I was born an Alpha and I’ve trained steadily and kept my body in shape, yet every time we spent the night, I felt wrung out, like something had shaken me down to the last drop.
My thighs had been spread so wide it was hard even to bring them back together. There was a dull ache in places I was embarrassed to mention, and my backside stung where Taegun’s grip had left faint bruises.
Even so, I couldn’t just lie there, so I tried to push through once.
“I’d like to help.”
Taegun was pulling on the loungewear pants that had fallen to the floor.
With no underwear on, just the pants up his legs, the thin fabric showed a shadow of dark hair and the heavy outline of his cock.
I tried to drag my gaze away. If the effort worked, he didn’t notice me looking. He bent toward me, brushed my fringe aside, and said,
“Stay put. I need to check whether Myungsoon’s got the household properly stocked.”
“……”
“Or, while I’m rummaging in the fridge, you can rummage in my pants.”
…Not caught? Caught completely. I answered by covering my face with my palm. I felt him snort again.
With my hand still over my face, I heard the door close. Left alone, it hit me that this was the first time I’d slept in his room.
“…I stayed out.”
Thinking that everything around me was something he used—his things—sent a tight ache through my chest.
It felt heavy right behind my sternum. I wanted a better word than proud to name this feeling, but nothing fit.
His room was on the second floor, so I couldn’t hear him making a late breakfast from the bedroom.
I’ll just lie here a little, then sneak a look around the room.
I blinked against the pull of sleep and decided: just a short rest, then get up before he finishes cooking and take a quick look at his room.
The room was spare, but because he used it, the faint scent of sea salt and wild rose lingered in corners.
A strange calm settled over me. I dozed off.
I woke when he came back and woke me himself. Only then did I manage to pull something on below; he finally allowed me to get dressed.
We headed to the dining room. The spread looked hopeless, but it was unexpectedly edible.
Watching the shameless “chef” act as if taste didn’t matter as long as it went in your mouth, I decided I’d be handling meals from now on.
Edible wasn’t the same as good. And I wanted to give him something made by me.
I smiled now and then; Taegun stayed expressionless even with me right across from him, but there was a softness to him that wasn’t usually there.
Seeing him with his hair down, I thought, for the first time, that he looked younger than me.
Maybe he caught me having a rude thought, because a moment later I had to climb onto the island counter and spread my legs.
He promised he wouldn’t go in since I was sore, but he didn’t stop touching. Bent over the cold marble, I had to endure the wet sounds from behind.
Having my back sucked and licked inches from the plates we’d just eaten off broke something in me. I wanted to beg, but only moans came, and even that wish fell away.
That day I learned how it felt for fevered cheeks to press against a slab of cold marble.
Because that memory was so vivid, I didn’t realize until later that I’d never actually looked around his room.
I regretted that more than I expected.
The chance never came again.
There were plenty of nights I waited for him to come home, standing in front of his firmly closed door until dawn, but I never got back onto his bed.
For a long time, that alone lingered as regret.
The mood from that day lasted for a while.
So this is what people call happiness, I thought, soaking in the feeling. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Let me see the wound.”
“Want to? Should I strip?”
Even with a blank face, Taegun had a way of drawling that turned everything suggestive. If I narrowed my eyes at him, he’d backtrack at once.
“Did you think of sex? I just asked if I should take my shirt off. You said you’d treat it.”
For all that shameless talk, the way he flicked his tongue to lick my lower lip was obscenely pretty.
He said it wasn’t deep and didn’t seem inclined to get it stitched, so I disinfected the wound every evening.
Whatever recovery rate he had, it improved day by day, but even with a hole in his side, he didn’t seem willing to skip showers.
In the end, worried about infection, I had to chase him down and insist on cleaning it. The problem was he only came home at absurdly late hours.
That night too, I’d fallen asleep on the sofa so I could wake when he came in. I grabbed the first-aid kit, still a little foggy.
Even while he showered, I couldn’t wake fully. I tried to pull myself together and told him—hair wet, reaching into the fridge for bottled water—that I’d treat the wound.
As if indulging my fussing, he strolled over to the living-room sofa where I’d set the kit.
“You look sleepy.”
“…I’m fine.”
I denied it, but the faint puffiness of my face and the bird’s nest of my hair said otherwise.
Usually I would have tidied myself up, but this time I was too drowsy to think.
Maybe it had already been several days of waiting up till dawn, treating his wound, and then crashing.
His work was busy, so with my own handover almost complete, I had to be the one who stayed awake.
