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4. The deceased was transported to the family burial grounds after the funeral procession, in accordance with his wishes while he was alive. Until every funeral procedure was complete, Dowook and Seonha could barely sleep.
Even when they arrived home and stepped through the entrance, there was no meaningful conversation between them. Dowook had never been much of a talker to begin with, and Seonha, who had always actively tried to start conversations, had no intention of opening her mouth with her expression so utterly downcast.
“Get some proper rest.”
Dowook said this as he removed his outerwear and headed toward the study.
“What about you?”
“There’s something I need to take care of.”
“……”
“But.”
“We’ve barely slept. Go wash up and get some rest.”
Dowook had been unable to rest as well. No matter how tireless and physically resilient he was, Seonha was worried that continuing like this might take a toll on him.
She wanted to persuade him to sleep first and work afterward, but his turned back was resolute. The husband she had known for three years was stubborn, and once he had made up his mind, he never changed it because of someone else’s persuasion.
The study door shut with a heavy thud.
With no other choice, Seonha headed first to the bathroom attached to the master bedroom. She entered the powder room, put the clothes she had been wearing into the laundry basket, and stepped into the bathroom naked, allowing the hot water to ease her exhausted body.
Washing, eating, and sleeping were all far more comfortable at home. A brief smile crossed her lips when she realized what she had just thought. She had come to regard this spacious, splendid, comfortable place as her own home.
When she had first entered this place after living in a house that was colder than the outdoors in winter and hotter in summer, she had felt that it did not suit her—as though a ragged girl had stolen a beautiful princess’s clothes and put them on. The fact that her stay here had a fixed expiration date had made it feel even more so.
The day she would leave this house again was to be within thirty days of Chairman Choi’s death. The exact date had not been specified, but when she had signed the contract with Dowook, he had explained that Chairman Choi would not last even a year.
Dowook had told her that they could set the term at around a year, then asked whether it was really such a bad deal, even if she would be branded a divorcee at a young age, since she would earn one billion won during that year. Only then had Seonha learned how much money she would receive.
Dowook had told her to read the contract carefully, but he had kept glancing at his watch and contacting someone about work on his phone, making it clear with his entire body that they were pressed for time. She had felt pressured. Even without that, she had been too excited by the fact that she had made such a momentous decision about her life without hesitation for the words to properly register. In the end, her concentration blurred, and she had recklessly signed the contract before fully grasping its contents.
“Ten… one billion won?”
“You may choose how you wish to receive the payment, Ms. Yoo Seonha. It can be paid quarterly, or, of course, all at once. Though paying it before the wedding or at the beginning of the marriage would be difficult. The chairman is quite perceptive, after all.”
As expected, he had judged her to be a woman with a considerable obsession with money.
“……”
“Then give it to me at the end.”
“At the end?”
“Pay it all at once after the contract has been completely fulfilled.”
From the beginning, she had never intended to take the money. She had been harboring the sly dream of becoming a real married couple with him rather than remaining a fake one. If he had known what she truly felt, Dowook might have raised his voice and called it a fraudulent marriage.
Twenty-five-year-old Yoo Seonha had possessed a rather laughable longing and audacity. Looking back now, she was amazed that she had made such a choice without much thought, despite not being an impulsive or carefree person.
She still wished for the moment she spent with him to never end, but unlike in the past, resignation had taken up most of her heart. Over the course of three years, she had come to love him even more, while he had not changed in the slightest. It was the worst possible outcome. She, who had always walked only safe and proper paths, had chosen to leave the tracks for the first time. Foolishly, she had ventured deep into a thorny thicket that could only hurt her, and she had realized it only when she was covered in wounds.
After washing, she changed into her pajamas and lay down on the bed, its sheets stretched taut. Her mind was complicated, but her body’s instincts took precedence. As the fatigue that had built up began to drain away, she felt herself go limp, as though all her strength had left her the moment she lay down.
Her eyes closed, and she slowly drifted into sleep.
In the darkened room, where for a long while there had been nothing but the sound of even breathing and the quiet ticking of the clock, the door opened with a creak.
After the owner of the empty space beside her had filled it and some time had passed, Seonha’s eyelids lifted once more.
