C41 - Soul-ed MATE

Every night the sex lasts from the moment we touch the smooth sheets to the first fingers of morning light streaming between the curtains.

Before that, we play chess.

It’s a little strange to have the same nightly tradition with Yoongi that I had with my father.

Looking back, I know that Dad felt pride for my wins, but he also used the game as a shield, keeping me from delving too deeply into his past.

Yoongi uses the game the opposite way, as a key to his secrets. And Yoongi is a fierce competitor, brutal in his attacks, swift in retribution. He wins more than I do, pulling secrets from my body as his prize.

Tonight, I’m determined to win.

“The stakes,” I tell him, turning away.

“Stakes?”

“Of the game. You said they were getting higher.”

He sounds wary now. “Yes.”

“And I’d like to double down. If I win you have to take me out. For dinner. A date. You can take whatever security precautions you want, but I get to leave.”

His eyes narrow. “And what do I get if I win?”

Apprehension circles in my stomach.

I don’t want to promise this, but I know I can’t demand that kind of prize if I don’t offer something equally desirable. “I promise to stay here until Kim Yongdae is found.”

“Done.” Golden eyes glitter, determined that I should lose. Unlike the hand-carved wooden set in the library, the set on the wide balcony is made of marble.

The white pieces are perfectly pale, with even lighter striations running through them. The black pieces gleam on the other side, a perfect counterpoint.

It rests upon a stone table, flanked by two iron chairs.

Yoongi takes a seat behind the black set. It’s a silent gift but also a statement of confidence. With a solemn nod I sit opposite him, accepting the first turn. It’s a small advantage but sometimes a crucial one.

It’s pride that makes him so sure he’ll win—and I want to see the look of surprise when he doesn’t. I start by moving my queenside pawn, the most basic of openings. He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment as he mirrors my move, putting our pawns face-to-face.

“Your father passed a letter to you.”

My hand pauses over my bishop. I try to control the rapid thumps of my heart. “I don’t want it.”

“The third one this week.”

“Throw it away,” I say, making a bold stretch across the board. I haven’t had any contact with my father since the night of the party, when he claimed my mother was insane, hearing voices.

And we proved him wrong.

Machinery in the walls.

People inside the walls.

It never should have gotten that far. Sejin was her husband. He should have believed her. He should have helped her, so that she wasn’t forced to confront Kim Yongdae alone.

Yoongi moves his knight to meet my bishop, unconcerned. “Are you angry at him for selling you?”

And then there’s the contract he made with Min Yoongi, well before I showed up at the Inferna, long before I auctioned myself to him.

“Maybe I’m angry at you for buying me.”

“Should I have let someone else win the auction?”

I lift my chin. “Maybe so. I would have spent my month with him. And then I would have been free.”

“Free,” he murmurs, examining the board as if it contains the answers. “Like this pawn.”

“There are times a pawn can be more valuable than a king.”

He picks up his bishop and gently knocks over my pawn. “Not alone.”

My eyes narrow. “I could be a queen, then.”

“Without me?”

“I could be.”

“I don’t doubt that, bluebell. I don’t doubt that you could captivate anyone you set your mind to. You captivated me before you even knew I existed. You’re my queen.”

My breath catches.

It’s seductive to believe that might be true.

I know better than that. With a sense of reckless longing, I advance my queen out of the safety of the pawns. It’s early in the game to release her.

Dangerous.

“She can go anywhere.”

“Not safely,” he counters, launching his knight in threat.

I skirt easily out of the way. “Maybe she’s stronger than you think.”

“Or maybe the danger is stronger than you know.” He moves his bishop again.

“Check.”

My knight blocks the threat. “So why don’t you tell me more?”

“Because I want to protect you. I want to protect you the way I could never do for the ‘darkmoons’ as you like to call them, in my father’s tavern. They were trapped—by money, by power. They were trapped by me, understand?”

“So, you try to atone by keeping me safe?”

