Prologue
“Pretty fancy for the gates of hell.”
Chae Yuju’s gaze lingered on the imposing gray stone building.
With its smooth pillars rising without a single flashy decoration and its intimidating main gate, it stood as if welcoming a feudal lord from a classic movie.
“Walking in on my own two feet is at least going to be satisfying.”
Chae Yujuāthe power player of Team 3, who ruled the Incheon branch with sheer intelligence and control.
She elegantly pushed up her sunglasses, a cool smile playing at the corners of her lips.
The operation name was ‘Home Sweet Home.’
“Sweet” in name only, it was the most extravagant and cruelest prison where she would have to rub shoulders with Team 5, “Black Core,” 24 hours a day to take down a massive drug cartel. Yuju was crossing the threshold of that prison with the utmost elegance.
The moment she opened the front door, the dazzling light of a chandelier poured down. The instant she stepped into that brilliance, a cool, heavy shadow fell across Yuju’s back. She didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was.
“Could you move aside? Unless you want to advertise to the whole neighborhood that you came to catch bad guys.”
A low, lazily scraping baritone; a thick musk scent that dizzyingly stimulated the tip of her nose.
When Yuju turned her head, dark eyes were staring right back at her.
The man with a face chillingly identical to Jung Taehaāwho was said to have died nine years agoāwas Do Haesung, the head of Black Core.
He snatched up Yuju’s luggage as if grabbing it and brushed past her shoulder brazenly. A burning heat spread through her thin silk blouse.
Haesung casually nudged aside the small bags kicking at his ankles with the tip of his shoe and said:
“I’ll take the second floor. I’m a bit sensitive at night.” “The terrace is prime real estate for gathering intelligence. The second floor is my team’s zone.”
Unwilling to give in easily for some strange reason, Yuju raised her chin. Instead of answering right away, Haesung slowly scanned Yuju’s face.
“Seriously… what am I going to do with that stubbornness?”
Haesung muttered with a dry laugh.
“Never mind my stubbornness. I’m not going to ask you to take care of me.” “Well. Not like you have a choice, whether you like it or not?”
When Yuju refused to back down and lifted her chin higher, Haesung let out a soft scoff and reached a hand toward her waist. Pressing against the wall and trapping her, his gaze intertwined with hers persistently.
“Now that we’re under the same roof, the only place you’ll be able to run away from me is in bed.” “……Are you out of your mind?” “Yeah. I’m a bit crazy. So do your best to keep that stubbornness in check.”
Haesung’s voice lazily scraped against the shell of Yuju’s ear.
“Unless you want to end up crying beneath me.”
Goosebumps crept up her spine. Yuju didn’t know back then whether those words were a threat or a prophecy.
She pushed against his chest with the palm of her hand, but he didn’t budge an inch.
“Are you really going to be able to handle it if I take the first floor?” “What are you up to?” “Black Core tends to be pretty casual in private spaces. If you can stay calm no matter what kind of outfit I’m wearing when I walk past you, go right ahead. I definitely warned you beforehand.”
Wasn’t this an open declaration that he would roam around without wearing a single thread of clothing?
At the blatant provocation, Yuju’s eyes wavered wildly. Enjoying her flustered expression, Haesung lazily twisted the corners of his mouth.
“Are you dying of curiosity to see just how much the guy who looks exactly like your dead ex-boyfriend matches up?” “You… crazy perverted bastard.”
Yuju’s train of thought went completely blank.
Do Haesung. He had just catapulted himself straight to the very top of the list of the world’s worst human scum.
The category of crazy bastards was already quite crowded in Chae Yuju’s life, but he was the first man to vertically upgrade that rank by adding the modifier ‘pervert’ to it.
“If you don’t have the confidence to handle it, get lost right now.”
Haesung turned around without a shred of lingering attachment, and the leisurely sound of his footsteps climbing the stairs grated on her nerves.
Left all alone, Yuju pressed her palms hard against her burning cheeks.
At this point, it didn’t matter who he was anymore.
If he was going to mess up her daily routine with that face, she had no intention of letting him off the hook either.
