Chapter 22

Pale winter daylight was already filtering through the bedroom curtains when Si-woon stirred back to consciousness. What time did we even fall asleep? He had zero memory of the final round ending, yet morning had arrived all the same.

“Ahem.” Attempting to clear his throat produced only a dry, cracked rasp that brought the marathon of the night before rushing back in vivid detail. Water… Had he really cried and moaned that much? His eyelids felt swollen and gritty, his throat was parched, and a glance toward the nightstand confirmed that the water glass was bone-dry.

“…!”

As Si-woon braced an elbow on the mattress to sit up, a startling sensation between his legs froze him in place. It wasn’t just the familiar warmth of Je-hee’s chest pressed against his bare back; down between his aching, thoroughly stretched buttocks, a heavy, unmistakable fullness was still lodged deep inside him. He fell asleep without pulling out?

Maybe I should just close my eyes and pretend I’m still asleep. He couldn’t very well reach behind himself to pull Je-hee’s cock out of his own body, yet every slight breath kept him acutely aware of how intimately they were still connected.

After Si-woon had spent several agonizing minutes shifting by millimeters on the pillow, the arm draped over his waist tightened and Je-hee pressed a drowsy kiss to the nape of his neck. “Are you awake?”

Staring straight ahead at the curtains, Si-woon was scandalized that the man could sound so bright and ordinary under the circumstances. “Y-yes, I’m awake, but…”

“Ah.” One glance at Si-woon’s flaming ears and the bead of sweat at his temple told Je-hee the rest. “…Sorry about that.”

Easing his hips back at once to withdraw, Je-hee inadvertently dragged the half-hard shaft across Si-woon’s tender, swollen walls where the lubricant had dried overnight—sending a sharp, electric jolt straight through Si-woon’s groin.

“W-wait a second!” Terrified that the slow drag out was going to make him lose control in broad daylight, Si-woon reached back and grabbed Je-hee’s hip in a panic.

“Khh—Si-woon-ah, if you stop me halfway—”

“Ah, ngh…!”

Halting mid-withdrawal at Si-woon’s touch, Je-hee let out a low groan as his cock swelled back to full hardness inside the tight, clinging heat. Breathing warmly against the shell of Si-woon’s reddening ear, he murmured in a tone of mock helplessness, “What… hngh… are we supposed to do now? I don’t think it’s going to slip out while it’s this hard…” Nipping lightly at the curve of Si-woon’s shoulder, he added gravely, “If it’s stuck like this—”

Si-woon’s face went pale before he caught the reflection of Je-hee’s eyes in the wardrobe mirror across the room—crinkling with unmistakable, wicked amusement.

“Pfft.” Losing his straight face, Je-hee burst into a low laugh against his neck. “I think it’ll slide right out if I just come inside you one more time to slick it up. You’ll help me out, won’t you?”

Turning Si-woon’s chin for a shameless morning kiss, Je-hee rolled his hips forward in a slow, deliberate stroke. Even knowing he was being teased, Si-woon found himself completely incapable of pushing him away. As the fluids still pooled deep inside him softened the dried rim, the quiet, wet slide of skin against skin grew steadily smoother beneath the duvet, drawing a fresh trickle of clear fluid from the tip of Si-woon’s cock without a hand even touching him in front.

“Ah, aah… Why do you keep… rubbing right there, hyah—”

“Because… ngh… the way your chest swells into my palm is too cute to leave alone.”

With his left nipple already swollen and raw from Je-hee’s mouth the night before, even the lightest brush of Je-hee’s thumb across the bud made Si-woon’s spine arch off the sheets. Meanwhile, down below, Je-hee kept his thrusts infuriatingly shallow and unhurried until a thin, restless whine escaped Si-woon’s throat.

“A little… hic… deeper—” Catching Je-hee’s hand as it glided over his stomach, Si-woon pressed the palm firmly against his own navel, too dizzy with need to care how badly his muscles would ache later; what he craved was that overwhelming, mind-blanking fullness from the night before.

