Blog

Tae woke up before Mari.  He was still holding her in his arms.  He smiled faintly as he stared down at her adorable face.  His wife.  What an odd yet wonderful notion.  He found that he quite liked her.  

He frowned as she suddenly moaned.  Was she still in pain?

Her eyes fluttered open a moment later.  He could see them clearly illuminated by the rising sun bursting through the window shade.

“Are you all right?” he murmured, bending his head low over her.

She gazed up at him.  Her heart shifted violently in her chest as the events of last night cascaded into her consciousness.  He’d seen her back.  He’s caressed her scars.  Then he’d even kissed them.

She was lost in love with him now.  No one had ever treated her with such gentleness.  Not in the whole of her life.  Not once.  Not ever.  If he didn’t fall in love with her, she didn’t know how she’d bear it.  The man was so gentle.  So tender.  So wonderful.

“My back still hurts,” she whimpered.  But then she realized how pitiful she sounded, and he had suffered so much worse than she had.  “But it’s nothing,” she rushed to add.  “I should get up and go find us some breakfast.”  

She shifted as though she was going to sit up, but he tightened his arms around her to keep her firmly nestled against him.

“Not yet,” he murmured.  “I find I quite like being in bed with my wife in the early morning.  I don’t want you going anywhere.  Come.  I’ll put some of that miracle cream on your back again.  And then you can do mine…All right?” 

He was looking down at her with such a sweet expression in his eyes.  She swallowed.  He was asking to see her scars in the sunlight.  Last night, he had examined them by candlelight.  But this morning, the garish sun would not hide any hideous facet of them from his gaze.  She swallowed.

He bent and whispered into her ear, “Please don’t be shy.  I’ve already seen your scars.  They will not shock me in daylight.  I won’t flee from you.  Remember, Mari, I find you beautiful.”  His gentle breath wafted over her skin, teasing it.

She shivered at the touch of that tantalizing breath. And those sweet words.

“Do you truly, Tae?  Or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

He smiled at her.  He loved how she called him Tae.  No one else did that.  It was rather endearing.

“I am trying to make you feel better,” he breathed into her ear again.  Then he bent his head and kissed her neck.

She gasped as a flood of heat rushed into her belly.

“But I also think you’re beautiful.”  He kissed her throat next.

She was quaking.  Was he going to keep kissing her like this?  She was going to melt out of their bed into a big puddle on the floor if he kept this up much longer.

“Can I take off your shirt?” he whispered, his breath sliding over her skin.

Her heart started to race.  But then she reminded herself that he was still really injured and he had promised to take things slow.  So she nodded and sat up.  She turned her back towards him and raised her arms over her head.  He sat up too and grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it up.  

He nearly gasped when he saw her scars in the sunlight.  They broke his heart afresh, and tears began to slide down his cheeks.  He pulled the shirt over her head and handed it to her.  Then he slid his fingers into the jar of cream before he began to rub it into her skin.  But, really, he just wanted to kiss those healed wounds.  The ones he was sure must have been carved all the way into her soul.

She lay down next to him, her back towards him.  When he finished rubbing the cream into her new wounds, he gave in to his impulse.  He bent his head and brushed his lips across the highest scar on her back.  She gasped as his mouth touched her.  He did it again.  And silent tears began to flow down her cheeks.  Was he going to kiss her flaws every time she took off her shirt?

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the tender touch of his mouth as he loved on her scars.  At one point, she felt something wet hit her back, so she rolled towards him.  That’s when she saw the tears slipping quietly down his cheeks.  Her stomach flipped over, and her heart tumbled towards him.  

She forgot herself completely and rolled into his arms.  Then she lifted her face towards his.  He bent his head and kissed her lips softly.  Sweetly.  She gave herself to his kiss.  It was her very first. 

He pulled her up against him and ignored all the pain in his body to ravish her lips with his own.  They clung to each other for several moments as their mouths danced together.  

I love you.

She wanted to murmur it.  But it seemed foolish so early in their relationship.  Tears continued to flow down her cheeks as she kissed him.  She had forgotten her shirt.  As he pulled her up tight against his bare chest, she became conscious of the fact that nothing separated her skin from his.

She felt immediate embarrassment, but she didn’t want to attract his attention to the situation, so she said nothing.  Besides, his lips were playing such sweet melodies along hers right now.  She wanted to concentrate on that.  And if she were honest, she’d have to admit that she liked the feel of Tae’s skin against hers.

So she closed her eyes and fell headlong into that kiss.  She indulged in it for several long moments.  She noticed his fingers were gently brushing her shoulder.  Tracing a sweet pattern over and over as he kissed her lips.  

What was it?

Then it came to her, and she smiled beneath his lips.  He was drawing a heart on her back.

He felt her mouth curve into a smile beneath his own.  He pulled back and glanced down into her lovely face.  He smiled lazily at her.  Driving her nuts.  The man was so gorgeous.  But it was the something indefinable hiding in his gaze and buried beneath his skin that was causing her stomach to do somersaults.

Just then, he grimaced.

