Chapter 24

Seoyun pushed herself up groggily.

Since she had fallen asleep without even knowing he had come back, she felt a little embarrassed.

“I must have slept too long.”

“Without even having dinner?”

Ijun asked with concern.

Was it because she had just awakened?

For some reason, Seoyun felt oddly emotional, the bridge of her nose stinging.

Someone who worried about whether she had eaten.

Not family bound to her by blood, which she had never been able to choose, but family she had chosen solely with her heart.

The emotion of that moved her deeply.

“Should we order some room service now? Aren’t you hungry?”

But unlike his words, Ijun moved a little closer to Seoyun.

His own scent, mixed with the fragrance of shampoo, came suddenly near.

She had the feeling that something was about to begin now.

At an emotion she could not tell was tension or anticipation, her lower abdomen seemed to tighten.

The sharp tip of Ijun’s nose brushed Seoyun’s neck, and the cool feel of his lips touched her shoulder.

His breath teased her skin, and a tingling sensation ran through her like an electric current.

“Are you more comfortable with me now?”

“……”

As if that could be true.

Every time she faced him in the house in the morning after waking.

Every time he returned late at night and greeted her with a faint smile.

Her heart trembled sharply, her chest swelled full.

Not for a single moment had she ever felt calm while looking at him.

“Even so, I can’t wait any longer now.”

His low whisper sent a shiver somewhere deep inside Seoyun’s body.

Seoyun quietly closed her eyes.

Bracing one hand against the headboard, Ijun tilted his head and slowly kissed Seoyun on the lips.

The moist, supple lips touched Ijun’s, then parted like a flower bud coming into bloom.

Into that opening, he pushed the tip of his tongue.

When it met Seoyun’s tongue, which had been quietly hidden away, he felt its awkward yet instinctive movement.

In that moment, Ijun impatiently tangled their tongues and pressed in deeper.

“Mmm.”

A small m*an slipped from Seoyun’s throat.

The sensation of tongue against tongue, twining and rubbing, became tingling sparks that ran down her spine.

Before she even realized it, Seoyun wrapped her arms around Ijun’s neck and clung to him.

With one palm cupping Seoyun’s neck, Ijun gently shifted her angle and laid her down on the bed.

Then he settled himself between her legs and kissed her again with heat.

At the sensation inside her mouth, storming over her without pause, all strength drained from Seoyun’s body and she felt dazed.

And yet, as though every single cell of her skin had awakened, the sensations throughout her whole body came vividly alive.

His hot hand slid upward from her calves along her thighs.

Her soft, pliant skin felt as if it might melt wherever his hand touched.

The sensation of that large hand gripping and caressing her thigh was unfamiliar.

At a feeling she had never experienced before, Seoyun grew strangely flustered.

Inside her chest, something tickled, and her lower belly throbbed faintly.

Inside her mouth, meanwhile, Ijun’s movements gave her no chance to gather her wits, rubbing firmly against the roof of her mouth one moment and curling around her tongue to draw it in the next.

At the same time, the hand that passed over her thighs and climbed along her waist felt far too vivid, so vivid that even as the hem of her loose dress rolled upward, she did not have the leisure to feel embarrassed.

At some point, the breath slipping out between Ijun’s lips had grown burning hot.

From Seoyun’s throat came one unthinkable m*an after another.

It was completely unlike their first kiss.

A kiss that did not have to be held back, did not have to be restrained, only continued to rise and deepen without end.

At the moment her mind was beginning to blur away, the hand of Ijun, which had been stroking up her back along her spine, suddenly stopped.

Straddling Seoyun’s body with his knees spread, Ijun loosened the belt tied around his waist, and the bathrobe slipped softly from his body.

The upper body of Ijun, which she had only briefly glimpsed once while preparing his shirt in the morning, was revealed.

The room was dark, but with the streetlights slanting in through the window, she could make out the faint outline of his silhouette.

The broad chest drawn tight with muscle and the abdomen beautifully shadowed.

At the sight of a man’s body carved as perfectly as a sculpture, Seoyun’s cheeks flushed hot.

Ijun began kissing Seoyun’s lips again.

This time, it felt endlessly soft and careful, as if he were caressing her.

