The Young Lady Wants That Dog (3)

As expected, there was no middle ground here — only the insane and the sane. Woo Tae-kyung didn't give it a second thought; he'd never imagined she would feel even the slightest hint of guilt. If you thought of these people as your own kind, then of course there could be no such thing as a conscience — it had been carved out of them at birth.

Lee Do-hee pressed her red lips tightly together, as if struggling to hold back a laugh that kept trying to escape. She looked like someone so entertained she could hardly bear it, and yet like she was forcing herself to hold it in out of pity — pity for Woo Tae-kyung, who would carry this scar for the rest of his life, just as she'd said.

"What am I supposed to do, I'm so grateful."

As his lips parted, they grazed the wrist of Lee Do-hee, whose fingers were still resting on his scar. Paying it no mind, he swept his callus-hardened thumb from just below her right eye, across her cheek, all the way to her ear.

"Want me to carve one on you too? Make us even."

At his flat, toneless words, Lee Do-hee's eyes widened slightly. Any ordinary person would have flinched, frozen with fear — but Do-hee simply caught his words and tossed them back, gentle as could be.

"Woo Tae-kyung, you bark so well."

His mouth curved at that. Because a whole different order of headache was already starting to radiate off her body.

Fuck.

Woo Tae-kyung ground the curse out between his teeth. His five senses, loosened and dulled by an ordinary life — by the feeling of having become an ordinary person — snapped alert all at once.

Lee Do-hee smiled the smile of a pampered predator who had never once in her life let the thing she wanted slip away.

Woo Tae-kyung had started the car and opened the rear door to deliver Lee Do-hee straight to Chairman Lee's estate — only to watch her walk right past him, open the passenger door, and slip inside. He shut the car door with a bang.

For a moment he stood there, staring up at the gloomy gray ceiling of the parking garage, dust hanging in the air.

If something involving Jang Hee-jo came up, he would handle it himself.

That had been a given, ever since they were kids. He'd taken Do-hee on as one more of those problems to be handled — and now, suddenly, the lines had gone blurry. He could just think of her as an arrogant little brat riding on her father's back and screaming at the world. So why did a nerve that had gone slack start standing on end?

Bzzt—

At the sound of the window rolling down, Woo Tae-kyung returned to the driver's seat without a flicker of change in his expression. He got in, feigned indifference, and pointed a finger at the built-in navigation.

"Type it in."

"Where do I have to go to play with you?"

"A hotel."

And so he'd appreciate it if she took the hint and just shut her mouth.

At that one line, Lee Do-hee, elbow propped on the open window frame, turned her gaze on him — the man staring stubbornly dead ahead.

"If you're going to say things like that, you should at least look at my chest. Or here."

Woo Tae-kyung, hands on the wheel, looked down at the hand wrapped over the back of his own. A small hand cupped his knuckles for a moment, then let go, smoothly guiding his gaze down toward her. Her fingers drifted across her own thighs, parting legs that had been pressed together.

Click.

Woo Tae-kyung unbuckled his seatbelt.

As his broad frame — impossible to hide even in a plain t-shirt — leaned in close, the corners of Lee Do-hee's eyes crinkled with satisfaction. He hooked one hand on her passenger headrest and stretched the other arm far back toward the rear seat. When that big, rock-hard body of his shifted, the whole car rocked with it. And what he reached back and retrieved was a blanket.

He laid the blanket — printed with cartoon puppies — across Lee Do-hee's lap, then returned to the driver's seat and buckled up.

"Woo Tae-kyung. Hey. Dog."

When he ignored her calling his name and kept facing forward, Lee Do-hee shook the blanket and called him a dog instead. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't even drive like this, and since Woo Tae-kyung had no particular desire to meet his end in a mid-drive accident, he finally turned to look at her.

"You said you wanted to go to a hotel with me. So why cover up a body this good?"

"Because it does nothing for me. That's why."

And with that, he'd never once said he wanted to go to a hotel with her himself.

No matter how undeniably lovely Lee Do-hee was — the kind of face that made people stop and stare — no matter that she walked around with her bra showing and wore leather pants clinging to the skin just below her panty line, Woo Tae-kyung simply could not see her as a woman.

If anything, the way she touched herself between the legs while tossing out words clearly meant to shock him into retreating was such a textbook provocation that it only earned a scoff. And when he watched her face flush crimson at his claim that she did nothing for him, her fist clenching tight, he quietly clicked his tongue.

