AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I close my eyes and try to capture the moment, try to memorize his mouth against my neck, the muscle movement of his back as he thrusts forward, the sensation of the thick head of his shaft driving against my million nerve endings, but soon, too soon, my own need overcomes me and thinking becomes a thing of the past.
I surface, gasping and sweaty. Emotion chokes me, fills my throat, makes me shake like a drug addict coming off a dangerous high. I used to never cry and now I find myself on the edge all too often. My cheeks will get chapped at this rate.
“Shhh,” Yujun from Seoul whispers against my skin. He shifts into a sitting position and pulls me into the cradle of his embrace. “Don’t move,” he cautions, and reaches between us to untangle the silk cords of our matching jade duck necklaces. Ducks mate for life. I clutch the tiny jade bird in my fist and wrap my other arm around his neck, wondering if I can stay here forever.
He fishes a blanket off the back of the sofa and throws it over us. “I’m exhausted,” he says.
I sink into him, burrowing like a kitten into the one warm spot in the entire marble mausoleum. This is where I want to be at all times, in the circle of his arms with the warm scent of his skin filling my lungs, and the rumble of his chest under my ear. I don’t even register what he’s saying. The sound, the feel, is enough. I rub my cheek against his chest like a cat against a scratching pole.
Then horror turns my blood cold and I shoot upright. “Where’s Wansu?”
He pulls me back against him. “She’s at the office. I called her from the airport to let her know the Singapore office has some questions for her and that I’ve written everything in a report that I was leaving on her desk.”
I collapse. “Then you left.”
“Knowing that she would come straightaway.” He nuzzles my neck. “I may have taken advantage of her.”
“You are workaholics.”
“Perhaps.” He moves on from my neck to lave my collarbone.
I cup the back of his head. “How much time do we have?”
“Enough.”
His head moves lower still. I knew he’d come back. This was home.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Don’t eat that. Everything’s cold.” Yujun tries to take the tray away from me, but I block him with my body.
“No. You made this.”
“This is like when you made the stew for Eomeo-nim.” He reaches again, and this time I slide farther down the sofa.
“It’s not. This is actually good.” Yes, the eggs are runny, the toast is slightly burnt, and the bacon isn’t crispy, but I am not complaining. I keep shoveling the food into my mouth, scooping the eggs onto the toast and swallowing the bacon in two gulps.
Yujun gives up, leaning back against the sofa with a sigh. He picks up his phone and starts to scroll through the news.
“You know Iowa is famous for their hogs,” I tell him between bites.
“I did not know that.” He strokes a hand down my robe-covered spine as he clicks on one article. I don’t know what he’s reading since it’s in Korean, but it could be the horoscope for all I care. He’s here. That’s what matters. He’s back in his pants and his shirt, with the white dress shirt unbuttoned enough that the shadow of his chest is visible. It’s sexy as hell. I turn my attention back to the eggs and remind myself that I had sex twice. One more time and my vagina will close up forever from the overuse.
“Yes. We have hog lots and meat-processing plants. A lot of immigrants work there because the jobs are so hard and no one really wants to work them.”
He puts his phone down. “That’s very similar to here. How else are Korea and Iowa alike?”
“The climate is the same. We have roughly the same kind of weather—cold, snowy winters and hot summers. No real air pollution like you have here, but the hog-lot smell can be terrible. Des Moines is actually an insurance town, though. One of the largest in the world.”
“I did not know that either. We should visit there. You, me, and Eomma.”
For a moment, I think of Wansu in Iowa, walking around in her cream-colored power suits and her sharply cut bob. We could drive around the small downtown of Des Moines for an hour and not run into another Asian. Would she feel out of place for even a moment, or is her personal confidence so powerful that she would not experience one ounce of loss of self? Probably the latter. It’s hard for me to think of Wansu shaken about anything. She passed down her surety to Choi Yujun, whereas I ended up with a basket of nerves and a bundle of insecurities. Nurture versus nature is playing itself out in this mansion in Seoul.
