Chapter 9: Breaking in the New Home
The crash of the waves was a distant, rhythmic throb beneath the ragged symphony of their breathing. Hyukjae’s hips stilled, buried deep, his forehead damp against the knobs of Donghae’s spine. The salt air cooled the sweat on their tangled bodies.
“Fuck,” Hyukjae breathed, the word dissolving into a laugh, half-stunned, half-reverent. His hands, which had been gripping Donghae’s hips with possessive force, softened, sliding around to cradle his stomach, pulling him upright against his chest. “You okay?”
Donghae could only nod, his voice stolen, his limbs liquid. He leaned back into the solid warmth of Hyukjae’s body, feeling the frantic beat of his heart through his own back. Hyukjae’s release was still warm inside him, a visceral claim that made his knees weaken anew. Hyukjae nuzzled into the sweaty junction of his neck, lips finding the purpling bite mark he’d left earlier.
“My fucking fiancé,” Hyukjae murmured, the title a rough, worshipful curse against his skin. He turned Donghae in his arms, facing him. The lantern light caught the glint of the platinum band on Donghae’s finger, the twin to the one on Hyukjae’s own. It had been there less than forty-eight hours, and the sight of it still sent a jolt through them both.
Donghae traced the line of Hyukjae’s jaw, his thumb brushing over those full, bitten-red lips he adored. “Yours,” he whispered, the agreement forever sealed now, in law and in soul.
They stood there for long minutes, wrapped together, listening to the sea and the crickets beginning their night song. The fervor of minutes ago settled into a heavy, satiated calm. Hyukjae fetched a blanket from a woven chest, and they sank onto the wide wicker lounge, Donghae tucked into the curve of Hyukjae’s arm, the wool scratchy and familiar against his bare legs.
“I never want to leave this island,” Hyukjae said, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “I’d buy this house just for this patio. For this.”
Donghae smiled, curling his fingers into the dark hair on Hyukjae’s chest. “You’d get bored in a week. You’d start video-calling the board from the bathroom.”
“Shut up, I’m being romantic,” Hyukjae grumbled, pinching his side, but his chest shook with silent laughter. “I mean it, though. This… this peace. With you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Even more than I knew.”
The words settled between them, truer and more profound than any peak of pleasure. Donghae watched the last sliver of sun melt into the indigo sea, the engagement ring heavy and perfect on his finger. A thought, which had been a quiet seed since Hyukjae had opened that velvet box, now unfurled, urgent and full.
“Hyukjae.”
“Hmm?”
Donghae shifted, pulling back to look at him. The lantern light carved shadows under Hyukjae’s cheekbones, made his eyes deep pools of warm brown. “That… forever you promised. I want to… I want to do something for it.”
Hyukjae’s brow furrowed playfully. “Babe, you’ve done everything for it. You’ve waited for me through a hundred shitty business trips. You put up with my snoring. You love me. That’s the whole job.”
“No, I mean… something new.” Donghae took a breath, his heart hammering against his ribs. It sounded insane now that he was about to say it aloud. “From now until the wedding day… I want us to stop.”
Hyukjae blinked. “Stop what? Talking? Because that’s a non-starter, I have approximately ten thousand jokes saved up.”
“Having sex.”
The words dropped into the soft night air like stones. The easy smile vanished from Hyukjae’s face. He was utterly still. “What?”
“I want to wait,” Donghae rushed on, his hand finding Hyukjae’s, their rings clinking softly. “I want to… to make it mean something even more. The next time we’re together like that, I want it to be after we’ve said our vows. I want the craving to build, for both of us. I want to miss you like that, even when you’re right next to me. And I want our wedding night to be… a rediscovery. A celebration of the choice, not just the need.”
He searched Hyukjae’s face, seeing the confusion, the flicker of something like hurt. “It’s not a rejection,” Donghae whispered, urgent. “God, you feel what you do to me. You know. This is the opposite. This is wanting it to be so sacred it burns.”
Hyukjae was silent for a long time. He looked out at the darkening sea, his jaw working. Finally, he spoke, his voice carefully neutral. “Celibacy. For… what, three months?”
