Chapter 7: The Morning After Interrogation
The morning light through Taek’s windows was a pale, forgiving grey. Alex woke to the solid warmth of him at her back, his arm a heavy band across her waist, his face buried in the mess of her hair. The scent of him—sleep and sex and him—was ingrained in the sheets, on her skin. She could feel the faint ache between her thighs, a pleasant reminder that echoed the deeper, more vulnerable ache in her chest. This was new. This was real.
She shifted, and his arm tightened automatically, a sleepy, possessive reflex. “Mm. Too early,” he mumbled into her shoulder.
“It’s nine,” she whispered, her voice raspy.
“See? Brutally early.” But he nuzzled closer, his lips finding the sensitive spot just below her ear. A shiver, delicious and familiar, traced her spine.
The buzz of her phone on the nightstand was an insistent, rude intrusion. She groaned, reaching for it, squinting at the screen.
Jess: Status report. Are you walking funny? I need details. The kind you pay for in paperback.
A laugh bubbled out of her. She felt Taek lift his head to peer over her shoulder. He read the message and let out a low chuckle, his breath warm on her neck. “She’s relentless.”
Alex: Alive. Sore. Happy. Details are classified.
Jess: CLASSIFIED? I’M YOUR SECURITY CLEARANCE. Coffee. My place. One hour. Bring the architect or I come to you with a megaphone.
Taek took the phone from her lax fingers. His thumbs moved over the screen. She twisted to look at him. “What are you doing?”
“Answering.” He showed her the screen before he sent it.
Alex: She’ll be there. I have a site meeting at 10. Treat her right, Jess. Or I’ll redesign your wine cellar into a dungeon.
Jess: …I like him even more. One hour. Don’t be late.
An hour later, showered and dressed in her own clothes from across the hall, Alex sat at Jess’s sleek kitchen island, cradling a mug of exorbitantly good French press. Jess leaned on the counter opposite, her eyes bright with forensic curiosity. Taek id preparing breakfast in the kitchen and listening their whispers with one ear.
“Okay, start from the top. The pizza was gone. Then what?”
“I’m serious! The narrative flow is critical. Did he just pounce? Was there a conversation? A declaration? A smoldering look? Give me the beats.”
Alex sipped her coffee, hiding her smile. The memory was a physical warmth in her stomach. “He… looked at me. And he said, ‘You come to me.’ Not just across the hall. That I should come to him. Always.”
Jess leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "And then? Don't you dare leave out the part where he finally got you naked."
Alex felt a flush creep up her neck. She glanced toward Jess’s kitchen where Taek was deliberately clattering a pan, giving them the illusion of privacy she knew he wasn’t actually honoring.His attention was a tangible pressure in the room.
“He didn’t… get me naked,” Alex murmured, her voice low.“Not that time. He just looked at me and said ‘This is mine.’ And then he put his mouth on me.” She took a sharp breath, the memory vivid.“He ate me out like he was starving for it. His tongue was so… specific. He pinned my hips down and just devoured me.”
Jess’s mug hovered midway to her lips, her eyes wide.“Fuck.That’s… graphic. Good graphic.”
From the kitchen, the sizzle of butter in the pan paused. “She’s understating it,” Taek called out, his voice calm and carrying. “I was very specific.” A soft chuckle followed. “I remember the exact sound she made when I first tasted her.”
Alex’s cheeks burned, but a thrill shot through her. He was listening, and he wasn’t shy.It emboldened her. “It was so intense I couldn’t keep quiet. I came so hard I saw stars, and I was still pulsing when he fucked me.” The words felt filthy and powerful leaving her mouth.“He was rough. He just pushed into me, all the way, and it was so deep it almost hurt. He told me to look at him. He said ‘You’re mine’ while he was inside me.”
Jess exhaled slowly.“Jesus. And?”
“And I believed him,” Alex said, the confession simple and profound.“It felt… claiming.Not like ownership, but like… a fact. Like he was naming something true.” She traced a ring of condensation on the island. “He came inside me, Jess. I felt him, hot and… god, it was everything.”
The fridge door closed with a soft thud.Taek leaned against the kitchen doorway, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. His dark eyes were soft, fixed on Alex. “It was,” he agreed quietly, his earlier teasing replaced by a stark sincerity. “It was everything.”
He pushed off the doorway and returned to the stove.The moment held, thick with the shared confession. Jess watched them, her shrewd gaze missing nothing.“Okay,” she said finally, her voice uncharacteristically gentle.“Okay. That’s… that’s good.” She cleared her throat, the moment shifting. “So, is there a repeat performance scheduled, or are you two just going to gaze longingly across his Italian marble?”
