exploiting.
In a lifestyle where everyone works for a fancy car, big penthouse, and enough employees around you to keep you taken care of, you're stuck in the latter. Deep within working as one of the largest corporation owner's secretary and his part-time proxy, Minho is less chat and more 'get-it-done'. But when his lesser known objective becomes your new-found power due to your second job requiring you to balance the lone wolf of the industry, Seungmin - also known as Minho's original business partner - as another boss, things grow heated. Two faceless men claiming you as their gem, work from nine to five becomes your own, personal inferno.
DETAILS — [ 18+ | fic | 9.7k ] PAIRING — boss! minho x proxy! secretary! gender-neutral! reader x boss! seungmin GENRES — love-triangle! au, romance, angst, smut WARNINGS — mature content, mutual pining, controlling tendencies, manipulation, affairs, references to a shot (medical), retaliation SMUT WARNINGS — sexual content, power exchange, dom/sub tones, exhibitionism, biting/marking/hickies, heated make outs, voyeurism, unprotected intercourse, threesome, doggy-style, creampie, early orgasms, boss! kink A/N — this entire fic is a mess. it has so many time-skips, foreshadowing, and all that jazz in it that it wouldn’t surprise me if you have to read it multiple times to catch everything. it’s also roughly edited. either way, i hope you enjoy it! threesome smut scene is in the epilogue! do not interact with this if under 18.
taglist: @jaerisdiction @linours @qtieskz
prologue.
Hair neatly placed, silk tie done perfectly, hands clasped at his waist as the sole of his shoe swayed him back and forth in the office chair behind the obnoxiously large desk, Lee Minho has a scheme in his mind. Locked away, so far in that you could see the glistening sparkle in his eyes but not see the telling sign he usually gave away on his face when he was up to something; you wanted him to speak more than you wanted him to tell.
“You know I never ask for anything from you that’s more than I know you can handle.” Voice deep like an echo in a dark cave, Minho’s smooth lips moved with his words. “But this task is a little more-” Stopping to pause, his eyes shifted left—an indication that whatever was about to leave his mouth is far more barring than what you had anticipated. Considering his casual talk just this morning, all of this seemed to be a normal meeting. “-unravelling to me. It’s essentially a risk, something that may or may not tie loose ends for me and my life.”
Your mind stopped his words in place as if time halted all together. Sitting before the man, who usually subjected you to being below him - a boss's control and normal habits despite his gentleman ways - he finally hinted something personal. Words from his lips were always only casual instructions, common office talk, and sometimes genuine concern for the dark circles forming under your eyes from lack of sleep. But never something that could give him away.
The thing about this world—a career, a boss, a coworker, a home, a lifestyle: they’re all just evanescent. Fleeting glimpses that can be taken from you by a single printed and signed page stating you’re being let go. Minho declared you his secretary for two reasons: you’re reliable and sturdy, and you keep your mouth shut no matter what is heard or seen. But here you sat dumbfounded that he was pulling you into a situation considered personal.
One note about Minho, he hardly talks about himself.
“Sir, you know I trust that you wouldn’t overwhelm me.” Voice smooth and calm, he knew you had to fight your teeth from chattering and hands from shaking due to the nervousness in your body. You were always the same around him, collected but on edge as if he’d fire you on the spot for having a brief moment of human nature.
“Hey.” His dark eyes were like pools of honey from the sunset gleaming into the open windows of the office building, floors up from life and inside his lonely office away from all other staff and coworkers. “Be frank with me here. If this is already getting to you.” “I can handle it.” Sturdy, the reliable attitude you held since day one broke past your shaking lips. “Think I can’t?”
His left brow rose in tandem with his arched form floating back into his chair, continuing the spin on the sole of his shoe as he stared you down like a mosaic painting. Minho, a charismatic man with enough going on in his head to make anyone lose their marbles, smirked like he had strings connected to his fingers that he could use to lift and move your limbs for you. A puppet master, he had long had you connected to him.
“I must request that you go meet someone for me. You won’t meet him officially, but the business will still be dealt through them to him.” He sat forward again, angling and sliding a single manilla folder across his wooden desk before you. “The contents are confidential as always, so don’t go snooping.”
As if you would, he knew the words leaving his mouth were just a broken record to you by now.
“A proxy.” You stated, his smirk only growing into a grin.
“Clever as always.” Whispered, this side of Minho was more telling than any other. He whispered words to you instead of keeping them in his head, only doing this when it is you and he alone in a sealed room. He showed emotions, pretended his status doesn’t inflate his ego as much as it does, and even showed you gratitude.
“You know I trust you with my life.”
“As I do mine with you, Sir.” The sound of the last word sent a visible shutter up and down his body, all seen by your eyes as his freshly dry-cleaned, white shirt crinkled with his sudden movements.
“Then it’s official. You’re on my side for this.” He nodded, reclasping his hands together as his palms clapped a single mantra. “And I expect you to do the same as always.”
Not the first time around, nor the second: you had been between Minho and other companies for the duration of the service you held with the man. Position meant to be singular upon your application stating the job description, you had wriggled your way into a higher placement so simply. Higher than his own coworkers, he held more respect for you than almost everyone else. And even more: you as a person.
“You’ll keep yourself out of danger. Remember what I’ve always told you, and get out of there and come back to me if anything seems off.”
“Keep myself level-headed, I remember.”
Minho told you it all before he sent you out to the wolves. Those he sends you to as a proxy could steal you from him with a single glimpse, rudely or casually maneuver you into working for them. Trick you into giving him up, take you for their own, or use you to get to him. A continuous circle of danger, all for the man to give you the power to hold your head up high and know they can truly do no damage. Minho wouldn’t allow it.
