“Cha Juhee-ssi. Stay still.”

An irresistible, low voice sent a tingle racing up the back of her neck.

From somewhere far off came the sound of music and people laughing and chattering.

The thought that the noisy world sat just beyond a single door, that anyone could catch them like this the moment it opened, filled Juhee with both fear and a racing heart.

She looked up at Ihyun with wide, startled eyes as his large hand cradled her cheek.

Everywhere his fingers touched, a sharp current seemed to run through her, and Juhee held her breath.

The thought crept into her mind, unbidden, as she gazed up at him with trembling eyes: his lips were unusually red and beautiful.

And it wasn’t just his lips.

A straight forehead and a sharp, high nose bridge. Dark, thick brows and deep-set eyes. Smooth, clean lines of a cheek and a square jaw.

A face that would make even David weep hovered just inches away, looking down at her.

She felt his deep, gentle gaze linger at the edge of her lips.

Unable to draw a proper breath, Juhee had gone rigid, and her lips gave an involuntary, faint tremor.

“D, Director, what are you doing right now……?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Her barely spoken words were met with a voice thick with a low rumble.

The moment he finished speaking, his lips moved toward her neck, seemingly unable to hold back a moment longer.

But Ihyun, who had looked ready to bite into her neck at any second, stopped with her skin just before him.

His lips and her soft skin held at a breathless, razor-thin distance, nearly touching but not quite.

There was no contact at all, yet the way he hovered over her so nakedly, so urgently, was so strange and stirring that Juhee couldn’t move.

“Stay still. That man is watching.”

His low whisper tickled the curve of her neck.

His warm breath bloomed into a tickle, and goosebumps rose across her skin.

At the same moment, her eyes shifted past his shoulder toward the door across from them.

Sure enough. Through the slightly open gap of the powder room door, she could see him.

The man she had once devoted everything to, loved with everything she had, only for him to treat her like a worn-out shoe in an instant. The man who had treated her like garbage rolling in the gutter.

His eyes gleamed through the crack of the open door. Floundering in longing and jealousy and regret.

A strange feeling she couldn’t put into words settled over her.

Embarrassment? Disappointment? Or was it betrayal? But this wasn’t a feeling directed at the man peering in from outside the door.

A bitterness she couldn’t quite measure crept in at the realization that every move Ihyun had made to throw her off balance moments ago was nothing more than an act to taunt the trash outside.

Sadly, this was the very revenge she had wanted.

To succeed so visibly that he could never have her again. To show him that a far better man loved her. That was what she had called revenge.

So why did this moment feel so disappointing?

Juhee quickly dropped her gaze. She needed to hide the inexplicable sting of hurt rising in her at the thought of Ihyun simply enjoying this little game of his.

“Follow my lead.”

Ihyun suddenly pulled her close by the waist.

Her hands went up to his shoulders on their own.

His body and his breath felt closer now. The firm, taut body beneath his shirt came through at her fingertips and against her own.

For a moment, a wavering look passed between them.

Ihyun let a faint, slightly awkward smile cross his face.

“Don’t worry. I’ll only pretend to kiss you.”

He whispered in an even lower voice.

Had she heard him wrong? His soft whisper felt unusually hot and rough. There was even an inexplicable restlessness in it.

Juhee stared straight into his eyes. A small hope stirred. ‘What if?’

“Still, I can’t just stand here like a statue, can I?”

Juhee lifted her arms, wrapped them around his neck, and brought her lips close to his. She could see his eyes widen slightly. Just drawing near sent a tingle through her, like an electric current passing between them.

She should have stopped just short, the way he had. But the closer she got to him, the more she felt something pulling her forward against her will. And in the end, drawn by something she couldn’t name, she pressed her lips to his.

A perfectly still kiss followed. It was careful and almost naive, lips barely grazing lips.

But at some point, self-reproach reared its head inside her.

What am I doing, alone in this, with someone who doesn’t even like me?

She stopped the kiss. Shame and humiliation crashed over her all at once.

“S-Sorry. I should go.”

Unable to even lift her head, she tried to slip away, but Ihyun suddenly caught her wrist and pulled her back.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

A voice thick with a low rumble poured down over her. She let her eyes dart around and noticed the space outside the door was empty.

