Chapter Twenty-Four #3
We hang there a beat, boneless, his weight pinning me to the table like he's afraid I'll bolt if he lets go. His cock twitches one last time inside me, spent but still thick, and I clench around it on reflex—drawing a hiss from him that vibrates straight through my spine.
Finally, he pulls out slow, carefully, like he's handling something fragile.
Come trickles down my thigh, warm and sticky, but I barely register it.
My legs feel like overcooked noodles, knees locked just to keep me upright.
Donghwa's hands slide up my sides, firm but gentle, he pulls my pants up over my legs before turning me around.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing—fingers digging into my hips—and plants my ass on the table edge.
I wince at the cool laminate biting my overheated skin, but he's already crouching, eyes scanning my hip where it dug into the edge earlier.
His thumbs brush the skin there, light, checking for bruises blooming under the surface.
That stupid focused look creases his brow, all intense and almost tender.
It hits me wrong, this care after he just railed me into next week.
I snort, the sound turning into a rough laugh that scrapes my raw throat. "Should be more worried about yourself, princess."
He pauses, dark eyes flicking up to mine.
I grab his hand—the one that was clamped over my mouth—and hold it up between us.
Blood smears the fleshy pad near his thumb, twin crescents from where I sank my teeth in like a feral animal.
It's not deep, but it's ugly, welling fresh under the clubhouse's dim emergency light.
Donghwa glances at it, then back at me. A slow grin splits his face, lazy and unrepentant.
He shrugs one shoulder, wiping the blood casual on his thigh like it's just another Tuesday.
"Comes with the territory. I don't mind a little teeth.
" His gaze drops to the mark again, thumb tracing the indents absently.
"Though that's an odd spot for a bond mark. "
My stomach flips—half from the casual way he says it, half from the truth punching through the post-fuck haze.
Bond marks are supposed to be on scent glands, necks or shoulders, permanent claims that scream mine to anyone with a nose.
Not some random bite on the hand from a heat-of-the-moment tantrum.
But fuck if it doesn't feel like one anyway, throbbing in sync with the one on my shoulder.
I shove his hand away, smirking to cover the weird twist in my chest. "Noted, I'll make it count next time."
Donghwa leans in. His grin is pure sin, a flash of white teeth in the dim light. He hooks a hand behind my neck, pulling me forward until our lips are a breath apart.
"I'm counting on it," he murmurs, and then his mouth is on mine, slow and searing, a stark contrast to the brutal fucking we just finished. It’s a kiss that says I won, but it’s also a kiss that says you’re mine, and my traitorous body melts into it, hands coming up to grip his shoulders.
My pants are still undone, his are probably halfway down his ass, and the table is digging into my skin, but who gives a shit.
His tongue sweeps my bottom lip, coaxing me open, and I meet him halfway, a low groan rumbling in my chest. This.
This is what I’ve been craving all week.
CLICK.
The sound is sharp, metallic. It’s followed by a blinding wash of white light that makes me flinch back, spots dancing in my vision. The clubhouse is plunged into the harsh, unforgiving glare of the overhead fluorescents, their electric hum suddenly deafening.
We spring apart like we’ve been tasered.
I’m scrambling off the table, fumbling with my zipper so fast I nearly catch myself in it.
My heart has launched itself into my throat, pounding a frantic, panicked rhythm against my tonsils.
My face is on fire. Across from me, Donghwa straightens up with an infuriating lack of haste, pulling his own jeans into place, his expression shifting from surprise to a cool, unreadable mask.
My eyes dart to the doorway, and the blood drains from my face.
It’s not a random freshman. It’s not Seungchan. It’s not even a professor.
It’s Go Joohyuk. The Student Council President.
He’s standing there, frozen, one hand still on the light switch. His glasses are perched on his nose, his shirt is pressed with a crispness that feels like a personal attack, and his eyes—his perpetually tired, seen-it-all eyes—are wide with a kind of profound, cosmic bewilderment.
His gaze sweeps the room, a slow, methodical scan that takes in every damning detail.
The papers scattered across the floor. The distinct, musky scent of sex and alpha pheromones hanging thick in the air.
Me, standing there with my shirt half-untucked and my hair looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backward.
Donghwa, looking cool as a fucking cucumber but with his own pants clearly just re-fastened.
