EPILOGUE Part  5

Taejun tilted his head slightly and showered her neckline with small kisses. Then, as if licking ice cream, he extended his tongue and gave a long lick to the hollow of her collarbone.

“Ah, wait… the letter!! Did you find all the clues?”

Minhee pushed against his chest with her hand. She was curious whether Taejun had discovered all the gifts she had painstakingly prepared for him.

Taejun roughly tugged at his tie knot with his fingers, loosening it, and showed her the red lingerie like a trophy.

“Red.”

He smiled lazily. With half-lidded eyes sparkling like flames and lips forming an elegant curve, he looked like a sexy villain from a movie.

Even though Minhee had picked out the lingerie herself, seeing the scandalously provocative underwear dangling from Taejun’s fingers made her regret her decision, thinking, “What was I thinking?”

‘Do I really have the courage to wear something like that?’

Yesterday, with Miho’s encouragement in the background, she had felt like she could do anything while shopping confidently.

But standing in front of Taejun now, she couldn’t believe she was daring enough to pull such a bold move against this raw man. Her heart raced as if she had just finished a sprint.

Minhee reached out to snatch the lingerie from his grasp. Taejun, who was deftly unbuttoning his shirt, raised the hand holding the lingerie high. Minhee lifted her hips and stretched out her hand. But the red lingerie fluttered like a flag, just out of her reach.

As Minhee, her ears turning red, glared at Taejun, his smile deepened while he continued to unbutton his shirt.

“You gave it to me. It’s mine.”

Taejun stuffed the red lingerie into his pocket as he finished unbuttoning his shirt. Through the parted shirt, his awe-inspiring, muscular chest and abs were tantalizingly visible.

“…Why are you unbuttoning your shirt?”

Without a word, Taejun grasped the front of his shirt and slowly opened it.

With an indifferent expression, he lowered his gaze and slightly twisted his torso, revealing his thick shoulders as his muscles moved in perfect harmony. The shirt slid down to his elbows.

In that state, Taejun undid the cuffs one by one. When he let his arms drop, the shirt fluttered and fell to the floor.

Minhee, unable to tear her eyes away and swallowing hard, let out a silent gasp as she watched the process. Her gaze roamed chaotically over his bare body.

As she wetted her dry lips, now flushed red, her eyes met Taejun’s. Like someone caught doing something embarrassing, Minhee flinched and lowered her gaze, while Taejun’s dimples deepened as he stretched his lips into a long smile.

“Because I thought you’d like it.”

“……”

Minhee, feeling as if he had hit the mark, kept her mouth shut, waiting for the heat in her ears to subside.

Taejun raised his thick arm, with veins bulging blue, in front of her. A large silver watch was wrapped around his wrist.

“Silver is here.”

Having received a call that the watch, which he had prepared a month in advance, had finally arrived at the store, Luca had picked it up early in the morning and brought it to their home.

Thanks to this, she had spent almost all of her bonus earned as a live-in tutor, but seeing Taejun wearing the watch she had gifted him filled her with pride.

She cautiously asked Taejun, watching his reaction.

“You found it well. Do you like it?”

Taejun nodded and muttered.

“…What am I supposed to say at times like this?”

“Huh?”

“It’s been so long since I received a gift from someone.”

He rubbed his brow with his fingers, seeming a bit embarrassed.

“It feels awkward but nice. It tingles here.”

Taejun pressed his fist against his chest and then glanced at Minhee before averting his gaze. A faint blush brushed across his cheekbones.

Minhee watched him, unable to make a sound.

“Um… Thank you.”

Taejun, meeting her eyes again and smiling shyly, looked so endearing that Minhee’s eyes welled up with tears as she opened her arms wide. Taejun embraced her without hesitation.

“Taejun, happy birthday! Thank you for being born.”

For a moment, Taejun’s shoulders flinched as if in surprise, and he slowly lifted his head.

He gazed at Minhee with a bewildered look, as if he had been hit by a shock.

“This… was all for my birthday? How did you know my birthday—”

Minhee smiled softly with tear-filled eyes.

“I saw it when filling out the hospital admission forms.”

“…”

‘Was the day I was born a day to be celebrated?’

The last time Taejun’s birthday was celebrated was when he was eleven, when his mother was still alive.

