He held one br*ast in his hand and took the other into his mouth, rolling it with his tongue, and the woman arched her waist. He gently circled the stiffened peak with his fingers and drew on it. It felt like sweetness pooling in his mouth.

He wanted to taste all of her, without missing a single thing. Kangwook laid his body over Yunjoo’s smooth bare skin. Her silky soft flesh made his wild desire explode. His firm chest pressed hard against her yielding softness, and the sensation that passed between them sent a jolt of electricity crackling through him. He dragged his tongue in a long stroke up the side of the woman’s body as she panted and breathed out hot.

Her body surged and her waist snapped up. Seeing her take in everything he was giving her, he tightened his grip on the br*ast filling his hand. He knew that once he started, he would not be able to hold back.

“Haa.”

The m*an that broke from Yunjoo’s lips disappeared into his mouth. Feeling her waist snap up beneath him, he slipped one leg between hers. The sensation of brushing and pressing against the soft thatch covering her most private place sent a sweet ache rolling through his chest.

It felt like her heart was tingling, and m*ans kept breaking from somewhere deep inside her without her meaning to, and her lower body clenched and released on its own. All of it was unfamiliar and dizzying to Yunjoo.

Kangwook was surprised at himself. He hadn’t expected to feel this way. Whether it was because it was Cha Yunjoo, he thought she was truly a woman who could take him to heaven and to hell. He was already standing at heaven’s gate, and at the same time tasting the feeling of standing at hell’s gate as he held himself back and endured.

He licked the slender nape of her neck and gently caught it between his lips, and her waist twisted a little harder. He slid his lips from her nape down between her br*asts and took a full mouthful of her br*ast the way you bite into a piece of fruit.

“Mmh, ah!”

She moaned and rolled her hips at the strong pull of his suction. The strange sensation spreading through her entire body frightened Yunjoo. The sounds coming out of her and the way her body kept moving without her willing it to frightened her.

Every time Kangwook touched her and his lips landed on her, her body moved on its own. She felt embarrassed and flustered at herself. The experience of her body not doing what her mind told it to was unfamiliar and bewildering. Then Kangwook’s hand found her most private place.

Kangwook was faster than Yunjoo’s instinct to press her legs together, and he spread her thighs with his own leg as his fingers slid into the forbidden entrance. The tight, hot opening clenched around him like a blow to the head.

Too narrow. She was slick with arousal but had not yet opened. Kangwook worked at the entrance that was not yet ready to take him. At the foreign sensation and the numbing pleasure spreading through her, she clenched and clenched again. Kangwook moved his fingers quickly inside the grip of that entrance.

“Yunjoo, I love you.”

Yunjoo’s eyes, which had been holding his gaze to hear his words, went dark and wide. A thick, forceful presence drove into the place his fingers had left.

“Hah!”

The pain was greater than she had expected. Her wide eyes filled with it. He had no confidence he could manage slowly, a little at a time. He wanted to press into that hot, tight place all at once. It took more force than he had expected, and Kangwook put everything he had into it.

Kangwook’s back glistened with sweat. With eyes gone dark with desire, having reached the destination of all his want and longing, Kangwook watched Yunjoo’s expression slowly ease and began to move. He had meant to go slowly. His mind thought so, but his body was different.

No, he could not stop. She was the first woman he had ever loved. That was why he had wanted her, why he had waited, and why he was the only one who would ever have her. Driving it into her with everything he had, he moved as though branding her as his.

“Ugh! Hah, hah!”

Sounds that were somewhere between breath and m*ans spilled out in a continuous stream, and the furrowed brow that had refused to smooth slowly began to ease, the pain giving way to heat. There were things the body knew without being taught. She began to follow his rhythm, little by little.

Kangwook paused briefly at the woman’s m*ans and the strain on her face, but his desire would not wait. Want swallowed desire whole. He could not hold back any longer. His movements grew bigger, and every time he drove in and pulled back, it felt like everything below was being dragged out of her.