“I take it, this is going to be messy no matter how we handle it?” Your voice caught his ears as he nodded, blinking slowly before keeping his eyes gazing into your own.
“Either way, darling.” He was the only man you ever let call you pet names. “You’ll learn to trust him as much as I did.”
one.
The bell of the elevator startled you, a sound so fancy that your shoes hardly kept their seal around your feet as you nearly tripped stepping inside. Such a small, confined space made to lift people and objects up and down, you wanted to take the stairs if it wouldn’t bring a subtle drip of sweat across your brow.
The underground parking lot for the building ran busy, chauffeurs dashing in all directions and twisting cars back and forth into skinny parking spots. You watched them all scramble to get the vehicles of the important workers pulled out and around to the front of the building, tired eyes and shaky voices enough to tell you that this company is a rush, tolling. A life of the spoon feeding the rich isn’t pretty, but it makes ends meet.
Eyes shifting down to pull at your shirt, unwrinkle the marks left from that morning—all in the heat of the moment, your peripheral caught sight of a long hand pressing between the closing doors. The figure peered in, stepping twice to claim the opposite corner of the elevator, and halted in silence. Light music playing over the speakers, they took one glance at the floor number previously tapped by your finger.
“Seven. That’s a lucky number.” Head turning, pupils dilating, throat clearing—you smiled at the bright looking man at your side.
“It is.”
Small talk—the most despised bit of interaction with other human beings, while also being the only way of casual conversation to begin between two or more people.
Two levels climbed, and his perfume met your nose. Something light, pleasing to your senses, and mind-bogglingly attractive for a stranger. He kept his distance, just as most do in a confined space, and yet he seemed so close. Familiarity, your brain linked him to someone you know, someone that imbricates your mind so often. But the floors only passed faster as your mind chased the mundane energy until the final bell dinged and the doors reopened to the floor you were meant to get off on.
You blinked, smiling at the floor to give the man a respectful goodbye, but he had already vanished. As if he wasn’t even standing there in the first place, only a cloud of the perfume you enjoyed was left behind. So stumped, confused on how he moved like a ghost - another familiar feature to you - you nearly missed getting off the elevator before the doors shut again and took you back down.
Reliable, you peered over at the clock on the wall that read nine in the morning on the dot. The sticky note in your hand led you up the elevator and onto the floor, but it departed any further directions. Most importantly, none of the information given to you from the folder held in your bag told you who, exactly, you were meant to be meeting with on such a gleaming morning in the first place.
Usually locked in deep within hundreds of files at an early time like this, the abrupt pull of a glass door beside your figure caused you to leap into the air. His perfume caught your nose first, his subtle voice second, and his delightful features third.
Short, the breeze from the door brought the scent of his perfume back to you. “Well, aren’t you coming in?” His laughter was that of a young man, warm and uplifting like the world wasn’t as harsh around him as it is to you. His brown eyes pulled at your heart instantly, face smooth and welcoming as his long hand ushered you into the main office of the floor.
And without hesitation, you followed him inside. Like the cheshire cat guiding Alice through Wonderland in no particular direction, you had no clue what exactly—who exactly you were following, and if you were even in the right place.
The buoyant man hopped behind the desk right as your calves met the front of the soft, felt chairs seated in front of the large oak table. Morning sun beaming in through the windows, his eyes pooled like honey, motions simplified and included into the never-ending eye contact. The familiarity set in before he could even explain.
“My name is Kim Seungmin, and I’ve heard many good things about you. Graduated at the highest in all of your classes when you were in school, night owl turned into a morning worm, shaking hands such as they are right now.” The man knew you down to the bone without so much as a call of your name or an application in his hand to read off of. It was too much, he knew too much, and you knew how he knew.
“You’re him.” Bold statement before anything else, his wide smile and nod made your head run faint. “B-But I’m not meant to be meeting you.” Your hands shook as you rose the sticky note up and aligned it with his eyes staring at you, his sight hardly glancing at the instructions Minho gave you just that morning.
Messy. Entirely messy.
Confusion riddled across your face, the man’s smile only grew. “You do understand how these things work, right?” Head tilted like a tease, the fluffy hair on his head leered with his motions unlike Minho’s clayed-down hair always pressed perfectly no matter how he moved.
The familiarity was there before you knew who he was, the CEO of a brother company and the man meant to be behind his own proxy. Seungmin had already overstepped his boundary, making himself out to be just like Minho. The connection was uncanny, too revealing of why this was considered so personal.
“I-I’m sorry, this is-”
“Too much?” He sighed so swiftly, fingers shaking out his hair instead of pushing it back neatly. “Ah, I was afraid of this. In all honesty, I warned him about overwhelming you.”
“I am not.” The change in your tone made him stiffen, eyes becoming watered like he’d cry if you moved to stand and rush out. “I am just confused as to why I am meeting you and not someone else in place of you.”
“I don’t do proxies, honey.”
Your teeth clenched down so hard your jawline could be seen tensing by his eyes. Every nerve in your body lit up like lights on a Christmas tree, limbs halting their shake and eyes squinting towards the man like he would vanish in plain sight a second time. The amount of training you’ve had for this without even meaning for it to be that, focusing on multiple tasks at once, dealing with people yelling at you over the phone like you weren’t a human with feelings, those above you acting like you were dirt under their shoes. This moment wasn’t a time to sit with your mouth shut and play good.
“I want an explanation.”
“And I want you.”
Seungmin, personality upfront and just as blunt as the man you work under, was doing everything Minho had warned you about. And yet, something in your gut made you sit and listen.
