Chapter Five
I’m squeezing an avocado in the produce aisle, testing the give of it between my thumb and forefinger the way my mother taught me when I was twelve, when my phone buzzes in my back pocket.
I set the avocado down and pull it out, expecting Sungyoon or maybe Jinkyung. Instead it’s Hongjoong’s name on the screen, and the message is two lines. An address downtown that I don’t recognize, and beneath it: Come now.
No context. No explanation. No please.
I frown at the screen, check the time. It’s barely two in the afternoon on a Wednesday.
I have a cart half-full of groceries behind me, a bag of rice and some scallions and a package of pork belly that’s going to go bad if I leave it sitting in the store.
I consider ignoring the message for about three seconds, my thumb hovering over the lock button, before the contract clause about on-demand availability surfaces in my mind.
Hongjoong can call on me at any time, for any reason, and I’m obligated to show up.
That’s what I signed. That’s what I’m being paid a mind-boggling amount of money for.
I put the avocado back in the bin, wipe my hands on my jeans, and abandon my half-filled cart between the lettuce display and a stack of watermelons.
Some poor stock clerk is going to have to deal with that.
I feel a twinge of guilt about the pork belly as I walk out through the automatic doors, but it passes by the time I reach my car.
The drive across the city takes forty minutes in midday traffic, which gives me plenty of time to stew.
I keep glancing at the address on my phone where it’s propped in the cup holder, watching the GPS reroute me around a construction zone near the river.
The neighborhood it’s leading me to is the business district, not the kind of place I’d expect Hongjoong to summon me for a hookup.
When I finally pull into the parking structure beneath the building and look up at the facade, I recognize the logo immediately.
It’s the racing company Hongjoong drives for, their name and emblem stamped across the entrance in brushed steel lettering.
I’ve seen it on his jacket, on the side of his car in the photos that pop up online whenever I make the mistake of searching his name at two in the morning.
The lobby is empty when I push through the glass doors, lights dimmed to a half-power setting buildings switch to after business hours.
My footsteps echo off the polished floor as I cross to the elevator bank and press the call button.
The floor number Hongjoong texted was fourteen.
I watch the numbers climb on the display panel as I ride up, and step out into a quiet hallway lined with office doors, all of them dark behind their frosted glass panels.
The whole floor has the eerie stillness of a workplace that’s been vacated for the day, chairs pushed in, monitors dark, the faint hum of climate control the only sound.
I follow the hallway around a corner and find the one door that’s cracked open, warm light spilling through the gap.
Inside is a corner office, floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls and furniture that looks like it was picked out of a catalog.
And there’s Hongjoong, sprawled across a leather couch against the far wall.
His racing jacket is tossed over the back of the desk chair, and he’s in a black t-shirt and jeans, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, scrolling through his phone with his thumb like he has absolutely nowhere else to be.
“What was so urgent?” I ask from the doorway, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.
Hongjoong looks up. A cat-like smile spreads across his face, slow and self-satisfied, the dimple pressing into his left cheek.
“Nothing really,” he says, locking his phone and tossing it onto the couch cushion beside him. “I just badly needed a fuck.”
I stare at him.
For a full five seconds I just stand there in the doorway of this office, processing the fact that I abandoned a cart full of groceries, drove forty minutes across the city in traffic, and navigated an empty corporate building like some kind of after-hours booty call delivery service because this man was horny at his desk.
“You’re kidding me,” I say flatly.
“I’m not.”
“Hongjoong.” I step into the office and let the door swing shut behind me. “You can’t just demand that I drop everything and rush across the city in traffic so you can get your rocks off in your team manager’s office.”
“It’s a nice office,” he offers, gesturing around at the leather furniture and the view.
“That’s not the point.” I cross the room toward him and he watches me come with that infuriating grin still plastered on his face, not moving from his reclined position.
“Technically,” he says, holding up one finger, “I can. Demand that, I mean.” He tilts his head, eyes bright with amusement. “That’s kind of the entire point of the contract.”
