Dark Love

My love story began when it ended. With a savage kiss and a confession whispered in the dark that wasn't meant for me.

I was walking the corridors of Park Palace when I was grabbed, pulled into a dark room. Moments later I was shoved into the center of the room. Ms. Park Chaeyoung "must be exactly 180 degrees" white tea fell off my sterling silver tray with a crash and shatter.

The smell of salt air floated in the darkness, white cloth draped over one-of-a-kind furniture, and gold frames glinted along the walls. I knew this room—it was designated for only select, trusted servants. This place, though shoved away and forgotten in the no-man's land between Ms. Rośe and her sister Lisa's wing, held millions' worth of treasures.

The antique room.

The door slammed shut behind me, and I jumped, spinning to find the shadow of a tall man only inches from me.

"Excuse me—" I started, but then the mystery man seized my face, his mouth on mine, and words left me. Thoughts left me. All I knew were his lips—unyielding yet soft. So soft. Searching and commanding and consuming.

I wasn't ever one to kiss strangers in dark rooms.

I wasn't ever one to kiss, period. I'd come close...once, but in the end that boy made it clear he'd wanted only one thing.

This was what people talked about in fairy tales. It was the pop. It was fire. Something I didn't know existed, a tether in my soul, came loose, and latched on to him. The silver tea tray fell from my hands with a clang to the floor, and I grasped my mystery kisser, trying to give him all that he was searching for.

He slammed me against the wall with a rattle, fingers tangling in my spirally, curly hair. He tasted like lollipops and whiskey.

Who was he?A guard? A cook? No one ever gave me a second look, save Taehyung , but his attention proved worse than none.

I dressed conservatively, not even showing my collarbone. Even though I could look other servant staff in the eye, I never raised my eyes. I couldn't have people knowing anything about me, because then they would ask questions, like why I was here, why I didn't have any family, why I dressed so conservatively.

Questions opened up doors to the past, and taking one look back meant disappearing into a darkness so black it consumed me.

My mystery kisser slanted his mouth, diving deeper, and I sighed into him, getting lost in whoever he was, letting questions vanish.

We broke on a breath, his forehead pressed to mine. A glimmer of the dying sunset sparkled on the deep brown eyes between us. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could almost make him out. Messy black hair, sharp, angular features.

No.

It can't be. He wasn't supposed to be in this part of Park Palace .

Each Park family member had their own wing, and they stuck to them like someone had demarcated the lines with lava.

"You came," he said.

Alarm rang my heart like a bell. I know that voice. I didn't want to believe it, but I hadn't come anywhere. Of course it made more sense that I would be mistaken for someone, than that I had a secret admirer.

No one admired Jung Y/n.

I wasn't the girl you looked at; I was the girl behind the girl.

"I always wondered what you'd kiss like now." He dragged a closed fist down my cheek. "It's so much better than my imagination." The groan strangling his voice nearly toppled me. I still had some small hope that maybe this man wasn't the person every sign pointed at.

But then my eyes adjusted, and I knew for certain.

Blue stared back—the notorious steely blue reserved for almost all Park family. A color as vivid and cutting as the ocean on a stormy day at Park beach.

I should've stopped then. Looked away. Run away.

There's a rule at Park Palace : no servants can look the Park Family in the eyes—ever. It was one I'd obeyed religiously. Yet I couldn't avert my gaze. There was a look in his eyes I'd only ever dreamed of receiving.

Park Jimin , playboy prince, heir to Park Industries, was staring back at me. It wasn't to knock books out of my hands and laugh like in high school. It wasn't to kick over my bucket of soapy water while I cleaned his floors. Park Jimin was looking at me like he wanted me.

"You're so goddamn perfect, you know that?"

He pressed me against the wall, abs and chest flat with mine, hips sharp. Every rigid and sculpted piece of him pressed deeper and deeper into me, until even lungfuls of air brought him inside me. He smelled expensive and heady and unobtainable.

"Do you know what I want from you now?" He grew hard on my hip, and suddenly I couldn't speak. I swallowed and shook my head.

"Honesty. Bloody, raw, jagged truth."

Alarm bells rang louder than a tornado siren, blaring in my gut. I knew I should pull away, but with him so close, and his breath hot on my lips, I couldn't.

I wanted that too. Oh my God, I didn't know how much I wanted that until he said it.

I had no right.

I was an effigy of dishonesty. Lies never left my lips, but I made damn sure no one got close enough so the truth didn't either.

His lips went to my neck; then he paused. "Did you change?" I thought for certain I was done for, found out, dead. My heart pounded faster than a jackrabbit, louder than a drum. Then Jimin pulled aside the lace of my high-collared blouse. "What is this? Fuck. I like it. I get harder not seeing all of you."

He sucked on my neck, hard. So hard I saw stars. I knew he would leave a bruise, and a sick part of me wanted that. I dug my fingers into his side.

