Chapter 19

Breath tore from Jinseong in jagged gasps. His limbs twitched weakly. Yi-jae’s mouth brushed against his damp forehead while one of Jinseong’s trembling legs pushed uselessly against the man’s ribs. The wet, rhythmic friction echoed obscenely through the quiet parlor. Heat pulled every nerve in his body taut; brilliant white sparks exploded behind his closed eyelids. This is wrong. This is completely wrong.

Pleasure overwhelmed Jinseong’s resistance in a dizzying rush. He covered his face with his forearm and bit down on his lip, but Yi-jae pried his teeth open with two fingers, licking slowly across his tongue. The tender, almost reverent contact of the kiss was grotesquely at war with the merciless rhythm below. Jinseong curled inward, shuddering.

Yi-jae pulled his shielding arm away, forcing him to look. Pain, fever, friction, and humiliation tangled into an unbearable knot until Jinseong’s jaw ached from clenching. He buried his cheek into his shoulder, trying to swallow every sound. Warm breath washed over his ear. His lower abdomen drew impossibly tight.

“Ngh…!”

Hot release spilled across Yi-jae’s palm and fingers. The violent orgasm clenched Jinseong’s stomach so hard his entire frame trembled. Immediate, crushing humiliation followed. He squeezed his eyes shut, his face crumpling as though he were about to weep.

He refused to look. Bitter disgust at his own autonomic reaction churned in his gut, heat scalding the backs of his eyelids. If Yi-jae had simply beaten him bloody with iron pipes, Jinseong would have known how to endure it; that was a currency he understood. This was infinitely worse because he could neither control nor comprehend what he felt.

“Why are you crying? I barely touched you.”

“…”

Jinseong wanted to scream at him, to demand what all of that had been if it was barely anything. But he held his tongue. Yi-jae had labeled it punishment, and a lifetime of survival had drilled one lesson into Jinseong’s marrow: complaining about a punishment only invited a harsher one. He kept silent and swallowed his tears.

Yi-jae rubbed the slick fluid between his long fingers, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “Shit. I don’t think I can stop now.”

Something warm and wet smeared between Jinseong’s inner thighs. Not realizing it was the residue of his own release, he recoiled, twisting his hips in alarm. Yi-jae pinned him effortlessly, folding both of Jinseong’s knees back until his thighs pressed flat against his chest. Only when the Alpha shifted his weight above him did Jinseong understand the position Yi-jae had forced him into. His tear-glossed eyes widened in dawning horror.

“Don’t hate me tomorrow, all right?” Yi-jae murmured. He wet his lower lip with his tongue, raw desire burning openly in his dark eyes.

Planting one hand beside Jinseong’s temple, Yi-jae positioned himself between Jinseong’s legs. Jinseong’s breath seized. Yi-jae was attempting to force his way into an entrance that had never been touched or prepared. Outside of an induced heat, a recessive Omega’s body offered no natural lubrication; Jinseong had never used that part of himself for intimacy in his life.

“N-no…!”

The protest died in his throat. Blunt, crushing pressure pushed hard against the barrier. Jinseong clamped his hips shut in pure terror, and the heavy length slipped aside. The idea that brute force alone could compel his flesh to yield was utter madness.

“Not going in, is it,” Yi-jae muttered under his breath. He circled the broad head against the entrance and drove forward again. The unyielding flesh refused him. Yi-jae’s expression sharpened with dark, predatory frustration.

“D-don’t… please…!” Then Jinseong felt the impossible begin to tear open.

“…!”

A searing, splitting agony ripped through his lower body. His mouth fell open in a soundless, shattered gasp. After slipping aside twice, Yi-jae managed to force his way in by a few centimeters. Jinseong clenched his teeth until they creaked, but the burning pain only expanded with the violent stretch, contorting his pale face.

“Ah—nnngh!” The cry tore from his throat before he could swallow it. Stark terror swam in his dilated eyes.

Every millimeter of intrusion felt as though it would split his pelvis in two. Jinseong shoved frantically against Yi-jae’s heavy shoulders with both palms. The body pinning his folded legs did not budge an inch, but sheer panic made staying still impossible. He threw his head back against the cushions, gasping through shallow, ragged breaths.

“Relax. You’re going to snap me in half.”

“…!”

