| Chapter 1 |
There is something surreal about seeing him in this light.
Up close and personal. So close, you can make out every single expression that he makes whenever he speaks. The air around him seems to crackle with every delicate movement he makes, his energy rippling in the air to summon everyone’s attention on him, including yours.
But what makes it even more surreal is the fact that even when he has everyone’s eyes on him, vying for his attention as they all hope to have at least a single glance of acknowledgement from Jimin, he only has his eyes on you.
The same way he is doing it to you now, giving you his rapt attention even when you are chatting about something so trivial—your daily routines, the short encounter you had earlier today with Mr. Rasheed from next door, a simple joke shared by one of your co-workers at the office today—between sipping wine and savouring your meal. His gaze is so intense that people may think you are talking about world peace or other life-altering matters, and most possibly completely oblivious to how his eyes are making you feel like you are floating in the air while being rooted in place at the same time.
That is just what Park Jimin does to you.
Jimin always knows how to make your heart flutter and your skin flush without having to do so much. He makes you feel special, cherished, as though you are the only thing that matters to him right at this moment.
And it is not just about the expensive restaurants and the pretty places he takes you to—just like this fancy place where you are currently dining with him, where you are surrounded with bright chandeliers, soft music humming through the room with other exquisite looking guests sitting around you on their own tables, and shiny silver tablewares set over the silky table mats—or the lavish gifts that he gives you between each date.
It is simply him. Just being with him is enough to make it all worthwhile, to have him as your companion and to enjoy the gentle way he treats you when you are together. You just love how he always listens to you carefully in the way that shows just how much he truly cares about you. You always take in delight on how his eyes could easily find you whether you are near or even when you are standing right across the room. As you reach out to your glass of wine in the middle of the conversation, Jimin’s eyes quickly follow your move—from the way your fingers are wrapped around the tall glass to when you bring it to your lips, before his eyes find yours again and your gazes connect to each other so easily as if he is meant to never look away.
Sometimes, when something like this happens, when your gazes meet each other this way, you would find your mind wandering wildly to the past.
You cannot help it, really, when it had always felt like a dream come true to be the center of his attention that you would, at times, feel the need to pinch your own skin just to let you know that this is real.
Once, many years ago, when you were just a girl struggling to finish college and trying to escape your father’s shadows while Jimin had already become his apprentice and was rising to be his own person, you had already known him. You have seen him even before you finally met him in person, even if it were through other people’s eyes. You remember seeing his face everywhere, in the magazines, all over the news, posters planted through campus that had been printed with his achievements as some sort of motivation for all the students in your faculty who wanted to be like him—a young, rising new entrepreneur who seemed to have things going on for him.
He was almost always at your father’s company events, those which you had avoided for years despite your father’s best effort of getting you to come just so he could get you involved in his business. So you had definitely seen him through the pictures taken from said events, since your father had always come home to brag about them with the rest of the family.
There were times over the years when you would look at his pictures, wondering if there would ever be a time when you could find anyone who would look at you the way he did to all the women he was pictured with. Sometimes, you would even picture yourself in those women’s shoes, imagining how it would be like if he had looked at you the same. In those pictures, he seemed to have given them his undivided attention in a way that had made your chest feel constricted and tight with something that was completely foreign. It was jealousy, your roommate had told you then, though you weren’t quite sure if you had developed your silly little crush on him at the time. Until you began seeing boys your age, either the smart ones from your class or the most popular ones on campus, and you started comparing each and one of them to Jimin.
As the unidentified crush continued to grow, you began to pay more attention into his photos, to the expressions that he made in them. You began to wonder what may have been going on in his mind as he stood there with his dates, their dainty hands wrapped around his arm as they posed together. His dates had all been beautiful, gorgeous even, and mostly elegant. Most of the women appeared by his side had always been those from the higher class—models, celebrities, socialites, some were even heiresses to rich families. But what you wanted to know most was what Jimin may have seen in them.
Was it their looks? Their dresses—that seemed like they would have cost a fortune? Or was there something they shared privately that had him looking at them so endearingly?
You never knew the answer to those questions, nor have you ever thought about them again until now, as you distractedly look over to him. When you realise that the look that Jimin gives you had been different compared to what you have seen then. His gaze is often more intense, deeper, enough to pull you closer to him and have your heart fluttering wildly you never know how to control them.
