Finding You

SPECIAL CHAPTER: THE PERFECT REPLY THAT CAME TOO LATE

Lazy Sundays were not Eon Jin's favorite until Tae Pyung reclaimed his place in her world. Before him, she preferred to be on the field from sunrise to sundown and witness the doom of one soul after another. Keeping herself occupied was her foolproof way of passing time - an infinity, to be exact.

However, having Tae Pyung in her life gave her a reason to look forward to such uneventful intervals. Her heart skipped whenever her mind was devoid of any forebodings in the mornings and as soon as she confirmed it - with the grim reaper boss, no less - she asked him what their agenda for that weekend was. Always the gentleman, he threw the question back to her court.

"Take me to the countryside, love," she answered every single time.

Eon Jin was more than satisfied reading at the porch of Tae Pyung's ancestral house one late summer afternoon with her back comfortably leaning on the reclining chaise lounge and her legs casually stretched out under the diffused rays of the five o'clock sun. Her eyes were skimming through the penultimate paragraph of the novel she was currently engrossed with, the first wave of tears already dampening her lashes as she lost herself in the poignant ending.

To her surprise, a moan escaped from her throat instead of a sob.

"I am five sentences away from finishing this book," Eon Jin murmured as Tae Pyung pressed wet kisses under her jaw. "Stop distracting me, Officer Kim."

Tae Pyung chuckled, yet he had no intentions of yielding.

"Read it to me, then," he challenged her, not at all caring to restrain the smirk that was playing on his lips.

With the million sparks brought by the tender brushing of his mouth on her neck, Eon Jin was smart enough to know that it was better to lose the battle but win the war. Therefore, she snapped the hardbound shut, placed it on the side table, and wordlessly made her way upstairs.

To be honest, she was madly craving for Tae Pyung's touch. The past three weeks were a blur - with him being preoccupied with a high-profile murder case and her attending to the routinary obligations as Fate's servant until past twelve for several evenings in a row. No matter how much they wanted to hold each other intimately, exhaustion won them over the minute they reached the bedroom to the extent that they drifted off to sleep right after bidding each other goodnight with a quick peck on the lips.

"Are you a hundred percent positive that Auntie would not be back until tomorrow?" Eon Jin verified in one shaky breath as Tae Pyung's nimble fingers fumbled on the waistband of her tattered jeans to untuck her shirt.

"Yes," he replied curtly while pulling the thin garment over her head, then pinned her slender frame against the wall to map every inch of her skin with his lips.

"How about Ji Won?"

"Baseball game."

"Did you lock the gate? For crying out loud, let us not traumatize the child."

"I did."

"How about the -"

Tae Pyung shushed her further questions by claiming her mouth, wasting no time with his customary preamble by inviting her tongue to dance with his instead. His seduction was reckless, demanding, uninhibited - exactly the way she needed it to be at that moment.

Just as her lungs consumed the last wisp of air in her chest, Eon Jin pulled away with a gasp and held the smoldering gaze of her lover with a pair of equally hungry eyes.

"I've longed for this," she whispered against his lips. "I've longed for you."

Those few words spurred a thousand and one emotions in Tae Pyung, the variations and intensities making it extremely difficult for him to phrase a response that would rightly sum up how much he yearned for her nearness in the same way. Alas, he came up empty handed a while later and he simply returned her affection in the best way he knew how.