“Is that wrong, Virgin lily? I want you in my bed. That’s not a secret.”

He called me virgin lily after a very long time.

“It’s not enough.”

“What, then?” he demands, moving a piece without looking. “What do you require in payment?”

“Everything.”

His body.

His soul.

Most of all, his heart.

If I spelled it out, he would claim he didn’t have one.

He sucks in a breath. “You’re asking me to break into pieces. What do you think shards of glass will do to you? You’ll be cut. You’ll bleed.”

“Then I want to bleed. That’s the payment I require.”

He stands abruptly, walking toward the edge of the balcony.

He rests his hands on the balustrade. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

I move one final piece before following him. “Then show me.”

He whirls. “God, do you think I don’t want to? That I don’t want to hurt you? That I don’t want to see your pretty skin marred with my fingerprints? Smeared with blood?”

There’s something strangely seductive about his threats. It’s the same feeling I get when he checkmates me—feeling cornered, feeling grateful.

My wings want to beat against a cage.

“I could make you bleed,” I whisper.

He cocks his head, his eyes molten lava. “Could you?”

I take a step closer, my gaze downcast. It’s better that he underestimates me. The world already does.

“I don’t know. I could try.”

His fingers beneath my chin are gentle. He lifts my face to his, meeting my lips in a kiss of wanting and warmth. There’s no violence in his touch, only his heart. His tongue darts out to taste me, the movement thorough with possession. As if emboldened by my flavor he groans, pulling me closer with a hand behind my neck.

His embrace crushes my arms against his chest. I can’t move, but I feel the power I have over him. The urgency in his kiss, the hardness against my own.

“What will you do to me?” I whisper against his lips.

“The railing. Put your hands on it.”

As suddenly as we came together, we’re standing apart.

I sway in the cool night air. It feels like a dream as I move to obey him, but the stone beneath my palms is solid enough. He doesn’t immediately cover me with his body, not like I thought he would.

“I’m going to push that silk down your thighs. I’m going to taste how ready you are for me. Are you ready, Virgin lily? Or will I have to slick you with my tongue, instead?”

My stomach constricts. “Yoongi.”

“I’ll torture you until you cum, crying my name, loud enough the one’s patrolling the boundaries can hear you. I want them to know who you belong to.”

“Please.” I shiver, not from the cold but from his words.

From wanting.

“I want your juices sliding down the insides of your thighs. And I’ll lick it up, because you taste like heaven.” His voice is tight. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”

My head rests against the cold stone, but even that can’t fight the fire inside.

“And when you’re begging me to stop, to give you a moment to rest, a second of peace, that’s when I’ll fcuk you. It will feel like too much. I know that, Virgin lily, but that’s how I want you.”

His fingers find the hem of my silk shorts, fabric whispers along the backs of my thighs. The brush of his hand sends a shiver through me. He groans when he finds my hole exposed.

“Fcuk,” he mutters. “No panties. I never would have been able to focus on the game if I knew you were bare under this.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next—”

A whimper escapes me as his blunt fingers push inside. He twists them, and sensation bursts through my body, lights behind my eyes.

“Already slick ridden.” His satisfaction fills the air, as sweet as the scent of magnolias reaching up beneath the balcony. “It won’t take much to make you cum.”

I press up on my toes, squirming away from his relentless caress.

“Wait.”

“It’s too soon to beg, Virgin lily.” His other hand wraps around my hard as steel dick. And as if to prove the point, he presses a kiss at the base of my neck. And another one lower, trailing down my spine with a casual sensuality that leaves me breathless. When he reaches soft skin, he bares his teeth—swiping the flesh of my ass with the sharp edges.

There’s a rush in my ears, a mix of pleasure and trepidation, the wildness of Min Yoongi that I can’t ever get enough of. Loud enough that I almost don’t hear the footsteps on the patio below.

A long shadow appears across the smooth flagstone. “Yoongi! Someone’s coming.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against me. The vibration makes me shiver. “I thought I’d be late, so I asked Baek to come by and check on you.”

