My phone alarm splits the air before I can answer him.

The sharp electronic trill feels violent in the quiet room.

I jerk.

One hour already?

Shit! My bodyguard must be pacing downstairs.

“What is …,” Jiwon starts, but I raise a hand automatically, pressing a finger to his questioning lips as I fumble for my phone. His mouth is warm beneath my skin. He stills immediately. Obedient. Amused.

“Hello? I’m okay. Please tell Mum. Yes. I’ll be down in an hour or so.”

I hang up too fast, then pull my hand back as if I’ve touched a live socket.

He looks… disappointed.

For reasons unknown to me, his expression unsettles me.

Carefully, as if approaching a skittish animal, I reach forward again and trace the curve of his lower lip. It’s fuller than it should be. Pink. Slightly swollen from kissing.

Fascinating.

He parts his mouth and catches my thumb gently between his teeth.

“Ouch!” I mouth on instinct, even though it doesn't hurt.

He releases me immediately, eyes glinting.

“Dinner must be ready,” he says.

His voice is calm. Too calm.

I create space between us, though my body resists it.

“Yes. We shouldn’t keep the chef waiting.”

“Right, the chef.” Jiwon chuckles under his breath. He’s still kneeling in front of me, hands now resting on his thighs like some infuriatingly composed heir in a historical drama. Except his trousers are unmistakably tight.

“Hungry?” he asks.

I am.

But not for food.

One kiss wasn’t enough.

That realization hits with the clarity of a system update.

Not hungry.

Hooked.

Dinner feels surreal.

The long polished table. Minimalist art. Floor-to-ceiling windows framing the Seoul skyline like a living painting.

"Chef Park", bows deeply before serving. Perfectly timed. Perfectly plated.

The lamb dissolves on my tongue. The rice carries gentle heat. The wine is dark and smooth. Everything is precise.

Everything tastes like him.

Jiwon sits at the opposite end of the six-seater table, a vast desert of polished wood between us. He is the picture of a well-trained heir—spine a perfect vertical line, elbows tucked, maintaining a distance so absolute it feels like a physical rejection.

Proper. Controlled. Untouchable.

In his world, affection isn’t something you display; it’s something you hoard. It’s contained behind a mask of high-born politeness that I can’t seem to crack. He plays his role with a terrifying, seamless perfection.

I do not.

The phantom heat of his kiss lingers, making the cool air of the dining room feel like a personal insult. I crave the proximity we just had—the messy, breathless lack of space. Instead, I’m left with the rhythmic clink of silver against porcelain.

My stomach stays knotted, a tight, painful ball that makes every bite feel like lead.

What does that kiss make us? Is there a manual for this? 

“Dessert?” Chef Park asks, his voice a low, intrusive murmur as he bows. “Vanilla mascarpone, chocolate brownies, or patbingsu.”

“Ice cream,” I snap. The word is too sharp, too defensive. I try to swallow the sulk in my throat, but it tastes like salt.

“Nothing for me. More wine,” Jiwon says. His voice like liquid velvet.

I reach for my own glass, draining the remaining liquid in a single, desperate gulp. Bad decision. The alcohol hits my bloodstream like a match to dry grass. My thoughts begin to fragment, the edges of my control fraying at the seams.

Careful, I warn myself. Losing it here would be catastrophic. A meltdown in front of him? Unacceptable.

The ice cream arrives. I focus on it with a frantic, singular intensity. It’s cold. Predictable. Safe. I let the sting of a brain freeze bloom behind my eyes, using the sharp, localized pain to anchor myself to the chair.

Across the table, Jiwon doesn't look away. He just watches me over the rim of his glass, sipping his wine with a slow, deliberate rhythm that feels like he’s drinking me in.

When Chef Park clears my empty bowl, the sudden void on the table makes me panic. The sequence is ending. The script is over.

Thank him. Stand up. Maintain dignity.

“Are you okay?” Jiwon asks.

The Chef has barely retreated before his words hit me. His voice isn't formal anymore. It’s back to the low, private hum from earlier, and it cuts through my defenses like a blade.

