“Mm, it tore.”
Jang Taegun said it while looking at the slightly swollen slit. Each time he spoke, his breath brushed that tender patch of skin.
He meant the condom. It was around the time when Jang Taegun, who still hadn’t climaxed once, had his arms clamped tight around Lee Jaeha’s waist and sank his teeth into the nape of his neck. Jaeha had felt something pop inside, along the inner wall.
He’d felt it spilling deeper, which is why his hips had trembled at the wrongness of it. They’d used a condom because this was the office, and now it was pointless.
“Why are you twitching like that.”
Embarrassed by the way the man kept staring straight at his rear, he shifted—then clicked tongue, Taegun’s, made him freeze.
Taegun, unexpectedly, took care of the cleanup himself afterward. He remembered waking up spotless last time, too. The memory made him reel.
“Want to leave what’s pooled inside for a moment? Think you can keep it clenched?”
He wanted to ask him to pull out, but the words wouldn’t come. His jaw ached from holding back the sounds.
Taegun kissed the bulging masseter at Jaeha’s cheek. At that small touch, the last of the semen pooled at the urethral opening thinned with precum and ran down in a slick thread.
He hadn’t even thrust anywhere it should go, and yet Jaeha’s cock was wet as if it had just been shoved into a place flooded with slick and pulled out. Like a pretty piece of fruit drizzled with sugar syrup.
Humming under his breath, Jang Taegun fetched a box of tissues from a corner of the director’s office and wiped him clean.
…Maybe the anger had eased a little.
He had definitely been angry right up to the moment he dragged him into this office. He’d still been angry all through their words.
His face hadn’t changed. Only the pheromones told the truth. Both Jang Taegun and Lee Jaeha were dominant alphas; neither of them was the type to lose control of pheromone regulation.
Even so, Jaeha could read his feelings through scent because his own sensitivity to pheromones was innately high.
Had sex bled the anger out of him?
The thought came to Jaeha out of nowhere, dangerously. He didn’t realize that thinking like that meant he was really seeing Jang Taegun as some thug bastard.
Because it was the first time he’d ever loved someone, Jaeha was, of course, dull to other feelings too.
He didn’t anger or disappoint easily with others. He had no expectations to begin with, and if someone picked a fight and that fight had merit, he tended to let it pass.
Most of his emotions flowed along the lines of common sense. If nothing violated ethics or sense, there was no reason to grow angry.
Conversely, if something broke ethics and sense, even if he wasn’t angry, he had to act as if he were. He needed to look like a boss who was clear about reward and punishment.
He rarely got depressed either. His days were even, his life plain. How miserable the home he’d grown up in was, what environment he’d lived through—none of that mattered here.
Because of that, he was a little dull at reading other people’s emotions. He had good work instincts and sharp situational awareness, but when it crossed into his private life, he often floundered.
It wasn’t that he’d never dated, but his partners typically got mad for reasons he couldn’t grasp, and when he failed to react, they would abruptly ask for physical contact.
Hold me, kiss me, and so on. Each time, he didn’t particularly refuse. He even thought it was the easy way.
Did Jang Taegun like physical contact too? Since he was the one who felt happier the more of their bodies met, if that much would cool the man’s temper, the post-sex cramps or the limpness that followed didn’t matter.
“You look like you’re off in useless thoughts again.”
Taegun rose from between his legs.
Jaeha watched, a little dizzy, as he balled up the tissues heavy with the traces of what they’d done, then tossed them into the bin.
…Who was it that tidied this room again? He groped for the memory, gave up, then bent to pick up the suit pants that had fallen under the sofa and worked his feet in from the ankles up.
The belt gave them weight. Flustered, he hurried to get dressed, and the Velcro on the belt knocked together with a ratcheting clack.
Watching that sight, Taegun snorted, bent, and picked something up. Jaeha’s boxer briefs.
“No hair, no underwear. Lewd as hell… Are you trying to coax me into another round?”
“…No.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and reached out to take his black underwear back from Taegun’s hand.
Those eyes were full of mischief, but he returned them without a word. Jaeha stripped off the pants he’d just pulled on and put on the underwear first.
When the red tongue swept the inner edge of his lip, it shone. His gaze was just as damp.
Jaeha wasn’t used to someone looking at him like that. Who would eye up a giant, over-180-centimeter dominant alpha like they wanted to lick him clean.
He had learned there was a way of working out anger with the body, but starting again right now was a bit of a problem. He wetted his lips and spoke.
“…Not any more today.”
“Who said anything.”
Eyes blazing but face the same bored mask, Taegun came over himself, wrapped him from behind, and pulled him in.
Then he reached around, zipped the zipper he hadn’t yet yanked up, tightened the belt, and set the Velcro.
His arms were long enough that, even hugging Jaeha from behind—with his thick layers of muscle and broad chest—he could still adjust the belt up at his abdomen. That, too, was startling.
“Thank you…”
Startling was startling; mortifying was mortifying. He wasn’t a three-year-old—having someone else set his clothes to rights?
Through the hug he felt the man’s solid ribcage and chest. The pheromones—wild rose and sea salt—rolled pleasantly.
He’d thought the first time he caught it that it was very sweet.
