Joohyun hesitated outside Seungwan’s door for the second time in twelve hours. It was early, but his alarm had gone off.

She’d heard it as she’d lain in bed. Heard him get up, heard the shower come on.

She’d imagined him brushing his teeth and combing a bit of touchable product through his hair.  

She’d expected him to come downstairs next, but he hadn’t.

So here she was, trying to work up the courage to knock on her husband’s bedroom door.

As she raised her hand, the panelled wood swung open, and she narrowly missed knocking on Seungwan’s nose.

He was faster than she was, though, and dodged the unintended attack with a laugh “Hey there,” Seungwan said, catching her wrist in his hand.

Her breath whooshed out of her chest at the warm, sure contact.

Joohyun opened to say something witty, and a gasp slid out instead.

Time slowed as Seungwan dragged his gaze up to her face, as she stepped in closer, then stepped back again, bumping against the doorframe.

There wasn’t enough room for both of them in the narrow space of his open bedroom door, not early enough space, or oxygen, and he was expecting her to say something.

 
To do something. 

Joohyun had come upstairs to find him, because she had woken up with a startling and frightening realization: she really wanted to kiss her husband.

She wanted to kiss him when nobody was watching, she wanted to kiss him for her own reasons. Hungry, confused, reasons.

And she didn't want to lie about that anymore, to herself or to Seungwan. She just wanted to kiss him and she really didn't want it to be a problem.

But now that she was here, and he was looking at her with an impossibly sweet warmth, what she wanted—and how frightening it was—had her paralyzed.

Seungwan whispered her name, and she nodded. He grinned. “You came up here.” Another nod. 

He slowly released her wrist, letting her arm tumble to her side, and he leaned in very close, bracing his arm above her on the door frame. “Did you come up for a reason?”

Heat flooded her torso and she swayed in the tight space between his body and the wall. “I—”  

His eyes glittered as he searched her face. “How’d you sleep?”

Restlessly. Tormented by dreams.  

He’d told her he dreamt of her , and her mind had run wild with that overnight.

“I dreamed of you,” Joohyun finally managed to say. “And I woke up thinking about you.”

Seungwan swore under his breath, which made her laugh weakly. It was an honest response, at least.

His jaw flexed as he set his mouthback to rights and fixed his piercing gaze back on her face.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted, her voice shaking. “Was that too much, too soon?”

“You can’t do this wrong.” He strangled the words, grinding them out. “It’s all good. Whatever you want to say, or do, I’m here.”

  
She raised her hand and brushed her fingertips against his face.

His jaw, his cheek, and the corner of his mouth.

She liked the way his eyes darkened, grew inky and stormy as she got close to his lips.

  
In August, she hadn’t known what she was doing by kissing him in the dance club, hadn’t understood the journey that would spark.

Now she couldn’t claim ignorance or innocence.

Kissing Seungwan now would spin them wildly out of control, and neither of them could predict where it would take them.

   
Was she willing to take that chance? Risk their friendship to see what his barely restrained fervour tasted like?

    
“I’m scared,” she finally admitted, and saying it out loud was freeing.

Joohyun breathed his name next, suddenly filled with something else more powerful than fear. “Seungwan...”

      
Every muscle in his body flexed against her, his thighs hard, and when she slid her hand down to his waist, she felt his abs contract against her touch, like a bow pulled taut.

She wanted to be his arrow, see how far he could send her flying.

She remembered now how good it had felt to have his mouth on her skin, his hands on her body.

        
She wanted that again. She wanted him.

          
So she took a final, shaky breath and wound her arms around his neck.

Seungwan groaned as she softened her body, melting into him, removing the final few centimetres of space between them.

Yes, this felt good. Joohyun smiled as she brushed her lips against his, then opened and teased the seam of his with her tongue.

Repeating his name, she at the corner, savouring the way he tasted.

 
The whole time, he held completely still, letting her explore without taking over.

  
But when she nipped at his lower lip, then fit more firmly against his, when she kissed him firmly, that was the signal heseemed to have been waiting for.

With a rumble, he wrapped his arms tight around her, one hand sliding down her back to settle on the curve of her bum, the other tangling in her free flowing hair.

His mouth opened, his tongue swiped against hers, and it was game on. His embrace tightened as their kiss deepened.

A push-pull, weeks of desire battling against a flood of newfound need.

She wanted all of him, now. Every of his tongue made her shiver, each retreat dragged an unholy moan from .

      
Who was this man, and why were his kisses now affecting her on this intense, primal level?

Joohyun had kissed Seungwan before. It had been pleasant, arousing, friendly, kind, sweet, and most recently, a bit distracting.

