoon hesitates, eyes glassy with old storms. “There was no home after that. I drifted, one estate, then another. I worked the harvest, broke ponies, and mended gates. I never stayed for long; people get uneasy when a boy with no name lingers too long.” He shows you the pale scar across his collarbone, barely visible in the lantern’s glow. “That one’s from a farmer’s son, he thought I was stealing. I learned early to keep my head down, to do my work, to move on when the wind changed. The world is harder when no one expects you to matter.”

Sunghoon’s voice is rougher than usual, caught between memory and the present as he sits at your side, thumb tracing absent circles across his knee. “Sometimes, when the nights are too cold to sleep, I still hear my Mama singing and I feel my father’s guiding hands. I remember the calluses, the way he’d fix a splintered rail or mend a broken latch, his laugh deep in his chest, always telling me to keep my head up. They’re gone so long now, I can barely recall their faces, but their voices, they linger. Ghosts, I suppose.” He looks down, lashes shadowing his cheeks, and you watch the tremble in his jaw. “After they died, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Every door was someone else’s to open or close. You learn quickly: how to be silent, how to run fast, how to make yourself small enough not to trouble anyone. There’s a loneliness to it, being nobody’s boy, having nowhere to rest, no reason for anyone to miss you. I suppose I grew jealous of people with roots, even when they complained about them. The pain of belonging still seemed softer than the ache of never belonging at all.”

You shift closer, legs folded beneath you, voice low and coaxing as you ask him to share more, and his fingers tighten on the sketchbook. “I learned work before I learned kindness. Stables, kitchens, carrying water, mending fences, painting what I saw to earn a coin, sometimes just to prove I was worth feeding. If I didn’t do it, there was no one else who would. You become a jack of everything and master of nothing, but there’s a strange pride in it, too, surviving by your own hands, knowing you can fix or build or soothe most things you meet. Still, it’s a narrow sort of freedom. Gentry see you only as a pair of hands or a pair of eyes, never the man himself. It’s like wearing a mask, one you can’t take off, not even in sleep. You’re never allowed to be tired, or angry, or anything but grateful. I worry about losing this place more than I ever worried about hunger, because here, at least, I can watch the world and pretend, sometimes, that I am a part of it.” The words hang, trembling, and you reach for his wrist, an anchor in the shadows.

Your questions come soft and careful, and with every answer, his voice grows steadier, the shape of his dreams sharpening into focus. “I don’t want much,” he admits, voice barely more than a whisper. “A roof of my own, a bit of land, maybe a horse, just to know I belong somewhere, that no one can send me away. And I’d like to be remembered by someone, once I’m gone. Isn’t that what everyone wants? To be more than a shadow on the wall?” His laugh is sheepish, hopeful. “Sometimes I save coins and imagine traveling, seeing the sea, or the mountains. I want something to offer, something to give, if I ever love someone enough to keep them.” You listen, heart aching with each unspoken wish, and he glances at you, caught off guard by his own honesty.

You swallow, the ache in your chest matched only by the wonder that you—who have had everything—sit here craving the rough certainty of his hand in yours. “Then how did you end up here, at Wolhwa?”

“I came here because rumours said the Wolhwa stables were the finest in the province. I thought if I worked hard enough, I might earn a roof that doesn’t leak.” He shrugs, and the movement is almost bashful, so at odds with the raw beauty of his features, the confidence in his hands. “I know my way around a harness, a loom, a brush. I fix what’s broken, paint what’s fading, play the violin when the house is quiet and there’s no one to listen but the wind. I’ve learned how to make myself useful. That’s the only way I ever get to stay.”

You squeeze his fingers, emboldened by his honesty, craving every crumb of his story. “Do you ever regret it?”

He shakes his head, a smile curling, faint but full of pride. “Labour can break the body, but art shelters the soul. Hope’s a weed, my lady. It grows where it’s not welcome, even in stone and shadow.” His eyes roam your face as if to memorize you, lamplight flickering in their depths. “I never expected kindness, here or anywhere. And then you…” His voice falters, the words crumbling to something softer, more dangerous. “You thank the servants. You saw me. How could I not be drawn to someone who looks for ghosts in the rafters and greets them by name?”

The confession unfurls between you, raw as exposed skin, wild as moonlit wind. You let the silence linger, breath tangled with his, your palm pressing to the warm, worn leather of the sketchbook as if it is all that tethers you to this moment. “Sunghoon, all my life I’ve been painted and posed, told who to be. But no one ever tried to know me—truly know me—not until now.”

You stare out at the water, the moonlight painting silver across the surface, gathering your courage in the hush between heartbeats. When you speak, your voice is barely above a whisper, yet it carries years of longing and all the ache you never dared reveal. “My mother has spent my whole life molding me into what she calls a diamond, but sometimes it feels more like glass, perfect on the surface, but always one misstep away from shattering. Every smile, every word, every strand of hair, scrutinized, corrected, made to fit some impossible ideal. I am never quite enough, never quite what she wants, yet never free to become what I might be.” Your fingers twist the fabric of your skirt, knuckles white. “They speak of matches and titles as if I am a prize to be bartered, not a person who might wish to choose her own fate. The prospect of being given away to a stranger terrifies me. Sometimes I wish I could simply vanish and live a life where my choices mattered at all.”

You take a deep breath, and the next words tumble out in a rush, honest and raw. “I know how lucky I am—the rooms, the gowns, the food, the privilege. Everything and nothing was mine at once. I could have anything except the one thing I wanted: freedom. The more I’m admired, the lonelier I feel. Surrounded by suitors, I’ve never felt more invisible. Sometimes, when I walk in the rain or slip into the garden at night, I wonder if anyone would notice if I disappeared. Not the real me, anyway, just the absence of a daughter, a legacy, a diamond no longer in the showcase.” Your voice wavers, and you look at Sunghoon with something like envy. “I watch the staff share laughter, lean close, slip away unseen… sometimes I think they have more of a family in each other than I’ve ever had in a house full of blood.”

You draw your knees to your chest, cloak slipping from your shoulder, letting the chill bite your skin as Sunghoon traces circles in the dew with a callused thumb. “Isn’t it strange,” you murmur, “how two people can live beneath the same sky and both feel trapped? You by your station, me by mine. The world spins and neither of us has much say in which direction.” 

He gives a small, rueful laugh, his gaze never quite meeting yours. “You’re caged by gold, I’m caged by hunger. At the end of the day, we both know how it feels to be overlooked, passed by as though our dreams are less real because they don’t shine in the light.” For a moment, your fingers tangle together in the grass, and in that small, stolen contact, something wordless passes between you: solidarity, understanding, want.

He picks a wildflower, rolling the stem between his fingers before tucking it behind your ear. “You have an eye for beauty,” he says softly. “I see it in how you arrange your books, how you choose the freshest blooms, how you listen to birdsong even when no one else cares.” 

You blush, brushing a petal with your knuckle. “I could say the same for you, your sketches, the way you look at the sunrise as if you might paint the whole world new if you could.” The conversation softens, turns playful. “If you could be anyone for a day, who would you be?” you tease, and he grins, rakish and a little shy. 

“Your horse,” he admits, “just to run without bridle or fence, to be truly free for once.” 

You laugh, throwing your head back. “Then I’d be a wildflower, untouchable in the meadow, safe from shears, too stubborn to wilt.”

The intimacy turns quieter as you lean in, sleeves brushing, hearts in sync. He lifts his sleeve, exposing a rough scar along his forearm. “From falling off a roof as a boy. Chasing after sparrows I thought I could save.” 

You smile gently, lifting your skirt just enough to reveal a faint mark along your ankle. “Mine’s from climbing the orchard wall the summer I was eight. I’ve never shown anyone.” 

His eyes soften. “I wonder how many scars we carry that no one can see.” The conversation grows heavier, laden with meaning. “If you could burn any mask, which would it be?” he asks. 

You answer quietly, “The one that smiles when I’m breaking. And you?” He exhales. “The mask that bows its head, pretends it doesn’t mind being invisible.”

He watches the moon ripple on the lake, voice low. “What frightens you most?” You hesitate, truth hovering on your tongue. “Not being remembered for anything real. Becoming only what others want.” He nods, voice rough. “I fear losing hope, that the world will grind it out of me before I ever taste something true.” 

You flip another page, then another, all the while thinking of the endless, ravenous eyes of the ton, how their hungry stares and whispering mouths linger like cold fingers along your spine. Sometimes you dream of dragging your nails across their painted faces, of slapping the sly grins off their lips, of spitting straight into their smug, judgmental laughter. The fantasy flashes in your mind, vivid and hot, as if rebellion itself could scald away the ache of being so long at the mercy of others’ opinions. You laugh softly, confessing the urge to Sunghoon, “Sometimes I wish I could spit at them, right in their powdered faces. Show them I’m no one’s puppet.”

Sunghoon grins, eyes dark and glinting, his hands rough and steady at your waist. “It takes grit, darling,” he says, voice edged with the sly, streetwise pride of someone who has never let the world grind him flat. “Where I grew up, it was a lesson learned fast. Orphanage walls are cold, and there are boys who’ll test you for every scrap you hold. If you can’t spit, you don’t survive. It’s all in the throat, here, let me show you.” His fingers tilt your chin, his thumb dragging gently over your jaw, and he leans in, close enough for his breath to brush your lips. “You pull it from your chest, let the anger do half the work. Like this.”

He demonstrates with a practiced flick, the motion oddly beautiful, a hard-won badge of defiance. You try, self-conscious, and barely manage a droplet, a laugh spilling from your mouth as Sunghoon catches your chin and wipes it away, his eyes hungry and amused. “You’ll get there,” he murmurs, voice dropping lower, thumb pressing into your pulse. “Practice makes perfect, and I can think of ways to teach you.” There’s a promise in his touch, something feral and charged that makes your heart stutter. His mouth brushes yours, tasting of challenge and want. “Rebellion suits you, my lady,” he breathes, tongue flicking out to taste your bottom lip, “but you’ll need to learn to spit with grit.” And as his hand slides lower, as your bodies draw together in secret, wicked laughter, you realize the lesson is just beginning—spit, fire, hunger, all for him.

Your voices hush, intimacy thick as honey. “Do you believe in fate?” he asks. “Or do we make our own stories?” 

You consider, then answer, “Maybe it’s both. Maybe we’re handed beginnings, but the endings are ours to choose.” 

He smiles, sunlight in his eyes. “Have you ever truly felt at home?” 

You shake your head, honest. “Not yet. But tonight, here, I think I’m closer than I’ve ever been.”

Your hand finds Sunghoon’s in the dark, and when you meet his eyes, your words are all trembling confession and aching temptation. “You make me braver than I ever thought I could be. Every moment with you feels more real than all the glittering hours I’ve wasted pretending to be someone else. I’m terrified of how you make me feel, what I might do for just one night, or one kiss, where there are no rules but our own. I want to be claimed, ruined, loved. I want to know who I am when no one is watching. I never knew I could be this reckless, or this bold, until I met you. Tell me you feel it too. Tell me I am not mad for wanting to tear the world apart just to be with you.”

He hovers, trembling, hands flexing at his sides as if he might flee or devour you, torn by the knowledge of what loving you could mean. “I ought to go,” Sunghoon rasps, voice a raw scrape of need and regret. “This—what we’re doing—it could ruin you, and I don’t know how to stop wanting you anyway.” The moon is a coin pressed to the lake’s black surface, silvering his cheekbones, casting wild shadows across the sharp cut of his jaw. His knuckles graze your jaw, a reverent, barely-there touch, but then he gives in, cupping your face in his callused hands, thumbs trembling against your cheeks, breathing your name as though it is a spell that might save or doom him. “God forgive me, but I’d rather be damned for you than holy for anyone else.” His gaze searches yours, frantic and wanting, every muscle drawn taut as a bow.

You reach for him, breath shaking, eyes wide and dark, unable to pretend for one more second that you are not as desperate. Your fingers tangle in the collar of his roughspun shirt, pulling him closer until the last, trembling sliver of restraint snaps. His mouth hovers just above yours, both of you trembling on the cusp, the air between you sparking and alive. “If you kiss me,” you whisper, breathless and daring, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.” He chokes on a laugh, half agony, half awe, and dips his head until his lips barely brush yours, a trembling, tormented promise of everything you’ve both denied.

The first true kiss is a lightning strike, fierce and starved. His mouth crushes against yours, open and greedy, tongues tangling in a dance as old as sin. He drinks you in, devouring, his grip tightening in your hair until your scalp tingles, the other hand finding your waist, pinning you against his body, hard and insistent. Your gasp is lost in the slick, messy heat of his mouth, teeth clashing, breath mixing, every moan and sigh echoing over the water. His lips are soft but urgent, nipping at your bottom lip until you open for him, and then his tongue plunges deep, hungry for every secret taste you can give.

He presses you back against the rough wood of the jetty, knees knocking, skirts tangled and forgotten as his hands roam, one splayed at the small of your back, the other tilting your chin, forcing you to meet the wildness in his eyes. “Let me,” he growls against your lips, “let me have you—let me ruin you, right here, with the whole world asleep and the stars the only witnesses.” The words vibrate against your mouth, and you answer by grinding your hips against his thigh, feeling his cock, hard and aching, straining through his trousers. He groans, low and unguarded, and your fingers dig into his shoulders, dragging him closer, devouring him back with equal, frantic need.

Every motion is messy, wet, desperate: your lips crash together again and again, your tongues fighting for dominance, your teeth scraping his jaw, his mouth finding your throat, biting down hard enough to leave a mark that will last for days. You arch, wild and breathless, moaning his name into the cool night, your thighs parting instinctively to cradle his hips. He presses into you, rutting against your heat, each thrust of his tongue in your mouth a promise of what he’ll do to your body the moment you let him. “Say you want this,” he gasps between kisses, voice shaking. “Say you want me to be the one who destroys you.” 

Your answer is a sob, a gasp, a whispered “please,” all tangled together as you drag him down into the velvet dark, both of you devouring, drowning, lost.

You pull back, breath ragged, lips tingling from the fever of his kiss, but a mischievous glint dances in your eyes, a glint that makes Sunghoon freeze, pupils blown wide with anticipation. Your hand slips from his collar, trailing down his chest, and you give him a coy little smile, the kind that would make your mother faint dead away if she glimpsed it in candlelight. “I saw your sketchbook, Mr. Park,” you murmur, voice low and wicked as a spell. “Do not think I failed to notice the pages filled with bare limbs and blushing girls. Tell me, do you often capture your lovers thus, unclothed, abandoned, shameless beneath your gaze?”

Sunghoon chokes on a breath, hands flexing helplessly at your waist. “My lady—”

You cut him off with a fingertip pressed to his lips. “I want you to sketch me,” you whisper, leaning close so your words brush his ear like the promise of sin. “I want to be one of your wicked girls, bared for your eyes, immortalized in charcoal and longing. Will you do it, Sunghoon? Will you make me your muse, your ruin, your masterpiece?” Your hands, trembling with nerves and delight, slip to the fastenings of your bodice. “Watch,” you dare him, “for I mean to be shameless for you.”

In the hush by the water, you strip with trembling, defiant hands, unlacing your bodice and letting silk tumble from your shoulders. Your breasts bounce free in the moonlight, nipples hardening to the cool air, your body lit by the trembling lantern between you. You stand before him, bared and brazen, chest heaving with every desperate, hungry breath. “Is this how you want me, Mr. Park?” you tease, voice husky. “Will you capture the true shape of me, all the longing and the hunger and the wildness?”

He cannot answer at first, his breath comes heavy and hot, his eyes devouring every inch of you, hand fumbling for his sketchbook and charcoal as if you might vanish at any moment. “Sit,” he commands, voice guttural, reverent. He gently guides you down onto the plaid of your discarded cloak, arranging your thighs, tilting your chin, spreading your hair wild over your shoulders. “Look at me,” he whispers, trembling, his own restraint unraveling with every stroke. “Let me see you, all of you. Let me remember this long after my hands forget how to draw.”

You arch your back, letting your breasts sway for him, your thighs parting just so. “Paint me with your eyes,” you urge, breathless, “and do not dare hold back.” He sketches with shaking hands, every line hungry, worshipful, his gaze roaming your curves as if trying to memorize every soft, forbidden inch. The air crackles with danger and delight, and you, half-naked, wild, and unashamed, relish the thrill of being truly seen, sketched into eternity by the only man who has ever made you ache to be more than a diamond, more than a daughter, more than a secret.

He sits at the rocks, sketchbook braced against one raised knee, and all you see of him is his eyes, those impossible eyes, lit by the trembling gold of the lantern, the lower half of his face lost behind the angled shield of rough paper. His gaze devours you with the concentration of a starving artist: cool blue and burning, glass-clear but dark with something greedy and holy, every flick of his irises tracing your bare skin like the tip of a paintbrush. You realize, in that moment, that you are not only being looked at, but seen, as if every inch of you, every secret curve and freckle and daring shadow, has become his entire universe. The sketchbook might as well be armor for him, or a veil, his mouth hidden, his jaw tense, all of his longing and awe and worship pouring into that narrow, unblinking gaze. It is a look so intense you nearly forget to breathe, your own heartbeat echoing the scratch of charcoal as you watch him work. He studies you with an almost reverent patience, eyes moving from the arch of your collarbone to the delicate shape of your breast, from the softness of your parted lips to the trembling way your thighs part for him. Each time you shift, his eyes flick up, catching yours, and you see the artist and the lover fused in a single, scorching glance, a man holding his breath, trying to capture you before the dawn steals you away.

He finishes the sketch with trembling fingers, charcoal smudged on his knuckles, and for a moment he simply stares, lips parted as if astonished by what he’s captured. Then, silent and reverent, he turns the page to you, baring your own body rendered in bold, desperate lines, a goddess undressed by moonlight and longing. Your breath snags, every inch of you humming, and you meet his gaze, wild and unguarded, as the sketchbook slips from his hands to the blankets. Sunghoon kneels between your thighs, eyes shining with awe and hunger, his composure in shreds. “Well?” you tease, voice ragged, arching your back so your breasts spill higher, “do I match your wildest imaginings, artist?” 

He shakes his head, voice fraying with want. “The sketch is nothing. It’s a ghost. I need—” He breaks off, reaching for you with trembling hands, hunger painting his face raw.

He kisses you with starved devotion, tongue sweeping past your lips as your mouths crash together, moans spilling between your teeth. His palms cup your breasts, lifting and kneading them, thumbs stroking your nipples until you whimper and arch, greedy for more. “Show me, Sunghoon,” you beg, half-shamed, half-maddened by the way your body aches for him, “let me feel it, let me know you want me, not just with your eyes, but everywhere.” He answers with his mouth, drawing one nipple between his lips and suckling hard, tongue swirling, teeth scraping gently as his free hand slides lower, finding the slick heat between your thighs.

His fingers trace your folds, teasing, then slipping inside with delicious, careful pressure, and you keen, high, breathless, undone, rocking your hips to meet every thrust. “You’re so wet for me,” he groans, kissing down the curve of your breast, “so beautiful, so real. I could worship you for the rest of my life and never capture half your magic.”

He drags his mouth from one breast to the other, lavishing attention, tongue circling and laving your peaked nipples, teeth grazing, lips tugging until you sob and tangle your hands in his hair. “More—don’t stop, please, please—” you beg, head thrown back, heels digging into the sheets as he pushes his fingers deeper, curling and twisting until you clamp down and shudder around him. 

“That’s it, darling,” he whispers, kissing the frantic pulse at your throat, his voice breaking into a prayer, “let me see you—let me have you.” Everything dissolves into candlelight and fevered hands and your own filthy, desperate sounds. You clutch him closer, grinding into his touch, pulling him higher so his mouth finds yours again, the taste of your own skin still slick on his lips. In the hush between your gasps, he confesses, “no sketch could ever do justice to you. No dream, no memory. Only this—only you, in my arms, in my mouth, in my hands—” and you answer him with another kiss, bodies writhing, hungry, ready for more.

You seize his hand and guide him through the candle-lit hush of the corridors, your bare feet barely whispering against carpet as you pull him behind you, heart drumming out a wild, treacherous rhythm. He follows without question, eyes glued to your body, gaze hooded and hungry, he knows the path to your chamber as if he’s dreamed it, and when you slip inside and lock the door, he’s already closing the distance, mouths colliding, hands everywhere at once. The fall to your bed is seamless and greedy: you hit the soft coverlet with a gasp, skirts tangled, breasts heaving, Sunghoon looming above you, lips bruising yours with a starved, reverent need. In the dim glow, you see him drop to his knees, palms gliding down your thighs, and he parts your legs with a gentleness that is worship and promise both.

He slides between your thighs as if it is the most natural place in the world, hands curling beneath your knees to draw you wide, wide, wide, his mouth hovering over your cunt like he’s about to offer a benediction. “God, look at you,” he murmurs, breath fanning over slick, swollen skin, “I’ve dreamed of this, dreamed of tasting you, ruining you for any other man.” His tongue traces a languid, trembling line from your entrance to your clit, and your body jolts, hips lifting into his mouth.

He licks again, slower, savouring every drop, hands anchoring you to the mattress as he laps and sucks, groaning when you whimper, “Yes, more, please—” Every pass of his tongue grows bolder, wetter, and when he slides two fingers inside, curling them to find your sweetest spot, you sob out his name, shattering on his mouth. He eats you like a starving man, like you’re his only salvation, moaning low as you writhe and grind against his face, clutching his hair and losing yourself in the dizzy, frantic pleasure.

Sunghoon doesn’t stop—won’t stop—not when you’re chanting his name, not when you’re gasping for breath, not when your thighs tremble and lock around his head, trapping him against your cunt. He groans, the sound sending vibrations straight through you, and he laps at your clit with filthy devotion, letting you ride out wave after wave of pleasure. “Taste so fucking good,” he slurs, voice ragged, “let me have all of you, let me make you fall apart for me.” His tongue delves, his nose nudges your aching bundle, and you feel your whole body draw tight, then break—shuddering, keening, clenching down on his fingers as you climax with a strangled, desperate cry, your pleasure spilling across his mouth and chin, soaking him. He stays there, lapping, sucking, swallowing every drop as if he’s drunk on you, eyes closed in bliss, hands still holding you wide open for his worship.

And then you’re climbing him, greedy and reckless, desperate to lose yourself further. You press him back against the pillows and straddle his face, his hands instantly seizing your hips, guiding you down onto his tongue. “Ride me, darling,” he begs, voice thick and ruined, “let me taste you, let me drown in you.” You oblige, grinding your slick cunt over his mouth, your fingers tangling in his hair, your thighs trembling as his tongue flicks and circles, relentless and greedy. He groans against you, the sound deep and filthy, hands squeezing your ass, pushing you down harder, urging you to use him. You gasp and moan, hips rolling, the sensation so overwhelming you forget your name, forget the world outside this room, only the pleasure matters, only the feeling of being devoured, cherished, and claimed.

He’s begging now, desperate, voice muffled by your flesh: “Please, let me make you come again, need to taste you, need to feel you break apart on my tongue.” 

You tease him, rolling your hips, grinding down harder, clutching the headboard for balance as you ride his face shamelessly. “If you want me to let you fuck me, you’ll have to earn it, Sunghoon, make me come again, make me scream for you.” 

He answers by doubling his efforts, tongue thrusting deep, nose nudging your clit, moaning hungrily as your pleasure builds again, higher and higher, a crescendo of sensation that blots out every thought but him. “Good girl,” he rasps when you finally shatter, thighs clenching, body quaking as you come undone on his mouth, crying out his name, begging him not to stop.

He licks you through the aftershocks, only pausing when your body collapses against his chest, shuddering and weak, slick and spent and so full of joy it feels like blasphemy. You lean down, catch his mouth with yours, tasting yourself on his lips, your moans mingling as you whisper, “Now, Sunghoon—fuck me, please. I want to feel you inside, want you to ruin me completely.”

His eyes meet yours, wild and shining, and he nods, voice gone: “Anything for you, darling. Anything.”

He rises over you, chest heaving, mouth swollen from worshipping your cunt, his hands rough and reverent as he parts your trembling thighs wider still. Candlelight carves his jaw in gold and shadow, every inch of him gleaming with sweat, hair mussed, eyes so hungry they seem almost inhuman. His cock stands rigid between you, thick and flushed, beading with need as he strokes himself once, twice, painting the insides of your thighs with his desire. “Look at you,” he breathes, voice guttural, possessive, the endearment almost reverent, “laid out for me, wild as any creature of myth, so desperate to be ruined.” You reach for him, all pride abandoned, legs falling open in silent invitation, your cunt wet and aching, hungry for the first delicious agony of his cock.

He gathers you close, his lips ghosting over your ear as he lines himself up, the tip pressed hot and unyielding to your entrance. “You are mine tonight,” he whispers, one hand cupping your cheek, the other steadying your hips. “Mine to fill, to mark, to break apart and put back together.” The first push is slow, agonising, the stretch making you gasp and shudder as he inches inside. “Easy, darling,” he soothes, though his own voice breaks on the word, “you’ll take every inch of me—won’t you?—like a good girl. You want Daddy’s cock, don’t you? You want to be split open and made new, made mine.” 

The word lands between you, filthy and shocking, but you nod, whimpering, “Yes, please—please, Daddy, ruin me, make me yours.” His eyes flash with dark heat, and he presses in deeper, letting you feel the impossible breadth and length of him, the burn giving way to a slick, sinful fullness that has you keening, arching up to chase him.

He sets a slow, brutal rhythm, fucking you deep and deliberate, holding your face in his hands so you cannot look away. “You’re so tight, God above, I can feel you milking me, begging for it,” he groans, rolling his hips until your world narrows to the slow, relentless invasion, the wet slap of skin on skin. You cling to his arms, sobbing, every muscle quaking as pleasure and pain blur at the edges, tears streaking your cheeks. He leans down, thumb catching a droplet, licking it from your skin. “Such a pretty thing, crying for your cock. Does it hurt, little darling? Tell Daddy how it feels to be bred like this, to be filled so deep you can barely breathe.”

You’re lost, helpless, hips rocking up to meet each thrust, words spilling unchecked, shameless. “More, please—don’t stop, want you so much, want you to breed me, keep me, never let me go.” 

His teeth graze your jaw, lips bruising yours as he fucks you harder, pace quickening, hands sliding down to grip your hips and pull you into every punishing stroke. “You’ll take it, every drop, every inch—I’ll fill you so full you’ll never forget the shape of me inside. The next man who tries to have you will feel my claim and know you are ruined, know you belong to another.” Your legs wrap around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, locking him in as he drives deeper, deeper, the world vanishing in a storm of heat and sensation.

He pins your wrists above your head, dominant and worshipful all at once, his voice a dark prayer at your ear: “You want Daddy’s seed, don’t you? Want me to spill inside and make you mine, brand you where no one else can see?” 

Your answer is a broken cry, “Yes—God, yes, please—please, I want all of you, ruin me, make me yours.” He snaps his hips, cock thick and hot and merciless inside you, and you shatter, climax rolling through you in waves that never seem to end, sobbing his name, shuddering under the force of it.

He loses himself then, fucking you hard and deep, his own control breaking as he buries himself to the hilt, balls tight against your ass, the sound of your slick heat swallowing him echoing in the room. “That’s it, little darling, take every drop,” he growls, and you feel him pulse inside you, cock throbbing as he fills you with his cum, hips grinding as if to force every ounce deeper. He doesn’t let you go, not even as you both collapse into the sheets, bodies shaking, slick and spent and utterly tangled together.

He stays inside you, cock softening slowly, his mouth pressing kisses to your throat, your cheek, your parted lips, fingers caressing the sticky mess leaking down your thighs. “You’re mine now,” he whispers, a raw, hoarse confession, “no matter what mask you wear, no matter where you go—no one will ever love you, fuck you, claim you the way I do.” You sob once, softly, overwhelmed by love and ruin, and he pulls you close, wrapping you in his arms, breath mingling as the candles gutter low and the night hushes all around.

Moonlight still spills through the drapes, blue-white and unyielding, catching on sweat-damp skin and tangled hair. You lie boneless across the disordered bed, breath trembling, thighs sticky with evidence of the night. Sunghoon’s arms close around you from behind, his chest warm against your spine, the broad planes of his hands cradling your waist as if you might slip away. He kisses your shoulder, the bite-mark he left there, his lips lingering as though they might mend what his teeth have claimed.

With reverent care, he turns you over, reaching for a linen cloth and a bowl of water left forgotten by the hearth. The water’s coolness is a shock against your heated skin, but his hands—steady, gentle—are worshipful, sliding between your thighs, cleaning away the remnants of his desire and your own. Every pass is soft and filthy at once, his thumb teasing your slit, his breath hissing when you shiver in his hands. “Look at you,” he murmurs, low and raw, “ruined and perfect, every inch of you mine.” You arch into his touch, not hiding the way you cling, the way your heart skips like a stone thrown across a storm-lit pond.

He pulls you into his lap, wrapping you in a blanket as if to anchor you, his nose buried in your hair. The storm outside has faded, but a different electricity hums in the hush, the kind that lives between two people who know dawn will change everything. You rest your head on his shoulder, fingers tracing the line of his jaw, cataloging every freckle, every shadow of exhaustion beneath his eyes. The air tastes of sweat and salt, candle smoke and skin. “Will you stay?” you whisper, already fearing the answer. 

He nods, one hand tangled in your hair, the other finding your pulse. “Until the sun chases me away,” he promises, “and even then, I’ll haunt you until night falls again.”

Pillow talk comes in fragments, broken by lazy kisses and the weight of what neither of you dare say aloud. Sunghoon confesses his fear of being discovered, of losing you before you’ve even begun. “Every day, I am half-mad with wanting you, half-fearful someone will find out, and yet…” His voice shakes. “I would rather burn for you than live cold and hidden.” You touch his cheek, thumb caressing the curve of his mouth, and promise hope in return: that you will find a way, that this magic will not be broken, that you would choose this night, this love, even if the price is ruin.

He holds you through the slow unwinding of the hours, your legs twined, your hearts beating in unison. Outside, the sky lightens at the edge, but the world inside your chamber feels spellbound, as if the two of you are stitched together by the same thread that tethers stars. You fall asleep tangled in his arms, skin flushed, soul blooming. For this one night—this impossible, holy night—you let yourself believe in forever, even if forever can only exist in the quiet dark, in the breathless hush where longing becomes love, and love becomes legend.

Sunghoon enters your life like a tide dragged by hidden moons, a force that remaps every shoreline of your heart. He is a thousand small revelations stitched into one mortal frame: the way his eyes soften when a foal wobbles on untested legs; the hush in his voice as he coaxes wild roses to climb a crumbling trellis; the quicksilver wit that flashes only when he is certain no one of rank is listening. You have watched him mend tack with surgeon-care, soothe a tearful child with a straw sparrow, debate poetry with the cook while carving turnips thin as petals. Each glimpse adds a brushstroke to an impossible portrait: a man whose cleverness never curdles into scorn, whose strength never bows to cruelty, whose laughter feels like rain on parched earth. In his presence the air tastes of possibility; your pulse lurches to an ancient rhythm and every breath you share is an unspoken vow that you might yet become the woman caged inside your ribs, fierce and radiant. 

You love him for the gravity of his hands, the way his touch grounds you even as the world tilts beneath your feet. You love him for the constellations he sketches, not just in charcoal on battered parchment, but along the lines of your skin with reverent fingertips, mapping every freckle, every scar, as though your body itself is a sky he’s been waiting his whole life to chart. You love the hush of his concentration, how his brow furrows as he draws you, how he looks up and memorizes you in strokes both aching and immortal. When you speak, he listens as if your words could reorient the heavens, his eyes fixed on you as though no other truth exists. Every touch ignites like flint against steel, a thousand sparks quickening beneath your skin, need threading through devotion until the ache of longing and the promise of love become indistinguishable, burning and eternal.

Every dawn no longer arrives with the pale hush of light alone. Dawn now slips into your room on quiet feet, embodied by Sunghoon’s warmth curling around your back, by the soft scrape of his stubble at your nape as he murmurs good-morning against your skin. He becomes sunrise in motion, gold unfolding across your body, the first careful glide of his tongue at the hollow behind your ear followed by the slow pilgrimage of his lips over each ridge of bone and curve of flesh. His tenderness is a tide that lifts you from sleep, coaxing sighs from your throat the way sunlight coaxes petals from tight night-buds.

When he parts your thighs, he does so as though unveiling a secret garden only he remembers how to tend. His tongue traces the alphabet of devotion against your most sensitive flesh until words dissolve and only music remains, a hymn of gasps and shivers that rise with the light. His cock enters you like the sun easing over a horizon, deliberate and inexorable, filling you with heat that blooms outward to the tips of your fingers. He moves slowly at first, reverent, guiding your hips with the sure patience of a mariner who trusts every current. When your body begins to tremble he quickens, strokes deep and steady, whispering your name like a litany, promising in each thrust that no hourglass, no lock, no vow will ever separate him from the wild heart he has claimed.

Between these storms of pleasure there is the gentler weather of your days. He teaches you how to steady a skittish foal, how to catch a carp with nothing but line and quiet, how to find the north star even through a veil of cloud. You read him sonnets beneath the willow, tracing each line on his forearm as though inking a map of places you will one day travel. His laughter rolls across the fields like midsummer thunder, startling birds into flight, and when evening drips violet down the sky you paint constellations on his shoulders with pressed-flower pigment, declaring him your private firmament. At night he braids your hair so slowly the stars seem to pause their own spinning to watch, fingers threading tenderness into every twist. You fall asleep to the cadence of his heartbeat at your spine, the rhythms of two bodies syncing like twin tides. In dreams you drift through orchards where every blossom bears the taste of his kiss, and in waking you discover that dawn is still wrapped around you, whispering new ways to worship, new ways to be free.

Yet guilt runs beneath the joy, a hairline crack in crystal, because somewhere in the midnight vault of memory a masked stranger still owns your first reckless promise. You swore yourself to the lover who tasted of foxfire and storm, the man who slipped away before dawn and carried half your soul into darkness. Now you tremble in love with Sunghoon, golden and steadfast Sunghoon, while part of you believes you have betrayed that ghost. You do not know the two men are one. You only feel the ache of an impossible triangle, devotion split between a fever dream and the miracle breathing beside you. Night after night you press a hand to your racing heart and wonder whether desire can be faithless, whether love can bear two faces, whether the truth, when it finally steps into candlelight, will shatter you or set you free.

The weeks that follow slip into a fevered rhythm, every dawn and dusk steeped in longing, hunger, and the secret worship of skin on skin. Sex is not a singular act but a language, spoken in moonlit corners and behind locked doors, woven through laughter and the hush of forbidden afternoons, thick as honey and twice as sweet. Your bodies learn each other in every possible way: tangled in the sheets of your bedroom, pressed up against the cold glass of the east-facing window, or sprawled across the silk runner on the piano bench. Nothing is enough, every touch sharpens your craving, every night leaves you aching for more. Sunghoon is inexhaustible, insatiable, a force that draws you back again and again, until your thighs are bruised and your voice is hoarse with the sound of his name. It becomes a liturgy of devotion and need; his mouth, his hands, his cock, each encounter painting you in fresh shades of ruin and rapture, a masterpiece still unfinished, a hunger still unsated.

Night settles over Wolhwa Estate like molten velvet, warm and heavy, every corridor fragrant with beeswax and fading woodsmoke, every velvet curtain stirring in a hush of secrets. You and Sunghoon drift through those shadows as if tethered by magnet and moon, your entire world reduced to the hush of footfalls and the ragged rise of breath. In the servants’ passage, lanternlight gutters against stone while he tangles his fist in your hair, tipping your head back so your mouth opens for his. Spit slicks your tongue, a hot, wicked communion you swallow with a grateful hum, and each filthy kiss brands a vow on your lips. You kneel on cool slate, bodice half-undone, fingers digging crescents into his thighs as he rocks forward, murmuring endearments that make the darkness vibrate. When he shudders, pressing his brow to the wall, you taste salt and heat and devotion, the blend holy as stolen sacrament. A clock in the distant corridor chimes the hour, but time evaporates; the world is nothing but the sacred give-and-take of your mouths and the lush promise of what waits next.

Moonlight lures you onward to the music room, where brocade drapes sigh against tall windows and the grand piano sleeps under dusted silk. Sunghoon sinks onto the chaise, broad shoulders framed by shadows, and drags you over his face with almost reverent greed. Your skirts puddle around his neck, thighs bracketing the strong curve of his jaw, while his tongue maps you with patient precision—slow spirals, languid strokes—until your vision blurs and your nails carve welts into velvet. He urges you lower, urging, “Use me, let me taste every heartbeat,” voice breaking into a groan as you begin to ride his mouth in earnest. Each roll of your hips paints fire behind your eyes; each muffled moan vibrates into your spine. The chandelier above scatters fractured moonbeams across the ceiling, and when you finally shatter, trembling and breathless, he laps every echo of pleasure, eyes shining with worship. He sits back, slick-lipped and panting, murmuring, “If this is the last air I breathe, I would meet death content,” before kissing the trembling inside of your knee.

Down a tapestry-lined hall he carries you, both of you half-dressed, eager to collapse onto your bed where the sheets still hold afternoon warmth. He sheaths himself in your body without hurry, burying his cock to the hilt, then stills, refusing you motion. You clutch at him in frustration, but he hushes your pleas with kisses softer than silk, one hand gliding over your breast while the other circles your clit in indolent sweeps. You cock-warm him until your walls flutter and drip, until every nerve buzzes for friction. You whisper, “Promise you’ll never leave,” and he presses his forehead to yours, breath mingling. “I am yours,” he vows, “in every dawn, in every grave, in every unseen lifetime.” When he finally thrusts, it is slow, crushing sweetness, a tide that drags you under, leaving you weeping into his mouth as pleasure rips you open.

Long past midnight, the gilt wallpaper of a silent corridor cradles your bare shoulder blades. Sunghoon pins your wrists above your head with one hand while the other plunges between your thighs, two fingers curling, ruthless and sure. “Tell me,” he rasps against your ear, “what do you want?” You beg, voice hoarse, and he drinks each syllable like wine, only sliding into you once tears bead at your lashes. His hips snap hard, rhythmic, your moans muffled against his throat. Every stroke is a bright blade carving ownership into marrow; every arch of your body is surrender wrought in silk.

The greenhouse beckons next. Condensation beads on misty panes, lanternlight flickering through leaves. He hoists you onto a potting table; soil flecks your thighs as he encircles your throat, thumb pressing gently until your heartbeat drums beneath his grip. A soft slap kisses your cheek, just enough sting to send heat spiraling downward. “Speak your name,” he commands. You choke out your vow of belonging, and he answers by sliding two fingers inside, thumb stroking until your vision whites out and flowers bow in silent witness. Books breathe dust in the vast library where he worships you as if you were scripture: mouth at your throat, teeth marking, tongue soothing. Bite after bite adorns your skin, blooming plum and wine-dark in secret places. “Now the world will know,” he whispers, laving each bruise, “no matter what gown hides these marks, you are mine beneath it.” Your whimpers echo between leather-bound volumes older than kingdoms.

Flames gutter low in your father’s study, embers spitting as Sunghoon bends you over the oak desk. Papers scatter under grasping fingers while he splits you open, cock pounding in relentless rhythm. The crackle of fire matches the filthy hiss of his promises: to breed you, to see you round and leaking, to make your body remember him long after society forgets your name. When he spills inside, he stays seated deep, holding you there until warmth drips down your thighs in thick, possessive trails. He drags you before the gilt mirror in your mother’s chamber. Silk pools at your ankles, and you meet your own reflection as he drives into you from behind. Your mouth is slack, eyes blown, cheeks rosé from heat; his gaze in the glass is half-feral, wholly reverent. “Watch,” he pants. Seeing yourself unravel—back arched, breasts swaying, pleasure slackening every line—tips you over, your climax a raw sob. He bears his teeth against your shoulder, thrusting deeper until his own release steals his breath.

In the dusty attic he knots your wrists with his cravat, the fabric silk-soft yet unyielding. You lie beneath him on rough planks, hair splayed like spilled ink. Each thrust grinds your pelvis into ancient wood, every creak of floorboards threatening discovery. He murmurs praise, each word stitching you tighter to him than any knot, until you cry out, body bowing, surrender absolute. In the pantry’s hushed darkness, he sinks to his knees behind you, palms spreading your cheeks. His tongue circles, then delves, tasting you everywhere, worship unstoppable. You sag against the shelf, jars rattling while his mouth destroys your composure, coaxing filthy pleas until your release crashes, leaving you boneless and glowing, his name the only prayer you know.

Finally, you straddle him on the velvet settee in the front parlour, rain needling the window, thunder rolling beyond. You ride him fiercely, hips slamming, wet sounds loud in the hush. Footsteps pass in the corridor; risk sharpens every thrust. He clamps a hand over your mouth to stifle your cry, teeth grit as he follows you over, both of you shaking in reckless exaltation. In that storm-lit moment you learn dawn always chases lovers, but night will steal you back, body by body, breath by breath. And until sun spills its first accusing light, Sunghoon is yours and you are his, tangled in sheets or shadows, trading secrets and sin in every corner the estate forgot.

Your hearts are a riot of need and memory, each breath tasting of sin and salvation, every nerve alive and begging for more. You cannot say where your skin ends and his begins, cock and cunt joined, every muscle quivering, the world collapsing into the sacred, gasping dark between your bodies. He fills you until all you can breathe is Sunghoon: his scent, his sweat, his curses, your name torn from his throat as if he could carve it into the marrow of your bones. Your thighs shake as you fuck him slow and deep, every drag a promise, every squeeze a prayer; the ache of him inside you is your only reality, your purpose, your undoing. The room melts away. You ride him until your legs tremble, your moans swallowed by the press of his palm, desperate to keep you a secret, desperate to make you his. You shatter together, breathless, clutching him as if he’s the only solid thing in a world spun loose, clinging to him as the thunder rolls and the estate shudders with the weight of what you’ve become.

Your bodies fuse like two meteors caught in a single, catastrophic orbit, heat, gravity, inevitability. Every thrust is a fault line splitting open, every moan the birth of a new star, flaring bright before it dies on your lips. His cock drags through you in punishing, worshipful strokes, and the ache is so exquisite you feel the universe contract to the wet pulse where he lives inside you. You’re oxygen to him, the only element that can burn pure enough to keep his heart alight; he is a wildfire to you, devouring every doubt until all that remains is the raw, molten truth of want. You clutch his shoulders as though they are the last land left above a storm-swept sea, and when you both shatter, panting, sobbing, clinging, the night itself seems to gasp, candle flames bowing in reverence to the violent sanctity of your joining.

Afterward, you are still tangled in your bed, the sheets ruined and twisted, your breath cooling on his collarbone. He never spends the night in his own room anymore, always in yours, as if he belongs to you now as much as you belong to him. For a moment, see it from his eyes: you above him, flushed and wild, the golden candlelight tracing your jaw, sweat gleaming on your skin. He sees you in ways no one else ever has, hair spilling over your shoulders, your giggles honeyed and breathless, riding him like you were born for it. Your hands glide down his chest, tongue tracing his abs, teasing and tasting, and he feels something shatter inside him. You are joy, defiance, the promise of every dream he buried beneath the ashes of poverty. You are everything beautiful and bright in a world that taught him only to survive, not to hope.

You lift your chin and let him drink you in, candlelight gliding over every flawless plane of your face: the satin curve of your cheek, still flushed from pleasure; the gentle sweep of your nose, delicate as porcelain; the lush, parted bow of your lips, rosy and damp; the dark silk of lashes fanning shadows across luminous eyes; the proud line of your throat, pulsing softly beneath translucent skin. Your hair spills like molten dusk across the pillows, framing you in velvet darkness, and tiny beads of sweat cling to your collarbones like scattered pearls. He studies each detail as if committing a masterpiece to memory, hunger and reverence warring in his gaze, looking at you the way a starving man gazes upon bread, afraid one blink will banish the feast forever. You giggle, a soft note of wonder, and lean down to lick a bead of sweat from the furrow of his abs; he inhales as if you’ve stolen the very air from his lungs. In that moment you are both weightless, suspended on the cusp of forever, held together by desire so bright it might sear the ceiling with constellations only the two of you can read.

And yet, in the quiet, shame gnaws at him. He remembers the weight of his empty pockets, the ache of hunger, the cold that seeped into his bones every winter spent on the streets. All he has to offer you is the truth of his hands—rough from work, stained by ink and labor. He is a cathedral of empty pockets and half-healed scars, a boy who learned early that hunger has many names, coin, comfort, home. While you trace idle patterns over his chest, he catalogues every deficit: no land, no fortune, no lineage but the ache of memory. He pictures Heeseung’s cufflinks gleaming like coins in a well, promises tossed to drown out yearning and tastes ash on his tongue. He is rags to your riches, mud to your moonlight, and sometimes when you look at him with all that hope in your eyes, he aches with fear that you love a ghost, not a man. He wishes he could be only the masked stranger, bold and weightless, untethered by station. Instead, he is just Sunghoon: orphan, servant, hungry for every scrap of tenderness you offer, desperate to be enough.

He aches with shame when he hears your mother’s words in the hall, the venom of the ton, every whispered warning about lowborn boys and ruined reputations. He imagines you in silk and sapphire, paraded beneath chandeliers while he watches from the shadows, nameless once more. He worries you will one day regret loving him, that you will wake and see how little he truly has to give. Still, you lean over him, palm pressed to his cheek, whispering, “I love you, I’ll fight for you, I’ll choose you until my last breath.” He smiles for you, soft, wrecked, trembling but inside he’s breaking, all devotion and dread, humming a tune to mask the sound of his heart shattering beneath your touch. He tells you he’s yours. He lets you believe it, even as he wonders how long he can keep holding on to a happiness that feels borrowed, stolen, doomed from the start.

You drift to sleep wrapped around him, a sweet tangle of limbs and dreams, but he lies awake, counting the fragile seconds before dawn. He memorizes the curl of your lashes, the mole beneath your collarbone, the soft exhale that flutters against his throat, tiny, irrefutable proofs that this night is real. And even as he vows to guard this impossible love with every ragged breath, he feels the horizon edging closer, bright with the cruel promise of morning, whispering that love like this has always been a borrowed fire, destined to gutter when the sun rises.

Your palms brace against the polished curve of your vanity, knuckles white, the glass crowded with perfume vials and scattered hairpins trembling with each brutal stroke. Sunghoon’s hips snap against you from behind, hands fisted in your hair and tangled at your waist, his cock plunging deep, the headboard rattling with every shuddering thrust. The mirror holds your reflection, a fevered, debauched portrait of longing, your mouth open, lashes fluttering, the chain of your necklace twisted between your teeth. He leans in, breath hot at your ear, the scent of salt and candle wax crowding the narrow space. “God above,” he groans, voice thick with need, “look at you, bent for me, holy and wicked, no angel, no devil could ever tempt me so.” His teeth scrape your shoulder, his words muffled in your hair, and for a moment you are lost in the pleasure of being possessed.

Yet even as your body arches, hungry for every inch, a tremor of sorrow winds through your heart. Sunghoon has grown quieter these nights, his kisses gentler, briefer, his gaze wandering to shadowed corners when he thinks you cannot see. He finds reasons to leave your bed earlier, to disappear into chores or to the stables before dawn. Each day you feel him slipping, the slow, dreadful unraveling of something golden, each time he makes love to you now, it feels as though he’s memorizing a goodbye.

Your release crashes through you just as your hip jars the vanity drawer, sending it yawning wide; out tumbles the relic of that other life, midnight silk veined with gilt, a single feathered edge snagging in your hair before skittering to the tabletop like a fallen star. The sight arrests every breath in your lungs. In one blinding heartbeat desire tangles with old grief, and all the walls you built around that night crumble. Memory surges: a garden drenched in moonlight, a stranger’s mouth pledging forever, the exquisite ache of being seen and then abandoned. You had folded that ache into the quieter rhythm of loving Sunghoon, convinced the past could rest. Yet the mask glints back at you now, cruel as prophecy, and grief blooms anew, raw longing for a ghost, guilt for the living man you clutch, terror that love might be finite, braided with a desperate, trembling hope that a heart can endure two infinities at once.