Dowook was lying with his back to her. Even such a trivial sight would sometimes grind against her heart until it hurt.
But today, another concern took precedence over her own hurt feelings. From the moment Chairman Choi had closed his eyes until now, Dowook had not shown the slightest sign of letting down his guard. His back was as broad and strong as ever, but there was no way he could be unaffected by the death of the man who had stood in place of his parents.
Seonha quietly gazed at his back, which never leaned on anyone, then wrapped her arms around him. She had believed herself not to be impulsive, but when it came to this man, she had to admit that she often lost her usual self.
Afraid he might realize that she liked him, she had never approached him first, except when he reached for her under the pretext of sharing a bed.
But now, her desire to comfort him was stronger than even her usual anxiety. It did not matter if he realized her feelings now, anyway. There was less than a month left for her to remain by his side like this.
“Why? Do you want to?”
He asked this quietly when she initiated physical contact for the first time. It seemed he had been in the bedroom for some time, yet his voice was not thick with sleep. He could not possibly have been free of fatigue, but he still had not been able to fall asleep.
Seonha had never initiated intimacy before, and she was not the sort of person who would thoughtlessly insist on satisfying her own desire with a husband who had not properly rested in days. He was asking even though he knew she had not embraced him with that intention.
“Should we?”
“……”
“No. Just stay like this.”
Seonha shook her head slightly, her arms still around his waist.
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to comfort me or something.”
His voice sounded mocking.
He did not allow anyone to overstep their bounds presumptuously. He loathed people who tried to invade him emotionally, a man incapable of feeling warm, human emotions.
“Why are you still awake? You’re tired.”
“It’s not because I’m overcome with grief, as you’re assuming. I was thinking about why I’m not affected at all.”
On the day he lost his entire family in a plane crash, he had stood in the funeral hall as expressionless as though he were attending a stranger’s funeral, without shedding a single tear. His relatives and even the mourners had all asked the same questions: Why wasn’t he crying? Wasn’t he sad? Had he developed some kind of psychological problem? They had bombarded him with every imaginable doubt.
Perhaps the situation had been so bothersome and unpleasant that afterward, Dowook began expressing the universal emotions of sorrow that people expected, at least to a minimal degree, as though putting on protective coloration. On the anniversaries of his family’s deaths, he would deliberately drink himself senseless, or, instead of honestly answering “I don’t miss him at all” when a relative asked whether he missed his father, he would maintain a meaningful silence.
Tears suddenly welled up in Seonha’s eyes. It was not because she felt hurt by his indifferent tone.
“I’m not comforting you, Dowook…… I’m comforting myself.”
“……”
“Are you crying?”
Perhaps he had felt her back grow damp, because the voice that seemed ready to coldly tell her not to do anything useless softened ever so slightly. He was a man who said nothing but maddeningly cold and inconsiderate things, yet whenever a trace of warmth appeared in his words like this, the feelings that had taken root in her heart sank their roots even deeper.
If only human emotions were simple, if addition and subtraction worked precisely. His cruel words caused only a brief pang of hurt without subtracting anything, while the slightest approach that carried concern and tenderness filled her heart until it felt ready to burst.
“Are you so sad that your grandfather died that you’re crying even after coming home?”
He asked as though he could not understand.
“……”
“Yes. So lend me your back for a while.”
“Did you grow that attached to him over three years? Even I, his grandson, haven’t cried.”
Because you haven’t cried.
Seonha cried in place of the man who had forgotten how to grieve when someone precious left his side, and therefore could no longer shed tears.
*Dowook glanced at the wall clock, checking when he would have to leave the office. His hand moved more quickly as he flipped through the approval documents piled on his desk, and his handsome, sharply extended eyes grew even more keen.
He was scheduled to depart for Italy that afternoon. He was about to sign a contract for the exclusive domestic distribution of a brand launched through a collaboration between Seongil Department Store and a famous Italian brand.
Ten days had passed since Chairman Choi, who had led the company for many years as the head of the Seongil Group, had passed away.