“Sixty-seven days,” Donghae corrected softly. “I counted.”
A short, astonished laugh escaped Hyukjae. “Of course you did.” He ran a hand through his hair, tension in the lines of his shoulders. “Donghae… Christ. You’re asking me to keep my hands off you? After today? After that?” He gestured vaguely toward the railing, the ghost of their passion still hanging in the air between them. “I’ve spent a decade wanting you. The idea of a schedule, of a fucking business trip, keeping me from you has been my personal hell. And now you want us to put a self-imposed lock on it? Voluntarily?”
“Yes,” Donghae said, his voice firm now. He knelt up on the lounge, facing him, taking Hyukjae’s face in his hands. “Because it’s not a lock. It’s an altar. We’re building something, Hyukjae. We just built the foundation with that ring. Let’s build the walls with this. Let’s make every touch until that day mean something else—a kiss that’s a promise, a hug that’s a covenant. Let the hunger just… simmer. Let it make us crazy. And then on our wedding night, we let it detonate.”
Hyukjae stared at him, his eyes wide, navigating the idea. Donghae could see the war in him—the instant, visceral protest of his body, which spoke the language of possession and release as fluently as breathing, and the deeper, soul-level understanding that was dawning, slow and bright.
“You’re serious,” Hyukjae finally said, not a question.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything that didn’t involve saying yes to you.”
Hyukjae blew out a long, shaky breath. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Donghae’s. Their noses brushed. “Sixty-seven days.”
“Sixty-seven days.”
“No sex.”
“No sex.”
“What’s your definition of sex, exactly?” Hyukjae asked, a hint of his old mischief returning. “Because if I can’t even go down on you, I might actually die. That’s not hyperbole. I’ll just cease to function.”
Donghae laughed, the sound watery with relief. “Nothing that ends with… completion. For either of us. Everything else… is negotiation.”
Hyukjae groaned, a low, pained sound from the pit of his stomach. “You’re a cruel, beautiful man, Lee Donghae. This is your act of service? Torturing your future husband?”
“It’s an act of devotion,” Donghae corrected, kissing him softly, chastely, on the lips—a kiss that already felt different, charged with new meaning and fresh limitation. “A shared sacrifice. For something even better.”
Hyukjae pulled him close, a hard, desperate hug that spoke of agreement and anguish all at once. “Okay,” he whispered into Donghae’s hair, the word raw. “Okay. For you. For us. Sixty-seven days of fucking hell. But, babe?”
“Yeah?”
“On day sixty-eight?” Hyukjae’s voice dropped, a dark, possessive vow that vibrated through Donghae’s entire body. “I’m not letting you out of our bed for a week. I’m going to relearn every single inch of you, slow and then so fucking fast. I’m going to make you come so many times you forget your own name. I’m going to fuck you until the only word you remember is mine.”
A violent shiver of anticipation racked Donghae. He buried his face in Hyukjae’s neck, inhaling the scent of sea, sex, and home. “I’m counting on it.”
They held each other as the stars pricked the vast Jeju sky, the boundary between their bodies clearly drawn yet more intimate than ever. A new tension thrummed between them now, sweet and severe—a countdown had begun, not to an ending, but to a consecration.
That new tension hummed in the silence, a live wire strung between their shared breath. Hyukjae finally stirred, his exhale shaky. “Sixty-seven days,” he repeated, the number a concrete weight in the warm air. “I’m gonna be a fucking nightmare.”
Donghae laughed, the sound soft and full. “You’re already a nightmare.”
“A worse one,” Hyukjae clarified, sitting up and scrubbing a hand over his face. The blanket pooled around his waist. “I’m going to be whiny. Like, pathetic. You’ll find me curled on the bathroom floor, weeping.”
“Dramatic.”
“Realistic.” Hyukjae turned, his eyes gleaming in the low light. He leaned in, slow and deliberate, and pressed a kiss to Donghae’s temple. His lips lingered, soft against the skin there. Then he kissed the bridge of Donghae’s nose, a feather-light touch. “See?” he murmured, his voice rough. “Already breaking me.”
