A Very Grand Bribe

The hand that had been tracing her lips burrowed into her hair and cradled the back of her head. Kang-hyun leaned in so close it seemed he might swallow her mouth whole at any moment.

"I'll just have to double-check. If you don't want it, push me away. Or hit me, I don't care."

"No, how could y—"

Before Lee-jin could finish, Kang-hyun claimed her lips. It was a swift, decisive move, as if he wouldn't permit even a heartbeat of hesitation.

A feverish breath escaped through her teeth. Soft skin slid and tangled against his, and the heat blooming between them made her feel as though her whole body were melting away.

It was a kiss on an entirely different plane from the first one.

That first kiss—where he had carefully sucked at her lips, watching whether she could still breathe—might as well have belonged to another lifetime. She was hopelessly outnumbered now, swept under like a torrential summer downpour that blanked out her mind and washed everything away in its path.

His persistence, the way he would chase her to the very end and tangle his tongue with hers if she so much as tried to flee, gradually drained the strength from her legs. But Kang-hyun had no intention of backing off just because she'd gone weak. He had come here today with exactly this in mind.

He was going to shake Seo Lee-jin to her core. If he couldn't seep into her slowly, then he would have to be a storm arriving with thunder and lightning in tow.

Gripping her waist, Kang-hyun lifted her effortlessly onto the worktable. Their eyes were now nearly level, and it made for a far more comfortable angle for kissing.

He devoured lips gone soft as something about to melt, churning through that delicate skin without restraint. Her ragged breaths, her trembling body, the brush of her nose against his, the flashes of her glistening eyes—all of it whipped him onward, driving him endlessly toward a dead end.

The desire he had layered away for years slowly bared its true face. All his careful concealment meant nothing now; raw, naked hunger spurred him on.

"Oppa, that's enough—"

Lee-jin, struggling to breathe, pushed against his chest. It was a touch as frail as could be, but Kang-hyun yielded to it willingly, as if to say he'd never been in the grip of desire at all.

Lee-jin gasped air in and out, again and again, trying to refill her depleted lungs. Each time, the swell of her chest rose and fell in a way that inexplicably drew his gaze.

Heat pooled low in his belly, but he spoke with a face as composed as ever.

"See that? I don't do this kind of thing with your actual brother."

At that infuriatingly obvious remark, Lee-jin glared at him for a moment, eyes flashing. It was a look of reproach: if you hadn't kissed me, none of this would have happened, would it?

Kang-hyun savored that look to the fullest. Her flushed cheeks and faintly swollen lips pleased him considerably.

"Push me and I let go this easily. And yet you didn't push me away right off the bat."

His x-ray gaze made her shoulders flinch. She felt wronged, somehow, but what he said was true. If she had truly hated it, she would have fought tooth and nail to get away.

"So, um—"

Her voice cracked completely, and she cleared her throat, trying to recover it. Kang-hyun found this rather adorable and let a smile slip.

"So—what do you want me to do about it?"

It came out waspish, but having spent a whole round clearing her throat, the bite in it was considerably dulled. Especially since Kang-hyun was already laughing.

"Seo Lee-jin, you're being awfully cool about this. So which is it? You don't stop the men who come, and you don't hold on to the men who go?"

"Where did that suddenly come from? Stop treating me like some heartbreaker."

When she couldn't help rolling her eyes at him, Kang-hyun burst into low laughter and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her snugly against him. At the hard foreign shape pressing into her thigh, Lee-jin's eyes went wide for an instant, then quivered.

"You're not the only one feeling something here."

She hadn't expected him to say it so baldly, and her ears flared scarlet. With such unmistakable proof of his desire for her pressed right up against her, she had no idea where to look.

The moment she averted her eyes, Kang-hyun leaned in close and stubbornly forced her gaze back to his.

"Date me."

"What?"

Startled, Lee-jin snapped her head up.

"I said, let's be in a relationship."

Why on earth is this man like this? Lee-jin couldn't collect her thoughts at all.

Him and me. Dating.

She had never once considered it, so her mind creaked and groaned like something had broken inside it.

"Why? Am I not good enough for you?"

He drooped his brows, sounding vaguely sulky. But Lee-jin knew perfectly well what he usually looked like.

That sculptor-perfect face, his height and build that dwarfed other men, that untouchable air about him. And now this man was putting on a conspicuously tragic expression, of all things. She was so dumbfounded that nothing coherent would come out of her mouth.

While she stood frozen in a daze, he kissed her again. Slipping through her slightly parted lips, he nibbled teasingly—biting, releasing, biting again—and murmured with a touch of wickedness.

