Chapter Ten
Ilie on Hongjoong’s bed in no hurry to move, sprawled on my stomach with the sheets tangled loosely at my waist, sunlight warming my bare back through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
It’s one of those rare mornings where nothing is pressing, no texts, no school fees due, no appointments to rush to, and my body feels loose and rested despite the pleasant ache between my legs that’s become familiar over the weeks of this contract.
I can hear Alto and Rennard clicking around on the hardwood somewhere in the apartment, their nails tapping in that delicate prance, and the distant hum of the city far below the windows.
I close my eyes and let myself just exist for a minute, face half-buried in a pillow that smells like Hongjoong’s shampoo.
The mattress dips beside me. Hongjoong’s mouth presses warm against my cheek, dry and soft, and I make a low sound of acknowledgment without opening my eyes.
Then his lips move lower, finding the knob of my spine at the base of my neck, and he starts trailing his mouth downward, kiss by kiss, slow and unhurried, like he’s counting each vertebra with his lips.
His breath is warm against my skin and I can feel the slight scratch of stubble he hasn’t shaved yet, the faint drag of it raising goosebumps along my sides.
I stay still and let him, my breathing even.
When he reaches the swell of my ass and nips at the skin there, teeth light and teasing, I laugh softly into the pillow. “You’re like a dog with a bone,” I mutter, and he bites down a little harder in retaliation, making me flinch and swat backward at him blindly.
I turn over onto my back, blinking against the sunlight, and Hongjoong lies down beside me, pressing the full length of his body against my side.
He’s warm, sleep-heated, his skin smooth where it meets mine, and when he pulls me close and kisses me properly I let him, my hand coming up to rest against his jaw.
The kiss is morning-slow and warm, his mouth tasting faintly of the water he must have gotten up to drink at some point, his tongue sliding against mine in lazy strokes that don’t demand anything, just take their time.
His hands cup my face, both of them, palms against my cheeks and fingers curling behind my ears, and when he pulls back it’s only far enough to look at me, his brown eyes still soft with sleep.
“I’m never going to get sick of seeing you all cute and sleepy like this first thing in the morning,” he says, his voice still rough from sleep, that low scratchy quality it gets before he’s fully awake.
I put my arm over my face and groan. “I’m not cute.”
His hand slides down my chest, my stomach, and then cups my soft cock where it rests against my thigh, giving it a light squeeze before flicking the head with his thumb. “This is pretty cute, in my opinion.”
I hiss and jerk my hips away from his hand, then drive my knee into his side hard enough to make him grunt. “Don’t flick it, you psycho—”
He grabs for my wrists and we’re wrestling before I can finish the sentence, tumbling across the massive bed in a tangle of bare limbs and bunched sheets, grunting and cursing at each other.
I get a solid knee into his ribs and he wheezes, then retaliates by hooking his leg around mine and trying to pin my wrists above my head.
I buck hard and twist free, rolling to the edge of the mattress, breathing hard and grinning despite myself, my hair falling into my eyes.
“We should get dressed,” I say, pushing the hair back.
Hongjoong has a weekend conference outside the city, some racing industry event that he wants me to come along for, and I need to go back to my apartment first to pack a bag.
“I still have to go home and get my things, so we should get moving if you want to leave before noon.”
Hongjoong sits up against the headboard, his hair an absolute disaster, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sweatpants.
He watches me stand and reach for the shirt I left draped over the back of his desk chair, and says with a casualness that doesn’t match the words, “If we just lived together, you know, you could wake up like this every morning and you wouldn’t have to worry about going back and forth. ”
I don’t look at him as I pull the shirt over my head.
“You’ve said as much before.” I say evenly, minding my expression even with my back turned.
“But I don’t live alone. I have no good way to explain you to my son, and even if I did, what happens at the end of the contract?
” I tug the hem down and reach for my pants folded on the chair.
“I’d have to uproot us all over again and lose the lease on my current apartment. ”
The silence behind me lasts a second too long.