The sweetness of the gesture, so stark against the raw need of minutes before, made Donghae’s chest ache. Hyukjae took Donghae’s hand, turned the palm upward, and pressed his mouth to the very center. The kiss was warm, damp, unbearably intimate. “Resist,” Hyukjae whispered against his skin, a command for himself, a plea.
Donghae’s fingers curled instinctively, wanting to capture that kiss, to hold it. “We should go inside.”
“In a minute.”
Hyukjae didn’t let go of his hand. He just held it, their joined fingers resting on his own bare thigh, both of them watching the moon lay a silver road across the black water. The craving settled, not diminishing, but changing shape. It became a shared, palpable thing on the deck between them—a second presence.
The following weeks were a study in exquisite torment. Wedding preparations became their anchor, a flurry of decisions to drown out the constant, low-grade buzz of want. They chose a small, secluded beach on the island’s southern coast, a curve of white sand sheltered by volcanic rock. Their arguments were banal, mercifully so: the font on the invitations, the merits of vanilla cake versus citron.
Every touch was now electrically charged. A hand brushing a shoulder while reviewing caterer menus. A hip bumping another at the sink. Hyukjae’s whining became a running soundtrack, a joke that was only half a joke.
“I’m not going to make it,” he’d groan, collapsing face-first onto the sofa after a call with the florist. “Found me dead. Cause of death: blue balls and peony selection.”
Donghae would smile, shoving at his shoulder. “Get up. We need to finalize the seating chart.”
“I can’t. My soul is leaving my body. It’s crawling out of my dick.” He’d roll over, eyes wide with fake desperation. “Just a handjob, Hae. A clinical, loveless handjob. For medical purposes.”
“No.”
“You’re a tyrant. A beautiful, cruel tyrant.”
He was endlessly, physically affectionate. He’d come up behind Donghae while he was chopping vegetables, wrapping his arms around his waist and nuzzling his neck. He’d kiss his shoulder blade through his t-shirt, inhale deeply at his nape. “Just stealing a hit,” he’d mumble. “Like a fucking addict.”
One afternoon, they were folding laundry, the sun hot through the windows. Hyukjae held up one of Donghae’s thin workout shirts. He brought it to his face, buried his nose in the cotton. “Smells like you,” he said, his voice gone thick. He looked over, his gaze dark and direct. “Makes me hard. This is your fault.”
Donghae felt the corresponding heat pool in his own belly. He took the shirt from Hyukjae’s hands, folded it with deliberate slowness. “You’re the one smelling the laundry.”
“Because you’re denying me the source!” Hyukjae laughed, but it was strained. He stepped closer, crowding Donghae against the laundry table. He caged him in, hands flat on the surface on either side of Donghae’s hips. He didn’t touch, but his proximity was a brand. “I think about that last time. On the deck. The way you felt around me. How fucking tight you were, squeezing my cock. The sounds you made.”
“Hyukjae,” Donghae warned, his own resolve thinning to a fragile membrane.
“I wake up thinking about it. I go to bed thinking about it.” Hyukjae lowered his head, his lips hovering a breath from Donghae’s. “I think about bending you over this table right now. Pushing these clothes onto the floor. Tearing these shorts off you and spreading you open. I’d taste you first, make you shake. Then I’d fuck you so deep you’d feel it in your throat.”
Donghae’s breath hitched, a sharp, needy sound. His head fell back. “We agreed.”
“I know what we agreed.” Hyukjae’s control was a visible, trembling thing. He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against Donghae’s. His knuckles were white where he gripped the table. “Resist,” he breathed, the word a ragged mantra. He pushed himself back, leaving cold air between them. He turned and walked out of the room, his steps heavy.
Donghae stayed against the table, his heart pounding against his ribs. He was painfully hard. He looked down at the neat stack of shirts, his world narrowed to the raw, aching throb between his legs and the ghost of Hyukjae’s heat against him. The game was far more brutal than he’d imagined. It was a constant, delicious unraveling.
The wedding day dawned clear and brutal in its perfection. Donghae stood at the window of the beach house’s bedroom, watching the early light gild the sand. Sixty-seven days. They had done it. A rustle behind him, and then Hyukjae’s arms were around him, chin hooking over his shoulder. He wore only his suit pants, his chest bare and warm against Donghae’s back.
