Contract Marriage 18+ [A Hopekook Fanfiction] ✓

8.4🥀

He sat down next to her and dragged her back into his lap with a helpless groan, arranged her until she was straddling him again. This time he dragged his knees up to support her back and wrapped his arms around her slender frame, building a fortified human cage around her trembling body.

"Hobie..." he groaned, burying his face into her soft, fragrant hair. "I do want you, hobie. I've always wanted you..." He cupped the back of her head in the palms of his large hands and stared intently down into her eyes, trying to convey his earnestness through sheer force of will. Hobie's tear-drenched gaze swept over his deadly serious face and she couldn't read it. Once again he had his emotions under tight control and even though he was saying the words she couldn't tell if he was being sincere or not.

"You don't have to lie," she finally whispered, dropping her head to one of his broad shoulders and closing her arms around his broad back, feeling safe, warm and protected. "I'm sorry I brought this up again, Jeon. I didn't mean to. I don't mean to keep throwing the past back into your face like this. I do recognize how difficult the situation must have been for you and..."

"Stop it," he finally interrupted the burble of words that she couldn't seem to control. "Just stop it... yes the situation was beyond my control. It was, and still is, incredibly difficult but this does not mean you deserved the treatment you got from me and it certainly doesn't mean that I never wanted you. Hobie, most nights I could barely keep my greedy hands off of you."

"You couldn't?" She lifted her head from his shoulder to stare up into his grim face.

"Why do you think I insisted that we share a bed?" He pointed out. "That way, I didn't have to go and find you when my need for you overrode all else."

"Oh..." she responded stupidly.

"Yes... 'oh'," he nodded. "And despite all of my idiotic stratagems to keep intimacy between us to a minimum, remember I blamed you for this marriage as much as I did your father, I could never get enough of you."

"Oh..." she muttered redundantly and his lips twitched into a little smile.

"That's why I never slept with those women the tabloids kept pairing me up with," he whispered, his long thumbs stroking back and forth across the satiny skin stretched over her high cheekbones.

"You really didn't sleep with any of them?" She asked in a small, uncertain voice and he nodded, never shifting his eyes from hers, as if he could make her believe him through sheer force of will.

"Why would I? When I had you waiting for me at home," he growled and she blinked back her tears, which threatened to overflow.

"Why should I believe you?" she finally asked.

"Why would I lie to you? I have nothing to gain from it, we're getting divorced, going our separate ways in a few months' time... right?" The last emerged a bit uncertainly and Hobie blinked at the unwelcome reminder.

"Right. Of course..." she nodded.

"So lying about this now would achieve nothing..." he shrugged.

"Thank you," she wasn't sure what she was thanking him for... telling the truth? Not sleeping with those women? All she knew was that she felt incredibly relieved because the public humiliation hurt so much less now that she knew the rumours of his many infidelities had been unfounded. She shut out the painful, lingering memory of the omnipresent Jungha and dropped her head back onto his shoulder. He stroked her narrow back gently, there was nothing sexual in their embrace anymore, just comfort and support which Hobie needed a lot more than the physical release she had been craving before.

"You must be starving," he finally murmured into her hair, lifting his head to smile down into her eyes. "I'll get us something to eat. We can have dinner and watch a movie in bed, okay?" She nodded and reluctantly allowed him to lift her from his lap. He dropped a sweet kiss on her head and left the bedroom with a gentle smile.