Chapter 10
Seoul, South Korea
~Phoebe~
His proximity was so dizzying, the way he smelled, like mahogany and vanilla spice, it was making my head spin.
My heart was pounding. No not again.
He leaned in closer. I couldn't breathe. I don't know I'm feeling, nervous, anxiety, yes. But also, a little bit of thrill.
"I can do a lot of things, if you want, I can show you." He said low and seductively in me ear.
My breath hitched.
A strong burning heat struck my core, and I felt this aching pull between my legs at the way he said those words.
The air was charged with unspoken tension.
It made my knees tremble. I had no words. I wanted to get away, but at the same time, I weirdly wanted him to stay.
I felt this urge to punch his pretty mouth and then kiss it better. It's truly the most infuriating feeling.
He smiled and pushed himself off the wall, stuffing his hands into his pockets, looking so cool, like nothing had happened.
"It's this way." He stood waiting for me to speak, his face indifferent.
When he left, air found it's back, but the cold came with it, filling the empty space in front of me.
I felt a moment of disappoint hit in my stomach. Hard.
I fixed my hair, tucking the wet strands behind my ears, wrapped my arms around myself and followed him.
We went through a set of double doors and walked down the hall. He stopped at the last door on the left, it said Kim Joungi on the
Another Kim?
He pulled out a set of keys from his pants and unlocked the door. It was an office. It had a couch against the wall by the door, a mahogany table in the center and with two chairs in front of a mahogany desk.
The room had a closet and a dresser. He walked over to the closet and pulled out two blankets and a canned milk tea.
"Take this one, it's for you to wrap in after you take the dress off. I'll do the same." He suggested and I about dropped my jaw with it.
"Um, absolutely not."
"So, you want to undress in the hallway? I don't understand?" He was definitely teasing me now.
"What? No. Just go somewhere else." I insisted.
"I can't, you can't be in here alone, if my uncle checked the camera and saw me standing out here with a girl in his room alone." He excused himself from the blame and pinned it all on his Uncle. What a bully.
"Look we'll turn around at the same time, don't be such a prude." He teased me.
That might even be worse. He might see every lash, every healed gash. Every vulnerable part of me.
The secrets I kept buried deep. My years of torment. My biggest shame.
I shook my head and said "No. Absolutely not. Under no circumstance will I undress in front of you." Or any man, probably ever.
"Has no man ever seen you naked? Why are you so shy?"
He hopped on the desk and leaned back.
He honestly looked so annoyingly cool, and not the try too hard cool, the kind that comes naturally with charisma.
"That's none of your business." I didn't want to admit I was a virgin, even if I had met a guy I liked enough to date, my Abeoji would have probably killed me.
"Wow, are you a virgin!?" He practically screamed sitting straight up now.
My face turned beet red, I could feel the burning in my cheeks.
"Oh my god, you're a fucking virgin." He started laughing.
"Shut the fuck up, not everything in life is about sex. Pervert." I snapped defensively at him.
"Listen, everything in life is about sex. What are you saving yourself?" He asked more casually.
"It's really not, and I've never had the time, and my Abeoji is a… Traditional Korean man, so I wasn't allowed to date. No one's ever caught my eye anyways." I wasn't backing down, and traditional was a good cover for abusive piece of shit.
"I'm surprised. Someone as pretty as you, has never had a boyfriend. Has anyone even tried to pursue you?" He was asking too many questions.
"Why are you so interest in my lack of a love life?" I called him out.
"Because, maybe I want to pursue you." He smirked.
"Ha! That's the best joke I've ever heard." I rolled my eyes.
"What if I'm not joking?" He was sitting there with so much confidence it made me jealous.
"Then I'd tell you the same thing I've told any other person, I'm not interested. I'm here to learn, not to date." Which was true, the only way I could get away from my father, was by getting good enough grades for a scholarship and good money for living away from him and never talking to him again.
And so far, doing so has worked. I was able to disappear.
I sealed my records, changed my number and moved across the world.
Still wasn't far enough away, but it would do.
"I doubt that." His smirk sat like a permanent expression on his face.
"I don't."
He hopped off the desk and walked over, leaning over me, and trapping me on the couch.
He whispered in my easy seductively, "Challenge accepted."
My breath hitched.
"What do you mean?" I whispered.
"I will do whatever it takes to make you notice me and make you mine." His words dripped with the kind of lust that made me wet between my thighs.
I couldn't breathe. His lips where centimeters from mine, his cologne wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
Some stupid part of me wanted to know what it felt like to kiss, to kiss him.
No. What am I thinking? He's a playboy, this is what he does. He likes the chase, not me.
"I'm not some conquest for you, I'm not an item, or a passing phase, and you don't seem like the kind of guy who welcomes commitment. And I'm not the kind of girl interested in shallow relationships of any kind." I wasn't going to be fooled by his very pretty face.
"That's not how it works in my city, Phoebe." He was still whispering, but was slightly louder than before, "I always get what I want. You will be no different. I will have you, and no man, or woman can touch you now that I've decided to make you mine." Any girl would feel special by his words, but they only put a pit in my stomach.
Another man controlling my life and taking my freedom.
I couldn't stomach it.
No.
"Get off me." I growled, my tone changing. "Right now."
My eyes narrowed. And he pushed off instantly and walked back over to the desk, completely unphased by my hard rejection.
"You can stay in that dress for I care then, but I'm going to get out of these wet clothes." Before he even finished his sentence, he was already taking off his shirt.
Fuck, his muscles where big and so firm. He was covered in tattoos, his whole chest and arms even.
I gulped.
No one man should have a body like that, Christ. His body was sculpted to perfection. Not even the Greek gods had a body like him.
I turned around quickly blushing with embarrassment.
I could hear his light chuckle.
"You can turn back around now; I changed my pants."
I turned back around, and I thought he'd have a shirt on.
But nope. He was just standing there in all his tattooed muscular glory.
Why did he have to be so hot?
"You're staring."
"And you're half naked."