“I don’t like swindling.” He admitted to his swinish plan, you knew the guy was a puzzle. “But I quite like you. Always on time, never bickering about your schedule or the workload put onto your shoulders, and I even hear you’re a kind person. Giving coworkers flowers and cards, offering to pay for meals despite being in the process of working off your school debt, apparently you even live in an apartment eight blocks from the building you work at just so you can afford the rent.”
You wanted to stop him, he was checking off too many boxes about you like he had been keeping a list in the first place. Borderline creepy, his voice finally grew faint as he stood from behind the desk and walked forward.
“I’ve also been made aware that others do this to you all the time.” Bingo. “They bring you in, consider you the perfect little worker or make you bait, and try to get to you.” The top row of his teeth shined through his closing lips. “But you never crack, do you?”
“Not once, as you can see.”
“Loyal to your boss.” His knees bent as he lifted himself off the quick sitting position against his desk, a gloating pace of a walk around your chair frightful to most. Your back straight, chin high, eyes forward, he had nothing on you.
“But I know something that every other CEO that’s tried appointing you doesn’t.”
“What’s that, Mister Kim Seungmin?”
“You crave authority.”
two.
He was standing so close, closer than ever before, and you didn’t want him to move away. Minho had caught your wrist the second you stepped off the elevator, your body fresh from a shower minutes before you left work with your hair still damp and lotion still soaking in. He seemed to be smothering you to any wondering eyes, but he wasn’t, and there was no one else on his floor to watch.
Sticky note in his hand, he plastered it to your palm like a nurse putting a cotton ball and paper tape over a wound from a shot. As if it would protect you, just like him being at your side the entire time, he pressed the note down against your palm with his thumb.
“You’re in for it.” He chuckled, watching your face running a sickening glow and eyes beam up at him in curiosity. Even he knew he doesn’t act like this. “And I am sorry.”
You closed in the gap, wagering your job and title by a single step forward between the man’s arms, and did something so far from allowed in your profession. “You don’t scare me, so what makes you think he will?”
Minho never came into work before ten, never got so close to you that you could smell the mint toothpaste on his breath—and Minho surely never held you so close just before pressing his lips to yours. The smoothness of his recently-put-on chapstick making the kiss glide, you could hear the breath hitch in his throat.
There is something about having little to no power at all and suddenly holding it in your hands all at once. Not your own, you truly believed the world works on a spectrum of who should have it and who shouldn’t—that’s what makes life entertaining, but that it’s never meant to be stolen. Minho only pressed the kiss in deeper as your fingers met the hair at the nape of his neck, only fell into you harder until your back pressed against the wall and your tongues swirled, and only pulled away when he heard the chime of the elevator making him aware that it was rising and about to land on his floor.
One thing was for sure, you don’t want to possess the power he holds, nor do you want things to run awry from this kiss. But the budding passion you’ve felt for the man raced into his own form through your locked lips up until he pulled away and stared at your face like he couldn’t believe himself. Eyes wide, shoulders lifting and descending with every breath, his hand caught your wrist again to tap the sticky note still stuck to your palm, this time with his index finger.
Time, authority, acquaintances, companions, relationships, animals, items—they accompany humans in the same way they can easily shift them. Your relationship had always been strictly professional. Minho is the man with the plaque on his desk reading off his rightfully given authorization after years of schooling and worming his way up the ladder until a company reigned below him, literally. You were a secretary that always worked more hours than what is labeled on your timesheet, overtime getting the best of you but the extra pay never going ungiven, writing schedules until a callus was created on your finger and your eyes had tunnel vision from forgetting to turn on the desk’s lamp when the sun began to set.
Different mindsets, different positions, different lives—all in one clashing world.
“Come back to me.”
Your eyes opened, elevator walls surrounding you but not the one in Minho’s building. The same music you ascended to played gently, previously pushed out by your memory as you recalled the kiss you shared with Minho moments before you left for your task, the very same one you were leaving now. Two men in the same position beckoning for you to work alongside them, you were mind-boggled at the conditions.
Seungmin’s voice sounded in your ears only, retelling you of what he offered as you pressed out the door of his office. “Go to dinner with me if it will make you feel less associated with me as a businessman and more as a friend. Minho’s nose is always so high, sometimes he forgets that he can actually act human around a few people. So allow me to show you how a boss is meant to treat someone so important to him.”
His comment had you boiling the entire way down, through the elevator, on the ride back to Minho’s office, and up to your desk awaiting your sitting. Seungmin had everything so simplified, statistical reaches bringing you to your knees and making you feel bigger than Minho makes you out to be. Standing in front of Seungmin, you felt seen. All while standing before Minho made you feel smaller with each glance, and scared with every word.
Minho never means to be the way he is, it’s an expression of his self-worth. The man knew he held everyone’s lives at stake in his grasp, that he could ruin or make someone’s world better, and that he can overlap anything set before him with a single snap. It is what he had grown to learn through school, eager and greedy bosses over his own head, and the same gold plaque he watched be created right before his eyes. Unlike Seungmin, he may hold so much weight on his shoulders, but he doesn’t pretend it isn’t there in the first place.
But Seungmin’s charm, beady eyes, and welcoming smile were all too familiar yet new at once. Seungmin is like Minho’s cold shoulder mixed with a warm, reassuring hug. You admitted defeat to yourself that Seungmin now has you on his hook - the first to ever manage to get you invested - the moment you stepped off the sidewalk of your apartment building and into the car picking you up for the date.