His lips slid away to lightly take her earlobe, blowing warm breath against it and licking along the curve of her ear.

When Ijun’s wet hair, fallen forward, brushed her cheek, goosebumps rose over the back of her neck.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m… I’m all right.”

At Ijun’s voice, half-darkened as if under a spell, Seoyun answered softly.

Ijun’s hand slowly began to move again.

The hand that had been caressing her waist beneath her clothes carefully traveled upward to her chest.

Perhaps afraid Seoyun might be startled, he scattered small kisses over her as if soothing her, then gently cupped her br*ast.

When Seoyun’s waist twisted slightly, the hand caressing her br*ast gradually grew bolder.

“Hhk.”

Wherever his hand had passed, her body tightened and rose, and every nerve in her body trembled with a shiver.

At the sensation, so entirely new to her, Seoyun did not know what to do and clutched at Ijun’s arm.

At the sound of the m*an she could not hold back, Ijun too felt a sharp pull go through his nerves.

With hands that had grown slightly impatient, he pulled up her dress and slipped it off over Seoyun’s head.

When her softly curved body, pale and glowing in the dim light, was revealed, Ijun unexpectedly felt his mind reel.

When he saw in reality something he had never even imagined.

And when that sight gave him a stimulation far beyond what he had expected.

For the first time, he felt a shock as if his heart might burst.

Ijun caught Seoyun’s wrist as she shyly tried to turn her body to the side and pinned it on the bed.

“D-don’t look at me like that.”

“Why? When you’re this beautiful.”

His deepened voice whispered at Seoyun’s ear.

She could hardly believe that Ijun, always so gentle and kind, could make a voice so sensual.

The lips that had come close to her ear descended onto Seoyun’s shoulder.

The heat of his burning hands and lips was so intense it felt as though it might burst, yet his movements themselves remained careful and gentle.

As though stubbornly suppressing and enduring a desire that seemed ready to run wild on its own, Ijun kissed and caressed Seoyun here and there until she was fully ready.

As if soothing Seoyun when she hurt, he stroked her hair and cupped her face.

He gently tended her lips, and even whispered for her to let herself relax.

And when at last he fully claimed her body, an inescapable masculine satisfaction made his whole body tremble.

With all his strength, Ijun restrained his movements and kissed the corner of Seoyun’s eye.

At the faintly salty tears on his lips, he felt both sorry and strangely full of tenderness.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

Ijun’s voice, holding down its desire, trembled as much as Seoyun’s.

“I’m… all right.”

It was an unfamiliar pain, the kind she had never imagined could exist in this world, but when Seoyun saw the worried look in Ijun’s eyes, somehow she felt she really might be all right.

Kissing Seoyun’s neck and shoulder, Ijun began to move slowly.

At first there had been nothing but pain, but as it repeated, a faint pleasure stirred up from deep below.

As his movements gradually quickened, the pain of the friction slowly began to fade.

“Ahh….”

At the sight of Seoyun, her eyes squeezed shut, her brows drawn together, her lips slightly parted, her slender body gleaming with sweat, an uncontrollable pleasure surged through Ijun’s entire body.

The pleasure that had been steadily compressed and building up could no longer be endured, and at last it burst forth as if exploding.

At the moment of cl*max, Ijun, brows tightly furrowed and his movement halted, collapsed 그대로 over Seoyun’s chest.

Breathing only in rough gasps, he carefully gathered Seoyun’s limp body into his arms.

What husband and wife had shared was flawless in its satisfaction.

There was no regret, and no guilt.

After all, Seoyun was Ijun’s wife, and between husband and wife, such an act was only natural.

***

The days they spent in London were happy.

There were times when Ijun had to leave Seoyun alone because of work, but the time they spent together was joyful.

Unlike London’s usual reputation, bright weather continued day after day.

Ijun and Seoyun walked hand in hand through Westminster Abbey, and toured the Tower of London and the Natural History Museum.

The place Seoyun liked most was Portobello Market in Notting Hill.

She even said she had seen it in a movie and hummed one of the songs from the OST.

There, Ijun bought Seoyun a cute antique brooch shaped like a bird.

And seeing Seoyun like it even more than when he had placed the splendid wedding ring on her finger, he smiled faintly.