“Mmgh, ngh, khh…!”

Just as he had done in the dark hours earlier, Je-hee had waited patiently until Si-woon couldn’t stand the teasing and begged for it himself. Answering the plea at once, Je-hee drove the blunt head past the swollen inner ridge straight to the deepest threshold, sending a wave of white-hot pleasure crashing over Si-woon before lifting him effortlessly from his side to settle him astride his lap.

“You meant… khh… this deep, right?”

“This position is… ngh… too much in the morning, haah…!”

Sitting upright on Je-hee’s thighs with the duvet pooled around their waists left nothing hidden from view, and after the marathon of the previous night, Si-woon’s trembling legs could barely support his own weight. As he swayed forward, Je-hee caught him securely by both thighs and surged upward from beneath him.

“I’m going to… hngh… come again, ah-eek—!”

Arching his back as a thin stream of cloudy fluid spattered across Je-hee’s stomach, Si-woon felt his inner walls contract rhythmically around the thick shaft buried to the hilt inside him.

“Does it… ngh… feel that good when I hit right here?” Holding Si-woon’s hips flush against his lap as the aftershocks rippled through him, Je-hee looked up with dark, shining eyes. “Finally… haah… you took every single inch of me inside…”

“Ah, my stomach… ngh… feels too full, khh—”

“Mm, you’re doing so well. Slow down… hngh… and breathe for me.” Stroking Si-woon’s heaving ribs while his own breath came ragged, Je-hee glanced down between their joined bodies as he rolled his hips in shallow, relentless circles. “Do you have any idea… how unbelievably soft and hot you are inside?”

“Because you left it… ngh… inside me all night, of course it’s—”

“Your rim is swollen bright red, too… phew… I can’t take my eyes off it.”

“Hngh—!” At another light brush of Je-hee’s fingers across his oversensitive chest and flushed shaft, a final, shuddering spasm wrung the last drops from Si-woon’s body, tears spilling over his lashes as he slumped against Je-hee’s shoulder. “My chest… ngh… please stop touching my chest…”

“Mmm… all right. I won’t touch your chest anymore.”

“And down below, too… hngh—”

“Down here… ngh… just a little longer,” Je-hee murmured with a languid, breathless smile against his temple. “I haven’t… khh… quite finished helping it slide out yet.”

When the morning ordeal finally ended an hour later and Si-woon lay flat on his back staring at the ceiling, not a single muscle from his thighs and hips to his ribs and lower stomach was free of a deep, throbbing ache. “Manageable,” my ass. How had he been arrogant enough yesterday morning to announce that he was sturdy enough to handle whatever Je-hee threw at him without holding back? Now he understood just how much superhuman patience the three-years-older man had exercised during their earlier nights together.

“I had better never provoke him like that again…” Si-woon whispered to the bedroom ceiling, making a solemn vow to guard his tongue in bed—if only to ensure his own survival.

* * *

Lately, waking up early on weekend mornings, Je-hee sometimes had to look twice to reconcile the man curled beside him with the guarded, exhausted driver he had first met. The permanent knot of tension between Si-woon’s shoulder blades had melted away; he smiled far more readily now, and on mornings when he didn’t have to work, he slept late into the morning.

Whenever Je-hee tried to slip quietly out of bed so he wouldn’t disturb him, Si-woon’s arm would shoot out from under the duvet to catch his waist, his voice thick with sleep and an almost spoiled insistence he never showed while fully awake.

“Stay in bed with me…”

“If I stay here, I might wake you up completely.”

“Mmh, even so…”

To Je-hee, who had spent months watching Si-woon hold the entire world at arm’s length, this sleepy clinginess was priceless beyond measure. And there was one more habit he had recently discovered by accident: when Si-woon woke up first, he liked to study Je-hee’s sleeping face.

Keeping his eyelids loosely shut and his breathing slow and even one Saturday morning, Je-hee felt the mattress shift as Si-woon propped himself up on one elbow beside him.