The silent drive with the chauffeur just as quiet, you were only accompanied by the bright stars in the cloudless night sky above. Passing lights shined into your eyes almost blindingly, your sight set on watching Minho’s building pass by as you moved past blocks of city-life to make it to the restaurant.
Minho, he had no idea.
Your eyes blinked, more lights coming into view until you were suddenly under a long tent and in motion towards the front door. Seungmin’s gentle smile brought warmth to your skin, his arm extending for you to hold it on the small walk inside to a table.
“I was afraid you would stand me up. You left so heated.” He stared down at you as you both moved in tandem, unafraid of bumping into someone or something on the way. “Please, never leave me like that again. I could see how bothered you were.”
Taking a seat at the table, you already wanted the dinner to be over, but it was only getting started. Waiters passed every few minutes, Seungmin only stared at you from across the table and hardly said anything, and drinks and food were pushed around by your hands and others until nothing sat before you.
“Minho, he’s a difficult man to work with.” A break, a stop to your racing mind, and an easy trigger like no other. Minho was your weakness, and Seungmin was highly aware of it.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Please don’t take that the wrong way, the man is a complete companion most days. But sometimes he thinks with his head, not his heart.” Another metaphor that perfectly sums up the difference between both men. Minho’s thought process has always been noticeably cranium-related, while Seungmin appears to use the thumping organ in his chest to make rash decisions. “There is so much about him that I can tell has been lost from the anxiety-riddled position of a CEO.”
“Such as?” The glass on your lips allowed in a single sip of the drink that had been stuck by your side all evening, Seungmin’s eyes bright with gold sparkles from the chandelier above.
“Curiosity kills the cat. Shouldn’t you know things like this from working with the legend himself?” His brow arched, teeth shining between his lips as more words formed. “Puppet Master, Lee Minho.”
The drink in your mouth nearly fell from between your lips, a quick gulp sending it down your throat. He had taken the analogy right from your mind.
“Minho has had everyone in the palm of his hand since we were in college. I worked by reading actual texts from books, he had people reading it aloud for him. I worked by speaking to professors about questions and concerns, he had the professors coming to him about things. I stayed in our dorm all night long, he was nowhere to be seen.”
“This sounds more like a testosterone, jealousy scheme of you only using me to level him out, now.” You cut him off without raising so much as a hand, engulfed by what he was saying and trying to hide the fact that you were hanging off every word about your mysterious boss's past.
“Oh, but that’s what makes you the star of the show, baby.” Your nose scrunched in disbelief at the pet name, but you allowed him to continue. “See, everything was peaches and cream. Two recently graduated partners taking on the world through the same company—all while a thick, stapled application was found sitting on Minho’s desk one late night.”
If you had half your wits, weren’t so selfishly hoping to make Minho see you properly, you would have left long before this.
“A secretary’s application. Class A worker—someone who shines brighter than stars. Someone he wanted all to himself.” The red wine beside his hand was lifted to his mouth so slowly that you wanted to peel his fingers from the glass and set it back down just to make him continue. “That very same application was on my desk, too. It was a battle, and seemed like sudden death at the time. For both our friendship, and our business. We would call them at odd times, listen to how they took the call and how much patience they held, even studied the tones in their voice.”
The assortment of calls from different numbers never spiked your nerves. You had been applying all around the city, gotten offers from every big name in the game, but only a few truly caught your interest. But, not once, had you put two and two together.
“Watching his face fall that night, three shots in and his back arched over the bar in our shared office. He wanted them so badly, and didn’t believe he could go on without anyone else in their position. Even before he knew them or worked with them, the man was whipped for their credentials.” Seungmin spoke with such a tone that sounded like he had been wavering on these memories all night and day until you finally sat before him. Now you were both in a place where he could spill out everything with no turning back for either of you.
“And then—suddenly, he wanted nothing to do with them.”
Your brows furrowed, sweat on your temple from the fervorous room making you wipe the beads of sweat away with the man still sitting so patiently.
“He knew that I had called them, offered them something they couldn’t refuse, and that they were already on their way.”
His tone, the familiarity. It hadn’t entirely come from Minho, but the other end of the line so many years ago. Stuck in disbelief, you didn’t want to speak the words already leaving your mouth. But your heart has a way of surpassing your consciousness.
“You got me the job as Minho’s secretary.”
“Minho had the power he needed to ignite himself back, and it once overlapped mine. He took his branch of the company and made a run for it, and got both his work and you far from me.” Seungmin’s eyes almost looked dead, as if he never wanted to admit it actually happened. “We went our separate ways, and yet you stumbled into my company with my old partner’s handwriting scribbled down on that sticky note like the ghost of Christmas’s past coming back to haunt me.”
He had handled the situation so well, it was hard to believe he had any harsh intentions towards you at this point. He could have turned you down, given you the wrong impression until you fled back to Minho, but he accepted you in with open arms despite what had gone down.
“So, what are you saying?”
“You showed up at my office for a reason, one you didn’t know was even occurring.”
The lump in your throat returned.
“Minho is giving you to me.”
three.
Far past the tenacity you’ve held for Minho, you sat beside Seungmin in the back of the chauffeur-driven car with a look on your face that only read one emotion: defeat. The ploy had finally been written out to you by the opposing man, not even your boss himself. Seungmin had not only struck a nerve, but pushed you so far over the edge that you were now incapable of gathering your thoughts unless a space of rest was given.
But, now struck with the enmity that the one you trusted most is just giving you away like a puppy no longer aiming to be cared for, your mind was left careless. Seungmin rocked side to side, back and forth, and could hardly even look in your direction from the serious tension held within the vehicle.
“If I work for you now, then when do I come in?”