Joohyuk’s eyes land on the table where I was just sitting. On the unmistakable, sticky streaks glistening under the fluorescent lights.
His face doesn’t register shock. Or disgust. It’s something far worse. It’s the face of a man who has witnessed the heat death of the universe and is simply too exhausted to care.
My brain is a dial tone. There is no excuse. No lie slick enough to get us out of this. We were fighting. It was a misunderstanding. We were practicing… performance art? Every scenario is more pathetic than the last.
Donghwa, the bastard, just stands there, hands shoved in his pockets, looking like he’s waiting for a bus.
Joohyuk slowly, deliberately, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He lets out a sigh. It’s not a normal sigh. It’s a sound that carries the weight of a thousand student-body complaints, a thousand budget meetings, and a thousand instances of Alpha-on-Alpha bullshit.
He finally looks at us, his gaze flitting between me and Donghwa.
"You know," he says, his voice flat, dead, and utterly devoid of emotion. "I came in here looking for a stapler."
My brain goes into full system failure. It’s not just a blue screen of death; it’s the whole hard drive catching fire, melting into a puddle of useless plastic.
For one solid, horrifying second, I’m a statue.
A very sweaty, half-dressed statue caught in the unforgiving headlights of Go Joohyuk’s bureaucratic gaze.
The world narrows to the sight of him standing there, the embodiment of every rule I’ve ever broken, looking like he’s just witnessed a dog solve a Rubik's cube.
Then the panic hits. It’s not a wave; it’s a fucking tsunami.
My body moves before my brain can issue a single coherent command.
I lunge, not at Joohyuk, but past him, slamming the clubhouse door shut with a resounding thump that echoes the frantic hammering in my chest. The lock snicks into place, trapping the three of us in a little bubble of my own personal hell.
Containment. Step one.
I whirl around, hands held up like I’m trying to stop a train. "Hyung," I gasp, the honorific tasting like ash in my mouth. "Wait. Hold on. This—this isn't—I can explain."
The words are a jumbled, pathetic mess, tumbling out of me like loose change. I can feel my face burning, a hot, shameful flush that probably makes me look even more guilty.
Joohyuk’s gaze doesn’t waver. It slides from my disheveled state to Donghwa, who has the fucking audacity to look bored, then back to me.
His eyes drop to the table, to the Jackson Pollock painting of my release glistening under the fluorescent lights, and then back to my face.
His expression remains utterly, terrifyingly blank.
Then he does the one thing that tells me we’re irrevocably screwed.
He takes a slow, deliberate breath in through his nose. His eyes flutter shut for a fraction of a second, like a wine connoisseur tasting a particularly complex vintage.
Fuck.
He’s a Beta, but he can still smell it. The thick, cloying evidence hanging in the air.
Not just sex. Not just Alpha. He can smell me—spiced rum and musk—tangled up with him.
It’s a pheromonal confession, a biological signature that screams bonded pair, rutting.
There is no lie that can cover that scent.
My last shred of composure disintegrates.
"Okay, look, Joohyuk-hyung," I plead, my voice cracking. I take a step forward and, in a move of pure, unadulterated desperation, I grab his hands. They’re cool and dry, a startling contrast to my own, which are slick with a cold, panicked sweat. "We know the same people, right? Minjun from accounting? Sora from the marketing department? We’re practically friends. You can’t—you can’t say anything. Please."
He just stares at my hands holding his, his expression unchanging. The silence is heavy, crushing me.
My brain scrambles for a new tactic. My dad’s voice echoes in my head: every problem has a price tag.
"I can get you anything," I blurt out, squeezing his hands tighter. "Anything you want. Seriously. The student council needs new laptops, right? Done. I’ll have them delivered tomorrow. You want a vacation? My dad owns a resort in Jeju. The presidential suite is yours for a month. Just name it. A car? What kind of car do you want? Just don’t… don’t file a report. Please."
I’m babbling, offering up my family’s fortune like a sacrifice to the god of Not Getting Expelled for Public Indecency.
I’m the top of the class, reduced to a desperate, wheedling mess, begging a Beta not to ruin my life, all while my cock is still sticky in my pants from the guy watching us from the corner of the room.
