Chapter 18: Breeding in the Steam
The trickle on her thigh had cooled. Hyukjae shivered, the sweat on her back turning clammy against Donghae’s kitchen counter. The high-pitched ring in her ears began to fade, replaced by the steady drip… drip… drip from the faucet into the chipped mug. She was sore in a deep, satisfying way, a testament to the frantic connection they’d just carved out of their fear.
Donghae was still pressed against her, his forehead on her shoulder, his breathing slowly smoothing out from ragged gasps. His hands, which had been vise-like on her hips, now stroked her sides with a gentleness that felt like an apology.
“We’re insane,” he mumbled into her skin.
“Yeah.” Hyukjae ran her fingers through his damp hair. “Certifiable.”
He lifted his head, his eyes searching hers. “Are you scared?”
“Terrified.” The admission was easier now, after the brutal clarity of their joining. “Aren’t you?”
“Every second.” He leaned in and kissed her, softly this time. A seal on their pact. “But mostly of losing you. The rest… we’ll figure it out.”
A pragmatic thought surfaced through the post-coital haze. “We stink,” Hyukjae said, wrinkling her nose. “And I’m sticky. Really, really sticky.”
A faint smile touched Donghae’s lips. “Shower?”
The bathroom was small, all cracked white tile and a single frosted window high on the wall. Donghae turned the taps, and steam began to billow, fogging the mirror and wrapping around them like a second skin. The silk robe Hyukjae had worn earlier lay discarded on the toilet lid. She stepped under the spray first, hissing as the hot water hit her oversensitive skin.
Donghae followed, sliding the fogged glass door closed behind them. The space was cramped, their bodies almost filling it. Water sluiced over her shoulders, down the new, heavy curves of her breasts, over the faint, firm swell of her belly. He watched her, his gaze a physical weight.
He took the bar of soap and began to wash her back, his hands moving in slow, circular motions over her shoulder blades, down the dip of her spine. It was tender, almost clinical. But his touch ignited every nerve ending he’d overwhelmed minutes before. She leaned back into him, feeling the rigid length of him press against her lower back. He was already hard again.
His hands slid around to her front, soaping her belly with a reverence that made her throat tight. His fingertips traced the invisible line where their child grew. Then his hands rose, cupping her full breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples. They peaked instantly, and a thin, white stream mixed with the water, swirling down the drain.
“Still dripping,” he murmured, his voice low and rough in her ear.
“You made it happen,” she breathed back, arching into his touch.
His gentleness vanished. It was like flipping a switch. One moment he was washing her; the next, he spun her around to face the slick, cool tiles. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. He didn’t give her time to recover.
His arm banded around her waist, pulling her back against him, lifting her slightly onto her toes. With his other hand, he guided himself, positioning the thick head of his cock at her entrance. He was still wet from before, and she was slick with soap and her own desire.
He pushed in. Not with a slow, testing thrust, but with one powerful, shearing drive that buried him to the root. The sound she made was part scream, part sob, swallowed by the thrum of the water. It was too much, too deep, an aggressive reclaiming of a space he’d only just vacated.
“Fuck,” he grunted, his teeth grazing her shoulder.
He started to move, setting a punishing rhythm right from the start. Each withdrawal was almost complete, each return a brutal, full-body slam. The tiles were cold against her cheek, her breasts flattened against them with every thrust. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, then slid around to splay possessively over her lower belly, pressing down as he fucked into her, as if to imprint himself on the life growing inside.
The noise was obscene: the wet slap of skin on skin, the choked gasps, the low, animalistic groans torn from his throat, all underscored by the drumming spray of the shower. Hyukjae’s world narrowed to the relentless piston of his hips, the shocking friction, the burning stretch. Pleasure coiled, tight and vicious, deep in her gut.
“You feel that?” he panted, his breath hot on her neck. His thrusts became shorter, harder, focused on a spot that made her see stars. “You feel how deep I am? That’s me. Right there. With our kid.”
His filthy, possessive words were the final trigger. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and convulsive. Her muscles clamped around him in rhythmic spasms, milking his length. She screamed, a raw, ragged sound lost in the steam.
“Come in me,” she begged, her voice shattered. “Do it, Hae. Fill me up again.”
With a roar that was more pain than pleasure, he obeyed. He drove in one last, devastating time and held, his body locking against hers as he pulsed, shooting hot jets deep into her pulsing core. She felt every throb, a searing claim that echoed the tiny heartbeat they’d seen just hours before.
They stayed like that for a long time, welded together by sweat and water and spent passion, both shaking with the aftershocks. Finally, his grip loosened, and he carefully pulled out. She sagged against the tiles, utterly spent.
He turned her gently, his anger and fear seemingly washed away with the sweat. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her swollen lips. The water was beginning to run cool.
Once they were dry, wrapped in towels, a new kind of quiet settled between them. Donghae led her to his bed. The single desk lamp cast the room in deep shadows. He lay on his back, and she curled into his side, her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. His hand came to rest on her belly again, just resting there.
Then he felt it.
A flutter. A soft, undeniable pop against his palm, like a tiny fish turning over in a warm pond.
His entire body went rigid. Hyukjae held her breath.
He felt it again. A distinct, gentle kick.
Donghae’s breath hitched. In the dim light, she saw a single tear track from the corner of his eye into his hairline. He didn’t speak. He just pressed his palm more firmly against her skin, waiting. Another subtle nudge answered him.
A wide, wondrous, and utterly broken smile spread across his face. He looked at her, his eyes shining.
“Hi,” he whispered to her stomach, his voice thick with emotion. Then he looked up at Hyukjae, his expression a mix of awe and terror. “He knows my voice.”
Hyukjae placed her hand over his. The reality of it, of them, settled into her bones, heavier and more permanent than any orgasm. This was their life now. A secret life, built on a madman’s experiment and sealed with sweat and come and a flickering heartbeat. They were in it. All the way.
Outside, the city hummed, oblivious. Inside, they clung to each other in the quiet dark, two scared kids tracing the future as it kicked against their intertwined hands.