His tongue twisted, eyes verged straight to your face, but Seungmin didn’t have an answer for that question at the ready. The man looked just as lost as you, pale face cascaded with worry and riddled by the sudden affair.
Minho had always held up a mask, never allowed anyone to see his weaknesses—unless it was you. So many late nights of his knees pressed into the floor of his office as he lapped at you like an animal drinking water, pulled at your clothes while offering to replace them with new ones, and dragged the deepest kisses against your lips. Vulnerability was his major frailty, Minho hiding himself from the world with tears held in his ducts and awaiting any passing time that he can be truly alone as himself. Something you’ve never fully seen, and were afraid was becoming the single-most invading position now.
But Seungmin, the lanky man sat in a thrifted suit with his legs spread open wide and his big eyes watching you like a sex scene in a mature film—he knew how to show himself. Your face finally tilted towards him, his brown eyes engulfing your gaze until he closed the space between you. Only the sounds of a gentle kiss and the tinted window between the driver and the backseats could be heard before you realized where you lie on their spectrum.
Far, far too close to Seungmin’s side.
Your teeth clenched into the kiss, the mental image of a rout Minho leaving his phone on the hook while gulping down shots instead of calling you that one last time completely painful.
Your tongue broke through your lips to press against Seungmin’s, a moan recoiling from the back of his throat and vibrating your entire body right to the space between your legs. The soft man’s hand guided your own to his shoulder, the texture of his suit nothing like you were used to being worn by such a high-class man, but you only tugged at the joustle.
The morning where the car showed up at the front of your apartment building with the chauffeur holding a sign reading your name before driving you to Minho’s office. The first time you saw Minho, he had his back turned towards you while on a call with an anonymous voice on the other line—and already you were invisible unless he needed you.
Seungmin’s hand cupped your cheek, the kiss falling deeper until you could taste the wine from his glass on your own tongue when he moved to pull away. Eyes shut, awaiting your move to continue for consent that this is what you want, your mouth found his neck.
You gave momentum to Minho. Seungmin said it himself, your credentials made him want you before he even knew what you looked like. The man threaded on a golden path, pulling you along on a leash just as the handful of others he took advantage of to reach the peak. A position like this—being the outskirts creating a big man into a bigger man by default, now tossed to his enemy like you mean nothing; a better, painless way would have just been turning you down in the first place, or just down-right firing you in person.
Seungmin’s hand rose to the tinted window, two knocks giving the driver a notice that you would both be stopping at your apartment, not just you alone. Light sucks pulled at the man’s neck until a single, purple mark is left. An abrupt stop, a clinging hold to your entire form, and you were lifted from inside the vehicle in a daunting way.
You saw his eyes first, realized it was your own grasp around your form that had gotten you out of the car, and only saw Seungmin’s face flush with embarrassment. You had left his grasp with horror in your eyes before you could even see your surroundings.
“This isn’t how this is meant to work.” Sight narrowed to tunnel-vision, the man rose from inside the car only to place his hand on your cheek with a kiss on the opposite. “Go get some rest before you turn blue,” he already knew you were bothered, and you said nothing about it. “-I’ll see you at eight.”
Another roll of defeat went through your body as you turned from your new boss, the elevator lifting you up to your floor without so much as a blink, and a lump in your throat formed as you pushed inside of your safe space. Finally, your mind settled into a blank state where you could take in the last few days. Tears falling down your face, the back of your hand wiping them away, and you fell to the soft rug on the floor to drown in your sorrows.
Moments in time move so fast, at some point you are bound to be left feeling like you are no longer within your body. As if everything explodes at once, your mind can no longer think, your heart can no longer beat, your limbs could no longer move, and your body can no longer feel emotions: you were truly descending into madness from the two men.
That final kiss this morning, Minho’s warm breath and smooth lips guiding your own—it was a goodbye. You didn’t notice, didn’t let the abrupt show of affection sink in to be just that. Part of you denied that you could be the imperative part he needed to actually function, but now it was claimed true. You uplifted that man, gave him opportunities, yourself, and everything else you could offer.
And he abandoned you at a time most crucial.
Your body stood up straight, head held high like he had commanded you to do no matter the day you were having, and followed your legs to wherever your thoughtless mind led you. A gravitational pull, the feeling of deja vu seeped into your nerves as two mild knocks sounded on your door just in time for you to pull it open.
“Is now a bad time to say sorry?”
four.
Minho’s hair was, for once, not clayed-back by some product. Bleak eyes covered by thick lashes as they batted in your direction, he awaited your voice.
“Because I really am, sorry.”
“What is this all about, Minho?” Your voice sounded larger than normal, but the man didn’t falter to reply.
“It’s hard to explain right now. You’re so upset, aren’t you?” His hands moved down into his pockets, head hung in shame as his right foot kicked at the small ledge of the doorway’s flooring. He seemed delayed, like he was waiting to tell you something but was too afraid of your reaction to actually speak of it.
The expression made your blood boil and eyes water, a scoffed sound leaving your lips. You watched his head lift in tandem with your hand enveloping his wrist as you tugged him inside, the front door of your small apartment shutting behind you.
“What is all of this meant for?” Your tongue dripped with venom, angered and so far past your breaking point that you could only see red. “The way you look at me disturbs me, Minho. How do you expect me to wait on you: beck and call, omitting important information from me—the only person who is at your side anytime you need me. This relationship, platonic, romantic, or just occupational—nothing about it is fair!”
His motion was slow, arms raising from his pockets, past his hips, and levitating at the sides of your arms without so much as a brushed touch. You blinked up at him, nose scrunched as you felt his fingertips gently press into your skin before he was face to face with you for the first time, as equals.