Alex laughed, the tension breaking.“We’re going to my place. He has to get to his site meeting.”
“And I’m walking her home,” Taek added, bringing over two perfectly plated omelets. He set one before Jess and the other in front of Alex, his hand brushing the nape of her neck in a casual, possessive gesture that made her shiver. “A gentleman always sees his lady home.”
Jess smirked, picking up her fork. “A gentleman who whispers obscenities into her neck, but sure. I’ll allow it.” She pointed her fork at Taek.“You.Treat her right. Or the dungeon redesign is the least of your worries.”
Taek smiled, that beautiful, genuine smile that had captivated Alex for years. “Jess, the way I treat her is between me and her.” He looked at Alex, his gaze dropping to her lips. “And the entire building if her singing voice is any indicator.”
They finished eating with lighter conversation, the earlier intimacy settling into a comfortable, warm silence between them. Walking back to their building, Taek took her hand, his thumb stroking her palm. The morning city sounds—the rumble of buses, the scatter of pigeons—felt like a curtain drawing around them.
Inside the elevator, he pushed the button for her floor but didn’t let go of her hand. The ascent was silent.When the doors opened on their floor, he followed her to her door. She fumbled with her keys, acutely aware of him behind her, tall and solid.
The key slid home.She turned to face him.“Site meeting,” she whispered.
“I know.” He didn’t move.He cupped her face, his thumb tracing the apple of her cheek. “Tonight.You come to me.My rule.”
She nodded, her breath catching. “Your rule.”
He kissed her then, deep and slow, a promise and a postponement. When he pulled away, his eyes were dark. “I’ll be thinking about you,” he said, his voice rough.“About how you feel.How you taste. All day.”
He turned and walked the seventeen steps to his own door, pausing to look back at her once before disappearing inside. Alex leaned against her doorframe, the phantom sensation of his mouth between her legs as potent as a physical touch.The ache returned, sweet and anticipatory. She let herself in, the empty apartment echoing with the new, profound silence of waiting.
She let herself in, the empty apartment echoing with the new, profound silence of waiting. The familiar clutter of her life—the half-finished succulent wreath on the table, the blanket she’d been knitting, the quiet hum of the refrigerator—felt like artifacts from a distant past. She tried to water her plants, but her fingers remembered the scrape of his stubble against her inner thigh instead of the terracotta pot’s texture. The tap was on. A constant, low thrum of want had settled in her veins, a physical echo of his possession.
At the construction site two miles away, Taek stood in a hard hat, squinting at architectural blueprints flapping in the breeze. The foreman was pointing at a structural beam, his mouth moving around words like “load-bearing” and “permit variance.” Taek heard only the ghost of her gasp, felt the memory of her clenching around his fingers. “Sorry,” he said, blinking back to the dusty present. “Say that again?” His phone, buried in his pocket, felt like a live wire. He didn’t dare check it.
Back in her apartment, Alex gave up on productivity. She lay on her sofa, the same one they’d slept on days before, and pressed her own fingers between her legs, over her jeans. It was a pathetic imitation. She needed his weight, his specific, demanding touch. The crude, perfect way he’d said you’re mine. She groaned, flinging an arm over her eyes. The day stretched before her, a barren desert.
The foreman droned on. Taek nodded, scribbling meaningless notes on his tablet. All he could draft in his mind was the map of her body—the freckle just below her navel, the exact curve of her hip his hand had gripped. He shifted, his jeans becoming uncomfortably tight. He was a thirty-year-old professional, painfully hard in the middle of a job site because he couldn’t stop thinking about how she tasted. It was absurd. It was consuming.
She texted him. Just a period. A digital poke.
He felt the vibration. His heart kicked against his ribs. He excused himself, walking toward the portable site toilets for a semblance of privacy. He leaned against the corrugated metal wall, the smell of chemical lemon and urine assaulting his senses. He typed.
Taek: You’re killing me.
Alex: Good.
Taek: What are you doing?
Alex: Thinking about your mouth.
He swore softly, adjusting himself. A labourer walked by with a coiled hose, giving him a knowing nod. Taek ignored him.
Taek: I’m in a Porta-Potty. Now I’m hard. Thanks.
Alex: 😇 Come home.
Two words. They unraveled him. He stared at the screen, his breath coming short. Home. It wasn’t a place. It was her. The foreman called his name, impatient.