This moment didn't belong to me, but I was going to steal it anyway.

"Tell me something. A secret. Anything. Something no one else knows."

"Sometimes I watch you," I whispered. "I know you don't see me, and you don't think anyone is watching."

Brief moments when Park Jimin was just Jimin.

Moments where I gave in to the insanity growing inside me.

A pause stretched long enough to be counted by the crash of waves outside. Then a distorted, jagged sound fell from his lips and reverberated against my neck. My knees weakened.

"Tell me more."

I don't know what came over me. I wanted to tell him everything, give him everything, be everything for him. It was a darkness, a need I'd never known before.

"I want you to bite me harder."

The tiny shred of sanity left was screaming at me to shut the fuck up. My escape door kept shrinking with each confession. When this inevitably ended, when the lights came back on, there would be no way out.

But he smiled against my flesh before he bit the skin at my neck, and that was all I could think about. All I cared to think about.

"Fuck," he groaned. "Where has this side of you been? More," he demanded.

"You're my first...first..." The word I struggled to say was kiss, but he fisted the material at my thighs, and my words left me. "I—I can't do it here. Not like this."

Not again.

He dropped my dress, hands coming beside my head. "More."

"Tell me something," I dared to ask. I'd dreamed of kissing Park Jimin ...but never had I dared to dream I could ask for admittance into his soul.

Another long, weighted pause, then he whispered, "I'm a virgin too, Jennie."

Jennie? Was he talking about who I thought he was? Wait—too?

Oh no. He thinks I'm a virgin. But ofcourse he does. You're my first...

"Wait, that's not—"Then his lips were on mine again, and I couldn't think.

The Park Jimin was whispering secrets and kissing me, and he'd just confessed he was a virgin to me. What was worse, I was kissing him back. I was kissing him back even after knowing those secrets weren't for me—these lips weren't mine.

It made me want them more.

I'd grown up in the basement of this palatial home, and I knew soul-deep the difference between me and him: those who were born with the right to have, and those with the right to want.

With his lips on me, I didn't care. I clawed at his shoulders, willing it to be different.

"More,"I breathed into his kiss.

His grin stretched against my lips. "I like that word from your mouth." His tongue swept my lips, hot, demanding.

Then all at once, like a douse of scorching fire, the lights turned on. The bright-yellow light burned. I knew the moment it hit Jimin, when he realized I wasn't the person he'd meant to kiss. I couldn't begin to describe the emotions that swam across his face. Anger, of course. Shock. Disgust.

They cut old scars anew. One time, I'd let myself believe I could fall in love with a prince. I still haven't recovered from the cuts those glass slippers made when they shattered.

"Jimin?" At the voice, he tore his eyes from mine. I blinked out of my foggy pain, following his line of sight.

A silhouette was illumined in the doorway, and it took only a second to recognize her. Jennie Kim . She looked kind of like me, if there was a better, billionaire heiress version of me.

My eyes were stony hazel, and hers were a warm dark chocolate. She was slightly taller, but the extra inch slimmed her waist and made her legs go on for miles. Her chestnut skin glowed from within, and I was lucky if I got a day without a blemish. Today our hair was similar...but where my curls were without direction, pulled back to get out of my face, hers were piled high, beautiful and natural.

Jimin did a double take, turning from her then back to me, who was trying to huddle and disappear into the shadows.

Jennie sighed. "I don't know why I believed you." She rubbed a hand across her forehead. "This is cruel, even for you."

With that Jennie turned and left, red-soled heels clacking down the hallway.

"Jennie, wait—" Jimin started, then paused, eyes finding mine once more. The heat, the gentle desire, was extinguished. In its place was nothing save coldness. He looked down the hall, as if torn between chasing her and smashing me beneath his shoe.

He chose me.

In one swift motion, he speared my curls, yanking me toward him by my hair. "I don't know who the fuck sent you, but you'll regret this. Speak a word of what you heard and die, Snitch."

He dropped me so hard and fast I had to throw my hand out to keep from banging into the wall. I sucked in air.

"Don't go anywhere." He shot me a searing look, before turning his sights where Jennie had been.

"I have to!" I blurted. Jimin's eyes narrowed like I'd just spat in his face. "I mean, Ms. Rośe needs me."

I'd been kidnapped into a dream and forgot about reality. I was his sister's girl. I'd spent years trying to get that position and only barely achieved it. It was coveted. I'd started out as a servant in the kitchen and worked my way up. There were only two positions higher than working directly with a Park member , one of which my uncle held.

I'd finally gotten my own room. I'd have vacation time, a higher salary. Tonight was Rośe's sister's birthday party, and she needed me to get dressed. If I didn't show up...

Displeasure iced his beautiful features. I wondered if what had happened really was a dream.

"I'm your sister's girl," I said weakly.

A cruel smile speared his pretty pink lips. "You're my girl now."

Leaving me with that, Jimin left, chasing after Jennie.