“Tell him you’re—” I say.

His tongue sweeps from my thigh bones up to my ass, and I squeak in surprise.

“You tell him,” He says, devious intent running beneath his voice.

Instinct has me pushing back, standing up, stumbling away from the railing. His hands are firm, inexorable as he guides me back. He presses my palms to the stone, a shock of cold.

“Stay,” he murmurs, kneeling behind me again.

Baek comes into view, an imposing presence with his military boots and not-quite-concealed firearm. He nods to me from below.

“Mr. Park.”

Oh God.

“Umm...Hello.”

“Did Mr. Min Yoongi make it home?”

Yoongi’s tongue swirls around my ready for him dripping hole with painful urgency. I make a low moan before I catch myself. His hand’s working wonders on my back and on front.

“Yes!” I shout. Somehow, I force myself to speak normally. “Maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Excellent. No trouble tonight?”

His fingers push inside me, revealing just how turned on I am. I’m slick and swollen, the walls of my hole producing unbearable friction with his calloused skin.

“N-no,” I say, my voice wobbling as Yoongi dips inside for my liquid. “No t-trouble.”

Baek cocks his head, and I wonder if he knows. I don’t think he can see Yoongi from that angle, but he must know something’s strange. He must hear the sounds from between my legs, smell the scent of my arousal in the air.

“You can always call. I’m sure Yoongi told you that. If you need anything, if you hear anything.”

Despite the strange sensuality of the moment, my body tenses. If I hear anything. As if he knows I hear things.

How could he know?

He would think I’m crazy.

Yoongi would think I’m crazy.

“O-okay,” I manage. “Thanksss.”

Please go away now.

Baek has been nothing but professional with me, but I’m dying here. And then something wet and thick presses to my back entrance.

I gasp aloud, the sound echoing off the granite.

Baek gives me a faint smile. “Tell Yoongi I came by, will you?”

“Off course,” I say, my voice too breathy.

Long, casual strides carry him back around the property the way he came.

“Oh God,” I whisper. “He knew.”

“What did he know?” Yoongi asks, murmuring against my slick flesh. “Spell it out, Virgin lily.”

My face flames. “He knew you were there.”

“Doing what?” he asks, his tongue slurping my slick. He won’t rest until I answer him.

“Sucking me,” I whisper.

“That’s right. I’m sucking you. And what else?”

“You have your finger…”

“Where is it, Virgin lily?” He twists the finger, making me squirm.

“In my hole.”

He bites the plump flesh between my legs. “Asshole.”

“My…my asshole.”

I shake my head as hard as I can. “It’s dirty.”

A low laugh. “I like dirty.”

“I know,” I moan, clenching around his finger. The sensation is strange today, his finger impossibly thick. My muscles press so hard around him. How can he stand it?

“Tell me your dirtiest fantasy, Virgin lily.”

“I don’t…” My voice cracks as he increases his pace against my aching cock and his tongue explores my insides. “I don’t have any.”

“Liar,” he says, affectionate.

And maybe I am a liar. My fantasies were never fully formed, always glimpses of flesh, only the flash of golden eyes.

I never allowed myself to dream that deeply, afraid of what I would find.

“I’ll trade you,” I say, my whole body trembling, on the precipice of an orgasm that might break me. “Everything is for sale. Isn’t that what you told me?”

He pauses, clearly intrigued. “And what will it cost me, this fantasy?”

“A secret.”

The silence clouds with darkness and danger—with threat more real than his castle to my king. “What kind of secret?”

“The kind worth selling.”

He knows what I want from him. I’m not sure whether he’ll agree or not, but I know he’ll give me something real if he does. Honor means too much to him to shortchange me. He pulls away from me, and I find myself mourning the loss.

Is this his answer?

Is this how I finally push him away, by asking for too much?

Except he turns me around, and the determination in his eyes proves otherwise. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, setting me on the cool stone where my hands were.