People said I looked like not even a needle could get through me, but in truth I slept a lot. As a kid I’d tried to force myself to sleep less, afraid it would look like a weakness.
If he saw sleep crust at the corner of my eyes, Taegun—who disliked the chore of disinfecting—might wave me off with that flat look, so I tried to focus.
He tugged me down onto the sofa beside him and sat as well.
“Go on.”
He gave a small, teasing smile, as if to see how far I’d dare go.
Funny thing was, it didn’t needle my Alpha pride at all. I had always stood above others—wherever I was.
That was because everything I had placed me there. Born a dominant Alpha in Yushin, I didn’t need to press anyone down; my boot could rest on their heads as a matter of course.
But Jang Taegun behaved as if none of that mattered. Or—he knew, but what of it.
With him, I felt like a man who was no one. It made me burn with shame—and I liked it. Liked being no one to him. It felt like he treated me as a person to a person.
Reclining against the sofa, eyes lowered like a well-fed beast, he watched me steadily as I leaned in toward him.
I had to undo the bandage he’d soaked in the shower. I realized the wintersweet on his skin was damp.
Rain pattered outside the window. After hesitating, I asked,
“…Does this happen often?”
“You mean getting a hole in my gut?”
He answered slowly. By then I was fully awake, steeped in the quiet of night drifting through the dim room.
There were only two Alphas in the living room. Jang Taegun and Lee Jaeha. Realizing that gave me a ticklish feeling.
“Can’t say.”
Sounding like he hadn’t thought about it, he reached and stroked my flat stomach. The sudden touch punched a breath out of me.
At the word newlyweds, I bit my lip without thinking and murmured, a little feverish,
“Newlyweds…”
“Newlyweds what.”
The way he asked made it sound like he was waiting for my next words. I forced my voice steady.
“Even if we weren’t newlyweds, you should take care of yourself.”
He gave a soft huff at that.
Then the hand that had been rubbing my abs slid farther, braced my lower back, and drew me in. With the other arm he hooked under my knees and set my legs over his thigh.
Suddenly I was neither quite sitting on his lap nor anywhere else, held in an awkward tangle. Even as a child I’d never been cradled like this; my spine went rigid, every muscle tightened.
As if my tension didn’t bother him at all, he studied me with easy, lax eyes and slowly stroked my thigh.
“Take care of myself? I can’t do that.”
“I mean, what I’m saying is…”
“Then you can chase me all your life and keep me in line.”
He pulled me closer again. There wasn’t a sliver of space left between us.
I tipped my face up. He was smiling. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d been had.
Had by what, I didn’t know—but the thought stuck. Who was it that ever praised love like that. Whatever this feeling was, it stole my breath and kept me from moving.
So is this just restraint, a binding? I stared, blankly wondering.
He pressed me for an answer. Smirking lightly, he looked far more at ease than I, whose heart was pounding like a drum.
His well-shaped lips parted.
“Why aren’t you answering. You’re making me anxious.”
“…I’ll—keep you in line.”
“I’m so grateful I could pay you back with my body. That work for you?”
Without waiting for my reply, he lowered his mouth to my nape. The soft, wet graze of his lips shocked me into flinching, then I forced myself still so I wouldn’t make him uncomfortable.
“…Treatment first.”
“Do it. Who said you couldn’t?”
There he went again, turning nonsense into the most natural thing. I started to push at his upper arm, then let my strength drain away.
I need to disinfect it… The thought drifted, hazy. His breath rushed against my ear—like a typhoon battering the windows.
I couldn’t tell if I wanted that storm never to pass, or if I wanted to throw the door open and walk straight into its heart.
“Focus, Director.”
He caught my chin and pressed his mouth to mine. Through the touch of soft, wet skin, I felt his breath.
My eyes fell shut on their own. I was already inside the storm.
For a while, that peaceful newlywed life continued.
That day, I was in the middle of explaining a range of matters to Lee Jaeho. Even if an executive changes, the handover is usually handled by the incoming executive’s secretarial team, but I did not trust Lee Jaeho.
“Why should Electronics care about Pharma?”
“…Because Yushin Pharma’s home-use medical diagnostic kit needs Yushin Electronics’ technology cooperation— Ah, fuck…”
Jaeho swore, clearly annoyed. I wasn’t offended, but for form’s sake I raised an eyebrow and bled a little pheromone into the air to warn him.
With Lee Jaeho, it was important never to let things slide.