The moment the broad head passed the tightest ring, Jinseong’s body clamped down in a violent, involuntary spasm. Yi-jae’s dark brows shot up. His eyes fluttered shut for an ecstatic beat, his jaw locking. “Damn. Fuck.” The overwhelming pressure wrung the curses from him.

Yi-jae hooked one of Jinseong’s pale legs high over his shoulder. Jinseong shook his head wildly in terror. The penetration deepened with sudden, unrelenting momentum, and his panic finally broke into a scream.

“Ahhh! It hurts! Stop!”

Dizziness crashed over Jinseong’s mind. His toes curled tight, and his lower back arched off the sofa in agony. One leg lay pinned over Yi-jae’s broad shoulder; the other dangled helplessly over the velvet edge.

Yi-jae was no longer a man; he was an apex predator—massive, implacable, merciless. One heavy hand clamped around Jinseong’s hip, dragging his pelvis forward as he drove inward. Jinseong braced both hands against the Alpha’s chest, pushing with every shred of strength he possessed. But the blinding pain had already drained his limbs. Cold sweat streamed down his temples.

“Shit.” Yi-jae looked down at him with raw, feverish impatience. Not yet fully seated, he withdrew slightly and thrust again, deeper and harder. “What the hell are you made of…”

The words came out rough, distracted, and thick with lust. Yi-jae pulled back once more and drove ruthlessly to the very hilt. Jinseong’s mouth fell open, unable to produce a sound, as scalding tears flooded down his cheeks.

* * *

Sijin patted down his suit pockets, frowning as he searched the inner lining. “The lottery ticket.”

They had just finished eating and were idling in the sedan, waiting for Yi-jae’s next command. Jeongwoo leaned over the center console as Sijin pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his wallet alongside his smartphone. So the bastard had actually gone and bought one.

After several seconds of silence, Sijin slowly lowered his hands. Jeongwoo couldn’t see the screen from where he sat, his gaze fixed impatiently on the back of Sijin’s neck.

“Well?” Jeongwoo barked. Irritation flared in his chest—mostly at himself for caring in the first place.

Sijin tilted his head, his expression completely blank, before turning slowly to face him. “Third prize,” he said.

“What?!”

Sijin rarely raised his voice above a monotone, which made the faint, breathy tremble in his tone unmistakable. Jeongwoo was no less thunderstruck. Jinseong had been locked inside the penthouse suite with no access to outside information; even if he had possessed an illicit phone, predicting an unannounced lottery draw was mathematically impossible.

“What the hell is that kid?” Sijin murmured, rubbing his jaw with an unsteady hand.

Jeongwoo stared at the dashboard, his voice dropping into an uncharacteristically solemn murmur. “Do you think he’s some kind of shaman[1]?”

“…”

Neither of them could find a rational explanation for what had happened.

“Whatever,” Sijin muttered, shaking his head. “Free cash is free cash. Want to walk into Wall Street tonight and pretend we’re high rollers?”

“You’re out of your fucking mind. What’s third-prize money going to buy us in there?”

They had barely begun bickering when Jeongwoo’s phone buzzed sharply against his thigh. He checked the caller ID and answered on the very first ring, his posture snapping rigid. “Yes, Boss.”

—[…]

“…?”

When the silence on the line stretched past five seconds, Jeongwoo opened his mouth to confirm the connection, only for Yi-jae’s clipped, freezing voice to cut through the speaker.

—[Get the car ready.]

* * *

Egyptian cotton sheets brushed against Jinseong’s bare skin as consciousness drifted back in hazy fragments. He rolled onto his side with a quiet whimper, his brow creasing with discomfort, and rubbed his cheek against the crisp sheets.

“Mmh…” A ragged groan escaped his lips. The lingering alcohol churned violently in his gut the second he attempted to push up onto his elbows; his arms gave out instantly, and he collapsed face-down against the mattress.

Standing beside the nightstand, Yi-jae watched the miserable struggle with a quiet click of his tongue before stepping closer. His fingertips reached out, tracing the slender slope of Jinseong’s exposed nape. Acting on drunken instinct, Jinseong slapped the man’s hand away with a clumsy swipe. Whatever fear lingered did not stop him. Yi-jae let out a short, incredulous laugh.

Dizzy… gonna be sick… Jinseong curled forward with another groan, his hand drifting instinctively between his thighs. Naked and painfully oversensitive, even the light brush of his own fingers made his muscles seize. His fumbling palm brushed his bruised, swollen length and the deep, throbbing ache radiating from behind it before a heavy hand clamped around his wrist.

