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Chapter 9: The Agreement – February 26, 2021

Tenderly, he set her down in his car and even put her seatbelt on for her.  Then he gently closed her door.  He climbed into the driver’s side and started the car.  He turned towards her.

“Is it odd that I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to ever set foot in my bedroom again?”

“I know I don’t want to,” she murmured.

He glanced sharply at her.  She was still shaking like a leaf.  The sooner he got her home, the better.  He pulled out of the driveway and headed for her house.  They rode in silence for a while.  

“Please talk to me,” she whispered through chattering teeth.  “I can’t get the trauma out of my head.  He just keeps hitting me and ripping my dress off of me.  What if you hadn’t come upstairs when you did?”

She began to sob, and he pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator.  He reached over with his hand and found hers.

“I love you, Minha.  I’m so sorry I didn’t come up sooner.”

“No.  It’s not your fault.  It just happened.  Eunho saw me.  He recognized me.  He said he’s wanted me for years.  He saw me in that tight dress and interpreted it as permission…”

“Wait.  He told you wearing a tight dress gave him permission to rape you?”

“He thought it meant I wanted him.”

“He’s delusional.”

“I said no.  Several times.  I begged him to stop,” she continued to sob.  “I swear I did, Naru.”

He looked over at her.  “Minha, I know you did.  I heard you.  Right before my fist contacted his lip.”

It had been such a satisfying feeling.  Grinding that soft lip between his knuckles and the guy’s own hard teeth.  He wished he could do it again.  Several more times.  For all the trauma he’d unleashed upon precious Minha.

“Could I have prevented it?  If I’d been wearing a more modest dress?”

“What?  No.  That guy is a Neanderthal.  He thinks he can just take whatever he wants from a woman.  It had nothing to do with what you were wearing.  I mean, I know it hugged your body, but you were completely covered.”

“Until he ripped my dress,” she muttered.  “Tell me something funny.”

“Funny?”

“Yes.  I want to laugh.”

So he began to tell her little anecdotes that concerned her own daughter.  He could feel her load lifting.  He kept it up until he pulled up in front of her house.

“Can I come in with you?” he asked her.

And something descended between them.  They both felt it.  She turned and looked at him.  

“Please do,” she whispered.

That’s when he knew she was still terrified.  

His heart bent.  He jumped out of his car and crossed to open her door.  

He whispered, “Shall I carry you to your bed?”

She looked up at him.  “No.  I can walk.”

She stood up and stepped forward.  He shut her door, and they headed for her house.  But not until his hand had engulfed hers.  Something had changed between them tonight.  They could both feel it.  

Naru had become her hero.  He had proven himself to her.  He had rescued her from a yawning pit that had quite suddenly and without warning appeared before her.  So when they entered her house, neither one of them questioned it when she tugged on his hand and led him to her bedroom.

She pulled back the covers and lay down in her bed.  She was still trembling.  She tugged on his hand again.

“Naru, will you please hold me?  I need to feel your strong arms being kind to me right now.  I keep reliving that horror every time I close my eyes.”

He let go of her hand to climb in on the other side of her bed.  He reached across her to turn off her lamp.

“No. Leave it on.  Please.”

He stilled his movement and gazed down at her.  Her eyes were wide open.  She was staring up at him while tears slid down her temples.  His heart broke.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered gently.

She burst into tears as she recalled Eunho’s probing lips and tongue.  She had never even kissed Naru that deeply.  

“Can you shut my door?” she gasped.

He jumped from her bed to do her bidding and was back in a flash.

“I’ve never even kissed you the way he was kissing me,” she managed to say between sobs.

“I know.  And I don’t ever want you to kiss me that way.  I really like my bottom lip.”

The absurdity of his words hit her funny, and she began to giggle.  

“You bit him really hard, didn’t you?” he asked.

She nodded her head.  “It was my only chance.  He had me completely pinned.”

“Yeah, well.  I’m not sure his lip will ever be the same…between your teeth and my fist.”

“I hope not,” she murmured.  “I hope he thinks twice before he ever tries to rape anyone again.”