The heat building by degrees and the woman’s m*ans made Kangwook let go of the last thread of restraint. At some point Yunjoo’s face, which had shown only the pain of the first moment, began to tremble with something closer to pleasure. The man’s body moved hard. He drove in and pulled back, and when he drove in again it felt like her body was splitting in two, like she might come apart at the seams. Finally a m*an escaped the man’s lips too.

“Haa, Yunjoo.”

The clenching grip threatened to undo him, but the pleasure and sensation it gave him was beyond any description.

The peak was drawing near. The woman twisted her arousal-soaked body hard, and her flushed face was unbearably beautiful. In her dark eyes filled with red longing, tears clung pitifully as she swallowed the pain. Kangwook licked those tears away with his lips.

He exhaled hot breath and drove toward the end. Looking down at Yunjoo clinging to him desperately, Kangwook poured out all of his desire and sank down over her body, wrapping her in a warm embrace and pressing his wildly pounding heart against hers.

“Yunjoo, thank you for the birthday gift. It was the best gift of my life. I love you, Cha Yunjoo.”

“Mr. Kangwook.”

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry for not seeing you sooner, and I’m sorry for hurting you, and for making you lonely. I’m sorry for all of it.”

“Even now it’s hard when I think back on those times, but you’ve started to see me for who I am, and I’m slowly forgetting.”

“Good. Forget all of it.”

“Let me think about that. I should keep a little of the bad days to look back on.”

“Ow! That stings already.”

Yunjoo laughed out loud watching Kangwook play along with her teasing.

“Hehe, there really will be days that hurt.”

“Just hearing that scares me.”

“I hold grudges for a very long time.”

“What? Give me a little grace, won’t you.”

“Happy birthday, President Choi Kangwook.”

With a soft peck, Yunjoo’s lips touched his and pulled away, and Kangwook felt the danger of his body stirring again. He knew it was wanting too much. Yunjoo was new to this and any more would be too hard on her. But the thing seemed to have abandoned all sense and kept nothing but greed, and it was starting to make demands.

“Mmm, Cha Yunjoo, coming at me out of nowhere like that is dangerous.”

“What did I do?”

“It makes it very hard to hold back.”

“Mr. Kangwook.”

“Tonight will be the last time I hold back. Don’t push it any further. Close your eyes.”

“Hmph!”

Kangwook pulled the pouting Yunjoo into his arms. It seemed like sleep was not going to come easy tonight.

“You had a hard time, didn’t you? Let’s rest a bit. You’ll feel better after some sleep.”

Kangwook held Yunjoo close and stroked her hair. Before long she had fallen asleep in his warm embrace. He slipped away from her side, went to the bathroom, removed the protection, washed up quickly, and came back out with a towel dampened in warm water.

She had probably wanted to wash up but fallen asleep without being able to get up because he was watching. Kangwook came to Yunjoo’s side and gently cleaned the precious place that bore the full trace of him. He wiped away the traces of blood and his own desire with the towel, and looking at Yunjoo’s sleeping face, he made a vow.

‘She is my woman, and I must protect her no matter what comes. Even if the day comes when she turns away from me, I will not let go. Until the day Cha Yunjoo dies.’

Kangwook had experienced something precious that would never come twice in a lifetime. A room had opened inside him that nothing but this woman could fill. It struck him as something remarkable, that holding a woman could fill something in him. Was this what love was, where just looking at her let light in and made everything warm?

He felt now that he could not live without Yunjoo. She had become the best birthday gift of Choi Kangwook’s life, and the only woman who would fill him forever. Kangwook touched Yunjoo’s sleeping face with his hand, and let out a quiet sigh at the desire slowly waking in him again.

‘Sleeping soundly, aren’t you, Cha Yunjoo?’

She opened her eyes to a stifling feeling and found herself looking at a bare chest. In that moment it all came back to her, where she was and who was in front of her. The birthday. And then everything from the day before came rushing back, and heat rose to her face. How was she supposed to get out of here? She had to get out before Kangwook woke up…