“No jokes today,” Hyukjae said softly into his ear. His voice was clear, stripped of its usual theatrical whine. “Just this.”
He turned Donghae gently. His eyes were serious, full of a quiet intensity Donghae had never seen before. Hyukjae took Donghae’s face in his hands, his thumbs sweeping over his cheekbones. He kissed his forehead, a firm, deliberate press. He kissed each closed eyelid. He kissed the tip of his nose.
Then he took Donghae’s left hand, the one with the engagement ring. He turned the palm up, as he had on that first night of the pact. He didn’t kiss it this time. He just looked at it, tracing the lines with his gaze. “After today,” he said, his voice low, “I will never have to resist again.” He brought the palm to his own cheek, holding it there. “My husband.” The word, spoken aloud for the first time, hung in the sunlit air between them, solid and real.
Donghae leaned forward, capturing Hyukjae’s mouth in a kiss that was not chaste, not pure, but full of the accumulated, banked fire of two months. It was a promise of what was to come, a seal on the wait. Hyukjae groaned into it, his hands sliding down to grip Donghae’s hips, pulling him flush. Donghae could feel Hyukjae’s erection, hard and urgent against his own through the layers of fabric. The kiss deepened, turning desperate, wet, and hungry.
Hyukjae broke it, panting, his forehead against Donghae’s. “Later,” he vowed, the word dark and ragged. “I swear to god, later.” He stepped back, putting necessary, torturous space between them. “Get dressed. Before I say fuck the ceremony and take you right here on this floor.”
They dressed in silence, the room thick with unsaid words and unspent energy. The simple acts—buttoning a shirt, tying a tie—were agonizingly slow. Every glance was a spark. The fine wool of Hyukjae’s suit, the crisp linen of Donghae’s, felt like prisons. They were groomed, perfect, and throbbing with a need that had been simmering for months, now at a violent boil.
They walked down to the beach separately, as planned. The small gathering of friends was a blur. Donghae saw only Hyukjae, standing barefoot in the sand before the officiant, the ocean wind tugging at his dark hair. He looked carved and tense, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his jacket. His eyes locked onto Donghae’s, and in them was a single, blazing message.
The vows were spoken, voices barely steady. Rings were exchanged, cool metal sliding over knuckles to settle beside the engagement bands. It was formal, beautiful, and utterly insufficient.
The officiant pronounced them. “You may kiss.”
It was not a kiss. It was a claiming. Hyukjae’s hands framed Donghae’s face, his grip almost too tight. His mouth crashed down, open and consuming. Donghae met him with equal ferocity, his fingers tangling in Hyukjae’s hair, pulling him closer. Tongue, teeth, the faint taste of salt and each other—it was a raw, public prelude. Their guests cheered, but the sound was distant, muffled by the roar of blood in Donghae’s ears.
The reception was a necessary obstruction. They smiled, they cut the cake, they thanked everyone through gritted teeth. Hyukjae’s hand never left the small of Donghae’s back. His touch burned through the layers of fabric. Every time he leaned in to whisper “Soon,” his breath hot on Donghae’s ear, a fresh wave of heat coursed through him.
They escaped as the sun dipped toward the horizon, trailing cheers and knowing laughter. They didn’t run, but their walk up the path to their rented villa was swift, silent, urgent.
Hyukjae shut the heavy wooden door behind them and turned the lock. The click echoed in the tiled foyer. He turned, his back against the door, and looked at Donghae.
The playful desperation, the whining, the jokes—all of it was gone. What remained was pure, stark hunger. His gaze traveled down Donghae’s body and back up, a physical strip.
“Come here,” he said. His voice was quiet. It was not a request.
Donghae crossed the space between them. He stopped an inch away, their bodies not touching. The air crackled.
Hyukjae’s hand lifted, his fingers slipping into the hair at Donghae’s nape. He fisted it, not gently, and tilted his head back. “Say it.”
“Hyukjae.”
“Say my name like you mean it.”
“Hyukjae,” Donghae breathed, the name a surrender and a demand.