“……He’s gone. So we don’t need to keep doing this…….”

“Hah. You do all that and now you want to leave? This is unbelievable.”

With a dry, bitter laugh, Ihyun grabbed her by both shoulders and pushed her back against the wall.

Juhee looked up at him with startled eyes. Her breath caught.

Something had gone genuinely wrong.

Had Ihyun’s eyes ever burned and churned this intensely before? Had his lips ever twisted this dangerously?

“Seems like the pretending wasn’t nearly enough.”

“……Director……?”

“If you’re willing to go this far for that piece of trash, then I’ll help you. But you’d better brace yourself.”

Ihyun’s eyes flashed dangerously. His lips hovered over hers in a threatening circle.

“I am not a gentle man.”

Unable to hold back any longer, Ihyun’s lips finally consumed hers.

“Hmph!”

The soft give of their lips had barely begun to send a tingle through her before Ihyun parted her lips and pressed inside.

His hot tongue moved through her like it owned the place. It swept across the roof of her mouth and worked into every corner, then coiled around her tongue, grinding against it and drawing it out as though he meant to pull it free by the root.

Never quite satisfied no matter how deeply he drank her in, Ihyun pulled her neck toward him and found an angle to go deeper still.

His fierce kiss nearly made Juhee lose her mind.

Ihyun’s kiss was hot and dizzying, like a flame.

Her legs gave out beneath her, and she grabbed at his collar to keep from falling.

Ihyun had been devouring her lips hungrily, as though trying to quench a thirst, and at last he let her go.

Ragged breaths spilled from their parted lips. The warm air tickled each other’s mouths. Ihyun studied every inch of Juhee’s face with blazing eyes.

Juhee still couldn’t meet his gaze, too embarrassed.

“What is it?”

“……?”

“Why didn’t you push me away? Why did you let me do that?”

“……Because I didn’t dislike it.”

“……?”

“Kissing you. I didn’t dislike it. I think enjoying myself like this for a day isn’t so bad.”

The words had been hard to get out.

I’ve started to like you. I want you to see me as a woman.

But Woo Ihyun, I know that’s not something you’d ever do. In that case. If I could at least enjoy this lightly like this…….

Juhee swallowed down the bitter thought.

Ihyun’s sharp gaze felt like it was boring straight into the top of her head.

“Do you know how dangerous what you just said is?”

Ihyun’s voice burst out with a metallic edge. The raw, simmering desire in his voice made Juhee’s spine tingle and contract for no reason she could name.

“I’m a man too. Do you have any idea what I’m thinking right now…….”

“Do you want to go up to the room?”

Juhee lifted her head and looked straight at him.

Ihyun stared at her for a long moment, looking stunned.

The awkward silence was becoming too much to bear, and just as Juhee was wrestling with whether she should say something more, Ihyun suddenly grabbed her wrist and walked straight out of the powder room toward the penthouse elevator hall.

He stepped into an elevator that happened to open just then, and the moment the doors closed, he pushed her against the wall.

A blazing gaze poured over her.

“You can’t take back what you said about going to the room.”

“I have no intention of taking it back.”

Another scorching look followed, seemingly to confirm she meant it.

But the next moment.

Unable to hold back any longer, Ihyun covered her lips with his. A deep, burning kiss followed, each pressing into the other. This time Juhee pulled him close just as eagerly.

Ihyun had been coming at her like he might strip her bare and take her right then and there, but a moment later, when the chime for the penthouse floor sounded, he let out a low groan through his teeth and released her.

Juhee felt a strange thrill at the sight of Ihyun’s deeply furrowed brow and the urgent pace of his steps as he led her to the room.

The moment they stepped inside, the fierce kiss that had briefly broken off resumed.

With no need to hide anything or hold anything back any longer, the two of them gave themselves over fully to their desire for each other.

Tongues tangled and breath was swallowed. In the rush of hands pulling each other close and moving across each other’s skin, their clothes came undone and fell to the floor. A dress and a jacket, trousers and a shirt scattered like islands across every spot where they had stood.

At last, the two of them, completely bare, fell together onto the bed.