Page 54 of When Worlds Collide
I blinked. “But won’t they see us?” My mind raced back through all the times we’d entered and left the building. I hadn’t seen anyone hanging around, but I also hadn’t known to look for them.
“We use the basement entrance, and we’ll be careful.”
This didn’t seem like a good enough solution to me, but then this wasn’t my life. I’d never had to get used to being watched at any given moment. Never had to figure out how to slip in and out of my own home.
But they had, and I supposed that with enough practice, you got good at it.
I lay sprawled across Jihoon’s chest, my leg thrown over his as we both caught our breath, his moans still echoing in my mind in the silence of the dark room. This apartment didn’t have the floor-to-ceiling windows I’d gotten used to at the hotel, but the ambient light that did come in through the window stretched across the floor, reaching for the bed where we lay.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and my arms curled tighter around his ribs. Perfect bliss. That’s what this was.
“Did I put that smile on your face?” His voice rumbled through his chest from where my head lay upon it.
“More than once.” I tilted up to see him looking down at me, a grin that surely matched my own pulled lazily at his lips.
He shrugged. “You make me happy. It seemed only fair I made you more happy.”
I laughed, pressing a kiss to the bare skin of his hard chest.
For a while, after the endorphins had settled, a sleepy haze had just begun to settle over me, when he said, “I hope you aren’t mad that Sungmin and Seokmin interrupted our evening.”
I took a breath before answering. “No. I was worried about meeting them. Y’know, before.” I bit my lip.
I felt his head turn slightly, but I didn’t look up.
“Why?” He sounded so curious, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I wanted to make a good impression. I… I wanted them to like me.”
He snorted softly. “You should not worry about that.”
“But I did,” I insisted, “because they’re important to you. If they don’t like me…” I couldn’t finish the sentence, but I didn’t need to, because Jihoon had figured out what was worrying me.
“You think if they didn’t like you, I would stop liking you?” He moved a finger up my arm to hook under my chin, tilting my face up to meet his intense gaze. I squirmed under his scrutiny.
“Maybe not, but it would undoubtedly make things harder,” I admitted.
Instead of dismissing my concerns outright, his eyebrows furrowed as he considered.
“I would make them like you,” he declared eventually, and I batted at his chest.
“Caveman.” I rolled my eyes. He caught my hand before I could bat him again, raising it to his lips to press a soft kiss to my fingers.
“They will like you,” he insisted, serious now, “because you are you. They will accept you, because you are mine.”
My breath caught on an inhale, and I smiled up at him through lips that quavered – ever so slightly.
“Does that make you mine?” I asked quietly.
“Always,” he said so firmly it would be impossible to believe otherwise. But it also made me remember earlier, before the others came round.
“Joon?” I said quietly, as if my quiet voice would soften my question.
“Hmm?” He sounded sleepy.
I shouldn’t ask. I needed to. I didn’t want to.
I inhaled.