That was all it took. Hyukjae’s mouth crashed onto his again, a kiss that was all tongue and teeth and bottled-up fury. He walked them backward, clumsily, until Donghae’s shoulders hit the wall. The impact jarred a gasp from his lips, which Hyukjae swallowed. Hands were everywhere—clawing at jacket buttons, yanking at belt buckles. Fabric ripped. A button pinged across the tile.
Hyukjae shoved Donghae’s suit jacket down his arms, trapping them for a moment. He used the advantage to kiss down his throat, biting at the pulse point, sucking a mark that would bloom purple by morning. “Mine,” he growled against the skin. “My husband.”
He freed Donghae’s arms only to tear his own shirt open, buttons scattering. Their bare chests slammed together, skin on skin for the first time in months. The sensation was a shock, a glorious, painful relief. Donghae groaned, arching into him, his hands scrambling over the hard planes of Hyukjae’s back, nails digging in.
Hyukjae spun him around, pressing his chest into the wall. He kicked Donghae’s feet apart with his own. His hands went to Donghae’s trousers, wrenching the belt open, shoving them and his underwear down in one rough pull. The air was cool on Donghae’s exposed skin. He heard the rustle of Hyukjae doing the same, then the sound of a cap being flicked open.
A slick finger, cold with lube, pressed against him. Donghae braced his forearms against the wall, dropping his head between them. “Please.”
Hyukjae worked the finger in, not slowly. It burned, a sharp, bright stretch after so long. A second finger joined it, scissoring, opening him up with a ruthless efficiency. “You’re so fucking tight,” Hyukjae rasped, his other hand gripping Donghae’s hip hard enough to bruise. “Tighter than I remember. Christ.”
A third finger, and Donghae cried out, pushing back against the invasion. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t meant to be. It was reclamation. Hyukjae curled his fingers, searching, and found the spot that made Donghae’s legs buckle. He rubbed over it once, twice, a cruel preview, before pulling his fingers out completely.
The emptiness was worse than the stretch. Donghae heard the slick sound of Hyukjae stroking himself, coating his cock. The broad, hot head pressed against him. Hyukjae’s body blanketed his back, his mouth at Donghae’s ear. “This is what you made us wait for,” he panted, his voice raw with strain. “You feel that? That’s all yours.”
He didn’t push in slowly. He drove forward, a single, brutal thrust that buried him to the hilt.
The sound Donghae made was torn, ragged, a shouted mix of pain and profound relief. The fullness was shocking, devastating. He was stretched wider than ever before, every nerve ending screaming. Hyukjae held there, buried deep, his body shaking with the effort of staying still. “Fuck,” he choked out. “Oh, fuck, Donghae.”
He withdrew almost entirely, until just the tip remained, and then slammed back in. The force drove Donghae harder into the wall. A picture frame rattled. And then Hyukjae set a pace that was pure, unadulterated punishment. Each thrust was a piston, deep and hard, snapping his hips forward with a force that stole the air from Donghae’s lungs.
There was no finesse, no gentle buildup. It was fucking, raw and desperate, two months of deprivation exploding into violent, rhythmic collision. Hyukjae’s hand snaked around Donghae’s hip, his fingers wrapping around Donghae’s aching cock. He jerked him in time with his thrusts, his grip tight, almost too dry and rough.
The dual sensations were overwhelming—the deep, internal pounding and the rough friction on his cock. Donghae’s moans were constant now, punched out of him with every drive forward. “Hyukjae… God… please…”
“You feel me?” Hyukjae grunted, his breath hot and ragged on Donghae’s neck. His thrusts were becoming erratic, losing their punishing rhythm. “You feel how deep I am? This is where I belong. Right here, in your guts. My cock in my husband’s ass.” The filthy words, grunted against his skin, pushed Donghae closer to the edge.
“Come for me,” Hyukjae demanded, his voice cracking. He twisted his hand on Donghae’s cock, his thumb swiping over the leaking slit. “Come all over this wall. Do it.”
The command, the sheer possessiveness in his tone, shattered Donghae’s last shred of control. A wave of pleasure, white-hot and blinding, ripped through him. He came