Chapter Three #6
Everything hurts. Not just my ass, though that’s the epicenter, a deep, swollen throb that radiates outward in waves.
My hips ache where Hyunwoo’s fingers dug in, the skin tender and hot telling me I’ll have finger-shaped bruises by morning.
My thighs are sore from bracing against the mattress for however long that lasted.
My arms are shaky from holding myself up.
Even my jaw aches from clenching it so hard, and my throat feels scratchy from the sounds I couldn’t swallow down.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to be walking funny for days. Maybe a week. Maybe I’ll just never walk normally again and this is my life now, waddling around like I’ve been riding a horse for seventy-two hours straight.
Behind me, Hyunwoo sits up. The mattress shifts as his weight redistributes, I can hear him breathing hard still, the tail end of exertion making each exhale audible. There’s a rustling sound, him running a hand through his hair probably, pushing the wrecked, sweat-damp strands off his forehead.
Then his hand touches my shoulder blade lightly, his voice comes from above me. “Hey. You okay?”
The concern sounds genuine, at least.
I turn my head on the pillow, my cheek sticking to the fabric where tears and sweat have soaked into it, and look at him with the flattest expression I can manage given that my face is puffy and damp and probably blotchy from crying.
He looks messed up too, his hair standing up at odd angles, his chest flushed and glistening, his shirt discarded at some point during the proceedings though I don’t remember when.
His eyes search my face with actual worry, which is mildly gratifying considering he’s the one who did this to me.
“That,” I say, my voice coming out hoarse, “was the single worst experience of my entire life.”
Hyunwoo’s mouth twitches. The involuntary reaction of someone who wants to laugh but knows it would get him hit. He exhales through his nose and sits back on his heels, one hand resting on his thigh.
“It could’ve been a lot better if you’d actually let me do anything to prepare you,” he says, his tone hovering between defensive and genuinely frustrated.
He gestures at me with one hand, a sweeping motion that encompasses my entire prone, destroyed form.
“You went into that bone-dry and clenched like a fist, Yuggie. Your body was fighting me the entire time. It’s no wonder it hurt. ”
“Fuck that,” I say into the pillow, the words muffled but emphatic. “And fuck your foreplay suggestions.”
I plant my palms against the mattress and start to push myself up, my arms trembling with the effort, every muscle in my core protesting as I try to lever my torso off the bed.
I get about halfway up before Hyunwoo’s hand lands between my shoulder blades and pushes me firmly back down, pressing me flat against the sheets with enough force that my arms give out and I collapse back onto my stomach with a grunt.
“Whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?”
I crane my neck to glare at him over my shoulder, irritation flaring hot in my chest. “To wash off, obviously. And maybe apply some ice to my destroyed asshole and sit in a bath of cold water for the next several hours. Possibly the rest of the night. Possibly the rest of my natural life.”
Hyunwoo shakes his head, his hand still resting on my back like he’s prepared to pin me down again if I try to move.
“You can’t do that yet. You need to lie flat, or better yet with your hips elevated, for at least an hour so the sperm has time to travel and reach the womb.
” He says this with the calm authority of someone reciting from a textbook.
“If you stand up right now, gravity’s going to work against us and everything just leaks out. We’d be wasting the whole effort.”
I make a face so disgusted that my nose wrinkles all the way up to my forehead, my upper lip curling back from my teeth. “Gross. I do not need a visual of what’s happening inside me right now, thank you very much.”
“No, seriously.” Hyunwoo holds up a finger, his expression earnest. “I read multiple studies about this. Post-coital positioning significantly increases the chances of conception. There was one from a fertility clinic in Seoul that showed a thirty percent higher success rate when the receiving partner maintained a supine position with elevated hips for a minimum of thirty minutes after insemination, and another from a Japanese university that recommended up to an hour for optimal results.”
I stare at him. He stares back, completely serious, not a trace of irony on his face.