Time stutters, your body frozen on the precipice between climax and collapse, as every nerve is hijacked by memory. Grief and yearning tear through you, fierce as a wound reopened; the masked lover who once possessed you, the phantom you have mourned in every trembling heartbeat, returns with the force of a storm. Shame pools hot in your chest, how could you still ache for a man whose name you never knew, even as you clutch Sunghoon, even as you love him in every possible way? Guilt stings: are you faithless, fickle, capable of betraying both men at once? Yet hope flickers beneath the anguish, a dangerous, defiant hope that maybe, impossibly, your heart is boundless, that you are not ruined for love but remade by it, even if it shatters you all over again. The mask sits there, mute and damning, and in its shadow you are splintered—lover, ghost, betrayer, beloved—terrified to discover which piece is truly yours.

Still trembling and wanton, you twist and giggle, catching Sunghoon’s startled gaze in the mirror. “Let me see you masked, just once, will you not indulge your wicked lady?” you tease, voice playful, soft and bright. You grab the mask and, before he can protest, you press it over his eyes, laughter bubbling in your chest, a moment of silly, wanton joy. The mask settles, shadows slicing across Sunghoon’s cheekbones, and for a breathless second you are both silent, eyes wide, the world shrinking to the trembling hush between you.

The laughter dies on your lips. A cold certainty spills through your veins, a puzzle piece clicking into place, a shudder of recognition blooming in the pit of your stomach. It is the way the mask fits, the way his jaw flexes beneath your palm, the tremble in his breath, the very timbre of his voice. The mirror holds the truth you have been running from: only one man has ever been the keeper of your ruin, your longing, your heart’s wild ache. You stare, mute, at the reflection, understanding—at last—that Sunghoon has always been your masked lover, and that the man you betrayed, the man you mourned, and the man you crave are, impossibly, heartbreakingly, one and the same.

The revelation detonates inside you like a cathedral collapsing, stone and stained glass raining through your chest; every pillar of certainty fractures along hairline fissures you never saw forming. In the mirror’s silvered eye you watch two histories collide, one lived in daylight, one smoldering in moon-lit sin and their collision sends shockwaves through marrow and memory alike. The mask rests upon Sunghoon’s face as though it has been waiting there all along, a relic returning to its altar, and in that fit you feel time re-stitch itself, every stolen kiss, every whispered promise folding back to the first breath you ever shared in his arms. Your pulse lurches: a sparrow ensnared in barbed wire, wings beating blood-bright panic, love, despair.

A hurricane of recognition whirls through you: the velvet hush of All Hallows’ Eve, the scent of damp leaves crushed beneath furtive footsteps, the furious bloom of lust against a willow’s curtain, each echo finds its origin in the man now buried inside you. Desire sharpens to terror; devotion bruises into awe. You taste iron on your tongue, as though honesty itself has struck you blindside, and the room tilts, chandelier prisms shattering light across your skin like falling stars. He is everything, your salvation, your undoing, the ghost who made you a woman and the servant who made you a rebel and the knowledge is so colossal it feels planetary, dragging oceans of feeling across the landscape of your heart until continents crack.

You wrench yourself away from him with a sob so raw it splits the air. Your legs tangle in discarded linens, your heels slip on polished floorboards, but you claw yourself upright, chest heaving, hands trembling so violently you nearly knock the mask from the vanity’s edge. “No,” you gasp, choking on the word as though it will kill you. “No, no, no—how could you—how could you do this to me?” The world spins, the room collapsing into shadow and candlelight, the storm inside you eclipsing every rational thought. You clutch the mask as if it might anchor you, your fingers white-knuckled on velvet, heart racing with grief and horror and fury. The taste of him is still on your lips, the scent of your bodies still clinging to the air, and yet you feel suddenly, irreversibly alone.

Sunghoon moves to reach for you, but you flinch back, tears streaming unchecked down your cheeks. “Don’t,” you cry, voice hoarse and shattering. “Don’t you dare. You lied to me, you let me mourn you—you let me ache for you, and all this time—” Your voice breaks, the sobs building, wracking your frame with each ragged breath. “You watched me fall in love with a ghost. You watched me choose you over and over, and you said nothing. Why, Sunghoon? Why?”

He drops to his knees before you, his hands balled into fists at his sides, shoulders trembling. “I never meant to hurt you,” he whispers, the words torn from somewhere deep, “I swear, I never did. I—” His voice falters, shame painting his face in stark relief. “I am nothing, not what you deserve. I have no name, no title, no legacy. All I could give you was a night, a story, a secret. I loved you then, I love you now, but I was afraid—afraid you would never choose a man like me if you knew who I truly was.”

Your hands shake as you throw the mask at his feet, the gesture wild, trembling, desperate. “You should have told me!” you shriek, anguish pitching your voice into hysteria. “You should have trusted me. I gave you everything, my body, my heart, my soul. I believed in you. I let myself believe that I could be loved for who I am, not what I am.” You clutch your stomach, doubled over, gasping for breath, the tears burning cold tracks down your face. “Get out,” you whisper, then scream, the words fractured and final. “Get out. Get out. I never want to see you again.”

Sunghoon stands, trembling, eyes glazed with unshed tears, and you watch him, this man you loved, this man who lied, cross the threshold with his head bowed, pausing only to look back once, regret written in every shattered line of his face. He doesn’t plead. He doesn’t beg. He disappears into the corridor, the silence he leaves behind louder than any storm, and you collapse onto the floor, mask pressed to your heart, sobbing for everything you lost and everything you were foolish enough to hope.

You collapse onto the floor, shaking with grief and humiliation, mask crushed in your grip, and the only thought in your mind is how could I have been such a fool? Yet even as the agony swallows you, your mind spins with all the reasons you never saw the truth, not until now, when it is far too late. When Sunghoon arrived, he was never the man who haunted your dreams. He wore the plain livery of your house, cap pulled low to hide the dark sweep of his hair, the hands that once held you raw and callused, always busy with the unglamorous work that kept your world spinning. He moved through corridors with his eyes averted, voice pitched low, posture deferential, always mindful of his place and the silent, watchful eyes of your mother, your father, every soul in the estate. He spoke to you only when etiquette demanded, never lingering, never looking too long, each interaction rehearsed and proper. He was invisible by necessity, always on the edge of your world, never at its center.

But at the masquerade, the man you met was draped in borrowed finery, clothes that belonged to a friend or perhaps a musician’s cast-off, the fabric unfamiliar but the fit uncanny, transforming him into someone untethered from the dust and duty of your home. His mask was ornate, curling gilt and silk that caught the lamplight, and beneath it, his hair tumbled wild and shining, eyes alive, posture straight and sure. In that night’s anonymity, he moved like someone who had never tasted fear. He looked at you as an equal, spoke with a freedom that made your heart race, soft, witty, unburdened. You had never heard his voice ring with such certainty, never imagined he could be so bold.

Everything about the masquerade was designed to deceive: the swirl of candlelight, the press of masked bodies, the thrill of being unknown. You were so overwhelmed by the fever-dream energy, the heady possibility that anything could happen, anyone could be anyone, that you never let yourself look for what was familiar. You weren’t searching for someone you knew; you were desperate to be unknown, unjudged, to lose yourself and be seen only as yourself for the very first time. You let go of every anchor, every rule. And so you never questioned, never looked for the echo of his voice or the memory in his touch.

Even later, as days passed and little flashes pricked your memory, a cadence, a gesture, the way he looked at you as though you were the only living thing in the room, you repressed it. You convinced yourself it couldn’t be Sunghoon. The gulf between servant and daughter of the house was too wide, too impossible to cross. Logic and pride and fear built walls around your heart. You wouldn’t let yourself believe.

A month passes like a long, bruised winter. The world outside blooms and withers and blooms again, but inside the estate, time stagnates, each day a muffled echo of the last. Sunghoon remains at work: mending fences in the morning chill, scrubbing tack in the golden hush of evening, always somewhere at the periphery of your vision. He moves like a ghost, head down, never lingering in a room you occupy. For weeks, you avoid each other, orbiting with agonizing restraint, both changed and chastened by the violence of what you shared and what shattered between you.

But grief has a half-life, and longing is patient. One evening, the house emptied by a soiree in town, you find him in the west stable, stacking hay with deliberate slowness, hands moving through muscle memory. Your pulse stutters; resolve hardens. You stride toward him, skirt brushing straw, and seize his arm, yanking him into a shadowed alcove behind the tack room. He startles, then freezes, brown eyes wide with hurt and hope and bone-deep exhaustion. For a moment, the only sound is the thunder of your hearts.

You lift your chin, voice trembling but sure. “You owe me the truth, Sunghoon. The whole of it. I cannot spend the rest of my life haunting these corridors, cursing your name, never knowing why you wore that mask, why you let me love you, twice over, only to shatter everything we could have had. I deserve to know. Please—no more riddles.”

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, and when he speaks his voice is rough as gravel and gentle as prayer. “You want the truth?” He shakes his head, pain scrawled over every line of his face. “I lied because I was afraid. Afraid you’d wake one morning and look at me, a servant, a boy with no name, no coin, nothing but the dirt under his nails and the ache in his heart and you’d hate yourself for what you’d given up. Afraid your mother was right, that love like ours would only ever end in loss. You are the world’s brightest thing, Y/N, and I am nothing but the shadow it casts.”

His gaze drops, hands fisting at his sides, knuckles gone white. When he finally speaks again, it’s quieter, edges sharper, his own pain camouflaged as certainty. “Getting involved with you, here, in your father’s house, was a mistake, Y/N. The worst kind of selfishness. I should never have let you look at me twice. Every moment we shared beneath this roof was a trespass, a theft of a future you were meant to have. I regret it, truly I do. I see now that the first night was fate, yes, but everything after, that was choice. My choice. I should have left well enough alone. You deserve a man who can stand beside you in the daylight, not just one who can love you in the dark.”

He turns away, dragging a hand through his hair as if searching for the right words, then shakes his head, voice trembling. “After All Hallows’ Eve, I promised myself I would never come near you again. I intended to vanish as surely as I’d appeared, let you keep your memories untarnished by the truth. You were never meant to see me unmasked, never meant to know me as I am. That night was not meant to mean anything, least of all to me. It was supposed to be a single stolen hour, a lie I could tell myself for a lifetime.”

He lets out a shaky breath, eyes glimmering with something like shame. “I didn’t even belong at the masquerade. I was only there because my friends—Jake and Sunoo—won a raffle at the inn. They dragged me along, gave me a suit some musician had abandoned, pressed a mask into my hands and laughed, told me to go and play at being a lord for a night. It was all a game. I had no invitation, no claim, nothing but borrowed clothes and borrowed courage. I thought I could slip in, blend with the shadows, drink their wine, maybe steal a dance or two and leave before dawn. I didn’t expect to find you. I didn’t expect to want more.”

He presses the heel of his palm to his brow, trying to steady himself, voice thick with a wounded sort of pride. “I only knew how to make my way around because I grew up at the fringes of places like this. Watching, listening. Learning how the gentry walk and talk and laugh at the right moments. Years spent polishing boots, fetching wine, learning which fork to use, what words to say to make the world ignore the dirt on your hands. I could mimic their language and poise for a few hours, but I don’t live in that world. I never have.”

He glances at you then, eyes burning. “You were meant to love a man who could give you everything. I can only give you memories and regrets. The ball, the house, this love, I don’t belong to any of it. I don’t belong to you, not really. That’s why I have to go. For both our sakes.” His words are a thousand tiny knives, carving distance between you even as you stand mere inches apart. All his tenderness, all his longing, all the dreams he spun for you are now twisted back into armor. He wants to make it easy for you to let go, to hate him for his lies, to erase the ache of wanting a man who was never truly yours to claim. Yet behind the hurt, you see the truth: every word is an act of love, a final gift, a way to leave you free.

His shoulders slump, the fight leaking from him in one long, defeated breath. “When I applied for a place in your father’s stables,” he begins, voice no louder than hooves on fresh snow, “I had not the slightest notion whose crest hung above the gates. I saw only the promise of wages, a roof that did not leak, hay enough for a pallet, and work for my hands. I was a starving man—a nameless constellation—and employment was the first glimmer of bread. I knew nothing of ‘Lady Y/N,’ nothing of your title, your fortune, your legend. I let necessity blind me to heraldry.”

His gaze lifts, anguish bright as moon-cut steel. “The very first morning I led Asterion from his stall, you stepped into the yard, sunlight on your hair, and my heart recognised what my eyes refused to credit. It was as though fate, that casual, cruel marksman, had loosed a second arrow while I stood unguarded. Guilt hit harder than any blow. I counted every breath a stolen coin, every glance a fresh offence. To stand beneath your windows, hear your laughter, and pretend we were strangers felt a daily act of theft, as if I pilfered a jewel each time you passed and did not know whose memory I held.”

He presses both fists to his chest, as though steadying a wound that will not close. “Coincidence,” he says, bitterness and wonder knotted together, “is a deadly alchemist. It takes a pauper and a diamond, grinds them in the mortar of chance, and brews a potion no man can drink without poisoning or transfiguring his soul. The moment I saw you I knew the draught was already in my blood.”

A ragged breath, then softer, almost broken: “Every day since has been a crime of omission. I should have quit this house that first afternoon, walked until your name was only dust on my boots. Instead I stayed, craving a glimpse, hoping for a single word. When words became touches, and touches became sin, I told myself the cobweb of lies would somehow hold. It never could. Let the blame rest squarely on me; coincidence may have aimed, but it was my hand that pulled the trigger.”

He draws a shuddering breath, fingers trembling as he scrubs a hand over his jaw, unable to look at you. “Falling in love with you was a mistake,” he says, each word landing heavy and raw. “It was a mistake the first time, on All Hallows’ Eve, when I let myself believe for a single night I could belong in your world. You were the moon and I was a thief, clad in a borrowed coat, hiding behind a stranger’s mask, letting myself touch wonder as if it wouldn’t burn me. I should never have gone to you, never have let your hands find me, never have tasted the kind of longing meant for kings and heirs. I was a fraud, just a servant boy playing at being someone worthy, and in doing so, I stole a part of you I could never hope to keep.”

He pauses, voice breaking. “But the crueler mistake, the unforgivable one, was what came after. I should have kept my distance when I found work here. I should have left the first time our hands touched, the first time I saw your eyes searching for mine. Instead I let myself be greedy, let myself believe that you could want me, the real me, dirty hands, empty pockets, old sins and all. And when I let you in, when I let you ride me, hold me, laugh in my arms, I was robbing you twice over: once of your dreams, and again of your right to choose with full knowledge. You trusted me, and I failed you. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. If I could take back every kiss, every secret, every promise, I would. But I cannot. The worst crime of all is that I don’t want to. I would do it again just to know what it is to love you, even if loving you ruins us both.”

You open your mouth, but he presses on, voice breaking. “I thought, if you loved the masked man, at least for one night, you could have a memory untouched by shame or regret. I wanted to give you that—freedom, wildness, joy—everything you deserve. But I should have told you. I should never have put you in a predicament of having to choose between me and your family, your safety, your name. I never wanted to be the reason you lost anything. I could survive a life without you, if it keeps you safe. But I could never bear to watch you suffer, knowing I was the cause. You deserve a world I can’t give you, a future, a fortune, a name sung in every drawing room from here to London. What can I offer you? My hands are empty. I am sorry. God, I am so sorry.” His breath is ragged; he can’t meet your gaze. “At the end of this month, I will be gone. The boys and I, we’ve made arrangements. I will not trouble you again. I want you to find happiness, whatever shape it takes, even if it means forgetting me altogether.”

He finally looks at you, agony in every inch of him. “You deserve better than this, better than me. I’m sorry, Y/N. I will always be sorry.” Your heart splits open. The truth, raw and unsparing, is laid bare at last but he seems further away than ever, a horizon you could chase forever and never reach.

Tears blur your vision, spilling hot down your cheeks as you reach for him, voice cracked and trembling. “Don’t say that, don’t do this to me. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything, more than I ever thought myself capable of loving.” Your hands flutter helplessly at his jaw, your heart threatening to burst beneath your corset. “You are all the comfort I have ever known, the only place I feel like myself, like I’m not pretending or performing for a world that will never see me. Please, I beg you, don’t leave me. I’ve had time to think, to rage, to hurt, and I understand why you did what you did. I forgive you. You were protecting yourself, protecting us, in a way. I don’t care about what you have or don’t have. I don’t want a gilded cage. I want you. Only you.”

“I have worn silk like manacles and courted diamonds that felt colder than snow, yet a single hour in your threadbare shirt showed me more splendour than a lifetime of pearls,” you cry, voice shaking but unbroken. “The world keeps tally of coin and lineage, but I have counted the kingdoms hidden in your sketches, the galaxies you mapped on my skin with nothing but charcoal-stained fingertips. What is a dowry beside the way you breathe my name? What is a title beside the heat of your heartbeat against my spine at dawn? Let them call it folly, let them carve my name from every guest list in London, so long as I wake to wood-smoke in your hair and the taste of borrowed courage on your tongue. When I say I want only you, I mean the dirt beneath your nails, the ache in your bones, the starlight in your pockets, every ragged, glorious fragment. Give me that, and I will trade every ballroom, every season, every brittle scrap of propriety for the wild miracle of being yours.”

You try to draw him in, desperate to make him see, your lips brushing his, a whimper caught in your throat but he pulls away, shaking, refusing your kiss even as you sob. Your body aches for him, your soul aches for the warmth you have only found in his arms. “If you must hate me, hate me for my choice, not for my love. I am a woman, not a doll for the ton. I have chosen you with eyes open, chosen your scars, your hunger, your hands, your secrets. There is nothing I want but you. No title, no inheritance, no other man could ever offer me a heart like yours, a touch that makes me feel real. I would live in rags if it meant waking up to your breath in my hair. I would rather be ruined with you than be worshipped by a prince.”

“There is nothing I crave but the pulse beneath your scars, no inheritance that could tempt me from the heat of your palm at my back, no marquess or monarch whose velvet-cushioned promises could match the way your breath curls in my hair and brands me beloved,” you insist, each word a hammer beating against the cage of expectation. “Let the ton whisper that I squander my birthright, let my mother mourn the empty seat at a duke’s table; I would trade every embroidered gown for the scrape of barn dust on my knees if it meant falling asleep against your heartbeat and waking to the rough music of your laughter. Ruin me, hide me in a cottage stitched from winter smoke and meadow light; I will mend the roof with you, braid wildflowers through your hair, and thank the stars that I was spared a throne so that I could kneel at the altar of your heart. I would rather walk barefoot beside you through rain and hunger than parade in silks for a prince who cannot tell my longing from his own reflection.”

He collapses under the weight of your confession, tears falling silent and unguarded. He crushes you to his chest, mouth finding yours in a kiss that’s all trembling surrender, salt and storm and hope, and you cry into him, both of you gasping for breath, greedy for every taste as if this could make the world right again. Relief floods you, hope blooms wild, but before you can fully lose yourself in the miracle of him, Sunghoon tears himself away, eyes shining with agony. “No,” he rasps, “no, my love. I will be leaving the estate. I cannot do this to you, cannot be the reason you lose everything. You mustn’t ask me to stay.”

Your voice breaks again, desperate and raw. “Stay. Stay and I’ll marry you. I’ll give you children, babies to carry your name and your laughter and your stubborn hope. I don’t want a lord or a fortune, Sunghoon, I want you. You have given me more than any nobleman could offer, your heart, your faith, your courage. You have loved me, truly, fiercely, in a way no one else ever could. Let me have that. Let me have you. We can run away together, anywhere, I don’t care. Just let me belong to you.”

But he only laughs, a sound twisted by heartbreak, shaking his head, pushing you gently back. “You’ll get over me, my lady. You’ll forget me in time, find some comfort in Heeseung’s arms, or another man’s, and have the life you deserve. He can give you safety, babies, a roof that doesn’t leak. I am only a ghost, a mistake you will regret, a shadow that will only bring you ruin. Forget me. Please.” His voice is a grave, and you are left kneeling at its edge, longing for a resurrection that love alone cannot summon.

Your life has become a hollow echo of what it once was, each dawn less golden, each night colder, the world shrinking to the gray chamber of a heart undone. Ever since Sunghoon rejected your love, it is as if something inside you has withered. Your laughter, once so quick and contagious, is a memory haunting the halls; your appetite for rebellion is gone, replaced by an apathy that tastes of iron and old grief. Days drift by in silence: you linger too long at your window, watching crows gather on the frostbitten lawns; you let tea cool untouched at your elbow, eyes glazed as the rain writes elegies down the glass. The house bustles around you, but you are an ornament now, a shell of a daughter, a listless shadow moving from drawing room to bed to nowhere at all.

Minji, ever steadfast, refuses to let you dissolve into oblivion. She sits by your side for hours, coaxing stories from you when words seem too heavy, braiding your hair when your hands shake. She smuggles novels and sweets into your chambers, urges you to walk in the gardens, even if all you do is stand beneath the trembling branches and weep. Your little sister Hana is a constant presence, her small, warm hand squeezing yours, her eyes bright with worry. Sometimes she clambers into bed with you at night, whispering secrets and promises, tucking herself close as if her small body could hold you together when you are most at risk of falling apart.

It is Papa, though, who breaks the silence that’s eating you alive. You find him in his study late one evening, the fire reduced to embers, and you blurt the truth, about Sunghoon, about your heart, about how everything you’ve ever wanted was never gilded or grand, only real and soft and painfully simple. He listens, brow furrowed, then speaks with the weary wisdom of a man who has lost things too: “Love, when true, is a stubborn root. It grows where it shouldn’t, through stones and frost. But this world—our world—does not often reward those who love without regard for name or coin. You must choose whether to tend that root, even when it’s hard. But whatever you decide, you will always be my daughter. That is all I can promise.”

No one else knows. You keep the greatest secret of all, Sunghoon’s other face, the man who first shattered you on All Hallows’ Eve, locked tight inside, too precious and too dangerous to voice aloud. You carry it like a bruise that never fades, a bruise only you can press.

Your mother suspects the shape of your sorrow; she gleans enough from Papa’s troubled silences, and she pounces. For her, your grief is an opportunity, she orchestrates meetings with Heeseung, accelerates the marriage arrangements, fills your calendar with calls and teas and fittings. You do not resist. The moment Sunghoon walked away was the moment your will evaporated, leaving nothing but exhaustion in its place. You stop arguing. You let them fit you for a wedding you do not want, let them sign contracts with hands that no longer tremble.

On the night of the engagement ball, meant to seal your fate with Lord Heeseung, you are a ghost in silk. The ball is at the house of Lady Hyerin, the grandest event of the season, where all the city’s eyes will be on the Marquess’s daughter and her future husband. You sit before the mirror as Mama tightens your stays, arranges pearls in your hair, her tongue sharp with pride and poison.

“You are the diamond of the season,” she reminds you, lips tight as she pulls the brush through your hair. “You will stand beside Heeseung tonight and shine as you were born to. Remember what is at stake, the family name, your future. You are not to look at that stable boy again. It was a mercy, what happened. He’s nothing, less than nothing. His hands are for horses, not for jewels. Do not embarrass us by entertaining any more foolishness. Smile, stand tall, and be the girl you were raised to be.”

You stare at your own reflection, eyes rimmed with salt, mouth a pale seam and say nothing. She doesn’t know, will never know, that you would have given everything for the love she so casually dismisses, that you would have torn yourself open, offered your heart and your ruin gladly, if only Sunghoon had wanted you. Now you wear her wishes like chains, each pearl another link, each brushstroke a mask you cannot remove. You rise, numb, and let the maids button you into a gown meant for someone else. The music of the ball calls from below, but your heart is already gone, lost to a boy with nothing but hope and a memory of a night that will never come again.

The night of the engagement ball dawns gilded and expectant, the house of Lady Hyerin thrown open in a sweep of candlelight and polished marble. The grand double doors glide open on a tide of candle-glow, and you step into Lady Hyerin’s ballroom as though wading into a painted dream. The ceiling vaults overhead in frescoed heavens, cherubs frozen mid-flight, while chandeliers blaze like captive constellations, scattering fire across a sea of brocade. The floor gleams mirror-bright; each slippered footfall seems to float upon reflections of silk and gilt. Perfume, ambergris, rose, a whisper of orange blossom, weaves with the sharper scent of beeswax and new-struck sparks from the violin bows. Every guest bears an unshadowed face tonight, for masks are deemed passé once negotiations are secure, yet the air feels more false than any masquerade; ambition and envy glitter brighter than the jewels clasped at white throats.

Lanterns blaze along the portico, carriages draw up in endless procession, and the autumn air is fragrant with roses and the crisp promise of spectacle. You arrive on your father’s arm, Mama poised at your side, and together you ascend the marble steps, diamond of the season, dutiful daughter, pawn in a parade. Within, the ballroom is a cathedral of light: ceilings vaulted and painted with mythic scenes, crystal chandeliers raining fire across acres of silk, the air humming with the hush of anticipation. Music shimmers beneath the rafters, violins and harp, the distant waltz of another, happier century and everywhere, the cream of society flocks in their finest, faces unmasked and eager, as if truth might be a fashion this year.

Mama skims beside you, her touch on your spine a silken rein, steering you through eddies of curtsies and commendations. Laughter rings like crystal struck too sharply, brittle and bright, and compliments drip from tongues trained for flattery. You move as you have been drilled to move, chin high, shoulders tenderly set, smile cut to perfect symmetry, yet inside everything is ash. You remember rough stable boards beneath your palms, the low murmur of a boy’s voice hitching on your name, the way love felt when it asked nothing but truth. Against that memory, this dazzling hall is an echoing shell; its music a hollow clamor, its chandeliers mere gilded cages for dying sparks.

There is a deep, unspoken irony that tonight—of all nights—no one hides behind velvet or gilt. Here, in this grand exhibition of wealth and power, every secret is worn openly, every ambition paraded without shame. You drift through it, gown trailing behind you in a froth of pale blue silk, pearls trembling at your throat, the brush of your mother’s hand at your back a constant reminder to smile, to curtsy, to charm. The presentation is flawless, each introduction another step in the intricate dance of alliances, yet every compliment, every admiring glance slides off you like rain on glass. All the grandeur in the world cannot fill the hollow where your heart used to beat.

You find yourself longing for the hush of stables, the honest ache of cold hands, the reckless heat of Sunghoon’s gaze—craving the kind of love that requires no audience, no inheritance, only truth. Here, among these glittering strangers, each word feels borrowed, each smile rehearsed. Your gaze drifts to the balcony, where the night air waits, soft and forgiving, and you wonder if freedom can be stitched from longing alone.

Lord Heeseung claims you for the first dance, his palm clammy against your glove, his grin wide and wolfish. “You look radiant tonight, Miss Wolhwa. The envy of every man here.” His voice carries just enough for those nearby to hear, a calculated declaration. You force a smile, the taste bitter on your tongue as he draws you onto the gleaming floor. The waltz begins, and he leans in, breath hot at your ear. “I trust you will find our union most agreeable, my lady. My estate is large, my stables finer than any in the province. I have many plans for you.” His words are bold, possessive, his fingers pressing too hard at your waist.

His smile never quite reaches his eyes; it is a smile a man wears when surveying a prize horse. The quartet swells, and you revolve beneath the crystal blaze, spun silk, spun lies, your body moving by rote while your mind drifts to a different pair of hands and the scent of rain-damp hay. Heeseung’s praise of his stud farms and hunting boxes drones at your ear, yet all you hear is the hush of a lake at midnight, a boy’s whispered vow, the thunder of a heart that dared beat honest.

You float through the steps, every pivot a trial, every spin an exercise in endurance. You search the crowd, out of habit, out of desperation, for a familiar profile, a dark head bowed in humility or mischief, but Sunghoon is nowhere, and you are alone beneath a thousand eyes. The irony cuts you: here, in a room without masks, you have never felt more unseen, never more aware of what it means to wear a heart that cannot be displayed. As the waltz ends, Heeseung’s grip lingers, his gaze sharp, and you swallow the urge to flinch, to flee. This is the life they have chosen for you, a life of glitter and display, of empty praise and hollow victories. It is nothing, you think, nothing at all, compared to a single moment of being seen, truly seen, by the only man who ever mattered.

Applause ripples; Mama’s approving nod darts across the room like the tip of a rapier. You curtsy, porcelain-perfect, yet a fissure runs through the glaze. Amid unmasked faces you have never felt more veiled, for no one here witnesses the fracture, the silent scream that echoes behind your composed gaze. The ball rolls onward, another set, another suitor’s bow, yet the evening has already revealed its hollowness. All the vaulted grandeur cannot rival a single brush of charcoal-stained fingers; no chandelier burns bright enough to banish the memory of love honest enough to shatter you.

The main event of the evening arrives with the relentless precision of a storm you have long foreseen, yet still hoped might turn aside. The music softens. Lights gather at the dais where your family is arrayed like chess pieces, Papa dignified and unreadable, Mama shimmering with pride and calculation, her hand a steady vice at your back. All eyes converge. Lord Heeseung, flushed with wine and certainty, drops to one knee before you, his ring gleaming as a blade. A collective gasp rises from the gathered ton, eager as wolves at a hunt.

Heeseung’s words fall like iron into the hush, each syllable gilded and hollow. “Lady Y/N, would you do me the highest honor—” His voice blurs, smothered by the wild thud of your heart. Around you, gasps and whispers coil, the ton leaning in as if to snatch the answer from your lips. Yet all you can feel is absence, emptiness beside you, within you, as if the world itself recoils from this moment.

But then—there he is.

You hadn’t seen him at first, though he has been there all evening. The grand Wolhwa ball draws staff from every corner of the estate, pressed into immaculate livery, faces made anonymous by white gloves and lowered eyes. All the servants have been ordered to circulate, to pour and serve and carry trays through the crush of silks and powdered wigs, a display of your father’s wealth as much as the rose garlands or the cut-glass chandeliers. Sunghoon, you had been told, was to work the gallery tonight, ushering musicians, minding the doors. But as the evening deepened and the tide of guests swelled, he was called to the main hall, an extra pair of hands needed for the endless flow of wine and crystal.

He stands at the back now, just behind the line of footmen, tray balanced in his broad hands, hair tied back and collar open at the throat, a careless defiance in the way his livery sits on his frame. You don’t see him at first; you feel him, a ripple of heat across your skin, the way air thickens before a storm. Only when Heeseung takes your hand, kneeling with theatrical precision, do you lift your eyes, searching the glittering crowd and your gaze catches on him, the only face you truly see. His presence is a knife, sweet, sharp, forbidden. He stands straighter than the others, mouth set, jaw flexing with every forced smile. The light from the chandeliers carves his cheekbones into marble, turning his eyes to burning coals in the shadow of his lashes. He watches not with the hollow politeness of a servant, but with the raw, naked hunger of a lover, every muscle straining to keep him rooted as Heeseung’s hand closes around yours.

Heeseung drones on, enumerating titles, lands, a future shaped by duty and expectation. You barely register a word. All you hear is the memory of Sunghoon’s low voice in the dark, the rasp of “let me in,” the way his hands once mapped every secret of your body with reverence and greed. You ache, guilt and longing pooling low, heat threading your veins as you remember his cock, the wild, reckless way he claimed you, the countless ways he taught you to belong to no one but yourself, and yet to him, only him.

Mama’s gaze is a dagger at your ribs: Accept, she wills, lips carved into a warning. Papa’s hand settles on your shoulder, bracing and gentle. The room is a tide of eager faces; you sense every woman in the ballroom would kill to stand where you do.. Every gaze turns to you, waiting for the perfect diamond to assent to her fate. But you cannot speak. Not yet. You are lost, lost in the storm of Sunghoon’s eyes, the silent plea burning there, the promise of ruin and salvation woven in every breath between you.

And as Heeseung’s rehearsed proposal falters, “Will you do me the honor, Lady Y/N?” his words hang brittle in the golden hush, but your body hums with a darker music, your gaze is already chained to Sunghoon, to the hard line of his jaw, the broad sweep of his shoulders beneath plain livery, but most of all to the memory of his cock, thick and pulsing, the way he split you open like silk ripped from its moorings, the way he filled you, claimed you, left you wrecked and dripping in shadowed corridors and sun-drenched attics, a single, fevered prayer unraveling on your tongue.

You imagine, as the candlelight flickers and all of society’s eyes burn holes in your skin, Sunghoon pressing close behind you, hands anchoring your hips as he guides you down onto him, your skirts bunched and pearls forgotten, his cock stretching you, steady and inexorable as the turning of the world, his voice in your ear rough velvet: “Let them watch, darling, let them see how you come apart for me, how I ruin you again and again, how I make you sob and shatter until your name and title are nothing but breathless nonsense in the night.” And in that suspended, aching pause, you want nothing but to forsake every hollow promise, to kneel before him in the candlelight, to give yourself over to the unholy communion of his flesh, the thunder of your heart, to scream your devotion and your disgrace for all to hear, to throw yourself at the feet of your ruin and rise, at last, unmasked and wholly his.

The crowd stares. Your mother’s lips pinch. Heeseung’s smile is brittle, hope flickering in his eyes. But only Sunghoon holds you steady, anchoring you to the only truth you have ever known, the pulse between your legs, the tremble in your chest, the way his gaze undresses you with a single look. It is then, with every eye upon you and your future teetering on a blade’s edge, that you find your voice. It is his name, not Heeseung’s, that you whisper in your heart, over and over, a silent, desperate vow.

The air thickens. His hair, unruly even under the weight of duty, falls in shadows over his brow. Sweat beads at his temple, muscles tense beneath the plain white shirt, cuffs rolled to reveal strong, tanned forearms dusted with flour from earlier work. His lips are full, bitten red, perhaps from his own nervousness, or perhaps from remembering the last time they were on your skin. Even from across the room you can sense the hardness of him, the way his body strains against the bonds of decorum, desperate to claim you.

Your gaze collides again and again, a silent war of hunger and heartbreak, so charged you ache for release. You imagine him taking you in the moonlit garden, mouths bruising, cock splitting you open, reckless, desperate, wild. You are undone, raw with need and love that will not be contained. Sunghoon’s eyes promise everything, ruin, worship, escape. The rest of the world falls away. There is only thisc him, you, and the riot of need clawing through your veins.

Heeseung’s voice is little more than a drone now. The room tilts, the crowd expectant, Mama’s hand a vise. You draw a breath, let the wildness rise. “I cannot,” you say, voice clear and trembling, a declaration meant for the only heart that has ever truly known you. “Lord Heeseung, I am honored by your proposal, but I must refuse.”

The ballroom freezes as your refusal rings out, every breath caught between one heartbeat and the next. In that suspended hush, your words fracture the air like a dropped glass, shattering composure, splintering expectation. Gasps leap from painted lips, fans flutter to throats, mothers clutching pearls as if to ward off contagion. Daughters gape wide-eyed, some with awe, some with envy, and the men, so quick to judge, mutter to each other, voices low and savage: “Ruined, she’s ruined herself, the poor Marquess, the family’s shame.” You can almost feel the rumors sparking into life, coiling and multiplying in the shadows behind every gilded pillar, each whisper sharper than the next, hungry for a scandal worthy of a season.

Yet you do not lower your eyes, nor bow your head. You refuse to flinch beneath the storm you’ve unleashed. Instead, you let your gaze find Sunghoon’s across the trembling candlelight, let your longing and terror and hope pour into the space between you. In that charged silence, the future unspools, uncertain and perilous, a path ringed with thorns and longing, but ablaze with a wild, secret possibility. For the first time, you taste the rawness of being truly alive, the sweet vertigo of standing unmasked before the world, your heart laid bare, your soul reaching out for him.

The moment the gasps have not even finished echoing, your mother surges from her place at the table, skirts snapping like banners in a gale. Her voice carves through the shocked hush, at first a strangled whisper, then a blade drawn with intent. “Y/N!” she hisses, eyes wild and unmoored, colour high in her cheeks. “What have you done?” She reaches for you as though she could physically drag your words back into your mouth, as if she could seize your shame and mold it into something salvageable. Her fingers, hard and cold, clamp around your wrist; her grip is as much a plea as it is a punishment. “You will apologise, do you hear me?” she commands, the words slipping through clenched teeth, desperate to restore the script she has spent your whole life preparing.

Her gaze cuts to the onlookers, a predator’s snarl wrapped in pearls and velvet, and she offers the assembly a brittle, trembling smile, her own mask of composure barely holding. “My daughter is… confused. Overcome with nerves, no doubt,” she says, each syllable bitten off, sweetened with poison. She leans in close, her breath icy on your cheek, voice so low it is meant only for you. “You will ruin us. You will ruin yourself. After all I have done, after all I have sacrificed—how dare you humiliate me before the entire ton?”

She tries to force your hand, tries to will you into submission, her eyes brimming with outrage and fear, wounded pride twisting every elegant line of her face. “You owe your family better than this,” she spits. “You owe me. Is this how you repay us? With shame? With scandal?” She trembles, fighting for dignity, for control, for the fantasy of perfection she has always forced you to embody. “Say yes, now, before it’s too late. Salvage what remains. Beg forgiveness and perhaps—perhaps—we can repair the damage. Think, Y/N. Think of your future. Think of your sister. Think of what you owe your name.”

Her hand shakes on your wrist, and for the first time you see her for what she is: not only a warden, but a woman undone by terror, her power built on the shifting sands of reputation and fear. In her eyes, you glimpse the flicker of a life unlived, choices never taken, the ache of dreams surrendered long before you were born. Yet all you can do is stand your ground, your own heart shuddering with terror and wild, defiant hope, knowing the hour has come to choose: your mother’s legacy, or your own.

Tears blur the chandeliers into trembling constellations, but your voice holds steady, low yet carrying to every corner of the hall. “I will not be bartered like a jewel, Mother. I choose my own heart, even if it shatters every expectation in this room.” You lift your chin, silk pooling at your feet like spilled moonlight. “Our name will not be ruined unless you ruin it yourself; a legacy built on fear is already crumbling. I refuse to live inside your frightened dream.” Gasps rustle among the crowd, fans stilled mid-flutter. “If you cannot love the daughter who stands before you, unmasked, alive, and certain, then perhaps you were never truly a mother to me at all.” The words land with the hush of a drawn blade. Your mother recoils, eyes wide, but you only incline your head, an elegant salute to your own resolve, then face the assembly with shoulders square and breath unshaken, ready to claim whatever future waits beyond their gilded gaze.

Your mother’s gasp slices through the ballroom, a ragged, furious sound that turns every head and stills the breath of every guest. Her face warps, demonic with wrath and humiliation, lips trembling as she steps forward, claiming the floor as if it is her private stage. With all the grandeur and venom of a general rallying troops, she addresses the assembly, her voice ironclad and piercing. “Do not be deceived by her pretty speeches. My daughter, my own flesh and blood, has disgraced this house, this name, with secrets and sin.” She lifts the mask high, midnight silk gleaming in the gaslight. 

“Here, look well: this is what she clung to, night after night, mourning a masked phantom who sullied her on All Hallows’ Eve, my daughter, the very diamond of the season, lauded by every household in the province, debased herself for a stranger’s touch. She denied every expectation we placed on her, spat upon her birthright and our trust, all for a fever-dream tryst with a man she did not even know. While other young women waited to be chosen by dukes and lords, she gave herself in the gardens, letting herself be ruined by a nameless rogue who dared to touch her beneath the moonlight. She let him unlace her gown, let him stain her virtue, and hid behind this mask as if it could ever shield her shame.”

Your mother’s voice cracks with scorn as she brandishes the mask for all to see, silk trembling in her grip. “Let the world know, my daughter was no innocent, no paragon of grace, but a reckless, willful girl who let desire rule her better sense. She destroyed every hope we built for her, brought disgrace not only upon herself but upon this house, all for a single night’s pleasure.” Her words lash the air, a public unmasking meant to strip you bare of every last remnant of pride.

Her eyes glint, fever-bright and wild. “And let us not pretend we do not know him, for the villain stands among us even now. Sunghoon, the footman, no more than a beggar in borrowed clothes, wormed his way into her heart, into her bed, in the gardens and the shadows and right beneath our very roof. She gave herself to him, not once, but again and again, blind to her station and ours.”

Her words lash the air with the force of a storm, every accusation flaying you open as surely as a whip, and you feel yourself laid bare, every secret and longing dragged into the light. The assembly is transformed, a fevered pit of painted faces and hungry eyes, masks discarded for the true, vulturous delight of your ruin. It’s as if the ballroom floor splits beneath your feet, a pit yawning to swallow you whole. Fans beat like frantic wings in trembling hands, gentlemen lean forward in predatory silence, and matriarchs clutch their daughters tighter, eyes narrowed in unspoken threats and silent sermons. Gilded candles tremble, their flames flickering as if in mourning for your fall.

You stand at the center, a lamb in the arena, and your mother’s voice is the blade, stripping away every layer of protection, of legacy, of hope you once wore. Each syllable is a stone thrown by the crowd, and you feel yourself sinking, the tide of whispers rising around you, voices hissing, ruined, ruined, ruined. Every face is a mask of false pity or secret delight, mouths hungry to feast on the spectacle of your disgrace. The ballroom, once a cathedral of light and promise, has become a coliseum, and you are a trembling, unbowed gladiator, every eye waiting to see if you will stand or shatter.

Sunghoon stands motionless in the glare of so many stares, color drained from his face, guilt and shame etched deep into every line. His hands clench at his sides, shoulders squared but trembling. For a moment, he looks as if he might vanish beneath the weight of their judgment, but he doesn’t move, he cannot run from this truth. His eyes flicker to yours, apology and agony written plain, but there is nothing left to say. Every secret has been ripped into daylight.

Your mother stands triumphant, believing she has cast the final stone, that this revelation will be the end of your ruinous rebellion. Her mouth twists in satisfaction, already certain you will crumble, that the shock of Sunghoon’s true identity will shatter your love beyond repair. She believes herself the master of this marionette theatre, pulling strings and orchestrating your disgrace, blind to the truth burning inside you: you have known for weeks, for days, for every breath since that mask first trembled in your hands. The crowd seethes, scandal blooming, futures breaking, your name a ruin in their mouths. But amid the chaos, a quiet clarity steels your heart. Your mother’s words are meant to drag you under, but you are not drowning. You are burning, and Sunghoon—battered, beloved, despised and divine, stands in the fire with you.

What happens next is yours to claim.

Your mother corners you as the ballroom recoils, her fingers cold iron around your wrist, venom burning in her voice as she hisses, “It’s done now, do you see? The world knows. That wretch is nothing, and you will not shame this family further. Walk with me, chin up, accept Lord Heeseung, and perhaps we can salvage what’s left of you.” You look at her, really look, and all you see is a woman shriveled by pride and terror. Satisfaction floods your veins, hot and righteous, as you straighten your spine before the whole assembled ton, your mother’s hand curled like a claw around your wrist, her eyes burning with triumph and cruelty. For once you’re not the docile daughter, the diamond on a leash, the trembling pawn in someone else’s game. You look her dead in the eye, your jaw set with everything Sunghoon taught you about courage and defiance, about owning yourself, even when the world is watching.

You feel the memory of that wild, forbidden lake night flare behind your ribs, Sunghoon’s mouth tracing the hollow of your throat, his voice coaxing you to do what you never dared: “Show them your fire, darling. Let them see your teeth. Spit in their faces if you must.” The words ring like prophecy now.

So you do. Without flinching, you draw in a breath and spit—sharp, swift, unapologetic—right in the midst of her face, the act echoing like thunder across the marble. The crowd recoils in horror and fascination, your mother’s lips parting in wordless outrage, face twisted into something monstrous, something ancient. Your heart pounds in your chest, not with shame, but with a savage, triumphant pride. This is the lesson he planted in you with every stolen kiss and midnight rebellion: your body, your voice, your power.

At last, you have made it your own.

Your voice is low and thunderous, rich with all the grief and glory of the night. “I am not your daughter, not if it means becoming less than myself. I would rather be ruined than rule beside you. You’ve taught me nothing but hunger and fear, and now I choose myself.” You don’t look back. You turn, spine straight as an arrow, heart wild and fearless for the first time, tears searing your cheeks but your jaw set, and you walk alone, through the crush of scandalized faces, past every whispering mouth, straight toward the only truth you have ever known.

You step into that silence as though into consecrated ruin, skirts whispering against marble, heart hammering so loud it seems to bruise the air. You find Sunghoon in the antechamber, slumped in the shadows, head bowed, hands knotted in anguish. The lamplight rim his lashes in gold. He looks at you as a penitent looks at a relic, desperate to believe it might save him, terrified that his unworthiness will turn the miracle to ash. He lifts his gaze at the sound of your footsteps, and the pain in his eyes is so raw you could weep. You press yourself closely against him, fingers tracing the wetness on his cheeks, pulling him to you with desperate hands. “Sunghoon,” you breathe, your voice trembling, your body alive with longing and terror, “my darling, my love, look at me. Look at me.” His hands rise to your wrists, reverent, shaking, as if he doesn’t dare to believe you are real.

“I love you,” you say, wild and certain, louder than the crowd, louder than the sea of judgment. “I love you, Sunghoon, and I will love you until there’s nothing left of me. I don’t care what name you wore, or what rags you own, or what mask you hid behind. I love you. I love you, and nothing, no mother, no title, no ballroom of painted vultures, will ever change that. I loved the man who saved me in the garden, and I love the man who carried my soul every day after, in mud and rain and longing. Loving you is the only freedom I have ever tasted. You are the garden in bloom, the wave that breaks me free.” You kiss him, reckless, sobbing, clutching his face as if you could anchor him to earth, and he lets you, lips trembling, heart in your mouth.

“I love the man at the ball, the masked stranger who taught me how to live, who let me taste wildness and wonder for the first time in my life. I love the one who found me beneath the willow, who called me brave when I only knew how to be afraid. But I love you too, Sunghoon. Your hands, your heart, your rough laughter in the stables, your kindness with my sister, the way you saw every piece of me that the world tried to hide. You think a mask could fool me now? No silk or velvet could ever change the shape of your love. You are the same man, masked or unmasked, noble or poor, haunted or laughing, you are mine, and I am yours. I would choose you again in every world, behind every disguise, with every name stripped away. You are not a mistake. You are my choice, my wild and steady truth.”

Tears streak your cheeks, but your voice only grows stronger, each word forged in the heat of heartbreak and healing. “It was you who saved me, not just once, not just in the garden, but every day I’ve known you. Every time you looked at me as if I was precious and not just useful, every time you showed me a world bigger than my mother’s rules. You taught me to be brave, to want, to burn. The mask was only ever a window to your soul. I love you, masked, unmasked, shamed, celebrated. I love you as a whole, and I will love you with every breath I have left, even if the world spits on us, even if the last dance is ours alone in the dark. I love you, Sunghoon Park. I will love you until the stars go out and the masks are dust.”

You moan into his mouth, clinging to him as if the whole world might crumble if you ever let go, your tears mixing with his, your lips feverish with hope and hunger and despair. He kisses you back for one trembling heartbeat, both of you sobbing, the sound too raw to hide, too wild to silence. His hands are desperate on your waist, in your hair, until suddenly he breaks away, breath shuddering, jaw tight, face flushed with shame and naked agony.

He won’t meet your eyes. He wipes at his cheeks, voice strangled and low, almost hoarse with self-loathing. “Your mother is right, my love. She is. You see a man worth loving, but what stands before you now is nothing but the truth, rags and ruin. I am a servant, a bastard, a boy who dared to dream too high for a single night, and a liar who stole more than he ever had a right to hold. I have no title, no future, no inheritance, no way to shield you from their cruelty. I can’t give you what you deserve, only sorrow and scandal and the weight of my shame. You would be cast out for me, scorned by every friend, every soul who used to bow at your feet. You think love can build a life, but you haven’t lived hunger, haven’t learned what it is to have the world turn its back. I can’t bear to watch you be broken for me, I can’t let you do it. Not for a shadow, not for a servant, not for a man who has nothing but love in his empty hands. I am not enough for you, not now, not ever. Look at them, look at what they see, a ghost unmasked, a thief who dared to touch what was never his to keep.” His voice cracks and falters, thick with grief. “I am sorry, my darling. I am so, so sorry.”