After receiving a confirmed diagnosis of cancer, Chairman Choi had stepped away from the front lines long ago, unable to resist his children’s pleas that he rest and hold on for even a single day longer. But with an existence as solid as a pillar gone, there was no way the head family could remain unaffected.
Yet before leaving this world, Chairman Choi had been most worried about one of his grandsons, Dowook, even more than his own children. His concern was partly due to Dowook’s troubled childhood, but he must also have been deeply worried about the department store business Dowook would take over in the future. Three years earlier, Seongil Department Store’s operating profit margin had ranked last for the first time among the major companies known as the “Big Three” in the department store industry. The worsening outlook for the department store business amid domestic stagnation caused by the economic downturn had also played a part.
Dowook, who had been promoted to an executive in the year he married Seonha, had to devote himself to work day and night in order to prove his abilities as the successor who would lead the business in the future.
He had promoted a brand select shop where customers could buy clothing, shoes, and accessories all in one place, generating sales beyond expectations. This year, he was also preparing to open a massive cosmetics select shop aimed at attracting women in their twenties and thirties.
In addition, to increase food-hall sales, which had lagged behind those of the other two department stores, he had introduced Korea’s first grocerant, equipped with fresh ingredients and a system in which chefs cooked dishes on the spot. The new service, which also provided attractions through various events, had shown conspicuous growth.
Dowook focused on changing a company that had been reluctant to break away from its existing framework. Since it was an industry lacking a driving force for growth, it was impossible to achieve dramatic results over a mere three years, but the effects were gradually becoming visible.
Last year, Seongil had been the only one among the Big Three to surpass ten trillion won in total sales, reclaiming the top spot, and it was expected to comfortably retain its position as the industry leader this year as well. Of course, Dowook could not be satisfied with that alone.
While he was alive, Chairman Choi had invited Dowook and Seonha to his home for a meal once every two weeks. Every time, he would boastfully repeat, “It was a good thing you listened to me and got married, wasn’t it?” He would then launch into old-fashioned talk about how a man needed a wife who properly supported him at his side in order to focus on his work without worry.
He would even confidently claim that everything was going so well for Dowook because Seonha had become his partner and was taking care of their household with such stability. It was amusing, but Dowook never laughed outright.
Chairman Choi had given him a near-command to bring home a bride within three months after receiving his terminal diagnosis, and the matter had caused Dowook no end of trouble.
When Chairman Choi subtly tried to coax him by saying that he could now leave this world without regrets if only he could see a great-grandchild, Dowook had murmured indifferently,
“Then I suppose we should take special care not to let you see a great-grandchild for a while, so you’ll live longer out of regret.”
In the end, he had been forced to endure Chairman Choi’s furious outburst.
Dowook’s manner of speaking differed only in whether he used honorifics or informal speech depending on the person, but he was consistently harsh and devoid of affection toward everyone. Chairman Choi generally looked upon Dowook, the only child left behind by his eldest son, with pity, but there were also many times when he would fly into a rage. Dowook’s way of speaking needled people so subtly that even a grandfather who pitied his grandson would eventually end up huffing and puffing with anger.
Still, Chairman Choi had tried to maintain his dignity whenever Seonha was present. Unlike Dowook, who came exactly once every two weeks like a machine, following his instructions to the letter, his granddaughter-in-law often visited the house and kept him company. As he gradually grew more comfortable with her, Chairman Choi sometimes forgot to maintain his composure and shouted at Dowook with an energy unbecoming of a patient.
Of course, it only exhausted Chairman Choi. No matter how much he hounded Douwook, it was useless. A child? Douwook could grant him any wish except that one.
For one thing, ending up in bed with Seonha had been far beyond his original plans. If there was a problem, it was that he had developed the habit of holding her countless times—not merely now and then, but to the point of something close to addiction.
He had been meticulous about contraception, however. Condoms alone did not put him at ease, so he had also made sure Seonha took her pills regularly.
Thinking of her, Douwook glanced at the clock again. He set down the pen he had been holding and picked up his phone.
“Hello.”
When he called Seonha, her composed, calm voice came through. It was a clear-toned voice that suited her appearance perfectly.