“I’ll make you cry and beg for me to stop.”
Chae Yuju was fully prepared to embrace Do Haesung and plunge right down to his absolute lowest depths together.
Because that was the only and most perfect victory she could claim from this hellish cohabitation.
The two teams, which had been walking on thin ice, began to achieve a strange equilibrium.
And the moment she opened the study door, Yuju realized just how precarious that balance truly was.
“……”
On the wide wooden desk, Haesung was sitting sideways, illuminated by the blue glow of a tablet.
He was dressed in a loosely thrown-on navy silk robe, as if he had just finished showering. Droplets of water falling from his damp hair were soaking into Haesung’s muscular ribcage.
As her gaze locked onto his exposed collarbones through the loose robe and the smooth skin beneath them, Yuju barely managed to hold onto her sanity and stiffly turned her head away.
“I’m getting sick of that obvious excuse about work.”
Haesung dropped the tablet he was holding onto the desk with a sharp thud. A voice, made even lazier by the lingering moisture, pierced Yuju’s ears.
“Don’t misunderstand. I only came because there’s something I need to check.”
Yuju swallowed hard, gave a cold retort, and turned to leave.
At that, Haesung’s hand moved first. His long arm snatched Yuju’s waist in a single motion, pulling her right between his thighs. A hot scent of soap washed over the tip of her nose all at once.
“No interest in checking out something else?”
Haesung explicitly pointed below his robe with a glance. To the place that was already making its hard presence known.
Smiling softly as if he were an affectionate lover, he cupped the back of Yuju’s neck with his large hand.
“Ah…!”
Where the cold air had just brushed, a hot palm was now laid flat. Moving persistently, measuring the temperature inch by inch along the hollow next to her hipbone, in no particular hurry.
The breath she had been trying to hold back in resistance wavered wildly.
“What are you doing…!” “Volunteering my body to serve a partner who can’t fall asleep?”
At an answer so shockingly audacious, Yuju momentarily lost her words. The full-body tension she had been holding so tightly dissolved into nothingness in an instant.
Haesung didn’t miss that opening. His palm slowly swept down her waist one more time, and his voice lowered right next to her ear in tandem.
“It’s troublesome when you glare at me like you want to kill me, but your body is this honest.” “Ugh…!”
His heat spread completely right through the thin fabric. Her skin reacted first to every spot his fingertips touched, and Yuju bit her lip to suppress the sounds escaping her.
However, her trembling legs could no longer support her as her knees grew weak, and she couldn’t stop herself from collapsing down onto his thighs.
As if waiting for it, Haesung pulled Yuju’s waist tighter. The gap between their pressed bodies vanished, the front of his robe parted, and his body heat surged all the way up to her chest at once. The sound of a hard-beating heart was transmitted through the robe.
Fast enough that it was impossible to tell whose heart it was.
Yuju grabbed his forearm. She had intended to push him away, but as the tingling sensation crawling up her spine spread all the way to her fingertips, she couldn’t let go or push him awayāshe could only grip him tightly.
Her mind warned her that she had to stop, but her already overheated body refused to listen. It bounced up naturally, as if instinctively wanting to receive his heat more deeply.
“Ngh…!”
Haesung roughly grabbed Yuju’s chin, lifting it up to swallow her lips. A rough breath and hot tongue raided the inside of her mouth without mercy, sweeping across her teeth and teasing her tender flesh.
It was a wild and persistent kiss. At the same time, the stimulation of her sensitive peak being twisted roughly like an animal made Yuju’s waist arch with a start.
“Ah, ugh, stop…!”
Moans blending pleasure and humiliation burst out one after another.
With his hot tongue and his sweet yet vulgar touch, Yuju’s sanity had already burned away to ashes.
“Do you like this face, or do you like me breaking you down like this?”
Haesung whispered lazily, licking away the damp corners of Yuju’s eyes.
The trap had been laid by Yuju, but it was her own feet that got caught.
“Must be both.”
And Haesung was smiling as if he had known it from the very beginning.