You shake your head fiercely, tears slipping hot down your cheeks, fingers buried in his hair as if the act alone could anchor him to this moment. “No, you’re wrong,” you whisper, voice trembling but unbroken. “You are the only thing that has ever felt safe. All Hallows’ Eve, the days after, every moment since, I have been drowning in expectation, in loneliness, in a world that never let me be anything but an ornament. And every time I started to slip beneath the surface, you, Sunghoon, you saved me. You saw me. You called me out of the dark, you made me more than a diamond, more than a name, more than a vessel for some man’s legacy. You made me real.”

Your voice fractures on a sob, the ache in your chest blooming like a bruise as you cradle his face between trembling palms. “You were the only thing that felt safe, long before I ever knew who you truly were, long before the mask slipped. Even when I thought I was betraying my heart by falling for you, even when I mourned the masked man who vanished into the night, it was you—always you—who soothed me, sheltered me, made me feel alive. I want you in every form, masked and unmasked, rough-handed or gentle, every version of you is a blessing I never dreamed to deserve. Don’t you see? Of all the fates the world could have woven, life brought you back to me, not once but twice. Coincidence isn’t a curse, it’s the greatest gift I’ve ever received, the universe itself conspiring to give me you. I want every part of you, in shadow and sunlight, for as long as I draw breath.”

Your words spill out in a rush, fevered and unguarded, your hands framing his jaw, forcing him to meet your gaze, to see the storm of devotion and desperation shining in your eyes. “I want to be Mrs. Park. I want to wake up to you, to your hands, to your voice, every day, every night, no matter what the world says. I know what you’ll say, you’ll tell me you can’t afford a ring, that you can’t give me anything but your heart, and you’ll say it’s not enough. But you’re wrong, Sunghoon. Your heart is worth more than every crown in England, every diamond they’d ever weigh against my hand. Give me that, and I’ll have everything I need, everything I could ever want. Let them look, let them whisper. I would live in rags, I would walk barefoot through fire, if it meant I could have you, just you, for the rest of my days.”

You draw him closer, pressing your forehead to his, the world blurring at the edges, the roar of the crowd fading beneath the trembling hope between your bodies. Your breath mingles, shaky and urgent, your voices barely more than sighs shared in the dark. “I want to be yours. I am yours. No one else has ever made me feel alive, no one else has ever made me want to live at all. Sunghoon, please, don’t turn from me now. Let me have you, let me choose you, not as an escape but as a beginning. Your love is the only thing that could ever set me free.”

He gives in at last, the fight gone from his shoulders, laughter and tears tangled in his voice as he cradles your face, kissing your brow, your eyelids, every inch of you that once wore grief and is now lit with hope. “God, this is mad,” he chokes, half laughing, half sobbing, the crowd blurring to nothing, just you and him in the golden wreckage of your own making. “I never thought I could belong to anyone, but you—” He breaks off, shaking, “you are my home. You are everything, all the life I never dared to want. I tried to stay away, I tried to do what was right, but I am nothing without you. I love you, wild thing, my reckless miracle, I love you so much I ache with it.”

He kisses you again, slower now, his lips trembling as he savors the taste of your tears and joy and disbelief. His thumb traces the path of your jaw, reverent, worshipful, as if memorizing you anew in this moment of ruin and salvation. “If I could carve my heart from my chest, I would give it to you. I am yours, every piece of me—every scar, every sin, every wish I’ve ever buried. Let them watch, let them call us ruined. There is no shame in loving you. I will spend every day proving it, in every way you’ll let me.”

You collapse into him, bodies pressed close, arms winding around his neck, lips seeking, hungry, desperate to make up for every moment lost to fear and pride. He kisses you with a need that borders on reverence and hunger both, pouring every secret hope and broken prayer into your mouth, hands fisted in your gown, heart wild beneath your palm. The world shrinks to the space between your mouths, the thrum of longing, the promise that this is just the beginning—two hearts, finally unmasked, finally free, drowning in each other’s love as if the future were a feast you’d starve without.

The ballroom erupts, a riot of voices and gasps and the slap of fans against silk. Some guests leap from their chairs, scandalized beyond speech, ladies faint dramatically against their companions, powdered wigs askew, while others titter behind gloved hands, eyes wide and ravenous for every ounce of gossip. Laughter bubbles from corners, reckless and giddy, as younger women clutch each other and murmur that perhaps, just perhaps, they too might find the courage to love as you have, unmasked, unafraid. The elders bristle, clutching their pearls as if the world has ended, but somewhere in the fray, a new story is born: the woman who chose love over legacy, a myth already blooming in whispered hearts.

Minji surges to your side, cheeks wet with tears and joy alike, slipping her arms around your waist and squeezing tight. Your little sister, eyes round and awestruck, throws herself at Sunghoon, clinging to him with all the trust and adoration of a child who knows what it means to be truly seen. Sunghoon kneels, letting her tiny hands cradle his face, and she beams at him, giggling, “Will you stay with us forever?” The answer is written in the softness of his gaze, the way he tucks her hair behind her ear, gentle, tender, promising more than any vow ever spoken before a crowd.

Your father, the Marquess, rises slowly, silence crashing down as all eyes turn to him. For a moment, even your mother’s fury flickers uncertainly. He looks at you, his precious girl, and pride breaks through the mask of dignity that has always shielded his love. “Enough,” he says, his voice carrying through the shattered hush. “I have only ever wanted happiness for my daughters, even if it arrives by the most unexpected road. From this day, you are free of your mother’s chains. My beloved child, you shall have the life—and the love—you choose.” He turns to Sunghoon, his gaze steady and open. “And you, young man, have proved yourself not just by courage or character, but by the strength of your devotion. You shall have my daughter’s hand, and my blessing. You need never fear want again. You are family now, and you will always have a home at Wolhwa Hall.”

Sunghoon’s friends, Jake, Jungwon, Ni-ki, Sunoo, Jay, stand stunned at first, then burst into broad, disbelieving grins. Jake wipes his eyes on his sleeve, clapping Sunghoon on the back, while Jungwon laughs and lifts Ni-ki in triumph. Sunoo twirls your little sister in a dizzying circle, and even Jay, stoic and quiet, offers a nod of respect that means more than words. In the corner, the servants beam, proud to see one of their own rise so high, their faith in love restored.

You reach for Sunghoon’s hand, fingers twining tight, and the world feels different, new, sparkling, alive with hope. You have tasted ruin and found it sweeter than any crown. All around you, the whispers rise, but you and Sunghoon stand together, already wrapped in a circle of love and support, Minji’s arm at your waist, your father’s proud blessing, your sister’s bright laughter. You know more will come, both joy and hardship, but you are ready. For the first time, you belong to yourself and to each other, unmasked and unashamed, ready to build a new world from the ashes of the old.

Moonlight sluices over the carriage as it rattles away from the Marquess’s gates, silencing the last, brittle echoes of the ballroom. Inside, silk and shadows tangle; Sunghoon draws you into his lap, knotting your skirts about your hips, and in one reverent motion sheaths himself in the slick heat he has sworn to worship. You ride him as if every roll of your hips is a vow renewed, his hands splayed over the small of your back, guiding, cherishing, commanding, while the lamplight paints him both sovereign and supplicant. This is your prince: the masked stranger who once stole your breath in garden twilight, the humble groom whose every dawn smelled of hay and hope, the man who now fills you until your pulse becomes his own. Each thrust is a ballroom scandal rewritten into scripture, a liturgy of slick skin and gasp-broken endearments. When he curves a palm to your cheek, thumb brushing tears you never marked, the world narrows to the honeyed rasp of his voice, “My darling, my destiny”—and you know happiness is no longer something you must inherit; it is something you can ride into being with every tremor, every sigh, every aching inch that binds his body to yours.

Later, beneath the ash-silver hush of an inn’s private chamber, he lays you upon the counterpane as if upon an altar, worshipping every line the candle finds, shoulder, breast, belly, thigh, while his cock presses hungry kisses into the slicked seam of your joy. You gather his hair in both hands, crown him with your trembling fingers, and guide him home; he slides inside, deep and slow, until your lungs bloom with stars. In that rhythm—deliberate, immutable—you feel the masks of birth and poverty shatter like spun glass. You are no longer a diamond bartered for alliances, he is no longer a shadow doomed to servitude; you are Eve and Adam remade, sovereigns of a kingdom of breath and sweat. As pleasure swells, you whisper a litany of claims, heart, body, future, forever, and when release takes you both, it is not ruin but coronation: a mingling of tears and seed, of laughter and holy exhaustion, sealing a covenant that dawn itself will kneel to honor.

Your body answers him as if it’s spent a lifetime hungering for this reunion, for this wild, ruinous claiming, every inch of you alive and burning, possessed by the need to have him, to be ruined by him, to let him mark you in ways no society, no propriety could ever cleanse. It is not a slow undoing, not a gentle waltz, but a reckless, fevered tempest, gowns askew, bodies tangled, the air thick with heat and the slick slide of your skin against his. Sunghoon feels impossibly immense inside you, stretching you wide, every motion forcing moans from your lips, the pleasure so sharp it borders on agony, but you chase it, bear down, refusing to flinch, not when you’re finally home. The ache blooms, blinding, fierce, a burn that flares brighter the harder you ride him, as if you were made for no other purpose but to take every desperate inch.

Sunghoon grunts beneath you, knuckles white at your waist, gripping so fiercely you’re certain he means to anchor you to this world and no other. You use him, shamelessly, bouncing atop his cock with a reckless, nearly violent pace, the slap of flesh and the gasp of air echoing off the high ceiling. His head tips back, jaw tight, throat corded, every muscle beneath you flexing, straining, he is a man barely leashed, trembling on the edge of disgrace, but he never asks for mercy, and you offer none. All that matters is the relentless friction, the thick drag of his cock, the way your hands curl into his chest, how he stares up at you with something wild and worshipful in his eyes.

“God—yes—” Sunghoon rasps, voice thick and ruined, each word barely more than a groan. His hands seize your hips, guiding you, dragging you down harder, grinding his own hips up to meet every filthy thrust. “You are—divine—merciless—my ruin—” He shudders, the words torn from his chest, and you can feel him faltering, shaking, breaking apart beneath you, but you want him like this, want to see the unraveling, want to ride him until he forgets his own name.

And, sweet heaven, he is yours—every breath, every tremor, every raw plea. He’s obsessed with the sight of you above him, gown bunched at your waist, breasts bouncing with every grind, his hands never idle, stroking up your belly, cupping your tits, rolling your nipples between his fingers until you cry out for more. He watches you as if he might starve, as if one blink would cost him the memory of you. You ride him like a victor’s spoils, and he lets you, every moan a surrender, every thrust a desperate plea for more.

“Sunghoon—” your voice cracks, trembling with the force of your need, as you grind down, thighs burning, not letting up for a single second. The pace is brutal, ceaseless, the heat building inside you until your bones ache. Sunghoon snarls, actually snarls, and his hands clutch you with wild ferocity, slamming you down, impaling you on his cock until you gasp, your eyes wide with shock and delight. 

“So greedy for me, are you?” he pants, breathing warm at your throat, his lips dragging over your collar, teeth nipping, biting, marking you for himself. “All these months, all these nights, and you’re still ravenous to be ruined, to be split open, my desperate, wanton girl.”

Your nails rake down his chest, your back arching. “Yes,” you whisper, undone, desperate, shameless.

He growls, a sound low and reverent, hips snapping up, thrusting so deep you see stars. “Say it. Say you want me to fuck you open. Let the house hear you beg.”

Your pride dissolves into whimpers, every inch of you bared and trembling, your breath shivering against his lips. “I want to be fucked open—please, Sunghoon, please—”

He rewards you with a thrust so viciously deep you nearly scream, and then it’s a war, a frenzied, glorious battle, teeth clashing, hands bruising, hips grinding in a contest of who will surrender first. Sunghoon’s fingers roam, never content, palming your breasts, pinching your nipples, trailing lower, claiming every inch as his own. He drags you down, cock buried to the hilt, holding you there as he grinds, grinding so slow, so deep you nearly sob.

You catch his face, force his gaze to yours, and with wicked mischief, spit onto his lips, your act as brazen as any seductress’s. Sunghoon’s breath shatters, his pupils blown wide, and with a groan that sounds more like a prayer, he licks it up, greedy and shameless. He fists your jaw, forcing your mouth open, and spits into your tongue, thumb pressing your lips apart, smearing the mess before you swallow, hungry for more, desperate for every filthy claim.

“You wicked little thing,” he hisses, voice rough, cock throbbing inside you, hand sliding up to your throat, tightening just enough to make you gasp, to make your pulse flutter against his palm. His eyes are dark, his mouth twisted into a wicked, possessive smile. “Is this what you crave, darling? To be made a mess of? To belong to me?”

Your hips grind down in answer, wordless, needy, and Sunghoon’s grin turns almost feral. “That’s my good girl,” he groans, his hand cupping your breast, rolling your nipple until you writhe, arching into his mouth. “Missed these, missed every inch of you.” His lips wrap around your nipple, sucking hard, tongue flicking over the peak as he bites, worships, marks, and you shudder, clutching his hair, begging for more.

You pull his mouth to yours, claiming him with a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue and longing, your nails dragging down his back, feeling his body flex and shudder. “I missed this,” you gasp against his lips. “Missed your cock, missed how deep you fill me, how you split me open, how you ruin me, over and over.”

Sunghoon groans, hips jerking, hand sliding down to where your bodies join, rubbing you, feeling you stretch and drip around him. “Missed this perfect cunt—missed the way you choke on me, ride me, make me lose every shred of reason.” His thumb slides between your folds, circling your clit, watching you shatter above him.

Your body trembles, the pressure building unbearably, and he leans in, voice low and desperate at your ear. “Say it. Say you missed me. Say you missed your Sunghoon.”

“I missed you,” you gasp, clenching around him, desperate for more.

“No, love—say it as you mean it,” he rasps, his hand tightening on your throat, lips dragging up your jaw, over your pulse.

You meet his gaze, hips grinding, body trembling on the precipice. “I missed you, Daddy.”

Sunghoon’s composure shatters. He grabs your hips, slamming up into you with abandon, his cock pounding so deep you choke on his name, your vision going white with pleasure. “Yes, darling, yes, ride Daddy’s cock, take every inch, be good for me,” he groans, voice fraying, wild. He spits onto your breasts, tongue licking the mess away, biting, sucking, worshiping until you’re sobbing, writhing, begging.

He claims you, his mouth everywhere, his hands everywhere, worshiping, owning, loving you in ways that are both filthy and holy, making you his in every sense that matters. Your bodies collide, sweat and tears and moans mingling, your cries echoing through the room. You ride him, wild and unrestrained, chanting his name, the word Daddy tumbling from your lips as he fucks you senseless, both of you coming undone together, ruined and remade by love and lust and reckless, unspeakable devotion.

“Daddy!!!” The word rips from your throat, desperate, undone, reverberating through the candlelit room with the force of a confession. You are lost to him, to the rough worship of his mouth and the ruin of his body against yours; he is the only truth you know, the only anchor in a world spun wild and out of control.

Sunghoon growls, deep and ruined, his mouth releasing your breast with a lewd, wet pop, lips gleaming, eyes nearly black with hunger and ferocity. He crashes his hand down onto your waist, holding you there, pinning you so you cannot flee, cannot flinch from the way he devours you. His frame cages you, muscle and sinew and pure intent, every inch a promise you will not escape the pleasure he means to wring from your trembling body.

“That’s it,” he rasps, his voice thick and trembling with need, hips rolling slow and deep, grinding his cock into you until your body trembles, until every inch of you is his. “That’s it, my brave girl, call for me again, let the house know who you belong to, who ruins you, who worships you.”

You do—over and over, broken, sobbing, breathless, chanting the name he’s claimed, the title that undoes you. “Daddy—Daddy—please—” You wail, shudder, surrender, every syllable a vow as he fucks you like a man possessed, like a beast starved for years, like the only thing that could save him is your ruin.

He does not stop, does not relent. His mouth marks you, his hands grip you, his cock owns you, and you take it all, weeping with pleasure, offering yourself to him without shame. Each time the word leaves your lips, you are remade, his to command, his to cherish, his to break and put back together until nothing exists but this, but you, but him, but the filthy, holy union of your bodies as dawn rises and the world falls away.

Sunghoon does not take his eyes off you for a single heartbeat. He drinks you in, every frantic gasp, every sweet, shameless whimper as you writhe atop him, taking him deeper with each motion, yours, utterly, as though you were made for nothing but this. His jaw tightens, his breath ragged and uneven, his hands leave dark impressions on your hips as he thrusts up, slow at first, then deeper, harder, driving his cock into you with a force that nearly unseats your sanity.

“You like this, do you not?” he murmurs, voice little more than a growl, rough with possessive hunger. “You like the way your Daddy fucks you, how I ruin you, keep you perched here like the wickedest, sweetest treasure in all England. Say it. Say you are mine.”

Your head falls back, lips parted, a soundless plea arching from your throat. “Yes—yes, Sunghoon, please—do not stop—” The words spill in wild, reckless cadence, your body shaking, every muscle strained to breaking. His fingers slip between your thighs, circling your clit in those perfect, urgent strokes, his breath hot against your cheek, his voice dark and unrestrained.

“Come for me, sweetling,” he commands, his grip tightening, his thrusts deepening, each stroke a promise, a claim. “Let me feel you. Give it to me, love, let me taste it, let me see you fall apart for me. I need it. I need all of you.”

He does not ease; if anything, his hunger becomes almost savage, his hips snapping up to meet yours, his teeth scraping along the tender skin of your throat, just enough to leave a mark, to brand you his. “Such a perfect girl, my darling—so desperate, so wanton for her Daddy’s cock. Let them all see you undone. Let them know you are ruined and loved and utterly mine.”

But then—slowly, insidiously—his pace gentles. His hips roll instead of snap, his hands caress your skin, smoothing over your waist, your belly, the roundness of your breasts, as though he means to learn every curve, every inch, anew. He presses his forehead to yours, lips brushing yours, your breaths tangled, your bodies a single, molten creature. His kisses trail over your jaw, your cheek, then finally your mouth, slow, worshipful, as though he is savoring your taste, your every sigh.

A low, breathless laugh rumbles in his chest, breaking the tension, melting the heat into something giddy and adoring. You giggle, your body still pulsing with the last of your climax, and Sunghoon chases that sound, nosing at your throat, pressing another kiss just below your ear, lips trailing heat. “I missed this, my darling. Missed your laugh, your sighs—missed the way you ride me like you own me.”

“Perhaps I do,” you whisper, voice trembling with desire, your hips never ceasing, rolling and grinding against him, taking every inch. “It is different tonight, Sunghoon. Different, and better. I think you will love it.”

He groans, his hands sliding down, squeezing your arse, guiding you down so he can drive into you, so deep, so perfectly that your body feels split wide and filled. “Let the world have its balls and their spectacles,” he pants, his voice low, reverent. “All I want is you, your pleasure, your body, your song, every wicked little moan you’ve ever made for me.”

You lean in, lips grazing his ear, your voice a velvet caress. “Then you shall have it, Sunghoon. You shall have all of me.”

He shudders, his control unraveling as your words burn through him, and then he’s thrusting up hard, relentless, each motion an act of adoration, an act of worship. His fingers dig into your flesh, holding you down so you take every inch, every last measure of him. His breath is hot against your lips, his voice wrecked, dark with possession. “My love—my girl—so tight, so perfect, so ruinous. You were made for me, weren’t you?”

You gasp, the sensation overwhelming, your body arching, the pleasure cresting—every part of you shaking, your name falling from his lips like a benediction. “Sunghoon—please—” You are begging now, desperate for more, for everything. “Come inside me—fill me—mark me as yours—”

He groans, the sound deep and wild, his body tensing beneath you. “Yes, sweetling. I shall—God, I shall—” His hips buck, his hands gripping you tight, his cock pulsing deep inside as he spends himself, filling you, marking you, making you his in every possible way.

You collapse together, breathless, undone, your bodies tangled in silken sheets and moonlight. His lips press to your hair, your cheek, your mouth—soft, reverent, each kiss a promise that this night is yours, that you are his, and that nothing—not society, not your mother, not the world—will ever take you from him again.

Your thighs ache with the effort of riding him, but you do not relent—you cannot—not with the way Sunghoon’s eyes devour you, dark and wild, his gaze never leaving your body as you grind down hard, greedy for every inch. His hands roam your skin, possessive, hungry, fingers digging bruises into your hips and arse, guiding your movements as if he must memorize the cadence of your ruin. His grip is iron, pulling you onto him harder, deeper, every punishing thrust dragging a guttural moan from your chest. “Is this what you want, my wicked wife?” he growls, low and rough, his accent dripping like honey as he reaches up, winding your hair around his fist, pulling your head back so your neck arches, bared and vulnerable. 

His mouth descends, teeth scraping your throat, biting just hard enough to leave his mark. “You want to be fucked like a common strumpet, ridden and used, marked so every inch of you screams that you belong to me?” 

You can only whimper, pulse hammering, your hands scrabbling at his chest, needing more. “Yes, Sunghoon—please, please—ruin me—”

He laughs, a sound so feral and loving it makes your cunt clench around him. “Open your mouth, darling.” You obey, trembling, and he spits into you, filthy and intimate, the taste of him mingling with your own gasps. He doesn’t stop there, his thumb presses into your cheek, smearing the spit, then slipping between your lips for you to suck, groaning when you take it deep, swirling your tongue around him. His other hand slides down, cupping your breast, thumb rolling your nipple until you keen, body shuddering under his hands. He moves you as he wishes, pulling you down onto his cock, filling you again and again, your thighs burning, sweat slick between your bodies, every sound in the room obscene, echoing off the velvet and wood. 

“Look at you,” he rasps, fucking up into you so hard you see stars. “Made for me. My filthy girl. My darling. Say it. Say who owns you.” His hand closes around your throat, not enough to hurt, just enough to claim, and you cry out, pleasure snapping,

“You—oh God, Sunghoon, I’m yours, I’m yours, forever—”

He loses himself, then, dragging you down so you collapse atop him, his mouth sealing over yours, kissing you deep, tongue slick and hungry, swallowing every desperate moan. His hands slide under your thighs, lifting you, shifting you so your legs splay wide around his waist. He shifts, rolling you beneath him, never leaving your body, his cock still buried deep as he pounds into you, harder, faster, chasing the pleasure that’s turning both of you wild. His pace is brutal, relentless, his voice a constant litany of filth and praise. “Such a good girl for me, taking all of me, squeezing me so tight. You want my seed, do you not? Want me to fill you, breed you, keep you ruined and dripping so everyone knows you’re mine?” 

You sob, your orgasm building again, his fingers finding your clit, rubbing harsh, messy circles as he pounds into you. You splinter apart, coming hard, your body shaking, tears sliding down your cheeks as you sob his name. Sunghoon moans, thrusts erratic, and then he’s gone, spilling into you, cock pulsing deep, claiming you in every way a man can claim a woman. Even as your bodies collapse together, trembling, wrung out and ruined, his hands are everywhere—stroking your hair, smoothing your thighs, lips brushing your tears away. “My love,” he whispers, reverent and awed, voice breaking. “My life. My wife. My girl.” And you know—utterly, undeniably—that you have never been loved like this, and never will again.

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 — 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑

October’s last dusk stains the Devon horizon in molten copper, and the old sea-wind combs through the thatch of Rosehaven Cottage as though turning the page of a cherished book. Five years have sluiced past since the ballroom uproar, and yet every evening still feels a little like All Hallows’ Eve: lanterns flicker along the garden path, hedgerows hiss like friendly ghosts, and the air hums with that same promise of revelation. You stand on the veranda, belly curved with your third child, while your husband, your beloved Sunghoon Park, unmasked and unafraid, wraps his arms around your waist from behind. Together you watch your twin daughters race through fallen leaves, ribbons streaming, shrieking delight into the twilight. Haneul, impetuous and bright as foxfire, wields a wooden sword she begged her uncle Niki to carve; little Aera, soft-spoken and solemn, collects every leaf Haneul scatters, intent on pressing them into a book for Papa to sketch later.

Money no longer nips at your heels like a wolf. Your father, moved by love’s sheer audacity and by Sunghoon’s quiet brilliance at breeding champions out of once-neglected bloodstock, settled a generous dowry on your union and deeded you this coastal parcel where the Park & Wolhwa Stud now thrives. Sunghoon’s eye for conformation and your knack for accounts have turned the stable into legend; princes send colts to be broken on your dunes, and race purses fatten the coffers faster than either of you spend. Still, you measure wealth in softer coins: fresh bread at dawn, salt on his skin after a day with the yearlings, two girls giggling beneath quilts you embroidered with moons and masks.

Inside, the cottage glows with autumn’s low gold. The mask, midnight silk, gilt edging frayed by memory, rests beneath a glass cloche on the mantel. It is neither trophy nor shame. It is a relic that reminds you love first arrived in disguise, then stripped itself bare. When visitors ask, you smile and say some stories must be felt rather than told, and Sunghoon’s hand finds yours beneath the tea table. The ton still whispers. They call you the Diamond Who Chose the Stableboy, the lady who wagered her reputation and won a kingdom of her own making. Debutantes slip copies of your scandal-turned-fairy-tale beneath their pillows, hoping courage might seep into their dreams. Petitions for reform circulate in drawing-rooms; charity subscriptions blossom for foundling homes and equestrian schools that train boys like Sunghoon once was. Society did not crumble when you defied it, and in that small miracle other hearts found permission to breathe.

Your mother lives now in Bath, tethered to genteel pretence and ill-sweetened tea. Letters arrive, stiff, circumspect, rarely kind but sometimes a pressed violet or a line in which she asks after the children. You answer with photographs of smudged faces and foal-soft curls. Forgiveness, like ivy, takes time to climb broken stone. Your father visits often, pockets full of peppermint for the girls, pride gleaming softer than any medal on his breast. Minji, forever steadfast, writes essays on women’s property rights and kisses your infants’ brows as godmother. Little Hana, once eleven and trembling, is seventeen now, fierce with brush and canvas, apprenticed to the Royal Academy under Sunghoon’s patronage; she paints mares in moonlight and signs her canvases H. Wolhwa without apology.

Late that night, after the children dream and the hearth writhes down to embers, you and Sunghoon steal to the orchard. The apple trees are skeletal chandeliers against a star-stung sky, and the grass is jewelled with frost. He spreads a blanket, eases you onto his lap, and the two of you move in a slow, reverent rhythm that feels like prayer: his lips tracing the constellation of freckles on your shoulder, your fingers mapping the scar at his collarbone, both of you murmuring astonishment that the world dared place two souls in one skin. When he enters you, the sea beyond the cliffs answers with a hush like wings opening. The waves still try to drown me, he whispers, voice rough with tears and gratitude, but you are my shore. You arch, cradle him deeper, and answer that every bloom in your garden learned its color from his heart. Pleasure rises, soft as dawn, and when it crests you swear the mask on the mantel flares with secret light, blessing the union it once concealed.

History will claim you, the once-titled diamond of Wolhwa, cast aside coronets for a groom with nothing but charcoal-stained fingers, a steady hand on a bridle, and a tenderness that refused to bow. Yet the truth beats closer to skin. Every All Hallows’ Eve, you feel two younger selves slip into the candlelit ballroom of your ribs: a girl starved for air and a boy cloaked in borrowed silk. They circle, unmask, and pick each other all over again, proving that destiny is not a decree but a dance you choose with trembling palms. In the cottage you have stitched from autumn light and starlit timber, masks do not shackle; they unlock. One hangs above the hearth, black velvet, gilt edges soft as old promises, reminding you that some disguises are simply bridges between fear and revelation. When storms gather, you cup it in your palms, feel its velvet cool against your cheek, and remember how courage first tasted: like rain, like roses, like the gasp you gave when love called you home.

So keep this as your compass: Hearts are not meant to be shuttered, but to blaze like lanterns through the dark, burning away every shadow the world might cast. When the cost of truth threatens to undo you, when the crowd presses close with their hollow eyes and hungry judgments, lift your light higher. Let it glare so fierce it scorches the gold from every borrowed mask, so steady it carves a path through even the densest, most labyrinthine halls of doubt and longing. This is how you claim the world, by letting your heart show the way, by refusing to bow, by stepping forward with nothing but the fire you carry within you. So walk that road, unmasked and unafraid, and know that in every age, every ballroom, every secret, it is the bold who are remembered, and the lovers who are finally, gloriously, unmasked souls—free at last.

likes, reblogs, asks, comments are very much appreciated :). 

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 — this story is the most personal thing i’ve ever written, every word is spun from my own ache and hope, and i poured my heart, blood, sweat, and tears into these pages. to me, this fic is about loving boldly, choosing yourself, and daring to chase happiness even when the world wants you small. it’s about hunger, ruin, healing, and the wild, unbreakable kind of love that remakes you from the inside out. thank you for reading, for finding something in this story to hold or hunger for. your comments, asks, reblogs, and likes mean more than you know, they keep me writing, keep this dream alive. if you loved it, let me know. if you saw yourself here, i hope you carry that fire forward.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 — this fic will be re-uploaded soon as a jay version so if you spot any stray name mix-ups (for example, if it says “jay” in a place meant for “sunghoon,” or vice versa), just ignore it! that happened because i’m editing and converting the story between versions, and sometimes my brain or my doc gets ahead of my fingers. the main male lead here is sunghoon, but the future update will feature jay as the central character. i just wanted to allow this fic to feel more suited towards readers with preferences. thank you for your patience and for understanding the messy, beautiful chaos of creating something this big. your support means everything.

soph <3 

taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd @dowoonwoodealer @enhalovie @jenzyoit @sunseteternal @dewyspace @markiesfatbooty @raysofpolaris @sunseteternal @oppabochim @markerloi @xiuriii @neocults26

[heejamas]

MANCHILD

➢ pairing: cowboy!jake x fem!reader … ﹒cowboy au, strangers to lovers, smut \\ ➢ synopsis: you’re trouble, and jake sim knows it. you flirt like it’s your job, wear sin like perfume, and make men beg without even trying. he’s the only cowboy who doesn’t chase you. so naturally, he’s the only one you want. a small-town, slow-burn, filthy little game of who breaks first. ➢ word count: 9.5k

➢ warnings: smut!! minors dni. oral sex (f and m receiveing), unprotected sex (dont do it!!), public-ish sex, dirty talk, possessive!jake, softdom!jake, bratty!reader, spanking, cum eating, praise and degradation, cowboy kink™, jake is a menace but so are you, yeehaw but make it slutty

you’re wiping down the counter when you say it, voice low and lazy, like it’s just another tuesday night and not the kind of sentence that rearranges a man’s brain chemistry.

“i like my boys playing hard to get.”

you don’t mean it to land anywhere in particular. you’re just talking, tossing it out there between gossip, your voice sweet, meant only for the girl beside you. so she laughs, nudges you with her hip. “you mean the ones who ghost you after three days?”

“no,” you sigh, stretching like a cat behind the bar. “i mean the ones who pretend they don’t care. the ones too proud to beg. makes it more fun when they do.”

you say it like it’s a joke, but you mean every word. and across the room, jake sim hears you.

he hadn’t meant to. hadn’t even realized he was eavesdropping until the words tangled around him. he’s not the type to pay attention to chatter. he’s been coming to this place for years, knows how to tune out the flirting and the country drawls and the clink of empty glasses. but your voice is different. and he’s seen you around, of course. everyone has.

you’re the kind of girl people build myths around. the kind they write country songs about, because you have a laugh that could ruin a man. and every guy in town’s tried his luck. most ended up a little poorer, a little dumber, and twice as obsessed. and you never even blinked.

so when you breeze past his table, tray balanced on your palm, perfume trailing like a challenge, jake doesn’t move. doesn’t shift, doesn’t look up from his drink. not obviously, at least. he doesn’t give you the satisfaction. and you notice. oh, you notice. because you’re used to stares, to whistles and clumsy compliments and boys who fall over themselves to hand you things you never asked for. you’re used to the way they sit up straighter when you walk by, the way their words fumble out of their mouths like dropped coins.

but this one? this one just sits there. quiet and unmoved.

you catch him watching only once, just once, when you lean forward to grab a bottle from the bottom shelf, and when your eyes flick up, his are already somewhere else. not pretending, not faking it, just gone. and it pisses you off more than it should.

you don’t say anything. you just toss your hair over your shoulder and smile at the other girl again, louder this time. “i like my men all incompetent,” you declare, tucking a dollar into your apron, “and i swear they choose me, i’m not choosing them.”

jake lifts his beer to his lips, slow. doesn’t smile. doesn’t even smirk. and for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel in control of the game. you hate that, but you also love that.

but you definitely hate rodeos.

too loud and sweaty. too many men with too little brain and too much cologne. it’s just the same loop every time—horses, hats, hollering, and someone calling you “sweet cheeks” like that’s supposed to make you blush instead of gag. normally, you stay far away. but tonight’s different. because you heard jake sim was riding.

so you show up. late, of course, on purpose. your boots crunch over dirt and beer cans as you make your way through the crowd, hips swinging just enough to remind everyone you don’t walk, you arrive. every man you pass straightens his spine like you might look at him if he behaves, and every woman rolls her eyes in that half-jealous way they always do.

but you don’t care. you’re not here for them. you’re here for the man on the horse.

and when you spot him, out in the pen, one hand gripping the reins, the other resting light against his thigh, you feel that slow, low flutter in your stomach that tastes a little like trouble. because he’s wearing that stupid hat again, the same beat-up one that sits just low enough to make his eyes a mystery and his mouth a promise. his shirt’s rolled up to the elbows, collar unbuttoned, forearms dusted with dirt and sin. he looks like sin. he rides like sin.

you lean against the fence, pop a piece of gum into your mouth, and pretend you’re not watching. but you are, everyone is. but he doesn’t look into the crowd, not once. he doesn’t wave, doesn’t show off, doesn’t even smile. he just focuses—on the gate, on the bull, on the seconds ticking down before the chaos. there’s something precise about it, almost like he’s not here to perform, just to win.

and you hate how hot that is.

when the gate finally opens and he bursts out, body moving like he’s part of the beast beneath him, the whole crowd goes wild. people scream, hats fly, beer spills. but you just chew your gum and watch. he holds on longer than anyone else that night. and when he lands, smooth and sharp and smug, your stomach does a traitorous little flip.

he still doesn’t look at you. not even when he walks past, later, towel slung over his shoulder, shirt sticking to his back, sweat dripping down his neck like something out of a country girl’s fantasy.

you’re standing by the concession stand now, pretending to look at overpriced chili fries when he walks right past you again. and for the first time, maybe in ever, you don’t know what to do with that. because everyone looks at you. everyone wants something from you.

but jake sim? jake sim doesn’t even blink.

you pop your gum again, louder than necessary. he still doesn’t turn. bastard. so you lick your lips, tilt your head, and mutter just loud enough for the girl next to you to hear—just loud enough for him to maybe hear, too— “god, i hate cowboys.”

except you don’t. you really, really don’t.

so you decide to wear red on saturday. not a soft red. not a muted, tasteful, wine-country red. no, this is bright, dangerous, stop-sign red. the kind that glitters when you walk and blasphemes when you bend. you slip it on slow, knowing exactly what it does to your body and your ego. it’s the kind of dress that starts fights and finishes them.

you don’t wear it for him, not technically. but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t check your lipstick twice before heading to the bar, or if you hadn’t spent a good three minutes wondering if jake sim was the type of man who noticed sequins.

(it turns out—he isn’t.)

he’s already there when you walk in, sitting in his usual corner like a piece of furniture carved from patience and denim. same hat, same shirt, same maddeningly blank expression. he doesn’t flinch when you walk by. doesn’t scan your legs like every other man. doesn’t lean over to whisper something to his friend and then laugh too loud. he just looks. once. and then looks away.

you could scream. instead, you smile. you spend the next hour putting on a show—not for him, of course, never that. just for… the atmosphere. you take extra time leaning over the bar. you laugh a little louder, let your fingers trail longer. you flirt, you twirl, you dance like you’re made of sugar and smoke.

and he just sits there. solid. steady and stoic in the face of sin.

when the jukebox shifts to something slow and sweaty, your friend pulls you out from behind the bar and spins you onto the floor. you go willingly, you always do. you dance with her, and then with some other guy, who’s a terrible flirt but a decent dancer. you laugh as you move, hips swaying, hands up, hair stuck to your neck. people cheer, whistles echo. someone shouts your name.

and still, jake sim doesn’t look. he sits there, beer untouched, fingers drumming slowly against the table. his eyes are on the wall, or the floor, or nowhere at all. you want to throw a chair at him. instead, you press your body just a little closer, let your head tip back, your laughter bubble out like champagne. 

and for half a second, just half, you swear you can feel his gaze. but by the time you glance over, it’s gone.

you finish the dance anyway, cheeks flushed from effort or ego or something worse, and when you walk past jake’s table again, you pause. just enough. he still doesn’t say anything. but his knuckles are white around the bottle, and that’s something.

and ​​you’re not much of a smoker, not really. it’s more about the image. the ritual of it—door swinging shut behind you, the hum of the saloon dulling into background noise, a lighter flicked slowly. you like the weight of the cigarette between your fingers, the way it makes your mouth look meaner. you especially like the way people look at you when you do it.

on sunday, though, the sidewalk is mostly empty. the neon sign above the door buzzes like it’s dying, and your heels click against the pavement. you’re alone, almost. because he’s there. leaning against his truck—of course it’s a truck, stupid and long and matte black— arms crossed, hat low, chewing on a toothpick like he was placed there by god.

you try not to look. but of course you fail.

“you always stand like that,” you say, taking a drag and blowing smoke sideways, “or is this a special occasion?”

he doesn’t turn, god, he doesn’t even smile. “like what?” he asks, voice low and scratchy, like he only uses it when necessary.

you flick ash toward the gravel and shift your weight, one hip out, just enough to suggest: i am here and i am wearing very little. so you say: “like you’re being painted,” you say. “by someone too obsessed with denim.”

that gets a reaction, barely—a twitch at the corner of his mouth. nothing close to a smile, but you count it anyway. “you don’t like denim?” he asks.

“i like it just fine,” you say, letting your eyes travel up and down. “i just think it likes you a lot.”

he hums, quiet and unfazed. the toothpick shifts from one side of his mouth to the other with devastating nonchalance. “you always flirt like that?” he asks finally, and it’s almost cruel, the way he says it—like he’s calling you out without even looking at you.

you tilt your head. “like what?”

“like you’re bored.”

you take another drag, slower this time. it buys you a second. maybe two. “i’m not bored,” you say. “i’m offended.”

he finally looks at you then. really looks. not a glance, not a flick of the eyes, but a slow, full scan that starts at your boots and ends at your mouth. “offended?”

“yeah,” you say. “you’re the first man in town who hasn’t tried to get a shot with me.”

he raises an eyebrow. your breath hitches, and you curse yourself for it. because god damn it. he pushes off the truck, and he steps forward, just one step, just close enough for you to smell him. smoke and leather and desert heat. “that why you came out here?” he asks. “to collect another admirer?”

“no,” you say, a little too quickly. “i came out to smoke.”

he nods, glances at your cigarette. “you’re holding it backwards.”

you look down, you are. shit.

he walks past you then, amused and infuriatingly tall, back toward the saloon. and just before the door swings shut behind him, he tosses the toothpick into the dirt and says, without looking: “you’ll have better luck with someone who gives a damn, sweetheart.”

you stand there for a minute, blinking smoke out of your eyes, lips parted in disbelief, cigarette still backwards in your hand. you don’t know whether to chase him or marry him. probably both.

the annual summer festival happens a week later, and the whole town’s lost its damn mind. kids run wild, drunk uncles argue, and there’s a man singing country ballads off-key on the main.

and you look stunning, obviously.  short dress, boots too clean to be from here, a pair of sunglasses you don’t need but wear anyway. you walk through the crowd like you’re not sweating like everyone else. and your arm? it’s linked tightly through lee heeseung’s. the sheriff’s son. walking cologne bottle. he thinks calling women “sugar tits” is flirtation and not a felony. you smile like he’s the most charming thing this town’s ever coughed up. and across the lot, jake sees everything.

he’s standing near the fence, drink in hand, chewing on his pride. he looks like a warning sign, his arms crossed so tight his biceps look like they’re planning a mutiny. he doesn’t blink, he doesn’t even pretend not to be watching. you glance at him once, and once is enough.

you laugh louder. lean closer to heeseung, who’s talking about god-knows-what—his truck, his workout, his daddy’s badge—and you nod like you care. every move is calculated. every smile is a weapon. because you know exactly what you’re doing. so you excuse yourself after a while, muttering something about needing another drink, slipping away from heeseung before he can say something else that’ll make your ears bleed. you walk through the back, your boots clicking fast.

you’re halfway to the bar when you feel a heat at your back. 

“fun night?” his voice is behind you. dry and quiet. 

you don’t turn around right away. you let the moment hang. and then you say, “depends,” running a hand through your hair like it’s not dripping down your neck. “you havin’ fun watching?”

he steps in closer. you feel him before you see him, his chest just a breath away from your shoulder. “you always hang off men you don’t like?” he asks, voice low enough to make your knees consider collapsing.

you shrug. “what makes you think i don’t like him?”

“you’re bored. i know what you look like when you’re havin’ fun.”

you hate how that line makes your stomach twist. hate it more that he’s right. so you finally turn to face him, hands on your hips, head tilted with mock sweetness. “what, jealous?”

he laughs. it’s short and dark. “of lee heeseung?” he scoffs. “sweetheart, i’m jealous of his dog before i’m jealous of him.”

you bite your lip to hide the smile, and you fail. “then why are you here?” you ask, eyes locking onto his. 

he leans in, just enough to make you dizzy. his gaze dips—down your lips, down your throat, down your dress—and lingers there, shameless. he looks like he wants to say more. or do more. and you kind of wish he would. but instead, he straightens up, steps back, and lets the space between you fill with heat again.

“because, darling, next time you wanna get under someone’s skin,” he says, “maybe pick a man who ain’t wearin’ daddy’s badge.”

and just like that, he turns and walks off. no touch. not even a goddamn smirk. you’re left standing there, pulse racing, drink forgotten, mouth parted like a woman halfway to disaster.

you fan yourself with your hand, mutter to no one, “fuck my life.”

and over the next few weeks, jake sim makes a habit out of losing his mind quietly.

he tells himself he’s just thirsty. that’s the only reason he keeps showing up to the saloon. he tells himself that every night he parks that stupid truck in the same stupid spot and walks through the same door into the same bar where you’re working, and where you, lately, won’t even look at him.

and that’s what kills him. because you used to look. all big eyes and evil little smiles, like you were constantly cooking up something sinful and he was the poor bastard about to taste it.

but now? now you barely glance in his direction. you walk past him like he’s just another part of the furniture. take other tables. pour drinks with your back to him. laugh at other men’s jokes.

and jake watches silently. desperately. he tries not to, he really does. but his eyes betray him every time. they flick to you the second you walk by—legs bare, hair pulled back with a pen, lips glossed to hell. you smell like vanilla and cigarette smoke, and it’s infuriating how much he wants to bite that smell off your throat.

and the worst part is that he knows you’re doing it on purpose. because sometimes, just sometimes, he catches the way your mouth twitches when you pass his table. the way you shift your weight a little slower, lean over a little further when you’re grabbing something. and when he doesn’t look up—when he pretends not to notice—you bite your lip like you’re trying not to laugh.

you’re playing hard to get. which is adorable, really. but it works. fuck, it works.

jake sim, who’s spent most of his adult life being aggressively unbothered, now sits at this bar like a man possessed. he sips beer and imagines things he shouldn’t. he watches your mouth wrap around straws and thinks about how it’d look wrapped around something else entirely. he stares at your hands pouring drinks and thinks about them fisting in his shirt, pressed against his belt, sliding down—

he coughs. shifts in his seat. takes another sip and pretends like he’s not half hard just because you leaned against the fridge five minutes ago.

he doesn’t talk to you. hasn’t, since the festival. because that would mean giving in. and if there’s one thing jake sim is worse at than feelings, it’s losing. but god, the way you walk? the way you smile at the wrong people? the way you drop the occasional “cowboy” into a sentence like it’s not meant to ruin him?

it’s almost sweet, the way you’re trying to get under his skin. but also: it’s working. and he thinks, not for the first time, that if you asked—if you looked at him a certain way—he’d let you wreck his entire life. you could tie him to the back of his own truck, spit on his mouth, call him useless in front of god and the sheriff, and he’d probably thank you. 

but you don’t look at him anymore. you just brush past him one more time, close enough for your skirt to kiss his knee, and say to no one in particular, real sweet: “why so sexy if so dumb?”

and jake swears to god he’s gonna start a bar fight just to calm down.

but the moment you step onto the dirt lot of the fairgrounds, sundress fluttering and sunglasses perched high on your nose, his brain short-circuits. ​​he sees you the second you walk in. he pretends not to, of course. jake sim has made an olympic sport out of pretending you don’t exist. but you’re here, again. and he’s fucked. 

he’s in the chute, adjusting his gloves, boots already caked in dust, chest strapped down tight like it might explode. he tells himself to focus on the ride, on the bull, on anything but the way your thighs are peeking out from under that goddamn dress.

you shouldn’t be here. he was hoping you’d show up, obviously, but now that you’re actually here, it feels like a setup. like god’s decided to make him fail in front of everyone and look good doing it. so he refuses to look directly at you. not while you’re standing near the fence, leaning against the railing like you’re modeling for the “ruin a man” calendar. not while you’re laughing at something some poor bastard just said, tossing your hair over your shoulder. and certainly not when you suck on that red snow cone.

he adjusts his hat lower. counts backward from ten. tries to remember how to breathe.

he’s still got it under control—mostly—until the moment he’s mounting the bull and glances toward the crowd just once. just a peek. and there you are, watching, with your lip between your teeth and a look that could sterilize holy water.

he slips. just a little. just enough for one boot to miss its mark and his hand to falter on the rope. no one notices. not really. but he does.

the ride still goes fine. better than fine, actually. he makes it the full eight seconds, lands smooth, wipes the sweat off his brow like he’s not a mess on the inside. like he didn’t almost fall off a 1,500-pound animal because you were licking syrup off your finger.

later, after the noise dies down, after the dust settles and the crowd starts dispersing into beer and music and gossip, you find him. he’s near the back of the stables, away from the noise. hat off, hair damp, shirt sticking to his back in places that make your hands twitch.

you lean against the wall, arms crossed, head tilted. he sees you coming. of course he does.

you don’t say anything right away. just look him over like you’re checking for bruises. “didn’t fall this time,” you say.

“not for lack of tryin’,” he mutters.

you raise an eyebrow. “the bull or me?”

he doesn’t answer. you take that as a win. so you step closer, slow. toe the dirt with your boot, pretend to be casual. but everything about you tonight is a performance, and he knows it. the cherry lip gloss. the dress with buttons that strain when you breathe. the way you keep shifting your weight like your thighs are begging for attention. you’re trying to get to him, and you are. but he’ll die before he admits it.

“you always ride that well,” you say, voice syrupy and cruel, “or was that just for me?”

“don’t flatter yourself, darlin’.”

“too late,” you grin. “flattered myself the whole way here.”

he laughs at that, but he still doesn’t move. you take another step. now you’re in front of him, barely a breath of air between your bodies. the tension crackles, like something’s about to snap. he looks down at you, his jaw tight, eyes darker than usual. you could kiss him, you could push him. you could drop to your knees and he wouldn’t stop you. but he stays still. and you know what that means. he’s losing it. slowly and deliciously.

so you just smile, all teeth and trouble, and say: “you gonna say thank you for coming, or do i gotta leave and come back so you can do it right?”

he looks down at you and decides—fuck it. if this is a game, he’s gonna play. so his hand lifts. two fingers hook lazily in your belt in your dress, just enough to make your breath hitch and your knees forget how to behave. he doesn’t pull, doesn’t tug, just lets it sit there. you blink up at him like you weren’t expecting him to do this. because you weren't.

