Divorce in Bed Chapter 32

Dowon pushed in as if he were going to chew and swallow Yeohwi’s lips. His rough tongue ruthlessly ransacked the inside of his mouth, driving him into a corner without giving him a chance to breathe. The smoky scent mixed with Dowon’s metallic saliva, paralyzing the tip of Yeohwi’s tongue.

“Mmpf…!”

Yeohwi’s eyes flew open. Then, they slowly drifted shut.

It hurt. It felt as if his lips would burst and his jaw was numb. Yet even that pain eventually spread through his entire body like a sweet poison. It was the reward he had craved so much. Yeohwi willingly chose to throw himself toward Dowon, who provided a dizzying thrill that felt like standing on the edge of a cliff.

Every time Dowon’s tongue pushed deep, a tingle resonated down Yeohwi’s spine.

Yeohwi did not back down; he accepted Dowon by entangling their tongues. He had no intention of being submissively taken.

With surprising skill, Yeohwi’s hot tongue delved into Dowon’s mouth, exploring him. It was a reaction so dense and bold that one would wonder if he was the same clumsy child from the first night.

Yeohwi threw his arms around Dowon’s neck. To keep from being pushed back, and to avoid missing this moment, he gripped the open shirt collar. As he applied strength to his grasp, the high-quality shirt fabric crumpled miserably in Yeohwi’s hand. The back of his hand pressed against Dowon’s clearly defined collarbone.

“Mnh, hah.”

Their saliva mixed muddily, and the sound of heavy breathing pierced through the music. It was like a passionate battle between two beasts trying to devour each other.

Yeohwi’s hand, which was gripping the collar, tore through the buttons and rummaged inside the shirt. The grain of firm muscle met his palm.

Deeper, even deeper.

He wanted to reach near his heart.

And he hoped this moment would last forever.

He wanted Dowon to swallow him whole and crush him down to the bone. Conversely, he felt an ambivalence, wanting to swallow Dowon up the same way.

It was at the moment when a completely irrational Yeohwi was about to grab Dowon’s solid chest. A great impact was felt on his face. Dowon, who had struck Yeohwi’s jaw upward with his fist, grabbed his shoulders and shoved him back roughly.

Their overlapping lips pulled apart, and the wet saliva stretched out as sticky as a thread.

“Ha, ha… Dowon-ssi…”

Yeohwi, having lost his balance, staggered.

Lips swollen bright red and eyes burning with a smoldering fire.

His face no longer looked like that of a fresh-faced young man. The greed of one who has tasted the forbidden. The precariousness of one who has lost his way home. And the persistent instinct of a young beast—shining brilliantly within his wet gaze—to chase the opponent to the end and make them his own.

It wasn’t the freshness of youth, but a dangerous desire that would burn until it became a corpse and rotted away.

“Mister Dowon, please.”

Dowon threw another punch at Yeohwi’s face as he tried to pounce again. This time, it wasn’t a glancing blow like before, but a direct hit.

“Ugh!”

Yeohwi bent over, clutching his nose. Fresh blood dripped from between his fingers.

“Stop it.”

Dowon regained his ragged breath and wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand. He did it several times, roughly, as if wiping away unpleasant filth. However, his eyes, which were drawing a cold line, were sunken deep, unlike their usual dry and parched state.

“This feels like shit.”

Dowon turned away without a shred of lingering attachment. As the wall—including the mini-mirror—rotated where a large gold-rimmed mirror appeared to be, a narrow, dark passage opened its maw. It was an emergency escape route for VIPs and a back door for secret meetings.

“There’s no time. Hurry.”

Dowon led the way.

Yeohwi stood dazed, blood dripping from his nose, before taking out a handkerchief to cover his burning lower face. His nose and lips were entirely numb and tasted of iron.

This intense unrequited love had now crossed a river of no return. Yeohwi put strength into his trembling legs and dove into the darkness, chasing after Dowon. It was the beginning of a pursuit where simply stepping on his shadow was no longer enough.

‧₊˚🍊༉‧₊˚.

The events at the bank were a blur. It was because his entire mind was occupied by the passionate kiss shared with Dowon.

