14. Chapter Fourten #3
I carry it to the back step where the kitchen opens onto the courtyard.
The rain is coming down in sheets out there, bouncing off the stone, flooding the little drain channel Mrs. Nam dug along the base of the wall years ago.
The sound of it fills the kitchen, fills the hallway, fills every corner of this place.
I sit down on the step and set the kit beside me, uncurling my fist to look at my palm.
The cut’s still bleeding sluggishly. I reach for the bandage roll with my good hand and start trying to tear the wrapper with my teeth.
Ryowoon sits down beside me.
I don’t look at him. Don’t react when his knee bumps mine, when his weight settles on the step so close that I can feel the warmth coming off his arm.
He reaches over and takes the bandages out of my hand.
And not gently, he yanks them away, then grabs my wrist and pulls my bleeding palm toward him with the stubborn set to his jaw that says don’t bother arguing. I let my hand go limp in his grip.
He tears open an antiseptic wipe with his teeth, the foil crinkling.
His fingers are rough and calloused and careful as he turns my palm up and starts dabbing at the cut, cleaning the blood away from the edges.
I watch his hands. The scarred knuckles, the slightly crooked set of the fingers on his left hand.
The ink on the inside of the opposite one, black dots connected by thin lines, visible every time he tilts his hand.
“Do you feel better?” he asks quietly without looking up.
My eyes stay on the constellation on his wrist.
“No.”
He sighs, slowly exhaling through his nose. He turns my hand, pressing the wipe against the deepest part of the cut where blood keeps welling.
“Shouldn’t have come back,” he mutters. “Knew it was going to be this way.”
My teeth grind together. I look away from his hands, look out at the courtyard. The rain’s turning the packed earth to mud, puddling against the base of the old truck. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone looking for you either,” I say flatly. “Only ever makes me feel stupid thinking about it.”
Ryowoon says nothing. He tears open a bandage wrapper, starts winding the gauze around my palm.
I let out a short laugh. “The way I gave myself to you. I handed it over like it was nothing.” I swallow.
The rain hammers the courtyard. “But you probably never wanted any of it, did you? Never saw me as anything more than the way you did free food. Too starved to say no to it whether you liked the taste or not.”
Ryowoon’s hands stop on the bandage.
His fingers close around my jaw. Not gently either. He grips my chin and turns my face toward him and his eyes are burning, furious, the line of his mouth so tight the scar beneath it goes white.
“You’re not going to fucking do that now,” he says sharply.
“I’m not going to sit here and listen to you wallow in self-pity for something you have no right to.
” His grip tightens on my jaw, holding me in place, his eyes boring into mine.
“If there’s one thing I ever did right it’s putting space between us.
Because I’ve never wanted anything in my whole life as badly as I wanted you. ”
I crash into him.
My mouth finds his in a graceless collision, my split palm smearing blood on his jaw as I grab at his face.
I feel Ryowoon stiffen, his body jerking, his hand coming up to my chest to push me back.
His fingers press flat against my sternum like he’s going to shove me away and I don’t care, I kiss him anyway, my mouth moving against his, desperate and furious and shaking.
His hand fists in the front of my shirt.
He’s not pushing anymore.
He pulls. Yanks me into him so hard my knees slide on the step, my body pitching forward as his other hand tangles in my hair at the back of my skull, gripping, tilting my head as his mouth opens and his tongue curls against mine.
He makes a low sound in his throat as I grip at his hair with my bleeding hand, I don’t care, I pull him closer, grab fistfuls of his shirt and yank until I can feel his heartbeat slamming against my own.
His mouth is hot, tastes like cigarettes and a familiar note, ten years gone and I still know the taste of him, would know it blind.
He kisses me harder, angrier, punishing, his teeth catching my bottom lip, his tongue sliding against mine with a hunger that makes my hips jerk forward against his.
I grip at his clothes, wanting to tear them off him, wanting nothing between us, wanting to crawl inside his skin and make him feel what I’ve been feeling.
Ryowoon growls against my mouth and suddenly he’s over me, his weight bearing down, pressing me back against the step.
His hips grind into mine, the sensation shooting up my spine because he’s hard, I can feel the length of him straining through his jeans against me and the blood in my body runs so hot I can hear my own pulse between my ears.
