Chapter 10: The Red Reversal
657 Words
The world could burn.
And maybe it already had.
But in this room—behind locked doors, velvet drapes drawn tight and the rest of the Cha estate sleeping in gilded silence—nothing burned hotter than the man who stood before her.
Min-woo hadn’t spoken since the sky bloomed.
Not a word since the kiss that broke them open.
But now, he crossed the room like he was drowning in the weight of every moment they’d stolen and denied.
His jacket hit the floor. Then his tie. His eyes never left hers.
Yena stood still, as if the wrong breath might shatter everything. The body she wore trembled—not with fear, but anticipation. She had fought starvation before, for food, for warmth, for breath.
But this—this was a starvation of touch.
Of heat. Of being wanted.
And Min-woo—he wanted.
“Say something,” she whispered.
He reached her in one step, his fingers sliding up her neck, into her hair.
“I’m trying to remember all the reasons I should stop,” he murmured, voice dark and frayed.
“And?”
“They all sound like lies.”
Then his mouth was on hers again—hotter this time, hungrier, like his restraint had finally shattered and the man beneath had nothing left but need.
She gasped into him, and he swallowed it greedily.
This kiss wasn’t searching. It claimed.
His hands moved with precision, sliding beneath her jacket, slipping it off her shoulders with maddening slowness. Her body—Seo-jun’s body—responded too well. Too fast.
She felt too much.
Her skin burned where his fingers touched, her pulse drumming in her throat. She hated how this body trembled in his hands—and loved it all the same.
He pulled back just far enough to look at her.
“This isn’t pity,” he said, low and firm.
“I know.”
“And I don’t care what you were. I only care what you are now.”
Her voice cracked. “Then take me like I am.”
He didn’t need to be told twice.
He lifted her—effortless, possessive—and carried her to the bed like she weighed nothing. Laid her down. His mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, his hands slipping under the hem of her shirt, undoing buttons one by one like they were sins.
She arched up to him, clawed at his shirt, dragged it off, reveled in the heat of bare skin against hers.
Let this be real, she thought. Let this moment be mine.
Min-woo worshipped her.
He explored every inch of the body she didn’t ask for, didn’t choose—but tonight, allowed herself to feel.
He didn’t hesitate when she whispered, “Touch me.”
Didn’t ask permission when her breath hitched as his hands roamed lower, deeper.
Their mouths met again—open, needy, unrelenting.
Clothes became memories. Skin met skin. The bed groaned beneath them, sheets tangling like limbs, breath stuttering against shoulder blades and the slick heat of mouths desperate for more.
She clung to him like he was gravity.
He moved inside her like he knew this body, like he’d always been meant to find her—no matter the vessel, no matter the shape.
And when they finally broke—both of them undone, sweat-slicked and shaking, gasping each other’s names like they’d been buried and only now were allowed to breathe again—it wasn’t the body she felt.
It was her.
Her soul, bare and vulnerable, finally being held.
Min-woo collapsed beside her, arm around her waist, pulling her in like he wasn’t going to let go even if the house fell in on them.
And outside the window—
The red sky boiled.
The first city failed.
The world was ending.
But she was alive.
And for the first time in years, she didn’t want to die.
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- Writer
