Chapter 23

After eleven years at the company without a single absence, complaint, or piece of office gossip attached to his name, Si-woon stunned his entire department by submitting his letter of resignation.

Several colleagues joked that they had bet money on every other person in the building quitting before Seo Si-woon did—though their mock protests quickly melted into genuine warmth when they saw how much lighter and happier his expression looked these days. Quiet and reserved to a fault, Si-woon had never been the life of the office, yet when word spread that he was leaving, the whole team insisted on throwing him a proper send-off.

“You really don’t need to make a big fuss on my account…” Si-woon tried to demur.

“Come on, Si-woon! Even if your heart has already left the building, you can’t deny your team a farewell dinner after eleven years!”

“Exactly! You’re not going to slip out the back door and break our hearts at the very end, are you?”

And that was how, on his final Friday with the company, Si-woon found himself at the center of a farewell gathering that stretched across three separate venues and well past midnight: starting with grilled pork belly, moving on to a lively draft-beer pub, and ending at a late-night fish-cake bar with his closest team members.

“Si-woon-ah, let’s have just one last glass before we call it a night, all right?” Manager Kim Il-young said, clapping a heavy hand over his shoulder.

“Are you sure you aren’t drinking too much tonight, Manager Kim?”

“Of course I’m fine! Your hyung is just sad to see you go after all these years.”

By the time Si-woon finally loaded a thoroughly intoxicated Manager Kim—the last survivor of the night—into the back of a taxi and waved it off down the street, his forehead was damp with sweat despite the late-winter chill. Over the final two hours of the party, each colleague had seemed determined to pour him one last farewell toast before collapsing into a cab, leaving Si-woon with far more alcohol in his system than he had drunk in years.

“…What if Je-hee-ssi hates how much I smell like liquor?”

Breathing out into his cupped palm on the quiet sidewalk, Si-woon winced. He smelled as though he had taken a bath in soju and draft beer. His stomach was holding up fine, fortunately, so walking home wasn’t an issue—facing Je-hee was another story. Knowing how much Je-hee disliked alcohol and how exhausted client drinking sessions always left him, Si-woon hated the thought of climbing into their clean bed reeking like a tavern. I should probably sleep in the spare room tonight. Sensible as the decision was at nearly two in the morning, the mere prospect of sleeping down the hall alone made his shoulders droop.

“…Get a hold of yourself.” Lightly slapping both cheeks to clear the pleasant buzz in his head, Si-woon walked briskly back to their apartment complex and punched the passcode into the front door lock.

Home. Even after a month of living here, calling this spacious apartment his home still felt almost too good to be true—until the motion-sensor light in the entryway clicked on, illuminating Je-hee’s sleek, polished dress shoes lined up neatly beside Si-woon’s everyday sneakers.

“…”

A warm, involuntary smile curved across Si-woon’s mouth at the sight of those two pairs of shoes side by side. Stepping quietly into the dark hallway, he breathed in the faint, familiar scent of Je-hee’s cologne lingering in the air and headed straight for the hall bathroom to scrub every trace of alcohol and smoke from his skin and mouth.

When he emerged twenty minutes later in clean briefs and a t-shirt, towel-drying his damp hair, his feet carried him automatically to the closed master bedroom door instead of the spare room. Just one quick peek to see that he’s sleeping well won’t hurt, right? Turning the handle without a sound, Si-woon eased the door open a crack.

Inside, the bedroom was filled with the slow, even rhythm of Je-hee’s breathing. Ordinarily a light sleeper who stirred whenever Si-woon came home late, tonight Je-hee hadn’t budged at all—and a glance toward the small empty beer can sitting beside the laundry hamper explained why. Why a man who disliked alcohol had drunk a whole can of beer by himself on a Friday evening was a mystery, though it had clearly knocked him out before he even remembered to draw the curtains.