“thought you came to watch the ride,” he says, voice like gravel and heat. “didn’t know you were hopin’ to start one.”

you’re stunned for a second, flustered. but you recover fast. your hand comes up, trailing a single finger down the buttons of his shirt, slowly. and you giggle. you say nothing, you only giggle and smile. then you step back, leaving him standing there with nothing but the smell of your perfume and a growing problem in his jeans. he blinks once. twice. and you’re already gone.

a few days later, he sees you again at the gas station. you’re sitting on the hood of your car. your car is pink, of course it’s pink. girly in that deadly way. floral air freshener, fuzzy dice, a sparkly steering wheel cover and a bumper sticker that probably says something like “yee-haw, bitch.”

you’re licking a cherry lollipop. wearing the tiniest pair of shorts known to mankind and a tank top that does nothing to hide your agenda. your legs are crossed, one foot bouncing lazily in the air like you have nowhere to be and every intention of being stared at. and people are staring. two guys walk by, heads snapping so fast they nearly sprain something. an old man in a tractor cap gives a long, disapproving look that lasts until he crashes into a trash can.

you? you smile sweetly. wave. keep sucking on that lollipop like you’re not ruining lives. and jake watches from the far pump, arms crossed, jaw tight, trying so hard not to enjoy the sight of you doing exactly what you do best.

and then, just like you’ve sensed him from across the lot, you slide off the hood, sway your hips across the concrete, and approach him with the most dangerous sentence in your arsenal: “cowboy,” you say, “i think i got a flat.”

he raises an eyebrow. looks at your car. no flat. you grin like the liar you are. “could you check for me?” you ask, voice all syrup and fake innocence. “i’d do it myself, but—” you shrug, twisting a strand of hair around your finger. “i don’t wanna chip a nail.”

he stares at you and you stare back. he knows what this is. you want him on his knees. and god help him—he’s thinking about it.

“you sure?” he says, tone dry. “seems like you’re the type to pop a tire just to see what crawls out the woodwork.”

“you caught me,” you beam. 

he sighs, but he walks over anyway. you trail behind, delighted, watching him crouch down in front of your car, like he is your personal cowboy-themed thirst trap come to life. he’s in front of you, all strong hands and dirty jeans, touching your tires like it’s a performance.

you lean back against the hood. cross your legs the other way. suck louder on the lollipop, just to be mean. and jake knows the tire’s fine, he also knows he’s losing. and when he looks up—sweat on his brow, eyes half-lidded, gaze landing right between your crossed legs—you don’t say a word. you just smile and keep chewing. you got what you wanted: him on his knees.

and it happens on a thursday. the saloon’s half-full, sticky with the usual noise, and you’ve got a tray in one hand. you spot him before he sees you. or maybe he lets you think that. he’s sitting at the bar, same stool as always. sipping something dark with his hat tipped low and one leg stretched out like the floor belongs to him. he’s talking to someone, a girl you don’t recognize, leaning in just enough to make your stomach twist.

he’s smiling. he never smiles, at least not like that. and that’s when it hits you: he’s doing it on purpose.

your first instinct is to roll your eyes. your second is to walk over there and ruin both their nights. instead, you drop off your tray at the counter, smooth your skirt, and remind yourself that you’re not bothered. not even a little. so you circle around the bar, busy yourself with orders. chat with a guy in a cowboy hat, laugh too loud, lean too close. and eventually, you feel that static buzz that only comes from being watched.

you turn your head, and of course he’s looking. not just looking, jake is devouring. his eyes trail down your legs, up your hips, pause at your chest like he’s making a list of crimes he’d commit if the sheriff weren’t his boss’s daddy. and your heart stutters, your mouth dries. you take a step toward him before you even realize it.

but then he gets up and walks past you, doesn’t say a word. and you think, what the hell?

but then his hand brushes yours, just barely. like an accident that wasn’t an accident. you whip around to say something sharp, but he’s already halfway to the door. and you follow. you don’t mean to, really, but you do. you catch him near the back hallway, one hand braced against the wall, like he knew you’d come after him.

you open your mouth to say something clever, but he steps in real close. close enough that your back hits the wall and your knees almost collapse. “somethin’ wrong, darlin’?” he asks, voice all silk.

“what was that?” you hiss, trying not to stare at his mouth. “flirting with that girl like i wasn’t in the room?”

he smirks. smirks. “didn’t know i needed permission.”

you cross your arms. push your chest up just enough to be annoying. “you’re playing games.”

he shrugs. “so are you.” his hand lifts, not to touch you (the bastard’s too good for that), but to brush a piece of lint off your shoulder. “you looked a little jealous,” he murmurs, voice dipped in sin. “cute look on you.”

your pulse stutters, but you refuse to show it. “you’re gonna die alone,” you say, breathier than intended.

“probably,” he says. “but not before i ruin you first.”

you suck in a breath. his face is right there, close enough that if you leaned forward, you’d taste the whiskey on his lips. you think he might do it, you think maybe this is it. but he doesn’t kiss you. instead, he leans in slow, his breath hot against your cheek, then presses a kiss right there, soft and warm and maddening. the kind of kiss that doesn’t take anything but still leaves you ruined.

then he pulls back. smirking, so smug and infuriating. “goodnight, sweetheart,” he says. and then he walks away, like he didn’t just light a fire in your chest and leave it burning.

and there’s a party on the edge of town on that week—somebody’s cousin’s birthday or maybe just an excuse to drink next to a fire. there’s music blasting out of speakers in the back of a lifted truck, people doing shots, and you’re there, of course, making every poor bastard lose his mind just by existing.

you’re wearing denim shorts and a little white top that ties in the front, and jake sim wants to fight the concept of clothing for making something that looks that illegal.

he sees you before you see him. and he sees heeseung before you do. pretty boy with too-white teeth and too many opinions about his own biceps. he’s been in love with you since high school and never got the hint. but tonight, you’re letting him talk. you’re laughing, you’re standing close. and you don’t even have to look across the fire to know jake’s watching.

you toss your hair over your shoulder. heeseung says something about his new truck and how it “purrs like a mountain cat,” which isn’t a thing, but you smile anyway. you’re about to make some flirty comment just to push it further when a hand wraps around your arm.

not rough, not mean, just firm. you whip around and there he is. jake. his face is unreadable. calm, almost. but his grip says something else entirely.

you blink. “well, hey there, cowboy—”

“walk,” he says.

you try to act annoyed, dramatic. “what if i don’t feel like—”

“walk.”

so you do. he leads you away from the fire, away from the crowd, toward the gravel lot where his truck is. you expect him to say something, yell, maybe. accuse you of something dramatic and delicious. but instead, he spins you around and presses you up against the passenger door.

his hand is still on your arm. the other braces beside your head. his body doesn’t touch yours, not really, but he’s close enough that you can feel the heat off his skin and the tension coiled under it. you blink up at him, wide-eyed and fake-innocent. “is this how you treat all your women, cowboy? dragging them into parking lots and pinning them to cars?”

“no,” he says. “just the ones who know better.”

you gasp softly, it’s almost a laugh. “oh, so now you’re mad?”

he leans in, mouth inches from yours, eyes dark and hungry. “you wore that top on purpose.”

you smirk. “maybe i was hot.”

he looks down, pointedly. “you are. and you know what you’re doin’.”

“do i?”

he exhales sharp through his nose, like he’s trying not to combust. and when he speaks again, his voice is lower. “you really want him to touch you? that what you’re lookin’ for?”

you blink slow and wet your lips. “maybe i just want somebody who actually does it.”

the look on his face shifts just slightly. then he leans in. you think this time it’ll happen, finally, the kiss, the collapse. the moment the game ends. but instead, his lips graze your jaw, not your mouth. his hand dips low, fingers brushing the hem of your shorts like he’s thinking about it.

“you don’t want ‘somebody,’” he whispers. “you want me.” you’re not breathing. he pulls back again, just enough to leave you gasping in the space between what was almost and what still isn’t. “but you’ll have to beg, sweetheart,” he adds, smirking. “and i don’t think you’re ready to do that yet.”

he turns like he’s going to walk away again, like that’s the last word. like he didn’t just light a match and drop it between your legs. but this time, you don’t let him. your hand shoots out fast and grabs his belt loop. he pauses and stills, and slowly, turns his head back toward you.

“you think i won’t?” you ask, voice low and deadly sweet.

he looks down at your hand, still fisted in his jeans like a challenge. then his eyes flick back up to yours—dark, wild, curious. he steps closer, just one step. then another. until he’s right in front of you again, and this time there’s no space. no teasing, no gaps. just you, caught between a truck door and the worst mistake you want to make.

he leans in. both hands come to rest on either side of your head. caging you in and claiming the air between you. “careful now,” he murmurs, voice rough. “you’re not the only one who likes to play.”

and then his knee presses forward, between your legs. you gasp. it’s not subtle, not even a little. he fits it there, deliberate and slow, until your thighs part just enough to make room for the solid weight of him. his thigh is strong and warm. your breath catches and your fingers twitch where they’re tangled in his shirt.

he’s watching your face. watching your mouth, like he’s trying to memorize the exact second you lose composure. but you don’t, you smile. then, slow and wicked, you roll your hips just a little against his thigh—enough to make him grunt, low in his throat, like he wasn’t ready for it. “you started it,” you say, feigning innocence. “don’t get shy now, cowboy.”

he exhales sharp. one of his hands drops and wraps tight around your waist, pulling you flush against him. your shorts ride up. the pressure of his thigh against you gets sharper, filthier, almost unbearable. “you think this is a joke?” he growls.

“no,” you breathe. “i think it’s foreplay.”

his hand tightens. he shifts his thigh just barely upward, grinding it between your legs, and you have to bite your lip to keep the sound in. he leans in, mouth ghosting over your ear. “i could make you come like this,” he says, voice like a sin you want to confess over and over. “right here, against my truck, with nothin’ but my thigh between your legs.”

you shiver, but you smile. “you talk a big game,” you whisper, lips brushing his jaw. “but so far all you’ve done is flex in tight jeans and give me blue balls.”

he lets out a sharp laugh, dangerous. then his hands drop to your hips, grip possessive, and he rolls you against his thigh again. this time harder and filthier. like he wants to see how far you’ll let it go. your knees almost buckle. your head hits the truck window. but your hands are in his hair now, pulling, tugging, dragging his face closer.

and still he doesn’t kiss you. you pant, flushed and desperate and mad as hell. he just smirks. “look at you,” he says. “makin’ a mess on me and i haven’t even touched you proper.”

you glare at him and your lip curls in frustration. “maybe you’re scared.”

he arches a brow. “of what?”

“of me.” you press down hard against his thigh again—your move now, your game—and you feel him tense. feel him curse under his breath like you’ve just won a round he didn’t even know he was playing. you lean in and whisper against his mouth: “i could ruin you.”

he inhales sharp. you swear you hear him mutter fuck. but still, still he doesn’t kiss you. he pulls back, eyes wild, chest rising and falling like he just ran a mile.

and then he steps away. leaves you there. aching and panting. blinking like you just came out of a trance. “one of these days, sweetheart,” he says, adjusting his belt like he needs a minute. “you’re gonna be the one beggin’.”

and then he climbs into the driver’s seat and drives away. you stare after him, thighs trembling, heart racing, and mutter:

“i’m gonna set his truck on fire.”

and jake sim spends the week trying not to think about you. which is stupid, because you’re everywhere. in his sheets, in his hands, in his mouth when he mutters fuck at two in the morning and fists his hair like it’ll shake you out of his head.

he sees you in the curve of a beer bottle. in the red of a stoplight. in the fucking grocery store, standing in front of a watermelon display like you invented sin.

he can’t focus. can’t sleep. can’t work. every time he bends over a fence or climbs into the truck, he hears your voice in his ear: i could ruin you. every time he closes his eyes, he sees your thighs wrapped around his fucking leg. he’s losing it. actually, clinically losing it.

and the worst part is that he let it happen. he swore he wouldn’t. told himself he wasn’t like the rest of them—the boys who lined up for your attention like fools in heat. he used to watch you tease and twist and toy with every man in town and laugh. not because he didn’t get it, because he did. but now he’s just another name on your list. and he hates it.

he’s a grown man. a cowboy, for christ’s sake. he should be immune to lip gloss and flirty banter and skirts short enough to send him to jail. but he’s not. and the worst part is that you know, you know what you’re doing. you know exactly how to stand, how to talk, how to glance up with that little tilt of your head like oops, did i break you again?

and he’s fucking gone. he’s a freak for it. a perv. he thinks about your mouth at church. he imagines your legs wrapped around his waist when he’s driving. he’s so far gone it’s pathetic.

so on thursday, when the thought of you cleaning up at the saloon alone hits him like a truck, he doesn’t fight it. he gets in the truck, drives like the devil’s chasing him. when he gets there, the bar is dark, empty. just the faint sound of clinking glasses and a broom dragging across the floor.

you’re behind the counter. sweaty and tired. loose hair falling around your face. still the hottest thing he’s ever fucking seen.

the door creaks open. you don’t look up. “we’re closed,” you call out, distracted.

then you lift your head, and you pause. your lips part. 

his boots hit the floor. he doesn’t say a word. just crosses the room in four heavy steps, reaches for your wrist, and pulls you in like he needs you to breathe. and then— he kisses you.

not sweet. not shy, not teasing. hot, open and filthy.

he groans when your mouth opens under his, when your fingers clutch his shirt like you’ve been waiting for this just as long. his hands are everywhere, your waist, jaw, the small of your back. he kisses like he’s mad about it, like this is a punishment.

your back hits the counter. your teeth knock. a glass falls off. and still, he kisses you like he’s trying to erase the space between you. 

he pulls back just enough to speak, breath hot on your cheek. “you win,” he mutters. “is that what you wanna hear?”

you’re panting, flushed. “not yet,” you whisper. “i like my man playing real hard to get,” you whisper, breath ghosting his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to tease.

and that’s the moment he snaps. his hands come up, cup your jaw like he’s trying to memorize it, and he kisses you hard, messy and desperate. and you moan, you can’t help it. he tastes like whiskey and salt and everything you’ve been dreaming about at three in the morning.

his hips press forward, tight against yours, grinding you back into the edge of the counter like he wants to leave a dent in your spine. and you grin against his lips. you reach back blindly, “you gonna keep kissing me like a saint,” you pant, pulling back, “or you gonna bend me over something, cowboy?”

his eyes go dark. “oh, you wanna act like a brat now?” he growls.

you smirk. “what gave it away?”

he grabs you, lifts you right off the floor and sets you down on a table like you weigh nothing. your legs part without hesitation and he steps between them, his hips hard against yours, and his hands gripping your thighs like he’s trying to decide which one he wants to ruin first. “look at you,” he mutters, eyes trailing down your body. “pretty little mouth, dirty little attitude.”

you tilt your head, all fake innocence. “you like it.”

he leans in close, mouth against your ear. “i’m gonna fuckin’ break you.”

your breath vanishes. his fingers trail up your thigh, slow, teasing, maddening. he doesn’t go where you want him, but just next to it, brushing the edges, watching you squirm. “i know what you need,” he murmurs. “you need someone to shut that mouth. teach you some fuckin’ manners.”

you wrap your legs around his waist. “you volunteering?”

he laughs, low and filthy. “baby, i’ve been applying for that job all month.” then he grinds forward, slow and mean, dragging a moan out of you that echoes across the empty bar. you gasp and clutch at his shoulders. he grabs your hips, presses them down, holds you there. “no running now,” he mutters. “you been beggin’ for this.”

you roll your hips up into his. “you liked it.”

he groans, kissing down your neck, biting just enough to make you gasp again. “liked it so much i nearly wrecked my truck thinkin’ about you.” his hand slips under your top. calloused fingers on your skin, rough and reverent all at once. he palms your chest like he’s claiming it. like he’s mad you let anyone else look. you arch into him, moaning. “so impatient,” he teases, voice a growl. “what happened to makin’ me beg, sweetheart?”

“shut up and fuck me.”

he smirks against your throat. “say please.”

you groan, kick your heels against his ass. “cowboy—”

“say it.”

you hiss, then lean in and bite his lip. “please.”

he pulls back just enough to smirk, breath hot against your lips. “please what?” he asks, voice low, gravel rough.

you glare at him, or at least, you try to. but your legs are wrapped around his waist, your hips aching for friction, and his hand is already creeping up your thigh like he’s got nowhere to be but inside you. so you say it, no shame. no power left to pretend. “please, fuck me, jakey.”

he groans loudly, like the words physically hit him. then he mutters something that sounds like jesus fucking christ, and crashes his mouth into yours. and this kiss is different. it is hungry and starving. he grinds against you, slow and hard, pressing you down into the table with the full weight of his body. your shirt rides up. your back arches. the wood creaks underneath like it might give out, and honestly—if it breaks, let it. you’ll thank it for its service.

his hands are everywhere. palming your thighs, squeezing your ass, gripping your waist like he owns it. “look at you,” he rasps, lips trailing down your throat. “fuckin’ dream girl of the county. all these poor bastards lining up for a smile, and here you are—legs open for me.”

you gasp and whimper and dig your nails into his shoulders. he presses his hips harder, grinds right against where you need him most. your head drops back, your moan echoes. “you love this,” he says, panting now. “bein’ up here where anyone could walk in. where anyone could see you gettin’ ruined by me.” you don’t answer, you can’t. “what happened to that bratty mouth, huh?” he growls, dragging his teeth along your jaw. “where’s all that sass now?”

“shut up,” you breathe. “just—please.”

“beggin’ again?” he taunts. “thought you didn’t do that.”

“i’m making an exception.”

he laughs, dark and hot, and grabs your hips tighter, pulling you to the edge of the table. “you should see yourself right now,” he mutters, undoing his belt with one hand. “look so fuckin’ pretty like this. so desperate.”

“you’re the one that came after me.”

“yeah,” he admits, lining himself up, voice breaking a little, “because i’m a goddamn fool for you.”

and then he pulls back. his hand wraps around your jaw, gentle but firm, tilting your face up to look at him. he’s flushed and panting. pupils blown wide. and his voice, when he speaks, is low and dangerous and thick with control he’s barely holding. “get on your knees.”

your heart stops and your grin widens. “you asking or telling me, cowboy?”

he presses his thumb into your cheek, leans down, kisses the corner of your mouth like he’s being nice before doing something awful. “i’m tellin’ you,” he mutters, “be a good girl and make me feel good.”

you blink slow, mouth open, pretending to think about it. “what’s in it for me?”

his hand slips down, fingers wrapping around your throat just enough to make you feel it—not choking, just owning. “my cock in your mouth,” he growls. “and maybe if you do it right, i’ll let you come later.”

your knees buckle, but your pride doesn’t. you hum, all fake sweetness. “guess i could use something to suck on.” you drop to the floor, knees hitting the sticky saloon wood like you belong there. he watches you, chest heaving and jaw tight. trying not to come just from the sight of you looking so cute on your knees for him. you look up at him, eyes wide, lips parted. “you nervous?” you tease.

he barks a laugh. “just waitin’ to see if the mouth that talks so much can finally do something useful.”

you pout. then reach for his belt, slow and dramatic, undoing it like it’s the last gift under a christmas tree. and when his cock springs free, hard, flushed, huge, your mouth waters. you glance up again. “you been thinkin’ about this, haven’t you?”

he hisses as you wrap your hand around him, thumb brushing the tip. “every fuckin’ night,” he admits, voice ragged. “jesus, i’d wake up hard just rememberin’ how you looked struttin’ around in those little shorts behind the bar.”

you stroke him once, twice, slow and sweet. then you lean forward, kiss the tip. just a whisper of a touch. he groans. his hand finds your hair, pulling it already. you drag your tongue along the underside, all the way down, then back up again. he swears, low and filthy. “look at you,” he rasps. “knees on the fuckin’ floor, pretty mouth full of me. you know how many men in this town would give their right hand for this?”

you hum around him. smile with your eyes, because you do know. and you love that it’s you doing this to him. so you take more of him in, then more. until he’s deep in your throat, and he’s gripping the edge of the table so tight you think he might snap it in half. “fuck,” he moans. “that’s it, sweetheart. just like that. takin’ me so fuckin’ good.”

his hips twitch forward. just a little, just enough to make you gag—on purpose, and he loves that. he loves the sound. he loves how messy your mouth is for him. so he starts to move in shallow thrusts. hand in your hair, not rough, but claiming. “you gonna let me come in your mouth, baby?” he groans. “gonna swallow it all, show me how good you are?”

you nod and moan, sucking harder, and that’s it. he gasps, his hips snap forward. his whole body shudders. he comes hard, hot and thick on your tongue, fingers tangled in your hair, voice wrecked. you swallow it all, slowly. wipe the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand, like a brat.

you’re still on your knees, lips wet, tongue peeking out in satisfaction like you just finished dessert and might go back for seconds. he looks down at you, utterly wrecked. and then he laughs breathless and disbelieving. “jesus christ,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair like you just short-circuited every last nerve. “you’re gonna kill me.”

you grin, smug as sin. but then he leans down, and his strong arms slide under your shoulders, lifting you like you weigh nothing. you squeal, half-laughing, hands flying to grip his shirt. “hey—!”

“shut up,” he breathes. “my turn.”

he sets you down on the table again, right where you were before. but this time, he doesn’t kiss you yet. doesn’t even touch you. he just steps back, eyes dark and hungry. and says, “spread.”

you blink, chest rising. “what?”

he tilts his head, steps back in, hands firm on your knees. “you heard me, sweetheart. open up. now i’m gonna make you feel good.”

you part your thighs slow, watching his eyes drop, watching his breath hitch. you lean back on your elbows, head tilted, and he glances at the wet mark through your shorts. he drops to his knees, his hands grip your thighs, dragging you to the edge like he’s pulling you into hell with him. he presses a kiss to your inner thigh, slow and reverent, like you’re a prayer and a sin at the same time.

“you wet for me already?” he murmurs, hot breath brushing your core through your shorts.

you nod, breathless. “since you walked in.”

he grins. bites the soft skin just above your knee. “should’ve told me. i’d’ve come sooner.”

he yanks your shorts and panties down fast, like he’s impatient. because he probably is. so then—finally—he licks you. one long, slow stroke that makes your back arch off the table. you gasp. grab the edge and moan his name so soft it sounds like a confession.

and he devours you. not gentle, not slow. just hungry and precise, like he’s got something to prove. his tongue works you open, circles and flicks and drives you fucking wild. he hums when you buck your hips, groans when you moan. his grip on your thighs bruises. his tongue never stops. “so fuckin’ sweet,” he mumbles against you. “no wonder they all wanna taste.”

you whimper. he slides a finger in, then another. crooks them just right. your whole body tightens. your breath catches. “that’s it, baby,” he whispers. “ride my face. let go. give it to me.”

you do. you shatter, legs trembling, back arched, voice gone. you’re gasping his name, tugging his hair, begging him to stop or keep going—you don’t even know. he doesn’t stop. not until your whole body is shaking. not until your thighs twitch and your breathing turns ragged and your hand slaps the table in surrender.

then finally he pulls back with his mouth glistening with you. his smile is wrecked, his eyes wide and wild. he looks up at you like you just handed him the goddamn meaning of life. “holy fuck,” he whispers, swiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “you came so good for me, angel.”

you try to glare, you really do. but your limbs don’t work. your knees are jelly. your stomach’s still twitching in aftershocks. and then he stands, towering. glowing like he just found religion between your legs. and then he leans down, kisses your jaw, and says—soft and cocky— “think you can take one more?”

your eyes flutter open, you blink at him. “you’re insane.”

he grins and kisses the corner of your mouth. “that ain’t a no.”

you roll your eyes. but you’re already lifting your hips, already turning. and then his hands are on your waist, firm and steady, spinning you around until you’re bent over the table. your cheek presses to the cool wood. your arms stretch forward. “fuck,” you whisper.

he hums behind you, hands sliding up your back, bunching your shirt at your ribs. “look at you,” he mutters. “so goddamn ready. still drippin’ for me.” he leans over you, chest to your back, mouth at your ear. “tell me you want it.”

you inhale shakily. “i want it.”

his hand slides between your thighs. fingers glide through your wetness. “tell me who’s gonna make you come again.”

you gasp. “you are.”

“say my name, sweetheart.”

“you, jakey.”

he groans. lines himself up. and then he pushes in. you gasp, you arch and whimper. his hand presses between your shoulder blades, keeping you down, controlling the pace. his hips move slow and deep, dragging a moan out of you every time he bottoms out. “so tight,” he pants. “like you’re fuckin’ made for me.”

you moan his name again, cheek still to the table, one hand reaching back to grab at his wrist. he laughs low and feral. “no runnin’ now,” he growls. “you said you could take one more.”

his thrusts get faster and harder. the table starts to creak. your moans start to sound like pleas. and he’s loving every second. he leans in, bites your shoulder, mutters against your skin, “gonna fuck you so dumb you forget how to sass.” you gasp and grin. you push back against him just to be a brat. he grabs your hips, pulls you back onto him hard. “jesus,” he hisses. “you like this, don’t you? bein’ used like this.”

“i like you like this,” you pant. “all obsessed.”

he grunts, and slaps your ass with a sting that makes your knees wobble. you yelp. and then he laughs, breathless, wicked. “i’m not lettin’ anyone else touch you again,” he mutters, voice cracked open, raw in your ear. his hand comes down to your hip, gripping. “this?” he growls, grinding into you harder, deeper. “this fuckin’ mouth, these thighs, this perfect little pussy— all mine.”

you moan, loud and shameless. he leans in, mouth hot on your neck, and his hand slips around you, fingers finding your clit like they never forgot it. he rubs in tight, fast circles, exactly how your body begs for. “come for me again, baby,” he pants. “show me how fuckin’ pretty you fall apart.”

and you do. you break, and your cry punches through the empty bar, your walls clenching so tight around him it nearly knocks the air from his lungs. your hands scrabble for the edge of the table, your face buried, your voice gone, just moans, sobs, his name like a prayer you can’t stop saying. and then—still shaking, still high on it— you whisper, broken and filthy: “inside. jake. please—come inside.”

he fucking loses it. his hips stutter, his breath catches, his hand grabs your ass roughly. “fuck, baby—” his head drops to your back. his rhythm falters, he’s right there. “you want me to fill you up?” he growls, desperate. “want me leavin’ you dripping with me?”

you nod, frantic. “yes—yes, please—i want it, i want all of it—”

he groans, loud. his thrusts go messy. erratic. wild. “goddamn, you’re gonna ruin me,” he gasps. and then he comes, deep and hard. body shuddering as he spills inside you, hips pressed tight, your name falling from his lips like a sin he’s finally ready to be forgiven for.

his hand stays in your hips. his forehead pressed to your back. both of you panting. shaking. wrecked. and you smile, eyes closed, face against the table, voice barely above a whisper:

“told you you were obsessed.”

he laughs—hoarse, drunk on you—and kisses your spine. “shut up,” he murmurs. “you fuckin’ love it.”

after, at your place, after he wrecked you in every possible way, you watch him fall asleep beside you, arm slung across your waits like he is still trying to stake a claim. cowboy hat on the floor. love bite on his throat. your lipstick on his chest.

you smile to yourself. “i like my men playing hard to get,” you whisper.

lucky for you, he never stood a chance.

author’s note: soooo i saw this edit of jake in full cowboy mode and lost every functioning brain cell i had left. then i watched manchild by sabrina carpenter and went wait what if… so this fic accidentally became the most porn-with-plot thing i’ve ever written. but i regret nothing. cowboy jake has a chokehold on me and the saloon girl in my brain wouldn’t shut up until he was wrecked and begging. anyway, yee-fucking-haw 🤠

my masterlist // perma taglist: @rairaiblog @nqdirr @iyoonjh @saeris-world @jayparked @solonenova

© all rights reserved @/heejamas — do not repost, copy, translate, or modify my works without explicit permission. these are works of fiction and are not meant to represent real-life actions, thoughts, or personalities of any public figures

[neohazed]

Bite Me (M)

pairing. alpha heeseung x female omega reader

warnings. non-traditional a/b/o AU, pwp, M/F, pinch of fluff, heavy amount of smut, inexperienced y/n, profanity, morally grey characterization(Heeseung), somewhat bimbo y/n, sneaking around, manipulation, jealousy, possessive behavior, dubious consent but consented(more so sexual coercion at first), fingering, oral, throat fucking, praise/degradation, dom/sub dynamics, rough unprotected sex, slick, heat sex, breeding, cum inflation, knotting, biting. MINORS DNI

preview—

“I’m kind of confused still.” You admit, anxiously shuffling to sit without making eye-contact. Heeseung chuckles plopping down by your side, arm slinging back over your shoulder to keep you pressed against him. 

“I’m gonna teach you how to seduce Jay.”

“How?” You fret. Swallowing the dry itch away from your throat as he leans in close enough to feel the fan of his next breath caress your Cupid’s bow. 

“For starters, come kiss me.” 

“Huh?!” You jump back, staring at him like he just grew five heads. Heeseung grunts, rolling his eyes.

“You want Jay to fuck you or what?” He asks almost boredly, shifting back to rest on his palms. “I’m trying to do you a favor, as your friend.”

Read On Ao3–>

—————————- Part 2: Mate Me (M)

EARLY ACCESS: Available To Read On Patreon—>

[liuhsng]

─────⋆˚࿔ ⋆ in lilac and gold ( lhs ! )

✩ˎˊ˗ enhypen masterlist

⤷ pairing — heeseung x fem!reader ⤷ word count — 21.2k ⤷ based on this request by @heesbbygurl ⤷ permanent taglist — open !

⤷ a/n — i had so much fun writing this—truly. this honestly might be one of my favorite pieces yet. also, please don’t mind the enhypen masterlist, it’s still under editing and a little messy 🤍

⤷ warnings — smut (minors dni), p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it), reincarnation au, royal au, prince!heeseung, princess!reader, modern!heeseung, modern!reader, past lives, heavy emotional themes, mentions of childbirth, faint references to past death, soulmate trope, red string trope, fluff, angst, destiny/universe themes, mentions of pain (labor), crying, protective!heeseung, foul language, mentions of historical war/politics, romantic tension, fate-written love, farmer george reference, happy ending, breeding kink, marking, biting, light possessiveness, overstimulation, praise kink, slight size kink

✩ˎˊ˗ summary — as the crown prince of a powerful kingdom, lee heeseung was raised to rule—with sharp instincts, a loyal heart, and a crown that never sat too heavily on his head. he was born for diplomacy, bred for war, and destined for a throne. but the only thing he truly lived for was you. his wife, his queen, the only soul who could quiet the chaos inside him. you loved each other until your final breath. and somehow, even after that. or, where two strangers meet under the eyes of their past selves, and something the universe once forgot finally begins again.

The sun poured golden ribbons over the stone path, warm and gentle as it kissed the castle grounds. Somewhere beyond the hedges, the faint splash of the courtyard fountain echoed—a lullaby of water meeting water, rhythmic and calming.

You sat nestled within the pale embrace of a gazebo, its wooden frame delicately laced with ivy and blooming wisteria, soft petals swaying with every tender breeze.

The book in your hands was worn in the corners but loved—its parchment pages aged, the ink slightly faded yet still carrying the weight of every word.

A sigh left your lips, soft and drawn out.

“'And in silence, he longed for what he dared not touch,'” you read aloud, your voice barely rising above the wind. “What a tragic sort of devotion…”

Your fingers tightened around the spine.

The garden stretched out before you, a sea of color—roses, tulips, peonies, and little blue forget-me-nots nestled near the base of every trimmed bush. Everything was alive, and yet it all stood still, like the entire world paused to listen.

Footsteps padded softly across the gravel behind you.

“Milady,” came the quiet voice of one of the castle maids, her head bowed low as she placed a fresh tray of refreshments upon the small table beside you. Crystal glasses caught the light, and the silver tray gleamed beneath the sun.

You offered a gentle smile. “Thank you.”

She returned it, modest and fleeting, before stepping back. “Shall I leave the strawberries as well?”

“Yes, please,” you replied, adjusting the folds of your gown with one hand.

The silk skirt pooled around you in waves, layered with pale pastels, laced edges, and gold-stitched bows that shimmered every time you moved. A corset hugged your waist, cinched just enough to be proper, but not unbearable—a compromise between elegance and comfort.

She bowed again. “Call if you need anything, my lady.”

“I always do,” you murmured, your gaze falling back to the book.

You turned the page delicately, brushing your fingertips against the words as though they were fragile glass.

And then, quietly to yourself, “How strange it must be, to long for someone in secret… and be loved loudly by someone else entirely.”

You were just about to turn the page—fingertip sliding gently under the parchment—when you heard it.

Footsteps.

Your gaze lifted from the book and drifted to the right, toward one of the many winding paths that led into the garden. Sunlight spilled across the white cobblestone in slanted rays, dancing between the petals and ivy.

Prince Heeseung.

Your breath caught for only a second—but your smile came instantly, unbidden, as if your heart had recognized him long before your eyes did.

He looked like he belonged in the very pages of your book—dressed in a tailored white coat lined with gold filigree that caught the sun at every turn.

The fabric shimmered faintly with each step he took, the polished black boots beneath his dark trousers clicking softly against the stones. His hands were careful, cradling a fresh bouquet of lilacs—your favorite, which he never once forgot.

The lilacs were nearly the same shade as the ribbon in your hair.

His dark hair was brushed back in soft waves, a few strands falling loosely near his brow. And those eyes—those warm, honey-brown eyes—found yours with ease, with something gentle tucked inside their gaze.

“Princess,” he greeted with a smile that turned your knees to air. His voice, low and warm, always had a way of curling around your name like a promise.

You sat up straighter, your hands folding over your lap as you tilted your head at him, playful. “You walk like a man with secrets.”

“I walk like a man bringing flowers to the only one who makes the garden look dull,” he said, grinning as he reached the steps of the gazebo.

“Oh, how terribly dramatic of you.”

Heeseung chuckled, holding out the bouquet. “And yet it made you smile.”

You accepted the lilacs carefully, the scent washing over you like a memory. “You know, the florists will start suspecting you’re courting someone.”

“I am courting someone,” he replied easily, eyes never leaving yours.

Your cheeks warmed under the weight of his gaze.

“Lucky her,” you said softly, brushing your thumb over one of the petals.

Heeseung stepped closer, just enough to lower himself onto the bench beside you—his posture relaxed, his shoulder brushing yours faintly. His arm rested casually behind you on the seat, not quite touching, but close enough to feel.

“Lucky me,” he corrected, leaning in the slightest bit as his voice dipped lower. “For having a princess who reads poetry and meets me in gardens.”

You laughed under your breath, looking down at the bouquet once more. “You always say the right things.”

Heeseung tilted his head, expression soft. “Only when I’m around you.”

You gave him another smile, one that crinkled your eyes and pulled at the corners of your lips. Then, with a careful hand, you set the bouquet beside the refreshments—delicate lilacs now resting in the sun’s golden glow, nestled beside chilled lemonade and a dish of strawberries.

“Come closer,” you said gently, patting the spot beside you with a slight tilt of your head.

And he did.

Heeseung obeyed with that boyish grin tugging at his lips, sinking into the bench with ease until his shoulder brushed yours—warm, familiar. The closeness was effortless, the kind that came with hours and weeks and years of knowing. Of loving.

He turned slightly, eyes gleaming as if simply sitting beside you made the world right again.

“How was practice?” you asked, reaching instinctively for his hand, your thumb brushing lightly over his knuckles.

He let out a dramatic sigh, one that rattled from the very depths of his chest before he leaned in further—head finding its way to the crook of your neck, nose brushing the soft skin there as he inhaled.

“Exhausting,” he murmured, voice muffled by your skin. “Sunghoon almost ripped my sleeve off.”

Your brows raised, amused. “Did he now?”

“All because I told him he ought to start thinking about finding a lady of his own. He’s only two years younger than me, but you'd think I told him to marry a goat the way he reacted.”

You stifled a laugh.

“And Jongseong?” you asked, already guessing.

“Backed me up, of course,” Heeseung grinned into your neck. “He even dragged Jungwon into it—said the two of them were becoming old maids with swords.”

You gasped playfully. “Cruel!”

Heeseung laughed, his breath tickling your skin. “Cruel but not wrong. So naturally, the younger ones decided the only reasonable response was chasing us through the courtyard with their blades drawn like little terrors.”

You blinked. “With actual swords?”

“Oh yes,” he said, sounding far too amused. “They meant business. The knights on patrol just stood there, watching. I think one of them placed a bet.”

You giggled, running a hand through his soft hair as he leaned further into you, completely unbothered by decorum or the passing time. Your fingers threaded through the dark locks gently, combing through with care as if he were the most precious thing in the garden—and he was.

Heeseung hummed under your touch, arms moving around your waist as he drew you closer until there was no space left between you.

“You spoil me,” he mumbled, eyes fluttering shut.

“And you let me,” you replied with a teasing smile, brushing your fingers along his temple.

“That’s because I’d gladly die in your hands,” he muttered sleepily. “Even if your hands are… very soft. And smell like roses.”

You laughed again, delighted. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m yours,” he corrected, holding you tighter.

And then—without warning—he leaned in and began pressing warm, slow kisses against the slope of your neck. One. Then another. His lips trailing softly just below your jaw, then lower, brushing against the skin just above your collarbone—barely hidden by the delicate neckline of your gown.

“Your dress is unfair,” he whispered between kisses, voice low and teasing. “Makes it impossible to behave.”

You let out a breathy giggle, hand curling into the fabric of his sleeve. “You’re impossible, Heeseung.”

“Mm, say it again.”

“You’re impossible?”

“No. My name. I like it when you say it like that.”

You cooed gently, tilting your head as he angled for your lips. His gaze dipped to your mouth, and his hand moved up the side of your back, eyes half-lidded and completely enamored.

And just as your lips were about to meet—

“Heeseung hyung!”

The prince froze mid-movement, groaning against your skin like a man personally betrayed by the gods.

Another voice followed, louder and more frantic.

“Hyung? We’ve been looking for you for ages!”

From beyond the tall rose bushes near the edge of the gazebo, two familiar figures stumbled into view—Sunoo and Riki, each looking like scolded puppies who’d wandered too far from their leash.

“Unbelievable,” Heeseung muttered under his breath, finally lifting his head with the most exasperated expression. “What could possibly be so urgent?”

Sunoo offered you a sheepish smile as he waved. “Good afternoon, Princess. Sorry to interrupt.”

Riki, meanwhile, had already sauntered over and shamelessly plucked a macaron off the silver tray in front of you, examining it like he’d just discovered a new species. “Pink. My favorite.”

Heeseung narrowed his eyes. “Riki.”

“I figured if I’m going to interrupt, I may as well get a snack.”

Sunoo sighed and folded his arms. “Hyung, the head of the knight guard—Hwan—has been looking for you. Something about finalizing next week’s banquet security plans?”

At that, Heeseung visibly deflated, letting out a second, louder groan before dramatically resting his chin on top of your head like a sulking child. “I’m not going.”

You stifled a laugh, reaching up to play with the ends of his hair. “You do know you’re the crown prince, yes?”

“I do,” he mumbled. “And yet I feel incredibly underappreciated.”

Riki snorted as he took another bite of the macaron, his voice muffled by sugar. “Relax, brother. Princess (Y/N)’s not going anywhere.”

Heeseung gave a noise of agreement and nuzzled further into your hair, arms still locked firmly around your waist. “Exactly. This is clearly a case of poor timing and disrespect toward royal romantic affairs.”

Sunoo rolled his eyes. “You say that as if your ‘romantic affair’ isn’t sprawled across a public gazebo.”

“Then they should build us a private one.”

You laughed again, threading your fingers through his hair as he melted into you like a spoiled cat. Riki and Sunoo exchanged one last glance before Riki shrugged and grabbed a second dessert.

“We’ll tell Hwan you’re ‘in conference.’”

“And tell him to come back never,” Heeseung added, voice muffled into your hair.

You sighed through a soft laugh, tapping his arms gently where they were stubbornly wrapped around your waist. “My Prince,” you said with mock sternness. “If you don’t get going, Hwan will double your training hours. Maybe even triple.”

He let out a groan—not very prince-like—as he nuzzled into you one last time. “Cruel. You wound me, my love.”

“You’ll survive,” you hummed, gently nudging him away. He reluctantly loosened his grip, though he still hadn’t made any effort to actually stand.

You smiled fondly. “Come on. The earlier you finish your duties, the earlier you can be with me again.”

That made him perk up, his eyes suddenly lighting like sun-touched gold. “Now that is motivation.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to your cheek—warm, lingering, a promise tucked into it.

“Ugh,” Sunoo groaned dramatically, throwing his head back. “Do you have to kiss every five seconds?”

“Some of us are still single,” Riki added, arms crossed with an exaggerated pout.

You grinned. “Well, maybe if you two stopped terrorizing every debutante at every ball…”

Heeseung snorted, standing at last with a stretch before he placed one last, feather-light kiss to the top of your head. “Ignore them, princess. They’re simply jealous.”

You brushed your hands gently along the front of your gown, preparing to stand as well. “I must get going back inside,” you murmured, glancing toward the palace doors. “The sun is starting to turn hotter, and I might melt before you return.”

Heeseung stepped beside you immediately, his hand finding the small of your back with natural ease. “Then I’ll escort you,” he said. “It’s on the way to the courtyard anyway.”

He looked to Sunoo expectantly. “That alright?”

Sunoo gave a small, understanding nod. “Of course. We’ll catch up with the captain while you two take your sweet time.”

As you moved forward, the heavy layers of your gown shifted around your legs, the delicate fabric and gold embroidery trailing slightly behind you. You let out a tiny sigh, brushing your skirt to the side.

“These gowns were not made for walking,” you muttered.

“They were made for floating, though,” Heeseung teased, offering his arm with a grin. “And I’m honored to be walking beside the most beautiful one to ever wear them.”

You flushed as you took his arm, allowing him to guide you gently toward the entrance of the palace. Behind you, Riki mock-gagged and grabbed another macaron while Sunoo simply shook his head, already anticipating a very dramatic retelling of this moment at dinner.

“I’m serious,” you added playfully over your shoulder, glancing at Heeseung. “Hwan is already so tired of your antics. Please, spare the poor man.”

That made the prince laugh—a sound so full and bright that it echoed against the walls of the palace garden like music. “Alright, alright,” he said, pulling you just a little closer. “For your sake, I’ll behave. But only slightly.”

The afternoon breeze was kind to your skin—neither too warm nor biting. It danced through the open corridor, carrying the scent of roses and distant sunlight as you strolled leisurely, your gown trailing behind like golden water. The lace fluttered slightly with each step, your slippers tapping gently against the polished stone floor.

Your two handmaidens flanked you, both young, bright-eyed, and as full of energy as always. The three of you had long abandoned any sense of formality as laughter echoed softly down the hall.

“White and gold,” you said confidently, letting your fingers trace the embroidered detailing of your sleeve. “No combination has ever looked better.”

They both gasped as if you had uttered gospel.

“I told her the same thing!” one of them chirped. “Gold goes with everything. It brings out the elegance in the plainest of things.”

“And it’s so regal,” the other sighed dreamily. “Like something only worn by goddesses and queens.”

You laughed, soft and genuine, as you reached the spiral stairs that led to the tower balcony. The stone was cool beneath your fingertips as you climbed, sunlight spilling in through narrow windows that cast slanted beams along the walls.

Stepping out onto the balcony, the three of you were greeted by the view of the castle’s courtyard below—alive with the clang of swords, thuds of boots, and echoes of distant chatter.

“There they go again,” your handmaiden giggled, pointing toward the princes at the far end of the yard.

You followed her gaze and stifled a laugh of your own as you caught sight of Jungwon’s sword accidentally hitting Riki with the hilt—straight to the side.

Riki let out a loud yelp, and without missing a beat, launched himself at the cat-like prince, chasing him in furious circles around the yard as their sparring partners stood stunned.

“They’re going to fall face-first into the fountain one of these days,” you muttered, watching as the younger princes dashed around wildly.

Your eyes scanned across the yard—rows of knights moving in formation, sparring amongst themselves, or preparing equipment—until they landed on a more composed sight. Prince Heeseung.

He stood slightly away from the others, deep in conversation with the ever-serious Captain Hwan. Between them lay a large scroll, its corners pinned with small weights, possibly a map of the castle grounds.

You could just barely make out their gestures—Heeseung pointing toward a marked area while Hwan nodded sharply. Likely preparations for next week’s banquet, you thought.

“The crown prince looks far too serious today,” one of the girls murmured, following your gaze.

“He always does when Hwan’s involved,” the other added, then nudged your arm with a sly smile. “Now those knights over there, though…”

You turned your head just as she gestured to the opposite end of the courtyard, where Prince Jaeyun and Prince Jongseong—both shirt-sleeved and flushed from training—were surrounded by a group of younger knights. Their laughter echoed faintly, the two clearly in the middle of friendly teasing.

“They’re the heart-stoppers of the guard,” she sighed dramatically. “Imagine catching one of those eyes from below the helmet.”

You chuckled, resting your arms on the balcony railing. “They’re charming,” you admitted. “But Prince Heeseung has my heart.”

Both girls turned to you with the same dreamy expression.

“As he should,” one said, smiling. “You’re both lucky.”

“Betrothed and still looking at you like he’s thirteen again, sneaking out of language lessons to see you in the garden,” the other added with a fond laugh.

You let out a soft breath of laughter, the memory settling sweetly in your chest. “He still acts like it,” you mused. “He gifted me lilacs this morning and almost forgot he had training until Sunoo dragged him out.”

They both laughed at that, clearly endeared.

“And every time he kisses you in public, Prince Riki looks like he’s about to hurl,” your handmaiden added through a grin.

You covered your mouth to stifle the sudden laughter, nodding in agreement.

“Honestly,” you sighed, “I should start rewarding the poor prince for tolerating all our affections.”

“You already do, Your Highness,” one handmaiden said with a wink, leaning her elbows on the stone railing.

The other smiled softly, her voice quieter now, a sincerity woven into her words. “You were the sister figure they always needed, you know.”

You blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in tone.

“They’re adored by everyone,” she continued, eyes trailing down to the chaos of the courtyard. “The Queen loves her sons dearly—but with the business of the court, the councils, the expectations—well… they needed someone to be there. And you were.”

“She’s right,” the first agreed. “From the moment you met them… they looked up to you. Just as much as they look up to Prince Heeseung.”

The wind blew gently again, carrying with it the laughter of the younger princes and the faint scent of lavender from the courtyard gardens.

Your gaze softened as it drifted across the yard—Riki now wrestling Jungwon to the ground playfully while Jaeyun scolded them half-heartedly in between sword swings.

They had always looked at you that way, hadn’t they? As if your presence gave them peace in ways no royal decree or bloodline ever could. They weren’t just princes to you. They were yours. In some small, cherished way—they had become the brothers you never had.

You sighed through a smile, delicately pushing your hair back over your shoulder, careful not to disturb the lilac bow resting perfectly near your crown.

“Enough with this sentimental talk,” you murmured, though your voice was thick with affection. “You’re going to make me cry.”

Both handmaidens giggled, nudging each other playfully.

“I’d offer my handkerchief, but it’s silk and I don’t want to ruin it,” one teased.

“Such loyalty,” you quipped, laughing along, your heart lighter now.

Your gaze floated back to the courtyard, naturally—always—seeking him.

Heeseung was still beside Hwan, nodding along to something the knight was pointing to on the map. His arms were folded behind his back, posture noble and every bit the Crown Prince. But then—almost as if the gods whispered your name into his ear—he looked up.

Right at you.

The seriousness faded instantly. His brows softened. His lips curved into a grin brighter than any sunbeam could ever hope to rival.

You giggled quietly, your hand raising in a gentle wave toward him. Heeseung returned the gesture with no hesitation, his smile only growing wider as he waved back, completely unbothered by Hwan’s sharp sigh beside him.

Below, the courtyard erupted.

“OI—LOOK AT THAT! THE PRINCE IS SMILING!”