My back twinges, reminding me that something has just been inside. His large hand spreads my thighs, and he steps between them.

We’re almost eye level like this, my body higher on the balcony, my legs dangling.

It’s only his hands on my waist that keep me from falling fifteen feet onto granite. My dick throbs from where he touched me, my muscles clenching around nothing.

Part of me feels wild for him, unable to think until he lets me cum. The other part can’t believe this is happening.

I know exactly how hard he works to guard his walls, and he’s letting me in. That’s how much my fantasies mean to him.

“To understand one secret, I have to tell you another.”

A light wind lifts my hair, brushing over my neck, and I realize just how precarious my position on this railing is. How precarious my relationship with Min Yoongi is. How precious my safety in Daegu is with Kim Yongdae on the loose.

“That doesn’t mean I’m giving you two fantasies,” I warn him.

The corner of his mouth lifts, his lips still glistening from my juices. “It’s a bogo.”

Despite the levity in our words, I feel the weight of his confession looming.  Suddenly I wonder if this was a good idea, if I’m sure I can handle whatever he tells me.

It’s too late for second-guessing, too late to back out with so much on the line.

“Tell me.”

He looks away, his eyes almost black in the moonlight.

“Most of the omegas who came to the tavern were early twenties. Late teens. Some of them had worked on the street. They were relieved to have a bed to sleep at night and food every day.” I grasp Yoongi’s arms, as much to steady him as myself. “Others…they came from debts. Bought and sold like cattle.”

My throat tightens.

It’s not so far from what happened to me, and in that regard I’m lucky.  As much as I’m angry at my father, as much as I dislike being cocooned in this castle, it’s a far kinder fate than others in my position.

“I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, expression hard. “And then one day, there was this little one...as sacred as the lamb.”

“Oh no,” I whisper.

“You could tell…just looking at her eyes, you could tell she knew what we did. You could tell it had happened to her before. Even the older ones, sometimes they would fight. They would be shocked. Not her. She knew.”

“Yoongi.” My hands tighten on his arms. “You don’t have to finish.”

“I do. You should know who you’re dealing with. What you’ve got yourself into. You think you’re safe here with me, but I can’t fcuking…” He presses his lips together. “I can’t fcuking promise.”

And I understand that he needs to tell me, that the wall costs him something.

It costs him too damn much.

“What happened?”

“I told my father that was it, that I wasn’t going to help him keep a little one. But it was a problem. He still owned the place and he still owned her. Even if I left, she’d be there with no one to protect her.”

My heart clenches at the thought of that poor girl—and of a younger Yoongi, powerless, faced with an impossible choice. “What did you do?”

“I paid for her.”

I shiver at the cold calculation in his words. “You protected her.”

“It was the only way to keep her safe. Every hour she would have had to work, I paid for her to sit in her room. Alone. None of the alphas with their fcuking hands on her.”

My hands clench in Yoongi’s shirt, pulling him close. It suddenly strikes me as absurd that he’s still dressed. Because he just had his mouth on me. And because he’s baring the darkest parts of himself right now.

“It cost everything I had saved up, thinking I was going to leave. And it cost years of my life, working for my father, doing whatever he said, shaking down drug addicts, keeping them all in line.”

My throat tightens. “You did what you had to.”

“How do you know that?” He sounds disgusted with himself. He sounds furious.  “How do you choose between one and another? How could I force so many of them to spread their legs while keeping one safe?”

“She wasn’t old enough,” I whisper. “She was a scared little girl.”

He shakes his head. “I was so sure, then. I knew what I needed to do. I would have fcuking killed anyone if they’d laid a hand on her. Even my father. And I probably would have been killed in the process, so this way I kept everyone safe.” A rough laugh. “Everyone...except so many fcuking darkmoon omegas in the bagnio.”

“They understood,” I say, even though that’s not true.

How could someone understand their oppressor?

Why should they have to?

“And even if they didn’t, I understand. You had an impossible choice.”

