He rumbles a laugh against my back, the vibration traveling through my ribs, and then he grips my hips with both hands, pulls them up higher, and starts to fuck me properly.
Each thrust slams deep enough that I can feel the head of his cock kissing the entrance to my womb, that devastating depth that only Hongjoong reaches, the place no other alpha has ever been able to touch no matter their size. My body knows him there. Recognizes him in some deep biological way that makes everything tighten and pulse and open wider for him, slick pouring out of me in a rush that makes the sounds between us wet and loud. I come again from it, clenching and shaking, my cock dripping onto the leather couch below me as Hongjoong fucks me through the contractions without slowing down.
Hongjoong follows with a groan that rumbles through his whole chest, his knot swelling at the base and catching on my rim before locking inside me with a stretch that makes me sob into the cushion. His cock pulses deep, filling me in hot waves as we both collapse forward, his weight settling heavy over my back, pressing me flat into the couch.
We lie there panting, still locked together, the office silent except for our breathing. Then Hongjoong reaches over the side of the couch to where his pants landed on the floor and fishes around in the pocket until he comes up with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He puts one between his teeth, flicks the lighter,and inhales, the cherry glowing orange in my peripheral vision. Then he looks down at me pinned beneath him and asks through a mouthful of smoke, “Want one?”
I hold a hand up blindly without lifting my face from the cushion. He places a cigarette between my fingers and leans down, cupping the flame as he lights it for me. I take a drag without changing position, exhaling sideways so the smoke doesn’t pool against the leather.
We smoke in silence for a while, still knotted, Hongjoong’s weight warm and solid on my back. It should be uncomfortable but it isn’t. His heartbeat is slowing against my shoulder blade, steady and even, and his thumb is rubbing an absent circle against my hip bone that I don’t think he’s aware he’s doing.
I eventually turn my head to the side to exhale properly and ask mildly, “Should we even be smoking in here? Whose office is this anyway?”
“My team manager’s,” Hongjoong says, tapping ash into what I sincerely hope is a cup and not directly onto the carpet. “It’s fine. He won’t mind.”
“Where did everyone go?”
He shrugs against my back, the movement shifting his cock inside me and making me hiss. “Left for the day. Which means we have all afternoon.”
I open my mouth to respond to that, to point out that I still need to go back to the grocery store and replace the cart I abandoned, that Sungyoon needs dinner ingredients and I have laundry in the machine at home that’s going to smell like mildew if I don’t move it to the dryer soon. But before I can get a single word out, Hongjoong’s knot has barely deflated enough he grips my hips and starts rocking into me again, still half-hard and thickening fast inside my swollen hole.
I yelp and jerk forward, cigarette nearly falling from my fingers. “At least let me put out my cigarette first, you psycho—”
I reach blindly for the edge of the desk, stretching my arm out as far as it’ll go while Hongjoong laughs behind me and picks up the pace, his hips snapping forward hard enough to shove me up the couch. My fingers find the rim of a coffee mug and I stub the cigarette out against the inside of it, hearing the hiss of the ember dying, and then Hongjoong hits that spot deep inside me and my arm gives out and I drop back down into the cushions with a moan that I’m sure carries all the way down the empty hallway.
Later we’re sprawled together on the now thoroughly debauched couch, and I can feel the leather sticking to every inch of exposed skin as I lie between Hongjoong’s spread legs with my back against his chest. Neither of us has moved in what feels like twenty minutes. We’re both naked and too wrung out to do anything about it, covered in a film of sweat and dried fluids.
Hongjoong runs a lazy hand down the length of my spine, his fingers tracing the knobs of my vertebrae one by one, and then his palm slides lower and grabs a full handful of my ass and squeezes hard enough that the still-tender skin where he bit me earlier flares with a sharp sting. I hiss through my teeth and reach behind me without looking, find his soft cock resting against my lower back, and pinch it between my thumb and forefinger with enough force to make my point.
Hongjoong barks out a laugh that shakes through both our bodies, his chest vibrating against my shoulder blades, and then he ducks his head down and catches my mouth in a kiss. The angle is awkward and upside down, our lips meeting off-center,sloppy and warm and tasting like cigarette smoke and each other. His tongue slides lazily against mine and I let him have it for a few seconds before I pull away and settle back against his chest, my head resting in the hollow beneath his collarbone.
He’s quiet for a moment. His fingers are still moving absently along my hip, drawing shapes, when I glance up at him his expression has quieted. The sharpness has gone out of his features, the teasing edge smoothed away, and he’s just looking at me with his head tipped slightly to one side.
“You’re starting to get lines around your eyes,” he says.
I snort and turn my gaze back to the ceiling. “I’d be surprised if I didn’t, given everything.”
Hongjoong doesn’t laugh at that. His thumb keeps moving against my hip in those slow absent circles, and the silence stretches for a beat before he asks, “Was it stressful? Raising a kid alone?”
I consider the question, consider whether the truth might cut through the careful story I’ve built. “Yes,” I say carefully. “Of course it was.”
“What happened to your family?” His voice is casual but I can feel the attentiveness in the way his body has gone still beneath mine, the absent stroking paused. “Why didn’t they help?”
I look down at the arm draped around my waist, at the tattoo visible along his forearm and wrapping up toward his ribs. The crane is partially obscured by the angle but I can see the camellias curling around the bird’s outstretched wings, the petals rendered in such fine detail that I can make out individual veins in each one. His family name sits in bold traditional characters just below his ribcage, the ink still dark and sharp after however many years. I trace one of the camellia petals with my fingertip and decide this much is safe enough to share.
“My parents and my siblings wanted me to give the baby away,” I tell him, keeping my voice even. “Or to sell myself off tothe first alpha willing to claim me and take the kid as part of the deal.” I pause, feeling the old bitterness rise up in my throat like bile. “I refused both. They kept pushing, kept telling me I was being selfish and stupid, that I was ruining my life and theirs by association.” My finger stills on the edge of a camellia petal. “So I cut them off and decided to do it alone.”
Hongjoong absorbs this in silence. I can feel his breathing against my back, steady and measured, and after a moment he asks, “Why didn’t you just bond a different alpha?”
I bite my lip. The real answer is sitting right behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist and his chin resting on the top of my head, and the irony of it is so sharp I could choke on it. I can’t say that. I can’t say that I only ever wanted one alpha. So I say nothing, and the silence must speak for itself.
“Did you care that much about your son’s father?” he asks quietly.
I nod against his chest, deciding this much is safe enough to admit. “I was young and foolish, probably,” I say, I sound steady, calm. “But I didn’t want to be claimed by anyone else.”
Hongjoong tenses slightly behind me, a subtle tightening of the muscles in his arms and chest that I wouldn’t notice if I weren’t pressed flush against him. “Are you still not going to tell me what bastard knocked you up and got away with leaving you to raise a baby alone?”
I shake my head. “It would be no use now either way. It’s ancient history.”
