Chapter Twelve #4
Hyunwoo makes what I can only describe as an Olympian effort to straighten his face.
His jaw clenches so tight that a vein stands out in the side of his neck, his nostrils flaring with the force of a suppressed exhale, and he holds it there through sheer force of will as he lowers himself to the bathroom floor beside me.
His knees crack against the tile and he reaches for me, cupping my face in both of his large, warm hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from beneath my eyes with careful strokes.
“Okay,” he says quietly, his voice steadier now, the amusement banked so he sounds almost sincere. “Okay. I get it. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. All of it.”
The sincerity, or at least the attempt at it, breaks something in me.
I start to cry in earnest, the kind of crying I haven’t done since I was a kid, messy and loud and completely beyond my control.
My face crumples and my shoulders heave and I lean forward into Hyunwoo’s chest because I can’t help it, because the bond is pulling me there and I’m too tired and too upset to fight it anymore.
I press my face against his shoulder, my nose finding the curve of his neck where his scent is strongest, and I breathe him in even as I hate myself for it.
The bond hums with satisfaction at the contact, sending a wave of soothing warmth through my body that makes my muscles unclench and my breathing slow.
Hyunwoo’s arms close around me, pulling me in tighter, one hand rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades. His chin rests on top of my head and I can feel his chest vibrating against my cheek with barely-contained laughter that he’s trying to pass off as deep breathing.
“You’re such a jerk,” I mumble against his shoulder, my words muffled and wet.
He’s definitely grinning when he pulls back, I can see the shape of it even as he rearranges his features into something approximating solemnity, his eyes too bright and his mouth twitching at the corners.
He leans down and kisses me, light and careful, just a press of his lips against mine that tastes like salt from my tears, and says, “I really am sorry. But it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. All of it.”
He wipes at my cheeks again with his thumbs, clearing the last of the tears, his expression sobers as he holds my gaze. “I didn’t mean to bite you, Yuggie. Truly. But you had to have known, on some level, that it was coming. The pull between us was too strong. Has been for months.”
I sniffle and nod, a small, reluctant dip of my chin, because he’s right about that much even if I don’t want to admit it.
“I know,” I say quietly, my voice still thick.
“I felt it too. Every time we were knotted together and your face was at my neck, I could feel it. The effort it took you to hold back.”
Hyunwoo shakes his head slowly, his dark eyes holding mine.
“You have no idea how hard it really was. From the very first time we had sex, my instincts have been screaming at me to bond you. It’s gotten so bad my jaw aches from clenching it every time we’re together, fighting the urge.
My teeth hurt with it. We were fighting a losing battle from the start. ”
He pauses and then says, “The bond only has to mean what we want it to mean. And so what if we’re sexually compatible? Is that really so terrible?”
I sniffle again and say, my voice small and bitter, “It is if it means I can’t get off without you for the rest of my life.”
Hyunwoo’s expression becomes warmer and more open than his usual smirk, his thumb tracing a slow line along my jaw. “Then don’t get off without me,” he says simply, like it’s the most obvious solution in the world.
Before I can formulate a response to that, he says, “Come on,” and scoops me up from the bathroom floor.
One arm slides under my knees, the other supports my back, and he lifts me like I weigh nothing, adjusting his grip to accommodate my belly with a care that contradicts the ease of the motion.
I yelp and grab at his shoulders, my fingers digging into the muscle there.
“Put me down, I’m too heavy for this, you’re going to throw out your back—”
“You’re not heavy at all,” Hyunwoo says dismissively, already carrying me out of the bathroom and across my bedroom.
He lays me down on the bed gently. He pulls my shorts the rest of the way off my ankles and tosses them, then pushes my thighs apart as he kneels on the floor between my legs at the edge of the mattress.
I prop myself up on my elbows, looking down at him between my spread thighs, my belly rising between us, and say, “Wait. Don’t put your mouth there.”
Hyunwoo looks up at me from his position between my legs, his dark eyes glinting, one eyebrow arched. “Why not? You seemed to enjoy it quite a lot last night.”
My face burns. I fumble for an objection. But then Hyunwoo dips his head and his mouth is on me, his tongue dragging a broad, slow stroke over my hole, and every thought I’ve ever had scatters.
I fall back against the pillows, my elbows giving out, a shaky exhale leaving my lungs as Hyunwoo’s lips seal over my opening.
His mouth is soft and hot and unbearably skilled, sucking gently at my swollen rim before his tongue presses flat against it, lapping up the slick that’s been leaking from me all day.
He groans against my hole, the vibration making me twitch, then his tongue pushes inside me and the fight drains out of my body completely, every muscle going slack at once, my thighs falling open wider on either side of his head.
Because maybe he was right. Maybe trying to pretend we don’t fit together, physically, biologically, in every way our bodies keep insisting on, was always going to be a losing battle.
Maybe it was lost before it even started, twenty-six years ago when a small omega boy decided to chase after his alpha best friend and never stopped running.