Page 29 of When Worlds Collide (Between Worlds #2)

I raised my hands to run through my hair, but stopped upon discovering it was too tangled to drag my fingers though. “I don’t know what this is, because you don’t talk about it!”

He said something in Korean again, twisting away from me to slam open the wardrobe door, shoving hangers roughly aside.

“I don’t speak Korean!” I said loudly, enunciating, and being kind of an asshole, I’d admit.

Jihoon spun back around, eyes gleaming brightly as he said, “I said, it would have been more ‘convenient’ if I had found a nice, local girl instead.”

Silence.

I was too stunned to react. I couldn’t speak. I could only watch as the man I’d crossed oceans for growled and turned back around, yanking clothes off their hangers.

I left the room when he began to get dressed, and I’d just gotten started pouring hot water in my coffee mug when he left the bedroom, dressed in baggy sweats and a hoodie.

The cap and hood obstructed so much of his face that I couldn’t see his expression.

I stared after him, watching as he pulled on shoes and shoved his phone and wallet into his pockets, but he didn’t look up, not once, and when the front door slammed closed behind him, it echoed through the apartment, much like his words were echoing in my head.

It wasn’t the words themselves that hurt so much, although they did. It was that he’d thought to use them against me.

It was early enough that I could have called Becka, but she was still at work. Much as I longed to hash this out with my best friend, I didn’t want to interrupt her at work just to bitch about my boyfriend – whom she was already wary of, anyway.

I thought about taking myself out, going for a walk or something. But the more I thought about venturing out into the cold, wet streets, the more I realised I wanted to be somewhere that was at least slightly familiar.

So, wanting comfort, and to talk about it – without actually talking about it – I pulled out my laptop and settled on the sofa.

I pulled up my blog, surprised at the number of new followers.

It was still a modest amount, but it always gave me a little thrill to see it go up.

There were so many now that I was attracting comments underneath, people having little on-topic discussions about what I’d written, and yeah, some people were complete arseholes, but mostly it was just other people like me, interested in what I had to say. It was… kind of nice.

This morning, I had a particular kind of inspiration. My last blog had been about the mental well-being of artists, so this felt related. I linked the two pages, and began to write.

Once I started, time seemed to fall away. My fingers flew over the keyboard, only halting when I clicked away to reference external sources, to find examples, or to copy links to provide references.

I wrote about the potentially damaging effect that ‘accessible social media’ was having on artists.

Once upon a time, if we’d wanted to connect with the people we saw on our screens, we’d have to write them fan letters, to subscribe to those fan clubs that advertised in the backs of teen magazines. Then it was eZines, and email.

Now, with the birth of social media platforms, you can simply comment, or tag your favourite artist and there's a chance they will see your comment – for good, or bad.

Artists are no longer protected by the unseen barrier between ‘us’ and ‘them’, leading to a rise in a sense of entitlement some people feel over them.

It used to be that only the press would hound celebrities as they ran down a street, filming them as they tried to run away. Now everyone owns a smartphone and every day, celebrities are filmed going to buy groceries, walking their dog, taking their kids to school.

As I typed, I thought about how even now, there are fans live-streaming from outside the industry buildings and management companies. Airports have special, cordoned off areas where people queued up for hours on end for a glimpse of their idol as they walked to or from a plane.

With this total blurring of the lines, where does it end? Who decides enough is enough?

I’d just pressed ‘publish’, when the front door opened, and a moment later closed. I didn’t call out. I couldn’t, not with the tight lump that had risen in my throat.

I tried to breathe through it. I didn’t think I was ready for whatever might come now, and I couldn’t decide if quiet indifference or a full-blown argument would be better.

I still didn’t have an answer to that by the time Jihoon walked round the corner and entered the living room. As I looked up into his inscrutable face, heart pounding through my chest, I knew it hurt because I loved him so much I could barely stand it. But I was still so fucking angry and hurt.

He moved to stand in front of me. His eyes met mine and it seemed like a war had happened behind his eyes.

He leaned down and took my laptop, putting it carefully on the coffee table.

I opened my mouth to protest, but only an exhalation of surprise left it as he kneeled in front of me.

Wordlessly, he slid his palms up my thighs to cradle me as he lay his head in my lap. I could feel his body trembling, and in that moment, my anger fled in the time between one heartbeat to the next.

My hands hovered just above him, unsure what to do.

“Don’t leave,” his voice came out ragged, and his shoulders hitched.

I lay my palms against him, feeling the heat of his body through the thick jumper. He must be blazing in it.

“I didn’t mean it,” he gasped between shuddering breaths, “about the local girl. There is no girl, there is only you.”

I shushed him, rubbing my hands over his back. “I know.”

He pulled back slightly, raising his head to hold my gaze. “I’ll get my shit together, I swear.”

The breath hitched in my throat. The look on his face… it was devastating. A blend of fear and sorrow the likes of which I’d never seen on his face. A sob rose in my throat before I swallowed it down.

I’d spent so long in our relationship feeling like the unworthy one. The lesser of us two.

I’d never once stopped to consider that perhaps he might feel like that, too.

“Jihoon,” I breathed, incapable of other words as I stroked a hand across his cheek.

We’d both spent so long pursuing our dreams that neither of us had spent much time in relationships, so perhaps it was no surprise that we didn’t always know how to be in one.

