Beautifully Cruel

Chapter 17

TAEHYUNG

I find her in one of the guest suites, curled up on top of the bed in the fetal position in the dark.

I know she didn't want to crawl under the covers, because that would be a commitment to staying. To falling asleep and being vulnerable.

As if she'd ever be vulnerable when she was with me. As if I wouldn't kill anyone who dared to even give her the wrong kind of look.

I say firmly, "If you're under this roof, you're sleeping in my bed."

"Then maybe I shouldn't be under this roof."

Her voice is quiet and steady. Irritation flares inside my chest. I don't bother with more conversation because I know it will only be an argument. I simply pull her back to the edge of the bed and pick her up.

She mutters, "This is ridiculous."

But she doesn't fight. She hides her face in the crook of my neck and lets me carry her back into my bedroom her body lush and warm against my chest.

When I set her down on the bed, she curls into a ball again and peeks up at me from under the edge of the fur throw. 

I pull my tie over my head and drop it to the floor. Then I shrug out of my suit jacket, tossing it aside. I kick off my shoes and discard my belt. As I'm unbuttoning my shirt, Jen opens her eyes again. She watches me as I pull off my shirt and let it fall from my fingertips to lie on top of the jacket.

Then she bites her lip and her eyes go wide.

The light is low in the room, but there's enough of it for her to see everything.

The tattoos. The muscles.

The scars.

She sits up abruptly.

After a moment, she reaches out and touches me.

With the tip of one finger, she lightly traces a scar that follows the shape of my ribcage. Though it's faded to white now, it's as thick and vicious as the day it was made.

She says, "This must've hurt."

"Aye."

She's solemn and still, her eyes shadowed with some bad memory that has nothing to do with the marks on my skin.

"You really want to know?"

Her voice comes very small. "Yes."

"That scar is from a wooden stake."

She jerks her hand away as if she's been burned. She repeats faintly, "Stake?"

She looks so horrified, I wish I'd lied. "Let's just say I didn't trip and fall onto it. We'll leave it at that."

When she just keeps staring in horror at the scar, I kneel between her knees and take her face in both my hands. "It was a long time ago. I was a boy."

"A boy." Her face drains of blood. 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

She looks at me like I'm a complete idiot.

It confuses me, until she says, "Taehyung. I'm not upset. I'm pissed off. What kind of an animal would drive a stake through a boy's stomach?" She huffs. "And please tell me he spent the rest of his life in prison."

I answer without thinking. "No. I killed him. But later on, after I'd grown up."

She looks deep into my eyes. Her own are fierce. After a silent, bristling moment, she says quietly, "Good."

Several things dawn on me at once. The first is that I continue to underestimate her. The second is that Namjoon was right: she's much tougher than she seems.

The third is that I lied when I told her falling in love is a luxury I don't allow myself, because I'm sliding so fast down that slippery slope it might already be too late to stop it.

"Why does that make you happy?"

"I don't know." She pauses, thinking. "Maybe because justice is so rarely served that it's really gratifying when it finally happens."

"You think what I did to him is justice for what he did to me?"

She answers without hesitation. "I think a person who would do that to a child has done much worse things that no one knows about."

She's right about that. The man who drove that stake through my body was one of the most evil people I've ever met, to this day.

Then she says suddenly, "So this 'I am the mafia' thing. Let's talk about that."

I rise, push her back against the mattress, and straddle her body, kneeling down to brace my elbows on either side of her head. "The less you know, baby, the better."

We're nose to nose, so I can see exactly how much me calling her 'baby' affects her. She adores it, but it also irritates her. That reaction is such classic Jen that I have to press my lips together to keep from chuckling.

She says, "My idea of a mob boss is that they put contracts out on their enemies, and run drug, weapons, and prostitution rings. Is that what you do?"

Her gaze is unflinching.

I feel a warm flicker of pride. She really will make an excellent attorney.

"No."

She stares at me, weighing the truth of my answer. "I feel like this might be a semantics issue. Let me rephrase. Is that what you have other people do for you?"

Goddamn. She's going to make an amazing attorney.

Why that should make my dick hard, I don't know.

"I don't get my hands dirty anymore."

We stare at each other. I can tell she's not happy with that explanation, but she'll accept it. Grudgingly.

Holding her gaze, I say softly, "Now lie down and spread your legs."

There's a long, crackling moment as she decides whether or not she's going to obey my command. Our held gazes burn like a lit fuse. Impatience claws at me.

When she licks her lips, I almost snap and lunge at her. But I hold myself in check and wait, gritting my teeth against the urge.

I'm right at the edge of my self-control when she lies back against the mattress in one fluid motion and stretches her arms out over her head.

I look at her, breathing shallowly and watching me with wary eyes, her knees pulled up and squeezed together, her hair spilling all over the silk duvet cover, her bare skin smooth and gleaming, and I feel a jolt of possessiveness far darker and more powerful than anything I've felt for her before.

"You're beautiful."

She looks at my face and sees everything, like she always has. In a soft, teasing voice, she says, "I like you, too, wolfie. Take off your pants."

I rise and stand at the edge of the bed, looking down at her. "You're not in charge here."

"No? Hmm." Her gaze drops to the bulge behind my zipper. "You could've fooled me."

Suppressing a grin, I grasp my hard dick through the fabric of my slacks. "You want to play a game? It's called 'See Who Breaks First.' Spoiler alert: you'll lose."