Page 84 of A World Apart
The look he gave me as he held his fingers to his lip froze the giggle that had been bubbling up my throat. The dangerous way he looked up at me from under his eyelashes had me backing away, pulse pounding in my throat.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he growled as he followed my retreat, backing me up against the edge of the pool, caging me in with an arm on either side of me. He leaned in close, his mouth skimming my ear as he whispered something I didn’t understand, before running his tongue up the length of my neck.
I gasped in shock, arching my back, pushing my breasts into his hard chest.
He groaned against my skin, peppering little kisses in the wake of his tongue.
His arm fell from the wall and ran down my side before settling onto my hip, pulling me against him so hard I could feel the evidence of his arousal pressing into my belly.
I went loose and taut at the same time, a sigh slipping from between my parted lips, so lost in delirium that I barely noticed when his lips fastened around the sensitive skin of my neck, his tongue lapping softly until he sucked harder, the sharp nip making me squirm. His fingers dug in tighter before his mouth released my neck. He met my eyes with an expression I could only describe as smug, while all I could do was pant.
In direct contradiction to the dangerous mood he’d just set, Jihoon leaned in and placed a sweet kiss to the tip of my nose and rubbed my hip gently.
I lifted a hand to where my neck tingled.
“Did you just give me a hickey?” I accused.
He smirked, that taunting tilt of his lips that did dangerous things to me.
“You bit me.”
I bluescreened for a hot second, torn between disbelief and wanting to laugh.
Laughing won out in the end, a peal of giggles I could no more contain than the cloud can hold in its rain.
We splashed and floated around in the pool until the sun began to set in earnest, the sky streaking with shades of pink and orange before the solar lights strung around the garden winked on in unison, casting a golden glow over the pool.
“Wah,” Jihoon sighed, “so pretty.”
“Why, thank you,” I quipped, flicking water at him.
“Not you,” he scoffed, “the sky is pretty.”
Just as my pride was taking a tumble down a steep hill, he added, “You’re beautiful.” He met my eyes with that searing look of his that made me melt and squirm all at once.
I drifted over to the ladder and put my hand on the rung, about to climb up when I felt Jihoon press up against my back, the heat of him like a warm blanket.
“Let me help,” he murmured against my ear, sending shivers dancing up and down my spine like a line of lit fireworks.
I took my hand off the ladder and twisted around to face him. The smile he gave me… I could stare at it all day and consider it a day well spent.
Gently, he pushed my back up against the wall, instantly bringing to mind the events of only a couple hours ago. The way we’d played chase and shark since then had not erased the desire I felt for this man in front of me.
When he put his hands firmly around my waist, I saw from the way he moistened his lips and the dark look in his eyes that he was remembering it too.
But all he did was lift me, effortlessly it seemed, out of the water to sit me on the edge of the pool. I scooted back until my butt was on the grass, and not a second too soon, because Jihoon pushed himself out immediately after, and… good God, if I’d thought seeing him in the pool was something − seeing the way he pushed himself out of it, water dripping down his arms, muscles so clearly defined in the fading light of the day, that was a whole different kind of something.
I bit my lip as I shamelessly watched. He put one knee on the edge, and then the other, his arms casually caging me in as he all-but-crawled over me. I leant back further on my elbows as I helplessly watched him crawl up me until his face hovered above my own. There’s no way he wasn’t acutely aware of the effect he had on me, the way he smiled down at me; he knew.
“Are you hungry?” His words implied a completely different question to the one his tone asked.
“Starving,” I whimpered, and honestly it was a valid answer to both questions.
He grinned and leaned back on his heels before rising to his feet. I will never get used to how graceful he is. If I tried doing that, I would fall ass-backwards into the pool.
Jihoon reached down both hands for me and I reached up immediately, his large hands gripping mine firmly as he pulled me to my feet.
“Come on, let’s get changed and order something to eat.”