“Je-hee-ssi,” Si-woon murmured in a voice barely above a breath.

Je-hee had known for some time that his lover was partial to his face; pretending to stay asleep for a few minutes so Si-woon could look his fill without getting flustered was a harmless indulgence. Then, after a quiet pause, a second word followed.

“…Hyung.”

Wait—so that’s what he’s been practicing when he thinks I can’t hear him. A feather-light kiss brushed across Je-hee’s lips, followed by a quiet, earnest whisper: “I like you.”

Fighting with every muscle in his face not to let the corners of his mouth twitch upward, Je-hee felt Si-woon’s gaze linger on his features for another minute before the man burrowed closer under the duvet, his warm toes wriggling against the sheets and brushing shyly against Je-hee’s shin. Whether Si-woon was feeling bashful after whispering hyung or simply checking that Je-hee was warm beside him, the small, restless motion was so endearing that Je-hee couldn’t hold back any longer.

Reaching down with his own foot under the covers to trap Si-woon’s restless ankle, Je-hee opened his eyes and whispered, “Can’t go back to sleep?”

“…!”

Si-woon’s head jerked back on the pillow, his eyes flying wide as scarlet flooded his cheeks all the way to his hairline. “It’s been a while since you had trouble sleeping in,” Je-hee added with a teasing smile.

“Uh—…you were awake?”

Je-hee could practically see the gears turning furiously in Si-woon’s head as he calculated how long Je-hee had been conscious—and whether he had heard that whispered hyung.

“For the record, I’m happy with either one,” Je-hee said cheerfully.

“Pardon?”

“‘Je-hee-ssi,’ like you usually call me, is nice. And ‘hyung’ sounds really nice, too.”

“…”

“Or how about dropping the titles altogether and just calling me ‘Je-hee-ya’? Actually, if I get a vote, I might like that best—or is ‘honey’ still too soon?”

Without a word, Si-woon yanked the goose-down duvet straight over the top of his head and vanished beneath it. Laughing softly, Je-hee wrapped both arms around the bundled blanket roll—until a muffled voice spoke from inside the cocoon.

“…Please stop teasing me. Since you’re wide awake anyway, there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

Lowering the edge of the duvet at once, Je-hee let the playfulness drop from his face. “Something on your mind?” Had Si-woon been carrying a new worry in silence while Je-hee was busy basking in their domestic routine? Drawing him closer, he searched Si-woon’s dark eyes.

“The truth is… I’ve been thinking about handing in my resignation at work.”

Je-hee blinked in surprise. This was the same Seo Si-woon who insisted like clockwork on transferring half the utility bills and grocery money into Je-hee’s account on the first of every month no matter how firmly Je-hee told him to keep his savings. Hearing him speak of quitting his job of eleven years was the last thing Je-hee had expected. “Can I ask what made you think of resigning?”

“It isn’t because anything bad happened at the office. It’s just… for once in my life, I wanted to know what it feels like to rest for a little while without a single schedule or alarm hanging over my head.” Pausing as if afraid he sounded irresponsible, Si-woon hurried to add, “I-I don’t mean I’m planning to live off you or stop working for good, of course. I still have my savings set aside, so I’ll keep paying my share of the living expenses every month without fail, and after a short break I’ll look for a new position—”

“What are you talking about?” Je-hee cut in gently, taking both of Si-woon’s hands in his own. “If you’ve finally made up your mind to take a break, then rest properly without worrying about living expenses or rushing into another job. Take as many months as you want, until you don’t have a single regret left.”

For months, Je-hee’s greatest wish had been to see this man lay down the crushing weight he had carried since his teens; hearing that Si-woon finally felt safe enough in their home to rest filled Je-hee’s chest with a fierce, quiet pride. And if Si-woon’s break also meant they would have unhurried mornings and long evenings together without an alarm clock tearing them apart at dawn—well, Je-hee certainly wasn’t going to complain about that, either.

* * *