Something snaps in me, a frustrated impulse that used to seize me in high school whenever Hongjoong said something so smug and self-assured that my only available response was violence.
I swing at him, an open-palmed swat aimed at the side of his head, and he catches my wrist mid-arc, his fingers closing around it with reflexes that haven’t dulled at all since we were eighteen.
His grin widens.
I wrench my arm free and shove at his chest with both hands, putting real force behind it, and Hongjoong rocks back into the couch but comes right back up, grabbing for my arms. Then we’re grappling, genuinely wrestling on the leather couch, and it’s so stupidly familiar that for a split second I forget where we are and what we are to each other now.
I hook my arm around his neck and try to wrangle him into a headlock the way I used to when we were kids, using my weight to drag him sideways, and Hongjoong laughs, a real full laugh that shakes through his chest and into mine where we’re pressed together.
He’s trying to pry my arm off his neck but I’ve got a solid grip, my bicep flexed tight against the side of his throat, and I use the leverage to twist him down into the cushions.
He gets a hand on my ribs and shoves, hard, but I brace my knee against the couch frame and hold my position.
We used to do this constantly, shoving matches in the school hallway, roughhousing on the rooftop, our friends forming a circle around us and hollering while Hongjoong and I went at each other like a couple of feral cats.
I was always the only omega who could actually give the alphas a real fight, and Hongjoong was always the one who seemed to enjoy it the most, who’d come back grinning even when I left bruises on him.
I get a solid hit into his ribs with my elbow, right below the edge of his tattoo, and the breath wheezes out of him in a satisfying rush.
“Fuck,” Hongjoong crows, half-winded and half-delighted. “You still pack a punch, Jae.”
The compliment distracts me for exactly one second, a flush of satisfaction that loosens my grip just enough.
Hongjoong takes the opening and moves, twisting his hips and using his longer reach to grab both my wrists at once.
He wrenches me sideways and I go down, face-first into the couch cushions, the leather creaking under us as he flips me onto my stomach and pins my wrists behind my back with one hand.
My reactions are slower than they used to be.
My body doesn’t recover from position changes as fast as I did at nineteen, the years of damage and wear making my joints protest a half-beat too late, and by the time I try to buck him off he’s already settled his weight, knees braced on either side of my hips, his free hand yanking at the back of my pants.
“Get off me, you—”
A sharp slap cracks across my ass, hard enough to echo through the quiet office, and I yelp in genuine surprise. The sting blooms hot across my skin through the fabric of my underwear, spreading outward in a wave that makes my cock twitch against the couch cushion beneath me.
“Settle down,” Hongjoong says from above me, his voice low and amused and not even slightly out of breath anymore, the bastard.
Then without any further warning his hand shoves my pants and underwear down past my hips and two of his fingers plunge into my hole.
I cry out into the leather, my back arching as my body clenches hard around the sudden intrusion, the stretch sharp and unlubricated except for the slick my body is already starting to produce in response to his pheromones flooding the small office.
Hongjoong doesn’t ease up. He pushes deeper, curling his fingers against my walls, then spreads them wide, scissoring me open with a pressure that makes my toes curl in my shoes.
My cock hardens rapidly where it’s trapped between my stomach and the couch, and more slick leaks out around his knuckles, my hole going soft and wet for him no matter how much the rest of me wants to keep fighting.
He fingers me with a thoroughness that borders on cruel, thrusting deep and then pulling back to circle my rim before plunging in again, spreading me wider each time.
I bury my face in the cushion and squeeze my eyes shut as my hips start grinding helplessly against the couch, chasing friction on my cock while his fingers work me open from behind.
By the time he adds a third finger and crooks all three directly against my prostate, my eyes are rolling back and I’m making sounds into the leather.
Then he pulls his fingers out.
I look back over my shoulder, panting, face flushed and hair falling into my eyes, just in time to watch Hongjoong lift his slick-coated hand to his mouth. He holds my gaze as he slides two glistening fingers between his lips, sucking my slick off them with a low indulgent hum, clearly savoring it.
“You’re a fucking pervert,” I tell him flatly.