Before We Fall In Love

Chapter 10: Cold feet

They arrived back at the hotel and rode up in the elevator in silence before they parted to their rooms with the niceties of bidding good evening.

Slipping out of the evening's attire, Joohyuk took time to remove his cufflinks as he thought about the evenings events. He left his watch and cufflinks on the chest of drawers opposite his bed and stripped himself of his shirt and trousers and went to a cold shower.

Joohyuk slipped into bed in his boxers like the usual. With an aching feeling in the pit of his stomach, he grunted.

Another restless night of endless thoughts was on the cards for him, he knew it.

"Eottokaji, Suzy-ah?"

____________

A twinge of curiosity hit Suzy all of a sudden when she removed his jacket from her shoulders. It smelt of him and she couldn't resist from holding it to her nose so she could inhale the smell.

Crazy may have been one definition but to hell with it. The thought of his broad upper body wrapped in the material she now held in her hands made her feel some sort of comfort.

Restlessly she dropped the item against the vanity chair, sighing at her stupidity.

"Eottokaji, Joohyuk-ah?"

She carefully and thoughtfully tugged the dress he had bought for her off her body, kicking off her channel pumps and letting her stiff shoulders drop. She went into shower in another episode of washing away the thoughts of him.

Trading her La Perla for a silk chemise, she slipped into her plush, unfamiliar bed and switched the lamp off; her mind flooding all of a sudden with thoughts of him, what tonight had been.

The image of how Giselle had died of a weak heart filled her body with chills. She had been too weak to protest her love for a man she was warned against, too weak to survive but strong enough to fight.

Suzy knew full well that she was strong. But weak to be around Joohyuk, to know that he felt possibly what she was feeling; the feeling she has subsided, deep within her. Denial.

She hadn't kiss him like that because she knew if she did, that would be it. She would have been too weak to stop what she wanted to feel.

The rare feelings that shook her made her want to scream; run at least, but for some reason, she wanted to run in the wrong direction. To him.

Throwing the covers off her sweating body, she clambered in the dark to gain her bearings, picking up his jacket from her vanity because she had forgotten to return it. That was the reason she sought him out now, not because she needed to feel his warmth surrounding her.

____________

Joohyuk heard noises coming from the direction of Suzy's quarter and it took a fair amount of self-restraint and compromise to keep him in his bed.

He couldn't. Pushing the thought from his mind, he turned onto his side, one hand slipping comfortably under his pillow; he closed his eyes in an attempt to get some sleep.

_________

Cautiously, she opened his door and silently thanking the silence it opened in, she slipped into his blackened room.

Suzy plodded to the end of his bed like some sort of stalker and placed his jacket on the closest chair.

Joohyuk's back was to her and the evenness of his breathing indicated he was asleep so she took a moment to just stand what him. She had never felt more infuriated and liberated by a man all at the same time in all her life but, that was until now, until she was standing creepily in the dark wanting so much more than she dared.