2:03 a.m.
The night smelled like iron, damp sheets, and heartbeats hitting too hard, too fast, too wrong.
Nari opened her eyes the way someone bursts out of a dream still burning on the skin — a silent jolt, a stolen breath, a raw clarity too sharp to be normal.
The ceiling wasn't hers.
Neither were the shadows.
She sat up too quickly.
Air failed her.
Her throat tightened.
A dizzy spell.
A suspended second.
Then reality — slow, cold, merciless — fell on her with the brutality of a slap.
She was in his room.
In his home.
In Jeon Sion's bed.
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand, insistent, almost aggressive in the dense silence of the room.
The screen flashed.
20 missed calls.
Always the same name.
Always the same guilt she should have felt — but that stubbornly refused to come.
She stared at the name, her fingers trembling slightly, not from panic, but from a strange nervous calm, as if something inside her had finally snapped.
She set the phone down.
Lay back down.
Stared at the ceiling like she was searching for an answer she had never truly wanted.
And against all logic, against all morality…
she felt good.
A dangerous kind of good, almost numbing, like her body had walked through a fire she didn't regret at all.
The door opened in a breath.
The air changed instantly.
A presence — massive, warm, animal — filled the room.
Sion appeared.
Towel low on his hips.
Torso still wet.
Veins visible along his arms.
Droplets sliding slowly down his sculpted abdomen.
The dim bedside lamp carved every line of his body, making him almost unreal, almost dangerous to look at.
He walked without a sound, like a predator.
He stopped in front of the bed and looked at her for a long time — intensely.
His golden eyes glowed with a muted, warped, hungry light.
— I bet you already thought about running, he said, voice low, almost amused, but with that hint of challenge that made the air vibrate between them.
Nari held his gaze.
Calm.
Too calm.
As if the exhaustion of her entire life had dissolved into a fire she couldn't name.
— No, she murmured.
— I felt good.
He raised a brow, surprised despite himself, then stepped closer.
He placed his hands on either side of her head, lowering himself over her.
His shadow swallowed her breath.
His chest barely brushed her skin, yet the impact was immediate — hot, brutal, electric.
The bed seemed to tighten around them.
— So you want to stay?
His words slid along her throat like a knife wrapped in a caress.
Nari felt something rise inside her — a mix of desire and fear, that shiver born deep in the belly that climbs like an illicit flame.
— No, she said.
— I didn't say that either.
He pulled back a step, irritated, like an animal provoked without being hurt.
He turned away, grabbed something from the dresser.
That's when her body decided for her.
Nari reached out.
Her fingers closed around his arm.
Slowly.
As if touching his skin was a dangerous confession.
Sion froze.
His muscle tightened under her grip.
So did his breath.
He turned — and their eyes collided with a force that felt violent.
No words.
Only that heavy, charged, irresistible silence pulling everything toward the inevitable.
She moved.
Sat up.
Leaned forward.
Her fingers slipped toward the towel on his hips.
A hesitant breath…
Then she let it fall.
The fabric touched the floor with a soft sound.
The world tightened around them — a thread on the verge of snapping.
Sion didn't move.
Not a muscle.
His breathing became heavier, deeper, as if his own body was slipping out of his control.
She put her hand on him.
His skin.
His heat.
The raw reality of his desire.
Her fingers explored — timid first, then surer.
Gripping.
Claiming.
Demanding.
And watching him lose composure…
watching him blush, groan softly, clench his throat to hold back a sound…
Seeing him like that, vulnerable beneath her touch, eyes half-closed, lips parted, breath uneven — it was a power she had never had before, a power that set her on fire.
It was the first time she had power over him.
And he felt it.
It drove him insane.
He leaned toward her, eyes burning.
— Don't play with me, Nari.
His voice vibrated.
She continued.
Faster.
Deeper.
A blaze in her hands.
He clenched his fists.
A groan escaped him — raw, torn, almost animal.
— Stop…
— Or I'll take you right now.
She didn't stop.
He broke.
He pushed her gently onto the bed, climbed over her, his hands trapping her wrists with trembling strength.
Silence fell like a slab of iron — heavy, thick, saturated with tension, a silence vibrating between two bodies too close, too hot, too hungry to pretend control anymore.
Nari felt every heartbeat striking against Sion's chest — strong, uneven, almost painful — as if their closeness was rewriting his pulse.
Her breath hitched when he tightened his fingers around her wrists, pinning her to the mattress in a position that had nothing tender and everything possessive, claimed, inevitable.
Their eyes met — fierce, burning — one pleading silently, the other refusing to admit he was already pleading.
— You want me to fuck you? he repeated, low, deep, voice vibrating with frayed control.
— Beg me.
It wasn't a phrase.
It was an ultimatum.
A line between who they had been…
and what they were about to become.
Nari swallowed, throat tight, chest rising too fast.
She wanted to answer, to give in, to insult him, to bite him, to burn everything down.
But nothing came out.
Her body spoke first.
She arched.
Slowly.
Her hips brushed his — a tiny movement, but it detonated something in his eyes — a flash almost animal, almost dangerous, almost vulnerable.
Her thighs parted just slightly.
Her fingers trembled under his grip.
She breathed too fast, too hard.
— Sion…
Her voice broke into a breath.
Just his name.
But it was already a surrender.
He smiled.
Slowly.
A smile that had nothing soft.
A smile of victory.
Of a predator.
Of a man finally getting what he had been denied too long.
— Again.
His voice brushed her lips.
— Say it again.
She closed her eyes, unable to withstand the scalpel-sharp intensity of his gaze, and whispered, a little louder, a little truer:
— Sion…
He released one of her wrists.
His hand slid to her throat.
Not to choke — to hold. To feel. To claim.
And then he snapped.
He leaned down and kissed her like a man dying of thirst kisses water — a devastating kiss, long, deep, brutal, starving, a kiss that stole breath, shook skin, and rendered legs useless.
Their teeth collided.
His tongue pushed.
Tasted.
Took.
Demanded.
She moaned into his mouth — a sound torn from her belly, her shame, her fear, a sound she had never heard herself make.
That moan destroyed him.
Sion pushed her fully down onto the bed, his entire body crushing hers in an embrace that had nothing tender in it — everything feverish, desperate, burning.
His hands moved over her, everywhere.
On her hips.
On her breasts.
On her stomach.
Every inch felt electrically charged.
She tried to catch her breath.
Impossible.
He kissed her again, harder, lower, along her jawline, down her neck, over her collarbone, descending slowly as if savoring every reaction, every tremor, every stifled gasp.
— Do you want me? he murmured against her throat, his voice vibrating against her skin.
She opened her mouth to protest.
A lie.
A defense.
He placed two fingers on her lips.
Pushed them in slightly.
She moaned against her own contradiction.
His fingers slid between her thighs.
She tightened, a brutal electric shock shooting up her spine.
He brushed.
Just that.
She jolted.
He smiled.
— Wet, he observed, voice low, dangerously calm.
— So wet when I've barely touched you.
She looked away, ashamed, burning, trembling.
— Look at me.
His voice snapped, commanding.
She obeyed.
Her belly knotted under the intensity of his golden eyes.
— Now say it.
He pressed a little harder against her, just enough to steal her breath.
— Tell me you want me.
— I…
He insisted.
His finger moved.
She stifled a cry.
— Say it.
She broke.
Everything broke.
— I… want you.
He clenched his jaw.
His gaze blurred, darkened.
His hands slid upward.
His mouth found hers again in a kiss that felt like a wildfire.