“You sure that’s our Crown Prince?!”

More teasing hollers rang out as knights and princes alike noticed the sudden softness in their usually stoic eldest. And then—

“Noona! Hi!” Jungwon shouted from where he was pinned by Riki, waving his arm wildly while the younger prince sat on his back like a triumphant puppy.

You covered your mouth, trying—and failing—to hold in the laughter that spilled from your chest.

Then Jongseong’s voice echoed from below, loud and teasing. “Come down here! It’s hot up there, you know!”

He wasn’t wrong. In the few minutes you'd lingered at the stone balcony, the once-soft breeze had given way to a harsher warmth. The sun bore down with more intent now, and you found yourself squinting slightly under its golden glare.

You nodded in agreement and stepped away from the railing, your handmaidens trailing just behind, still giggling about the interaction like it had been the most charming thing they’d seen all day. You couldn’t blame them—it really was.

As you descended the winding steps and approached the edge of the courtyard, the sight that greeted you was one of casual chaos—Jungwon brushing dust from his tunic.

Riki now tugging at Sunghoon’s sleeve as the elder prince tried to ignore him with utmost patience while seated on one of the carved stone benches. Knights moved in rhythm nearby, sparring or catching their breath, the clang of steel and soft thuds of boots filling the air.

Your handmaidens, ever the schemers, gave you one last nudge forward.

“Go on,” one whispered with a grin.

“Oh, don’t give us that look, Your Highness,” the other added when you turned to glare, all faux-offended elegance. “You’re the one engaged to him.”

Before you could retort, they laughed and slipped away—heading straight toward a few young knights polishing their swords under a shaded tree, whispering and giggling like it was a market square and not royal training grounds.

You sighed with fond exasperation, shaking your head. “Unbelievable.”

But your thoughts were quickly interrupted by a familiar warmth at your back.

A hand gently found your lower spine, fingers curling just slightly—a touch meant only for you. You looked up to see Heeseung already beside you, as if drawn by instinct.

“Princess,” he murmured softly, before pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. His voice was low, threaded with affection and familiarity.

You smiled at him, heart fluttering despite how often he did that—how natural it had become. “Your brothers are creating chaos.”

Heeseung chuckled, eyes lifting briefly toward the mess of limbs and swords still clashing nearby. “If they come back with their tunics torn again, I’m blaming Jongseong.”

“I heard that!” Jongseong called from somewhere near the fencing rack, earning another soft laugh from you.

The two of you began walking toward the area Heeseung had been previously, where a large table had been set under a temporary canopy.

Scrolls and maps lay sprawled across it, Hwan stood nearby, his posture straight and composed as always, though his expression warmed when he saw you.

“Princess (Y/N),” Hwan greeted with a small nod, voice crisp.

“Sir Hwan,” you replied, offering a gentle smile as your eyes flicked toward the detailed flood plan spread out before you.

Ink lined the parchment in precise, looping script—notes and arrows detailing various parts of the castle, side entrances, garden paths, and service tunnels. Red wax marked certain points, perhaps the ones in need of reinforcement.

The upcoming banquet was to host royals from three nearby kingdoms—it was no surprise security had become the highest concern.

Heeseung stepped beside you again, eyes flicking toward the plan. “We’re adjusting the placements for the northern watchmen,” he explained. “The last storm weakened the stone wall near the greenhouse.”

“I see…” you murmured, leaning in just a bit. “Does that mean the western rose arch will be blocked off?”

Heeseung blinked, a touch surprised. “Yes—how did you know that?”

You smiled faintly. “I remember which part of the garden floods first. We used to race through there, remember? When we were younger?”

Heeseung chuckled. “You always cheated. You’d pretend your skirt got caught, and I’d turn around to help—then you’d sprint past me.”

You tried not to laugh, but failed. “I never cheated.”

Hwan cleared his throat politely, trying not to smile too much. “Well, if we’re done reliving the princess’s war crimes…”

Heeseung chuckled, the sound low and fond as he pressed another kiss to the top of your head—like habit. His hand curled more firmly around your waist as he turned back toward the map, eyes scanning the ink-streaked parchment with renewed focus.

“Minjun,” he called, gesturing to one of the younger knights standing nearby, armor gleaming faintly under the sun.

“Take the final plan to the western and southern wings. Make sure Sir Jiwon and Sir Minho review them thoroughly. And pass it along to the patrols stationed at the back gardens.”

“Yes, Your Highness!” the young knight responded quickly, already moving with purpose.

“And Sir Hwan—” Heeseung added, catching his knight just as he began to turn away, “hold a meeting with the guards tomorrow morning. I want every possible weak point reinforced and every post briefed, understood?”

“Understood, Your Highness.” Hwan bowed at the waist, casting you a brief respectful smile before walking off. His exit left a small bubble of quiet around you and Heeseung amidst the occasional clatter of sparring swords and the buzz of wind.

With the absence of his ever-stoic personal knight, Heeseung turned fully to you.

A grin tugged at his lips, soft and lazy, like he had no interest in returning to the royal rhythm of duty just yet. He looked down at you, eyes twinkling, and then without warning, both hands found your hips—gentle but confident.

You blinked up at him, caught off guard. “Heeseung,” you hissed, eyes flickering to the side where a few knights—not so subtly—pretended to focus on tying bootlaces or checking their gear. “Are you serious? In front of all these young men?”

Heeseung only laughed, head tipping back slightly. The sound was musical and boyish and so unlike the Crown Prince everyone else bowed to.

“They’ve seen worse,” he teased, leaning in a little, nose brushing yours before pulling away just slightly. “Besides, I’m only reminding them what love looks like.”

You gawked at him, flustered and trying not to smile.

Heeseung's grin softened then, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against your hip. “Do you have plans this afternoon, my heart?” he asked, voice low and full of intention. “Because if not, I was going to steal you away.”

You laughed under your breath, warmth bubbling in your chest. “I do, actually. Tea time.”

Heeseung pouted dramatically. “Again?”

“Yes, but this time your mother invited me,” you said with a knowing look. “And apparently, your brother Sunoo begged her to include him. Said he was going insane from training every day, and sparring with Sunghoon is ‘slowly ruining his will to live.’ His words. Not mine.”

That made Heeseung snort. “Poor Sunoo. I warned him—Sunghoon takes no prisoners, not even in practice.”

“He said your brother has no mercy,” you confirmed with a giggle, “and refuses to hold back just because he’s younger.”

Heeseung rolled his eyes, mock-exasperated. “Sunghoon doesn’t even hold back on me.”

You shrugged playfully, “Well, he has your mother’s approval for being ‘disciplined.’”

Heeseung groaned. “Please don’t tell me she said that again.”

“She did,” you replied, smiling wide. “Right after she compared you to a ‘cloud of mischief.’”

Heeseung dragged a hand down his face, clearly wounded. “I’m her firstborn. How is this fair?”

You only leaned in to whisper, “You’re my favorite prince. That’s all that matters.”

Heeseung looked at you like you hung the stars just to light his way.

But a smirk crept up on his face, the type of playful mischief you knew all too well. He leaned in closer, voice low and teasing against your ear, “So you’re saying… you have other favorites?”

You gasped dramatically, eyes widening with faux betrayal. “What? I would never—” you paused for effect, then added with a grin, “But if I did… Jungwon’s a very close second.”

Heeseung clicked his tongue, pretending to pull away. “Unbelievable. Betrayed in daylight. By my own betrothed.”

You laughed, unable to hide your grin as you leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “You’re still number one.”

“I better be,” he murmured, before cupping your cheek gently and stealing a real kiss this time—soft, warm, and full of all the affection he never seemed to run out of. You smiled into it, fingertips brushing the hem of his sleeve as you stayed there for a breath too long.

“I’m honored, noona!”

You both startled at the voice, pulling away just in time to see Jungwon grinning wide, his hands clasped behind his back as he strolled over with a puffed-out chest. He practically radiated smugness.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he added innocently, though his mischievous eyes said otherwise.

You giggled, arms opening instinctively. “Come here, you.”

The second youngest prince leaned in, wrapping you in a brief but warm hug. You ruffled his hair with a sisterly laugh just as Heeseung groaned beside you.

“Oh no. Now we’re hugging him too?”

Before Jungwon could respond, Heeseung reached over and roughly tousled the younger boy’s hair, effectively ruining the neat style Jungwon’s handmaid had worked on earlier that morning.

“Hyung!” Jungwon yelped, swatting at his older brother’s hand with a glare. “Do you mind?!”

Heeseung shrugged with a proud grin, not sorry in the slightest. “Affection builds character.”

“It builds trauma,” Jungwon muttered under his breath, brushing his dark bangs back into place with a scowl.

Still, he didn’t move away right away. He just sighed, casting a sideways look at his brother before straightening his shoulders like he had something important to say. “Come on, hyung. I’m not eleven anymore.”

That made you smile fondly.

“I know,” Heeseung said quietly, voice laced with something softer, something older. “But you’ll always be my annoying little brother.”

Jungwon rolled his eyes, cheeks flushing the tiniest bit before he turned on his heel with a dramatic huff. “Whatever. Just don’t embarrass me again in front of the knights!”

Heeseung smirked as he watched the younger boy storm off.

“No promises,” he said, just loud enough for Jungwon to hear.

“I heard that!”

You and Heeseung laughed, watching the youngest stalk toward the training field like a prince on a mission.

Still smiling, Heeseung turned to you again. “So… Jungwon, huh?”

You looped your arm through his. “He’s charming.”

Heeseung made a dramatic face as he led you away from the courtyard, your steps falling into rhythm with his as you both began walking through one of the many open-air corridors that stretched between the training grounds and the main castle. Sunlight filtered through the tall arches, casting golden lines across the stone floors.

“Charming,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “Unbelievable.”

You rolled your eyes, swatting his arm lightly. “Come on, don’t pout. Doesn’t he like some princess from the neighboring kingdom or something?”

“My love,” he said with a faux-wounded pout, placing a hand over his chest. “You are from the neighboring kingdom.”

You gave him a deadpan look. “The other one, Hee. You know what I mean.”

He chuckled, his shoulder bumping yours as he nodded at a few knights that passed by and bowed to their Crown Prince. “I’m only teasing, my love. You wound me with your accusations.”

“Oh please,” you drawled, pretending to flip your hair. “You’d survive a thousand of my wounds and still crawl back with a bouquet of stolen garden roses.”

“I don’t steal them,” he said defensively, eyes wide. “I borrow them.”

You snorted. “They're still dying in a vase somewhere, my thief.”

“Ah, but they die for love,” he whispered dramatically, and you both burst into quiet laughter, the sound echoing softly against the archways.

As you entered the main castle, the air shifted cooler against your skin. The familiar stretch of marble under your shoes and the pristine white-and-gold corridors felt like coming home.

You leaned into Heeseung naturally, no longer needing to keep up appearances of royalty. Here, you were just his. And he was just yours.

“Did you know,” Heeseung started, voice low and casual, “that one of the kitchen boys swears he saw a raccoon sneak into the pantry last night?”

You blinked. “What?”

“He says it ran off with a wedge of brie. I’m inclined to believe him.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “If it’s the same raccoon that stole my slippers last month, I’m filing a formal complaint.”

Heeseung smirked. “We’ll draft a letter. ‘To His Royal Sneakiness, Lord Raccoon.’”

“‘Please return the slippers. And the cheese.’”

You both snorted again, shoulders brushing, hands nearly touching but not quite. Not until Heeseung gently reached over and linked your pinky with his.

As you approached the end of the hallway, two stationed knights nodded respectfully at Heeseung, who gave a short nod back, the air between you momentarily still.

Then, with a small tug, he guided you down a quieter wing of the castle and opened a pair of familiar ivory doors—the ones adorned with subtle silver embroidery, vines carved into the wood. Your shared bedroom.

It wasn’t common for betrotheds to share a room before marriage. But then again, nothing about you and Heeseung had ever been traditional.

You’d known each other since you were in diapers, practically raised beside him during summer visits and royal meetings. Your parents were longtime allies, your mothers best friends, and your fathers forever trying to outmatch each other in chess.

So when Heeseung looked his parents in the eye and asked, “Why wait?”—with that charming, persuasive voice and soft gaze—they had merely exchanged a look and nodded. And you had moved into the Crown Prince’s wing a week later.

Heeseung stepped aside to let you in first, hand brushing your lower back gently.

“I still can’t believe this room is technically mine too,” you murmured, looking at the familiar blend of warm candles, velvet throws, and the little reading nook by the window he’d helped you decorate himself.

“You say that every time,” he smiled, closing the door behind you.

“And I mean it every time.”

You moved to sit at the edge of the bed as Heeseung discarded his royal sash and coat onto the nearby chaise. He walked over, cupped your cheeks, and leaned down until his forehead pressed against yours.

“My love,” he said softly. “This room was mine. But it’s only ever felt like home when you were in it.”

“And, you’ve been sleeping in the same bed with me since we were fifteen. Why do you always act like you’ve kissed me for the first time?” he murmured, eyes gleaming.

Your jaw dropped in disbelief. “You arrogant—”

Without hesitation, your fingers found his cheek and you pinched—hard.

He hissed. “Ow—! Okay, okay, that’s uncalled for!”

“Shut up, Lee Heeseung,” you grumbled, though the amused twitch in your lips betrayed you.

He laughed, low and full, his hands finding your cheeks once more—but this time, there was no trace of playfulness in the way he tilted your chin upward, his gaze dropping to your lips. “Come here, then,” he whispered.

And then he kissed you.

A proper one.

His mouth moved against yours with practiced ease, tilting just enough to deepen the kiss, his hand sliding to the back of your neck to keep you exactly where he wanted you. You sighed into him, hands curling around his forearms as the warmth between you bloomed fast—like fire catching silk.

He pulled back barely an inch, just enough to catch his breath and your dazed expression. Then, without a single word, he sank onto the bed, tugging you by the waist and pulling you to straddle his lap.

You gasped, landing atop him with a jolt as your palms pressed against his chest.

“Heeseung!” you hissed. “You little—”

He cut you off, arms curling around your waist and dragging you in closer—flush now, no space between your chest and his, your skirts spilling around both of your legs. His lips brushed your ear.

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll make sure you say my name louder next time,” he whispered.

Your breath hitched.

“Heeseung,” you warned, voice trembling from the heat he lit in your stomach.

“Yes, my love?” he said, all mock innocence—his hands not-so-innocently sliding over your waist, fingers curling around the fabric at the dip of your back.

“I have tea with our mothers and Sunoo,” you reminded, heart racing, mind spinning.

He clicked his tongue. “They’ll understand. They adore you. Especially Sunoo—he probably planned this delay.”

You let out a half-laugh, half-sigh, resting your forehead on his. “We can’t keep doing this in broad daylight.”

“Then let’s get married already,” he replied instantly, eyes gleaming as his grip on your hips tightened just slightly, anchoring you to him. “That way, I can kiss my wife whenever I damn please.”

You leaned in again, eyes twinkling, catching his lips in a playful kiss that had him chasing after more.

As you pulled back just enough to breathe the words into his mouth, you smiled, “We are at the end of the month, patience, my prince.”

But Heeseung only growled lowly, a sound vibrating in his chest, deep and utterly possessive.

“Not when you sit on me like this,” he muttered—voice thick, the restraint cracking.

He didn’t wait for your teasing reply.

He surged forward, claiming your lips in a kiss that had nothing soft about it this time. It was all heat and desperation—his mouth molding to yours, tongue brushing boldly against the seam of your lips until you gasped and gave in.

You couldn’t stop the small sound that escaped your throat, your fingers digging into the lapels of his shirt, clutching him like he was the only solid thing keeping you grounded.

Your breaths grew louder, shorter—shared between kisses that turned more and more feverish. Heeseung only paused to stare at you, chest rising and falling. His eyes, which held stars just seconds ago, were now blazing with something darker, needier.

And still—still so full of love.

He didn’t say anything as his hands moved behind you, already knowing what to do—his fingers skillfully unlacing the back of your corset. It wasn’t the first time. It was second nature to him by now, and the realization sent a rush of heat all over you. While you would usually fumble with the ties for minutes at a time, he did it in less than ten seconds, eyes never leaving yours.

“Show-off,” you muttered breathlessly, cheeks warm.

“You wouldn’t need help if you didn’t keep choosing the ones with so many damn laces,” he shot back with a smirk, but it faded as quickly as it appeared—his gaze trailing down.

Your hands went to the buttons of his vest with haste, lips brushing against the edge of his jaw as you worked them open. He let you, watching with a hunger that made your fingers tremble slightly.

Once the last button gave, you pushed the garment off, and Heeseung flung it somewhere across the room with zero care.

“Too slow,” he murmured.

You barely got a breath in before he was tugging at your sleeves, your dress slipping down your shoulders in one smooth motion. The soft fabric hung loosely on your arms, exposing the delicate skin of your collarbones, your chest rising and falling rapidly beneath it.

“You’re killing me,” he said quietly, forehead leaning against yours again. “Do you know what you do to me?”

You couldn’t answer. Not when he was looking at you like this.

Not when his mouth kissed every bit of skin the dress dared reveal. From your shoulder to the hollow of your throat. Slow. Devout. Like worship.

“I want you,” he whispered into your skin. “Not just now. Not just like this. I want every part of you, every night, every morning. In this room. In that temple. Before the gods and after them.”

You shivered, pulling him closer by the front of his shirt. “You already have me, Heeseung. You always have.”

A guttural sound tore from his throat as his hand gripped the laces of your dress. “Say it again,” he breathed, lips brushing against your collarbone.

“You have me,” you whispered, heart pounding. “Every piece. Every breath.”

With one swift motion, he loosened the bodice, the fabric sliding off your shoulders and pooling at your waist. He drew back slightly, chest rising and falling, eyes devouring the bare skin now revealed to him. His gaze was starved—like he’d waited centuries to touch you like this.

“Mine,” he groaned, hands trembling slightly as they moved over your ribs, your waist, the dip between your hipbones. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”

His mouth followed the path of his hands—slow, deliberate. He kissed down your neck, nipping at the skin just below your jaw until a breathy moan escaped you. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, voice strained as he left a trail of marks, warm and tinged with devotion. “The gods have nothing on you.”

When his lips reached the softest part of your chest, his hands gripped your hips tightly—almost possessively—pressing his forehead against your sternum for a second like he was trying to calm himself.

Then he looked up at you, pupils blown. “I’ll worship you like this,” he said, voice rough, “until the stars burn out.”

You didn’t get the chance to answer.

He grabbed your thighs, flipped you effortlessly onto your back, and pressed you into the mattress. Your breath caught in your throat as he pulled the rest of your dress off with a low growl, letting it drop to the floor. His body hovered above yours now, heat radiating between you as your bare skin met his.

“You make me lose control,” he said, almost like a confession. “And I don’t want it back.”

His mouth was everywhere—claiming your neck, your shoulders, the curve of your stomach. His name slipped past your lips again and again, soft and helpless, like a prayer and a curse all at once.

He kissed you then—deep, head-spinning, like he wanted to taste your soul. “Let me have you,” he murmured between kisses. “Let me love you the way I was always meant to.”

And when he finally lowered himself between your legs, hands splayed across your hips, tongue tracing fire across your skin, he whispered, “I’ll leave no part untouched.”

His lips grazed the inside of your thigh, slow and reverent, like he was memorizing you inch by inch. His thumbs dragged upward, parting you gently, and when he looked up—eyes dark, hungry, reverent—you nearly forgot how to breathe.

“Stay just like this,” he murmured, voice low, almost trembling. “Let me taste what’s mine.”

And then he buried his face between your thighs.

A gasp tore from your throat as his tongue moved against your core—firm, relentless, like he had something to prove. And maybe he did.

Maybe he was proving that no one else could ever make you feel like this. That no other hands, no other mouth, no other name would ever fall from your lips in this way.

Heeseung groaned against you, the sound vibrating straight through your bones. “You’re everything,” he muttered, voice muffled by your skin. “Sweet. Divine. Addicting.”

Your hips bucked, but his grip only tightened—holding you down, keeping you open. “Don’t run from it,” he said, looking up briefly, mouth glistening. “Take it. Take all of me.”

Then he dove back in—slower this time, more intentional. He licked into you like a man starving, like he wanted to carve his name into you with every flick of his tongue.

Your fingers twisted into his hair, a moan spilling out of you so raw and desperate it made him groan again—deeper this time, as if he felt it.

He sucked gently, then harder, then just right—and your body arched, breath catching as your thighs shook around his head. “That’s it,” he whispered, not letting up. “Come undone for me. I want to feel you lose yourself.”

And when you did—back arched, fingers digging into his scalp, his name a broken chant on your lips—he didn’t stop. Not even then.

Heeseung stayed there, kissing you through it, tongue softening to gentle licks, like he couldn’t bear to let go of the taste of you.

“You taste like heaven,” he said hoarsely, crawling back up your body. “And I’m never going to stop sinning.”

His mouth captured yours in a kiss so deep and possessive, it left you dizzy. His hand cradled the back of your head, the other splayed at your waist as he kissed you like he’d never let you go.

When he finally pulled away, your lips were parted, your breaths uneven, your body still aching for more.

You blinked at him, dazed. “I should—shouldn’t I… return the favor?” you managed to breathe, fingers lightly tracing the edge of his jaw. “It’s only fair.”

But Heeseung only chuckled, low and fond. He clicked his tongue as he cupped your chin between his thumb and forefinger, shaking his head. “Not now, my love,” he said, tone full of mock discipline. “Don’t you have tea with our mothers and poor, bored Sunoo?”

You stared at him, scandalized. “You—!”

Your mouth hung open in shock, lips still tingling from his kisses, body still humming with want, and Heeseung had the audacity to smile—smile—as he kissed you again. Tender, slow, and sweet. But the taste of you still lingered on his lips, and the moment it hit your tongue, your cheeks flushed deep crimson.

He pulled back with a grin, clearly satisfied with your flustered state. “There’s that look I love,” he murmured, his thumb brushing the corner of your kiss-bitten mouth.

You squeaked as he got up, completely unhurried, and bent to retrieve your dress from where it lay pooled on the carpet. He handled it with surprising care, holding it up like it was made of glass, before walking over to grab your corset next—still slightly unlaced from earlier.

He turned to you, holding both items up. “Come now, princess. I may be a selfish man, but I’m not about to be blamed for you being late to tea.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “You are absolutely going to be blamed. You undressed me, Heeseung.”

He only smirked as he crossed the room again, kneeling in front of you as he gently helped you slip back into the gown. “And I’ll do it again later,” he whispered, wickedly close to your ear, “but slower.”

You hissed, slapping his shoulder lightly. “You menace.”

Heeseung laughed softly, guiding your arms through the sleeves and then slipping around to lace your corset like it was second nature—deft fingers pulling the strings tight, not too firm, but enough for you to feel properly put together again. His knuckles grazed your back as he worked, and you swore he did it just to rile you up.

“You’ve done this way too many times,” you mumbled, folding your arms as he tied the last ribbon neatly.

“Practice makes perfect,” he replied cheekily, placing a final kiss on your shoulder before straightening up.

Your reflection in the gilded mirror caught your eye—cheeks rosy, lips swollen, hair slightly mussed, but glowing in a way you couldn’t quite hide.

You groaned under your breath.

With a quick sweep, you pulled your hair over one shoulder, trying in vain to cover the fresh marks Heeseung had shamelessly left trailing along your neck and collarbone.

“You’re unbelievable,” you muttered as you frantically smoothed your sleeves and tried to pat down the mess of curls he’d tangled earlier.

Behind you, Heeseung strolled over, a knowing grin tugging at his lips. “Here,” he said, lifting the delicate golden circlet that had been knocked off and tossed aside somewhere between his kisses and your surrender.

He gently placed it atop your head, careful not to tug or misplace a single strand. Then, with surprising finesse, he combed his fingers through your hair and pulled a few pieces loose to frame your face just right. The strands softened your features, made your flushed cheeks look like a gentle blush rather than a royal scandal.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Forgive me for the mess, my love,” he whispered against your skin, his voice laced with playful guilt.

You puffed out your cheeks, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. “Mess? Heeseung, I look like I just survived a storm.”

You puffed out your cheeks, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. “Mess? Heeseung, I look like I just survived a storm.”

“You look like a woman in love,” he teased, clearly far too pleased with himself. “And slightly ravished, yes, but radiant nonetheless.”

You smacked his arm as he burst into soft laughter.

He reached for his coat from the chaise and slipped it on with practiced ease, but left his royal sash on the side—too formal for a simple walk across the castle, and besides, you both knew he wanted an excuse to not look too princely in front of Sunoo, who would definitely tease him about it.

He offered his hand, and you took it with a begrudging sigh. “You’re lucky I’m fond of you.”

“I’m aware,” he grinned.

With your hand in his, he opened the door and gently tugged you along the corridor, nodding at the knights stationed nearby, who respectfully bowed but absolutely did not miss the light flush on your face or the smug tilt of Heeseung’s smile.

As the two of you walked, fingers still entwined, you couldn’t help but glance sideways at him.

“Should I expect a scolding from your mother for being late?”

Heeseung hummed thoughtfully. “No. But from Sunoo? Absolutely.”

You groaned. “He’s going to smell the perfume and still say, ‘Why do you smell like sex?’”

Heeseung laughed out loud. “Because you do.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You planned this.”

He just gave your hand a little squeeze. “I can’t help it. I like when you leave with part of me on you.”

You choked back a sound—half flustered, half delighted—and smacked his chest again. “You’re awful.”

“And you’re late for tea.”

You rolled your eyes fondly as Heeseung gently tugged you down the main marble steps and out into one of the many open-air gardens nestled in the kingdom’s sprawling palace grounds.

A breeze kissed your cheeks as the scent of lilacs and chamomile floated in the air, winding between columns and trellises of soft wisteria, the sunlight hitting just right

Then the scent grew stronger—steeped lilac tea, freshly poured.

You paused with a soft inhale. “My favorite,” you murmured with a smile.

Heeseung glanced sideways at you, eyes already on your face. “Yeah, I know,” he said simply, like it was obvious—because to him, it was.

You rounded the hedge-lined path and reached the open gazebo area in the heart of the garden. Woven vines framed the white pillars and soft silks blew gently from above, casting dappled shadows on the large round table filled with silver-tiered trays of fruit tarts, scones, sweet breads, and golden jars of jam. The sound of bickering cut through the serene setting.

“No, I’m telling you! Apricot is a universal jam—like, anyone would pick it!”

“Universal doesn’t mean it’s good, Riki! Raspberry is superior, and everyone with a tongue knows that!”

You laughed under your breath at the familiar sight of Sunoo and Riki, seated on opposite ends and leaning toward each other with exaggerated scowls.

Sunoo’s sleeves were dramatically pushed up like he was ready to duel with a spoon, and Riki’s pout was so intense it could’ve curdled milk.

Your smile grew as your eyes landed on the two women seated elegantly between them—your mother, Queen of your homeland, draped in soft burgundy with jewels that shimmered beneath the garden light, and Heeseung’s mother, the Queen of this kingdom, regal in deep navy lined with gold.

They sat side by side, teacups in hand, mid-conversation and sharing a laugh—the kind that spoke of decades of friendship, diplomacy, and sisterhood.

Heeseung slowed beside you, offering a slight bow of his head.

“My queens,” you said softly as you approached, your tone still laced with respect despite the fondness behind your eyes. You followed Heeseung’s lead, dipping your head slightly.

“Oh, please,” your mother groaned playfully. “Do we still have to do this every time?”

The Queen beside her smiled knowingly. “You’re about to be our daughter-in-law, not a courtier.”

“Sit, sit,” your mother added with a wave of her hand.

You and Heeseung chuckled, and he leaned in to kiss the top of your head once more, hands resting on your arms just a moment longer before he let go.

“I’ll leave you in good company,” he said, eyes locking with yours. “Try not to let Sunoo drag you into jam debates.”

Sunoo looked up, eyes wide. “You agree with me, right?” he demanded before Heeseung could even take a step back. “You like raspberry more, right?”

Heeseung only smirked. “I like peace and quiet. Which I clearly won’t get here.”

You snorted behind your hand as Heeseung’s mother laughed, waving her son off. “Go, Heeseung, before Sunoo recruits you into his crusade.”

Heeseung chuckled and gave you a parting wink before disappearing through the garden arch.

You turned back to the table and gracefully took the seat beside your mother, smoothing down your skirts.

Sunoo immediately leaned in and whispered, “Tell me you noticed the lip marks on your neck.”

“Sunoo!” you hissed, glancing at the queens who pretended not to overhear, amused smiles tugging at their lips.

“What?” Riki snorted, sipping his tea far too smugly. “You’re the one who came back glowing like you just won a war.”

You sighed deeply, cheeks already flushing again. “I hate both of you.”

Your mother smiled behind her cup. “Oh, sweetheart… you’re in love. We were all insufferable once too.”

The night of the banquet arrived with stars high and proud in the velvet sky, but even they would dim compared to what awaited within the castle walls.

You stood before the towering gilded mirror in your shared chambers, the scent of roses and lavender oils clinging softly to the air. Your hair was being twisted and pinned into perfection by skilled fingers, each strand smoothed and coiled as your lady-in-waiting delicately fastened glittering earrings to your ears.

Another slid your necklace into place—a heavy yet elegant piece of red garnet and obsidian, catching the flickering glow of the chandelier like drops of fire and shadow.

Your gown was made of the richest velvet in black, kissed with deep red silk layers beneath, cascading like spilled wine around your legs. Embroidered gold vines twirled across the bodice and sleeves, wrapping you in something regal, something worthy of a queen.

A knock at the heavy oak doors pulled everyone’s attention.

“May I?” Heeseung’s voice called from outside, deep and silken, already warm with a smile.

You barely had time to answer before the door cracked open, and there he was—standing in all his glory.

The red and black of his coat matched yours perfectly, the fabric gleaming with intricate golden embroidery and crystal embellishments that sparkled beneath the room’s warm lights.

His broad shoulders carried the weight of a kingdom and yet, the moment his eyes found you—his world narrowed.

He stood there, still, breath caught in his chest.

“…My gods,” he whispered. “You look like you walked out of a dream.”

You gave a soft wave of your hand, a simple motion that dismissed the flurry of handmaidens and attendants. With quiet bows and knowing smiles, they exited swiftly, leaving only the two of you in your glowing, silent world.

Heeseung didn’t wait.

He crossed the room in long, purposeful strides and spun you gently in place, eyes devouring every inch of your form. Your dress flared at your movement, brushing against the polished marble like a whisper.

“You’re unreal,” he murmured, hands settling on your waist as he stopped your twirl. “You look like a flame carved into royalty.”

“And you,” you teased, trailing your fingers down the gleaming lapel of his coat. “Look like temptation in human form.”

Heeseung grinned, gaze dropping to your lips for half a second too long. “Then what happens when royalty meets temptation?”

You raised a brow, smirking as you replied, “A scandal the bards will sing about for centuries.”

Heeseung laughed, rich and deep, before tugging you closer by the waist. “Let them sing, my love. Let them sing.”

His forehead pressed gently to yours. “Tonight, everyone will see what I’ve always known.”

“That I’m yours?” you whispered.

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “That I’m yours.”

He kissed your hand before pulling your arm through his.

“Shall we go make the entire kingdom jealous?”

You grinned, your fingers tightening around his. “Lead the way, my prince.”

With that, Heeseung offered his arm like a true royal consort and guided you out of the warm, perfumed sanctuary of your shared chambers. The heavy double doors closed behind you, and the subtle echo of your steps fell against the polished stone floors.

Two royal knights—adorned in your shared kingdom’s colors of crimson and onyx—followed at a respectful distance, silent and poised.

The corridor was dimly lit by torchlight, flickering shadows casting dancing patterns across the walls. But inside your little bubble, the world felt quieter, warmer. You and Heeseung strolled side by side, caught in easy conversation that dissolved any remaining nerves.

“Do you remember last month’s banquet?” Heeseung asked with a smirk, nudging your side.

“You mean the one where you complained about the wine?” you teased, arching a brow.

He scoffed dramatically. “It wasn’t wine. It was grape juice in disguise.”

You burst into soft laughter. “You pouted about it for a full hour. Told the steward you expected something aged, not squeezed fresh that morning.”

“I’m a prince. I expect stringency in my wine,” he said in a mock-snobby voice, chin tilted upward as you giggled.

But your smile faded slightly as you reached the archway that led to the Great Hall. You could already hear it—the hum of noble chatter, bursts of light laughter, and the elegant trill of string instruments playing from the balcony above. The scent of roasted meats and spiced wine filled the air.

Your posture straightened instinctively, hands smoothing down the front of your gown. Heeseung noticed.

He slowed his pace, his hand sliding gently around your waist to pull you closer. His lips dipped to your ear, his voice low and soothing.

“There’s nothing to be scared of, my love,” he whispered. “They should be scared of you.”

“You are the future Queen of both kingdoms,” he continued, pulling back just enough to meet your eyes, a quiet storm of pride behind his smile. “And you’ve already won their prince.”

Your cheeks warmed, but the nerves began to ease. You exhaled, squeezing his hand in silent gratitude. “Thank you,” you whispered.

Heeseung only grinned, squeezing back once before the chamberlain standing just outside the banquet doors struck his staff once against the marble.

“Presenting,” he boomed, his voice echoing through the high-arched ceilings, “Crown Prince Lee Heeseung of House Lee, and Crown Princess (L/N) (Y/N) of House (L/N).”

At once, the hall stilled. Music faltered. Conversations died mid-sentence. It was like the world hushed—like the wind itself bowed.

All eyes turned.

Every noble, every knight, every courtly guest from both your homeland and Heeseung’s, rose from their seats. Heads lowered in bows and curtsies, hands pressed over hearts in solemn reverence. But more than formality, there was awe—undeniable awe—at the sight of you two.

Your steps were fluid as you and your prince made your way toward the long banquet table seated at the front of the room. Your parents were already seated—your mother glowing in cream and emerald, your father in sleek royal navy. Heeseung’s parents sat beside them, regal and composed, eyes glinting with something between pride and fondness.

The long table had empty seats between the kings and queens—but your eyes caught the familiar shadows of six tall figures standing further back. The other six princes. They stood at the side of the hall, backs straight, hands clasped behind them, watching as the two of you passed.

When you drew near, they bowed in unison with the crowd—a sea of heads dipping low in reverence.

But only they rose slowly, eyes glinting with quiet respect.

Jungwon was the first to lift his head, a smirk tugging at his lips as he mouthed dramatically, “About time.”

You suppressed a laugh.

Heeseung only rolled his eyes subtly and pulled your chair out for you like the proper gentleman he always was. “Your throne, my queen,” he teased softly.

The moment you were both seated, the hall gradually stirred back to life. Conversations resumed, the orchestra picked up its melody again, and the clinking of goblets filled the golden-lit room.

You greeted your parents first—your mother reached over the table to press a kiss to your cheek, her rings cool against your skin. “You both look stunning,” she said, eyes dancing. “But don’t just sit there like old monarchs.”

“Go,” Heeseung’s mother added, smiling behind her teacup. “Socialize. Be young. Dance. Be adored.”

Your father gave a playful huff. “Yes, yes, impress your subjects.”

Heeseung let out a breathy laugh and rose from his seat, pulling your chair out once again as he offered you his hand. “Shall we obey our queens and kings?”

You took it with a grin. “What choice do we have?”

He placed a gentle hand at the small of your back as he led you from the front dais and into the growing crowd. Your gown swished elegantly around your legs as you walked, and the subtle music and chatter wrapped around you like silk.

It didn’t take long to reach the cluster of princes near the long side of the room—familiar faces all dressed in variations of dark velvet, adorned with gold, sapphire, and crimson embellishments. The other royal heirs.

“Look who decided to show up,” Jongseong teased as he raised his glass at your approach, eyes glinting. “And matching too. I should’ve expected the dramatics.”

“You’re just jealous,” Heeseung quipped, “that your partner doesn’t coordinate with you.”

“You don’t have a partner,” Jaeyun pointed out.

“Exactly my point,” Heeseung smirked.

You couldn’t help but laugh, stepping a little closer to the group when—

“Oh my gods!” A familiar voice squealed behind you.

You turned just in time to be pulled into a sudden, elegant hug, delicate perfume surrounding you as Wonyoung grinned from ear to ear.

“It is you,” she beamed. “I told Yujin it was you and she said, ‘No, that can’t be her, she’s probably still getting ready—’”

“That does sound like me,” Yujin said with a giggle as she joined, wrapping her arms around you in a warm embrace. “But seriously, look at you! This dress? That crown? Prince Heeseung’s gonna have a hard time keeping people away tonight.”

“Please, he’s already glaring at everyone who makes eye contact with her,” Wonyoung whispered playfully, tipping her head toward your prince.

You glanced back—Heeseung, very much still engaged in conversation with Sunghoon, had his arm folded as he gave the other prince a look. You couldn’t hear the words, but you definitely saw the eye roll Sunghoon gave in response.

“Still boring as ever,” Woonyoung said under her breath, giving Sunghoon a pointed look.

Heeseung caught the tail end of that and shook his head with a laugh, muttering to Sunghoon, “Don’t mind them, they’ve been like this since we were kids.”

“I do mind, actually,” Sunghoon muttered back dryly, lifting his glass. “I was having a nice quiet moment before the fanclub showed up.”

“Oh, poor baby,” Wonyoung cooed sarcastically.

You giggled as she and Yujin each hooked an arm through yours, pulling you just a little away from the boys and deeper into the social haze of the room.

“You have to tell us everything,” Yujin said, eyes wide with curiosity. “How’s your room? Did the Queen really let you redecorate the west wing? Is it true that Heeseung almost punched a steward for misplacing your earrings last week?”

“Okay, that one was not my fault—” you began.

“Defensive,” Wonyoung grinned. “That means it’s true.”

You let out a snort, eyes trailing briefly to Heeseung just a few feet away, standing tall among his brothers. He caught your gaze with that familiar amused tilt of his head, his lips twitching as if he was holding back a laugh of his own.

“I swear,” Wonyoung continued, drawing your attention back. “Sunghoon nearly pushed me into the fountain last week.”

“What?” you blinked.

“All I said was that he walks like he owns the ground he steps on,” she huffed dramatically, flipping her hair. “Which is true, by the way. And he said, ‘Perhaps you should walk on water next time so I don’t have to see your face.’ Can you believe that?”

You burst into laughter, hand covering your mouth as Yujin gasped beside you. “He did not say that.”

“Oh, he did. Ask him.” Wonyoung nodded toward Sunghoon, who—unaware he was being discussed—was now slowly sipping from his own goblet, side-eyeing the trio of you as if expecting more trouble.

You and the girls dissolved into giggles again, your shoulders bumping lightly as the night continued to swell with warmth and music. Soon enough, more familiar faces began approaching, drawn to the lively cluster you had unintentionally created.

A group of princesses from neighboring kingdoms swept in, silk gowns gliding across the marble floor, their hair braided in intricate gold-threaded patterns, each one offering hugs and kisses on the cheek in greeting.

“Princess (Y/N), it’s been too long.”

“You look divine tonight, truly.”

“We heard about your new position—Crown Princess now, huh?”

You smiled graciously, cheeks warming under the compliments as you exchanged hugs and pleasantries, your fingers brushing over glittering sleeves and layered skirts. The perfume of lilac and fresh berries mixed with the sound of laughter and violins in the air.

Then, Yujin reappeared with a golden goblet, holding it out to you with a grin.

You eyed it skeptically. “You know I have the alcohol tolerance of a dying rabbit, right?”

“It’s not wine, your highness,” she sing-songed, lifting her chin. “It’s grape juice. I promise. I even tasted it.”

You narrowed your eyes, suspicious. “Yujin, last time you said that I ended up singing to a ficus tree.”

“That ficus was deeply moved,” Wonyoung said solemnly, hand over her chest. “You had it in tears.”

You rolled your eyes but took the goblet anyway, the cool metal glinting in the light. You took a sip—sweet, chilled grape juice, just as she’d said.

“…Okay, fine,” you mumbled. “You’re forgiven.”

Yujin smiled smugly. “As I always am.”

The chatter around you buzzed softly—princesses and lords weaving in and out of conversations, the noble youth of kingdoms mingling under chandeliers and candlelight.

You glanced once more toward Heeseung, only to find he was already watching you. Elbow leaned against a polished oak table, golden goblet in hand, the lamplight tracing the sharp line of his jaw. His head tilted in quiet admiration, lips slightly curled upward like he couldn’t help himself.

You gave him a soft smile, one only he could read through the crowd, and mouthed, “I’m okay.”

His grin deepened just slightly before he dipped his head in a subtle nod, his attention returning to the conversation he was having with someone you recognized instantly—Prince Taehyun of the Southern Kingdom, poised and calm as always, expression unreadable even while sipping wine.

“Did you hear,” Yujin leaned in close to whisper behind her goblet, her voice conspiratorial, “Prince Beomgyu’s got it bad for Taehyun’s older sister?”

Your brows shot up. “Seriously?”

“Oh, deadly serious. And Taehyun doesn’t approve—” she paused, nose wrinkling, “—or disapprove. Which, honestly, makes it worse.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up. “Of course he doesn’t. He’s too diplomatic to give a straight answer.”

Wonyoung perked up beside you, eyes wide. “Wait, wait. Isn’t she the one who wore that gold corset at the Summer Moon banquet last year?”

“The very one,” Yujin confirmed, nodding. “And Beomgyu’s been in love ever since. I’m telling you, it’s been a mess.”

You nearly choked on your sip of juice, laughing. “Oh gods—do you remember the night Beomgyu told me about it?”

Yujin blinked, then her mouth split into a knowing grin. “The drunken night in Dalanor’s banquet hall?”

You nodded, eyes sparkling at the memory. “He had one too many glasses of wine and started ranting about how Taehyun keeps throwing him into a spiral.”

Wonyoung leaned in eagerly. “What did he say?”

“He was so drunk, he grabbed Heeseung’s shoulder like he was the last sane man in the world,” you said through a giggle, “and went, ‘Your Highness, is it yes or no? Does he want me to marry her or does he want to stab me in my sleep?’”

Yujin laughed, nearly spilling her drink. “I remember Heeseung’s face! He just laughed and poured him another drink.”

You grinned. “And Beomgyu started sobbing into his goblet about how Taehyun winked at him when he mentioned the wedding idea. A wink. What does a wink even mean?”

“It means,” Wonyoung drawled dramatically, “welcome to royal romance hell.”

The three of you burst into laughter again, the sound bubbling up and mixing with the music in the air. You glanced back over toward Heeseung just in time to see him casually glance your way once more—his gaze lingering for a beat longer than it needed to, as if your laugh pulled his focus no matter where he stood.

Then he turned back to Taehyun, the two princes deep in what looked like a heated discussion about wine—or possibly the definition of flirting—while the night carried on around you.

You fidgeted with your fingers, gloved hands resting delicately over the fabric pooled at your lap. The royal carriage swayed gently with each turn, the soft creak of gilded wheels and distant sounds of celebration muffled behind velvet-lined walls.

Your white wedding gown—stitched with fine silver thread and delicate pearls—billowed across the floor like a river of moonlight. It was heavy, grand, and far too large for the carriage… but you didn’t mind.

Matching jewelry adorned your ears, neck, and wrists—heirloom pieces passed down through generations, each gemstone kissed by history and polished for this day.

Your veil shimmered like frost under the faint sunlight peeking through the curtained window, yet none of it glittered as brightly as your nerves.

Across from you, your mother and father sat side by side, their fingers loosely intertwined as they watched you with a softness that only parents could carry.

Your mother smiled first, the kind that carried decades of wisdom behind it. “Your hands always fidget when you’re nervous,” she said, gently reaching over to fix a strand of hair that had slipped from your veil.

“But you don’t need to be. You’re marrying for love—not alliance, not duty. That alone makes your union more powerful than any treaty signed before it.”

You blinked, lips parting in a slow smile. “Do you really think so?”

“I know so,” she replied, squeezing your hand. “I’ve seen the way Heeseung looks at you. Like the stars themselves would bow if you asked them to. That kind of devotion cannot be taught—it’s rare, and it’s real.”

You felt your throat tighten just a little.

Then your father let out a quiet sigh, the sound a little too heavy to hide. His eyes stayed on you, warm and just slightly glassy. “I told myself I’d be ready for this,” he said. “But nothing could prepare me to see my little girl in a wedding gown.”

You tried to laugh, but it came out half choked. “You’re going to make me cry.”

He reached for your hand, squeezing it between his own. “You’ll always be my little girl. Even when you're crowned queen. Even when you have children of your own. That will never change.”

You nodded slowly, breathing through the swell in your chest. “Thank you, Father. Thank you both.”

The carriage began to slow, the golden wheels rolling over polished stone as the sound of bells rang out in the distance.

Your breath hitched. You could hear the faint murmur of voices outside, the gathered crowd, the music… and just beyond it all, the sacred temple—its white marble steps lined with petals, towering pillars wrapped in garlands of lilacs and white roses, the banner of your kingdom billowing gently in the breeze beside Heeseung’s.

A high priest awaited at the top of the stairs, hands folded in reverence. The temple doors stood open, glowing with sunlight pouring through stained glass windows. It looked like a dream carved into reality.

The door to the carriage opened with a creak.

Your father stepped out first, extending his hand to help you. You took a deep breath as your gloved fingers slid into his, and your feet touched the polished stone ground. The hem of your gown brushed the flower-strewn path as you stood tall, eyes lifting toward the temple ahead.

“Ready?” your father asked, voice low beside you.

You nodded, slowly, then turned to look back one last time at the carriage—at the road that brought you here—and finally, forward again. “Yes. I’m ready.”

Your mother let out the smallest breath of a smile, a hand delicately pressing over her heart as she watched you with glassy eyes. One of the royal knights approached her with a polite bow, then gently extended his arm.

She took it with practiced grace, allowing herself to be escorted to her place at the front row of the temple—where the sacred lights from the stained-glass windows painted the marble floors in hues of gold and violet.

You stood at the start of the long aisle, the flower-strewn carpet lined with lanterns and pale petals. The air inside the temple was reverent, heavy with the scent of lilac and rosewater, lit only by candlelight and divine sunbeams that poured through the windows like blessings themselves.

And at the end of it all—standing before the altar beneath arching stone and blooming ivy—was Heeseung.

His white ceremonial suit shimmered under the temple lights, the gold embroidery gleaming with each breath he took. Crystals lined the trim of his royal jacket, catching the light like stars. His hair was perfectly styled—yet a single strand still fell naturally over his brow—and gods, he had never looked more like a king.

Heeseung swore his breath left his lungs.

The moment your figure stepped onto the aisle, framed by light and shadow, your gown flowing like starlight behind you and veil trailing with each slow, graceful step—he couldn’t stop the smile that bloomed across his lips. Not the small kind. Not the gentle kind. The full kind, the one that crinkled his eyes and made his chest ache with a thousand unsaid words.

“By the gods,” he murmured under his breath. “She’s real.”

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink. Could only stand there in full awe as if you were the very goddess the temple was built for.

Your gaze met his—warm, filled with every memory and every dream you’d ever shared. And as you stepped closer and closer to the altar, the sounds of hushed gasps and admiration filled the pews.

Heeseung barely heard them. He only saw you.

At the end of the aisle, your father stood tall but emotional as he gently guided you the last few steps forward. Once the music slowed, he turned toward Heeseung, looking the prince in the eye with all the weight of a father handing off the most precious thing he’d ever protected.

He took Heeseung’s hand and placed yours in it.

“Take care of her,” your father said, his voice deep but warm, soft with meaning. “She’s always been our light.”

Heeseung’s expression softened instantly. He nodded—not with stiff formality, but with reverent sincerity. “Always,” he whispered. “With all I have.”

Your father gave a small, proud smile before stepping aside, finding his seat beside your mother, who wiped the corner of her eye with her silk handkerchief.

You and Heeseung now stood before the altar together.

Fingers interlocked.

He looked down at you, and the way his thumb grazed the back of your knuckles sent a wave of calm through you.

“You look like every prayer I never thought would be answered,” he murmured so only you could hear. “And I must’ve done something right in a past life… because you're walking straight to me.”