“Oh! Tae!  Your poor back!  Roll over.  I’ll put the cream on you.”

“My poor back?” he murmured tenderly.

There was such a wealth of sweetness in his gaze that she just had to press her lips against his one more time.  She glanced at his lovely mouth before lifting her head and leaning forward.  Her lips found his in a kiss of such tenderness she left his own head spinning.  His fingers continued to caress her shoulder.

She felt like she was being swamped by a heat wave.  Tae was setting off bombs under her skin.  And she could have sworn that electricity was shooting out of his mouth into hers.  She was being pulled under by it, and she wanted more of something indefinable.  She leaned into him just a smidge more.

Tae could feel the shift in her, so he enjoyed kissing her for a while longer.  But his back was beginning to ache.  And he had meant it.  He wanted to take things slowly.  He didn’t want to spook her.  

He could tell by the look in her eyes that she was beginning to admire him, and he wanted to nurture all her good feelings.  He wanted to demonstrate that he could put her needs first.  He could also tell she was still embarrassed to be lying half-naked in a bed with him.  And he wanted her to feel completely comfortable in his presence before he took her too far along.  

After a few more moments of indulging in her luscious lips and enjoying the silken feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, he reluctantly pulled away from her.  

“Could you put some cream on my back?”

Her eyebrows flew up.  “Oh!  Yes!”  She laughed softly.  “Sorry!  I meant to do that several minutes ago.”

He chuckled and quirked his right eyebrow.  “It’s quite all right.  I was rather enjoying myself.”  His eyes slid down her face to the point her body was pressed up against his before coming back up to meet her eyes.  “And you.”

She blushed.  Then she dropped her gaze.  “Roll over,” she whispered.  

He did in one fluid movement that belied the pain he was in.  But a moment later, he groaned in ecstasy as she smeared the ointment onto his back.  Then she heard his stomach rumble loudly.

She giggled.  “I’m going to get us some breakfast once I’m done putting cream on your back.”

“Sounds good,” he murmured.  “But, Mari…will you promise to come back and stay with me today?”

She leaned over his shoulder and whispered into his ear.  “Why, yes!  Of course!”

Gone was the heartbroken girl of yesterday.  Tae’s kisses had given her hope.  Especially the ones he’d showered her back with.  She had married a sweetheart.  A beautiful, kind darling of a man.  At this moment in time, she couldn’t have been happier.

—

Moonflower slept late.  Yoongi was pretty sure she’d been awake late into the night.  For she was sleeping the morning away every day.   He checked in with her late in the morning each day after he had finished his early meetings.  They shared a light lunch together.

“How are Mari and Taehyung getting along?” Yoongi asked her.

She glanced towards the sound of his voice.  “I’m worried about them.  She spent all of yesterday sobbing.”

Surprised, he looked over at his wife.  “How do you know that?  Did she say something?”

“No, but I could hear it in her voice.  She sounded depressed.  And she was stuffed up from the moment she walked in the door until she left two hours later.  I was surprised she came to visit me.  I thought she’d intended to stay with him all day long and nurse him back to health.  All I can think is that they got into some kind of argument.”  

Moonflower sighed.  “She sounded so sad.  Like her heart had been broken.  But they hardly know each other, so I don’t know that that’s possible.”

“He nearly died to protect her.  I imagine that burned his image into her heart,” Yoongi remarked.

Moonflower’s odd eyes speared him.  “You have the soul of a poet, Yoongi.”

He grinned at her.  “And, if you’ll remember, you fell in love with me fairly quickly.  It doesn’t necessarily take that long.”

“Me?” she asked in mock outrage.  “Don’t you mean that you fell in love with me quickly?” she teased him.

“I most certainly do.  That is exactly what I meant!  I lost my heart to you within forty-eight hours.  So, see, it is possible!”

She gazed at him as a sweet smile lit up her face.  “I love you, Yoongi.”

His heart stopped.  Neither of them had spoken those words before.  His face smoothed out as a very vulnerable cast overtook his countenance.  He set down his chopsticks and reached for her hand.  He pulled it to his mouth.  He turned her hand over and set his lips over her palm.  

“I love you, Moonflower,” he murmured against her skin.

Immediately, tears sprang to those strange eyes.  Yoongi was so sensitive.  He understood how much those words meant to her.  He knew that she couldn’t see him speak those words to her.  So he had helped her to feel them instead.

He was gazing up at her face with a look of such tenderness in his eyes.  That’s how he saw her tear escape to fall, unchecked, down her cheek.  He sat up and scooted his chair until he was right next to her.

“Come here,” he whispered.  

Then he reached for her, drawing her onto his lap.  Echoes of their garden surrounded him.  

“I miss our time in our garden,” he murmured.

Right before he claimed her beautiful lips with his own.  

He closed his eyes.  And inhaled deeply.  And it was as though the midnight sky surrounded them again.  And the cool night air.  He would have sworn he could smell the moonflowers as they lifted their faces to the glowing object of their heart’s desire.  Moonflower was his own heart’s desire.  He smiled deeply as he kissed her lingeringly.  Their lunch forgotten.