Jimin reaches out to hold your hand, then begins to brush his thumb gently on your knuckles, pulling you out of your reverie and bringing you back to him. “Where were you just now?” he questions you. “You seem lost in thinking.”
“Oh, it’s nothing important,” you answer him, holding back from letting him know that he was the one who had been in your mind.
Jimin only chuckles, yet he brings your hand to his lips. He begins kissing your knuckles, pressing his lips slowly to each one, while his eyes never stray away from you.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” he asks you, though the words nearly fail to sink in when you are too distracted with the way he is brushing his lips on your knuckles.
You bite your lips, holding back the smile that is insisting to grow. “You have. About over a dozen times,” you whisper. You simply cannot deny the way your body is reacting to him. Not when he is treating you like this—teasing you so coyly but still being a gentleman at it.
“Then I’m saying it again. You look beautiful,” he says. Then he turns your hand so that your palm is facing upward, before he once again brings it to his lips. This time, he plants a kiss right at the center of your palm, before moving to your wrist, where his lips linger.
Right at this moment, everything around you simply fades. Nothing else seems to matter, just as long as you are with him and you are the only one he is staring at.
Once again, your mind flies back to a different moment in the past. Though it doesn’t wander far, just to a night some time a month ago when you were being defiant, trying to brush it off when he complimented you. He had told you that you looked beautiful in your new red dress, yet you simply hid your face and denied it, something that he clearly didn’t enjoy having. In turn, he pulled you close to his side, his arm felt tight around your waist and the ghost of his lips felt hot on the nape of your neck when he whispered into your hair,
‘Need I spank that pretty little ass of yours to make sure that you are going to listen to me?’
You had brushed it off as a joke then, though you were secretly hiding the fact that his crude words had made you feel hot inside. It was something new, something interesting. But what more surprising about it was the fact that you—liked it. Actually liked it.
Loved it, in fact, since you found your panties soaked and your core dripping wet when you pictured him placing you across his lap and his delicate hands spanking you until your skin would burn. The same way you are feeling how your lower area are growing slick and wet right this moment simply for thinking about that moment.
But he must have misread the bashful smile that came upon you back then as apprehensiveness, because he had kept his words to himself ever since, and you haven’t had him teasing you in such a way again even when you had been secretly waiting—and sometimes even prompting—him to.
You simply cannot help but feel curious. Mostly wondering if he would ever truly bring any of it into reality, or he had simply said those things as a joke.
There is no denying that Jimin has multiple layers in him that he had only been peeling off one at a time ever since he began dating you, and there is still a part of him that he keeps hidden. You can feel it when he closes up, as if revealing the deeper part of him could scare you away. But the undying need to know more about your lover and have him reveal his secret has been clawing worse on you ever since.
“You’re being too sweet to me,” you murmur softly with your cheeks flaming hot, but you make no move to pull your hand away from his gentle grip. Your fingers tingle where he is touching you, giving you the sense of being pulled into him stronger than ever before.
“That’s not sweetness. It’s the truth,” he says with a chuckle, giving you one last kiss at the back of your hand, and then on your wrist, before finally letting you go. “Finish your meal so I can ask them to bring in the dessert.”
His words bring a smile to your face. You love it when he takes control. His commanding tone and confidence would have raised a brow if it had come from somebody else. But when it comes from him, especially when he is doing so with a lazy smile growing on his face, there is no denying the way your body flutters warmly to it.
“What are you ordering me?” you ask him as you wash off your palate with your wine. Jimin has been full of surprises lately, just like this date that had come out of nowhere in the middle of the week instead of the usual weekend, and he leaves you constantly asking just what else he has planned for you to knock you off of your feet.
Instead of answering, Jimin merely gives you a smile, before falling into momentary silence as if he is trying to raise the tension in the air. “Something I think you’d love.”
You raise a brow just as he looks over your shoulder, nodding at the waiter who no doubt has been standing close by. It feels like only moments have passed by before your table is cleared, the waiters working rhythmically to place an entire set up of dessert plates that you have never seen being presented in this particular restaurant before.
A bowl of chocolate fondue with a few small plates of fresh fruits and cakes. All set up similarly to the one you have seen months ago, on the night when you first met Jimin. One that you had enjoyed together, choosing which sweets or fruits to dip into the chocolate while chatting like old friends in the middle of a party.
“You remember,” you muse at the sight of your favourite sweet dessert before looking up to him, seeing him smiling wide, taking pride in the reaction you are giving him.
“Always.”
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