But, as I looked into his eyes, I knew with absolutely certainty that we’d figure it out together.

Because the alternative was unthinkable.

Whatever expression he saw on my face as he looked up must have been some kind of comfort, as he raised his hand to trace my lips, memorising them with his fingertips.

I watched his face go from uncertain, to something more determined, and an instant later he surged upward, pressing his mouth against mine.

I exhaled as he inhaled and for just a moment, we breathed each other in.

The relief I felt was like a soothing balm to my frayed nerves as I relaxed into him, moulded against him.

He trailed his other hand up to my throat, winding his fingers gently to cup my neck as his thumb rested ever-so-slightly in the dip of my clavicle. It was… unexpected, and I gasped, stealing the air from his lungs, even as I felt his grin against my lips.

“I need you,” he murmured, stroking his other thumb across my cheekbone.

It wasn’t okay. What he’d said, the way he’d reacted. None of that was okay. We were frayed slightly at the edges, but as I looked at his face, at the raw intensity in his eyes, I realised that sometimes, it was okay to come back together whatever way you could, and figure the rest out later.

His words were kindling to banked embers, and I responded by grabbing the hem of his hoodie, and yanking it up.

He tore his lips from mine with a barely-suppressed growl, ripping the hoodie over his head and tossing it off to the side. The t-shirt he wore underneath followed swiftly.

Bare from the waist up, he leaned back in to reclaim my mouth, but I halted him with a hand against his shoulder. He froze instantly, cocking his head to the side.

I grinned. “Just looking.” I sounded breathless, but I made no apology as I let my eyes trail lazily down his chest.

I was panting by the time I raised my eyes back up to meet his.

Any traces of apprehension, of sorrow, of uncertainty had been wiped from his face like they’d never been there.

There was a darkness to his eyes, yes, but it was the kind of darkness that made the muscles in my lower abdomen clench in anticipation.

“Satisfied, baby?”

I grinned. “Not yet.”

He chuckled. “Allow me to help you with that.”

Without warning, he grabbed my hips and pulled me forward until my butt was on the very edge of the sofa.

He curled his fingers around my shorts and pulled, peeling them down my legs while I swallowed my yelp of surprise.

He threw my shorts into the same pile as his clothes before turning back and pushing his body forward, forcing my legs to part around him.

“No panties, jagiya?” He chided, making a tsking sound, even as he smirked at me.

I huffed, feigning indigence. “I was distracted this morning.”

For just a moment, the look in his eyes flickered, but then it was gone.

“Allow me to make up for that.” He ran a palm up my calf to my knee, before swiftly grabbing it and hooking it onto his shoulder.

I gasped, feeling the blush heating my cheeks from a curious mix of embarrassment and arousal. Jihoon held my gaze with an intensity that made my heart pound. He trailed his fingers softy up my thighs.

“I belong to you, cheonsa.”

“Yes,” I gasped.

“And you belong to me.” His fingers reached the place where I ached for him, and he lightly trailed them up the centre of me, eliciting a low moan as I instinctively tried to pull my legs together, but found myself unable to with his body there.

“Say it.” He trailed feather-light kisses up my calf, holding my gaze as I panted.

“I belong to you.”

“Good girl.” He pressed a finger inside of me, and my head fell back against the sofa cushions.

“Open your eyes, jagiya,” he said softly, working another finger inside of me even as his thumb stroked me further upwards. I did as he asked, watching his face as he watched mine.

Then, without warning, he bent forward, causing my foot to slip off his shoulder and settle on his back. His tongue pressed against me, and I bucked upwards, a shout falling from me, even as I raised a fist to my mouth to stifle it.

His hot breath gusted across where his tongue lapped, a contradictory sensation that had me reeling and for long moments, all I was capable of doing was lying there, panting, biting my fist as he drove me closer and closer to that edge.

My eyes inadvertently slid upwards, only to snag on the black screen of the silent TV, now acting as a mirror to the scene playing out in front of it, and I watched fascinated, as Jihoon knelt before me, head down.

My other hand drifted down to tangle my fingers in his soft hair, urging him on without words.

Suddenly, he paused, pulling his mouth away to look at me. His eyes narrowed.

“Stop biting your hand, jagiya. I’m working hard. I want to hear you appreciate it.”

Despite what was happening south of my navel, I laughed, earning me a smirk from Jihoon, who pressed a kiss to my thigh when I obligingly lowered my fist from my mouth.

He nodded his approval before lowering his head, and suddenly I wasn’t laughing anymore.

And I wasn’t muffling my cries, which sounded so obscenely loud in the airy living room, but they only seemed to encourage Jihoon.

He moaned against me, adding a sense of vibration to the hot, wet press of his tongue that he swirled in all the right ways.

Suddenly, he changed the angle of his fingers, pressing them upwards in a way that made me squirm, jerking my hips in uncontrolled ways. I no longer cared what kind of sounds I made, or how loud I was.

And then, faster than I could imagine, I was cresting the wave that threw me down and broke me apart, a thousand, tiny explosions cascading across my body in a series of fireworks that left me boneless and panting.

All the while, Jihoon applied gentle, constant pressure with his hand in the way he knew I liked, as he pressed soft kisses up and down my thighs, saying in between each one, “Mine.”

And I was. I was his, and he was mine. We’d figure the rest out later.