He’s so handsome… Sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress, Si-woon braced one hand beside the pillow and leaned down to study his lover’s face in the moonlight. However many nights he looked at Je-hee, he never tired of the contrast between those fine, delicate facial features and the broad, solid line of his neck and shoulders beneath them. Brushing a stray lock of soft brown hair from Je-hee’s forehead, Si-woon leaned down before he could stop himself and pressed a lingering kiss to those parted lips.

“Mmm…”

Je-hee gave a faint murmur in his sleep without waking, shifting slightly as the duvet slid down to his waist—and as Si-woon’s gaze followed the movement of the blanket, his breath caught.

Je-hee was wearing the deep navy silk-blend pajamas with the low-cut collar that Si-woon himself had worn a handful of times, and beneath the thin, clinging fabric of the trousers, a heavy erection was tenting the cloth unmistakably. Even through the haze of his farewell drinks, a sharp coil of heat tightened low in Si-woon’s belly. It’s past two in the morning. Leave him alone and go to sleep. He knew better than to touch someone who was dead asleep, yet the alcohol had loosened the brakes on his usual restraint, and before his head had finished the lecture, he had already climbed onto the mattress between Je-hee’s parted legs.

Still, after getting caught out the morning he whispered hyung, he wasn’t about to take any chances without verifying that the man was genuinely unconscious.

“Je-hee-ssi,” Si-woon whispered.

“…”

“…Je-hee hyung.”

“Mmm…”

“…Darling.”

Even as his own ears burned at the final test word—have I completely lost my mind?—Je-hee didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid; had the man been even one percent awake, he would have pounced on darling before the second syllable left Si-woon’s mouth.

Reassured—and feeling a reckless thrill race through his veins—Si-woon hooked his fingers into the waistband of the navy pajama trousers and briefs, easing them down Je-hee’s thighs in one smooth motion until the heavy, flushed shaft sprang free against his stomach. Swallowing hard against his dry throat, Si-woon hovered his palm an inch above it. “You’re really… fast asleep, right?”

When his fingers finally closed lightly around the hot flesh, the shaft gave a sharp, involuntary throb against his palm that made Si-woon freeze and dart his eyes up to Je-hee’s pillow. Aside from a slight furrow between his brows and a deeper breath, Je-hee remained dead to the world. Just a little bit, then.

Tracing his thumb along the sensitive ridge beneath the crown the exact way Je-hee always did to him, Si-woon watched clear beads of fluid well up at the slit. Leaning down between Je-hee’s thighs, he pressed his own flushed cheek against the heavy length, letting the scorching heat and the musky, clean scent of Je-hee’s skin make his head spin as he stroked the shaft from base to tip.

“Hngh, ah…”

Under his two-handed grip, the prominent veins pulsed vividly, pre-cum spilling over his fingers until the entire length glistened in the moonlight. Touching his index finger to the weeping slit and drawing out a thin, silvery thread of fluid, Si-woon wet his dry lips as an old conversation echoed in his head.

“Si-woon-ssi, ah, no… you don’t need to use your mouth there.”

“Do you dislike it when someone does that?”

“No, it’s… not that I’d dislike it, I just don’t want your jaw or throat to hurt. I’m really fine without it.”

“Are you pouting right now?” Je-hee had teased him then.

“…No.”

Je-hee indulged almost every wish Si-woon ever voiced, yet on that single point he had remained stubbornly protective. Now, however, Je-hee was fast asleep from a can of beer—which meant that if he wanted to stop Si-woon tonight, he would have to do it in his dreams.

Leaning down between Je-hee’s thighs, Si-woon pressed the flat of his tongue to the glistening slit and gave it a slow, deliberate lick. …It tastes good. The warm, slightly salty flavor was unfamiliar, yet knowing it came from Je-hee made his pulse hammer with excitement. As he swirled the tip of his tongue over the sensitive opening and then parted his lips to take the swollen head inside his wet mouth, Je-hee’s hands clenched spasmodically in the duvet on either side of his waist.

“Mmff, ah…!”

Using the saliva pooling on his tongue to ease the way, Si-woon hollowed his cheeks and took the thick shaft deeper an inch at a time, careful not to scrape it with his teeth. Within a few slow, sucking pulls, so much pre-cum had spilled onto the back of his tongue that he had to swallow repeatedly to keep it from trickling down his chin.