“In the end it wasn’t my father who killed her.”

My throat tightens. “She died?”

His expression is grim. “While I was so busy keeping alphas out of her room, she was plotting for ways to escape.”

“No,” I whisper, but the picture already unfolds in my mind—gruesome and stark.

“I think she knew how little was keeping her safe. A kid with more pride than sense. That was me. And her age. Once she was older, I wouldn’t have had any excuse for keeping her locked up.”

I bury my face against his chest, bracing myself for what’s to come. What he’s lived with.

“She came up with a plan to run when I wasn’t there, out on a fcuking errand. That’s the part that sticks with me. That I had kept her in that room. That she was afraid of me. I was the one she hid from.”

“Yoongi.”

“And the man who found her,” he says, his voice almost painfully emotionless. “They didn’t see a scared little omega, not anymore. They saw someone old enough to work on her back, like all the others. They fcuked her. And then they left her there to bleed out. They were five of them. They fcuked her senseless...left her broken, used and bruised.”

I stare at him, horrified. I knew the story had a tragic ending, but this is beyond anything I could have imagined.  It’s not even human. Not animal. These were monsters.

“Oh God.”

“And it was my fault,” he says, his voice still flat. “Because I let her escape.”

“No,” I tell him. “You aren’t responsible for them.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” he says coldly. “Those people are out there. The ones who would hunt you down...who would fcuk you. Who would watch you die. Who would love to see life seeping out of those beautiful eyes.”

Ice floods my veins. “You’re not just keeping people out, are you? You’re keeping me inside.”

“Do you really want an answer to that?”

I think I already have one. “I’m not a scared little omega.”

He looks down, studying my bare legs, spread around his hips. “I know that, Virgin lily. I’ve made sure of it.”

“Stop.” I looked at him, terrified.

“I had your blood on my cock proving the point, didn’t I?”

I swallow hard. “Stop it. I know you want to punish me. You want to punish yourself, but you don’t deserve that. What happened was awful, too awful for words. And not your fault.”

“That’s my secret, Jimin. I’m paid up. Now tell me your fantasy.” My mouth drops open.

I look at his face, devoid of very emotions that were displaying in technicolor a few seconds ago.

“I can’t—not after that. I can’t talk about sex.”

“That was our deal. Don’t you dare go back on your deal. I think of all people you should know the steep penalty for doing that with me.”

I flinch, unable to stop myself. “I’m not holding back. I just…you told me something terrible. Something horrifying. I can’t tell you about some secret fantasy now. You don’t even want me to.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”

“You’re just trying to punish me. That’s what this is.”

“What would I be punishing you for?”

“For asking. For pushing. For wanting you to open up to me.”

He laughs, the sound hollow. “If I had wanted someone who didn’t ask questions, I would have paid for one. Instead...I bought you.”

A shiver runs through me. “If you want to know my fantasy, I’ll tell you.”

“Rose petals?” he asks, his voice mocking. “Incense sticks? Candles? Champagne?”

“So, I’m innocent,” I retort. “You could have bought someone who wasn’t. Instead, you bought me.”

He strokes the backs of his fingers against my cheek. “Don’t you see, bluebell? This is why I need you. So many, broken so young. Not only her. All of them. Whether they were nine years old or sixteen, the end result was the same. A hard life and a shallow grave.”

My breath catches. “That’s terrible.”

“I needed something pure. Someone who had never seen that side of this city. And I never wanted you to know it. You should have taken your million dollars and never looked back.”

“Maybe I will,” I say softly.

His smile is sad. “It’s too late for that. Kim Yongdae has his sights set on you. You’ll never be safe. You understand why you have to stay here, right?”

He’s not afraid of Kim Yongdae getting in. He’s afraid that I’ll escape.

“I’ll stay here, for now. I’ll do what you say, but I have a voice, too.”

“Then tell me, bluebell. Use that voice to tell me what you dream about in the dark.”