Naru inched closer to her and reached up one hand to delicately wipe the tears off her face.  He was using the very tip of his fingers to pluck her tears, one by one, from her skin.  She was watching his eyes lovingly trace the planes of her face.  Her stomach flipped upside down at the expression in his gaze.

“How?” she asked suddenly.

His eyes lifted to meet her own.

“How?” he echoed, uncomprehending. 

“How did you come to love me?”

Something soft shifted in his gaze.  “How could I not come to love you, Minha?  You are absolutely amazing.  Perfectly wonderful.”

His words spiraled deep down inside of her to attack the root of something evil that Beopdung had planted within her long ago.  They also attacked roots that had grown from seeds other boys and even some girls had carelessly tossed into her soul over many years.  And she began to water the bed with her tears.

Slowly, he lowered his head until his lips rested against her cheek.  Then, they slid across her skin towards her ear.  As she lay perfectly still beneath him, his arm slid around her and drew her close, and his lips began to play their melodies on, first, one of her cheeks, and then across her nose to the other.  As he kissed her countenance, he could feel her body relaxing beneath his.  Her breathing finally evened out too.  The sobbing had ceased.  He pulled back to reach up and grab some Kleenex off her nightstand.  He handed them to her, and she blew her nose.  

When she had finally settled down again, he hovered over her, staring down into her eyes.  

“Kiss me,” she commanded him in a tiny breath.

His pupils contracted as his eyes probed the depths of hers.

“Wipe him from my memory,” she whispered.

His head descended slowly then as his eyes locked with hers until the last possible moment.  Then his lips brushed hers so gently that she almost didn’t feel them.  But when they brushed hers again, with more pressure this time, an ache opened up deep inside her with such force that she began to sob again.  

Naru pulled back, but her arms suddenly snaked around his neck and drew his lips down to hers once more.  She began to kiss him hungrily then.  As her tongue slid along his lower lip, tension coiled in his gut.  He drew away from her for a moment.

“Minha, are you sure you want me to kiss you like this right now?  You don’t want just soft and sweet kisses?  Won’t I remind you of him?”

“Naru, please,” she begged him.  “Softly steal his image from me.”

He bent his head and opened her mouth with his own then, his tongue gently ministering comfort to her mouth for several long minutes until he felt the tension leaving her body.  Then he allowed his lips to trail down her throat.  She tensed again, and he knew that Eunho’s lips had trespassed here too.  So he spent several minutes loving on her throat as gently as he could.  Again, until the tension left her. 

“There’s one more place,” she whispered.  

She rolled away from him then and stood up to remove his ridiculously large pants from her legs.  They slid to the ground before she slipped back into bed clad only in his sweatshirt.  She reached up and grabbed his hand and tugged it lower until his open palm was resting on her left thigh.  She pulled his hand as high as Eunho’s had traveled.  Then she released him.  

Her eyes connected with Naru’s, and he swallowed.  He slid his hand a little higher and then down lower, enjoying the silky feel of her skin.  His eyes caressed hers as his fingers investigated the satiny touch of her thigh.  A sweet smile curved his lips for a moment before it completely fled.  He was then staring intensely down at her when his hand stilled on the outside of her thigh below her hip.

A deep and earth-shattering realization had just hit him.  He was lying in a bed with an incredibly sexy woman, running his hand up and down her silky thigh, and he wasn’t thinking about sex.  He was thinking about her.  About her precious heart.  And how he could rob from her soul the terror inflicted upon her tonight.  That was when he realized that he was ready.  That he truly loved her.

“Minha,” he murmured, “I love you.  So much.  Will you marry me?”

Her eyes flew wide. 

“I want your heart.  I want your soul.  I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours.  I mean…soon.  

“I want you.  But I care too deeply for you to treat you cheaply.  I want to do things the right way.  I want to honor you.  I want you to feel – want you to be – safe and secure the next time you get pregnant.”

She stared up at him as tears flooded her eyes.  

“We can have a tiny ceremony.  Just you, and Harmony, and Ajin.  And one of my friends as a witness.  How about next Saturday?”

“Next Saturday?” she croaked.  “Naru, you haven’t even known me for two months.  We never went on even one of our five dates.”