This is, without a doubt, the lowest point of my entire fucking life.
I’m halfway through offering Joohyuk a lifetime membership to the country club—"Seriously, the sauna alone is worth the annual fee"—when I risk a glance over my shoulder.
I expect to see Donghwa looking at least a little worried. Maybe a bead of sweat? A tense jaw? Anything to show he understands that our social lives are currently dangling over a precipice held by a single thread of Beta patience.
Nope.
The bastard is leaning against the file cabinet, arms folded over his chest, ankles crossed.
One eyebrow is arched perfectly, his mouth twitching with that infuriating, barely-there smirk.
He looks like he’s watching a particularly mediocre street performance and debating whether or not to toss a coin.
He is absolutely, one hundred percent useless.
I turn back to Joohyuk, desperation spiking. "Okay, forget the club. Cash? I can do a wire transfer right now. I just need my phone—"
"Sihwan."
Joohyuk yanks his hands out of my grip like I’m contagious. He takes a step back, holding his palms up in a stop gesture, looking at me with the kind of exhaustion usually reserved for parents of toddlers on a sugar crash.
"Enough," he says, his voice flat. "I don't want your dad's money. I don't want a trip to Jeju. And I definitely don't want a yacht."
I freeze, mouth half-open. "You... don't?"
Joohyuk sighs, a long, suffering sound that seems to deflate his entire posture. He reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before opening them to glare at the table behind me.
His gaze lands squarely on the drying, sticky evidence of our activities. His nose wrinkles. A look of pure, unadulterated revulsion washes over his face.
"Just..." He waves a hand vaguely at the mess, looking like he might gag. "Clean that up. Please."
I blink. "Wait. That's it?"
He looks at me, deadpan. "Do you think I want to fill out the paperwork for this? Do you have any idea how many forms I’d have to file for 'Public Indecency in a Student Organization Space'?
I have finals next week, Sihwan. I don't have time for your.
.." He gestures vaguely between me and Donghwa. "...hormonal nonsense."
My knees nearly give out with relief. I sag against the nearest shelf. "Oh my god. Hyung. You are a saint. A literal saint."
"I'm not a saint," Joohyuk snaps, adjusting his cuffs and refusing to look at the table again. "I'm just tired. And this isn't my business. Whatever... weird rivalry-turned-kink thing you two have going on? Keep it out of the clubhouse."
He fixes me with a stern look, pointing a finger at my chest. "People eat lunch in here, Sihwan. We have board meetings at that table. Have some shame."
"Yes," I say immediately, nodding like a bobblehead. "Absolutely. So much shame. We’ll bleach it. I’ll buy a new table. Two tables."
"Just clean it," Joohyuk mutters, turning on his heel. He grabs the stapler from the desk near the door—the only reason he came into this hellhole in the first place—and heads for the exit.
As he pushes the door open, I hear him grumbling under his breath. "Unbelievable. Alphas. Brains entirely composed of testosterone and bad decisions. Why is it always the sticky ones..."
The door clicks shut.
Silence descends on the room again, heavy and thick, but the panic is gone, replaced by a vacuum of sheer absurdity.
I stand there for a second, staring at the closed door, my heart rate slowly coming down from cardiac arrest to mild panic attack.
Then I turn to look at Donghwa.
He’s still leaning against the cabinet, but the smirk has broken into a grin.
He meets my eyes, and for a second, we just stare at each other—disheveled, sweaty, smelling like sex, standing next to a table covered in my come, having just been lectured by the student council president like naughty children.
A snort escapes me.
It breaks the dam. I double over, a laugh bubbling up from my chest that sounds bordering on hysterical. Donghwa chuckles, pushing off the cabinet, his shoulders shaking.
" 'I can get you a yacht'?" he mocks, his voice rich with amusement. "Really, hyung? That was your opening play?"
"Shut up," I wheeze, wiping a tear from my eye, grinning like an idiot. "It almost worked. You didn't help at all, you asshole."
"I was providing moral support," he says, stepping closer and flicking a piece of lint off my shoulder. "Besides, watching you beg was... educational."
I shove him, hard, but I’m laughing too hard to put any real heat behind it. "Clean the table, freshman. That's an order."
"Make me," he shoots back, eyes glinting, but he’s already reaching for the paper towels.