“I should go,” I blurt out, my chair scraping harshly against the floor—a jagged, ugly sound in the polished room.

I stand too quickly, and the room tilts, the mahogany table blurring into a smear of dark wood. In an instant, the air shifts. He’s beside me. His hand reaches out—an instinctive, protective arc—then freezes midair.

The silence between us screams.

He remembers. Touch aversion. The invisible walls I carry. He pulls his hand back.

“I’m fine,” I choke out, steadying myself against the table. 

“You seem upset.” His voice is soft. “Was it the kiss?”

“No.”

The word is too sharp, a jagged glass shard in the quiet room. He frowns, a small, elegant crease forming between his brows. “Then what?”

My throat tightens until it hurts. I know relationships follow an order. The ‘Some’ stage. The official dating. The hundred-day milestones. There are maps for this. But with him, we didn't walk the path—we detonated. We skipped the steps and landed in the middle of a minefield.  

The confession escapes before I can stop it. “I don’t know what comes next.”

He stares at me, and then—he laughs. It’s not mocking. It’s the sound of a man who has just found something far more precious than he expected.

I turn to leave, my face burning with the shame of my own honesty, but I don’t get far. His fingers catch the end of my scarf. He doesn’t pull. He just holds it like a tether, to keep me anchored in his space.

“Don’t ever feel pressured to follow norms with me, Jay,” he says. The heir is gone. The Playboy has vanished. There is only this man, raw and focused. “We move at your pace. Not society’s. Not their scripts. Yours.”

A tremor runs through me, starting at the base of my neck.

“Look at me,” he murmurs. Then, catching the way my shoulders tense, he corrects himself with a whisper. “Or don’t. Just listen.”

He leans in. He doesn't touch me, but his restraint is more torturous than a grip. It’s an electric field, humming with everything he’s holding back.

“If you asked what I want to come next…” His voice drops to a dangerous, molten low. “I’d say I want to keep kissing you. I want to take off your shirt and learn the map of your skin. I want to touch and kiss every single inch of you until I know your reactions better than you do. I want to go so slowly until you’re begging me to hold you.”

My hands fly to my ears, palms pressing hard against my skull. “Stop!”

It’s too much. The desire is a waterfall, a sensory flood that threatens to drown my logic. I can’t process the weight of being wanted like that.

He doesn’t move. He waits. His patience is a weapon; it gives me nowhere to hide.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asks, his eyes shimmering with a quiet, laughing light.

I lower my hands slowly. In the distance, the rhythmic clink of Chef Park cleaning up in the kitchen is the only thing tethering me to reality. The risk is insane, but...

“Kiss me again?” I say.

The words shock me. They hang in the air, naked and desperate. He smiles—a slow, triumphant thing—and leans in.

When our lips touch, the "proper" version of me dies. I’m too eager, eyes tight shut, movements fitful and panicked, but he doesn't let me spiral. He slows me down, his mouth guiding mine with a measured, grounding pressure. He isn't overpowering me; he’s anchoring me.

Every move is a brand. He kisses me like he’s writing a poem onto my lips, demanding I memorize the meter. His hands grip my scarf tighter, twisting the wool around his knuckles like a lifeline, using it to pull me a fraction closer without breaking the rules of touch.

Then, the world ends.

My phone explodes—a harsh, digital shriek that shatters the spell.

He breaks away instantly. There is no irritation on his face, no frustration at the interruption. Only that steady, predatory watchfulness.

“Hello? Yes... I know. I’ll be down in a minute.”

I hang up and force a lungful of air into my chest. This is it. My exit window. My escape from the heat.

“I’m not ready for sex,” I say bluntly.

He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he tilts his head, a slow, mischievous smile spreading across his face as if I’ve just shared a particularly charming secret.

“Straight to the point,” he murmurs. The warmth of him bleeds through the air, surrounding me in a heat that feels heavier than the room's. “I appreciate the warning, Jay. But as I said—we move at your pace.”