My body has cooled after that dark story, but I tell him anyway. Because he gave me something incredibly valuable as payment. He gave me his pain.

“I have these dreams,” I say, my voice halting.

He grows still. “Dreams?”

Everyone thought my mother was crazy.

They’ll think you’re crazy, too.

I can’t tell him about the voices.

I can’t bear the look of disbelief I would see in his golden eyes.

Those eyes watch me expectantly, so I give him a different secret instead. Even that feels scary.

“I have dreams about being tied down.”

His expression darkens, his eyes turning bronze. “And?”

“There are hands on me, all over, everywhere. They touch me like they own me. Like I’m a piece of marble.”

His hands tighten on my waist. “Keep going.”

“I’m naked, exposed. I can’t stop anything that happens to me. I can’t do anything but take it.”

Yoongi groans, pulling his tie loose. I expect him to undress, to take me against the balcony. Instead, he wraps the silk around my wrists.

My eyes go wide. “What are you doing?”

“Did you think I would wait?”

Using the tie, he tugs me off the balcony. The stone feels freezing beneath my feet. My legs buckle, and Yoongi catches me. He guides me gently to the floor, turning me over, onto my knees.

I barely have time to fight him before he loops the end of the tie around the supports.

“Wait,” I whisper, even though I’m not sure.

Not sure if I want him to wait. Not sure if he’ll listen to me anyway. The knot he makes doesn’t seem strong, but when I try to get away, it tightens into a hard kink of fabric. The restraint only makes me pull harder, yanking uselessly as he watches, his lids low over golden eyes, steeped in lazy satisfaction.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, running his lips down my shoulder. “This isn’t the last time we’ll do this. A hundred different ways. Soft and then rough. Every place you can think of and then more.”

He positions himself behind me. “And most of all when you’re least expecting it. Because that’s part of the fantasy, isn’t it? Not knowing who it is? Not knowing when he’ll find you?”

I shiver.

How does he know the parts I left unsaid?

His cock nudges me, finding me slicked ass.

“You’re ready,” he says on a groan. “Always ready for me.”

And then he’s inside me, pushing me apart, opening me, tearing me where my body can’t accommodate his size. My mouth opens on a silent cry, my hands still pulling, pulling, completely tied up.

He swears under his breath, holding himself inside me. “Yes, we’ll definitely do this again. But right now, I just need to use you.”

His hands dig into my hips, fingertips bruising. That’s the only warning before he slams fully into me again, so hard I let out a shriek of pain and surprise. He withdraws and then pushes in again, completely focused on his own wild pleasure.

He’s an alpha rutting on the plains of the safari, concerned only with a primal mating drive. He owns me in the purest sense —where my pleasure doesn’t matter. He slams into me again and again, a blunt force trauma that my body accepts in pure sexual shock.

The teasing from before, the pain right now, it blends together in a whirlwind of sensation. And when he bites down on my shoulder, I shatter. My orgasm comes suddenly, making my insides bear down, my hips buck against him.

He shouts behind me, his cock pulsing fresh heat into my hole. He draws out his orgasm and mine, pushing his still-firm cock into my wet heat with lazy thrusts, every slide a new wave of sparks behind my eyes.

I collapse onto the hard marble, the coolness a relief to the fire in my body. He leans on top of me, pressing me down harder.

It’s not an accident like this. It’s no mistake that he covers my body this way. It’s an alpha signal, a message that I’m his—for any other in the vicinity.  And a message to me.

I can’t argue the point, not when he teased my fantasy from me. Not when he used it against me so ruthlessly.

What other things might he get me to admit?

My stomach clenches. He’s getting too close. Some things should never be spoken aloud. My mother learned that lesson.

I’m afraid history might repeat itself.

“Checkmate,” I say, my voice hoarse.

He stiffens. “What?”

“The game. I won.” I sigh, almost sorry to have won now that I know what it means to him. Not sorry enough to take it back, though. “You have to let me out.”

!~~~~!!!!~~~~!