Unlawful Devotion

Love Me Harder

Warning: This chapter is R18 due to language and sexual content.

~

For Tae Gu, however, the conversation was far from over. He follows her into her bedroom, hot on her trail, with his hand pushing the door with enough force to make the wood crack. "You see, this here is exactly the kind of nonsense that I was trying to avoid," he points out as he watches her haphazardly put together a travel bag with all her essentials. "Leaving now will do nothing but compromise your safety."

Chae Yoon scoffs, hastily wiping her tears away and sniffling, lost inside the storm of her own anger. "Me leaving will make things easier for everyone. You don't have to plan shit behind my back. You don't have to pretend that you give a damn about me when you really just want to save your own ass. So, let's just skip to the part where we go our separate ways because that is where all of this will inevitably lead anyway."

He walks over to grab her arm and stop her from packing only for her to forcefully twist it out of his hold, adding more fuel to the already raging fire. "Why can't you stop and listen to me for one fucking minute?" he snaps in frustration, his rage clouding his senses, and the way she doesn't stop moving only infuriates him even more.

In a sudden move that shocks her, he roughly pushes her against the nearest wall, causing her to gasp in pain as the back of her head makes contact with the hard surface. The tight grip he has on her shoulders is enough to leave marks, and the dangerous expression on his face stuns her into submission - an expression that she'd never seen outside the safety of a computer screen before.

"Get this into your fucking brain, would you?" he seethes through clenched teeth. "This is not a life for you. What is not clicking? You don't get your way and you throw a fucking tantrum. Do you actually think that you can survive a life on the run? Do you think whining and bitching around will help you? You won't last a minute out here."

Hearing him swear at her rekindles the fire inside of her, her blood boiling in outrage. She stares up at him with furious, red-rimmed eyes before delivering a hard slap against his cheek. And another. And then another. Never has she been so violent in her anger before, but Tae Gu possesses the power to rile her up in a way that no one else has. And that fact alone pisses her off.

"You fucking asshole," she cries, channeling her overflowing frustration through landing punches on every part of his body that her hands can reach. "Stop treating me like a child. I am not a liability! I am a grown woman. I am capable of my own choices and sure as hell can take care of myself. And how dare you talk to me this way? I smuggled you out of jail! I gave up everything for you, you ungrateful bastard!"

Tae Gu grabs her wrists and pins them against the wall on either side of her head, successfully preventing her from inflicting more harm on him. With her chest heaving from the effort, Chae Yoon struggles to break free from his hold, ordering him angrily, "Let go of me. I said, let go!"

"Let's get one thing clear," he warns, the tone of his voice drowning her words, and his demeanor mirrors the one that made her yield moments ago. "I did not ask you to do anything for me. I did not ask you to get me out. You did that all on your own. Are you expecting me to thank you? Are you expecting a fucking reward? What? What the fuck do you want from me?"

"I want to be with you! Why is that so hard for you to understand?" she cries out, trembling in her sudden honesty and vulnerability. He stares at her, stunned, and it makes her wonder where she lacked in expressing her affections for him. Did he not get the hint when she made him kiss her in that alley? Did he not understand that the thought of him dying is enough to cause a breakdown?

"I just want you," she adds, sounding a bit desperate. "And I want you to stop pushing me away."

The way he looks at her after that confession turns fevered, a burning gaze teetering on the edge of anger and desire, and it sends her heart racing so fast that she hears it in her ears. The charged silence roars louder than their argument, and she suddenly feels hot all over, flustered from the tension she created, unaware of how he had moved closer until there was no longer any space between them.