“Mmh, nnh…!”

Every few seconds, Je-hee’s hips bucked shallowly off the mattress in his sleep, the heavy cock throbbing against the roof of Si-woon’s mouth as if in exquisite torment. Trying to soothe it with long, flat sweeps of his tongue only made the shaft jerk harder between his lips, and the wet, shameless sounds echoing in the quiet bedroom sent a corresponding fire straight to Si-woon’s own groin.

Pulling back with a ragged gasp to catch his breath, Si-woon shoved his own briefs down his thighs in a single motion. His cock was already aching and slick at the tip; pressing his own rigid length against the inside of Je-hee’s warm, bare thigh, he rutted lightly against the pale skin until pearly droplets smeared across the muscle—only to realize that friction alone wasn’t going to satisfy the hunger clawing at his belly tonight.

It’s not enough. Bending his head to the hollow of Je-hee’s hipbone—right where the waistband of his trousers would hide the mark from anyone else’s eyes—Si-woon sank his teeth gently into the fair skin and sucked until a dark reddish bloom appeared. Drawing back with a shaky breath, he stared down at the mark he had made. So this is why he always bites me in places no one else can see. It wasn’t for display; it was a private brand meant for the two of them alone.

“Ah, haah…!” Twisting restlessly against the sheets in his sleep, Je-hee arched his lower back as another bead of fluid welled from the tip of his cock.

Unable to tear his eyes from that flushed, unconscious face, Si-woon coated two of his own fingers in the slick moisture gathered along Je-hee’s shaft and reached behind himself. “Ugh… ah.” Even a single knuckle pressing past his own rim made his brow furrow; his own hurried angle felt clumsy and uncomfortable compared to Je-hee’s patient, practiced touch. Still, he worked a second slick finger inside until the tight ring loosened enough to bear what he intended next.

I want him inside me right now.

Stroking Je-hee’s weeping shaft with both palms to coat it thoroughly, Si-woon straddled his sleeping lover’s hips, braced one hand on Je-hee’s firm chest, and guided the blunt crown against his own entrance. Even when Je-hee was awake and helping support his weight, taking that girth was no small feat; lowering himself onto it alone took several trembling breaths.

“Khh…!”

The instant his stretched rim swallowed the thick head and began to sink down the shaft, the tight, scorching squeeze around the sensitized crown pushed the sleeping man past the brink—and before Si-woon had even taken half the length, Je-hee’s cock pulsed violently inside him, pouring a hot, heavy flood of semen straight into his passage.

“Haah… ngh, kh—! How long… ngh, is it going to keep coming out—!”

Clutching his own lower stomach with one hand as the unexpected warmth spread deep inside him, Si-woon planted both palms on the mattress on either side of Je-hee’s ribs, his thighs shaking as the prolonged release finally subsided and began to trickle back down around the base of the shaft.

Rather than softening after climaxing in his sleep, however, Je-hee’s cock remained rock-hard inside him—and with that thick flood of semen now slicking his inner walls far better than his own fingers had managed, the tight passage gave way with sudden, velvety ease as Si-woon sank all the way down to the root.

“Ngh… ah… hah.”

A dull ache radiated from his tailbone at the sudden depth, every nerve ending set ablaze by the realization that there was no latex barrier separating their skin tonight—and that he was taking his fill of Je-hee while the man lay unconscious beneath him. Rolling his hips in a slow, experimental circle until the buried head brushed directly against his prostate, Si-woon gasped aloud as his own untouched cock swayed in the air and dribbled a cloudy stream across Je-hee’s stomach.

“Haa, ah… it feels so good…”

When a short moan escaped Je-hee’s parted lips and the loose navy pajama top slipped open across his chest, Si-woon leaned down over him, catching one small, pert nipple between his lips and grazing it lightly with his teeth as he rocked his hips faster—completely surrendering the quiet restraint he had spent his whole life hiding behind.

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