“I don’t need a date with you to know how deeply I feel about you.”

“If sex were not part of the equation, would you still want to marry me?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes,” he answered as he continued to probe the depths of her soul with his eyes.

“I love you, Naru.  But I wonder if you’ll change your mind.  Maybe this is just the effect of the attack tonight…”

Her eyes slid away from his.

He felt despair and anger rising in his soul.  Was she going to refuse him?

He bent his head and began to kiss her gently.  He did so for several long moments before his lips veered off course to plant a long line of kisses down the delicate skin of her throat, then in the crook of her shoulder.  He found a sensitive spot she liked and camped there for a while.  Then her mouth sought out his.  And their tongues danced.  And he could feel desire rising in him this time.  He might be putting her first, but he wasn’t completely immune to her charms.  Finally, panting, he pulled away from her.

“Come on, Minha.  Stop torturing me.  Say you’ll marry me.”

“It’s not just me I have to think about, Naru.  I have Ajin too.  She’s never known anything but this house.  And there’s my Harmony too.  She’s getting older.  I can’t just leave her.”  She started shaking.  “I’m sorry.  I just can’t enter that house again.  Not after tonight.”

His heart melted.  “I want to marry you so I can move in here.”

“What?”

“I told you, didn’t I?  That your home is home to me.  Not that cold house I grew up in.  I want you to accept me and wrap me up in the joy and comfort you have all nourished in this house.”  

He glanced up at the ceiling and around at her walls.  “There’s so much color here.  So much happiness.  So much warmth.  I want this.”  

He looked down into her eyes again.  “I grew up in a black-and-white world.  Cold and alone.  You and Ajin have painted my life with bold colors.  And wrapped me in your warmth.  I want you.  I want all of you.  I want your Harmony to be my Harmony too.  I want Ajin to be my daughter.  I want you to be my wife.”  A sob was rising in his chest.  “I want to come home, Minha.”  He swallowed.  “You’re my home.  You, and Ajin, and Harmony.”

She gazed up into those beloved eyes and found herself terrified of the words tumbling from her lips.  “Okay, Naru.  Yes, I will marry you.”

“You will?” his eyes lit up.  “On Saturday?”

“Maybe not that fast,” she hedged.

His heart fell.  “All right,” he conceded.

“I still think we should have those five dates.  I want you to be absolutely certain before you go down that path with me.”

“Five dates will not change me.”

“Maybe not, but it will give us time to talk about things that are important to us, and to see where the other person stands on those issues.  We’ll understand each other better too.  Before we get married.”

“I suppose it’s not a bad idea,” he shrugged.

She laughed and swatted him on the arm.

“But, Minha, I do have one request.”

“Hmm?” Her eyebrow quirked.

“Can I sleep on your couch until we get married?  I don’t want to go back to my cold house either.  Not after tonight.”  

He didn’t want to remember Eunho’s hands on her.  And he also didn’t want to recall all the women who had slept in that bed and dallied on that couch with him.

Her heart melted as she gazed at him.  “You can move your stuff into my room.  I’ll have Ajin sleep with me, and you can have her bed.”

His lips quirked.  “She’s going to be disappointed.”

Her brow furrowed.  “What?”

“She wanted to share that bed with me.”

She giggled.  And snorted.  Then she shook her head.

But Naru thought she was absolutely, positively adorable.

“I love you, Minha.  I love you so much.”  

His eyes were back at it.  Tracing the planes of her face.  Caressing her eyes again.  Making love to her.

“Hey, buddy,” she rebuked him, “you don’t have a license for that yet.”

Confused, he tossed an eyebrow up in the air.  “What?”

“The way you’re looking at me.  It’s likely to lead me into a bed with you.”

He laughed.  “Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but…you’re already in a bed with me.”

Her lips curved into a wide smile.  “Oh, yeah,” she whispered softly as her eyes fell to trace his lips now.

“Hey, you better stop that, or I’m going to have to kiss you again,” he murmured quietly.

Her eyes met his.  “That sounds blissful.”

So he bent his head and did what he had been tenderly threatening to do.  Much to her utter delight.