“Then why don’t we forget about the contract,” Hongjoong says, “and make this permanent.”
I freeze with one arm through my sleeve.
The fabric bunches at my elbow as I turn slowly to look at him.
He’s still sitting against the headboard, one knee drawn up, but his expression is completely sincere.
There’s no trace of a joke in it, no dimpled grin to undercut the words, no playful tilt to his head.
He’s watching me with steady eyes and a set jaw, and he looks like a man who’s been thinking about this for longer than just this morning.
“What are you saying?” I manage.
Hongjoong gets up from the bed and crosses to me, his bare feet quiet on the hardwood.
His hands find my waist and pull me close, my half-dressed body fitting against his chest, and he looks down at me, his expression unwavering.
“I’m saying forget the contract terms. You don’t have to move out, ever.
” His thumbs press into the dip of my waist, firm and grounding.
“I can claim you. You can live here permanently.”
I look up at him and I can see it in his eyes, the steadiness there, the certainty that comes from having already argued himself through every angle and arrived at a conclusion he’s confident in.
He really means it. I struggle for words and blink several times, dropping my gaze to his chest where the tattoo curls around his side, the crane’s wing curving over his ribs.
“You can’t mean that,” I say quietly.
“I do.” His grip on my waist tightens slightly. “Think about it, Jae. You wouldn’t have to do this work anymore. I have more than enough to take care of you for the rest of your life.”
I shake my head, refusing to let myself believe it.
Believing it would mean letting hope in, and hope is the most dangerous thing I can afford right now.
“You need to think about what you’re offering.
I understand maybe you wanted me when we were younger, but I’m not young anymore.
” I gesture vaguely at myself, at the body I know too well, the scars and the wear and the chronic aches that flare up at the worst times.
“My body is worn out. I have nothing to offer you.”
Hongjoong’s brow furrows, and he lets out a sharp breath through his nose.
“Oh, come on. We’re the same age, for fuck’s sake.
And I don’t care about any of that.” He squeezes me closer, one hand sliding up my back to cup the nape of my neck, and leans down to press his mouth against the shell of my ear.
His voice drops, warm and rough against my skin.
“No one has ever pleased me the way you do, so it doesn’t seem like there’s anything wrong with your body from where I’m standing. ”
His words land settle behind my ribs, warm and aching. I pull back enough to meet his eyes and say the thing I need to say, the thing that matters more than anything else in this conversation. “And what about my son?”
Hongjoong shrugs, easy as anything. “I’ll adopt him.”
I lean back in his arms, genuinely startled. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Hongjoong, you’ve never even met him.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like I’m being dense for questioning it.
“He’s a part of you. He’s your blood, so he’s family to me too.
” I blink hard, my jaw working. I have to look away because the wave of emotion that rises in my chest is too big and too sudden and if I’m not careful, it’s going to spill out of me in a way I can’t take back.
Hongjoong isn’t finished though. “You said he’s an alpha, right?
He probably needs an alpha parent to help guide him through his presentation and everything that comes with it anyway. I can do that.”
I’m speechless. Everything I’ve wanted for fifteen years is being laid out in front of me like it’s the simplest thing in the world, like all I have to do is say yes and it’s mine.
Hongjoong offering to claim me, to take care of me, to adopt his own son without even knowing the truth.
And it’s too good. I know it’s too good, because I know what’s underneath it, the lie I’ve been sitting on since we were eighteen, the secret that could shatter every single thing he just said the moment it surfaces.
When he finds out who Sungyoon really is.
When Sungyoon finds out who Hongjoong really is.
When both of them look at me and realize what I’ve done.
I force myself to breathe, to be logical, to push down the desperate wanting that’s clawing at the inside of my chest. “Maybe we can discuss it later,” I say, my voice only shakes a little. “After the conference. When we’ve both had time to think.”
Hongjoong searches my face for a moment, then nods. “All right. I won’t push.” He kisses my forehead, lingering, his lips warm against my skin, and then lets me go.