You felt your heart rise to your throat as your eyes welled up—but you smiled, wide and unstoppable.

“Then hold me like you’ll never let me go,” you whispered back, voice trembling slightly.

“I already do,” Heeseung breathed, gaze locked on yours. “I already have.”

And somewhere behind you, the temple bells began to chime.

The ceremony was about to begin.

The gods were watching.

And the entire kingdom held its breath—for this union, for this love, for the future they believed in.

Laughter spilled from your lips like music, even as your hand tightened around Heeseung’s. The sky was dusted with sunset, the air alive with the roaring cheers of thousands—your people, your kingdom, the witnesses to a union that would be written into history books and bedtime stories alike.

“Careful,” Heeseung chuckled, eyes glinting as he helped you navigate the ornate steps of the royal carriage. “The gown’s winning the battle right now.”

You gave him a playful glare but let him hoist the heavy train of your dress just enough so you could climb inside without tripping. The velvet cushions cradled you immediately, the whole space fragrant with rose petals and wild lilac—gifts from the palace staff who had prepared it in secret.

Heeseung followed in after you, and the moment he closed the door behind him—sealing out the deafening celebration, the blinding flash of royal photographers, the weight of the world—

He turned to you.

And pulled you into him.

The kiss was firm and full of everything he hadn’t said at the altar. His hands cradled your jaw with devotion, lips pressing to yours like they were finding home.

You smiled against his mouth—because how could you not?—arms wrapping around his shoulders as your laughter was swallowed into the warmth of him.

He only pulled away when your lungs begged for air.

And even then, he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand, fingers trembling ever so slightly as his gaze dropped to the dazzling ring glittering on your finger.

A rare golden band, wrapped in tiny vines of diamonds. At its center—a stone so clear and so rare, it was said to have been taken from the gods’ altar themselves, gifted only to royal soulmates.

Heeseung sighed softly, brushing his lips against the gem once more, before lifting his gaze back to you.

“My wife,” he whispered, as if saying it for the first time made it real. His voice cracked with the weight of it, eyes shining like the stars overhead. “My beautiful wife.”

The word settled in your chest like a prayer answered.

You reached forward, cupping his cheek, fingers threading into the strands of his dark hair that had begun to fall from their styled place. His skin was warm under your touch, his eyes—god, his eyes—were filled with nothing but wonder.

Your voice trembled as tears began to blur your vision. “And you’re my husband,” you whispered. “My beginning. My middle. And my always.”

Heeseung’s eyes fluttered shut for a second, as if the moment was too much. Then he leaned into your touch, turning just enough to kiss your palm.

“Remind me to thank the gods for making you,” he said softly, pressing your forehead against his. “Because there is no way I deserved this. Deserved you.”

“You deserve everything,” you whispered, pulling him closer. “Everything, Heeseung.”

You let out a soft breath, letting your forehead rest gently against his chest, the rise and fall of it slow and steady beneath your cheek.

His arms wrapped around you instinctively, pulling you closer, your white gown crinkling slightly between your bodies but neither of you cared.

“We’re headed to the island, right?” you murmured into the fabric of his coat, fingers curling around the lapel, the velvet soft under your touch.

Heeseung hummed, chin resting gently on the top of your head, his voice vibrating against your cheek. “Mhm. The very island I had that mansion built on… for us.”

He smiled as he spoke, almost shy about it. “Just for the two of us to spend our honeymoon in peace. No titles. No duties. Just you. Me. And the sea.”

You giggled, tilting your head up slightly to press a kiss to the tip of his chin. “I swear, I have the best husband ever. The perfect prince ever.”

That made his whole face light up. He beamed, heart full, like he was just realizing he could finally hold you like this without rules or eyes or limits. His hand slid to your cheek, thumb brushing over your skin as he whispered, “You’re perfect. Really perfect.”

You flushed, lips curling in a soft smile. “Well… I’m just glad the island isn’t that far from the mainland. At least we can come and go whenever we want.”

Heeseung snorted, pulling back just enough to give you a playful look. “You mean you can come and go as you please,” he said, eyes teasing. “Because you have a habit of storming off on me, my love.”

You gasped with a laugh, swatting lightly at his chest. “That was one time—!”

“Three,” he corrected smoothly. “Once after I forgot your birthday flower, the other when I fell asleep halfway through your poetry reading—”

You narrowed your eyes. “And the third?”

He grinned. “I don’t even remember, I think you were just being dramatic.”

You let out a mock gasp of offense, which only made Heeseung laugh harder. He pulled you back in, kissing your temple as he whispered, “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, you know. Even if you storm off again.”

“Even in this giant dress?” you teased, gesturing to the sheer volume of fabric surrounding you.

He nodded solemnly. “Even if I have to carry you and the fifteen layers of it across the entire kingdom.”

You bit your lip to keep from laughing too loudly, burying your face back into his chest as the carriage bumped gently along the road—your fingers tangled in his, your heart full, your future already unfolding before you in soft gold and island winds.

You gasped as Heeseung thrust into you again, deep and unrelenting, his rhythm messy and desperate now—etiquette forgotten, restraint burned to ash.

He moaned low into your ear, voice wrecked. “Fuck—been dreaming of this,” he whispered, lips dragging along your jaw. “Years of holding back—do you even know what you’ve done to me?”

You whimpered, arching into him as your nails raked down his back, drawing soft, broken curses from his lips. “Heeseung—”

“That’s it,” he breathed, kissing you hard, possessive. “Say my name like that again, sweetheart—please—”

“Heeseung,” you gasped, body trembling under him, overwhelmed by the sheer stretch and heat of him, of this, of everything. “You’re my husband—y-you’re really mine—”

That did something to him.

He growled low in his throat, pulled out, and you whined at the loss—but then he flipped you onto your stomach, firm and commanding, and patted your ass twice, a dark gleam in his eyes as he said, “Up, love. Let me see you.”

You obeyed on instinct, body moving to all fours, ass raised, face flushed against the pillows.

“Fuck,” he muttered behind you, dragging his hands down your spine. “Look at you… gods, you’re perfect.”

He lined himself up again, the thick head of his cock brushing against you, teasing, making you whine and twitch in anticipation.

“Beg for it,” he said, voice barely steady. “Just once. Please, baby—after everything—I need to hear it.”

“Please, Heeseung,” you whimpered, backing against him. “Please… I need you.”

He slammed back into you with a groan that echoed off the high ceilings, one hand gripping your hip, the other wrapping around your waist to pull you against him. The sound of skin meeting skin was shameless, vulgar, as he lost himself in the heat of you, panting curses into your shoulder.

“You feel like fucking heaven,” he moaned, head dropping to your back. “This body—this fucking body was made for me.”

Your cries grew louder as his thrusts deepened, more erratic now—driven by years of pent-up love, desire, obsession.

When he reached forward and wrapped his fingers around your throat, pulling your back to his chest, he whispered against your ear: “Mine. My queen. My wife. I’ll spend the rest of my life ruining you like this.”

And as your walls clenched around him, body trembling from the pleasure blooming like wildfire inside you, he kissed your temple—soft, reverent, the only gentle thing in that moment—and whispered, “Give it to me, love. Let go. Let me have all of you.”

You shattered with a cry, the kind that echoed off the walls, one hand gripping the sheets as your body convulsed around him. Your release hit hard—white-hot and overwhelming—and Heeseung groaned against your skin, hips stuttering as you clenched tight around him.

“That’s it,” he rasped, pressing kisses along your shoulder, hips still lazily rocking into your overstimulated body. “Fuck—so good for me, so perfect.”

You could barely breathe, chest rising and falling as sweat clung to your skin. But Heeseung wasn’t done—not even close.

He hooked two fingers under your chin, lifting your face to meet his. Your eyes were glossy with tears, lips parted as soft whimpers spilled out of you. Heeseung’s gaze flickered between your eyes and mouth, his own expression completely undone.

“You’re so fucking beautiful like this,” he murmured, then kissed you—sloppy, desperate, like he was trying to taste the moans still lingering in your throat.

But then he pulled away—just enough to flip you back onto your back, drawing a gasp from your lips as he manhandled you closer to the edge of the bed.

“Heeseung—” you breathed, voice cracking.

He leaned down, kissed the tears slipping from the corners of your eyes with such gentleness it made your heart ache.

“I know, baby,” he whispered. “I know. But I need you one more time.” Then he raised your legs, resting them over his shoulders, and thrust back in.

Your cry was broken, high and breathless, your hands flying to his arms for something to hold onto as your body arched into him.

“Still so tight,” he groaned, hips rolling into you deep and slow, like he was savoring every second. “Gods, you take me so well, even after—fuck, I’ll never get over this.”

You sobbed softly, overwhelmed by the stretch, the intensity, the sheer love in the way he moved inside you.

He leaned down, folding your legs closer to your chest, his forehead pressed against yours as he whispered, “Look at me. Let me see you fall apart again.”

And then he slammed into you—hard and sloppy, each thrust punching a moan out of your throat as he hit that spot inside you that made your eyes roll back instantly.

“Heeseung—ah—!” you cried, voice ragged, high, needy.

“That’s it,” he rasped, watching your face with a wild hunger in his eyes. “That’s the face I wanted to see—gods, look at you—so gone for me.”

You couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. The pleasure was blinding, white-hot and all-consuming as he plunged into you over and over, cock hitting so deep and so perfect, your body had no choice but to obey.

Your mouth hung open, drooling a little, moaning with every deep, brutal thrust—and Heeseung ate it up like a man possessed.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, sweat dripping from his brow as his pace grew faster, rougher. “I’ve fucked you stupid, haven’t I?”

You whimpered, tried to answer, but only a breathless moan left your lips.

He smirked darkly. “Can’t even talk. Just taking it. Letting me ruin you.”

Your body jolted with every movement of his hips, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the chamber like a prayer.

“I’m close,” he panted, voice shaking. “You’re squeezing me so tight, gods, I’m gonna—fuck—”

You could only whimper, tears sliding down your cheeks again from the overwhelming heat building inside you.

He leaned in close, lips brushing your ear, voice low and wrecked. “I’ll fill you up,” he whispered. “Make you mine. Want you so round and full of me. Barefoot in the palace with my child inside you—fuck, baby, you’d look so perfect like that.”

A strangled moan ripped out of you, nails digging into his arms as your legs trembled around his shoulders.

“Wanna get you pregnant,” he kept going, voice turning desperate as his thrusts grew rougher. “Wanna see your belly swell. Everyone’ll know you’re mine—all mine. My wife. My queen. My everything.”

You cried out, and he kissed the tears from your cheeks again, groaning as your body tightened around him.

“Gonna give it to you,” he gasped. “Take it—take all of me—”

And then he buried himself deep one final time, spilling inside you with a long, low moan, his whole body shaking as he pressed his forehead to yours, breath ragged, arms trembling.

“I love you,” he whispered against your lips. “I love you—I love you—I love you.”

He kissed you again—deep, slow, as if trying to pour every bit of himself into your mouth, like he didn’t know where he ended and you began. His hands were still trembling, still greedy even now, cradling your face.

Then, slowly, gently, he eased your legs down from his shoulders, never once letting go. His hips shifted just enough so that he could wrap his arms around you, rolling onto his side and taking you with him—still buried inside you, warm and full and his.

You let out a soft gasp as your body adjusted, sensitive and raw, but comforted by his arms pulling you flush against his chest.

Heeseung let out a shaky exhale, pressing his nose into your hair. “Still with me?” he murmured, lips brushing your temple.

You nodded sleepily, breath shallow, heart pounding as you pressed your palm against his bare chest—feeling his heartbeat racing beneath your fingertips.

He kissed your forehead, and then your cheek, then the corner of your lips, his voice low and thick. “I’m not pulling out,” he mumbled, half-drunk on love, half-drunk on you. “Not yet. Not ever.”

You laughed softly—weakly—body still pulsing from everything. “You’re serious.”

“Dead serious,” he muttered, pulling you impossibly closer, like he wanted to fuse your bodies together. “I meant what I said, you know. About getting you pregnant. About seeing you with my child.”

“I want all of it,” he whispered. “You in this bed, in our castle. You walking through the palace holding your stomach. You with my name, my ring, my child. I want everything.”

You could barely speak. So you just whispered, “You already have everything.”

His eyes fluttered shut at that, a soft, boyish smile tugging at his lips.

The room was quiet, save for your breathing, the soft rustle of the silk sheets tangled beneath you. You were both still trembling from the aftermath—but wrapped in him, filled by him, you felt like the world had stopped moving just for the two of you.

The royal library was bathed in the soft light of the afternoon sun, golden beams streaking through the high arched windows. The gentle rustle of pages echoed quietly, along with Jaeyun’s voice reading aloud from a worn leather-bound storybook.

“…and then the young prince lifted the veil of thorns, finding the princess fast asleep, untouched by time, heart still waiting for his,” Jaeyun read, lips curling into a fond smile as he glanced down at your belly, voice softening even more. “He kissed her, and—”

You huffed, adjusting your position with an audible grunt as you shifted your weight on the deep-cushioned couch. It was custom-made, one of Heeseung’s many attempts to appease your growing complaints about how “every chair in the palace was clearly built for pain and suffering.”

Jaeyun winced. “Uh… did I do something wrong, noona?” he asked carefully, lowering the book.

You sighed heavily and gave him a sweet smile, brushing his arm. “No, sweet boy. You’re perfect. Don’t let the thundercloud above my head scare you.”

His brows furrowed in confusion before glancing up—and that’s when he saw your husband, standing near the grand shelf of magical history books, looking like a deer caught in divine, hormonal headlights.

Heeseung blinked. “What… what’d I do?”

You didn’t answer right away. You just stared. A slow, furious, finger-pointing kind of glare.

Heeseung looked behind him. Then pointed at himself. “Me?”

Jaeyun immediately started packing up the book with the speed of a trained soldier. “I’m gonna, um… give you two some privacy. Or leave the continent. Whichever’s safer.”

You gently held his wrist. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jaeyun. Don’t let the idiot standing near the bookshelf convince you otherwise.”

Heeseung’s jaw dropped. “Wait—what idiot—hey!”

That’s when you sniffled. Loudly. Tears instantly welled up in your eyes as your lip trembled, and you looked down at your round belly, hand resting protectively over it.

Jaeyun froze in horror. “Noona—wait, are you crying? Did I—?”

From across the library, Jungwon’s head snapped up, quill falling from his fingers. He was at your side in a heartbeat, eyes wide and worried.

“What happened?” Jungwon asked, voice soft but urgent, his hand gently resting on the edge of your couch as he leaned over. “Noona, what’s wrong?”

You pointed at Heeseung again, face crumpling as the tears rolled down your cheeks. “He forgot my pickles and sour cream,” you sniffled. “I woke up and it wasn’t there and I waited and waited and I was starving and craving and he just—”

“Oh.” Jungwon tried very, very hard not to laugh, biting the inside of his cheek as he nodded seriously. “Pickles and sour cream. A fatal offense.”

“I didn’t forget!” Heeseung defended, walking closer, arms flailing slightly in helplessness. “I mean—I did, but not on purpose! I had to help Jungwon with the—”

Jungwon lifted his hand, still grinning. “Forgive my brother, noona,” he said sweetly. “I think it’s partly my fault. I made him stay up last night helping me deal with some… knight stuff.”

You raised a brow, still crying, still very much hormonal. “What kind of knight stuff?”

Jungwon cleared his throat. “Uhm. A few of the southern patrol horses were unshod, and the stablemaster said the armory budget was overspent again. So we were fixing allocations and—”

“Oh, so horses are more important than your pregnant wife?” you cut in, voice trembling as you narrowed your eyes at your husband.

Heeseung panicked. “No! No, absolutely not—I would die for you. I would kill for you. I was going to go after breakfast and—”

“You said that yesterday!” you cried, covering your face.

Jaeyun stood behind Jungwon now, whispering, “We should probably leave before she gives birth out of spite.”

“Smart,” Jungwon whispered back.

Heeseung rushed to your side, dropping to his knees in front of you and placing both hands gently on your belly.

“My love, please,” he said, looking up at you with big, guilty eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll get you all the pickles. All the sour cream. I’ll grow a pickle tree if I have to. Just please don’t cry, it breaks my heart.”

You glared at him for one more moment before sighing, lower lip still wobbling. “You’re lucky I love you.”

Heeseung beamed. “That’s a relief. Because I love you too. And you, little one,” he said, pressing a kiss to your belly. “Don’t worry, father will bring home all your weird cravings.”

You sniffed again, wiping your face as Heeseung pulled out a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed your cheeks gently.

“…You want ice cream with chili flakes too?” he asked cautiously.

“Obviously,” you muttered. “I’m not a monster.”

Jungwon and Jaeyun had already vanished by then, likely off to send a servant to retrieve a very urgent royal order of pickles and sour cream.

You sniffled once more, dabbing your own cheek as you tapped your fingers insistently on Heeseung’s arm.

He blinked. “Huh?”

You gave him a look.

“Oh! Right—right, sorry!” he scrambled, immediately hopping to his feet in a heartbeat. One arm slipped behind your back, the other lacing through your fingers with practiced ease. “Here we go—one, two—”

You groaned as he gently helped you up from the cushioned couch, belly stretching against the fabric of your soft dress. “Ugh. This is all your fault.”

Heeseung winced. “Yes, I—I know.”

“I should have your cock chopped off for this, you little—”

“Whoa—! Okay!” Heeseung laughed nervously, heart thudding against his ribs as he tucked you closer to his side. “Easy now, love. You scare me sometimes.”

You shot him a narrowed glare. “Sometimes? You should live in fear.”

“I do!” he said immediately, guiding your steps slowly and carefully as you waddled your way toward the hallway. “Every waking second, actually. Have I mentioned how stunning you look while plotting my demise?”

You clicked your tongue, though your cheeks betrayed you with the faintest tinge of blush.

Pregnancy had turned you into an emotional tempest. One second, you were smiling sweetly and asking Heeseung if he’d sing to the baby—and the next, you were threatening bodily harm over poorly cut fruit or lukewarm tea.

He loved you more for it. Terrified? A little. But madly in love? Completely.

Heeseung tried not to laugh at the memory of last week, when one of your most beloved royal cooks almost got fired.

You had wobbled your way down to the kitchen, belly-first, eyes ablaze. He had just finished making your requested plate of crackers—and forgot the sour cream.

The way you gasped, horrified, clutching your chest like your world had ended.

“I waited all day for this,” you whispered like a betrayed ghost. “And no sour cream? Off with your hat. No—your head!”

The poor man stood there, blinking in shock as you fumed.

By the time Heeseung had rushed in—dragging Sunghoon behind him for backup—he found you mid-sob and mid-threat, the cook still trying to apologize.

Sunghoon, eyes wide, bowed quickly to the cook. “We’re so sorry—she’s, uh—pregnant. Very pregnant.”

The cook only chuckled, waving it off. “It’s alright, Your Highness. This happens all the time. It’s quite normal, really.”

“Normal?!” Sunghoon whispered in horror as you let out a wail again.

Back in the present, Heeseung looked down at you now, walking slowly through the castle hallway, his hand cradling your back while you leaned your weight into him.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

You sighed. “No. I’m bloated, I’m mad at you, my ankles feel like they’re being crushed by divine punishment, and I’m sweating in places no princess should sweat.”

“…So that’s a yes?”

You smacked his chest, and he only grinned, leaning down to kiss your temple again. “I love you, you know. You’re terrifying. But I’m obsessed with you.”

“I know,” you muttered, lips twitching upward despite yourself.

As you passed a stained-glass window, you paused and turned to face him—hand still on the curve of your belly.

“…You really forgot the pickles?” you asked again, narrowing your eyes.

Heeseung’s face went pale. “I swear to the gods, I’ll name our firstborn Sour Cream if that’s what it takes to make it up to you.”

You burst into laughter so hard you had to lean against him again.

The palace gardens were in full bloom.

You walked slowly beneath the soft morning sun, the wind warm and gentle as it kissed your face. Every step felt like a task and a half at nine months pregnant, your belly stretching the limits of your once-elegant maternity dress that now clung to you like it was begging for retirement.

Still, you needed the air.

The lilacs and lavenders had just been planted—your favorite colors. A gift from Heeseung after you spent an entire evening crying because you missed the way your childhood home used to smell.

“They’re blooming beautifully,” you murmured as you waddled beside your mother and mother-in-law, who were deep in discussion about installing fountains near the kingdom gates.

“A marble structure, perhaps,” your mother-in-law offered, gesturing with her fan. “Something timeless, to match the new rose archway.”

Your own mother nodded, her hand resting gently against your back. “And maybe benches shaded by wisteria vines—good for walks like these.”

You smiled faintly, hands settled protectively over your belly. You felt huge. Round and sore and terribly emotional.

Lately, all you wanted was Heeseung. You missed his hands on your belly, his kisses at the corners of your mouth, the way he’d whisper “You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world” every time you cried over not fitting into your royal robes anymore.

Poor Heeseung had endured months of emotional whiplash—you throwing pillows at him one minute, begging for cuddles the next—but he never wavered. Always patient. Always soft.

You sighed. “That man is too good for me.”

A sharp pang shot through your lower abdomen.

Your hand shot down to your belly as your breath caught, and in the next heartbeat—warm liquid trickled down your legs, soaking the hem of your dress and dripping onto the garden soil below.

Your eyes widened.

The queens turned to you instantly. “Darling?” “What is it?!”

“I think… I think my water just broke,” you whispered.

Panic, majestic and maternal, swept through both women. Your mother’s voice shot up first. “Servants! Fetch the midwife—now!”

“The healer too!” your mother-in-law added. “And blankets! Bring towels! Quickly!”

You winced again, grabbing at your lower back as another cramp rocked through you. “I can walk! I’m fine—just… need help.”

“Absolutely not,” your mother huffed, hooking her arm under yours with impressive strength for someone in full court attire. “You’re not walking anywhere without us.”

The two queens flanked you like royal guards, one on each side, carefully helping you take slow, careful steps back toward the palace. You groaned at each movement, breath labored, hands trembling.

“Where is Heeseung?” you whined, voice wobbling.

“He’s in council with the stewards—someone will fetch him,” your mother-in-law promised, rubbing soothing circles on your back. “Don’t you worry, darling. He’ll be with you before the next contraction hits.”

“I swear if he misses this—” you hissed as another pain bloomed in your spine, “—I’ll induce a second pregnancy just to make him suffer through the next one!”

Both queens laughed despite themselves.

“You’re doing wonderfully, sweetheart,” your mother whispered, kissing your temple. “Heeseung will come running the second he hears. Just hold on a little longer.”

“And scream at him when he does,” your mother-in-law added with a mischievous grin. “It’s tradition.”

You let out a strangled half-laugh, half-sob as your foot crossed the marble threshold of the castle.

“Bring hot water!” a maid cried out. “Prepare the birthing chamber!”

Servants scrambled like a military drill as the two queens continued leading you toward the royal wing.

And as another wave of pain rolled through you, sharp and sudden, you gripped both women’s hands tightly and muttered—

“…Heeseung is so dead.”

The words had barely left your mouth when a young servant, barely older than a squire, nodded frantically at your mothers’s command.

He turned on his heel and sprinted down the castle corridors, nearly slipping on polished marble as he weaved past nobles and guards. His face was pale, his steps frantic—because everyone in the kingdom knew that when it came to you, Prince Heeseung did not waste time.

Especially not today.

The council room sat in a gilded hallway of the eastern wing, its doors heavy with ornate gold carvings, muffling the sound of bored sighs and shuffling chairs from within.

Inside, the seven princes were scattered across the long oak table, listening—somewhat respectfully—as an aging duke discussed property disputes near the northern border.

Heeseung sat at the center of the table, shoulders square, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. His jaw tensed as he adjusted the fit of his vest, trying to mask just how miserable he looked.

Beside him, Jongseong leaned on an elbow, eyes half-lidded in sheer exhaustion. “If he says the word acreage one more time, I’m jumping out the window.”

Sunoo, who had long given up on pretending to listen, was poking Jungwon with a quill, whispering, “Bet you a week of your rations that hyung zones out and agrees to give the entire north to some greedy lord.”

Jungwon rolled his eyes, muttering, “He already did last month.”

Across the table, Riki and Sunghoon were whispering animatedly—probably about girls or sword duels or which of them would win in a wrestling match if their lives depended on it.

Jaeyun had a book propped open on his lap, held just under the table’s edge, completely absorbed and occasionally mouthing the words under his breath.

Heeseung cleared his throat, trying to gather enough composure to politely end the duke’s hour-long monologue. “We’ll reconvene to review—”

The council room doors flew open so hard they rattled on their hinges.

All seven princes shot up, hands instinctively flying to their sides as if expecting danger. The guards posted at the entrance had barely enough time to react before the young servant stumbled into the room, panting so hard it sounded like he’d just outrun a horse.

Heeseung was already halfway to standing, eyes sharp and alert. “Speak.”

The servant didn’t even bow. “T-The princess! Princess (Y/N)—she’s gone into labor!”

The words hit Heeseung like lightning.

Everything else vanished. The air, the weight of duty, the politics, the room itself—it was all just static in the background.

“Council dismissed,” Heeseung ordered, voice hard and final.

He didn’t wait for a single reply. He threw his glasses on the table with a clatter, not even bothering to place them gently, and shrugged off his coat as he made for the door. His vest was still half-buttoned, his cravat slightly askew, but he didn’t stop to fix any of it. He just ran.

“Hyung!” Jongseong called after him, but he was gone.

Sunoo blinked. “He didn’t even breathe.”

“Why do I feel like we’re in labor too?” Riki muttered, already on his feet.

“Heeseung-hyung’s going to faint before (Y/N) does,” Sunghoon said, half amused and half terrified.

Back in the halls, Heeseung’s footsteps echoed like thunder. Servants scrambled out of the way, bowing quickly before darting aside. He passed the main stairs, two wings of the palace, and stormed through three doors before finally reaching the private chambers near your bedroom—where the royal birthing room had been prepared days in advance.

He saw the royal guards, saw the maids darting in and out with wet cloths and blankets.

And then he heard you.

A muffled cry of pain from within.

His heart nearly stopped.

Heeseung stood just outside the doors, hand on the carved gold handle, breaths ragged as he tried to steel himself—but just before he could push it open, a commanding voice echoed through the corridor.

“Prince Heeseung, you cannot go in.”

He turned, startled, eyes narrowing as he was met by the flowing robes of the Archbishop of Decelis, flanked by a few elder members of the High Council—those who hadn’t been in attendance during the earlier meeting. Their expressions were grave, respectful, but firm.

“What?” Heeseung snapped, his tone already laced with disbelief. “Why not?”

One of the older men stepped forward, hands folded neatly in front of him. “My prince, it is tradition. Men are not permitted inside the royal birthing chambers. It is an honored law of the land.”

Heeseung dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated and on the verge of unraveling. “Tradition?” he echoed, almost laughing bitterly.

“That’s my wife in there. My child. And you’re telling me I can’t be with them because of some old, dusty decree written before any of you were even born?”

The Archbishop stood firm. “It is to maintain the sanctity and protection of both mother and child. We must follow protocol.”

Heeseung clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring, his heart screaming inside his chest. Behind him, hurried footsteps approached—the rest of his brothers flooding into the corridor one by one, panting and wide-eyed.

“Hyung, we came as fast as—” Jungwon began before seeing the situation unfold.

But Heeseung didn’t turn to them.

Because just then, through the thick double doors, he heard you scream again.

His spine straightened. His vision tunneled.

A young maid appeared from the side chamber, looking breathless and flushed. “Prince Heeseung!” she called, bowing quickly. “Her Highness is calling for you. She keeps asking—she’s crying, asking where you are.”

Heeseung moved for the doors again, only for the Archbishop to raise a hand, stepping into his path once more.

“Your Highness, please—”

“Do you like being the Archbishop of Decelis?” Heeseung asked sharply, voice low and dangerous.

The man froze.

The council members stiffened.

“Do you?” Heeseung repeated, eyes like wildfire.

“…Yes, my prince.”

“And you all,” Heeseung turned to the councilmen. “Do you like your titles? Your seats? Your influence?”

No one answered.

He took a slow, threatening step forward, each word like a blade. “Would you like to remain the Archbishop of Decelis? And remain members of this council?”

The hallway went deadly silent. Even the guards didn’t breathe.

Because Heeseung had never raised his voice. Never threatened anyone. Never looked like this before. But now—he was livid. A man unhinged by love, fear, and a cry from someone he couldn’t bear to be separated from.

“You forget your place,” he growled. “That’s my wife. That’s my child. And I swore before gods and men to protect her, cherish her, be by her side in every joy and every pain. And if any of you think for a second that I’ll let her scream for me alone while you stand here quoting traditions—”

His voice cracked at the edge.

“Then you’re not just wrong. You’re finished.”

The Archbishop opened his mouth—then closed it again.

“I said move.”

The men parted.

Heeseung didn’t waste another second—he slammed the doors open and marched in, not as a prince, not as a future king, but as your husband.

As a man about to become a father. As someone so in love with you that the thought of you suffering made him feel physically ill.

You were there, on the padded birthing bed, your back supported by pillows, your hair sticking to your forehead with sweat, hands gripping the sheets so tightly your knuckles were white.

Your mother and mother-in-law were at your side. The midwife—an older woman with gentle hands and sharp instructions—was calmly checking your status.

You looked up, eyes glassy and tired, and—

“Heeseung,” you whimpered.

He rushed to you without a word, dropping to his knees beside the bed and grabbing your hand. His fingers trembled as they laced through yours. “I’m here. I’m here, love, I’m right here.”

“I told you you were dead,” you gasped between contractions, squeezing his hand hard enough to crush bone.

Heeseung winced. “If I survive this, I’m building you another garden. Bigger. Full of lilacs. And pickles. And sour cream. Just—keep breathing, okay?”

You cried. “This is your fault!”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed, kissing your hand desperately, forehead resting against your arm. “I’m a terrible husband. I’ll never touch you again—I’ll sleep in the stables if I have to.”

“You’re damn right you will,” you hissed, then screamed through the next wave of pain.

Heeseung paled, but kissed your temple anyway. “You’re doing amazing, my love. You’re almost there.”

Behind him, one of the queens whispered, “He’s more scared than she is.”

And he was.

Because he’d faced sword fights, battles, political scandals, and enemy threats. But nothing terrified him more than the idea of you in pain.

The midwife barely glanced at him, too focused on the task. She peeked between your parted legs and gave a tight, pleased smile. “She’s fully dilated. We’re ready.” Then she dropped onto the birthing stool at the end of the bed and called over her shoulder, “You, get the clean towels. And the water, now.”

“Yes, madam!” a maid stammered as they scurried to follow.

“Alright, Your Highness,” the midwife addressed you gently now, her voice calm but firm. “When I say push, I need you to push hard, understand?”

You nodded, breath hitching. “It hurts—gods, it hurts so much—”

Heeseung was already at your side, kneeling beside you despite the thick gold embroidery of his royal vest crumpling beneath him. He took your trembling hand and pressed it to his lips, his forehead leaning against yours.

“You can do this, love,” he murmured, voice cracking. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

You sobbed softly, body trembling. “I’m scared…”

“I know,” he said. “But you’re strong. So strong. You’re everything. And our baby—our little prince or princess—they’re so close. Just a little more, okay?”

Another contraction hit and the midwife barked, “Push!”

You cried out, gripping Heeseung’s hand so tightly it felt like you might break it, and he welcomed every second of it—because if he could take your pain for you, he would a thousand times over.

“That’s it!” the midwife encouraged. “Good girl, Your Highness, again!”

Heeseung wiped the tears streaking down your cheeks with his other hand, pushing the damp strands of hair off your sticky forehead, his lips kissing every inch he could reach.

“I love you,” he whispered. “You’re doing so well, I’m so proud of you.”

But after another few rounds, you fell back against the pillows, exhausted. “I can’t… I can’t anymore, Hee…”

“Yes, you can,” he whispered, desperate now, tears pricking his eyes. “You’ve made it this far, you can. Just one more, darling. Please. Our baby’s waiting for you.”

You whimpered, chest rising and falling fast, but his hand didn’t leave yours, and his words—warm and trembling—wrapped around you like armor.

“One more push!” the midwife called again. “I see the head! One big push, my lady!”

You screamed as you gave everything, every last ounce of strength in your body—and then—

A sharp, high-pitched cry cut through the air.

The room stilled.

Heeseung gasped, tears immediately spilling down his cheeks as the sound hit him like an arrow through the heart.

“She’s here,” the midwife breathed with a smile. “A healthy baby girl!”

The moment your daughter was wrapped in warm linens and placed against your chest, your body quaked with sobs—relief, exhaustion, love, everything. She was tiny, pink, and perfect, crying softly as her fists curled against your skin.

“Oh, gods,” you wept, arms trembling as you cradled her. “She’s so… she’s so little…”

Heeseung was crying openly now, brushing soft, trembling kisses over your cheeks, your temple, your lips—everywhere.

“You did it,” he breathed, voice shaking as he stared at you like you hung the stars. “You did so good, love. She’s perfect. You’re both perfect.”

He pressed his forehead against yours, his hand gently stroking your daughter’s soft downy head. Her cries softened, soothed by your warmth, and when her tiny hand flailed, Heeseung instinctively wrapped his finger around hers.

“She’s got your nose,” he whispered with a teary laugh.

“And your eyes,” you whispered back, voice breaking as more tears fell.

He kissed you again, lingering and reverent.

“My queen,” he murmured, voice soaked in awe, “my love, the mother of my child…”

And for the first time in forever, the kingdom outside went quiet—because in that room, on that bed, with your daughter in your arms and your husband holding you like you were made of gold.

You stood in the quiet, polished halls of the royal wing of the museum, the scent of aged books and lavender floor polish lingering in the air.

Jungwon and Sunoo had excused themselves a few minutes ago, excited to take pictures by the towering marble fountain near the entrance, leaving you to explore at your own pace, sipping on the lilac tea you bought from the museum café.

Your footsteps slowed to a stop when you turned the corner and came face to face with it.

A massive oil painting, stretching from the polished floor almost to the vaulted ceiling. Encased in a golden frame, dusted only at the corners with time. And in it, frozen in hues of soft ivory and golden light—

“Prince Lee Heeseung and Princess (L/N) (Y/N), in a timeless embrace beneath a canopy of lilacs and lavenders.”

Your breath caught in your throat.

The artist had captured something so impossibly intimate it made your chest ache. Heeseung stood tall, dressed in a white military-style coat, adorned with golden embroidery that shimmered even under the museum’s soft lights. His hand gently cupped the princess’s cheek, gaze tender and unguarded, as if the entire kingdom didn’t exist when she was near.

The princess wore a flowing white gown with a lilac sash, long sleeves embroidered with delicate gold threads, mimicking vines curling around her arms. She looked up at him, her eyes almost tearful with love, one gloved hand clutching the edge of his coat as though anchoring herself to him.

But it wasn’t just the beauty of the painting that left you frozen.

It was her face.

Her face—your face.

Same eyes. Same smile. Same shape of the nose and curve of the chin. Even the way she tilted her head slightly, like she was listening to something only he could whisper.

You took a shaky breath and stepped closer, glancing at the golden standee resting just beside the red velvet rope:

“Prince Lee Heeseung and Princess (L/N) (Y/N). Captured in the royal gardens during the Spring Festival of 1782.

This portrait is one of the most beloved in the royal collection, known not just for its artistic mastery, but for the love story it represents. Theirs was not a marriage of convenience or political alliance—but one of deep, enduring love.

They were said to have loved each other until their very last breath.”

You blinked at the plaque, rereading your name etched in gold again and again, as if the letters might rearrange themselves into something more logical.

“…That’s not funny,” you whispered, barely audible.

A slow chill crawled up your spine as you looked back at the painting.

What were the odds? Your name. Your face. The same features captured in oil centuries ago. Was the tea messing with you? Were you sleep-deprived?

You turned to glance behind you, half-expecting Jungwon and Sunoo to be playing some elaborate prank, but the corridor was empty.

You let out a small exhale and turned back to the painting.

But you weren’t alone anymore.

There was someone standing beside you.

A tall figure, dressed in a sleek black blazer and slacks, his silhouette sharp against the soft golden lighting of the gallery. His hands were tucked into his pockets, posture relaxed, but his gaze… his gaze was fixed right where yours had been moments before—on the painting. Unmoving. Focused. Like it meant something.

Your eyes flicked down to the silver pin on the left lapel of his blazer: the Decelis University insignia. A student, then.

You shrugged to yourself, figuring he was probably here on the same field trip. You took another sip of your lilac tea, the floral taste now bittersweet on your tongue as your heart settled in your chest again.

“It’s uncanny,” he murmured beside you.

You blinked and tilted your head slightly. “Are you talking to me?”

His lips curved, not quite into a full smile—but into something quieter, gentler. And his voice—God, his voice was warm. Deep, but velvety.

“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t really see anyone else here besides you.”

You let out a soft laugh, caught off guard. “Wow. Is that your line, or do you just flirt in front of 18th-century paintings?”

“Only with people who look like they’ve just seen a ghost,” he teased.

You turned to him, finally taking in his features properly. And your breath caught in your throat.

His hair was dyed a soft lilac—the exact same shade as the flowers in the painting. It caught the sunlight pouring in from the museum’s high glass windows, casting a faint halo around his head. But it wasn’t just the hair. It was the eyes. The way he looked at you—not like a stranger—but like someone remembering.

“What did you mean by uncanny?” you asked softly, your grip tightening around your tea cup.

He glanced at the painting again, then back at you.

“Well,” he began, “for starters… she looks exactly like you.”

You swallowed. “Yeah,” you said, voice smaller than you meant. “I noticed that.”

The stranger beside you let out a soft laugh—not the polite kind, but the real one. Full-bodied and warm, the kind that came from the chest, from somewhere deeper. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, something boyish blooming across his face as he fully turned to face you now.

He was breathtaking up close.

Lilac hair tousled like the wind had played with it on the walk here, his blazer crisp and worn with ease, like he wasn’t trying to impress anyone—but still somehow did.

There was something timeless about him. Like his face didn’t belong to any specific era. Like it had been painted in oil and carved into memory long before today.

He glanced back at the painting again and tilted his head slightly, a smirk playing at his lips.

“Well,” he teased, “the real one looks way better.”

Your breath hitched.

Heat rushed to your cheeks before you could stop it. “Oh my gods,” you muttered under your breath, fighting a smile as you stared at the floor, willing it to open and swallow you whole.

He chuckled, clearly pleased with your reaction.

You sighed, defeated, and risked another look at him.

The way he stood there, relaxed but attentive. The way he smiled like he already knew you—like he was waiting for you to remember too. The way his eyes searched yours with a kind of gentleness, like he didn’t want to scare you off, but couldn’t help getting drawn in.

You finally found your voice again, soft but steady.

“Well,” you said, looking right at him this time, “you look exactly like him, so…”

Your hand lifted slightly, finger pointing toward the prince in the painting, but he didn’t follow it. His eyes were on you. Only you.

He took a step closer.

Not too much—but just enough that you could smell his cologne, something clean and woodsy, like cedar trees after the rain.

“You think so?” he asked, voice quiet, as if the question itself held centuries of weight.

You nodded.

And you gave him the smallest smile. The kind of smile you only give someone you feel like you’ve known your whole life—someone you’ve missed before you even met.

His eyes softened.

And then he looked up at the painting once more, but not for long. “They say those two married for love, not for politics,” he murmured. “That they stayed together until their last breath.”

You blinked. “You know the story?”

“Bits and pieces,” he said. “My professor’s a nerd about royal bloodlines. Said they were the last real fairytale before the world became… complicated.”

“…That’s kind of beautiful,” you said quietly.

“Yeah,” he replied, looking back at you. “It is.”

You stared at each other for a moment too long.

And in that silence—filled only by distant footsteps and the soft hum of the museum—you felt it.

That pull in your chest.

Like gravity—but gentler. Like you’d been waiting your whole life to stand in this exact spot, with this exact person, under the eyes of your past selves immortalized in paint and gold leaf.

You swallowed down the weight in your chest and cleared your throat, unsure how to ask the question on your tongue without sounding absolutely unhinged. But the curiosity burned hotter than your nerves.

So you looked up at him, voice hesitant but steady.

“…What’s your name?”

He turned to you, that boyish grin softening into something quieter—shyer, even. He chuckled under his breath and reached a hand toward you, the sunlight from the glass ceiling catching on the silver ring he wore.

“Lee Heeseung,” he said.

You stared.

You had to blink once, twice, to make sure you heard him right.

The same name etched into the gold plate by the painting.

The same name whispered by fate across brushstrokes and centuries.

The same name that made something in your bones stir like they remembered.

Was the universe playing a joke? A test? A cosmic prank?

Or had it been quietly arranging this moment since the day you were born?

You were certain if someone snapped a photo of this second, the stars would burn a little brighter behind the frame.

You reached for his outstretched hand, your fingers brushing against his palm. The moment your skin touched his, a jolt shot up your arm—not painful, not harsh. Just… warm. Familiar. Like home.

He didn’t let go.

And honestly? You didn’t want him to.

His fingers wrapped around yours just right, firm but careful, like he already knew you needed both comfort and gentleness.

“And you?” he asked, voice softer now. Like he was scared to breathe too hard and shatter something delicate.

You swallowed, heart loud in your ears.

“(L/N) (Y/N),” you said, breathless.

Something shifted in his eyes.

Like a sunrise cracked through storm clouds.

Heeseung smiled—slowly, knowingly. “Nice to meet you, Princess,” he murmured, still not letting go.

Your breath hitched.

The nickname shouldn’t have meant anything coming from a stranger. But from him—it felt like the world had finally remembered a story it forgot to finish.

In that fleeting space between his smile and your breathless heartbeat, you realized something:

Maybe some loves weren’t just meant to last lifetimes.

Maybe some loves were lifetimes.

Maybe you and him—Lee Heeseung, the stranger who felt like a memory—had been chasing each other through history, always finding, always losing, always waiting.

And as the sunlight spilled through the stained glass, casting lilac and gold across your skin, you smiled.

Because somehow, in a crowded museum filled with relics of the past—you had found your future.

© 2025 liuhsng — reblogs are highly appreciated and please don’t hesitate to request some fics here if you want me to write anything !

[byshens]

barges in how about reader purposely riling riki the whole day (teasing him by only wearing his clothes, lingering touches etc) & riki has to control himself, only for him to snap when he reached home after practice 🤤🤤

go wild i guess 😛

omgee …. i have THE ni-ki writer in my ask box, im shaking rn !!!! hi pretty hye <3 this is so yummies, can i kiss ur brain >< ignore any typos

cw 𐐪𐑂 est. relationship, unprotected slight rough sex, creampie, teasing, previous orgasms (?), fingering, smaller reader ! 1,689

riki was calm.

he was always calm. he never showed any signs of weakness around you, nothing you did ever seemed to break his walls down and just make him have his way with you.

until you wore his clothes.

with your boyfriend being as tall as a building, his clothes looked extra big on you when you had them on. his shirts making their way down to your thighs, his shorts looking almost like pants if we’re honest. his pajamas sucking you in as if you were going to disappear in them.

most boyfriends would find it cute. seeing their girlfriends all cudddled up in their own clothes, but riki.. didn’t. something about how you looked in his clothes switched in him, he couldnt handle seeing you wear them.

and with knowing his lover, he knew that you didnt wear anything underneath them. bare tits and pussy out, rubbing along the cloth of his shirts and shorts—sometimes even just his shirt.

and today, riki was focused on practicing. he’d be in and out of the house trying to prepare with the rest of the group but on one of the stops, he noticed.

he noticed how you were laying on your stomach on the bed, your legs up in the air and swinging, but most importantly—he noticed you were naked under his shirt. then he noticed the smell of sex, and how you were softly panting, trying to look like nothing had happened.

but riki knew. he noticed the soft and little wet spot that was next to you, that you had ‘failed’ to cover. he noticed your pretty and flushed cheeks that tinted pink, his mind went blank.

you had just came wearing his shirt.

his dick twitched, but a sudden buzz noise on his phone took his attention away. shuffling annoyedly to grab it and see who texted you turned your attention onto him and focused. you saw how his chest was slowly starting to rise quicker, his heart was racing.

“god fucking dammit jay..” he muttered as he aggressively texted back. riki didnt seem to notice you get off the bed, circling around him in a slow walk, your fingers tracing along his opened arms. he only seemed to snap back to you once you gave his neck a kiss, standing on your tippy toes to reach it.

“baby, what’s the matter?” you asked softly, your tone innocent but nothing about this situation was innocent. ni-ki turned to look you in the eyes, his nose flaring up as his breathing got heavy.

you only smiled, your hands moving down his chest to his pants line, his eyes never leaving your own. the intense eye contact got you shivering, he looked pissed off and desperate. this was a new look for your lover, and you liked it. you enjoyed how helpless he seemed.

“i have to practice..” he whispered, his voice low and raspy. it sent butterflies right to your stomach, your legs instinctively squeezing shut. you only frowned, your fingers slowly sliding themselves into his tanktop, your nails gliding across his skin.

“again?” you asked and he nodded. you could tell he was craving you, that if the other members werent blowing up his phone he would have you pinned on the bed in a second.

“well.. work hard, baby!” you smiled, pulling yourself away from him and practically skipping out of the room and into the kitchen. riki let out a deep sigh, trying to wrap his mind around what just happened. he finally started to walk out of the room at the tenth buzz on his phone, grabbing his jacket and blowing a kiss your way before he left.

you knew you had him right where you wanted him.

it was about three hours until riki was finally able to come back home, finished with his days worth of training and he was pissed.

the whole time he was only thinking about you, about how your fingers must’ve been aching from the pleasure, how your chest must’ve been heaving hard as you moaned out his name and how your thighs trembled as you came, like they always did.

he opened the door and shut it quickly, throwing his belongings onto the couch as he walked towards the bedroom. his body freezing in place as he heard a moan—your moan—of his name.

“fuck.. riki..” was all he heard from you before he roughly opened the door to your shared bedroom, his eyes immediately noticing your legs spread wide with your fingers shoved deep inside your cunt, his shirts hem hanging just right above your left tit—your other hand cupping the breast.

“fuck! riki—you weren’t supposed to be back for another hour.” you jumped up from your position, genuinely surprised at how early he was but he didnt care. he didnt care about anything else but the scene that was in front of him.

“how long have you been touching yourself while wearing my clothes?” he asked, voice deep and serious. his body not moving from the door entrance. your cheeks flushed deeply, your legs closing around your hand as your finger still slowly continued to played with your clit.

“answer me.”

“a week..”

his breath hitched. “a week?” he repeated and when you nodded he couldnt hold back. he quickly made his way over to the bed and grabbed your ankles, pulling your body to the edge—your arms immediately grabbing onto his waist as he kissed you.

the kiss was rough and sloppy. he was biting down on your lower lip and desperately trying to shove his tongue into your mouth and you allowed him. your legs opened on either side of his own legs and his hand made his way between them. his long fingers taking no time before he pushed them into your cunt, pounding them into you.

you moaned loud against his lips, your hips jolting forward as your back arched, nails digging into his waist. he didnt slow down, he was angry at himself for never noticing. his fingers curled, hitting all the right spots inside you. you pulled away from the kiss to grip onto the bedsheets behind you with your mouth hanging open as he worked his fingers in you.

“fuck—fuck—riki, baby!” you moaned, thighs shaking and your toes curling. you felt breathless. this was a new version of riki you were seeing and you craved more of it. your head fell back as you let out loud whines, finally gasping out as you came on his fingers.

riki was stunned. he never was one to be anything but gentle with you. he loved the slow and intimate nature of how the both of you worked together, how the praises you shared felt loving, felt right. but this.. this was something changing inside riki.

“oh my god..” he whispered to himself, watching how your body twitched from the orgasm, how you fell on your back to catch your breath. but now, riki was rock hard. he was leaking in his pants, and he needed you around him—fast.

he quickly moved away to slide his pants off then his boxers, his cock springing up against his stomach as he locked eyes with you. you moved back to the middle of the bed to give him more space over you before opening your legs once again, riki’s hands gently caressing the skin on your thighs.