He’d first smelled it when he met Sumin. He’d thought it was too heavy to be Sumin’s and too sweet to be the alpha sitting next to him.
Even now—
Even now it was the same. The full wild-rose scent merged with sea air and pushed into his nose. Violently jabbed his olfactory cells, then ended in sweetness.
Without realizing, Jaeha slackened, the back of his head gently tapping down onto Taegun’s clavicle.
Taegun murmured sharply at his ear.
“How old are you, can’t even hold your pheromones and go limp. What if there were an omega outside.”
“Ah…”
He’d felt drowsy, and suddenly the office was packed with the smell of ash wood.
It was Jaeha’s pheromones. A faint winter jasmine drifted under it. He hurried to gather his scent back in and groaned.
“Tch. Lean. Now.”
The sudden lax spill of pheromones and the equally abrupt clampdown left him a little light-headed. Somehow sensing it, Taegun made him lean his weight against him.
A lot had hit all at once, and Jaeha, half resigned, let go and leaned on him fully.
He didn’t think he was out of shape, but the slight tremor between his legs wasn’t helping his focus either.
He hadn’t known the receiving side burned through this much stamina…
He thought he should work out, separately. Taegun was vigorous, and the warmth they could share in their bodies was a joy. So he thought it best to prepare his stamina.
Because he liked the warmth they shared. But sex didn’t only bring each other’s body heat. The pleasure the man had given him flashed up out of nowhere.
Pleasure… Well, he couldn’t say that overwhelming pleasure was good. Candy that’s too sweet only leaves the tongue sore.
That was how it was with Taegun. Jaeha hadn’t known he could feel it there. It was a sensation that bored through the fixed ideas of a man who had lived his whole life as a dominant alpha.
If this kept up, something inside him might collapse—he had that premonition of it.
Even so, in the middle of that, the reason he didn’t push Taegun away but wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in his shoulder was because that warmth against him was so dearly welcome.
Taegun’s flesh and frame were different from his own. Both bodies were trained, but if his was plaster-hard with a flaw somewhere, Taegun’s was like iron.
Clinging to him gave comfort to a man who had never once truly leaned his back on anyone.
Even when the man tapped his shoulder and told him to lean, he never meant to—but the mere existence of him soothed. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“Good. Pretty.”
Mortified out of his mind at having someone buckle his belt, one hand hiding his face, he went even hotter when the man praised him like he was proud of him and then stepped away.
Finished straightening him, Taegun even patted his backside. It was something not even his mother had done to him, and for a moment his face went white, but he said nothing.
Because the man, no longer touching him, was looking around the office. Feeling oddly sheepish, Jaeha stood there, unsure of what to do with himself.
There was something intensely intrigued about the way he studied the furniture in the director’s office. He went to the desk, stroked a corner near the edge, then carefully scanned the things on top.
“What’s this. Funny taste.”
The turtle-shaped jade paperweight was something from his grandfather. Taegun tapped the head of the turtle with his long thumb—the turtle with a darker jade bead clamped in its mouth—and muttered.
…Now that he’d said it, it really was old-man taste.
For Jaeha, it was just handy for pinning down the site plans that came up sometimes. He’d never once thought about the look or the material, and the comment threw him.
“It’s just…”
He started to explain, but Taegun was already looking at something else. The fountain pen. The tip was set with a diamond; his mother had given it to him for middle school graduation.
Rolling the pen with a flick, Taegun said,
“What pen has a diamond stuck in it.”
“…Do you want it?”
He regretted it as soon as it left his mouth. It wasn’t as if Taegun lacked money, and he wasn’t the type to covet small valuables—why was he suddenly asking, do you want it?
There was no other meaning. The pen did mean something to him, and if the man had it, that felt good. He kept all the gifts his mother had given him, but few were things he kept close and used.
He’d just been hit with the urge to give something given by someone he loved to the person he loved. He asked too fast, and his voice cracked at the end.
His ears flushed. Thankfully, Taegun didn’t look at him, just studied the pen.
“It’s got Director’s name on it.”
“Yes… It should.”
“And you’re giving it to me?”
Diamond or not, it was something he’d gotten in middle school—a dozen years of use by now.
Thinking how ridiculous the offer must look to the man he’d offered it to, he couldn’t get words out. He was about to say it was a slip of the tongue when Taegun turned, glanced at him, and snorted.
“Good. I’ll take it.”
“…What?”
“Was it just talk? Why are you surprised.”
“No, that’s not it.”
He picked up the pen and shoved it deep into the inside pocket of his jacket. Jaeha bit his lower lip. On second thought, giving someone a used item felt rude.
“…I’ll buy you a new one instead. Give it back.”
“Give and snatch. Director, you a gangster?”
One big hand covered the spot inside his jacket where he’d tucked the pen, and the look he gave him was the kind you’d give a lout drooling over someone else’s property.
Jaeha was momentarily at a loss for words.
“I’m not a gangster…”
“Then why are you asking for it back. Taking other people’s things, that’s what thug bastards do. Understand?”
In the careful, syllable-by-syllable tone of someone teaching a child morals, he laid it out, and Jaeha nearly nodded before stopping himself, disgusted with himself.