“You really did do your research on this, didn’t you?” I say slowly. “Like, actual research. With studies and sources and everything.”
Hyunwoo nods without a shred of embarrassment, like this is the most normal thing in the world to have spent time studying.
“Of course I did. Maybe you wouldn’t understand since you were a terrible student who barely passed anything, but I never do anything without completing my homework first.” He crosses his arms over his bare chest, looking almost offended that I’d suggest otherwise.
“I might not apply myself to most things, but when I commit to something, I go all in.”
I roll my eyes, but I don’t have the energy to argue.
He’s right that I was a terrible student, and he’s right that I don’t have the strength to fight him on this.
My body feels like it’s been through a cement mixer and my ass is throbbing with a deep, insistent ache that makes the idea of standing up and walking to the bathroom seem about as appealing as running another marathon.
“Fine,” I mutter, reaching for the nearest pillow and dragging it closer to tuck under my chin.
“I’m too exhausted and sore to argue with you.
” I settle my cheek against the pillow and then fix him with a pointed look over my shoulder.
“But if I have to lie here like a marinating piece of meat for the next hour, then you need to go get me a bottle of water, an aspirin—actually, make it two—and some kind of healing ointment.” I shift my hips experimentally and immediately regret it as a fresh spike of pain lances through my backside, making me wince hard.
“Because I’m pretty sure you tore something back there.
Actually, I’m not pretty sure. I’m completely sure. You definitely tore something.”
Hyunwoo lifts both hands in a placating gesture, palms out, the universal sign for I’m not going to argue with you. “I’m on it.”
But instead of getting up immediately, he reaches for another pillow from the head of the bed, then slides one hand beneath my lower belly.
I growl at him, a low, irritable sound from deep in my throat, because I am so tired of being manhandled and repositioned like a piece of furniture.
He ignores the growl completely, lifts my hips just enough to shove the pillow underneath my pelvis, and adjusts it carefully until my ass is propped up at an angle.
He tilts his head, considers the angle, nudges the pillow a fraction of an inch to the left, and then nods to himself with satisfaction.
“Stay put,” he says, pointing at me. “Don’t move.”
Then he’s gone, padding out of the bedroom in bare feet, and I hear him moving down the hallway. A cabinet opens in the kitchen. The fridge door. Another cabinet. The faint clink of a glass being set down, the rattle of a pill bottle.
I shake my head against the pillow and wipe at my damp cheeks with the back of my hand, dragging away the last of the tears that dried tacky on my skin.
I try very hard not to think about the heavy, liquid sensation sitting low in my belly, warm and full.
I try even harder not to think about my hole, which is throbbing with every beat of my pulse, the swollen rim radiating heat like a sunburn.
I stare at the wall instead and contemplate every decision I’ve ever made that led me to this exact moment, lying face-down with my ass elevated on a designer pillow and come pooling inside me.
The list of bad decisions is long. Impressively long, actually. But this one might be the crown jewel.
Hyunwoo comes back a couple of minutes later.
I hear his footsteps approaching and then the mattress dips as he sits on the edge beside me.
He presses a cold bottle of water into my right hand and drops two aspirin tablets into my left palm, the small pills sitting light against my skin.
I uncap the bottle with my teeth, toss both pills into my mouth, and tilt my head back to chase them with a long swallow of water that I drink so greedily some of it escapes the corner of my mouth and runs down my chin onto the pillow.
Then the mattress dips again behind me, and I feel Hyunwoo settle between my legs, and his hands spread my cheeks apart.
I choke. Water goes down the wrong pipe and I sputter violently, coughing hard enough that my ribs protest, and I crane my neck around to stare at him with wide, watering eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Hyunwoo looks up at me from between my legs with an expression so mild and unbothered that it makes me want to scream.
He’s holding a tube of something in one hand, my left cheek pulled to the side with the other, and he answers calmly.
“Putting ointment on you. Obviously.” He glances down at my exposed hole and his brow creases with genuine concern. “Now stop squirming.”