“you’re perfect, angel.” he mumbled, kissing along your neck. you couldnt help but blush at the praise, even as he’s angry, needy and craving you, he’s still giving you praise.

riki spit on the palm of his hand before rubbing his cock with it, using the makeshift lube before he positioned his tip at your cunt, taking no time in letting you adjust. he pushed himself roughly inside and held onto your hips, pulling out then fucking back in.

his pace was quick, sloppy and desperate. he couldnt stop himself from using your pussy, his hips slamming harshly against yours, your moans echoing through the room as well as his grunts.

“fucking hell—you’re still so tight.” he groaned, slamming his tip as deep as he could, watching your eyes roll back slightly and your hands trying to latch onto something to hold. he moved his hands from your hips to your own and intertwined your fingers before he pinned them above your head.

his face close to yours, you could feel his breath against your lips. you didnt want to look up at him, feeling as if you did, you’d cum on the spot. but riki wanted to you to look, his thrusts started to slow down but gained force, watching as your body jolted up with each thrust.

“look at me.” he demanded, your eyes fluttering open to lock with his own. you could see how dark his eyes have gotten with lust. he was lost in it, lost in your sounds and your warmth.

“fuck! riki, please!” you whined, lips brushing against his own. he only smirked and quickened his pace again, leaning down to kiss along your neck, biting down and sucking on the skin to leave a mark, his mark.

you could feel yourself close, the oversensitivity of your cunt finally catching up with you. riki was close too, he was chasing his high.

“please, riki.. cum inside me.” you moaned out loudly as you came, your thighs twitching on either side of him. your body trying to pull away from the overwhelming pleasure, but riki held you still.

riki couldnt hold it in anymore, shooting his warm load into you as he moaned out against your neck, rolling his hips to fill you up all the way, only pulling out when he felt like he did. he leaned on his ankles to watch his cum slip out of your pussy, leaning down to give your cunt a kiss, earning a whimper from you.

“so—keep wearing your clothes?” you giggled as riki gave your lips a gentle kiss, your fingers running themselves through his hair. he only rolled his eyes playfully, nodding his head.

“keep wearing my clothes.”

taglist　˃ᴗ˂ @mimiimiku @liumoonlight @qurest @soona-huh @unbel1ve4ble @katarinamae @lillotus17 @ilikekpop-c @fluviorss @starbyeol151 @kimuranirisi @tokkiuv @femaholicc @highway-143 @jakesblondera @hoonstqr @jaysguitarstring

[heeluvv]

ᝰ.ᐟ premium content───엔하이픈

pairing ˎˊ˗ ot7 x fem reader

synopsis ˎˊ˗ you joined onlyfans to keep things anonymous—just quick content, easy money, and no strings attached. but when seven of the platform’s biggest creators suddenly subscribe, everything changes. they’re not just here to watch. they want in. the collab everyone’s been waiting for is finally happening… but this time, it’s not just for the fans.

status ˎˊ˗ 3/9 completed ♡

warnings ˎˊ˗ onlyfans au, poly! enha, exhibitionism/voyeurism, rough sex, slight possessive/jealous behavior, rough sex, praise & degradation kink, fingering, oral (m n f), unprotected sex, overstimulation, edging, orgasm denial, group sex, light choking/spanking, toy usage, etc.

natty's notes ˎˊ˗ this honestly started off as just a silly idea—a random “what if enhypen were onlyfans creators lol” thought that i fully intended to ignore. but then it spiraled. and spiraled. and suddenly i had nine chapters outlined, character arcs, and a reader caught between seven very unhinged men with cameras and control issues 😭 i also wanted to do something special to celebrate hitting 2k because holy shit—thank you. truly. for the love, for every reblog, message, and moment of support. you guys are the reason i keep going. anyways i hope you guys stay tuned for this, ilysm!

˗ˏˋ 01. new content dropped ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 02. moan for the camera ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 03. paid session ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 04. boyfriend package unlocked ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 05. my eyes only ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 06. viewer submission challenge ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 07. first timer ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 08. watch me ˎˊ˗ ˗ˏˋ 09. the final drop ˎˊ˗

⊹ ࣪ ˖ all content is original work by @heeluvv

↳ reuploads, translations, or plagiarism are not allowed.

support by liking, commenting, & reblogging!

[enhaflixer]

golden boy hard dom!Jake x masturbation addict f!reader

ENHA HARD HOURSSSSSSSSSSS 18+ MDNI: masturbation so much of it, really not suitable for work, weed smoking, temp play, filming, ass play, vibrator. this is the filthiest shit i have ever written in my life type shit. but also fluffy so its fine. plot? what plot

your mornings follow a strict routine: wake up. Ignore your alarm. Spread your legs and ruin yourself to the thought of Jake Sim. he doesn’t know you exist. star student, always on time. you stumble into class late, wrecked, barely holding it together. you get paired up for a project. when he figures out why you’re always late? you’re fucked.  literally.

You woke up soaked. Literally, fucking soaked, the sheets beneath you damp with sweat and slick from how hard you’d been grinding against them in your sleep. It was always like this—an unbearable need that gripped you before you were even fully conscious. And you knew exactly who caused it.

Jake Sim.

The moment your hazy mind conjured up his name, your pussy gave a hard throb, as if your body was starved for him. It didn’t matter that you’d never even held a real conversation. All that mattered was that he existed—perfect, unattainable—and you were so pathetically desperate for him that you’d turned it into a daily routine.

With a shaky sigh, you slid your hand under the thin waistband of your panties, fingers pressing into the sticky mess already pooling there. You hissed out a curse at how sensitive you were, thighs twitching as your digits smeared your own arousal around your clit.

“Fuck,” you whispered, voice breaking, as your eyes fluttered shut and your mind fed you the same filthy fantasies it always did. In them, Jake was every bit the cocky bastard you imagined him to be—towering over you, smirking with that lazy confidence, telling you to spread your legs wider so he could see just how ruined you were for him.

You could practically hear his voice:

“That’s it, baby. Show me how wet you are.”

A guttural moan fell from your lips. Your fingers trembled as you sank them deeper, sliding between your folds until you were massaging the swollen, throbbing knot of nerves that made your back arch off the mattress. Every movement sent sparks racing up your spine, and you chased the friction like a fucking addict—because that’s exactly what you were: addicted to the thought of him.

Your other hand fumbled for your phone, nearly dropping it on your face in your clumsy rush. The screen glowed to life, and you immediately opened that private folder. The nerve-wracking thrill of seeing your own explicit videos made your pulse throb.

Your finger hovered over the most recent one for half a second, heart hammering. Then you pressed play.

Instantly, the room filled with the ragged sounds of your recorded moans. On the screen, you were splayed out, hips rolling in a shameless rhythm as you fucked your own fingers like your life depended on it. The memory of that moment made your cheeks burn, but it also made you fucking wetter.

“Jake… please… fuck—” your recorded voice whimpered, your cheeks flushed and your tits bouncing with each thrust of your own hand.

The real you let out a choked noise, clit pulsing under your insistent fingertips. You drove them harder against your flesh, trying to match the frantic pace you’d seen in the video. A filthy squelch echoed in the room, your soaked folds giving you away, and you bit your lip to stifle a cry.

God, you were so damn desperate. It made you feel dirty as hell—and yet, you couldn’t stop. In your mind, you pictured Jake looming over you, grabbing your wrists and pinning them above your head. He’d probably sneer down at you, that smug grin twisting his gorgeous mouth, telling you how pathetic you looked, cumming all over your own damn fingers just for him.

“Such a fucking slut,” you imagined him saying, and your body convulsed.

You rammed your fingers harder against your slick heat, each drag of your knuckles sending you spiraling higher. Your recorded moans continued to play on loop, mixing with your real ones until you couldn’t tell which was which. Every muscle in your body tensed, bracing for the orgasm that was cresting in your gut like a tidal wave.

“Jake,” you whimpered. It was a half-sob, half-prayer. “Jake, oh God—”

And then it hit.

Your orgasm slammed into you, white-hot and wrenching. Your hips jerked off the bed, your thighs squeezing around your hand so tightly you could barely move. A harsh, broken sound tore from your throat as your body locked up, wave after wave of bliss rippling through your core. You ground your fingers against your clit one last time, milking every second of the high until you thought you’d black out.

Finally, you collapsed, trembling, onto the mattress, breath sawing in and out of your lungs. Your vision blurred with unshed tears from the sheer intensity. Slowly, the quivering in your limbs began to subside, and you eased your damp fingers from between your legs, wincing at how oversensitive you already were.

For a moment, all you could do was lie there, the sticky remains of your orgasm coating your inner thighs, your mind still buzzing with echoes of Jake’s name. You felt disgusting, you felt euphoric—you felt alive in a way that made you crave more.

But reality crashed down the second you glanced at the time on your phone. Fifteen minutes until class started.

“Shit,” you whispered, bolting upright so fast your head spun. Your legs wobbled when you tried to stand, a dull ache centered between your legs reminding you of just how hard you’d gone. You grabbed the first hoodie you saw, yanked it over your head, and fished around for a pair of rumpled jeans from the floor. There was no time to shower, no time to even catch your breath.

As you dashed out of your room, the remnants of your orgasm still clung to your thighs, a humiliating reminder of why you were late in the first place. You couldn’t help but picture what Jake would say if he ever found out the real reason you stumbled through that lecture hall door every day, hair a mess and cheeks still flushed from your obscene morning routine.

He’d probably smirk, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “Couldn’t get enough of me, huh?”

The thought made your cheeks flare with shameful heat as you tore across campus, trying not to trip over your own feet. You’d never let him find out—you were certain it would kill you. Yet, a tiny voice in the back of your mind wondered what it would be like if he did know. If he whispered filthy praise in your ear about how you were always late because you were too busy drenching your sheets for him.

Your core clenched at the mental image, and you forced yourself to shove it down. There was no time for daydreams—you were late enough as it was, and your professor was already on the verge of losing his patience with you.

Still, no matter how many times you told yourself you couldn’t keep doing this, you knew you would.

Tomorrow morning, you’d wake up soaked again, thighs trembling, and you’d inevitably plunge your fingers back into that slick warmth while moaning Jake’s name. The filthy cycle would continue, and you wouldn’t be able to stop it, because nothing else felt as good as imagining him breaking you into a moaning, dripping mess.

As you reached the lecture hall, panting and disheveled, you couldn’t help but wonder: what if—just what if—Jake Sim ever saw exactly how bad you had it for him?

But that was a thought for another day, another dirty, mind-shattering morning.

Because you both knew: this wouldn’t be the last time you came undone at the mention of his name.

-

You were already a mess when you stumbled through the lecture hall doors, breath ragged and heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. You were late. Again. The professor’s disapproving glare followed you as you practically crashed into your usual seat in the back row, muttering a hastily whispered apology under your breath.

God, you probably looked like you’d rolled straight out of bed—which, let’s be honest, you basically had. Not that you’d been sleeping. No, you’d spent your precious morning minutes rubbing out a frantic orgasm, fueled by thoughts of Jake Sim and all the ways he could ruin you if he ever laid a hand on your needy, desperate body.

Your clit still throbbed with the memory.

You tried to steady your breathing, force your mind to focus on the lecture happening around you. But your professor’s words were just a dull roar in your ears. You caught phrases like “group project” and “semester-long assignment,” but your brain refused to process them, still half-fogged from the wave of pleasure you’d torn out of yourself not fifteen minutes ago.

Then the professor called your name.

You blinked, snapping out of your daze just in time to see that he was pairing you off with someone. The rest of the class fell silent, heads turning toward you as you awkwardly cleared your throat, cheeks warming under the sudden attention.

“Jake Sim,” the professor said, scanning the attendance sheet. “You and Jake will be partners for the entire project.”

Your entire body stiffened.

Jake Sim.

Jake fucking Sim.

Your clit gave a punishing pulse at the mere mention of his name, so strong it sent a hot jolt of need straight through your core. You barely managed to swallow a gasp, thighs clenching under the desk as if that might calm the ache.

Across the room, Jake lifted his head. He had been taking notes, or maybe doodling—hell if you knew. He looked up when he heard his name, and his eyes flicked briefly over to you. He didn’t seem particularly surprised or amused. He just…nodded. Like it was no big deal.

Meanwhile, you sat there, completely frozen, trying not to let your face betray the fact that your cunt was literally fluttering at the prospect of spending hours—hours—with him on this project. Your mind spun with a million frantic thoughts: how were you supposed to look him in the eye when you had fingered yourself that same morning while moaning his name?

You almost wanted to run.

But there was nowhere to go, and the professor’s gaze was still locked on you, waiting for some sign of acknowledgment. So you forced a nod, swallowing hard, your pulse thundering in your ears.

When class finally ended, you practically bolted up from your seat, gathering your things in a clumsy rush. All you could think about was escaping before you did something mortifying—like spontaneously combusting from the intensity of the situation.

But you weren’t fast enough.

Jake Sim stood waiting for you in the aisle. You noticed, with a sinking sensation in your stomach, that he was even taller up close, shoulders broad under that signature hoodie, a slight quirk to his full lips as he watched you fluster about.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low but clear in the post-lecture murmur. “Guess we’re partners, huh?”

Your heart just about crawled up your throat and died there. You couldn’t form coherent words. Instead, you let out some pathetic sound halfway between a squeak and a cough.

Jake’s brows rose a fraction, and that quirk at the corner of his lips deepened. “You okay?”

No. Absolutely not. Your palms were sweating, your cheeks were on fire, and your core was still buzzing with the aftereffects of your morning orgasm. Knowing he was so close—close enough to smell the faint hint of laundry detergent clinging to his hoodie—nearly made your knees buckle.

“Uh, yeah,” you managed, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. “Just—tired.”

“Tired,” he echoed, giving you an appraising once-over. “Rough morning?”

You swallowed, a traitorous flush creeping up your neck. He had no idea just how rough.

“Something like that,” you muttered, pretending to rummage in your backpack to avoid meeting his gaze.

Jake shrugged. “Well, we should probably figure out a time to meet up for the project. Professor wants a proposal next week.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so…normal. Meanwhile, your head was spinning because you were about to be in a room alone with him, studying economics, while your body screamed for him to fuck you senseless.

“Uh, yeah,” you repeated, feeling like a malfunctioning robot. “We…should definitely do that.”

God, you wanted to slap yourself. Could you be any more awkward?

Jake tilted his head, brown eyes flicking over you again, a subtle curiosity in his gaze. “How about tomorrow? Afternoon?”

Tomorrow. That meant you had less than twenty-four hours to get your shit together—to not end up a quivering puddle of arousal at his feet. Less than a day to build up some sort of immunity to his existence.

But you nodded anyway, because what else could you do? “Sure. Works for me.”

He gave a little smile, just a quick curve of his mouth, but it was enough to make your stomach tighten painfully. “Cool. I’ll, uh—text you, I guess?”

“Yeah. Text. Right.”

Your tongue felt leaden and stupid, and your heart hammered wildly against your ribcage. You wondered if he could hear it—wondered if he’d notice the pulse beating in your throat or sense the way your entire body vibrated with the memory of your morning orgasm.

But Jake just nodded again, hands sliding into the pockets of his hoodie. “See you tomorrow, then.”

He turned and left, effortlessly blending into the crowd of students filtering out the door. You stood there like an idiot, your mind replaying the conversation, analyzing every second for hints of pity or amusement on his part.

He didn’t seem weirded out. Didn’t seem suspicious of why you were so…flustered. He’d probably forget about you the moment he headed to his next class.

Meanwhile, you?

You tried to breathe, leaning heavily against one of the desks as you clutched your notes to your chest. Your thighs pressed together, a pitiful attempt to quell the ache that refused to leave you alone. It was as if your body recognized him on some primal level and refused to let go of the fact that he was standing right in front of you.

He had no idea how badly you wanted him—no clue you literally jacked off to his name almost every morning, that you were always late because you were too busy chasing orgasm after orgasm in a delirious haze of lust.

Well, now you’d have to fake it—pretend that you were normal, that you weren’t some perverted mess drooling over him in secret. You just hoped you could keep it together, especially once you were locked in a study room together, going over spreadsheets and supply-demand curves while your body screamed for something entirely different.

And worst of all, you had the sinking feeling that tomorrow’s routine wouldn’t be any different. You’d probably still wake up, still stroke your throbbing clit to the thought of Jake’s voice, Jake’s hands, Jake’s cock…

But maybe, just maybe, you’d manage not to be late this time.

Fat chance.

-

Studying with Jake Sim was a fucking nightmare—in the filthiest, most torturous way possible.

He had this infuriating habit of showing up in the laziest outfits imaginable, usually some combination of sweatpants and a hoodie. You might’ve thought the casual attire would make him look approachable or less intimidating, but it only did the opposite. He wore those gray sweats like a second skin, settling into his chair with an ease that bordered on sinful. His legs spread obscenely wide, claiming space that shouldn’t be his to claim.

The hoodie was somehow worse. It clung to his broad shoulders, emphasizing the sharp line of his collarbones and the solid build of his chest. And since he always—always—rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, you were treated to the tantalizing sight of his forearms: faint veins tracing a path over lightly tanned skin, muscles shifting whenever he flexed his fingers or picked up a pen.

It drove you insane.

Every time he tilted his head in thought, his hair would slip across his forehead, drawing attention to the dark, intense eyes beneath. Sometimes he licked his lips—absently, like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it—and every time it happened, a low, pulsing heat rippled through your stomach.

But the worst part? Jake had a thing for tits.

You first noticed it in the little stuff: the way his gaze drifted south whenever you leaned over your notes, the split-second hesitation in his voice if your shirt happened to be cut too low. His eyes would flick to your chest, then dart away so quickly you’d think you’d imagined it—except the slight tension in his jaw proved otherwise.

He tried to hide it. Tried to keep himself polite and focused on the assignment, but the more you studied together, the more obvious it became. He had to physically force himself not to stare, clenching his jaw or gripping his pen with a little too much force whenever your shirt shifted in just the right way.

Eventually, you decided to test him.

One night, you showed up at his place wearing a tight little tank top—no bra underneath, of course. The fabric hugged your curves, thin enough that your nipples peaked through whenever the room got too cold. You pretended to be completely oblivious, scrolling through your laptop as though there wasn’t a very obvious reason Jake’s gaze kept snagging on your chest.

His reaction was immediate. The second you walked in, his eyes darkened, pupils dilating as they betrayed his interest. He coughed, cleared his throat, and busied himself with the project notes, but he couldn’t hide the subtle tremor in his voice when he asked, “So, um, ready to start?”

You dragged a chair up to the small desk, taking care to sit opposite him so he’d have an unobstructed view. For a while, you both pretended to work—typing away, sorting through textbooks, exchanging random facts about supply and demand. But every time you spoke, his attention drifted down, no matter how hard he tried to stay focused on your face.

Your heart pounded every time you caught him looking. Desire coiled low in your belly, and your nipples tightened beneath the thin fabric, practically begging for him to notice. Your entire body thrummed with this heady mixture of confidence and need, and you couldn’t help but push it further.

“Ugh, it’s so hot in here,” you sighed dramatically, arching your back to stretch. The movement sent your breasts straining against the tank top, and you saw Jake’s jaw clench, the tendons in his neck standing out as he forced himself not to stare directly at you.

He tried to keep his cool, but his next words came out more clipped than usual. “I can open the window.”

You shrugged, letting the straps of the tank top slide a fraction of an inch down your shoulder. “Nah,” you said, voice laced with feigned innocence. “Don’t worry about it.”

The tension in the air was palpable, an almost electric charge crackling between you. Your thighs pressed together beneath the desk, desperate for some kind of friction. You could practically feel his gaze lingering on your chest when you looked away, fueling that simmering warmth between your legs.

Finally, Jake snapped.

“You do that shit on purpose, don’t you?” he muttered, voice pitched low and tight enough to send shivers skittering down your spine.

You fought the smirk threatening to curve your lips. Your stomach flipped with excitement and arousal. “Do what?” you asked, feigning obliviousness, even though your heart was about to hammer out of your chest.

He exhaled slowly, eyes flicking to the tank top that was barely containing your chest. “You know what,” he ground out, then made a visible effort to calm himself, dragging his gaze to your face.

It took everything in you not to let out a triumphant laugh. You could see the frustration warring with desire in his dark eyes, saw the way his fingers curled into fists as if he had to physically restrain himself. There was a fine tremor in his forearms—those fucking forearms—that made your insides clench with a perverse satisfaction.

Your own arousal pulsed, nipples practically aching as they brushed against the fabric. There was this suffocating urge to crawl into his lap, to press your tits against his chest and see just how fast you could break that composure. But you held back. Because that wasn’t the plan. Not yet.

“I’m just trying to study,” you said, tone as sweet as sugar, batting your eyelashes in an overdone performance of innocence.

Jake’s stare hardened, and for a moment, you thought he might say something brash—something that would make the air sizzle. But he merely set his jaw, took a long, measured breath, and turned back to the notes.

“Right. Study,” he mumbled, jaw working like he was trying to chew through nails.

You bit your lip to smother a grin, your pulse still thrumming in your ears from the pure, uncut tension between you. Your nipples were so stiff they practically throbbed; you had to shift in your seat to accommodate the constant, nagging ache in your core.

Nothing else happened that night—no heated kisses, no tangled limbs—but it didn’t need to. The filth was already there, simmering beneath every glance, every roll of his shoulders, every suppressed flick of his gaze toward your tits. You could sense the unspoken hunger radiating off him like heat waves, matching the relentless heartbeat pounding in your own chest.

And that was more than enough to leave you soaking by the time you finally left.

-

You woke up with a pounding need at the base of your spine. It was deeper than usual, an ache that gnawed at you relentlessly, demanding satisfaction. The worst part? You already knew exactly who you were going to picture to take the edge off:

Jake Sim.

Every nerve in your body thrummed with anticipation, remembering the way he’d looked at you during your last study session—eyes flickering from your face down to your chest, jaw clenched like he was fighting some internal battle. You’d left his dorm with slick thighs and your mind racing, your entire body aflame.

Today, you wanted to push your usual routine even further. Your fingers alone wouldn’t cut it. With your teeth worrying your bottom lip, you slipped out of bed and rummaged through your nightstand until your hand closed around the small, discreet vibrator you’d impulsively bought a few weeks ago. It was sleek, silicone-coated, made for exactly the kind of play you were craving.

You bit back a trembling sigh and grabbed your phone, propping it against a pillow at the foot of your bed. The little red light began to blink, capturing you in all your messy, unmade-bed glory—hair tangled, cheeks still carrying the warmth of sleep, and a fiercely determined look in your eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” you whispered, half to yourself, half to the imaginary version of Jake you conjured whenever you got off.

But you didn’t hesitate. You shed your oversized T-shirt, tossing it aside to expose bare skin. Your nipples peaked in the cool air, and you ran a hand over one breast, giving it a light squeeze before trailing your palm down over your stomach. You settled into the pillows, propping your hips up slightly so the camera had a perfect view.

“Jake,” you murmured, letting your thighs fall apart, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Your free hand teased your clit, already slick with arousal, while the other clutched the vibrator. The buzzing anticipation in your veins intensified as you clicked it on, feeling the soft hum rattle against your palm.

Normally, you’d sink it straight into your cunt, but today, you were craving something more depraved. Your breath hitched at the thought of that taboo stretch you barely ever indulged—your ass. The mere idea of Jake guiding it inside you, watching you squirm as you took it deeper, was enough to send a fresh gush of heat through your body.

“Fuck,” you mumbled, heart hammering as you angled the toy behind you. “Jake, I want you…want you here.”

Carefully, you smeared your own wetness over the silicone, letting your middle finger gather some of the slick so it’d slide in smoothly. A gasp broke from your throat the moment you pressed the vibrator’s tip to that tight ring of muscle—just the tiniest bit of pressure made your nerves light up like a live wire.

You couldn’t help the shameless moan that echoed off your bedroom walls. Even though it was just the tip, the sensation had you delirious. You spread your cheeks with one hand, guiding the buzzing silicone in a fraction of an inch, your body tensing and then relaxing around it. A ragged whine tore from your lips.

You could almost feel Jake’s hands there, big and warm, whispering filth in your ear:

“Relax. You can take it. Just like that—fuck, look at you…”

Your other hand found your clit, rubbing messy circles that turned your moans into broken sobs of pleasure. Each slow push of the vibrator inched deeper, stretching you in a way that made your eyes roll back.

“Nngh—Jake, please,” you babbled, voice shaking as you tried to push it just a bit further. “Wish it was your cock…wish you’d pin me down and shove it all the way in…”

You couldn’t hold back. The pressure and vibration melded into something explosive, your clit throbbing under your frantic fingertips. Every muscle in your body coiled tighter, lungs seizing as you hovered on the precipice. The camera recorded it all—the sweat beading at your temples, the flushed curve of your cheeks, the wet, filthy sounds filling the room.

Then it hit. Your orgasm came crashing down, ripping a strangled scream from your throat. Your legs shook, your ass clamping around the toy, your cunt pulsing in sympathy. You writhed against the sheets, half-blinded by the force of it, tears pricking your eyes from the overwhelming relief.

It felt like forever before you could breathe again, the buzz in your nerves slowly receding. You eased the vibrator out, wincing at the hyper-sensitivity, then stopped the recording with a trembling hand. On the screen, the thumbnail showed a glimpse of you with your mouth open in a silent cry, body arched off the bed, pure rapture etched on your face.

Fuck. If Jake ever saw that…

But there wasn’t time for guilt or second thoughts. A glance at the clock made your heart plummet—it was late, and you had to scramble to get to class before your professor threatened to fail you for tardiness. Again.

You only managed a quick wipe-down, barely rinsing the toy and tossing it in a drawer, before you yanked on clothes and sprinted out the door, phone still warm in your pocket from the video you’d just recorded.

The lecture hall was already half-full when you snuck in. You found your seat, cheeks still hot from both the run across campus and the memory of the vibrator filling your ass less than an hour ago. You avoided Jake’s eyes completely, which was easy because he was focused on the front of the class—though you could still feel the tension that seemed to magnetize you whenever he was close.

Throughout the lesson, your mind wandered, replaying the moment of penetration, the hum of the toy, the fantasy of Jake’s hands gripping your hips. You clenched your thighs under the desk, wishing you could burn the images out of your head.

Little did you know, in just a few hours, your world would implode in the filthiest way imaginable.

That evening, you met Jake for a study session in his dorm. The room was small but cozy, a lived-in space with a single bed in the corner, textbooks piled on the floor. He greeted you at the door, wearing a fitted T-shirt that stretched across his shoulders in a way that made your pulse flutter.

“Hey,” he said, stepping aside so you could walk in. “Let’s try to knock out the rest of the research tonight.”

You nodded stiffly, mouth dry. You were always too aware of him—his scent, the way the muscle in his jaw worked when he concentrated, the slight furrow of his brows. It didn’t help that you’d spent your morning taking a vibrator in your ass, moaning his name like you were possessed.

You settled at the small desk with your laptop, while Jake sat on the bed flipping through a shared Google Doc on his phone. The tension was thick enough to taste. Sometimes you swore you caught him watching you from the corner of his eye, but every time you glanced over, he was scrolling or typing, expression neutral.

After about twenty minutes, the soda you’d chugged on your way over came back to haunt you. You needed the bathroom—badly.

“I’ll be right back,” you muttered, closing your laptop’s lid but not fully locking it. Nerves and bladder pressure made you forget the simplest precaution: you’d left a minimized window open from transferring your new “vibrator video” into your private folder.

Jake just nodded. “Sure. Down the hall, last door on the left.”

You slipped out of the dorm, heart still fluttering, mind on autopilot. The hallway was dimly lit, and you disappeared into the bathroom, exhaling a relieved sigh once the door clicked shut.

Alone in the room, Jake glanced at your laptop, noticing the faint glow beneath the lid. Curiosity—mixed with something deeper—bubbled in his chest. He’d been suspecting something was up with you, ever since you arrived late looking thoroughly wrecked every morning. The tension you carried around him was obvious, and he’d caught glimpses of…subtle clues.

With a swift move, he lifted the laptop’s lid. The screen flickered back to life, revealing a folder half-tucked behind your research notes. A folder labeled something simple, but ominous: “Private.”

He should’ve stopped. Should’ve told himself it was none of his business. But a stubborn, electric thrill spurred him to open it. A series of video files stared back at him, each with a plain name—things like “Vid001,” “Vid002.” And the most recent one? Time-stamped that morning.

His heart thudded. He clicked on it.

What loaded made his blood run hot.

You. Naked. Bent back on your bed with a vibrator in your ass, face scrunched up in a mix of pain and pleasure as you eased it deeper. The audio kicked in, and Jake’s eyes went wide when he heard your moans:

“Jake…God, I want you so deep in me…wanna be stretched by your cock…”

His pulse roared in his ears. The image on the screen was so explicit it felt like a punch to the gut. You whimpered, back arched, your hand working your clit with desperate speed, all while the vibrator buzzed between your spread cheeks. And the filthy things you were saying—how you wanted him to shove it all the way in, how you wished it was his cock instead of cold silicone.

Jake’s cock twitched in his pants, heat pooling low in his gut. He watched, transfixed, as your face contorted in a mind-blowing orgasm, your body jerking, thighs trembling. You were screaming his name through it all.

A low, shaky exhalation left his lips. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Sure, he’d suspected you had some kind of thing for him, but this? This was on another level. You were a wrecked, filthy, ass-play-obsessed mess, and all of it was for him.

He paused the video at the peak of your orgasm, hand nearly trembling with adrenaline. Blood pounded in his ears, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Part of him wanted to keep watching, to see every second of your depravity, but he had to be quick. You’d be back any minute.

With an almost reverent care, he closed out of the folder and gently lowered the laptop’s lid. Then he dragged in a ragged breath, trying to get his heart rate under control.

His mind raced. You were a shy presence at times, stumbling over words, blushing whenever he looked at you too long. Yet behind closed doors, you were filming yourself stretching your ass with a vibrator, moaning his name like he was the only person in the world.

Jake could barely contain the predatory thrill that coursed through him. He tried to shove the arousal down, adjusting his position on the bed so he didn’t look painfully hard if you walked in that second. But there was no ignoring the fact that everything had changed.

You had no idea what you’d just handed him, and Jake was more than ready to see how you’d squirm now that he had proof of just how desperately you wanted him.

-

You barely made it through class without combusting.

Your skin felt too hot, every nerve in your body on edge, a lingering burn still coiled between your thighs from the morning’s routine. As if that wasn’t bad enough, every time Jake so much as shifted in his seat, your body reacted—trained by weeks, months, of late mornings spent getting yourself off to the very thought of him.

And then, class ended.

The moment you stepped into the hall, still shaken, still barely holding it together, Jake was waiting for you.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his broad chest, looking infuriatingly calm while you felt like you were on the verge of collapsing. His dark eyes flicked over you, a slow drag, lingering just long enough to make your stomach tighten. He wasn’t just looking at you—he was studying you, examining you, as if piecing together a puzzle that had finally clicked into place.

A slow curl of heat unfurled in your belly. Something about the way he held your gaze, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips, made you feel exposed. Laid bare.

Something was wrong.

Your hands curled into fists at your sides, breath uneven as you tried to keep your face neutral. “What?” you asked, attempting to sound indifferent, but your voice betrayed you, cracking slightly on the single word.

Jake didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he let the silence stretch, dragging his tongue over his lower lip in thought. His fingers twitched against his arms where they were crossed over his chest, and his gaze dipped lower—not just over your body, but like he was seeing straight through you.

Your stomach clenched. He knew something.

“Didn’t sleep well?” he finally asked, voice deceptively casual.

Your heart lurched. He was playing with you.

You forced yourself to scoff. “What are you talking about?”

Jake hummed, tilting his head slightly, and your stomach sank at the knowing glint in his eyes. You felt yourself locking up, body screaming at you to flee, but it was too late.

“I wonder…” he mused, tapping his fingers against his arm. “Is that why you’re always late?”

The world tilted beneath you.

Your throat closed, fingers twitching at your sides, because he didn’t say it like an accusation—he said it like a revelation.

Jake took a step closer, and you swore your knees almost buckled.

“You’re always late,” he murmured, voice smooth as sin, laced with amusement. He tilted his head slightly, eyes never leaving yours as he leaned in just enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. “Always looking like you’ve just been fucked.”

Your breath hitched. Your pulse roared in your ears.

“What—” Your voice barely worked, caught between panic and something even deeper—something raw, electric, dangerous.

Jake’s lips curved, dark amusement flashing across his face. “You get off before class, don’t you?”

Your entire body went up in flames. Your thighs clenched so tightly that you swore he could see it, see the way his words wrecked you from the inside out.

Jake didn’t wait for you to answer. He already knew. He had proof.

The realization crashed into you like a truck. The video.

Your breath caught in your throat.

Your laptop. The folder. The fucking recording from that morning.

The vibrator. The way you moaned his name. The way you begged for it to be him.

Jake had seen it.

Oh my god.

He had fucking seen it.

A low chuckle vibrated from deep in his chest, his lips twitching upward at the sheer horror that must have been written all over your face. His eyes darkened, filling with something lethal, something triumphant.

And then came the final blow—the words that shattered you, sent that familiar ache between your legs into something unbearable.

“You could’ve just asked me to help, baby.”

Your stomach dropped. Your knees almost buckled.

You were done for.

The world tilted on its axis. Everything else around you—the bustling students, the muffled sounds of conversations, the faint scraping of chairs against tile—blurred into meaningless background noise. All that existed was him. His smirk. His words. The absolute certainty in his voice that left no room for denial.

Your mouth opened, some kind of weak protest forming on your tongue, but Jake moved closer, shutting you down before you even had a chance to breathe. His presence was overwhelming, his body heat radiating off him like a furnace, his scent—clean, musky, laced with something so distinctly him—filling your senses, making your knees weak.

“You get off before class,” he repeated, softer this time, almost teasing, like he was savoring the confession he had yet to hear from your own lips. His voice dropped lower, becoming something dark, possessive. “And you think about me when you do it, don’t you?”

Your lungs seized. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t breathe.

Jake tilted his head, studying you, watching the way your fingers twitched at your sides, the way your lips parted in a silent gasp, the way your thighs pressed together instinctively—as if that would do anything to stop the inevitable, the brutal ache between your legs that he had just made ten times worse.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” His voice was smooth, dripping with mocking confidence, because he knew you couldn’t.

Your brain scrambled for an escape. For an excuse. For anything that might get you out of this, because if you admitted it—if you said it out loud—there would be no turning back. You’d be his. Completely. Utterly.

Jake was too close now, his breath fanning over the shell of your ear, his tone taunting. “What is it, baby?” His fingers ghosted along your wrist, not quite touching but close enough to drive you insane. “Cat got your tongue? Or are you too busy thinking about the way you spread your legs for me every morning?”

Your breath left you in a shattered gasp.

You shouldn’t have reacted. You knew better. But your body betrayed you—your thighs clenched harder, your nipples tightened under the thin fabric of your shirt, your entire core clenched around nothing, desperate for the friction you had been denying yourself all class.

Jake saw it. He saw everything.

He chuckled, voice dark and satisfied. “Oh, you really are a filthy little thing, aren’t you?”

Your body burned.

Jake smirked. His fingers—strong, veined, perfect—finally reached you, just the barest brush of his knuckle against the inside of your wrist, but it sent a violent shudder through you.

And now, he fucking knew it.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said smoothly, turning away like he hadn’t just left you a trembling, soaking mess in the middle of the hallway.

-

You spent the entire day in a state of absolute wreckage.

After Jake’s confrontation in the hallway, after his words had wrapped around you like a noose, you had barely functioned. Your thoughts were a mess, your body useless, stuck in a constant loop of shame, arousal, and anticipation. He had seen it. He had seen you—spread out, stuffed full, moaning his name like a desperate, filthy thing. And now, tonight, you had to face him again.

Your stomach flipped violently as you stood in front of your bathroom mirror, gripping the sink, forcing yourself to take slow, measured breaths.

You had to get it together. You had to act like you weren’t already falling apart before you even stepped into his dorm.

But the problem was—you were. You so were.

The moment you let your mind wander, it all came rushing back. Jake’s voice, low and taunting. His gaze, dark and knowing. The way his fingers had hovered so close to your skin, how he had whispered filth into your ear like he already owned you.

And now, tonight, he would.

Your breath shuddered. Your thighs clenched.

You couldn’t go to him like this, already weak and needy. You needed to take the edge off, just enough to think clearly, just enough to face him without completely unraveling the second he looked at you.

Your hand slipped beneath the waistband of your shorts before you could think twice.

You sighed, the relief instant as your fingers slid through the ridiculous mess between your legs. You were soaked, soaked, had been all day. It was humiliating, how little it took. The heat, the tension, the memory of him catching you—it had left you dripping, thighs sticky and aching since the moment he walked away from you in that hallway.

But tonight, you needed more than your fingers.

Your eyes flicked to the cool bathroom sink, and your breath hitched.

You turned around, hands bracing against the counter, angling yourself just right before slipping your fingers behind you, dragging them through your folds from the back, teasing your entrance in a way that made your legs tremble.

A gasp ripped from your throat as you pressed two fingers inside, stretching yourself open while your hips rocked forward, grinding your clit against the cold, smooth porcelain. The sensation was overwhelming—the deep, slow stretch inside you paired with the delicious friction against your swollen, aching clit.

“F-Fuck,” you whimpered, forehead pressing against the mirror as you humped the sink, fingering yourself deeper, imagining it was Jake standing behind you, one big hand on your hip, the other sliding down between your legs to keep you in place while he filled you up.

Your breath came ragged, hips stuttering, thighs quivering as you rode the edge, grinding your clit down harder, fucking your fingers deeper, thinking about how Jake would hold you still, how he’d groan against your ear, whispering, “You’re such a needy little thing, aren’t you?”

Your stomach tightened, the orgasm coiling, building, about to—

And then your phone buzzed.

You froze.

Your heart stopped. Your stomach plummeted. Your fingers stilled immediately, guilt crashing over you in suffocating waves.

You scrambled for your phone, unlocking it with shaking hands.

Jake: Don’t. Touch. Yourself.

Your blood ran cold.

You swallowed, staring at the text, heart pounding as another one came through.

Jake: You’ll do that when you’re here.

Your breath left you in a shaky exhale, thighs clenching involuntarily at the absolute authority in his words. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, could only sit there, fingers still buried inside yourself, aching, trembling, waiting.

Then—

Jake: And when you get here? You’re going to show me just how much you need it.

Your entire body shuddered.

Your clit pulsed beneath your untouched folds, but you didn’t dare move. Not now. Not when you were seconds away from finishing, and Jake had just ripped that privilege away from you.

Another text buzzed onto the screen.

Jake: If you’re even a second late, I’ll make you wait even longer.

You swallowed a whimper. You had to go. Now.

Your legs felt like they barely worked as you stumbled up from the sink, heart hammering, stomach twisting into knots of frustration, anticipation, arousal so thick you could choke on it.

You had no idea how you were going to survive this night.

-

You hesitated outside Jake’s door, hands clammy, thighs pressed together so tightly it almost hurt.

Your body wasn’t over it.

Not even close.

The bathroom incident had left you on the brink, your body still buzzing, still needy, still aching for something you weren’t allowed to have until you stepped inside. You could still feel it—the cool sink against your clit, the way your own fingers had stretched you open from behind, the way Jake’s texts had snapped you back to reality at the worst possible moment.

And now you were here.

You wiped your palms on your thighs, forced yourself to breathe, forced yourself to knock even though every part of you screamed run.

The door opened almost immediately.

Jake stood there, leaning against the frame, one hand braced above his head, the other resting casually in the pocket of his sweatpants. His eyes raked over you, scanning your body like he already knew what kind of state you were in.

Like he could smell it on you.

You swallowed hard, barely holding back a whimper.

“Come in.”

His voice was smooth, deep, dripping with something dangerous. He stepped aside, leaving just enough space for you to squeeze past him. The second you moved, his hand brushed against your lower back—a simple touch, barely even there, but it felt like a brand.

Your breath hitched.

The door clicked shut behind you.

You were alone with him now.

The air felt thick, suffocating, charged. You could hear your own pulse pounding in your ears, the faint sound of your breath coming in quick, uneven puffs. Your nerves were a mess, anticipation tangling with embarrassment because—

You knew why you were here.

And so did Jake.

You took a shaky step forward, barely processing the way Jake moved behind you. Slow. Calculated.

“So,” he murmured, the heat of his breath suddenly right at your ear. “Are you gonna tell me how close you were?”

Your entire body seized up.

He wasn’t touching you—not yet—but his presence alone was suffocating, pressing against you like a heavy weight.

You licked your lips, swallowed hard. “W-what?”

Jake chuckled.

“Don’t play dumb, baby.” His fingers ghosted over your hip, just enough to make you tremble. “I told you not to touch yourself. And yet…”

You sucked in a breath as his other hand trailed up, dragging two fingers over your exposed throat, pressing just lightly enough that your head tipped back on instinct.

“You couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Your thighs clenched.

His touch was barely there but it was too much. Too much, because you were already soaked, already aching, already at the point where you’d do anything—

But he wasn’t giving it to you.

Not yet.

Instead, he pressed his fingers just a little more firmly against your throat, tilting your head back so you had no choice but to look at him. His dark eyes held yours, and the corner of his mouth curled.

“Be honest with me.”

You swallowed hard, heat pooling between your thighs.

Jake’s fingers brushed down your throat, slow, teasing, until they rested just beneath your collarbone. His thumb dragged lower, just barely dipping beneath the neckline of your shirt.

You could barely breathe.

You shouldn’t have been this turned on just from a few words. Just from the way his thumb traced your skin, from the way he was looking at you like he already owned you.

But then he leaned in, so fucking close, lips just barely brushing against your ear as he whispered—

“How close were you when I told you to stop?”

A whimper escaped you before you could stop it.

Jake groaned, low and satisfied. His fingers tightened, just enough to make your breath catch, just enough to make your body scream for more.

“I bet you were close.” His breath was hot, his tone mocking. “I bet you were right there, fingers dripping, about to make a mess of yourself.”

You bit your lip hard enough to sting, trying to stop the truth from slipping out.

Because if he knew the full truth—if he knew what you’d actually been doing—

Grinding against the bathroom sink, rubbing your clit against the cool porcelain like some desperate, shameless thing—

You’d die on the spot.

Jake must have sensed it. Felt it. Because his fingers curled against your chin, tilting your face up. His eyes searched yours, his smirk deepening, his voice dropping even lower.

“What else?”

Your pulse skipped. “W-what?”

His lips nearly brushed yours. “You were doing more than just touching yourself, weren’t you?”

You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Your silence was a dead giveaway.

Jake chuckled, dark and knowing. His grip on your chin tightened. “Tell me.”

Your stomach dropped.

“I—I…” The words got stuck in your throat.

His smirk widened. “You’re gonna say it out loud, baby. Or I’ll make you.”

Your breath shook, your entire body on the verge of collapse. You wanted to fight it, wanted to pretend you still had some dignity left, but Jake’s gaze was relentless.

And he wouldn’t let you go until you gave him what he wanted.

A deep, humiliating heat spread over your body as you finally whispered, “I—I was…grinding against the sink.”

Jake inhaled sharply, his entire body going still.

His grip on your chin tightened, and for a moment, you thought he might snap. He didn’t move, didn’t speak—just processed what you’d just admitted.

Then, slowly, so deliberately that it made your stomach flip, he let out a low, dark chuckle.

“Fuck,” he muttered, his free hand flexing at his side. “That’s what you were doing?”

You nodded weakly, shame pooling in your stomach.

Jake exhaled through his nose, his jaw clenching, and suddenly, his hand slid from your chin to your throat, holding you there—not squeezing, just keeping you still.

“You’re a filthy little thing, aren’t you?”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Jake smirked, something dangerous flashing in his gaze, something calculated.

“You’re gonna show me,” he murmured. “Later.”

Your breath hitched.

“And I’m gonna take a video.”

Your knees nearly gave out.

Jake sat back on his bed, legs spread wide, leaning against the headboard with an ease that only made the situation worse—or better, depending on how you looked at it. His hoodie was gone, discarded somewhere in the room, leaving nothing but smooth, bare skin, the sharp lines of his collarbones, the toned muscles of his chest, and the faintest trail of hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his sweatpants.

But what really ruined you was the bulge straining against the soft fabric of his grey sweats.

It was… big. Heavy. Obscene. The kind of size that made your stomach clench with something dangerously close to desperation. He wasn’t even touching himself, wasn’t even adjusting—just sitting there, watching you like he had all the time in the world.

And then he did something that made your breath stutter.

He reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his phone, unlocking it with a single flick before tilting his head at you, smirk lazy, expectant.

“I’m filming this,” he murmured, voice dripping with authority. “Start stripping.”

Your stomach flipped.

Your body burned.

You should have hesitated—should have felt embarrassed, should have tried to argue—but the only thing you felt was a deep, thrilling pulse between your legs.

You didn’t even question it.

Your hands moved before your brain caught up, fingers gripping the hem of your shirt, peeling it up slowly, dragging it over your stomach, higher, teasing yourself as much as you were teasing him. The air felt thick, charged, electric as you bared more skin, the camera recording every second.

Jake hummed approvingly. “Good girl. Keep going.”

The shirt hit the floor. You reached for your shorts next, hooking your thumbs into the waistband, dragging them down inch by inch, knowing exactly how much of a show you were giving him.

By the time you stood before him, stripped down to nothing but your soaked panties, Jake’s smirk had sharpened into something dangerous.

“Lose those too,” he ordered, tilting the phone slightly to capture your every movement.

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop.

You slid your hands down, curling your fingers beneath the waistband, peeling them down agonizingly slow, letting the fabric drag over your thighs before stepping out of them completely.

Now you were bare.

Jake exhaled through his nose, pleased. His free hand dragged over his own thigh, fingers flexing, his grip tightening the moment you stepped forward, fully exposed, completely his.

“Touch yourself,” he commanded. “Let me see what you do when you think about me.”

You obeyed instantly, trailing your fingers over your stomach, your thighs, your hips—everywhere but where you needed it most. Your breath came in slow, teasing gasps as you let your fingers finally slip lower, grazing your clit, a sharp whimper escaping as you made contact with the aching heat between your legs.

Jake groaned, the sound low, filthy.

“Louder.”

You whimpered, fingers pressing deeper, moving slower, dragging the pleasure out just to tease him, just to see how long he’d let you keep control.

“Louder,” he said again, voice darker this time. “I want to hear every filthy little sound you make.”

Something inside you snapped.

You moaned. Loudly.

Then again. And again.

It was like you couldn’t stop. The moment the first shameless, desperate noise slipped past your lips, your mouth wouldn’t close, your voice wouldn’t stop spilling every thought you had.

“Jake—fuck—I think about you all the time—”

Your fingers slid deeper, your hips rocking into the pressure.

“I think about your hands, how big they are, how rough they’d feel on me—”

Jake let out a low, ragged groan, his fingers twitching against the bed.

“I think about your mouth, how you’d ruin me with it, how you’d hold me still and make me take it—”

Your breath hitched as you spread your legs wider, rubbing yourself faster, your mind a mess of filth.

“I think about your cock,” you gasped, your fingers slick, sliding in and out shamelessly. “How big it is, how you’d stretch me open, how you’d fill me so fucking deep—”

Jake exhaled sharply, his jaw locked, his knuckles turning white against his thigh.

Then, in an instant, he moved.

You barely had time to react before his hand wrapped around your throat, gripping firm, dominant, unrelenting as he dragged you forward. Your breath caught, a choked gasp escaping as he pulled you right into his lap, forcing you to straddle him, the heat of his body pressing against you.

His grip tightened, not enough to hurt, just enough to make you feel it.

“Stop pretending,” he growled, his breath hot against your lips, his other hand pushing between your thighs, feeling how soaked you were. “You want to act like a shy little thing? Like you’re so innocent?”

His fingers dragged through your slick, making you tremble, making you whimper as your hands gripped his shoulders for support.