His fingers move upward, grazing the wool of my scarf with a light, rhythmic touch. He begins to work the knot, his movements patient and deliberate. He is easing the tension of the fabric that had cinched tight around my neck during our kiss—a physical record of our desire. It is a slow, methodical undoing of the chaos from moments before.

“We’ll learn to walk before we run,” he adds, his voice dropping to a playful, conspiratorial low. “Maybe even just crawl for a while. Baby steps, Jay.”

He releases the fabric, his hands retreating, but the phantom pressure of his presence remains.

The sheer ease of it—the way he treats my boundary not as a rejection, but as a shared, leisurely path—unsettles me more than any grand seduction ever could. It makes him feel dangerous in a way I have no defense for.

“Wait here. I'll get you that Manhwa.”

He disappears into the hallway and returns a moment later, handing me the X-rated volume with a casual flick of his wrist, acting as if the last hour hasn’t completely rewired my internal circuitry.

We ride the elevator down in silence. The descent is smooth, mechanical, and indifferent to the storm inside me. My pulse pounds erratically in the narrow space between us; every shift of his weight, every rustle of his shirt, registers like a live signal on my skin.

He stands opposite me, having donned his mask of disciplined cool once again. But his eyes never leave me. They are soft, yet calculating—tracking my every breath, my every blink, every time I find the courage to steal a glance.

He is a hunter who has realized his prey isn't going to run, and I wish—more than anything—that I knew if he was planning his next move, or simply enjoying the view.

The lobby doors slide open with a hushed, mechanical sigh. Immediately, the Seoul night air spills in—sharp and biting. Outside, my car waits, its headlights cutting jagged paths across the polished marble floor. 

My bodyguard stands rigid and professional beside the passenger door. He swings it open. 

The invitation to leave feels like a sentence.

Jiwon stops just short of the car. 

Goodbyes are easy enough. I think thankfully. Distance should be maintained. A slight bow. A measured, public nod.

He does neither.

Instead, he steps into my space with the surity of a man who knows he’s already won. He leans in—close enough that I feel the ghost of his breath against my ear, a humid contrast to the winter wind. He is careful, agonizingly so, not to let his body brush mine. 

“Jay,” he says quietly.

My name hasn't changed, but in his voice, it sounds like a new language.

“Next time,” he murmurs, and I can hear the faint, predatory amusement dancing beneath his control, “don’t close your eyes so much when we kiss. I want to see if they change color when you’re flustered.”

Heat floods me—a violent, liquid rush that starts in my face and pools, heavy and demanding, in my gut.

He steps back before I can even draw air to respond. His expression is a masterpiece of composure once again. The playboy prince has returned to his throne, as if he hadn't just dismantled me right in front of my security detail.

I get into the car because my legs no longer trust themselves to stand.

The door shuts with a heavy, muffled thud, sealing me into a vacuum. Through the tinted glass, I see him—a silhouette against the gold light of the lobby. Hands in his pockets. Watching. He doesn't wave. He doesn't turn away. He simply stakes his claim with his eyes.

Seoul streaks past the windows in a blur of neon and cold blue shadows. I feel like I’ve been frozen in place. My lips still tingle, the nerves ending raw and hyper-aware. My body is a paradox: calmer than it’s ever been, yet vibrating with a high-frequency alert.

He didn’t push. He didn’t retreat.

He repositioned - successfully calibrating my soul.

My phone buzzes in the silence of the backseat.

I stare at the screen. The notification is a single, sharp needle:

[Jiwon Kim]: Are you going to keep your eyes open for me?

My pulse spikes, a jagged line on a monitor. I don't respond. I can't. I place the phone face down on the leather beside me. I lean back and close my eyes, trying to find the "safe" version of Jay that existed four hours ago.

He’s gone, and something has become terrifyingly clear to me. 

I’m not afraid of Jiwon Kim touching me. I’m afraid of how much I want him to. I'm afraid of the moment I stopped being a "shadow" and started being a person who wants the light.

And I don’t know what that makes me.

My phone buzzes again.

Author's Note: 

Two new chapters just dropped! You're welcome!