Yeohwi opened his grandfather’s private secret vault through several steps of complex authentication—iris recognition, passwords, and a physical key—and secured the massive amount of bearer bonds and physical stock certificates sleeping inside. Immediately after, he signed a loan agreement that allowed him to liquidate the cash using those assets as collateral.

Before the ink could even dry, they hurried out of the vault and ran through the darkness again. Just before the second act of the opera began, the two managed to return to the box seats. As soon as they sat down and pulled back the curtain, the stage lights came on and a grand overture resounded.

It was a perfect alibi.

Afterward, from the moment they boarded the limousine back to the hotel until they crossed the lobby, the staged disguise did not falter. And for good reason.

Dowon was in a state where a couple of shirt buttons had been torn off, clearly exposing his collarbone and chest, and his bowtie was nowhere to be seen. Yeohwi’s appearance was even worse. Red bloodstains were vividly spreading on his white shirt collar, and his hair was stuck to his forehead, soaked in cold sweat.

To anyone watching, they looked like a pair of deranged newlyweds who had just come out of a passionate and sadistic tryst behind the curtains of the box seats. The eyes of people passing by couldn’t seem to leave them. Even the hotel lobby staff whispered with flushed faces, but Dowon didn’t care; he wrapped his arm around Yeohwi’s waist and boarded the elevator with dignity.

Right now, that misunderstanding was serving as a solid shield.

“Haa…”

Finally reaching the top floor of the hotel, the suite door opened with the sound of the door lock disengaging.

As soon as they stepped inside, the heavy tension broke, and the silence filling the room washed over them. The city sprawling outside the window glowed blue under the moonlight, and only the low sound of the two men’s breathing filled the spacious living room.

Yeohwi collapsed weakly onto the sofa. His legs were shaking.

Dowon took off his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. With his tie undone and his breath exhaled in rough bursts, he was far from his usual cold composure. An atmosphere that seemed to reveal a certain raw, wild nature naturally formed.

“…”

“…”

The ensuing silence was long.

Dowon turned his head to look at Yeohwi. His gaze lingered on the red bloodstains on the white shirt collar. Dowon stared blankly at that vivid blood-color without a word. His lightless black pupils slowly dilated and then constricted.

Though it had been wiped away in a hurry, traces of the blood remained on Yeohwi’s face. It looked smeared, as if he had roughly wiped it from under his nose down to his lips.

“You look like a mess.”

Dowon gestured toward the bathroom with his chin. The outline of his masseter muscle protruded as his jaw hardened.

“Go wash up. You’re filthy.”

“…Ah, yes.”

Yeohwi answered blankly and stood up.

However, his feet wouldn’t move easily. His gaze, too, couldn’t pull away, as if held captive by Dowon.

The firm pectoral muscles he had glimpsed through the shirt he’d torn with his own hands. The pitch-black hair stuck to the forehead, soaked with sweat. And the lower lip that was still warm from their violent encounter…

The afterimage of the violent, hot kiss they had shared in the darkness of the opera house overlapped with Dowon’s disheveled appearance.

Yeohwi swallowed dryly without realizing it. His Adam’s apple bobbed significantly.

When he realized that his gaze was persistently digging into Dowon’s lips, a chilling thrill ran down his spine. It felt as if his punched nose was burning all over again.

“I—I’ll be back.”

Yeohwi, who clearly hadn’t escaped the lingering heat of the fire that had passed, entered the bathroom as if fleeing.

He had to stay cooped up in the bathroom for a full two hours, barely managing to soothe and calm himself down.

When Yeohwi finally finished washing and came out, the scene in the living room had changed.

Stand lights dimly lit the room, and a crystal bucket full of ice and the strong whisky ordered through room service was visible. The thick briefcase brought from the bank was wide open on the large table, and even the documents inside were spread out everywhere.

Dowon was buried deep in the sofa, still in his tuxedo with the torn shirt, tilting a glass of whisky. It seemed he had been re-examining the documents the whole time Yeohwi was washing.

In his seated position with legs crossed, there was the languid ease of a predator. Even the way he roughly swept his hair back was breathtakingly sexy.

Yeohwi approached hesitantly. His wet, bare feet stepped silently onto the carpet.