After that, he never attached any significance to the birthday of a “boy who shouldn’t have been born.” For over twenty years, today had merely been a number on a document.

Yet Minhee remembered the day, which even he had forgotten, and celebrated it, thanking him for being born.

With a trembling sigh, Taejun pulled Minhee into a crushing embrace. His voice, buried in her neck, carried a desperate resonance.

“Minhee, don’t leave me and die. Promise me… I love you. I love you. I love you, Minhee.”

“Yes, I promise. I’ll never die and leave you. I love you, Taejun.”

Minhee gently patted his back, soothing him.

There were times when his anxiety, seemingly dormant, would suddenly rear its head like this.

In all other matters, he was an extremely calm, rational, and indifferent man. Yet, the perfect and solid Baek Taejun revealed the soft, scarred flesh hidden beneath his hard exterior only in front of Minhee, as if confessing.

Minhee found Taejun’s unfathomable love and intense possessiveness both frightening and endearing, as well as thrilling. She couldn’t help but love a man who confessed every day, with earnest and blind eyes, that he loved her more than life itself.

As Minhee gently wrapped her arms around Taejun’s neck, his lips crashed against hers with an intensity that seemed to crush them.

Like sparks flying in oil, the fire ignited instantly. The air surrounding them thickened and heated to a boil. The rough breathing of the man, who was already overheated, and the breathless moans of the woman unable to withstand the stimulation, filled the quiet space with a sticky tension.

Taejun, nibbling on her earlobe and exhaling hot breaths, untied the ribbon-like strap behind Minhee’s neck in one swift motion. As the strap holding up the halter-neck dress slipped down, her round, luscious br*asts were fully exposed under the dining room lights.

Minhee crossed her arms over her chest in a last, feeble resistance. Her words were broken by her breathlessness.

“Ha, dinner, let’s eat first…”

Ignoring her words, Taejun cupped the back of her head.

“If it gets cold, ah!”

Suddenly, Minhee’s upper body was flipped backward. As her head touched the table, the hand supporting her head carefully withdrew.

Minhee blinked in surprise. The pendant light above cast a dazzling glow. She squinted her eyes to block the light, and when she opened them again, the light was gone, replaced by Taejun’s dark eyes, hotter than the light, shining down on her.

A solid pillar, heavily settled between Minhee’s legs, nudged against her pubic area. The faint pleasure already felt made her lower abdomen tighten and her waist twist.

As she tried to close her legs, Taejun pressed his lower body closer. Her thighs spread wide, dangling beneath the table.

Her wrists, crossed over her chest, were caught in Taejun’s large hand and pinned above her head.

“White is here.”

Before Minhee could process the meaning of his huskily spoken words, Taejun yanked down her dress to her navel in one motion.

Minhee gasped in shock.

“When you find ‘White’… it said to eat.”

Interpreting “White: Eat” in his own way, Taejun grabbed one br*ast and casually flicked the pink peak with his thumb.

“Haah…!”

He glanced up, watching Minhee exhale a shaky breath.

The scar crossing his eyebrow twitched mischievously. Meeting Minhee’s hazy eyes, Taejun smirked with a brazen, rogue-like expression.

“That’s not what it means… Ahh!”

Taejun’s lips clamped down on Minhee’s br*ast. As he mercilessly teased the pink peak with his tongue and sucked hard, a shivering thrill shot down between her legs.

“Ahh…!”

Feeling like her entire body was flickering like Christmas tree lights, Minhee writhed.

“You first. Dinner comes next.”

Taejun murmured against her br*ast.

Lying on the table like a feast, Minhee even exuded a sweet scent. Feeling both hunger and desire, Taejun firmly grasped her writhing waist.

The faint marks of their lovemaking three days ago were fading on her pale skin, and he meticulously painted them red again.

Every morning, seeing her body covered in mottled love bites, he’d think, ‘This is a bad habit. I should restrain myself.’ But with Minhee in front of him, he couldn’t resist the urge to mark the most private and intimate places only he could see. Knowing she carried his marks on her body even when he wasn’t around slightly assuaged his primal and extreme desire for possession.

His hand moved down, further down, grabbing her soft, pliable b*ttocks and kneading them possessively, then paused.

“Ha.”

Taejun let out a breath of disbelief as he lifted his upper body. Suddenly, he grabbed the backs of her knees and folded her legs upward. Minhee let out a short scream.