“You have every right to hate me right now, doll.” His words were broken, voice raspy in containment of his own emotions, an indication that he is just as torn as you right now. “Y-You even have the chance to leave peacefully. But I must ask that you don’t leave.”
“And why not?”
“Because you’re the only one who puts up with my stubborn ass!” His hands left your arms to raise into the air, buttons on his shirt open far down his chest allowing his limbs to move freely. Minho was just as reluctant to his own plan, and seeing you struggle through it was clearly taking a toll on him, whether he told you the idea or not. “You’re the only one who makes my coffee just bitter enough that it wakes me up, the one who shoves a bunch of files into my arms and tells me to look them over before lunch because i’m already sitting their twiddling my thumbs, and the only person who has ever looked Seungmin in the eyes and defended my actions as if they were your own.”
His body enclosed on you, taking your arms back into his hold and aligning your sight again. The man was broken, hanging by a thread. The reality of his lifestyle was finally showing through, that he can no longer go on alone.
“Then why play with my heart so much?” You begged the question, but already knew that his lips puckering to place onto yours was the answer. Something Minho can never speak of, only show—affection was deemed his weakness, but you’re far closer to the definition than the noun could ever be.
Your hands found placement on his chest just as the warmth of his mouth encased yours, bodies pressing together in a fiery way. One thing most noticeable about Minho, the man has passion. Whether it’s passing along some stocks to a company nearly run down and going out of business, walking ahead of someone to pull the door open for them, or even succumbing to his feelings for his secretary: he was bound to show how human he is at some point, but he had actually been doing it all along.
You melted together, his legs walking you back to the retailed sofa fitted with more blankets than necessary, the mountain of covers falling off the sides to give you more room. He displayed you, eyes growing wide as he looked over your form, and watched as you pulled the shirt over your torso up and over your head.
“This is much more comforting than my office desk.” He spouted in excitement, referring to the couch as his lips became more invested in kissing and sucking at your neck then speaking.
His touch was always intense, the feeling of his lips trailing your skin all the way down your arm to place a single kiss onto your knuckles making your heart do jumping jacks. Minho never failed to win you over, even from the first day when he got exceptionally close in a stare-down as he considered his moves. He had lied awake day and night, hoping you would come into his office and agree to be his secretary. Now, with a few years past, he had you moaning beneath him in a passionate love-affair.
The hot breaths, the groans vibrating deep within his chest only to sound into your ears alone, and the wistful motions of you taking him so well with your fingers entwined. You never wanted it to end, Minho finally pulling the mask from his face and strings from his hands long enough for the two of you to just be people—in love and continuing with life like nothing could ever be a bother again.
But all things come to an end, your eyelids peeling open to the closed doors of the elevator just as they opened and Seungmin’s office was revealed to you. The breeze of the morning air brought you to pull the turtleneck upwards, the quantity of hickies left on your skin nearly embarrassing to have from a man with a plaque on his desk and perverted thoughts in his mind. Minho had taken you back, showed you that he would never abandon you, yet he still gave you instructions to come into work for Seungmin. Minho’s only words were “We’re not done yet.”
The second you stepped off the elevator, you felt a pair of eyes on you. Round ones, the same that had stared you down most of the night before, and the very ones that met your sight right as you stepped into the official office of the building’s CEO.
“You’re early!” He chimed, Seungmin making his way from his leather chair to the soft felt one in front of his desk. Placing himself down beside you, the immediate notice of how he acted like a coworker and not a boss made butterflies erupt in your stomach.
“I—Uh, shouldn’t-” Brown eyes narrowed into yours with furrowed brows, he finished your sentence for you.
“Minho acts more like a boss, I’m just here to make sure you know what you’re doing and not confused for the duration of the work day.” Seungmin’s smile was so warm and comforting, your nod made him sink down into the chair more.
Files past your way, instructions given, the bright windows turning dimmer from clouds taking over the sky until the sun was setting, and finally your card was clicked to release you from your shift. The day's work was the exact same as Minhos, only Seungmin asked how you felt and offered you coffee and snacks as you worked. It felt upside down, like you had never truly left Minho’s office and were just in a different branch.
And up until now, your belief of the exchange of you as both bosses’ secretary was considered off. Seungmin’s voice called out to you from his office. “I called a car! Take your time going down!” His voice rang in your ears like an alarm. “I’ll see you soon!”
From the beginning, your work was perfectly cut out for you. Fitting to your resume, piles of things to organize, men with ties too tight around their necks, coworkers who blabbed everything they could about their life until you knew them to the T for no particular reason. It was draining, but functional. All of Minho’s promises, ones proposed by Seungmin on the phone that night, you had made it this far from their benefits.
Floors down, the car’s door opened and shut, and a sigh of relief was easily distorted by the car driving off and pulling into a similar parking lot. The same faces you had seen for years were all around you, hands pointing you in the directions, elevators rising you up to the familiar space, and the one detail you missed entirely of the entire operation.
Seungmin stood beside Minho, glasses of wine in their hands and smiles on their faces. The past in the past, two men friends for life, and their beloved secretary wandering in before them once more.
“It won’t be official until midnight.” Minho smiled, pearled teeth making your cheeks rise from the scene alone.
“Enough time to get fully acquainted.” Seungmin’s voice was like a mantra, his eyes capturing you in his peripheral. “And to inform this one on just what we’ve been doing.”
“Finally letting me into the circle?” You joked, both men keeping still with the wicked smiles on their faces.
“Can someone please just throw in the towel and tell me what the hell kind of mess you two have spun me into?”