Even when she had complained about the wretched poverty at a street-food stall, her distinctive air of elegance had never left her. A woman who retained an innocent purity even while drunk enough for her vision to blur. It sounded ridiculous, but it was true.
It seemed the people around her had judged her however they pleased, then felt betrayed according to their own assumptions. Douwook could sympathize with that, at least in part.
Yu Seonha was a woman who had grown up lonely, without even a single protective sheltering presence, and had been hurt by selfish people. Yet she possessed a calm, confident brightness like sunlight—so much so that it was impossible to believe she had suffered as much as she had.
He would probably never forget their first meeting. For all her fragile, innocent appearance, as though she might collapse at the slightest touch, she had been remarkably audacious.
Hadn’t she managed, for a moment, to leave him speechless—a man who would not so much as blink even if someone demanded an astronomical sum of money? With that gentle face, she had quietly rebuked him for his rudeness.
Suppressing the smile that threatened to escape, Douwook began to speak.
“You’re at home, right?”
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
“I’m going to stop by for a moment before heading to the airport.”
“Did you leave some documents behind?”
“Yeah. They’re on the desk in the study.”
“I’ll have them ready.”
“Leave now.”
“All right.”
Having succinctly conveyed what he needed to say, Douwook took the phone from his ear. Another voice came through the receiver, but his finger had already pressed the end-call button.
What was she trying to say?
Douwook had unintentionally cut her off. He considered calling her back, then decided against it. He was going straight home anyway. He could hear what she had to say there.
Douwook connected an internal line to the secretary’s office and instructed them to have the car brought around. After gathering materials he could review on the plane, he put on his coat and left the office. Chief Yoon followed close behind him.
“We still have plenty of time, right? I need to stop by home for a moment. I left some documents there.”
Chief Yoon looked at his employer with an expression that said, Of course, but he was walking slightly behind him and managed to keep his insolent expression from being noticed.
He must still be very much in love, even though it’s been nearly three years since he got married.
There was no way the excuse about having left documents behind was genuine.
Choi Douwook, the head of the division, was so thorough at work that he bordered on perfectionism. There was no way he would leave work-related documents at home. What was more, they were not even urgent documents that needed to be checked immediately.
There had been times when he forgot documents on the day he was leaving for a business trip, just as he had today. There had even been times when he left behind the suitcase that his demure, elegant wife—like a refined young lady from a respectable family—had surely packed with meticulous care that morning. To anyone watching, it was clearly an excuse to stop by home again.
But Chief Yoon could not understand why he went to the trouble of inventing such an excuse. They were legally married, after all, with no reason for anyone to criticize them no matter how conspicuously they doted on each other.
Is he embarrassed to tell his subordinates that he wants to see his wife’s face once before leaving on a business trip?
It was not a particularly convincing answer. If it had been anyone else, perhaps—but he simply could not imagine Choi Douwook acting embarrassed or awkward. He was not the type to care what other people thought.
Come to think of it, he had never once heard Douwook say that he had “absentmindedly” left the documents behind or “forgotten” his luggage. He simply stated the fact that he had left them there. Perhaps he was omitting the words deliberately. He was not the sort of man to tell an unnecessary lie.
Then is he worried about his wife’s reaction? It’s not because he’s embarrassed in front of the employees, but he still goes out of his way to make an excuse…
Chief Yoon tilted his head in puzzlement as he hurried after his long-striding employer.
*
When Seonha received Douwook’s call saying he was leaving now, the phone abruptly cut off just as she was about to say something else. Her head drooped helplessly.
It was not the first time this had happened. Yet foolishly, she was hurt every time. It felt as though he had once again confirmed that she meant nothing to him.
Douwook always ended their calls first, without a trace of regret.
Whenever she spoke with him, she listened intently to the voice that sounded slightly different over the phone from when he was right in front of her, while struggling to calm her endlessly pounding heart. He, however, seemed eager to end the call as quickly as possible, as though it were a nuisance.
Seonha soon erased her gloomy expression and hurried into the kitchen. She had no time to spare. Opening the refrigerator, she took out the ingredients for sandwiches. It was not mealtime, but she wanted to prepare something simple for him to eat on the way to the airport.