        
This was all of those things jacked up to a thousand amps.

          
Seungwan wasn’t quite ravaging her—he was still holding himself back, she could feel that tension in his body.

But this kiss was undeniably sinful, with a healthy layer of fresh Hey Friend, So Maybe My Feelings Aren’t Platonic After All poured on like molten lava.

Did her kiss taste just as different to him?

Could Seungwan tell that her feelings had changed over time, maybe even more than his had? 

Her pulse was a drumbeat now, hammering inside her head.

Loud enough Joohyun could swear Seungwan would be able to hear it, although the way he was plastered against her, he could probably feel it, too.

Bang, bang, bang.
Double bang.

With a gasp, Joohyun wrenched away from her husband’s embrace. That wasn’t her pulse, that was the door.

Blinking away the lust fog that had descended on her, she turned her head to the stairwell and the foyer below. “Sooyoung's here.”

Seungwan blinked at her, his eyes glassy and unfocused. “What?”

“It’s Monday. Sooyoung here to work out.” Her legs didn’t work, though, so she didn’t move.

He laughed. “.” 

“I know.”

Seungwan glanced down his body, and her attention followed to where his strained against his jeans. “I need a minute.”

“I’ll tell her to go away.”

He caught her hand and lifted her wrist to his mouth. “No.”

Seungwan dragged in a deep inhale, then let out a shaky laugh before kissing her tender, sensitive skin.

Every inch of her was on fire, and he wanted her to go work out with a friend? “We’ll take our time. Yes. God, you smell good. But that’s a great plan.” Like Seungwan was convincing himself, too.

Joohyun stepped back, her legs shaky and reluctant to move away from the warmth of Seungwan’s body.

But her friend was downstairs, and he was right. They could take their time with this.

She ignored the fluttery feeling in her chest as she wrenched the front door open. “Sorry, I was, uh...” And then she trailed off, because she didn’t have a good excuse.

“Come on in.”

Sooyoung slid inside, shivering, then glanced at the stairs, where Seungwan was now sitting wearing a sloppy grin. “Hey, Sooyoung.”

Her friend gave her a knowing raised eyebrow, and for the first time, Sooyoung 's assumption that they had a smoking hot marriage wasn’t wrong. “Am I early?”

“Nope. We just lost track of time,” Seungwan said. The fluttery feeling in Joohyun’s belly intensified. “She’s all yours—”

Another knock interrupted them.

This time it was Chanyeol on the other side.

“Shouldn’t you be at the school?” Joohyun asked as she stepped back, letting him in.

Chanyeol hesitated a beat when he saw Sooyoung , but then nodded in greeting to her and Seungwan before answering.

“I should be, but our boiler stopped working in the middle of the night, so school was cancelled for the day. I went in to check on the repair progress, but I was just getting in their way. Thought I might convince my brother to come to the garage for a few hours.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Seungwan stood and ambled down the last few stairs. He grabbed his coat, then turned back to Joohyun. “I’ll be back for lunch.”

Joohyun gave him a secret smile. “I’ll see you then.”

He hesitated for a split-second, not even long enough to look like a pause to anyone else, then stepped in close and brushed a quick kiss across that sent her heart soaring. “Can’t wait.”

As the door thunked shut behind them, Sooyoung mock-swooned. “Jeez, you two...honeymoon heating up as the temperatures drop outside, or what? Your husband loves you so much, it’s adorable and gross at the same time.”

Joohyun laughed, because that was the appropriate response given what it looked like from her friend’s point of view, but inside her chest, something soft and squishy felt a little bruised.

Seungwan didn’t love her. He didn’t believe in love, and neither did she—not anymore.

Seungwan liked her a lot, though, more than anyone else, and he thought she smelled good.

He wanted to kiss her, and was always going to be there for her.

That was all that mattered.

That was all she could ever want, really. Anything else was romantic dreams, and Joohyun didn’t play at those anymore.

“I didn’t know Sooyoung and Joohyun were friends,” Chanyeol said tightly as he headed for the harbour.

Seungwan shot his brother a quick glance from the passenger seat of Chanyeol’s work-in-progress, an Black Duster from the seventies. “Why do you say it like that?”

“No reason.”  

“Do you have a problem with Sooyoung all of a sudden?”

“Nope.”

Seungwan should let it drop, but he wasn’t the one who’d brought it up in the first place. And thirty years of youngest-brother training meant it was a reflex to push his thumb into a bruise when he saw it—on his brothers, at least. “It sure seems like you might.”

Chanyeol shrugged. “What were they doing?”

“Joohyun’s helping her train for something.” He changed the subject temporarily as they arrived at the garage. “What ar