Page 66 of Hamartia

He squeezes me tight and then he’s moving inside the apartment and closing the door behind him. Holding me to him, he noses at my hair and scents my skin and then he’s kissing me. Forceful and a little desperate.

“I missed you,” he breathes. “How can I have missed you this much?”

He kisses down my jaw to my throat and then he’s sucking over my pulse, beneath my ear, along my collarbone. I must stop before I let him fuck me in the hallway with Ji-hoon next door.

“I missed you too,” I say, pulling back to smile up at him. “But let’s wait until we are alone for this. Okay?”

He blinks, seeming to remember we are not alone. “Fuck. Yeah, sorry, I just… sorry.” He looks a little embarrassed.

I give him a warm smile and grab his hand, before reaching down to lift the leather bag he practically kicked into the apartment. When we reach the living room, Ji-hoon is sitting back on the sofa looking at home. He glances at us as we come in, noting our joined hands with a flicker of surprise. I see him consider something, then he stands and comes toward us.

“Kim Ji-hoon.” He sticks his hand out to Raphael. “Or Kai. I don’t mind.”

Raphael looks at Ji-hoon’s hand like it might be about to bite, before reaching out to clasp it in a firm grip.

“Raphael. Or Rapha. I don’t mind either.”

I observe them both as they stand face to face. Raphael standing a little taller but not by much, leanly muscled—American boy pretty—against Kai’s darker, more threatening persona.

There’s nothing similar in them. Nothing at all. But I think they’re possibly the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen in real life. Exceptionally attractive but in completely different ways. I try not to think about what it might feel like to be fucked by both of them at the same time, but of course it’s impossible.

“For some reason, Jaehyun has decided that you are important to him. Which means that if you so much as think about hurting him, in any way whatsoever, that face of yours will not look so pretty when I am finished.” From anyone else the threat would sound overly dramatic, ridiculous, but said in Ji-hoon’s low careful way, it carries weight.

Raphael blinks but recovers well.

“You think I’m pretty? Wow, dude, I’m flattered.” He flashes some sexy smile at Ji-hoon that I can only gape at. “You’re not exactly my type, but I can appreciate the aesthetic you’re going for all the same.” He draws a leisurely gaze down Kai’s body before pulling me closer to him. “But you don’t have to worry about him. I’ve no intention of letting anything hurt him.”

Kai stares at Raphael for a few long moments, nostrils flaring angrily, before he lets out a breath. His eyes soften when he looks at me.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. He moves to grab his bomber jacket from the barstool, throws one last death glare in Raphael’s direction, and leaves.

When the apartment door closes, the silence swells into the space, between us tense and brittle.

“So, you and him were together then,” he turns to face me. “As a couple. That’s true?”

I try to processthat. “What?”

“You know. All that fucking crazy shit online about you two, it’s true, isn’t it?”

He readcrazy shitonline about us?

“Is that a question?”

He shifts on his feet. “Yeah. I mean…if you and him are a thing then I figure I should know.”

“You wish to know if Ji-hoon and I are a thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I would be here with you, fucking you and having baths with you and inviting you to stay in my apartment if Ji-hoon and I were together?”

He looks around as though he has lost something. “I don’t know…maybe…yeah. I don’t know what sort of situation-ship you guys have going and whether I’m just, like, a spare for you.” He looks painfully uncomfortable as he rubs the back of his neck and avoids my eyes.

A spare for me. I am not even sure if I understand what that is, but I do not think it’s good.

“I mean, you don’t owe me anything. Like this isn’t a relationship, I get that, I’d just like to know where I stand before this goes some place. I mean, if it is going to go someplace, if it even can go someplace…” He struggles. “I just…”

“Ask me what you want to know, Raphael,” I say, snappier than I mean to. “You want to know about my situation boat with Ji-hoon, then ask me. Do not assume anything about what we are. If you want to know something, then ask me. I have tried to be clear with you, no? Always. So, then I will be clear with you now, ask me what you want to know.”