"Need more proof that I'm a man?"

No, that's plenty. Lee-jin jolted and shook her head vigorously. The corner of Kang-hyun's mouth curled up, and only then did he release her. But he showed no sign of retreating.

She would only be allowed down off that worktable once she gave him the answer he wanted. Lee-jin drew in a deep breath.

Right. There was nothing stopping her from dating Moon Kang-hyun. She had watched him for years, after all—she could be fairly confident his temperament and character fell within acceptable parameters.

"Okay."

She nodded slowly. She couldn't quite make sense of anything, but she found herself thinking that a little dating was hardly beyond her.

"Good thinking. Impressive, Seo Lee-jin."

The patronizing tone—as if he were praising a small child—made Lee-jin huff out an indignant breath. But the feeling didn't last long.

The sight of Kang-hyun smiling until his eyes creased shut sent her heart racing. Looking at his face, her breathing somehow tangled itself up. Because he looked genuinely, truly happy.

She was still wrestling down the fluttering in her chest when he pressed a kiss to her cheek. He dotted her cheek with kisses like stamps on a document, then took her earlobe into his mouth and nibbled it gently.

"Hah…"

Apparently quite pleased by the sound that slipped through her teeth, he whispered against her ear.

"Looking forward to it. In every way."

Moon Hee-chan, former chairman of Moonseong Group, remained remarkably hale and hearty for a man approaching ninety. Though he had stepped down from the chairmanship and was officially a man of leisure, so many people came calling on him that his days were busier than most working men's.

"Father, it's evening—are you going out somewhere?"

Jin Ae-ran looked up at him as she spoke. Her son was gone, but the daughter-in-law had never left the great house. He had urged her more than once that she was free to live elsewhere, but Jin Ae-ran had refused absolutely to leave this estate—the very symbol of the Moonseong family's ownership. Officially she was the devoted daughter-in-law tending to her father-in-law, but in a mansion this size, staffed around the clock to handle every household matter, the two of them rarely crossed paths anyway.

"I have an appointment with Kang-hyun."

"With Kang-hyun?"

Jin Ae-ran's eyes widened at once. Ever since she had sent her youngest son off that day without a proper explanation, he had refused to take her calls.

But she gave no hint of it as she answered.

"What on earth has he done now, that you find it so impressive?"

"It seems he's finally going to show me Cheongjukje."

"Oh. Is that so?"

Jin Ae-ran tried to gauge her son's hidden agenda, but for once she couldn't immediately read what that willful boy was thinking.

"Travel safely."

So she simply smiled and saw her father-in-law out.

"I'll be off, then."

The moment Moon Hee-chan stepped out the door, Jin Ae-ran's expression froze solid, her smile vanishing as if it had never existed.

"He's certainly the son I carried in my own body, but I swear I can't fathom what goes on in that head of his."

Kang-hyun had still not shown Cheongjukje to a single soul. He guarded the place so jealously, as if he had a mountain of gold and treasure hidden there, that Jin Ae-ran could only throw up her hands in exasperation.

And now he was inviting Moon Hee-chan there. What on earth was he playing at?

Jin Ae-ran narrowed her eyes and sank into thought, but unable to catch even a glimpse of her son's intentions, she could only let out a long sigh.

"So. This woman you've been seeing—do you like her or don't you?"

She stalked inside, irritated. These days her youngest son seemed to be adding new wrinkles by the day, which put her in an even fouler mood.

When Moon Hee-chan arrived at Cheongjukje, Kang-hyun was waiting to greet him as if he'd been anticipating his grandfather's arrival all along. The two of them made a slow circuit of the estate.

"Well? What do you think?"

At Kang-hyun's question, Hee-chan—leaning on his cane—swept a slow look around and spoke.

"You've worked hard. Must have been no small effort, building it the traditional way without a single nail."

The glow of the garden and the house's interior lights melded with the wood grain to cast an even deeper warmth over everything. It was a completely different atmosphere from the main family estate with its marble floors and cold concrete.

"Do you like it, Grandfather?"

Hee-chan regarded his grandson's smiling face with narrowed suspicion.

"And what business does an old man have liking or not liking a house?"

"Plenty, of course. I built this house for you, after all."

Most people, hearing such a thing, would be moved to tears by a grandson's thoughtfulness. Moon Hee-chan felt not the slightest flicker of that sentiment.

"So this is a bribe."

His grandson, it seemed, was about to attempt some truly formidable lobbying.