Every Night, I'll Make You Cry
Should I take it off now?
Seol-hye spat out the words in a flat tone, then bit down hard on the tender flesh inside her lip—the one she had carefully coated with extra gloss today.
If it was truly a wife's duty to shed these embarrassingly outdated clothes and offer up her resolve with her body instead of words, then she would simply do as she was told.
Especially since the man fixing her with that unapologetically crude stare clearly wanted exactly that.
This time, she decided to use the hands that had only ever fumbled to fasten her collar on something else: removing the black jacket that felt like a uniform.
With her mind made up, she reached for the gold button nestled in the hollow below her throat and undid it. A chill brushed across her prominently jutting collarbone.
It wasn't cold enough to make her shiver, but perhaps because it resembled its owner, the air in the room felt unnaturally frigid.
Yes. He was an utterly cold man. Like the surface of rough, frozen ice.
And she had stepped forward to become his wife.
There wasn't a single moment of hesitation as she moved down to the button near her navel, where a constant, inescapable tension always gathered.
Only when she remembered that the underwear she'd worn today featured a prominent lace design did her heart suddenly begin to pound wildly.
Come to think of it, the lights seemed far too bright. Maybe she should ask him to turn them off.
Just then, she noticed him stepping backward. He appeared to be securing a clear view of the bed where he'd positioned her moments ago.
With that increased distance, the gaze that had felt invasive before now struck her as blatantly predatory.
And after a stretch of heavy silence...
She felt a gaze brimming with curiosity settle on the lace that barely covered the swell of her breasts.
It was as if he intended to watch until her voluntary striptease reached its perfect conclusion.
Was this some kind of urging? Or was he testing her?
There was no emotion in those relentlessly piercing eyes. They simply regarded her with a fearless, provocative interest.
"Who did you like better? Doyul hyung? Or Cha-yul?"
Seol-hye stopped unbuttoning her white blouse in front of the man who seemed to be acting as both observer and interviewer.
It was an instinctive, automatic response triggered by the aura of subtle danger she sensed.
"Ah, or maybe our Chairman Kang?"
At the words that continued to clutter her ears, she lifted her gaze and saw his eyes tangled with contempt and long-buried rage.
Even his face, which carried a murky light that clashed with his otherwise strikingly handsome features, looked distorted.
"Well, he must have been exceptional until he collapsed."
"Think whatever you like."
"After all, he's the one who passed on that extraordinary stamina to his descendants."
Extraordinary stamina.
He enunciated the words with deliberate emphasis, then twisted his lips strangely as his gaze dropped to her lower body.
Suddenly, he straightened from his leaning position and began walking toward her.
Perhaps it was the urgency flickering in his eyes.
Seol-hye slowly retreated, wary of Tae-yul as he drew close enough for their bodies to nearly touch.
"So now it's just me left?"
Her back collided hard against the solid pillar, sending a jolt through her spine, but his expression remained indifferent as he braced a hand against it.
The moment his intoxicating scent enveloped her, she instinctively held her breath to keep her nose from surrendering to it.
"You've claimed every man in the Kang family. Was that still not enough?"
His face drew within a handspan, his thick brows twitching.
"Or are you curious what I'll be like in bed?"
"After living a little, I've learned there are things you can know without experiencing them."
She didn't know where this sudden courage for provocation had come from. Perhaps her abandoned pride had finally lifted its head.
"You don't seem to want to experience it with me, though."
The way he twisted his lips at an angle made it seem like he was chewing over that day from nine years ago.
"Your talent for openly trampling on someone's pride is still intact."
Maybe it was because she was trapped with nowhere to retreat if their lips met right then. Her mouth grew increasingly dry.
"So you're really going through with this worthless marriage?"
His displeasure was obvious. As she watched his tongue roll lazily inside his slightly parted lips, saliva pooled in her own parched mouth.
Meanwhile, his dark brown eyes deepened, regaining their lost focus.
Right on her lips, which had just flicked out to catch the accumulated saliva.
"But I don't have a hobby of picking up what someone else has already tasted."
He continued to stare fixedly at her lips, as if deliberately gauging her reaction.
"Besides, just the fact that our blood is mixed is bad enough. Mixing women into it feels a bit too filthy, don't you think?"
Those words flew at her without any filter—words that would cut deep if she didn't tune them out.
Her lips began to tremble faintly, and for some reason, the corners of her eyes started burning.
If she didn't pull herself together, everything could fall apart.
"You may find me lacking in many ways, but I will fulfill my duties as a wife."
"That damn talk of duty is really fucking disgusting."
"So I'll take off the clothes you told me to remove right now."
With those dry yet resolute words, Seol-hye reached for the buttons again.
"You seem confident that you can handle me."
"I'll just do my best to endure it."
Seol-hye continued undoing the remaining buttons.
"After living a little, I've learned that no matter how much you steel yourself, some things work out and some don't."
Then a long, straight finger pressed firmly beneath her closed lips. Pressure bore down on her breasts beneath the blouse.
A dizzying sensation hit her, as if he were persistently prodding at some central point.
"Have you not considered that you might regret this once tonight is over?"
Only then did the irreversibility of it all sink in.
His scorching gaze, which showed no sign of stopping, seemed to burn directly into her skin.
"By then, it'll already be too late. Don't you understand?"
The faint tremor in his fingertips as they traced her jawline and slid down her neck felt as though it reached all the way between her legs.
When he used a single finger to tug and spread the open collar of her blouse outward, goosebumps rose along her back for no good reason.
An automatic shiver of electricity ran through her at the rather provocative taunt.
Her cheeks flushed, her heart raced, and heat pooled in her lower abdomen.
"By the way, someone once said—even if you wash a rag, it's still a rag."
His eyes blazed like an active volcano, hovering somewhere between fury and raw desire.
"If you're scared, go to Grandfather right now and tell him you can't go through with this marriage."
"No."
It sounded like a final warning—and an opportunity. Perhaps the last mercy he was granting her.
"But know this. I don't do things halfway."
"I'll handle it."
"Once I bite down, I don't let go. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes, I understand."
Seol-hye pulled the hem of her blouse from her neatly pleated trousers and finished undoing the last two buttons.
As soon as the final button came free, both her hands—reaching for the buckle of her pants—were seized and pinned above her head against the pillar.
Perhaps because her lace-trimmed underwear was now fully exposed, she felt her breasts swelling with each breath.
The silence that had swallowed even the air was shattered by the sound of her swallowing a useless mouthful of saliva.
In the instant their intense, tangled gazes met in midair, their lips came together.
Soft, yet rough.
Hot, yet cold—the kiss continued.
At some point, the unyielding strength of the arm wrapped around her waist lifted her onto her toes.
"Ah!"
Was it because the hand yanking the blouse from her shoulders was too rough?
Even inside her once-pristine pants, she felt herself growing damp.
As if all the heat in her body had gathered between her legs, the insides of her thighs burned feverishly.
Perhaps it was the warmth of the large palm covering the mound of her breast.
The moment she felt the wetness seeping into her dampened underwear.
"I clearly gave you a chance."
With a single nod, she fully acknowledged that she had thrown that chance away herself.
"I'll say it in advance."
She felt the hand that had been circling her waist slide upward along her back.
"I have no intention of being gentle."
In the blink of an eye, the clasp of her bra came undone with a soft click.
"So brace yourself."
It had only been a few months since she'd faced him again in this Kang family home—the man who hadn't changed at all in the nine years that had passed.
"Every night, I'll make you cry."
The moment had arrived when they would bind themselves in a marriage born solely of mutual necessity.