Page 48 of A World Apart (Between Worlds #1)

“Let’s get rid of this, shall we?” I tugged at the hem of his t-shirt, and he obliged me by rising up and swiftly pulling it off and over his head before lying back down, a reminder to me that he only lay prone because he wanted to.

Looking down at that teasing smile, I wanted to turn the tables a little bit.

I leant down and kissed his ridged abdomen, moving my mouth slowly, feeling the way his skin jumped under my caresses.

I looked up at him through half-lowered lids, my mouth slightly open as I moved my body against his, arching my back as I pushed against him with my hands on his chest, rubbing against him like a cat.

Jihoon hissed a breath out between clenched teeth and now it was my turn to smirk at him.

“Ah cheon-sa,” he rumbled, you’re playing with me.” I just hummed in response, pressing down on him with my hips, having to widen my stance to do so. He twitched beneath me.

Just as he had, I inched my way down his body, leaving a trail of kisses, until I was kneeling between his legs.

I reached for the zipper on his shorts and, swallowing my fleeting trepidation, I pulled it down.

I couldn’t stifle my gasp when I saw that beneath the shorts, he wasn’t wearing another layer.

“Jihoon!” I said in mock admonishment. He just shrugged and put one arm behind his head, the ultimate picture of masculine satisfaction.

Conjuring up my determination, I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his shorts and pulled them downwards, freeing him.

Trying not to let my burgeoning nervousness get the best of me, I focused on the task of pulling off the shorts.

Jihoon arched his hips, helping me so that I was able to work them off his legs and drop them to the floor.

But before I could do so much as move my hand, Jihoon had sat up and was holding my wrists in his hand.

“Hey,” he said softly, forcing me to meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do anything else.”

“But-”

“I told you yesterday, this isn’t an exchange. I know you’ve not done anything like this before. You don’t have to be nervous with me.”

“I’m not,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I want to touch you, not just because of what you did. Because I want to, and I want to do it with you.”

He held my gaze for long enough that I could see the conflict in his eyes, the warring emotions of trying to do what he thought was right, versus whatever his body was telling him. I wanted to ease that inner conflict.

“So, Baek Jihoon,” I raised my eyebrow at him as he smiled at the use of his full name.

“You’re going to lie back and enjoy yourself. Understood?” I pushed against his broad chest until I felt his muscles relaxing and he allowed himself to be pushed back down.

“Yes ma’am.”

It was true. While I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t muck this up, or look foolish, I wanted to experience things with Jihoon that would be ours and ours alone.

If all we could ever have was secret rendezvouses in between packed schedules, I didn’t want there to be anything off limits.

I didn’t want my own trepidation to be the line I wouldn’ t cross.

I took him into my hand and saw how he startled at the contact. His skin was warmer than I expected, softer, which was a surprise to me. I expected to feel awkward, but seeing the look of vulnerable need on his face made me bold instead.

I dipped down and put my mouth on him.

He jerked and bit out a rasped, “Fuck!”, and I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. Not easy to do, considering.

It didn’t pass me by that there didn’t really seem to be a way to do this badly, so I just followed his lead and tried to observe what he liked, but he seemed to like it all, judging by the way he had balled his fist in the sheet.

I ran my tongue over him from tip to base, and he almost jumped off the bed, so I did it again.

He was too large to hold in my mouth completely, so I compromised by gripping the base of him with my hand.

“Jagiya, fuck, I won’t-” he panted as though in pain, before groaning something in Korean.

I took that as a good sign and kept doing it. He then reached a hand down and cupped my jaw, making me pause to look up him. His eyes rolled back in his skull a moment before meeting my gaze.

“Ky,” he panted, “I ? you’re going to make me...” He couldn’t seem to finish the word, but I knew what he meant and what he was saying. It took me less than a second to make up my mind, and without breaking eye contact, I carried on, with perhaps a little more pressure than before.

Jihoon groaned, an incoherent string of sounds just before he jerked one more time, and then lay still, gasping.

I rose onto my knees and delicately wiped my mouth, my turn now to look so smug, I could feel the way my face looked in that moment, the self-satisfaction practically glowing from every pore.

I got it now, why he had looked at me that way before.

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at me. I waggled my eye brows at him.

“Good?”

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, he was sitting up and had grabbed my face in his hands. He crashed his lips against mine, so much feeling poured into that one simple action that it seemed to pull me into him, though I did not move.

Wordlessly, we pulled apart, just looking into each other’s eyes and I smiled shyly. The silence seemed to stretch between us, a fluid thing that filled all the gaps, but it was a warm, fuzzy kind of silence and together, we settled; heartbeats slowed and breaths collected.

Eventually though, we had to move and Jihoon was the first to, as he kissed the tip of my nose and smiled.

I placed my hand on his chest, feeling the way his heart beat so soundly under my palm, almost audible in the silence of the room.

Jihoon lifted it to his mouth and placed a delicate kiss against my palm, and then my inner wrist. My heart swelled at how softly he held me, like I might break if handled carelessly.

After a brief bathroom break, I slid back into bed, the sheets cool against my flushed skin.

“Come, it’s late,” Jihoon said, lying back down on the bed and pulling me with him to settle in the circle of his arms, resting my head on his warm chest. Instantly I felt drowsy, the weight of sleep hovering at the edges of my mind, waiting to pull over me like a blanket.

I sighed with contentment, but then remembered something I wanted to know. Without moving my head, I asked, “What does 'cheon-sa' mean?”

He’d explained to me earlier that ‘jagiya’ meant something like, ‘baby,’ or ‘darling.’

Jihoon inhaled deeply underneath me, saying as he exhaled, “It means ‘angel.’

Goosebumps broke out over my body and my smile felt tremulous as I snuggled closer to his warmth.