If she said the wrong thing here, it would be the end... With that chilling sense of danger, she bit her lip and, pinned under his thighs like iron, forced her mouth to open.

“It wasn’t a fair trade... I bluffed.”

A bluff was a poker term for making a false bet when your hand wasn’t good.

In other words, a con—blowing smoke.

To counter Kiya, who had threatened her with Lee Wooshin’s true identity, there was nothing for it but to press him down for a moment with the thing he’d drool over most.

“Kiya... knows you used to work as an NIS black operative. He said he could leak that to the Kremlin anytime, so I roughly soothed him and bought us a grace period.”

“How’d you soothe him.”

“I just... deliberately let something that could be misunderstood slip and muddled through it... I wasn’t going to actually do it...”

“Agent Han Seoryeong, your answer is getting long.”

“Um...”

The air went rigid and the title snapped back to “agent.” As Seoryeong kept hesitating, the man—preternaturally quick to read the room—suddenly gave a breathy laugh and straightened.

Whoosh, another great sheet of water spilled over the tub. Seoryeong quietly tucked her lips in and sank down. It had been a long time since she’d felt like she was being scolded like this.

“It won’t be that, right?”

The shirt that had covered her to mid-thigh lifted, and cool fingers parted her sex. When he spread the plump twin mounds, she felt the hot water reach inside, vivid as touch. She started and tried to clamp her legs shut, but the hands prying her knees apart were stronger and faster.

“Our Seoryeong wouldn’t make a dirty deal like that.”

Wooshin brushed aside the curly thatch and stroked the slick skin. From the outer lips down to the perineum, his hand rubbed thick and slow, and heat flared across her brow in an instant.

“No matter how much you hate me, really—without fear!”

“Nngh...!”

His measured scold grazed her ear.

He skimmed the clitoris perched at the peak, almost touching—then pressed down hard.

Ugh...! Seeing that man’s hand settle between her thighs, her eyes reddened further.

He stroked the little grain that stood like a rice kernel, forward and back. In this mood—what am I supposed to say, how—

Each flick of his wrist made the bones on the back of his hand stand out, and his palm mashed her plump sex flat.

“Ah—!”

The sound she’d tried to swallow tore up her throat. It was like every nerve ending had gathered on that one point he was rubbing.

With feeling in his hand, her whole sex turned hypersensitive and ached. He shook the thick lips and that point left and right, quick, raising her response.

“What good is it if I’m the only one staying faithful.”

“No—that you should keep, to the end. But I just... ngh...! left it... ambiguous...”

“How.”

“Just that kind of... nuance...!”

“Say it straight. If you leave room for misunderstanding with me too, you’re in real trouble.”

He scraped the rim like he might shove his fingers in at any moment. He peeled open the wings and shook them wide, water slapping naturally. Seoryeong lifted her hips in near-madness. He pressed his fingers to the inner lips and struck sparks with friction.

“Ah—ah...!”

She crossed her tightened legs even more. As time went by, waves rolled in the tub, and her nape fell back as if to snap. Watching tendons rise along his forearm, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Just... if he wanted to pant on top of me... hff...! I told him to read the room and bow his head....”

“Baby.”

His low, cold voice poured out sweet. Somehow her spine went rigid.

“...What would you do with the bastard who injured your husband’s eye?”

“......!”

What—did—you— She flung her eyes wide, the whites showing. Who, whose eye? Frozen cold, she turned her head to look at Wooshin.

The words, barely brushed past her, stabbed like a knife in the back of her skull. When their gazes met, he caught her chin and bit her bloodless cheek.

“When did you get so brazen while I wasn’t looking?”

He chewed, then sucked a hollow there.

“As of today, that bastard’s as good as dead.”

He dismissed it icily. Counting someone as dead—did that mean he’d kill him? Wooshin shoved his fingers deep between the lips.

The still-swollen, tight entrance made Seoryeong yelp—“Ack!”—and yank her hips back. He used his long middle finger to soothe the injured place, but even that stung dully. At the same time, it snapped her mind clear.

“Was it really Kiya who... hurt your eye, Instructor?”

As she could only groan without a sound, he kneaded her tense thigh and pulled his fingers out; then in an instant he flipped their positions and laid her down.

Wooshin lifted both her knees out over the rim of the tub and settled between them. Seoryeong gripped the edge and swallowed dry. What—what is he—

“Yes, he did. In the place you cherish most.”