I push up against him, I’m not letting him have this.
Not after all this time. My hands find his chest, shove, and when he resists I shove harder, hooking a leg around his and twisting until I feel him lose his center of gravity.
He grabs at me as he goes off balance and I follow, pressing him back against the wall, pinning him there with my body as I kiss him until he’s cursing into my mouth.
“Fuck—Seyeon—”
I bite his lip. He groans and I swallow the sound, rolling my hips against his as I lick into his mouth and feel his hands clawing at my back through my shirt, pulling me tighter against him. I’m dizzy with it. My skin burns everywhere it touches his.
We stumble. Back through the doorway into the bedroom, grappling, neither willing to let go, tripping over each other’s feet like teenagers.
I yank at his shirt, at the waist of his pants, and he curses when my bloody palm smears across his hip.
He trips on the edge of the sleeping mat and goes down, pulling me with him, and I land on top, knees bracketing his hips, my palms on his chest. His hair a mess, spread dark against the mat, his eyes wild and stunned and blazing as he looks up at me.
I pull my shirt over my head and throw it.
Ryowoon’s tongue drags across his bottom lip. His chest rises and falls beneath my hands as he shakes his head in a small tight movement.
“Seyeon, don’t,” he says in a rough voice, deeper than normal.
It does the opposite of slow me down, the sound of it sends a pulse of heat straight between my legs.
I lean forward. Bring my face close to his until our noses almost touch, until I can see every shade in his brown eyes, can count his eyelashes, can see the slight tremble in his jaw. My breathing is ragged.
“Tell me you don’t want it,” I say. “And I’ll stop.” I hold his gaze. “Look me in the eye and tell me without lying. Because I know when you’re lying, Ryowoon. Tell me you don’t want me.”
His eyes don’t leave mine. I watch the war play out across his face, the clenching of his jaw, the way his throat works as he swallows.
His hands are at his sides, fingers digging into the mat, and I can feel the tension running through his body underneath me.
Every muscle coiled. Every part of him fighting to hold the line he drew.
And he can’t. I can see it. He can’t make himself say the words because they’d be a lie and we’d both know it.
He says nothing.
I kiss him. Slower, my mouth dragging over his, sucking at his bottom lip.
His hips push up against mine involuntarily and I grind down, feeling him strain beneath me.
My hands find his waistband. I pull, working the button, the zipper, shoving the denim down over his hips.
Ryowoon’s breath catches and his hand shoots to my wrist but he doesn’t stop me, his grip tightening then loosening as I push his jeans down his thighs.
I tear my mouth from his and start moving down his body.
Kiss his jaw, the scar beneath it, the column of his throat where his pulse is hammering so fast I can feel it against my lips.
Down, over the collar of his shirt that I shove aside, tasting the salt on his skin, the faint trace of soap.
I drag my mouth down the center of his chest through the cotton, down his stomach where the muscles tense and jump under my lips, down past the trail of dark hair below his navel.
His breathing comes in sharp bursts now, his hands fisting in the mat on either side of his hips.
His cock is flushed and straining, curved up toward his belly, the tip already slick. My heart pounds in my skull as I settle between his thighs. Ryowoon’s voice comes from above me, strained, his hand reaching down to grip my shoulder.
“Seyeon, stop—”
I slap his hand away. Wrap my fingers around his length and seal my mouth over the head.
The sound Ryowoon makes goes through me like electricity.
His head drops back, his neck arching, the tendons standing out as his jaw locks tight, his body going taut as a wire.
I look up at him, watching his face as I sink down, taking more of him into my mouth, relaxing my throat when the tip pushes past the back of it.
I keep going until my nose presses against the warm skin of his pelvis and I can feel the coarse hair tickle my face. Then I suck.
“Fuck—god—fuck—”
His thighs clench on either side of my head, the muscles trembling with the effort of keeping still.
I pull back slowly, tongue flat against the underside, tracing the vein as I go, then sink down again.
Set a pace, drawing him to the back of my throat each time, watching his control disintegrate.
He throws his head back, one arm flung over his face, the other hand gripping the edge of the mat so hard his knuckles are white.
I reach up, pry his hand free, lace my fingers through his, pin it against the mat as I bob between his legs.