Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Protector
I found him in his study, hunched over a stack of papers that seemed to multiply every time I looked away. The clock on the wall read midnight, the windows black mirrors reflecting the dim amber glow of his desk lamp. His hair was disheveled, his collar unbuttoned, his pen moving in sharp, irritated strokes across a document he clearly despised.
"You should be resting," I said from the doorway, my voice still husky with sleep. I was wearing his shirt—the black one he'd left draped over the chair this morning—and a pair of sleep shorts that barely peeked out beneath the hem. My hair was a wild mess, my feet bare against the cold marble.
He didn't look up. "In a moment."
"You said that two hours ago."
"Angel—"
"You'll get dark circles." I crossed my arms, leaning against the doorframe. "Then you'll look old before forty. Do you want that? For your wife to find you prematurely aged and wrinkled while she's still in her prime?"
His pen paused. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his gaze. The exhaustion in his eyes warred with a flicker of amusement. "Is that a threat?"
"It's a fact." I pushed off the doorframe and padded toward him, my footsteps silent on the Persian rug. "I have very high standards, Kim Taehyun. I won't be seen with a husband who looks like he's been wrestling spreadsheets instead of sleeping."
He set his pen down, leaning back in his chair. The leather creaked under his weight. "I have work to handle."
"Shh." I was close enough now to see the faint lines of tension around his mouth, the shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there a week ago. "Come to bed."
"Angel—"
I didn't let him finish. I climbed onto his lap before he could protest, straddling his thighs, my knees bracketing his hips. His hands came up automatically, catching my waist, steadying me. The papers beneath us crinkled in protest.
"Wife." His voice was rough, caught somewhere between exasperation and something warmer. "This isn't—"
"I can't sleep without your warmth." I settled against him, my arms looping around his neck, my face finding the familiar curve of his shoulder. His scent wrapped around me—sandalwood and coffee and the faint, clean smell of soap. I breathed him in, the tension in my chest easing with each exhale. "I've developed attachment issues, apparently. I never wanted that."
His hands tightened on my waist. "Aish."
"You should hate me for feeling things," I murmured into his shirt. "I should hate you. Instead, I'm here, begging my husband to stop working so I can use him as a pillow."
A low laugh rumbled through his chest, vibrating against my cheek. "You're not begging. You're staging a hostile takeover of my work space."
"Is it working?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then his arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer, one hand splaying across my back, the other coming up to cradle my head against his chest. The chair creaked as he shifted, making room for me, settling me more firmly against him.
"Maybe," he admitted.
I smiled against his shirt, letting my eyes close. His heartbeat was steady under my ear, a rhythm I'd learned to find in the dark. His chest rose and fell with each breath, slow and even. The warmth of him seeped into my bones, chasing away the last lingering traces of the nightmare I'd been too stubborn to admit had woken me.
He reached behind his chair and pulled his coat free—the heavy black one he wore to meetings, the one that smelled like him even when he wasn't in it. He draped it around my shoulders, over my back, cocooning me in warmth. I burrowed deeper into him, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
"You're comfortable," I mumbled.
"I'm a desk."
"Your chest is warm." I nuzzled closer, my nose brushing the column of his throat. "Your scent is soothing. I've decided this is my territory now. My place. I won't share it."
"Not even with the work I was doing?"
"Especially not with the work." I tilted my head up just enough to look at him, my chin resting on his chest. "I won't share it with the pathetic diary girl either."
His eyebrows rose. "The diary girl?"
"She wants you in her next life." My voice was petulant even to my own ears, but I couldn't stop. "She wrote poetry about your back. She called it faith. She can have you in whatever other life she wants, but this one—this one is mine. This life, this man, this warmth. Mine."
He stared at me for a long, suspended moment. Then his face cracked into something I'd rarely seen—a smile so unguarded, so purely delighted, it transformed him. He laughed, the sound bright and boyish, and pulled me tighter against him.
"Are you jealous of a ghost, Mrs. Kim?"
"I'm not jealous." I buried my face in his neck, my cheeks burning. "I'm territorial. There's a difference."
"Tell me more about this territory." His voice was low, warm, the words vibrating against my skin. "I want to hear exactly where you've claimed as yours."
I bit his collarbone—lightly, a warning. "This chest. This heartbeat. These arms that won't let me go even when I tell them to." I pressed a kiss to the spot I'd bitten, softening the sting. "This stubborn jaw. This mouth that says things that make my heart do things I don't want it to do."
His hands slid up my back, tangling in my hair. "What does your heart do?"
"Things," I muttered. "Unhelpful things. Things that make it hard to remember why I should hate you."
"Should you hate me?"
I lifted my head, meeting his eyes. The playfulness was still there, but beneath it was something else—something vulnerable, waiting. I reached up, tracing the line of his cheekbone, the arch of his brow.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe I should. But I don't want to. That's the problem."
His hand caught mine, pressing my palm flat against his cheek. His eyes closed, just for a moment, as if he was memorizing the feel of me.
"Then don't," he said simply.
I laughed, soft and helpless. "It's not that easy."
"Nothing worth having ever is." He turned his head, pressing a kiss to my palm. "But you're here. In my lap, wearing my shirt, declaring territory over my chest. I'll take that. For now, I'll take that."
I settled back against him, my ear finding his heartbeat again. His coat was warm around my shoulders, his arms were steady around my waist, and for a moment, the world outside the study ceased to exist.
"Taehyun?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think men and women are equal?"
His fingers stilled on my back. For a moment, he was quiet, and I felt the weight of the question settle between us.
"No," he said finally.
I stiffened, pulling back to look at him. His expression was thoughtful, not dismissive. There was no arrogance in his voice, no condescension.
"Not physically," he continued. "Biology isn't equal. And mentally—we process things differently, prioritize differently, are wounded differently." His hand found my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone. "But that's not a hierarchy. It's a complement."
I waited.
"Women are fragile," he said, and I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his head, silencing me. "Not weak. Fragile like glass is fragile—breakable under the wrong hands, but capable of holding entire worlds. Women are made to be protected, loved, cared for by men. Not because they need it, but because that protection is a privilege. An honor. Something we have to earn."
His voice dropped, rough with something that might have been guilt. "And sometimes—men fail at that. We fail at protecting. At loving. At caring the way we should. We take what's given to us and call it ours without earning it. We stand at altars and make vows and then forget that every day after is a choice."
I thought about the cathedral. About blood on white marble. About a vow made in violence that had somehow, impossibly, become something else.
"You haven't failed," I whispered.
His jaw tightened. "I've failed in ways you don't know yet."
"Then tell me."
He held my gaze for a long, breathless moment. I saw the war in his eyes—the need to confess, to unburden, warring with the terror of what that confession might cost.
"Not tonight," he said finally. "Tonight, I want to hold my wife who declared my chest her territory and my heartbeat her property." A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after. But not tonight."
I wanted to push. Wanted to demand the truth he was holding back. But he was warm, and I was tired, and the nightmares were still waiting in the dark corners of my mind.
"Fine," I said, settling back against him. "But I'm not moving from this spot. If you try to work, I'll sit on your papers."
"You already are."
"Good."
He laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest, and I smiled against his shirt.
"Taehyun?"
"Yes, wife?"
"If I fall asleep here, you have to carry me to bed."
"Is that an order?"
"It's a request. From your territory." I yawned, the sound huge and unladylike. "Which you're currently hosting on your lap. I think that makes me the landlord."
His arms tightened around me, pulling me closer. "Then I'll be the very grateful tenant."
I fell asleep to the rhythm of his heartbeat and the warmth of his coat around my shoulders, dreaming of nothing at all.