"That is none of your business... my fake lover."
Her defiant words echoed through the quiet penthouse, but they were like pouring gasoline onto an already raging inferno.
The mocking smirk vanished from Tae-min's face entirely. His features shifted into a mask of pure darkness, and his obsidian eyes swallowed every shred of light in the room. He didn't shout, nor did he erupt in his usual anger; this predatory silence was far more terrifying.
With one wide, sweeping stride, he erased the distance between them. Emma tried to retreat, but her back hit the cold glass wall. Before she could raise a hand in defense, he lunged at her like a panther. With one powerful hand, he seized both of her wrists and pinned them above her head against the glass. With a smooth, controlled motion of his other hand, he snatched the phone from behind her back.
"No! Give it back!" Emma shrieked, twisting violently to escape, but his massive, solid frame pressed into her completely, crushing her soft curves against his hard muscle.
Tae-min read the glowing message on the screen: [I love you, and I won't leave you to them...]
The muscles in his jaw tightened until it seemed his teeth might shatter. The veins in his neck bulged, and his chest heaved violently against her trembling bosom. "He loves you?" he hissed in a raspy voice dripping with a venomous jealousy he hadn't expected to feel so acutely. "That cowardly manager thinks he's your knight in shining armor? He thinks he can save you?"
Tae-min hurled the phone with terrifying force against the opposite wall. It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces that scattered across the marble floor.
Emma gasped in horror, but before she could process the destruction, Tae-min lowered his face and buried his nose in the crook of her neck. It wasn't a kiss; it was a harsh, possessive bite on her frantic pulse, forcing a muffled cry from her—a sound that mingled pain with a sudden, jagged surge of pleasure.
"You don't need saving, Emma..." Tae-min growled against her searing skin, his scorching breath melting every cell in her body. "You need someone who will burn with you."
He released her wrists abruptly. Instead, his large hands slid down to seize her bare thighs through the slit in her dress. With a sudden, dominating masculine surge, he lifted her completely off the floor. Emma gasped, her legs instinctively coiling around his solid waist to keep from falling, while her arms wrapped around his neck.
Tae-min carried her with angry, rapid strides through the dark hallway. He kicked open a pair of double wooden doors to storm into his private sanctum. His secret world.
The room was perfectly soundproofed. It wasn't just a bedroom; it was a sprawling studio. A massive black grand piano stood in the center, gleaming under the dim lighting, surrounded by scattered sheets of torn music and scripts. This was the place where Rin Tae-min shed the mask of the perfect star and let his internal monsters out.
He headed straight for the piano. With a powerful motion, he seated her on its cold edge. Her back hit the keys, producing a loud, discordant, and deep note that resonated through the room—the opening chord to a symphony of sin.
"Tae-min... please..." Emma whispered, her chest heaving frantically. The silk dress had slipped off one shoulder, exposing her pale skin and the delicate freckles adorning her chest.
"Don't say please," he interrupted, lunging to stand between her open thighs, occupying her entire space. "Unless you're begging me to touch you."
Things escalated with a maddening speed. There was no longer any room for retreat, no space for the dark past to haunt her. The fear she usually felt toward men evaporated, consumed by the flames of Tae-min's raw masculinity and blatant lust. He had shattered the barrier of her terror in a way she never imagined; he didn't treat her like a fragile glass victim, but like a grown, burning woman capable of matching him.
Tae-min's hands slid hot beneath her silk dress, his rough fingers touching the trembling skin of her inner thighs. Emma gasped sharply, throwing her head back, hitting the keys again—DOOOOM!
He didn't stop at her thighs. His fingers rose with a destructive boldness, crossing every red line. When his fingers found the center of her heat and moisture through her thin lace, a cry of pure ecstasy escaped her lips—a sound she never knew she was capable of making.
"Look at me," he commanded in a dark, gravelly voice.
Emma opened her eyes, glazed with desire, to meet his. His obsidian gaze overflowed with a savage hunger, but there was something else... a strange brokenness, a desperate need for her that went beyond a star's ego.
"Do you feel this?" Tae-min whispered. He moved his fingers with a slow, deliberate friction that made her arch her back, lifting her chest toward him like an offering. "You're overflowing for me. There is no past here, Emma. No stupid manager to ruin this. There is only you and me."
He leaned in to devour her lips in a brutal, fierce, and merciless kiss. He preyed upon her mouth while his other hand tore the delicate silk at her shoulder, exposing her heaving breast. He trailed his lips down, leaving dark red marks along her neck and collarbone before taking one of her hardened peaks between his lips, sucking with a heat and hunger that made Emma lose the last shred of her sanity.
She buried her fingers in his raven hair, pulling hard, her nails digging into his scalp as she moaned and writhed against the cold piano keys. Every touch from him erased a scar from her past; every friction of his solid body against hers awakened a femininity that had been buried alive. She was wet, burning, and ready to surrender everything to him in that moment.
"You're mine..." Tae-min whispered, unbuckling his belt with his free hand, his eyes ignited with hellfire as he looked down at her surrendered, aroused body in his hands. "You're mine alone."
He was about to cross the point of no return, and Emma was opening the gates of her hell to him with a blind hunger, when...
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The security breach alarm shrieked through the entire penthouse, a deafening electronic wail. The red emergency lights began to strobe in the room.
Tae-min stopped abruptly, his chest heaving like a beast robbed of its prey. He turned slowly, his eyes narrowing with a diabolical rage.
"Security breach in private elevator," the automated voice of the penthouse system announced.
Outside, in the main lounge of the penthouse, the private elevator doors—which required either Tae-min's fingerprint or a secret emergency code—slid open.
Emma jolted out of her trance, struggling to pull up her torn dress to cover herself, gasping as she looked toward the door in horror.
Tae-min shoved the studio door open and stepped out with furious strides, Emma following with trembling steps.
Standing at the open elevator doors was Kento.
But this wasn't the "Kento" she knew—the gentle, groomed manager. His suit was torn at the shoulder, and his tie was missing. There was an ugly, bloody bruise on his cheekbone, and his lower lip was split and bleeding—clear evidence that he had fought a bloody battle with hotel security and building guards to get here, likely using his security clearance to force an emergency override.
Kento's hazel eyes, once overflowing with warmth, were now cold, savage, and burning with the madness of a man ready to kill.
Kento's eyes landed on Emma. He saw her torn dress nearly falling from her shoulder, her disheveled hair, her swollen lips red from Tae-min's kisses, and the dark marks decorating her neck. Then he saw Tae-min standing before her as a protective wall, his bare chest glistening with sweat, his trousers partially undone.
Kento's face went a lethal shade of pale, his jaw tightening until the veins bulged.
"I warned you," Kento hissed in a low, terrifying voice that sounded nothing like his own. He wasn't talking to Emma; his eyes were fixed on Tae-min like the edge of a blade.
Kento reached into the pocket of his torn blazer and pulled out something metallic and black, gleaming under the strobing red light of the alarm.
Click.
Kento racked the slide of the black pistol with a lethal chill, aiming the muzzle directly at Tae-min's bare chest.
"Get away from her... before I empty these bullets into your heart."