The purple marks were forgotten by you, but plainly in their sight from the neck of the sweater moving down your neck. You watched their eyes meet, shoulders slightly shrug, and sight capture similar marks on themselves before they turned back in your direction.
“Seems you know us too well to even need to question anything.” Minho grinned.
Seungmin’s voice followed, the man like a cartoon in the way he held the curve of his arm and pressed his fist into his cheek and awaited your response. “Tell us what you’ve already figured out?”
“I did well, whatever this is.” You praised yourself before them, head held high without their mandate. “The two of you—planned this together without me even noticing.”
“Go on…”
“Old reliable, you were better for us than we could ever imagine.”
Minho’s distance was a test. Seungmin’s sudden appearance was an obstacle. The two ran you around for each of them, and you played along. Seungmin had gotten you the job to pertain to his best friend’s ego, but Minho taught you how to handle the occupation and himself at the same time. Seungmin was the easiest to adjust to, there was no question there. But the two of them stood in the same office, their weird connection last night with the unannounced exchange that Minho needed to be by your side instead of Seungmin, it was becoming clearer and clearer.
They were never really enemies in the first place, only attempting to find an addition to their team. “How do you feel about our companies reemerging?”
epilogue.
You had learned the beauty of being between the two bosses. Fresh coffee made by Seungmin left on your desk when he heard the elevator rising and bringing you to the office floor, the cup steaming with a sticky note plastered to it reading a subtle love note. The original man of the hour, Minho, normally would arrive an hour or so later to place a kiss on your cheek and eye over the marks still healing on your skin before finding himself in his office with a smile on his face.
Their relationship had healed, a year passing in the blink of an eye. Work had gifted you a new apartment, one exceptionally closer to where the two men lived, and even adhered you to them more. Work would slip by, the sunset gleaming through the windows to make their matching eyes glow even brighter until they stood before you at your desk.
“What do you say we stay for a little over-time?” Minho’s commandative voice, which used to shake you to your core and make you worry about his next line, ran gently over your forehead as he bent down to your sitting level.
“Do I get paid?” You questioned, eyes still reading over the last of the report sent in on your computer. A pull at your chair from Seungmin, and the lanky man had you turned and facing him without a word.
His boxxed smile is one of the world’s most cherishable pieces, but only you and Minho get to see it. “If only love could cover rent, huh?”
“It could if you finally moved in with us.”
Minho’s words brought you to laugh. It had been the same record on repeat for months now, their lives swimming back together like a river meeting the ocean. Same workspace, same penthouse, same secretary. The two had become inseparable—but they still wanted you with them all hours of the day and night.
Seungmin’s fingers yanked at the trim of his pants to pull them upwards so he could bend his legs comfortable, now balanced with his weight on his feet and ankles while staring up at you with his hungry eyes. “Will we ever get a final answer to that?”
His head lifted upwards, capturing your lips as your palms pressed into your knees from the sudden kiss. Seungmin’s habit, sometimes even going great lengths to distract you, always paid off.
“Perhaps—” A soft chuckle left you. “If this is the last time we have to stay overtime here at the office just to take each other like it’s our last day on earth.”
“You don’t enjoy us playing boss even when you’re begging for more pleasure from us?” Minho’s tongue lapped over his bottom lip, long legs moving him around the desk to press his hand into the crown of Seungmin’s head and force the man to stand back up.
“Not when I have to come in extra early the next morning just to edit the security camera footage before we’re caught and put on the news.”
Both men laughed, eyes meeting like they had just heard the funniest joke in their entire lives and it just had to be shared with one another—just like everything else. They absolutely loved seeing you writhe beneath them, soaking up everything you can about them while allowing them to do as they please with you. The relationship bounced between work and romance, to sexual fantasies being ignited and accomplished. Like a mature drama being played right before your eyes, you were their center of attention and the star of the show.
“One thing though, doll.” Minho’s tongue grazed the lobe of your ear, speaking directly to you. “You’ve never disagreed that this is fun.”
“Maybe you need to learn how to use your words better.” Seungmin added, his large hand enclosing on your waist and tugging you forward. You were lifted from the chair by one arm, Minho’s hand at the curve of your lower back as Seungmin took hold of your torso.
“Aren’t I communicating my needs right now, boss?” The puppy eyes of the man bored into yours. Light a switch being flipped, you witness a dark splotch overtake his irises—his pupils growing dilated from the word alone.
Minho’s hand caught the back of your thigh, lifting it for Seungmin to be pressed firmly against you. With a breath so deep your lungs burned from the inhale, the two men smiled wickedly.
“Tell us what you want.”
“Right here.” You nodded, gazing between the two men in a dizzy pattern that you had to stop and peer up at the ceiling just to catch your breath. “Fuck me right here, then I’ll go home with you.”
One glance back down, and they were both moving into their positions. Seungmin at your front capturing your mouth once more and stealing every breath you could hold onto. Minho at your back, his hardening length in his slacks dragging against your ass like a dog in heat. You felt the heated motions of Seungmin’s tongue swirling around your own, but your mind was locked on the feeling of Minho ripping at your top until you stood bare between them.
"So stubborn." Minho mocked your actions, but he loved the chase.
Soft fabrics rubbing against you making your skin glow red from the friction, Minho was first to tear the buttons from his shirt—the sound of the fasteners scattering onto the hardwood flooring almost as startling as his words reclaiming your hearing. “Where do you want me?”
The question was a ruse, he knew the answer. But he still always asked, just in case you wanted to switch it up.