“Enough of that.” His thumb pressed against your throat, tilting your head back, his gaze dark, dangerous. “Start acting like the filthy little slut you actually are.”

Something in you broke open.

You whimpered, thighs clenching, your fingers digging into his skin as your hips rolled forward, grinding against his sweatpants, against the huge, heavy bulge pressing against you.

Jake groaned, his grip on your throat flexing, his lips twitching into something darkly amused as you completely fell apart for him.

“There she is,” he murmured. “That’s what I wanted.”

Your mouth ran wild, the words spilling before you could stop them—

“I want you to ruin me, Jake—”

You rocked against him, panting, desperate, his hand tight in your hair now, keeping you in place, making you take it.

“Want you to spread me open—make me take every inch of you—”

Jake groaned, low and wrecked, his hands gripping your hips, holding you against him as you rubbed yourself raw against his cock, soaking his sweatpants with how desperate you were.

You did exactly that.

You pulled your fingers out, spreading your slick between them, before shifting positions—

Turning around.

Bending over.

Spreading yourself open for him.

A sharp, gritted curse came from behind you.

Jake’s fingers flexed against his thigh, his entire body going rigid as he took in the sight before him—your ass up, your fingers teasing at your entrance, the shameless, dripping mess you were making of yourself.

He let out a slow, heavy breath, one that sounded so ragged, so fucking strained, that you almost moaned just from hearing it.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, voice low, wrecked.

And that was the moment you knew.

Jake was going to destroy you.

Jake let the silence stretch, let the weight of his gaze sink into you, let you feel just how much he was holding back—barely.

You were still bent over in front of him, still spreading yourself wide, still waiting, dripping, panting, desperate, while he sat back and took his time.

His voice, low, rough, taunting:

“You think this is how I’d fuck you?”

Your stomach plummeted.

Jake exhaled sharply, dragging a hand over his jaw before shaking his head, clicking his tongue in mock disappointment.

“That’s cute, baby,” he murmured, shifting forward until you could feel his heat against you, his presence looming over your back, his breath hitting your spine.

But then—

He grabbed your hips, both hands firm, controlling, and yanked you back against him. Your breath hitched, a choked gasp slipping from your lips at the sudden contact—your bare, slick heat pressing against the thick, hard outline of his cock.

Jake groaned, low, deep, wrecked, his fingers tightening, his chest heaving as he held you there, perfectly still, completely at his mercy.

“First mistake,” he muttered, voice rough against your ear. “You wouldn’t be in charge of how fast or slow I fuck you. That’s my job.”

A shudder ran through you, your hands clenching against the sheets as Jake’s grip ground you against him, making you feel every inch of his cock through his sweatpants.

“Second mistake?” he continued, dragging his fingers over the curve of your ass, featherlight, teasing. “You think I’d let you touch yourself first?”

Your breath caught as his hand moved lower, closer, his touch just barely skimming over your soaked entrance, not enough, not even close, just a tease.

His fingers—elegant, veined, strong—dragged through your slick, gathering it, smearing it over you, spreading you open, making you tremble.

“I’d have you like this first,” Jake murmured, voice silk and gravel, his breath hitting the nape of your neck as his fingers teased, circled, prodded, but never gave you what you needed. “Dripping. Begging.”

His fingers brushed over your tight, untouched entrance, slicking it up with your own mess, and you whimpered, hips jolting forward on instinct, trying to escape the sensation—

But Jake just chuckled.

“Oh?” His tone was mocking, amused. “That got your attention?”

Your whole body seized, heat flaming through your spine, burning at your core, because—

He was still teasing your ass.

Just barely, just the pad of his fingertip, smearing your slick in slow, lazy circles, pressing, nudging, teasing, but not pushing inside.

And he wasn’t letting you run from it.

His free hand pressed into your lower back, keeping you right where he wanted you, keeping you spread, exposed, open.

“You think about this too?” he murmured, voice dark, edged with pure sin. “You think about my fingers stretching you out?”

Your throat closed, your body burning, your breath hitching in a desperate, humiliated whimper, because—

Yes.

Yes, you did.

Jake chuckled, pleased, tilting his head as if piecing it all together.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered, his fingertip pressing just a little more insistently, not pushing in yet, just teasing, just threatening to. “You should’ve seen yourself.”

Your pulse pounded.

“I bet you don’t even know how messy you looked,” he continued, mocking, condescending. “Whimpering, drooling all over your pillow, fucking yourself open for me.”

Your entire body jerked, because you knew exactly what video he was talking about.

Jake just laughed under his breath, slow, deliberate, dragging it out.

“I don’t even think you knew what you were saying, baby,” he murmured, voice almost affectionate, like he was reminiscing. “Kept whining about how you wished it was my cock stretching you open, stuffing you full.”

A wrecked, desperate moan tore from your throat before you could stop it.

Jake groaned, low, pleased.

“There it is,” he murmured. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

His finger pressed harder, circling, coaxing, never giving you enough—just teasing, just pushing your body past what it thought it could take.

His other hand moved.

His fingers found your clit, pinching, rolling, flicking over the swollen bud with zero mercy.

You gasped, your legs nearly giving out, your moan high, broken, utterly wrecked.

Jake groaned at the sound, his own restraint hanging by a thread, but he wasn’t done yet.

“Stick your tongue out,” he ordered, voice deep, commanding.

You barely had time to process the words before your mouth obeyed, tongue slipping out, slick and needy, desperate for whatever he’d give you.

Jake exhaled through his nose, satisfied.

He shoved his fingers inside your mouth.

You whined, head tilting back as he pressed deeper, letting you taste the salt of his skin, letting you soak them, letting you understand exactly what he was about to do.

“Suck,” he murmured, and you did, your lips wrapping around his fingers, your tongue laving over them, your moans vibrating through your chest.

Jake cursed under his breath, his cock twitching hard beneath his sweatpants, his control hanging on by a fucking thread.

He pulled his fingers out, slick, wet, dripping with your spit.

And then he shoved that same finger inside you.

Your whole body jerked, your breath stuttering, your mind blanking completely as the wet stretch burned, as your body took him, clenched around him, pulled him deeper.

Jake groaned, his free hand slamming onto your lower back, keeping you still, forcing you to take it.

“God,” he muttered, voice strained. “Look at you.”

His finger slid deeper, fucking into you, spreading you open, filling you slowly, deliberately, ruining you.

“You were made for this, weren’t you?” he murmured. “Made to be filled.”

Your moans shattered, your legs trembling, your hands gripping the sheets, your whole body unraveling under him.

Jake just smirked, watching you come apart.

“That’s okay, baby,” he murmured, his lips curling against your ear. “I’m gonna make sure you take it better than that next time.”

Your stomach dropped.

Next time.

Jake just smirked.

“Oh,” he murmured, voice lethal. “And don’t forget—I’m filming the next one.”

Jake had had enough.

Enough of teasing, enough of waiting, enough of holding back while you squirmed, while you whimpered, while you dripped all over yourself without him even needing to try.

Now he was going to ruin you.

His fingers slid out of you slowly, deliberately, letting you feel every inch of the slick drag, letting your body clench around nothing, aching, desperate for more.

You whined, shifting, pushing back instinctively, chasing friction, but Jake’s hands were already on you, pushing you down, flipping you onto your back in one smooth motion.

Before you could even catch your breath, he was on you.

His grip locked onto your thighs, spreading you wide, forcing your legs apart so you had no choice but to bare yourself to him completely.

Your pulse roared in your ears.

Jake exhaled slowly, his eyes dark, hungry, his gaze locked onto the messy, dripping heat between your legs.

“Fuck,” he muttered, almost to himself, his fingers flexing against your thighs, holding you open like you belonged to him.

Your stomach flipped. Your breath hitched. Your body throbbed.

“Be a good girl and show me how bad you want it.”

Your brain blanked.

You knew what he meant. Knew he was testing you. Knew he wanted to see if you were still pretending, still holding back, still playing shy when you were already dripping for him.

He would stop.

He would kick you out.

His voice was low, slow, unforgiving when he spoke again. “If you don’t act like the whore I know you are, I’m gonna stop. And I’m gonna make you leave.”

Your breath shattered.

The weight of his words hit you like a slap to the face.

No more hesitation. No more nerves. No more pretending.

Your whole body flushed hot, heat spreading from your cheeks down to your core as you swallowed your pride, swallowed your shame, and did exactly what he asked.

You let your thighs fall even wider, your hands sliding down your stomach, past your hips, until your fingers spread yourself open for him, letting him see everything.

Jake’s breath left him in a ragged curse.

“That’s it,” he muttered, almost to himself. “There she is.”

His mouth latched onto you immediately, tongue dragging through your folds, hot and wet and messy, licking up every bit of slick that had spilled from you since he started his torment.

You screamed.

Your hands flew to his hair, fingers tangling in the soft strands, pulling, gripping, holding on for dear life as Jake ate you alive.

He groaned against you, the vibration sending shockwaves through your core, making your hips buck, making you writhe beneath him.

But Jake was ready for it.

His arms hooked under your thighs, locking them over his shoulders, his hands gripping your hips tight, pinning you down as he worked you over with his tongue, messy and relentless, like he was trying to drown in you.

“Oh my fucking—Jake—”

You gasped, sobbed, choked on your own moans, because he wasn’t just licking you,

He was devouring you.

Sucking, flicking, rolling his tongue over your clit, dipping lower to fuck you with it, groaning into you every time your walls fluttered around the slick muscle.

Your body twitched, overwhelmed, shaking under the pressure of his grip, the raw, unrelenting pace of his tongue.

He was merciless.

No teasing. No holding back.

Just Jake, consuming you, controlling you, wrecking you.

Your thighs tensed, your stomach tightened, your breath coming in short, sharp, desperate gasps, and Jake fucking felt it.

He knew you were close.

So he got mean.

He pulled away just enough to whisper against your swollen, drenched folds—

“Make a mess of my face, baby.”

Your stomach dropped.

He sucked your clit into his mouth and flicked his tongue over it hard.

Everything snapped.

Your whole body bowed, your mouth falling open in a silent scream, your vision blurring, blanking, as pleasure slammed into you, violent and unforgiving.

You came hard, your body convulsing, your legs trying to snap shut around his head, but Jake just held you there, kept you wide open, kept his tongue right where you needed it, licking you through it, dragging it out until you were a shaking, sobbing mess beneath him.

When it finally became too much, when your whimpers turned into soft, wrecked sobs, Jake eased up, pressing slow, teasing kisses against your oversensitive clit before finally pulling away.

Your chest heaved, your skin flushed, your whole body buzzing, as you blinked up at the ceiling, completely wrecked, ruined, destroyed.

Jake sat back, grinning, his lips and chin shiny, slick, messy with you.

His voice was smug, satisfied, when he finally spoke.

“That’s my girl.”

You were still panting, still trembling, your body wrecked from the brutal pace of his tongue. But Jake wasn’t done with you yet.

Not even close.

Before you could recover, before you could even think, his hands were on you again, flipping you onto your stomach with zero effort, pressing his weight down against you, his body hot, heavy, overwhelming.

You barely had time to catch your breath before you felt it,

The thick, hot length of his cock pressing between your thighs, dragging through your slick, coating himself in the mess he’d made of you.

Your whole body shuddered.

“Gonna fuck you now,” he murmured against the shell of your ear, voice dark, dangerous. “You ready for me, baby?”

You barely managed to nod, your hips tilting up, your back arching, offering yourself up to him in the filthiest display of submission.

Jake groaned, his breath shuddering against your shoulder.

“Yeah, you are,” he muttered, almost to himself. “You’ve been ready for me since day one.”

Your breath hitched when he pulled back, when you felt him shift, when you felt him line himself up,

You felt it.

The thick, heavy weight of his cock sliding between your folds, dragging over your clit, teasing your entrance, spreading you open inch by inch, but not pushing in yet.

You whimpered, a wrecked, frustrated sound, trying to push back, trying to take him, but Jake’s hands were on your hips immediately, holding you still.

“Not yet,” he murmured, voice taunting, smug. “You feel that?”

Your whole body tightened as he dragged himself over your entrance again, so close but still not giving it to you.

“Feel how big I am?”

You nodded furiously, eyes blown wide, unfocused, needy, trying to breathe through the overwhelming feeling of his cock stretching you open already before he was even inside.

Jake chuckled, one hand leaving your hip, gripping the thick base of himself, dragging the fat, swollen head against your entrance over and over, smearing your slick across his length.

“Bet you thought about it, huh?” he murmured, his free hand sliding up your back, pressing between your shoulder blades, forcing you further into the mattress. “Bet you imagined how deep I’d be.”

A wrecked, whiny little moan tumbled from your lips.

Yeah. You had.

And now you could feel it.

Jake was thick. Heavy. Long enough that you knew he was going to ruin you completely.

The head of his cock was flushed a deep, angry red, already slick with precum and the mess you’d made of yourself. A thick vein ran down the underside, pulsing against your entrance as he dragged himself over your folds again and again, teasing, taunting, letting you feel every single inch of what was about to wreck you.

Your thighs shook, your hands fisting the sheets, your whole body fighting to stay still.

Jake smirked.

“Want it that bad?”

You nodded frantically, whimpering, pressing back against him, desperate to be filled.

Jake groaned, low, dark, lethal.

He spat directly onto your asshole.

Your whole body jerked violently, your breath choking out of you, a sharp, desperate gasp breaking from your throat at the filthy, messy sound of it.

Jake chuckled darkly, rubbing the wetness into you with his thumb, spreading it over your tight entrance, teasing, circling, smearing it with your own slick.

“Thought about this too, huh?” he murmured, pressing just the tip of his thumb against it, making your thighs tremble, making your stomach flip, making you whine.

But he didn’t push in.

No—he dragged his spit-slicked thumb down, tracing it between your folds, pressing it against your clit in a slow, taunting rub just as he finally—

Pushed inside.

Your mouth fell open in a wrecked, silent scream, your entire body going taut, because Jake didn’t ease in.

He split you open.

A long, low groan rumbled in his chest, his fingers tightening on your hips, his breath shaking as he forced you to take every inch.

“Fuck, baby,” he hissed, his voice strained, wrecked, strained as he buried himself to the hilt. “So fucking tight.”

Your fingernails dug into the sheets, your legs shaking, your breath completely gone, because the stretch was unbearable, overwhelming, perfect.

Jake didn’t move right away.

He let you feel it.

Feel how deep he was, how full he made you, how there was no more space inside you for anything else but him.

He pulled back, 

And slammed back in.

Your whole body jolted forward, a sharp, shocked moan spilling from your lips as Jake set a brutal, punishing pace immediately.

“You’re gonna take it like a good little slut, yeah?” he growled, his voice low, rough, filthy. “Gonna take it just like you do in those videos?”

You sobbed, whimpered, nodded frantically, barely able to form words, barely able to breathe.

Jake groaned, watching you fall apart, watching you drool all over his cock, watching your mouth fall open in perfect, wordless pleasure.

He leaned down, teeth grazing your ear, his pace never faltering, pounding into you so deep you saw stars.

“Push back on it,” he ordered.

You barely even registered the command—just obeyed immediately, rocking back against him, meeting every thrust, taking him like you were made for it.

Jake growled, his grip tightening, watching the way his cock slid in and out of you, watching the way you took every inch, watching the way you spread yourself open for him completely.

“Good girl,” he gritted out, sweat dripping from his temples, his breath ragged. “That’s it, baby. Show me what a good little whore you are.”

His fingers slid back down, toying with your clit, rubbing it in tight, filthy circles, his thrusts getting harder, deeper, meaner.

Your vision blurred.

Your body shook violently.

“Jake—fuck—I can’t—”

He chuckled darkly, leaning over you again, his lips brushing your ear as he ruined you completely.

“Yes, you can.”

“Be a good girl and come all over my cock.”

Your whole world shattered.

The air in the room was thick, heavy with the scent of sex and sweat and everything filthy you’d just done.

Your body was still shaking, your limbs still boneless, every nerve still buzzing from the way Jake had just completely, utterly wrecked you.

His hands were on you again.

Gentle.

You barely registered the shift at first—too dazed, too exhausted, too blissed out to notice the way Jake’s grip had softened, the way his rough, dominant touch had turned into something careful, careful, careful.

You blinked, still coming down, still floating, as Jake slowly eased himself out of you, hushing you immediately when you whimpered at the loss.

“I know, baby,” he murmured, his voice softer now, a stark contrast to the filthy, merciless way he’d been talking to you minutes ago.

Your brows furrowed in confusion.

Because Jake sounded different.

You barely had time to process it before he moved, scooping you up effortlessly, pulling you into his lap like you were the most precious fucking thing in the world.

Your stomach flipped.

“Jake—”

“Shh.”

His lips brushed your forehead.

Your heart skipped. Your breath caught.

Because Jake had kissed you.

For the first time. But not on your lips.

Not yet.

His hands rubbed slow, soothing circles over your back, his voice a quiet murmur against your skin. “Are you okay?”

You blinked at him, completely thrown. Because what the fuck?

Where was the cocky, filthy-mouthed Jake who had just spent the past hour ruining your entire existence?

Where was the smug, insufferable bastard who had made you beg for it, who had spat on your ass, who had laughed while you drooled all over his cock?

Because the guy holding you now? Was someone else entirely. His hands were warm, steady, grounding. His gaze was soft, searching, real.

Your lips parted, still stunned, but before you could say anything, Jake let out a quiet, almost nervous chuckle.

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face before looking back at you. “I should’ve kissed you first.”

Your breath hitched.

Jake exhaled, shaking his head. “Before all of that.” His fingers traced light, delicate patterns up and down your spine. “Didn’t want the first time I kissed you to be during sex.”

Something in your chest ached. You didn’t know what to say.

Because this wasn’t what you expected.

Jake had spent weeks taunting you, teasing you, pushing you past your limits— Now he was holding you like he never wanted to let go. You swallowed, watching him carefully, studying him, trying to understand.

“Why?” you whispered.

Jake’s lips curled into a small, almost sheepish smirk.

His fingers found your chin, tilting your face up to his.

“Because I wanted it to mean something.”

Your entire body stilled. Your pulse roared in your ears.

Jake held your gaze, serious now, voice soft but firm.

“I don’t share,” he murmured.

Your stomach plummeted.

Your lips parted, but no sound came out. Jake tilted his head, his fingers sliding up to cup your jaw, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone, so gentle, so intimate, so fucking real.

“I don’t want this to be a one-time thing,” he continued, his voice low, steady, certain. “I don’t want you fucking anyone else.”

Your breath shuddered. Jake’s eyes flickered down to your lips, slowly He finally kissed you.

Slow. Deep. Consuming.

And just like that, you knew you were done for.

-

Jake’s words from that first night still haunted you.

“You’re gonna show me later.”

You were.

The bathroom lights were dim, the mirror already fogging up from the heat of the room, but none of that mattered. Not when Jake was standing behind you, one hand gripping your hip, the other holding his phone, recording every filthy, desperate second.

Your palms were pressed against the edge of the sink, your body bent forward, the cold porcelain digging into your clit as you grinded against it, mimicking exactly what he had caught you doing before.

Only this time, Jake was fucking you through it.

His cock dragged in and out of you, slow at first, deep and deliberate, splitting you open, making you feel every thick, devastating inch as you rocked your hips forward, rubbing yourself against the sink just like you had before he ever touched you.

Now, Jake was watching.

Now, Jake was inside you.

His breath was hot against your neck, his free hand trailing up your spine, fingers pressing between your shoulder blades, pushing you further down against the sink, making you spread your legs wider, making you take more of him, making you completely his.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmured, his voice wrecked, low, approving, his free hand digging into your hip, holding you exactly where he wanted you. “Just like that. Just like you did for me before I ever fucking touched you.”

Your moans were high, gasping, desperate, bouncing off the tile walls, growing louder and louder as Jake’s thrusts grew faster, sharper, filthier.

“Look at yourself,” he growled, angling the phone so you could see the reflection—see the way your face was contorted with pleasure, see the way your tits bounced with every thrust, see the way his cock disappeared inside you, stretching you wide, filling you completely.

You locked eyes with him through the mirror, and something snapped.

A slow, wicked smirk curled on your lips, and suddenly, the whimpering mess you had been was gone.

You arched your back further, pushing your ass back against him, grinding onto his cock, fucking yourself onto him even harder, your mouth spilling filth without hesitation.

“You see that, baby?” Your voice was thick with sin, sultry and commanding. “See how good your cock looks inside me? Stretching me open like I was fucking made for it?”

Jake groaned, dark and wrecked, his grip tightening on your hips.

“Oh, you like that?” you cooed, deliberately clenching around him, making him hiss through his teeth. “Like watching me fuck myself on you?”

He gritted his teeth. “Jesus Christ.”

“Thought about this for so long,” you purred, rolling your hips. “Thought about you taking me like this—filming me—showing me what a good little slut I am for you.”

Jake cursed under his breath, his thrusts growing harder, faster, deeper, his control shattering as he pounded into you, forcing you against the sink, making you feel every fucking inch.

“You wanna keep talking, baby?” he gritted out, his hand snaking up to grip your throat, making you hold his gaze in the mirror. “Or do you wanna fucking come?”

Your moan broke, your whole body trembling, your legs shaking violently.

“I—I want both,” you gasped, a shameless, breathless mess. “Wanna come all over your cock while you fucking record it. Wanna make the dirtiest fucking video for you—so you can watch me fall apart over and over—”

Jake groaned, his restraint snapping completely.

His hand slid between your thighs, rubbing you mercilessly, his cock slamming into you faster, harder, filthier, and before you could even process it—

You were screaming, your orgasm ripping through you violently, your whole body convulsing, shaking, breaking apart.

Jake got every second on video.

-

Jake liked to smoke weed after long days.

He liked to do it while wrecking you.

The air was thick with smoke, the room hot, hazy, suffocating in the most intoxicating way. You were sprawled out on his bed, your thighs spread wide, your wrists pinned beside your head as Jake’s tongue dragged lazy, filthy circles over your clit, lapping at you with zero urgency, completely unbothered by how fucking desperate you were getting.

In his free hand? A joint.

Burning slow. The smoke curling through the air, weaving between your tangled bodies, seeping into your skin, into your mind, into your bones.

Every nerve in your body was on fire. Every slow, teasing flick of his tongue felt magnified, every inhale he took deepening the fog that was swallowing you whole.

You moaned, squirming, your fingers digging into the sheets as your hips lifted, chasing his mouth, trying to get more, but Jake just chuckled darkly, pinning you down, refusing to let you take control.

He lifted his head slightly, blowing a long, slow stream of thick, warm smoke over your drenched, swollen clit.

Your body jerked violently, a sharp cry breaking from your throat, the sensation too much, too overwhelming, too fucking filthy.

“Fuck—Jake—”

He groaned, lazy, satisfied, licking his lips before dragging his tongue through your folds again, so slow, so teasing, so fucking unbearable.

“Sensitive, baby?” His voice was thick, taunting, dripping with amusement. He took another deep inhale from the joint, holding the smoke in his lungs, letting his fingers slide through your wetness, teasing, circling, rubbing—but never giving you enough.

He exhaled another thick, slow drag of smoke, letting it roll over your heat, watching as the wisps curled around your trembling thighs, your stomach, your completely wrecked, ruined body.

A wrecked, filthy moan spilled from your lips.

Jake smirked against your inner thigh, watching you twitch, tremble, shake, watching your chest rise and fall rapidly, watching the way your fingers clawed at the sheets, desperate for more.

“You like that, baby?” he murmured, his fingers sliding deeper, pressing inside you so fucking slow, dragging against your walls, curling just right.

You whimpered, back arching off the mattress. “Yes—fuck, yes—”

Jake hummed approvingly, the sound low and sinful, his lips dragging over your inner thigh, nipping at the soft flesh, teasing, taunting.

He did something unholy.

He brought the joint down,

And pressed the burning tip directly to your clit.

It didn’t hurt—it was barely a graze, the heat of the ember just close enough to send a violent shockwave of pleasure-pain through your entire fucking body.

You screamed, your legs snapping closed around his head, but Jake just growled, gripping your thighs and spreading them wide again, forcing you open for him.

“Ah, ah,” he tutted, bringing the joint back to his lips for another slow, deep pull. “Keep those legs open, baby.”

Your chest heaved, your mind spinning, every part of you hypersensitive, overstimulated, teetering on the fucking edge.

Jake watched you, eyes blown, hungry, dark, as he reached between your thighs again, his fingers finding your swollen, overstimulated clit, rubbing messy, lazy circles, smearing your slick, keeping you right there, right on the brink.

He exhaled another cloud of smoke, letting it roll directly over your heat.

Your moan broke, a sharp, wrecked sob, your body tensing, shaking, fighting the unbearable pressure building inside you.

“Oh, baby,” Jake mocked, his voice thick with sin, his fingers never stopping, never slowing. “You’re gonna fucking come just from this, aren’t you?”

You nodded frantically, whimpering, writhing, your whole body fighting to hold itself together.

Jake’s lips twitched, his cock straining against his sweats, his own control slipping as he dragged the joint over your soaked folds, rubbing the tip against your clit, watching you jerk, watching your legs tremble, watching you fall apart for him.

You said it.

Your voice was high, wrecked, desperate.

“Please, Daddy.”

Jake froze.

He let out a deep, low groan, something dark flashing in his eyes. His grip on your thighs tightened, his body tensed, his restraint snapping completely.

His voice was rough, strained, wrecked beyond recognition.

“Say that shit again.”

You whimpered, grinding against nothing, teetering right on the edge of something violent.

“Please, Daddy,” you repeated, voice syrupy sweet, dripping with sin. “I need it. Need you to make me come so fucking hard I forget my own name—”

Jake growled, his entire body shuddering, his control obliterated.

He took another slow inhale,

He pressed the joint back to your clit, the heat searing, shocking, sending a violent shudder through your entire body.

Your legs spasmed, your stomach tensed, and suddenly you were gushing, soaking his face, his chest, the sheets beneath you, every single muscle in your body seizing as you squirted all over him.

Jake groaned loudly, his hand gripping your thigh bruisingly tight, his tongue lapping up the mess you made, drinking you down, humming against your dripping folds like he’d just found his new favorite way to get high.

Jake took the joint, still damp from where he’d pressed it against your soaked heat, brought it back to his lips, and took one final, slow hit.

His exhale was slow, deep, pure sin as he looked down at you, wrecked, spent, twitching beneath him.

He leaned in, grabbed your jaw, and kissed you.

Filthy. Deep. Destroying.

Smoke still lingered on his tongue, on his breath, invading your lungs, intoxicating you more than any drug ever could.

His teeth tugged at your lower lip, his hand gripping the back of your neck, holding you exactly where he wanted you.

And as he pulled away, leaving you breathless, ruined, completely fucking gone, he grinned against your lips, voice nothing but a low, wrecked murmur.

“Bet you taste even better than the high, baby.”

-

The bathroom was already steaming, condensation rolling down the glass shower door, the air thick with humidity—and the sounds of Jake fucking you senseless.

Your body was pressed against the glass, the cool surface a stark contrast to your feverish, flushed skin, your nipples dragging against it with every brutal thrust, leaving streaks of your desperation across the fogged-up surface.

Jake’s hands were everywhere—one gripping your hip tight enough to bruise, the other wrapped around your throat, holding you in place, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.

Fucking lethal.

“You wanted this, huh?” he growled, his breath hot against your ear, his cock slamming into you from behind, deep, ruthless, unforgiving. “Wanted Daddy to take you like this?”

You whimpered, your forehead pressing into the glass, your nails scraping uselessly against it, because you had no control over anything anymore.

Jake wasn’t just fucking you. He was owning you.

His hand on your throat tightened, forcing you to lift your head, making you stare at your own fucked-out reflection in the glass.

“Look at you,” he murmured, his tone condescending, filthy, dripping with amusement. “You see yourself, baby?”

Your mouth hung open, your lips puffy, swollen, wrecked, your body shaking with every deep thrust, your nipples dragging against the slick surface of the glass, leaving desperate little streaks with every movement.

Jake chuckled darkly. “So fucking dumb for me, huh?”

You tried to speak—tried to say something, anything—but all that came out was a wrecked, helpless little sob.

Jake groaned, his free hand sliding down, gripping your jaw, forcing your head back, forcing you to keep looking.

“You wanted to fuck me in the shower?” he mocked, his hips snapping forward, burying himself so deep you saw fucking stars. “Now you can barely even stand.”

Your whole body convulsed, your walls clenching tightly around him, and Jake felt it.

Felt how fucking wrecked you were.

Felt how close you were.

And he wasn’t having it.

Not yet.

His thrusts suddenly slowed, the brutal, relentless pace shifting into deep, slow, torturous rolls of his hips, dragging his cock out of you so slowly, before slamming back inside.

You sobbed, the glass fogging up from your panting, helpless gasps.

“Oh, you don’t like that, baby?” he taunted, his grip on your jaw tightening, his thumb pushing into your mouth, forcing it open. “Thought you wanted Daddy to fuck you. What happened, huh?”

You whimpered around his thumb, your tongue lapping at the rough pad, sucking instinctively, needing something to hold onto before you fucking lost your mind.

Jake groaned, his pace picking up again, faster, harsher, filthier, his cock hitting deep, devastating spots inside you that made your legs buckle beneath you.

Your moans grew louder, more desperate, high, gasping little cries that bounced off the tile walls, mixing with the sounds of skin slapping against skin, the shower running, the heavy panting of both of you completely fucking falling apart.

Jake leaned in, his teeth grazing the shell of your ear, his hand on your jaw sliding down, wrapping fully around your throat.

“You’re gonna take everything I give you,” he murmured, low, dark, dangerous.

You nodded frantically, whimpering, your hands bracing against the glass, leaving messy little fingerprints in the condensation.

Jake groaned, watching you lose yourself, watching the way your body responded to him, the way you trembled, the way you fucking fell apart for him.

“Go ahead, baby,” he murmured, his thrusts turning erratic, ruthless, brutal, perfect. “Come for me.”

Your whole body snapped.

A shattered, broken moan spilled from your lips as your orgasm slammed into you, your walls clenching, pulsing, milking him, your body shaking violently as wave after wave of pleasure consumed you.

Jake cursed, his grip tightening, his own breath shattering against your ear as he thrust into you a few more times, then he buried himself deep, groaning through gritted teeth, coming inside you, his body tensing, shaking, completely fucking wrecked.

The only sound left in the room was your panting breaths, the steady patter of the shower, the faint creak of the glass as your bodies pressed against it, spent, ruined, completely fucking gone.

Jake’s hands slid to your hips, his grip softening, pulling you back against his chest, wrapping his arms around you as his forehead pressed against the back of your neck.

A quiet, breathless chuckle escaped him. “Damn, baby.”

You laughed, weak, fucked-out, completely ruined.

“Next time,” he murmured, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your shoulder. “You’re riding me.”

-

Jake had never been gentle.

Not really. Not when it came to you.

Because you pulled something reckless, desperate, uncontrollable out of him.

Tonight was different.

The candles flickered softly, the scent of warm vanilla filling the air, mixing with the faint traces of Jake’s cologne on his sheets. The playlist he made for you played quietly in the background, soft, slow, achingly sweet.

Jake was looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.

His hands were slow, careful, reverent as he traced your body, fingertips ghosting over your bare skin, leaving shivers in their wake.

He hovered over you, his gaze heavy, intense, the way he always looked at you when he was about to ruin you.

Tonight, he was going to love you.

“Happy one month, baby,” he murmured, brushing his lips over yours, soft, teasing, unbearably tender.

Your stomach flipped, your chest aching, your fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him down, needing more.

Jake chuckled against your mouth, letting you kiss him, letting you taste the slow, burning affection behind every drag of his lips.

“You always so needy for me, huh?” he teased, grinning against your mouth, teasing but soft, always so soft.

You pouted, fingers tightening in his hair, pulling him closer, deeper, slower.

Jake groaned, his body pressing into yours, his warmth wrapping around you, completely engulfing you.

And when he finally—finally—pushed inside you, it was the slowest thing you’d ever felt.

A sharp gasp slipped from your lips, your head falling back as Jake’s body sank into yours, inch by inch, stretching you, filling you completely.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his forehead pressing against yours, his breath uneven, wrecked, completely lost in you.

You clenched around him, your thighs tightening around his hips, pulling him deeper, needing more,

But Jake just smirked, shaking his head, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your jaw.

“Not rushing tonight, baby,” he murmured, voice low, gentle, soothing, but firm. “Gonna take my time with you.”

Your chest ached, your breath shaking, your fingers sliding down his back, gripping onto him, holding him close.

Jake moved slowly, agonizingly so, rolling his hips into yours in long, deep strokes, his body pressed flush against you, his lips tracing every inch of your skin.

It was everything.

The way he whispered against your lips, soft, teasing, murmuring about how perfect you felt, how much he loved being inside you.

The way he kissed you between every word, slow, messy, deep, like he needed you to feel every bit of how much he wanted you, adored you, fucking loved you.

The way his hands caressed your body, memorizing every inch of you, fingertips dragging over your waist, your ribs, your thighs, like he needed to burn you into his skin.

It was soft.

It was overwhelming.

It was Jake, giving you every single piece of himself.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, voice thick, wrecked, raw, his lips pressing against your temple, your cheek, your jaw, before finding your lips again.

And when he finally—finally—pushed you over the edge, it was like drowning.

Your orgasm hit slow, deep, all-consuming, your whole body melting into his, your fingers gripping his shoulders like he was the only thing keeping you tethered to this earth.

Jake followed right after, burying himself deep, shuddering, groaning into your mouth, completely fucking lost in you.

When you were spent, ruined, completely wrapped up in him, he didn’t move.

Didn’t pull away. Didn’t let you go.

Instead, he cupped your face, brushing his thumb over your cheek, soft, tender, adoring.

He kissed you.

Slow. Lingering. Perfect.

“I Love you,” he murmured, lips still pressed against yours, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your heart skipped.

Your breath hitched.

When you whispered it back, Jake smiled against your mouth.

-

Jake had been staring at you for a full ten minutes.

Not subtly. Not in passing. Full-on, pouty-lipped, arms-crossed, lovesick puppy-dog-eyes staring.

You had noticed, of course—you always noticed when Jake was desperate for attention—but you had been trying to see how long he would hold out before cracking. You scrolled through your phone lazily, sipping from your water bottle, pretending to be completely oblivious to the fact that your boyfriend was sulking next to you like you had just broken his heart.

A deep, dramatic sigh.

You smirked, tilting your head just slightly to catch him in your peripheral. Sure enough, he was still pouting, still glaring at you like you had done something terrible.

You raised a brow. “What?”

Jake let out another, even heavier sigh, rolling onto his side to face you, his arms curling around your waist, pulling you against him like you were his last source of oxygen.

“You haven’t kissed me yet,” he muttered, muffled against your shirt.

You blinked. “What?”

Jake lifted his head, his expression pure devastation.

“You haven’t kissed me,” he repeated, dead serious.

You couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up in your throat. “Jake—”

“Jakey,” he corrected, pointing to his cheek expectantly.

You bit your lip, eyes glimmering with amusement, but leaned in anyway, pressing a soft, slow peck to his cheek.

Jake let out the happiest sigh, his lips curling into the softest, sweetest little smile, eyes fluttering shut like he had just been granted salvation.

“Mmm,” he hummed, squeezing you tighter. “Better.”

You shook your head, laughing softly, trailing your fingers through his hair, but before you could pull away, he was tilting his chin up, tapping his other cheek.

“Missed a spot.”

You rolled your eyes, but indulged him, pressing another gentle kiss to his other cheek.

Jake sighed even deeper, his hands tightening around your waist, his grin growing even wider.

“Good girl,” he murmured, pressing his face into your neck, breathing you in.

You bit your lip, heart melting at how soft, sweet, and completely in love he was. Jake had his moods—he could be cocky, insatiable, dominant, but this? This was your favorite.

He nuzzled against you, sighing softly. “You know, I’ve been thinking about our wedding.”

Your breath hitched. “Oh?”

Jake just nodded, his smile so content, so blissful.

“Yeah. I’ve got it all planned out,” he mused, tilting his chin up expectantly again.

You smirked. “What?”

Jake pointed to his lips.

You giggled, leaning down, kissing him slow, savoring the soft little hum he let out, the way his fingers curled tighter into your sides.

When you pulled away, he was grinning like an idiot.

“Okay, so,” he started, eyes glimmering. “It’s gotta be on a beach. You in some flowy-ass dress, looking like a literal angel.”

You smiled at the thought, pressing another kiss to his temple.

Jake sighed, eyes slipping shut for a moment, his body completely relaxed, completely wrapped up in the idea.

“And our honeymoon?” he continued, his voice getting even softer, even dreamier. “Bora Bora. Or the Maldives. Somewhere I can keep you in bed for a whole week.”

You gasped, swatting his chest playfully. “Jake—”

“Jakey,” he corrected again, glaring immediately.

You sighed dramatically, leaning down and pressing a peck to his nose.

Jake sighed, so blissed out he could barely speak for a second.

“God, I love you,” he murmured, pressing tiny kisses to your collarbone, your shoulder, anywhere he could reach.

You smiled against his skin, your lips still ghosting over his temple. “Love you too.”

Jake hummed, shifting so he could press his forehead against yours, his fingers tracing slow, lazy circles on your back.

“You know,” he started, his voice lower, softer, full of something even deeper. “I was thinking three kids. Two boys, one girl.”

You smiled. “Oh yeah?”

“Or,” he continued, grinning, “what if we get twins? Like, one of each?”

You kissed his cheek. “You’re ridiculous.”

Jake huffed, tugging you closer, burying himself into your warmth. “Not ridiculous. Just in love.”

He closed his eyes, sighing. “You’re gonna stay home, right? Take care of the house, the kids, let me take care of you?”

Your chest tightened. “You’d be okay with that?”

He snorted, pulling back to look at you like you had lost your mind. “Baby, I’d love that. I’d spoil you rotten.”

Your stomach flipped.

“Think about it,” he murmured, his voice turning lower, teasing. “You, waiting for me when I come home, wearing one of my shirts, telling me how much you missed me.”

You felt hot all over.

He smirked. “God, you’d be the best little housewife.”

You pressed your face into his chest, flustered, overwhelmed, completely wrapped around his finger.

Jake just laughed, holding you so tight, so safe, so his.

“And the house?” he murmured, squeezing your waist. “We need something big, but cozy. A huge kitchen—‘cause I know you love to cook. A fireplace, maybe? A backyard for the kids. A big-ass bed so I can keep you all to myself.”

You whined, squeezing your eyes shut. “Jake, stop.”

Jake grinned. “Jakey,” he corrected one last time, tapping his lips.

You rolled your eyes but leaned down anyway, kissing him slow, soft, deep.

He sighed into it, his fingers curling into your hair, holding you there, kissing you like he had all the time in the world.

And when you pulled away, breathless, hearts pounding, he whispered against your lips, “You’re gonna marry me.”

Your chest ached.

You couldn’t wait to. “Yeah, Jakey. I’m gonna marry you.”

-

The morning had started innocent enough.

At least, as innocent as waking up naked and tangled with Jake Sim could be.

You were supposed to get up early. You were supposed to go to class on time for once. But then Jake shifted, his warm, bare skin pressing into yours, his breath heavy against your ear, his hand already sliding between your thighs before you were even fully awake.

“Morning, baby,” he murmured, raspy, teasing, completely unbothered by the fact that you were already running late.

You lost all track of time.

Jake didn’t need to touch you to ruin you.

Sometimes, all it took was his voice.

“You’re not gonna make it to class, are you?” he mused, low and smug, his lips brushing against your ear.

You shuddered, squeezing your eyes shut as you pressed your thighs together, trying to ignore the way your body reacted to just his words.

Jake chuckled, shifting so he was propped up on one elbow, looking down at you like he was already planning how much worse he was going to make it. Slow, teasing, torturously confident.

“You always do this,” he murmured, tracing lazy patterns along your stomach. “Pretend you’re gonna leave. Act like you’re strong enough to walk away from me.”

You swallowed hard, gripping the sheets, your chest rising and falling too quickly.

Jake smirked. He noticed.

“What’s wrong, baby?” His voice was taunting, almost sympathetic. “Already shaking and I haven’t even touched you yet?”

You exhaled sharply, squeezing your legs tighter together.

Jake tsked. “Oh, sweetheart.”

His hand ghosted down, his fingers dragging over your hip, down the outside of your thigh, barely there, completely teasing.

“You’re already soaked, aren’t you?”

You whimpered, biting your lip, refusing to answer.

He hummed, shaking his head. “So easy for me.”

You turned your head, hiding your face against the pillow, but Jake wasn’t having that.

“Look at me,” he murmured, low and firm, the kind of tone that made your stomach flip.

You hesitated, but turned back, meeting his gaze. His eyes were dark, heavy, filled with pure amusement.

“There’s my good girl,” he murmured, running a finger down your cheek, his voice turning softer, but still full of that unbearable smugness.

You swallowed, trying to keep your breathing even, but Jake could see right through you.

“You don’t wanna go to class,” he whispered, pressing his lips to your jaw, so soft, so slow. “You wanna stay right here, let me ruin you all over again.”

Your fingers dug into the sheets.

“Say it,” he coaxed, his hand sliding lower, his mouth hovering just above yours. “Tell me you’d rather be late.”

Your lips parted, your breath shaky.

Jake smirked, running his nose along your cheek, his lips brushing against the corner of your mouth.

“You wanna be good for me, don’t you, baby?”

You whimpered, your resolve crumbling.

And that’s all it took.

Jake chuckled, shifting over you fully, pressing you back into the mattress.

“That’s my girl.”

-

By the time you both finally dragged yourselves out of bed, you were already doomed.

Jake smirked as you struggled to stand on shaky legs, his grip on your waist firm as he steadied you, smug as ever.

“Careful, baby,” he murmured, biting his lip as he took in the mess he had made of you.

You shoved him, grumbling under your breath as you pulled on your sweater, knowing full well that no amount of adjusting was going to hide the way you looked thoroughly ruined.

Jake didn’t even try.

He pulled on the first hoodie he could find, rubbing a hand through his already-mussed-up hair, his lips still swollen from kissing you senseless.

By the time you actually left, you were beyond late.

Your professor narrowed his eyes immediately.

Jake grinned, throwing an arm around your shoulders like it was no big deal, guiding you to your seats with zero shame, zero regret.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” your professor said dryly, crossing his arms, glancing between the two of you.

You swallowed hard. “Uh, yeah, sorry,”

Your professor raised a brow. “You both look… disheveled.”

You felt your entire body heat up, shifting in your seat as Jake just smirked.

“Must’ve been the wind,” Jake said smoothly, kicking his feet up under the desk, looking completely unbothered.

Your professor wasn’t convinced.

He squinted, glancing at you, then at Jake, then back at you.

“Uh-huh,” he said slowly. “The wind.”

Jake grinned wider.

Your professor exhaled sharply, rubbing his temples. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

You nearly collapsed in relief, but Jake?

Jake was having way too much fun.

He leaned over, whispering in your ear, his voice low, teasing, smug.

“Baby, I think we’re getting too obvious.”

You resisted the urge to kick him under the desk.

From then on, every time you and Jake showed up late to class, looking like an absolute mess— Your professor just sighed, shook his head, and looked the other way.

fin.

-

TL: @ziiao @beariegyu @seonhoon @naurwayyyyy @somuchdard @ijustwannareadstuff20 @ddolleri @annybah @zzhengyu @elairah @dreamy-carat @geniejunn @kristynaaah @zoemeltigloos @mellowgalaxystrawberry @inlovewithningning @vveebee @m3wkledreamy @lovelycassy @highway-143 @koizekomi @tiny-shiny @simbabyikeu @cristy-101 @bloomiize @dearestdreamies @enhaverse713586 @cybe4ss @starniras @wonuziex

[mutualpiningg]

[btsaudge-deactivated20220717]

Taehyung’s MV appearances ~ 2013 to 2020

[dearest-rebecca]

TRAYVON MARTIN was walking home with an iced tea and Skittles. He was shot by George Zinneman, who was found not guilty.

KEITH SCOTT was sitting in a car, reading. He was shot by a police officer, who was not charged.

ATATIANA JEFFERSON was looking out her window, and was shot by a police officer, who is still under indictment for murder.

JONATHAN FERRELL was asking for help after an auto accident. He was shot twelve times by police, case ended in mistrial.

JORDAN EDWARDS was riding in a car and was shot in the back of the head by a police officer, who was found guilty of murder.

STEPHON CLARK was holding a cell phone, and was shot 8 times, 6 in the back. The officers were not charged.

AMADOU DIALLO while taking out his wallet, 41 shots were fired by four different officers. They were all acquitted.

RENISHA MCBRIDE after an auto accident, she knocked on someone’s door for help. The homeowner was found guilty of second-degree murder.

TAMIR RICE was playing with a toy gun, and was shot by police officer arriving on scene. Officer was not charged.

SEAN BELL was hosting a bachelor party. 50 rounds were fired by police officers who were found not guilty of charges.

WALTER SCOTT was pulled over for brake lights, and was shot in the back by a police officer who pleaded guilty to civil rights violations.

PHILANDO CASTILE was pulled over and told officer he had a legally registered weapon in car. Officer acquitted of all charges.

AIYANA JONES was sleeping and was accidentally shot by an officer in a raid on wrong apartment. Officer cleared of all charges.

TERRENCE CRUTCHER needed help when his vehicle broke down. Was shot by a police officer who was found not guilty of manslaughter.

ALTON STERLING was selling CDs, and was shot at close range while being arrested. No charges filed.

FREDDIE GRAY was beaten to death by officers while being transported in police van. All officers involved were acquitted.

JOHN CRAWFORD was shopping at WalMart, holding a BB gun that was on sale—police officer was not charged for his murder.

MICHAEL BROWN was shot twelve times by an officer, including in the back. No charges filed.

JORDAN DAVIS was killed because he was playing loud music. Shooter found guilty of first-degree murder.

SANDRA BLAND was pulled over for traffic ticket; was tasered and then arrested. Suspicious “suicide” while in jail. No charges.

BOTHAM JEAN was fatally shot in his home, which female officer ¿mistook for her own? (Which I’ll never understand.) Officer found guilty of murder.

OSCAR GRANT was handcuffed and placed face-down, officer then shot him in the back. Officer found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

COREY JONES was waiting by his car which was broken down, and was shot three times by police officer, who was found guilty of murder.

AHMAUD AUBREY was jogging. He was shot by two racist men who claimed they suspected him of burglaries. Both men were charged with murder and aggravated assault.

GEORGE FLOYD was suspected of alleged fraud. He handcuffed and pinned to the ground by an officer’s knee. He begged for mercy and he was ignored.

ERIC GARNER: Stopped for selling cigarettes on a nyc street and choked by a cop in broad daylight. Complications of the stress put on his throat by the hold caused his death; Openly said “I can’t breathe” several times and pretty much died while three other cops watched their compatriot kill a man. Eric was well known for just trying to sell goods as a side hustle and never actually hurt anybody.

DJ HENRY was fatally shot in his car by police officer Aaron Hess in the early morning hours of Oct. 17, 2010. DJ's passengers say they were doing nothing wrong when Hess ran out in front of them in the road. Hess says he only fired because he was in fear for his life. Hess later admitted to lying on multiple occasions after DJ’s death about the shooting.

These were all murders. They were not accidental. All of these innocent people: men, women AND children. Were murdered because they were black. Not because they were violent. Not because they were threatening, but because they were black. Something has to change. We have to MAKE a change. Black lives matter. Black men. Black women. Black children. Non-Binary blacks. Trans blacks. Every single one of their lives matter. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your teachers. Your brothers. Your sisters. We are the change.

——————

this list isn’t even close to a being a quarter of the wrongful African American deaths in America and if there is anyone you’d like me to add please message me. I will gladly add them because people deserve to know their names.

[mimibtsghost]

JIMIN TRYING TO CENSOR THE WORD F*CK BY GOING BLUBLUBLU. MEANWHILE, TAEHYUNG JUST-

| Cr twt  enchanting_taee