“Honeybee, I don’t want you to push me in the corner when times get rough. I don’t want you to go radio silent for weeks on end when you are feeling hurt, sad, mad, or angry. I want to beby your side more when you are going through those emotions than when you’re happy.”
I watch as her face crumples, her composure shattering completely. The tears come harder now. I just opened the floodgates.
“I-I don’t know how to let someone see me like this,” she chokes out, her whole body trembling against mine. “I’ve never—no one has ever?—”
“I know,” I whisper, pulling her closer. “I know, Honeybee.”
She presses her face into my chest, her fingers digging into my shoulders like she’s afraid she’ll drown if she lets go. I hold her tighter. “I’m scared,” she confesses, her voice muffled against my shirt. “I’m so fucking scared, Aaron.” She pulls back suddenly, her swollen eyes meeting mine. “What if I let myself love you and it falls apart like everything else?”
My heart nearly stops at her words. It’s not quite a declaration, but it’s the closest she’s come.
“I’ll never let that happen, but if it does, then we’ll figure it out,” I say, brushing her hair from her tear-stained face. “That’s what people do when they love each other. They figure it out together.”
“How can you be so sure?” her voice breaking. “How can you have this much faith when the world gives you every reason not to?”
I take her hand and place it over my rapidly beating heart. “Because some things you just know. Like how I know right now that whatever you decide about your job, Iwantto be standing beside you.”
She looks down at her hand on my chest, then back up at me. “I’m terrified of needing someone,” she whispers. “Of letting myself depend on anyone. My whole life, I’ve been the strong one, the one who handles everything, who never breaks. And now I’m falling apart and you’re… you’re still here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promise. “Not unless you tell me to, and even then, I don’t think I’m going anymore.”
She takes a shuddering breath. “I think,” she says slowly, her voice steadying, “I think I might be falling for you too.”
I’m afraid to move, to breathe too deeply and shatter this revelation. It feels like my heart might burst out of my chest. The words hang between us, delicate and new.
“You think?” I whisper, trying not to sound too eager, too desperate. But fuck me, I am.
She nods—a small, vulnerable movement. “I’m not good at this part,” she admits. “The part where I say what I’m feeling instead of analyzing it to death first.”
I brush my thumb across her cheek, wiping away the last of her tears. “Take your time. We have plenty of it.”
Minji takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, there’s a clarity there that takes my breath away.
The words come out of her like a confession. “I know I’m falling for you.” Her voice steadies with each syllable. “I’ve been running because it scares me to death. Loving you means letting go of the reins. It means risking everything.”
“Or gaining everything,” I counter gently.
Her lips curve upward, just barely. “There you go again, seeing rainbows where I see storm clouds.”
“Someone has to look up.” I guide her onto my lap, her knees sliding to either side of me. “Now about that third option…” Rising to my feet with her wrapped around me, I stumble when her ankles lock behind my back. My shoulder clips the hallway wall as she claims my mouth with hers. We barely make it to her bedroom before she pulls off her own shirt as if it burned her. And fuck me, she’s not wearing a bra—yet again.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I hold her hips firmly. “I’ve never seen you this…”
“Hungry? Desperate? Horny?” She bites down gently on my neck. I shiver, grabbing her hips.
I lose my shirt to her highly aggressive undressing. I try to help, but she slaps my hands away, like she’s been waiting her entire adult life for the chance to take the lead and isn’t about to accept help now.
She licks a line up my throat, then bites my earlobe just hard enough to punctuate the word. “Stay.” She moves down my body and hooks her fingers into my waistband. “Wait, can you lift up?”
“I thought you wanted me to?—”
“? ? ?? ?? (I want you real bad), so just help me please.”
“I need to start learning Korean; whatever you just said sounds sexy as fuck.” I lift my hips, and she peels down my pants and boxers with a single motion. I realize the most dangerous part of letting her in is that she makes me want to give up control.
“I said I want yourealbad.” Then she repeats it in Korean.
Before I even have time to process, she has me completely out. She holds me, studying my dick with a greedy satisfaction. She licks her palm—an absolutely primal gesture—and strokes me slowly, never taking her eyes off mine.