“Neck.” His favorite place to leave his mark, the man’s cock was so hard in his pants that it throbbed and leaked precum just from the taste of your skin on his tongue. The lightly whelped spots he had left before tasted like metal, his licks only drawing harder at the untouched skin around them. He hated leaving any space untouched, the purple and red marks considered his trophies to see on you later and make your thighs clench over when you felt them pulse as they healed.
"Mmf—" The pulsing of Seungmin's cock against your front pulled a noise from him; the vibration a sound of a man awaiting his chance to hear his name slip from the same mouth his own pranced along.
Seungmin’s lips tasted like a flavor of no other; his own taste nearly as intoxicating as alcohol. A drink you couldn’t get enough of, the man’s tongue poked yours before he removed him from your mouth altogether. His million-dollar smile plastered on his face, eyes glazed over with lust, and a saddened moan leaving you in response. The concept of him adoring you so much that he would step back and allow his partner a moment to himself—it was like you were floating in their sight and grasp.
Without so much of a breath, you felt the cooled touch of Minho’s hands slipping underneath the waistband of your pants. "Oh-h—yes." His licked fingertips always knew the direction to move in, his hold on you orgasmic the second he made contact with the wetness created from their intense motions. Fingers lingering in spots that made you see bright lights and feel every push of the air from the vent over your heads, the man toyed with you until you were shaking more than the breathy moans you released.
“Tell me when you’re ready.” Seungmin, the man always waiting for the words to slip through your lips like a round firing just before a sports event begins—you were too weak for them both to ever deny yourself of them entirely.
“Play with me then, boss.”
You felt the familiar fingers pull from your heated form long enough to press the pants at your waist down your tights, past your knees, off your calves and feet, and watched the attire fall to the floor. Raised up by a strong arm, Minho caught your thigh once more and lifted it in tandem with Seungmin’s pants falling to the ground beside your own. His ankles caught inside the bottom of the trousers as he fled in your direction caused him to stumble, your laugher muffled by the hiss as Seungmin’s even colder fingers matched with your heated body.
"Aah!—" Your hiss caught his ears like an alarm, but the smirk on his lips told you that he knew you'd react as you did.
He blinked at you as he held his hardened cock in his palm and pressed the tip into your entrance. Minho’s grasp only got tighter, your boss gliding his hand up your form to run the pad of his finger around your nipple.
A game of distraction, a game of gratification, and a never-ending amount of levels.
"Always so—" They both chanted with groans interrupting the words, one finishing there the other left off, as always. "—good for us."
Seungmin pushed into you swiftly, the wetness created Minho’s licked fingers and Seungmin’s precum enough lube to have his cock slinking back out of your walls before another abrupt push rocked him in so deep your eyes clenched shut.
"Seungmin!" His name shouted from your lungs, nails creating small crescents in the skin of his shoulders, and a long worked-up orgasm spilled from within you. A lap of Minho's tongue at the middle of your neck, and the name shifted into the another's. "M-Minho!"
Your lips turned into a smile, the duo's stimulation paying off, and your form turning even more relaxed as Seungmin continued to fuck up into you for his own, awaited orgasm.
Squelches of your wetness and his precum caused a deep breath to flow into Minho's lungs, the man clinging you to his front and using his own hips to press you into Seungmin at a rapid pace. You could feel his cock twitching against your ass, the pants in your ear growing rigid. Just as your hand rose up behind you to hold onto Minho's neck, the filling feeling of Seungmin's orgasm rushed up into your walls. Hot breaths, loud hisses, and Seungmin's cock was pulled from within you only to be replaced by one that had repeatedly coated your walls before the secondary lead even made his entrance in your world.
Minho's length was thicker than Seungmin's, his thighs quivering as he fucked up into you with one swift thrust. The man was feverish, mind melting from the tight clenches of your next orgasm moving through you until your head fell back onto his shoulder and his face hid itself in the crook of your neck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Right there!" The man's tone was shallow, his voice cracking from the pleasure overlapping his senses.
Seungmin's large hands caught your calves, pushing them backwards seconds before Minho's legs came out from under him, folding you both down. His approaching release made him relentless, straightening out your form until you laid naked on the cold flooring of the office as your ass slapped against his thighs repeatedly. "I'm—cum-cumming. Oh fuck, I'm so deep. Our cum is pooling out of you right now, doll. Look at the mess we've made, Seungmin."
But his partner's thoughts laid elsewhere than the gushing white cum leaking onto the floor beneath you. Seungmin's hand gathered your hair in between his fingers, the gentlest pull upwards helping you see his soft face and cheshire smile. "So, what'll it be, honey?" You took in the sensation of being filled by them both, their pants matching your own as the three of you finally settled down.
Minho's eyes locked into Seungmin's, the lanky man's eyes only boring into your own and ignoring his partners. Their minds worked on the same wavelength, held the same thoughts, and allowed them to work at the same pace with their conscience's in sync.
Minho's voice called over your tired form, the cool flooring no longer enough to keep you sane. "Need a place more comfortable where we can care for you like this any time we want?"
"H-How about this?" Your voice shook, but your words held their courage. "My loves, you two look over that thick application once more."
Their eyes matched together, lips pressed into thin lines quickly rising into deep smirks. "To see what, in particular, baby?" Seungmin's mantra was nulled out by your hard-thumping heartbeat in your ears.
"And see that our credentials are all the same." This cocked brows showed no real signs of new knowledge, your grin giving the entire ploy away.
"So, boys, how about a trio-run company?" Your face relaxed into a voided expression, no worries held in your vision any longer. "Or am I too much for you both to handle?"
Their responses were in unison. "Deal."
© 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗺𝗶𝗻 2021. do not modify, repost, or translate in any way. please.