Douwook was not the sort of person to forget anything he needed. Still, on the day he left for a business trip, he often came back home just before going to the airport because he had left something behind. She assumed it was because he had so much to worry about and so much luggage to prepare before a trip.
Seonha piled a generous amount of lettuce onto crisply toasted rye bread. She added sliced tomatoes that she had patted dry, golden-brown bacon, a fried egg cooked in a small square pan, and fragrant, nutty ricotta cheese. Then she lightly spread jam over one side of the remaining slice of bread and pressed down on the layers of ingredients.
She made more sandwiches for the employees accompanying him on the business trip. This time, she used chicken breast instead of bacon. After cutting the sandwiches in half on the cutting board, she wrapped each one in parchment paper so they would be easy to eat. Once she had carefully placed them in airtight containers and arranged them neatly in a paper bag, an inexplicable sense of satisfaction washed over her.
Seonha set the paper bag on the table in front of the living-room sofa, then smoothed her skirt so it would not wrinkle and sat down at one end of the couch. Before receiving his call, she had been sitting casually, but now her back was unnaturally straight—even though he had not yet arrived.
She always wanted to appear more feminine and demure in front of the man she loved. But more than anything, even after so much time had passed, she still could not feel at ease around him. Perhaps the distance between them had not narrowed at all in three years, because the man known as her husband was still difficult for Seonha to approach.
The seconds ticked by, but Douwook still had not arrived. Perhaps there was traffic, because he was later than expected.
Just as she was about to contact him, the doorbell rang. Seonha sprang to her feet. Carrying the document envelope she had prepared in advance from the study and the paper bag, she hurried to the entrance. As soon as she unlocked the door, Douwook strode inside. The cold wind clinging to his collar swept in with him.
“You’re late.”
“There was some traffic.”
“I thought so. Do we still have enough time?”
“Mm.”
Douwook glanced at his wristwatch, his eyes narrowing slightly as though dissatisfied.
“Is this the one?”
Seonha held out the yellowish envelope.
“And I prepared some sandwiches. In case you get hungry, you can eat them on the way—”
Before she could finish, Douwook swallowed her lips with his own. At the abruptly initiated kiss, Seonha’s pupils froze in place, and she could not even close her eyes.
Douwook dropped the things in her hands onto the floor. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he moved his lips to her slightly reddened earlobe and gently bit it.
“It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“D-Douwook… wait…”
“We don’t have much time.”
His low whisper, as his tongue traced the curve of her ear, sank dangerously deep into her ear. Seonha shuddered involuntarily.
“But here is too… The bedroom, or at least the living-room sofa…”
She barely managed to hold on to her reason and pushed lightly against his body. His chest was as solid as stone and did not budge.
“I’m in a hurry.”
“…”
“Both time and I.”
The man’s hardness pressed against her abdomen, already making its presence unmistakably clear. Douwook’s large hand seized her breasts, swollen with the springy resilience of rubber balls. There was a mercilessness in the way he handled and kneaded them freely, without permission.
His eyes, met at a distance close enough for their bodies to touch, were as dark as jet. Those eyes were filled with nothing but lust; not even a trace of warm, tender affection dwelled in them.
Seonha hunched her shoulders and turned her head aside. Douwook seemed to take her action not as rejection but as mere coyness, and he did not stop.
It was too late to be hurt by it now.
She had known from the beginning that what they shared was not love, merely gestures of desire. Yet when his eyes, boring into her from such a close distance, stated that fact so vividly, despair engulfed her entire body.
The hand that had slipped beneath her clothes pushed up her bra and stroked her freed breast. The more his cold palm grasped and kneaded her warm flesh, the more their temperatures became alike. Her erect nipple rolled beneath his palm.
Douwook quickly stripped off Seonha’s obstructive top. Then he took the snow-white mound of her breast into his mouth. Each forceful suck produced a sticky, blatant sound. As his tongue curled around and tightened over the hardened bud, her calves trembled beneath her barely standing body.
At Seonha’s reaction, Douwook lifted his lips from her saliva-slick breast and slid his hand beneath the moderately full skirt. His lust-filled hand stroked up her smooth thigh.
