Chapter Fifteen #5
He holds my gaze, looking more vulnerable than I have ever seen him in over two decades of friendship, and says, “I know I should have talked to you about this. About all of it. But everything fell into place so naturally between us that it felt like we didn’t need to discuss it.
Like it was already decided.” His voice drops.
“I can’t stand the idea of being without you.
You’re my best friend, but you’re more than that now. You’re the only one I want.”
My head is spinning. My pulse is loud in my ears and the baby is doing somersaults against my bladder and my eyes are burning with tears.
But everything he’s saying echoes the feelings I’ve been shoving down and refusing to examine for months, the ones I’ve been explaining away as hormones, as proximity, as convenience.
Because he’s right. Everything between us fits.
It always has, from the time we were kids running through the estate grounds to the nights we spend tangled together in his bed with the dogs at our feet.
And the idea of being with anyone other than Hyunwoo, of going back to my old life and my old apartment and dating women who don’t know me the way he does, feels fundamentally wrong in a way I can no longer pretend it doesn’t.
I sit back in my seat, one hand on my stomach, and let out a long, slow breath. Hyunwoo watches me, barely breathing, his fingers white on the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry I lied about the claim,” he says quietly. “I was going to address it eventually, but you seemed to resist the idea so strongly that I couldn’t find the right moment. I kept putting it off.”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t opposed to it,” I admit, though the confession feels like stepping off a ledge. “I just thought you weren’t thinking it through. That you’d wake up one day and realize you’d locked yourself into something you didn’t actually want.”
“I want it,” he says, with no hesitation at all.
“And now?” he asks, tentative, his voice careful in a way that Hyunwoo’s voice is almost never careful.
I think about it. I sit in the quiet car on the shoulder of the road that leads away from the house where we both grew up, and I think about the last eight months.
About the night I agreed to this insane arrangement.
About the first agonizing time in his bed and the second time that was better and the third time that was good and every time after that when it stopped being something I endured and became something I wanted.
About his hands on my belly when the baby kicked for the first time.
About the way he decorated my room in my favorite colors before I even moved in.
About the dogs pressed against my legs and the vitamins on the counter and the way he kisses my temple in the morning like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I turn in my seat, lean across the center console as far as my enormous belly will allow, grab Hyunwoo by the collar of his shirt with both fists, and kiss him.
It’s not gentle or tentative. I pour everything into it, all the frustration and the fear and the wanting and the realization that I’ve been fighting something that was never actually a fight, just two idiots circling each other for twenty-six years until nature finally forced the issue.
Hyunwoo makes a startled sound against my mouth, his hand flying up to cradle the back of my head, and then he’s kissing me back with equal force, his fingers threading into my hair, his other hand finding my jaw and holding me there.
When I pull back we’re both breathing hard, our faces close, our eyes bright. The winter light coming through the windshield catches the gold of his chain and the wetness on my lower lip.
“If I accept being your omega,” I say roughly, “does that mean I get more than just a portion of the inheritance? Because I could really use a new car. And new clothes after the baby’s born, since literally nothing I own fits anymore.
And maybe a vacation somewhere warm where I can lie on a beach and not think about the fact that my dick is the size of a thumb. ”
Hyunwoo’s face splits into the widest, most genuinely delighted grin I have ever seen on him, his eyes shining with relief and joy so bright it transforms his entire face from handsome to something that makes my chest hurt. “Whatever you want,” he says. “Anything. All of it.”
I nod, pretending to consider this seriously, tapping my chin. “Well then, I guess I could just stay. You did go to all that effort decorating the room for me, after all. Seems wasteful to leave.”
Hyunwoo shifts the car into gear, the engine purring back to life, and says, “Forget about that room. I’m having it cleared out tomorrow. You’re not sleeping anywhere but in my bed from now on.”
“You’re being possessive already.”
He puts his hand on my thigh, his long fingers squeezing firmly through the fabric of my pants and says without looking at me, his eyes on the road ahead, his mouth curved in that infuriating, irresistible smirk, “Damn right. Because you’re mine. Now let’s get home so I can prove it.”