“I put ointment on it,” Yi-jae said smoothly. “Leave it alone.”

The heat radiating from the Alpha’s palm was searing. That small patch of skin-to-skin contact frightened Jinseong far more than it should have; he still remembered how that warmth, weight, and scent had overpowered him. The fine details of the night had dissolved into an alcoholic blur, but his body remembered every visceral shockwave. He twisted weakly to pull his arm free, but he had no leverage. Yi-jae pinned his wrist to the mattress with insulting ease. Jinseong scowled, a miserable whimper slipping past his cracked lips.

“It hurts…”

“…”

Something cool touched his mouth. Jinseong shoved the rim away with a blind turn of his head. “I said… no more alcohol…”

He jerked his face aside, only for long fingers to catch his chin and tilt it back. Exhaustion sharpened into petulant frustration. All he wanted was to be left alone in the dark; Yi-jae seemed determined to keep touching him.

“It’s water.”

“Don’t want it…”

Yi-jae set the heavy crystal tumbler on the marble nightstand with a sharp, irritated clatter.

None of this had gone according to plan. He had stripped and taken Jinseong in a sudden fit of possessive fury, which was troublesome enough. Worse, the brat had refused to yield in any satisfying sense: he had plotted an escape, failed to endure the punishment, passed out cold before Yi-jae was anywhere near satisfied, and left the Alpha playing nursemaid to a drunken invalid instead of sating his appetite. The absurdity grated on his nerves.

Normally, when a bed partner lost consciousness during a rut, Yi-jae simply walked away. He should have abandoned the boy in the parlor and taken the lift upstairs to his own quarters. Yet he had found the thought of another man seeing Jinseong’s body, saturated with his pheromones, intolerable.

Jinseong had whimpered about pain the entire drive back to the penthouse, so Yi-jae had cleaned the wounds and applied medicinal ointment himself. Somewhere along the way, he had ended up indulging a petulant, intoxicated stray. Why this bruised, secretive youth commanded his attention so completely was a riddle Yi-jae could not unravel.

Jinseong had been the one drowning in liquor, yet Yi-jae’s memory, too, grew strangely hazy from the moment that clumsy, desperate first kiss landed on his mouth.

“…Hurts…” Jinseong mumbled from beneath the duvet.

The boy shifted in his sleep, and the heavy comforter slid down, baring the pale curve of his hips. Yi-jae drew the fabric back, his dark eyes narrowing at the faint, intricate ink etched between Jinseong’s inner thighs.

Yi-jae rolled him onto his back and examined him with clinical thoroughness: the hollow of his throat, the armpits, the scalp hidden beneath his dark hair, any crease where a tracking device might have been surgically implanted. Nothing. Zero surgical scars.

If Gold Class valued an apprentice technician this highly yet had never bothered with an electronic tracker, only one conclusion seemed to fit the evidence: the erotic tattoo, the untouched body, the deeply ingrained docility—merchandise. An exquisite, high-tier asset groomed for a private auction before he had landed in Nyx’s hands.

The realization that other syndicate monsters had appraised Jinseong with the same covetous gaze ignited an immediate, ugly spark of fury in his chest. Yi-jae parted Jinseong’s knees. The delicate skin around the entrance was flushed, swollen, and raw from being breached without preparation; nothing had torn irreparably, but the trauma was obvious. Dark desire flared anew.

Yi-jae pressed his thumb against the tight threshold. The ring of muscle clenched in an autonomic spasm, then slowly yielded. He smoothed the rim in slow, firm circles, catching his lower lip between his teeth, and pushed a fraction deeper while his other hand secured Jinseong’s hip. Jinseong whimpered softly in his slumber, his brows pinching.

“You’re really driving me crazy,” Yi-jae muttered under his breath.

He had never harbored an interest in violating an unconscious partner, yet the urge to wake him was intoxicating. If that wasn’t enough for you, I can take you again right now.

Yi-jae’s fingers gripped Jinseong’s shoulder to shake him awake when the smartphone in his discarded jacket began to vibrate. Young-joon’s name lit the screen.

Yi-jae answered, his tone instantly flat. “Speak.”

—[Boss…] The veteran enforcer’s voice came through grim and low.

* * *