Chapter 25

Easing the tear-stained man flat onto his back on the mattress, Je-hee rolled his hips in deep, relentless strokes as the clamping walls gradually melted around him—until a searing heat boiled up from the base of his spine and warned him he had reached the point of no return.

“Hngh…! Si-woon-ah, hah… wait—I need to pull out—”

Hooking his hands behind Si-woon’s knees, Je-hee wrenched his hips backward at the absolute last fraction of a second. Even as he clapped a hand toward the base to hold it back, hot, thick ropes of white erupted from the slit, painting Si-woon’s trembling thighs and lower stomach.

Reaching for a tissue to wipe the sticky mess from Si-woon’s groin, Je-hee froze as his eyes fell on the sight between Si-woon’s parted legs.

“…”

Swollen crimson from the bare friction, the stretched ring of muscle fluttered rhythmically, a pearl of white fluid welling at the rim from earlier before trickling down the flushed seam of skin toward his scrotum. Swallowing hard, Je-hee lowered his head between Si-woon’s thighs without a second thought and dragged his tongue flat up that sensitized seam, slipping a finger just inside the hot opening to press directly against the firm internal knot beneath his nose.

“Hic—! If you touch me like that right now… ah… I’m going to come again—ah!”

Bucking his hips off the sheets as his hands tangled blindly in Je-hee’s hair, Si-woon shuddered through another intense spasm—though when Je-hee looked up, almost nothing had spilled from the tip of his softened cock.

Has he already come too many times tonight? Counting back over the past hour, it had been at least three or four times already. Wrapping a hand lightly around Si-woon’s sensitive length, Je-hee asked in concern, “Doesn’t coming like that without anything left feel frustrating?”

“What? No… hic, not really… hah…!” Covering his mouth with the back of his hand, Si-woon shook his head frantically to beg off any further stimulation in front.

“I really should put a condom on for this one, just… ah, let me feel you like this for one minute first, ngh—”

The foil wrappers were sitting right inside the nightstand drawer an arm’s length away, yet the memory of how Si-woon’s bare walls had felt wrapped around him made Je-hee’s hand refuse to reach for them. Pressing the slick crown back against the loosened entrance, he slid all the way inside with a wet schlick that made his eyes flutter shut.

“Hic… hah, deep inside… ah, it hit right—ngh, ugh—!” Arching sharply off the mattress as his hips tried by reflex to edge up the bed, Si-woon gasped for air.

“Why do you keep… hah, trying to inch away? Do you… ngh, hate how deep it goes?”

“I didn’t… ah, mmgh—!” Shaking his head on the pillow with his face burning—plainly mortified now that the alcohol was wearing off and he remembered how shamelessly he had started this tonight—Si-woon still leaned right back into Je-hee’s embrace the instant Je-hee eased his grip, glancing back over his shoulder with damp, shining eyes. “…I want to do it… hah, while looking at your face.”

“Mm, all right.” Turning him gently onto his back again so they were face-to-face, Je-hee rained kisses over his flushed cheeks and parted lips as Si-woon locked both arms around his neck, meeting every deep, driving thrust with a ragged gasp against his ear.

“Ah, hah… ah…! It… ah… feels so good.”

“Ngh… ah, Si-woon-ah… Seo Si-woon…”

“Yes… ah, mmph—”

Holding that dark, tear-bright gaze from inches away as the heat between them climbed toward its peak, Si-woon looked straight into his eyes and whispered, “I love you.”

“…!”

Je-hee had heard Si-woon say he liked him before, yet never once had the man spoken those three words—least of all with his guard stripped completely bare like this. For a single heartbeat, Je-hee’s breath stopped in his throat; in the next, burying his face into the pillow beside Si-woon’s ear with a low, broken groan, he lost every shred of control he had left and came deep inside him.

“Wait… ngh, Si-woon-ah, if you clamp down on me while I’m coming… ah—ngh!” Even as Je-hee gasped and clung to his shoulders, Si-woon’s inner walls tightened around the pulsing shaft as though determined not to spill a single drop, holding him fast until the last tremor finally subsided.

“I should have put a condom on earlier… I’m sorry. That was completely my fault,” Je-hee panted, wincing in remorse as he eased out with a soft, wet sound and saw the milky fluid begin to trickle from the reddened opening. Forcing himself to stand up from the mattress to fetch a warm, damp towel from the bathroom, he had taken barely a step when a quiet voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“…I don’t mind doing it without one, either.”

Turning slowly back toward the bed, Je-hee stared at him. “What did you just say?”

“Using a condom is definitely much easier to clean up afterward, but… to tell the truth, doing it without one like tonight—” Averting his scarlet face slightly before forcing himself to finish, Si-woon murmured, “…I think it feels… really nice.”

For three full seconds Je-hee stood frozen on the carpet; then, crossing back to the bed in two strides, he gathered Si-woon tightly into his arms. “…You really are going to be the death of me one of these days.” Did this man have any inkling what an admission like that did to his sanity? Looking down into Si-woon’s flushed face, Je-hee asked huskily, “Are you planning on getting any sleep at all tonight?”

