“I want you to do both.” Sun presses himself tighter against me, if that’s even possible. “I hope you feel that way about me forever. I know that’s a long time. Is it too long? Is that too much?”
I tilt my head to drop a kiss on his beauty mark, a habit for me now. “No. It’s not. It’s just the right amount,” I assure him, shifting a bit so we can look at each other a little better. “I never thought I’d have anything like this. I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. Hell, I wasn’t even looking for a relationship at all. Eventually I might have. Any thought I ever gave to it was an abstract future concept. At some point, I would have found a nice woman to marry, and we might have had a nice life with each other.”
He scrunches his nose at the suggestion of me marrying a woman. “I think I’ve proven that you can wife me up just as well as any woman.”
“Where did you find that apron, anyway?” I ask.
Sun gives me a devious smirk. “The prop room at Task Force.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” I laugh.
He holds a finger to his lips and winks. “Our little secret.”
“When I think about it now, me and some girl, I can’t even imagine it,” I confess. Not with the way I feel about him. “I don’t think I would have been happy. I might have worked too much and found excuses to stay out longer and been jealous of Jase and Nikko and what they have for reasons I didn’t understand. But instead, I’m in bed with a beautiful boy who showedme a whole new life I never imagined. And I want this—want him—for as long as he wants to be with me.”
“I keep telling you, forever. Always. ‘Til the end of everything and then some,” Sun whispers the words against my lips before he kisses me with a frantic urgency that feels like he’s trying to show me how deeply he means what he says. “I’d give anything to have that.”
“You don’t have to give anything for it; you can just have me. You already do.” I hold his face between my hands, and he’s so stunning as he looks back at me that it makes me a little breathless again. “I don’t think you understand how lucky I feel that of all the people in the world, you chose me somehow. Being with you feels like the universe gave me a gift that I don’t know what I did to deserve.”
Sun giggles, his smile so sweet and fond it’s almost physically painful. “It’s fate. This is our 8,000th lifetime of knowing each other, so we finally get to be together.”
I would have scoffed at anyone else saying it, that inyeon had brought us to each other after near-infinitealmostsin past lives. With him, I actually love the idea, but I’ll still joke about it. “Why 8,000, though? That’s so many reincarnations. Surely we could have gotten it right in fewer than that.”
“It’s romantic!” he protests with a scowl. “Go back to being sweet.”
“I’m always sweet.” I slip my hands down, around to the back of his neck, and pull him in for another kiss—slower, less urgent, because I want to savor him. When he breaks away to rest his forehead against mine, I tell him the truth. “And you are rare and precious. A luxury not just anyone can have.”.
“Guess my stage name was chosen well then,” he murmurs, only a breath away from kissing me again.
I push him away a little, because I want him to pay attention, to really hear me. “No, it’s not about that at all. Everything about you and everything aboutbeing with youfeels indulgent,like I’m not entirely sure I’m allowed to enjoy something so much. But then I have you here, in my bed, in my arms, and you’re all over me and all around me and...” I stop, a realization creeping over me. I run a finger along the ridge of his nose. “You’re my luxury. Mysachi.”
Sun looks back at me, less playful and much more intent. “You mean that?”
“Of course I do. I’ll never lie to you,” I swear. “I’m always going to be honest with you. We can’t have anything, any kind of relationship, if not. And I won’t do that to you.”
“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking in a way that makes me think he’s trying not to let tears fall. He glances at me, then away, suddenly shy, but brings his gaze back to meet mine. “Will you call me that?”
“Sachi?” I ask, and he nods. I grin. “I was already planning on it, sachi.”
In that moment, I think he is luminous, lit up brighter than the afternoon sky on a beautiful, cloudless day. He tries to hide his blush by burying his face in the crook of my neck, but I can still feel his smile against my skin.
A luxury.
?
LUX
“You’re coming with me.”
A shiver had run down my spine at the firm tone of his voice. The determined look on his face, his handsome features made sharper by the conviction in his expression, had me ready to go to my knees.
Of course I was going with him.
Where else would I be?
Even though Kija had originally tried to say that it would be better if I stayed at home, close to Nikko and Jase and the rest of the members as the news about him and Chaeji seemed to consume every Seoul-based news outlet, I was prepared to fight him. I understand he wanted me to feel safe and comforted, but I could not be either of those things without him.
Sneaking away like this had always seemed like some sort of impossible dream with our packed schedule and the constant vigilance of the company, keeping an eye on our every move, even on our breaks. But somehow, suddenly, my schedule was clear, and Grace was assuring me that my absence would go unnoticed. I don’t know what she did or how she did it, but I trust her. She’s been on my side since the beginning.