He seemed to be caressing her only out of necessity, barely restraining his urge to thrust into her at once while he made her wet. His touch was that urgent and rough, like that of someone being pursued.
Douwook claimed that he was short on time, but to Seonha, engaging in such an intimate act beside the shoe cabinet was not arousing in the slightest. It was humiliating.
If he truly cherished her, he could never act like this. He had pressed his lips against hers the instant he arrived, before they had even properly met eyes, then groped her body… And now he was unhesitatingly dragging down the underwear hidden beneath her skirt.
He had always been rather rough in bed, but this was the first time he had thrown himself at her so recklessly and selfishly. Perhaps that was why her revulsion was so strong. At another time, she would have been ashamed yet aroused. But not now.
Her body, conditioned to him, instinctively grew wet between her thighs, but her mind did not follow. Other thoughts kept piercing sharply into her head, making it impossible for her to focus on what they were doing.
“Don’t think about something else.”
Douwook, quick to notice her state, warned her coldly. At the same time, the long fingers that had been moving in and out of her womanhood plunged deeply inside.
“Ah.”
“What are you going to do if you’re this wet but can’t concentrate?”
Douwook whispered in a low, teasing voice and turned Seonha around. He had not even taken off his shoes, so she had to follow him in her slippers, lower her body as instructed, and brace herself against the shoe cabinet door. When he pushed up her knee-length skirt, her pale buttocks were fully exposed before his eyes.
She clearly heard the sound of him undoing his belt behind her.
Small kisses were imprinted across her slender back. Tasting her white skin, he hurriedly stripped off his trousers and underwear.
Even at this moment, with her spirits sunk into utter misery, she did not have the courage to reject him.
“Since this is a marriage by contract, each party may freely meet other members of the opposite sex according to their individual needs. However, care must be taken not to attract the attention of the press or let the First Party’s grandfather find out.”
After returning home from the funeral, she took the contract that had been buried in a drawer back out and read through it slowly. As time passed after their marriage, the details of the contract itself had grown hazy in her mind, but the two clauses written in it had been engraved unmistakably within her.
They would not demand unnecessary feelings from each other. If either of them found someone they liked, they were free to see that person, so long as they avoided the eyes of others.
That was why Seonha was always on edge, afraid he might discover the “unnecessary” feelings she had developed for him, and always anxious that he might see another woman.
She could not refuse him in bed. For three years, even when sex with her virile husband was overwhelming and exhausting, she had accepted him without voicing a single complaint.
Though it was hard, she thought it was fortunate that she was his wife. That it was fortunate she had found the courage to propose to him. Otherwise, the woman pinned beneath his body and crying out would have been someone other than her.
If she rejected him when he was aroused to a dangerous degree, wouldn’t he seek out another woman to satisfy his desire? Since the two of them were not truly married, she had no right to protest even if he saw someone else.
Judging by the fact that he had explicitly written it into their contract, he was clearly capable of doing so at any time. Sex without feelings was what he always shared with her, so he could surely share it with other women as well. He was a man capable of easily choosing women far prettier, more alluring, and more skilled than she was.
Perhaps he was too overwhelmed with work to have the time. Until now, she had never sensed that he was seeing women outside. ‘No, perhaps there’s something I don’t know….’
At that moment, his hot, rigid penis pierced into her soft flesh.
“Ah!”
At the heavy sensation of the foreign object, Seonha sharply furrowed her closed eyes.
Strength filled the arm she had braced against the shoe cabinet, allowing her to support his weight. Every time he pounded her waist with violent force, the fairly large shoe cabinet beneath her hands rattled with a heavy thud, thud, as though an earthquake were shaking it.
Doweok’s movements were unrestrained. With his long, swift stride, it would not have taken him long to reach the living room, much less the master bedroom, yet he had stubbornly insisted on taking her here. His frantic motions, devoid of even a drop of patience, made it easy to understand why.
The sound of wet flesh colliding filled her ears. His penis thrust into her hard and deep, as though it did not intend to be swallowed by her, but to swallow her whole.
As always, the manhood burrowing into her was huge and hard, as though it would rip her apart from within. His thrusts were rougher than usual, making it difficult for her fragile body to endure.