“Tomorrow is Saturday anyway, and I don’t have a job to go to anymore, so staying up late… wouldn’t really matter…”

Pressing a slow kiss to the inside of Si-woon’s thigh, Je-hee smiled against his skin. “Even if you regret saying that in the morning, I’m not letting you take it back now.”

* * *

By the time full morning light filled the bedroom, Si-woon lay flat on his back staring at the ceiling molding, incapable of lifting so much as a finger. This is my punishment for laying hands on a sleeping man. Kept awake until the sky turned gray outside the window, he felt as though the goose-down duvet were the only thing holding his aching limbs together.

I am never, ever saying anything like that in bed again. Shooting a weak glare toward the man sleeping peacefully beside him, Si-woon marveled at his own inability to learn a lesson: after nearly dying the morning he told Je-hee not to hold back after Christmas, he had come home drunk from his farewell party, climbed on top of his sleeping partner, and then announced that he preferred doing it without a condom because he didn’t have work the next day!

“You’re awake already? You should sleep in a few more hours.” Stirring beside him with a contented yawn, Je-hee rubbed his eyes and burrowed into Si-woon’s side looking fresh as a daisy. “I had no idea you liked me that much, Si-woon-ssi. Waking up like that felt wonderful.”

Listening to that gentle, thoroughly satisfied voice, Si-woon narrowed his eyes slightly as a sudden suspicion crossed his mind. Wait a second… he wasn’t pretending to be asleep from the very beginning last night, was he?

“What are you thinking about with that serious face?” Je-hee asked innocently.

“Nothing at all.” Closing his eyes again, Si-woon seriously considered for the first time since they met that Kwon Je-hee might have been playing him like a fiddle from day one.

* * *

“Now that the weather’s warmed up so much, how about we take a little drive somewhere for a couple of days?” Je-hee suggested a few weeks later.

“Would that really be all right with your schedule? I’d love to go.”

“Of course—I have vacation days saved up. Is there anywhere in particular you’d like to visit, or anything you want to eat?”

“Hmm…”

Once Si-woon mentioned that he hadn’t seen the ocean in years, the itinerary came together almost effortlessly—and this time, Je-hee insisted on taking the wheel himself. After all the hundreds of kilometers Si-woon had driven him through the night, Je-hee wanted him to sit in the passenger seat for once and do nothing but watch the scenery unfold.

While the trees back in Yeonghyeon were only just beginning to bud, down along the southern coast in Yangtaek, spring was already in full bloom, lining the winding coastal highway with bright yellow forsythia and pale clouds of cherry blossoms.

“May I roll the window down?” Si-woon asked.

“Go right ahead.”

Lowering the glass, Si-woon leaned his cheek toward the mild sea breeze, laughing softly when a stray cherry-blossom petal blew in and landed right on the bridge of his nose. Watching that unguarded smile from the driver’s seat, Je-hee felt that the whole trip had already paid for itself ten times over.

Pulling into a scenic turnout overlooking the water a short while later, they stepped out of the car into the dazzling afternoon sun. Before them, the open sea stretched wide and blue to the horizon, rollers breaking against the pale sand in a clear, unhurried rhythm.

“I should have remembered to pack sunglasses,” Je-hee murmured, squinting against the diamond glare dancing across the water as they walked down to the beach.

Ahead of him, Si-woon strolled closer to the surf, his sneakers sinking into the dry white sand before finding firmer footing along the damp shoreline. Watching the tall swells roll in from the deep only to dissolve into harmless white foam at Si-woon’s feet, Je-hee found himself thinking of the long, punishing years his lover had weathered alone before they met. One day soon, will all those hard winters look as small and distant to him as these waves?

“Si-woon-ssi, watch out—your shoes are going to get soaked!”

Turning back at the call, Si-woon gave him a smile brighter than the spring sunlight on the water and walked back up the slope of the beach. “If my sneakers get wet, are you planning to throw them away and leave me behind here?”

“What? Why on earth would I leave you behind? I’d just trade shoes with you.”

“Then you’d be the one walking around in wet shoes, Je-hee-ssi.”

“If it’s that uncomfortable, you can just carry me on your back like you did that night.”

“I’ll gladly carry you anytime.”

Reaching out to take the warm hand that fit so naturally into his own, Je-hee laced their fingers together as they walked along the shore. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet, the old saying went—yet looking back over the months since that first midnight call from Naeju, he couldn’t recall a single hour of waiting that he would have wished away. Every hesitant phone call, every quiet highway drive, every small step across the distance between them had been sweet in its own right simply because the person at the end of the road was Seo Si-woon.

Whatever seasons waited ahead of them, Je-hee silently promised himself that every spring from now on would be warmer than the last, and squeezed the hand in his a little tighter.

[END of MAIN STORY]