"You think I want anything when I know you're Chairman Lee's baby girl?"

"What does my dad have to do with any of this?"

"Dogs run with dogs. You're spoiled meat to me. The most bitter thing in the whole damn world."

He could see it all too clearly — sleep with her once, and his life would tangle itself up and turn exhausting on its own. Worse: get entangled with someone as impulsive and imperious as Lee Do-hee, and he might not just die in an accident. He might vanish so completely that no one ever found the body.

Woo Tae-kyung knew exactly where he stood.

People like this were not to be touched — not even by accident.

People who had never bent for anyone, born arrogant from the cradle, living at the very top as masters — the kind who tossed food down to the dogs they kept like alms. Jang Hee-jo's family had been exactly that way. And Lee Do-hee didn't look a bit different.

"I'll deliver you home nice and proper, so don't spout nonsense to Chairman Lee."

Not knowing what grudge her pride might latch onto, what tiresome things she might say about him later, Woo Tae-kyung added the words without really needing to. The more he spoke, the more it flickered through his mind that he was pressing the wrong button somewhere — but by then Do-hee had already cooled the flush from her face, head turned away from him, eyes fixed straight ahead.

"Lee Do-hee. Answer."

Convinced he would get an answer out of her no matter what, Woo Tae-kyung cast a sidelong glance to check that the black box was running properly.

"An answer to what?"

Do-hee asked flatly, still facing forward.

"You don't go home and say tiresome nonsense about me."

"I'm thinking. So wait."

"Thinking about what?"

Sensing something ominous, Woo Tae-kyung asked the question almost exactly the way she'd asked him what answer he wanted.

The wrong button.

The grin faded from her face, and her eyes half-closed as if she were turning something over. That thick, red mouth was slow to open.

"Woo Tae-kyung. When I tell you to wait, you wait."

He tapped a hard rhythm on the steering wheel with his fingers, and she said it slowly, deliberately.

Wait — like a dog told to stay. She was determined to treat him like an animal, to the bitter end. Woo Tae-kyung didn't bother pushing back. If being handled that way was what it took to soothe Do-hee's bruised pride, then a little dog treatment was nothing.

It just felt ominous, that was all.

Watching Jang Hee-jo live his life at a distance —表面上 washed clean of the shadows, sprawled out beside Choi Baek-young, whom he loved beyond all reason — had made Woo Tae-kyung feel like an ordinary person too. Then, in the middle of a dull and peaceful routine, he'd laid eyes on Lee Do-hee, and his edges had sharpened.

The habits of a man who had lived at the bottom, running on nothing but instinct, came crawling back out.

It clung to him like a stench that could never quite be hidden. At the reek rising from his own body after so long, Woo Tae-kyung nearly gagged.

Through his features — scowled into something harsh and ugly — the scar bulged out, grotesque. Catching his own eyes in the rearview mirror, he stared at the reflection as if at a stranger.

Just then, Lee Do-hee pressed the navigation and pulled up an address.

"Drive."

First there had been something almost like gladness — and then a provocation that made no sense at all. And now her voice and eyes had gone utterly still, all that glinting gleam hidden away, which bothered him even more.

Definitely someone too troublesome to get tangled up with. He had no idea what she wanted from him, but he hoped nothing more would come of it than this — a quiet, uneventful ride home.

The sedan began to move in silence.

Lee Do-hee reclined the passenger seat as far back as it would go, crossed her arms, and shut her eyes.

Woo Tae-kyung stole a glance at the address and recognized it at once: Chairman Lee's estate in Seongbuk-dong.

She seemed to be behaving herself and going home, so he stopped mixing words with her and concentrated solely on driving.

They had only just turned onto the uphill road in Seongbuk-dong when Lee Do-hee, still reclined, tilted her head lazily toward the driver's seat and looked at him. The weight of a gaze so obviously fixed on him made his right cheek sting. Or rather — the scar she was staring at itched.

"I finished thinking."

She hadn't just been resting her eyes — her voice came out loose and slow, like someone waking from a brief nap.

Woo Tae-kyung didn't answer. Chairman Lee's estate was already coming into view, not far ahead.

Less than a minute of road remained. If he simply stopped and opened the door for her, his part here was done.

"You asked me what I was thinking about, didn't you."

Still reclined, still making no move to get out even with her own house right in front of her, Do-hee spoke.

"Why do you hate me so much? Though I suppose it makes sense — I did cut up your face."