“J-just a little slower….”
Though she knew Doweok would not heed her request, Seonha pleaded anyway.
“Damn it.”
Though she was panting delicate breaths as if struggling, she clenched tightly around the penis buried deep inside her, squeezing him hard. Beads of sweat began to form on Doweok’s straight, smooth forehead. His brow was deeply furrowed as though he were in pain, but in truth he was so overwhelmed by pleasure that he could barely control himself.
Immersed in a wave of arousal, Doweok failed to notice that she was not releasing the wanton cries that usually stimulated his ears.
Seonha accepted him without being able to completely cast off her miserable feelings. Stubbornly, she bit down hard on her lower lip, unwilling to let herself moan with pleasure. Even so, a wavering cry, not entirely muffled between her teeth, escaped.
“Ah….”
Doweok stopped moving and pulled his body abruptly out of hers. His heavily erect shaft gleamed with her clear, milky fluids.
He pulled the thin panties caught around her calves all the way off and straightened her body. When he made her lean her back against the cold front door, Seonha, left wearing only her bra by the barest margin, shuddered from the chill.
Doweok gripped Seonha’s ample buttocks and lifted one of her legs, wrapping it around his waist. Forced to stand on one foot, Seonha had no choice but to cling to his shoulders and entrust her near-collapsing body to him.
His well-built abdomen pressed down against her flat stomach, which rose and fell, slick with the sweat of heated exertion. Their wet sexes rubbed together with reckless, slapping sounds.
He thrust the slick flesh into her narrow opening, forcing it all the way to the end. Despite the cramped passage, her entrance opened as though it had been waiting for him, and the taut inner walls clung desperately to the shaft filling her, pulling it in against her will. Their ragged breaths were so desperate that she could not tell whether the sound belonged to him or to her.
“Haa… ngh….”
In the end, Seonha could not suppress the cry that burst from her. It was closer to a sob than a moan. Her eyes had reddened before she knew it as she struggled to draw breath. A pleasure so intense it could have been mistaken for pain washed over her, sending a chill down her back.
Doweok kneaded her buttocks like glutinous rice cakes, easing his waist back gently to let her relax, then suddenly drove his member in to the very root. A fierce pleasure surged upward from her toes, making the hair on her head stand on end and causing her entire body to curl inward.
It was too deep. Too intense.
Each time he filled her, she felt as though her entire body—no, even her soul—were being consumed by the man named Choi Doweok.
The head of his penis struck the most sensitive, tender place hidden deep within her. Whenever it did, her vision turned white, to the point that she forgot even her own existence. Her breath caught in her throat. Her brain and body knew how fierce and distant the pleasure he alone would draw from her next would be, and an uncontrollable, dizzying anticipation rose to her throat.
Seonha’s head fell back. Sweat trickled down her slender nape. Doweok smoothly stroked the ridge of her bony back, finally setting her desire free. Seonha, burning with lust, wrapped her arms around his neck and panted like a delicate beast encircled by a hunter.
She loved this man so much that she could not even bring herself to hate him at will.
She had fallen for him from the moment their eyes first met, and as time passed, she became increasingly unable to escape. Even though this dangerous man would take everything from her and give her nothing in return, she loved him all the same.
Their relationship had begun with the reckless desire to make him look at her. By now, that desire had transformed into resignation, but the feelings she had extended toward him were tougher than an iron cord and refused to break. She had begun loving him with the dream that one day he would love her, but now she could not stop even if he never returned her feelings.
“This…
You’re driving me crazy. Do you know that?”
This man, who wanted nothing from her but sex.
His low voice, growled like a snarl, made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. With both arms around his neck, Seonha received the desire surging into her with ferocity. The speed of his movement accelerated beyond her control.
Holding her thin body tightly against him, Doweok thrust his hips upward. Their bodies, joined as one, continued their precarious dance of desire that felt ready to burst.
Seonha loosened the arms that had been clinging tightly to him and captured his face in her clouded gaze. His face, usually refined and impassive, revealed all his honest desire and emotion in that moment. His eyes had darkened dangerously. Restrained breaths slipped through his clenched teeth. His face was flushed with blood. The veins standing out across his heavily furrowed forehead were unbearably sexy.