See? He mimicked Seoryeong’s way of talking and unwound the rest of the bandage, tossing it aside. His shirt had long since come off; every time he wound the bandage the other way, the ridged muscles of his shoulders and forearms stood out.

“Don’t take that bastard in like you do me. Don’t forgive, don’t even punish. Just do nothing.”

By now, she could barely make out what he was saying. The fully exposed corner of his eye, faintly twisted, dragged her gaze. She couldn’t seem to breathe.

“I’ll handle everything, so don’t meet him, don’t trade words, don’t even see his face. Taking care of that sort of nuisance—that’s a husband’s job.”

“W-wait...!”

“Panting already, fuck. No manners for a man.”

Eyes narrowed shut, he suddenly dunked his face into the water. In the gentle warmth, flesh softer than the water latched to the most sensitive, secret place and sucked.

W-what—! The sensation of his tongue plunging in with the hot water was a peak she’d never felt in her life.

“Hff...!”

At first it only turned soft and ticklish, but as the sharp tip moved to fill that gap, her sensitivity rose higher and higher. He pulled at the folds with his lips and rubbed the opening with his tongue.

Even with that high nose completely submerged, he moved his jaw like it didn’t cost him a breath. His tongue, working like some sea creature, hardly felt human. Seoryeong threw her head back and gripped the tub hard.

“Haa—ngh—uuh...!”

Each twist of his head made sloshing, flooded sounds. He flattened his tongue to her perineum and shoved upward, backwards, to her clit, sucking her whole sex.

Between her thighs, bubbles rose now and then. All around was wet sound.

It felt like something was wrong with the way Wooshin used his training for this. You’d have to be crazy to spend your cardio endurance on this.

“Nngh...! Cra—zy—In—ghhk...!”

He alternated biting each soft mound and tugged, long and hard. Seoryeong bit her lower lip and grabbed his wet hair, but that stubborn head only burrowed in deeper.

Even when he was off, he was off solidly. Even the water droplet that now and then leaked from his nose turned into a stimulus to her clit. In the end, until she collapsed from a mild fever, Seoryeong couldn’t stop her breathless panting.

***

When she woke half-asleep, Seoryeong lay wrapped safe in a plush duvet. Even in her daze, she burrowed like a puppy toward the familiar, warm chest.

“Mm...”

And of course he pulled over the missing duvet and held her deep without a word. With a clean face, propped on one elbow, Wooshin only gazed at her in quiet. Their eyes brushed, and Seoryeong only blinked her swollen eyes, blank.

Bright sunlight fell behind Wooshin, lying on his side. When Seoryeong pulled the blanket up to cover her mouth, he squinted one eye and asked:

“Sleep well?”

Lips split from all the times he’d ground down his anger, the long jawline, the Adam’s apple standing out.

She couldn’t tell if this was a dream or waking. It even felt like she’d gone back to some day in the past when nothing had been hurt. Our honeymoon house, whole again without the stink of smoke. Seoryeong kept her face calm, but for some reason the bridge of her nose stung.

“...Hyun.”

She murmured and pressed herself tight into that solid chest.

“When you mutter your ex-husband’s name in your sleep, it’s not so great for the second guy listening.”

At the sigh in his voice, she pried open her hazy eyes.

“It puts me in a bind. Should I rub your belly like that Kim Hyun you like, or should I flick your forehead, hard.”

Tongue pressing the inside of his cheek, Wooshin glared at her sharply. Seoryeong glanced around the luxurious bedroom, then, noticing his new bandage, flinched and pushed herself up. He hauled the flustered woman back down onto his knotted forearm and said:

“Sleep more. You must be exhausted.”

His body-smell cleared her sleep in a rush.

Just a few days ago, there had been a /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ moment when she’d wished his eye would never heal. A stubbornness to keep Wooshin under her control, however she could manage it.

But picturing the man clutching a bleeding eye and collapsing made her grind her teeth.

Kiya....

A shadow from childhood she now truly had to tear off. The bitter truth was, Kiya was Han Seoryeong without “Kim Hyun.” Sonya without “Yuri.”

If she too had never received love, she might have become exactly like Kiya. As her face darkened, his high nose rubbed against her brow.

“Let’s go home now. To Korea.”