Taek: 5 hours.
Alex: I’ll be here. Waiting.
The afternoon was a form of exquisite torture. Alex showered, the water sluicing over skin he had marked. She dressed in soft, old leggings and one of his t-shirts she’d stolen—a faded band logo that smelled faintly of his detergent. She tried to watch a show. The actors’ voices were just noise. Every quiet moment was filled with the remembered sensation of him moving inside her, the filthy, perfect things he’d growled in her ear. Her own skin felt too tight, too sensitive. She was a live wire waiting for the only possible grounding.
Taek rushed through the meeting, his responses uncharacteristically terse. He approved a change order without fully reading it. He clenched his jaw so often it ached. The drive back to the city was a blur of honking horns and traffic lights that seemed designed to mock him. He parked haphazardly in the garage, his keys jangling in his unsteady hand. The elevator ride to their floor was an eternity.
He didn’t go to his own apartment. He crossed the seventeen steps to her door and knocked. Not a polite tap. A firm, urgent demand.
The door flew open instantly. She’d been waiting right there. She looked disheveled, beautiful, her eyes wide and dark with the same desperate hunger that was clawing at his insides. No words. He stepped in, kicked the door shut behind him with his heel, and pulled her to him.
The kiss was not soft. It was a collision. Teeth, tongue, a raw exchange of breath. He walked her backwards until her knees hit the edge of her sofa and she tumbled down, pulling him with her. He landed on top of her, a groan ripped from his chest. “Fuck, Alex,” he breathed against her mouth, his hands already dragging her shirt up. “I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“Show me,” she panted, arching into him, her hands yanking at his belt. “Please, Taek. Now.”
He didn’t need asking twice. He shoved her leggings and underwear down in one rough motion. He didn’t bother with his shirt, just freed himself from his trousers, the thick length of his cock springing hard against her stomach. He was already leaking. She reached for him, her small hand wrapping around his shaft, squeezing. He saw stars.
“Condom,” he gritted out, fumbling for his wallet.And putting it on.
He nudged her thighs wider with his knee, the broad head of his cock pressing against her slick, hot entrance. She was so ready, so wet for him. “Look at me,” he commanded, echoing his words from the night before. She did. He pushed inside.
The feeling was blinding. Hot, silken tightness, a perfect, slick glove squeezing him. He sank in to the hilt in one long, devastating stroke, burying himself completely. Her cry was loud, sharp, swallowed by his mouth on hers. He held there, buried, trembling with the effort of control. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered, forehead pressed to hers.
“Move,” she begged, her nails digging into his back. “Fuck me. Hard.”
He obeyed. He set a brutal, driving pace from the start. The sofa creaked in protest beneath them. The sound of skin slapping skin, of their ragged, mingled breaths, of her high, desperate whimpers filled her sunlit living room. It was raw, unadorned need. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, each thrust a punctuation to the hours of frustrated wanting.
“You feel… so fucking good,” he grunted, his hips pistoning.
“It’s yours,” she gasped, her head thrown back, her curls a wild halo on the cushion. “Only yours.”
He shifted, hooking her leg over his shoulder, driving deeper. The new angle made her scream, her body bowing off the sofa. He watched her fall apart, her pleasure a mirror to his own frantic need. Her inner muscles fluttered and clenched around him, a rhythmic, milking pull.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his rhythm fracturing. “Come with me. Let me feel it.”
It was all she needed. Her orgasm slammed into her, a violent, rolling wave that tore a guttural sob from her throat. Her tight channel convulsed around his cock, gripping him, pulling his own release from him. With a shattered groan, he plunged deep and held, pumping his hot cum into her in thick, endless pulses.
He collapsed, a dead weight, his face buried in the curve of her neck. They were both slick with sweat, breathing in ragged, syncopated gasps. He was still inside her, still pulsing weakly. The reality of it—the feel of him, bare, spilling inside her—was more intimate than anything they’d done before. A fundamental claiming.
Slowly, he softened and slipped from her body. A hot trickle followed. He didn’t move away. He traced the shell of her ear with his lips. “I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing,” he admitted, his voice wrecked. “All I saw was you. Under me. Coming apart.”
She turned her head, her lips finding his in a soft, spent kiss. “The tap,” she murmured. “You opened it. I don’t think it closes.”
He understood perfectly. He smoothed her damp hair back from her forehead. “Good,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “I don’t want it to.” His hand drifted down, his fingers stroking through the wetness on her inner thigh, his touch now languid, possessive. “I’m just getting started.”