With every breath she drew, the scent of his sweat-laced body flooded her nose. Rather than unpleasant, it was an intoxicating scent that stimulated her like pheromones.
As he indulged in her, having lost all reason, he resembled a fierce and merciless beast. The more he surged into her with movements rougher than human, closer to an animal’s, the more her entire body trembled as though it might break apart. Each time he thrust deep, her sensitive flesh was stimulated countless times, making her vision flash white as her whole body convulsed. The pleasure boiling beneath her waist rose, raced through her heart, and pierced all the way into her brain.
The two of them reached the peak and exploded at the same time.
After everything ended, the only sound in the entryway was their thoroughly disordered breathing. Seonha’s bare breasts, left exposed without anything to cover them, were mottled red from his hands, and her chest heaved rapidly in time with her heart, which pounded as though it would leap from her body.
The moment Seonha managed to regain hold of her mind, blurred by lust, she slipped out of his arms. Doweok let her go without resistance.
Only then did the ringing of Doweok’s cell phone reach her ears. It must have been ringing since before they finished. In the space still lingering with the afterglow of climax, it persistently urged him to answer at once, splashing cold water over everything.
Doweok’s handsome forehead creased. He pulled a tissue from the box on top of the shoe cabinet, wiped his soaked member, and answered the phone.
Seonha noticed her underwear lying carelessly beside his dress shoes and hurriedly reached down to pick it up. She had no idea when he had removed the bra that had barely been hanging from her shoulders, and her upper body was completely bare.
Compared to her disheveled state, he was so composed that no one would have been able to tell what they had been doing if he merely caught his breath and straightened his trousers. Unlike Seonha, who still burned with the heat of their tryst, his face had quickly returned to normal.
“I think I have to leave right away.”
After ending the call, Doweok spoke with a furrow between his brows. Seonha lowered her eyes, barely covering her swollen, reddened breasts with his T-shirt.
This was the first time he had lost control and rushed at her so recklessly, without even distinguishing one place from another. Perhaps he felt rather awkward about it, because he brushed back his fallen hair and gave a short, dry cough.
“By the way, what were you about to say when you hung up earlier?”
Seonha twisted her body slightly, gripping the T-shirt covering her nakedness tightly. She avoided his gaze as though turning away from him, but Doweok took it for nothing more than her usual shyness.
“It was nothing. You’re busy, so hurry and go. They’ll keep waiting for you downstairs.”
Perhaps his time really was tight, because he turned away without hesitation.
“I’ll contact you when I arrive.”
After he left the entryway with his long strides, Seonha was left alone in the silent house. For a long while, she stared forlornly at the coldly closed front door, forgetting even to get dressed.
Though the room was not particularly cold, a chill suddenly passed through her, accompanied by an emptiness that made her chest feel hollow. As she pulled on the T-shirt first without putting on her bra, Seonha noticed the paper bag still sitting beside the shoe cabinet and gave a dry laugh.
“You remembered to take the documents with you….”
A feeble, humorless laugh escaped her. She had not prepared some elaborate, precious dish that required hours of work, but she had made it for him.
Yes, she knew she was always doing pointless things. Things he neither wanted nor hoped for. All he wanted was her body. No—more precisely, the body of a woman who could give him pleasure. A body that did not have to be hers.
The semen he had poured inside her flowed down between her thighs. Perhaps he had been in such a hurry that even a man usually so meticulous about contraception had forgotten to use a condom.
Even if she did not expect grand affection or love, this was too much… This was….
“…Miserable.”
Doweok did not contact her even once until he returned from his business trip.
His sexual desire was a fierce fire that never seemed to die. Had he held another woman at his destination? While doing housework, she would tear at the tips of her perfectly sound nails, sinking into sordid suspicions, only to laugh hollowly at herself at some point.
Why are you so pathetic?
The more Seonha loved him, the more wretched and ugly she felt herself becoming, until she could hardly bear her own existence. The feelings that had dwelled inside her, whispering that this was her limit, were turning their backs on her one after another.