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As the first rays of early morning light broke through the window high over their bed, Jungkook opened his eyes to caress his wife’s face with his gaze.  In this gentle light, with her eyes closed, her breath soft on his face, her countenance relaxed in slumber, she looked almost…beautiful.  

His eyes slid over her smooth skin.  Over her plump lips.  How had he ever failed to notice how attractive they were?  He wanted to taste them.  Right now.  But he reined in that impulse.

And continued to peruse her countenance.  Her nose was straight and narrow.  Tiny.  But it fit her small face.  His eyes traveled upward.  Her eyebrows were each almost a straight line.  No delicate arch.  Yet their boldness seemed to hint at her character.  He realized they matched her personality.  He smiled as he recalled her fearlessness the first time they’d met.

Then his eyes slid upward to brush back her hair and move gently over it as it fell in a straight curtain down her back.  His fingers itched to touch it.  Should they?   He leaned closer to her.  

Her breathing was deep and even.  She was soundly asleep.  He grinned.  He was going to risk it.

He reached out hesitantly and touched one of her long tresses with the tip of his index finger.  He felt no shockwave.  Her eyes didn’t flash at him.  Her tongue didn’t awaken to berate him.  So he slid the pad of that one finger down the length of that gleaming lock.  So soft.  Even softer than he had imagined.  

His hand moved back up to the top of her head.  This time he opened his hand and touched her head with all four of his fingers.  His hand slid gently down the curve of her head.  Truly, his hand only hovered over her hair as it moved tenderly down her sleeping head.  Her hair was like the finest silk.  

A smile curved his lips.  He’d just discovered a feature of hers that completely captivated him.  He captured the ends of one long lock between his fingers and drew it up to his cheek.  He rubbed the gentle hairs across his skin as his smile faded.

His eyes traveled to her face once more.  Would she ever decide she wanted him?  Was it even possible that she could grow to love him someday?  That she would feel even just a smidgeon of tenderness for him?

It was what his heart craved.  What his heart had always longed for.  A woman’s sweetness.  He’d been deprived of his eomma as a tiny lad.  Her gentleness was but a distant echo lost among so many memories of his appa’s rough treatment of him.  And his cruelty to Jungkook’s friends.  

No one had ever called the things his father had done to him abuse.  But Jungkook’s heart knew the truth.  And he knew that his own short temper was a sad reverberation of his appa’s irascibility.  He just wasn’t sure how to overcome it.  And that uncertainty pained him.

He didn’t want to hurt Jina.  Yet…he had already done so.  More than once.  He winced as he recalled some of her words to him.  He wished he could start over with her.  Always lead with gentleness.  Make her feel secure in his arms.   Be her safe haven.  Her hiding place.

But the truth was…he wasn’t worthy of her.  A girl who had been so abused deserved a better husband than he could be.  She deserved someone who had treated her from the very beginning like the treasure she was.  Jungkook was still embarrassed about how he’d threatened her with her broomstick.  And held her down to force the tea into her throat.  He winced now as he recalled it.  He was surprised she’d crawled back into this bed with him.  

As his eyes devoured her face, an ache erupted from his heart.  He missed his eomma.  The tender voice of his childhood.  The gentle touch upon his forehead.  The sweet brush of her kiss upon his cheek.  The assurance that he was adored.  He hadn’t felt adored since she’d died.  Would he ever feel so loved again?

As his eyes drank in Jina’s glowing countenance, his heart yearned for things he would probably never experience.  But perhaps, even if he could never deserve those things from Jina, he could give her what he desired to have.  Maybe Jungkook could be that paragon of gentleness her heart had been searching for her whole life.  The very dream she’d given up on.  He leaned forward, and his lips caressed her forehead before he laid his head down on his pillow and drifted back to sleep.

—

Several hours later, Jina awoke to the same lovely glow that had wrapped around her as she had drifted off to sleep.  She was entangled with her husband.  His arms still about her.  His breath slipping over her lips.  

She opened her eyes in the bright morning light.  And her gaze traced his beautiful features.  His gorgeous, midnight locks were falling over his forehead.  The mounds of his eyelids looked like they’d been carved of marble.  His dark brows crowned them in beauty.  His straight nose thickened at the end.  It turned unexpectedly, but something about this oddity made her want to kiss its tip.  She loved the divot above his lips.  She wanted to plant a kiss there too.  

She used to fantasize about kissing him.  During all those moments she’d snuck a peek at him.  Around a corner.  Or in passing as she ran an errand for one of the royal ladies.

Now her eyes landed squarely on those beautiful lips.  What would it feel like to brush them with her own?  Would he take a kiss from her as an invitation to more?  To things she was in no way ready for?

Jina sighed.  He was so beautiful.  Too beautiful.  His beauty endangered her heart.  

As her breath left her lips, it flowed across his face.  Jungkook felt that sigh deep down on the inside of him.  Slowly, he opened his eyes.  They collided with hers, and she gasped.  

The butterflies were back in the pit of her stomach.  Those great, obsidian orbs were delving into hers.  Stirring the waters of her desire for him.  Pulling her closer to him.  She was fighting hard to protect her heart from him.  But his eyes were so captivating, his smile so sweet.  It was curving his lips now.  

It was almost enough to make her forget the night they’d first spoken.  Almost.  But not quite.  The violence of those last few seconds of contact with him was still shut up in her bones.  As he’d pulled that rod across her throat, she’d felt a moment of such intense panic, she had feared he’d stolen her last breath.

It was hard to believe the smile shining on her now belonged to the same man who’d blocked her airway with her broomstick then.  The current glow in his eyes contradicted his actions that night too.  She found her breathing endangered again.  But for an entirely different reason.

“Good morning, beautiful.”  

He hadn’t said it on purpose.  It had just slipped out.  His eyes had slid over her face in the gentle morning sunlight, and those words had floated up from deep inside of him.  Perhaps from all those hours of poetry reading?

Her face crumpled, and he knew he had ruined the moment.  He had awoken to such a sense of peace.  And longing.  He’d seen it in her eyes when he had opened his.  But somehow, with a few words, he had damaged it.  He could feel the inhalation of her breath.

“Please,” she whispered.  “Don’t mock me.  We both know I am not beautiful.”

“Stop that,” he rebuked her.  His ire was rising again.  He hated the way she spoke of herself.  “Stop saying such things about yourself.”

She just stared at him.  “But they’re true.”

“Then let’s make something else true!”

“What?”

“Go get a looking glass.  Bring it here.”

She blinked.  

“Go on!”  His face was intense.  Especially his eyes.  But his voice, though urgent, was still soft.  It was what compelled her to move.

She scrambled from the bed and gasped as the cool air hit her skin.  She returned a moment later with the mirror.  She slid quickly under the covers.  His warm arms were waiting to envelop her.  

She couldn’t help but notice how strong they were.  But right now, that strength wasn’t being used against her.  It was for her.  Cradling her against him.  Almost lovingly.  She blinked back a tear at that absurd notion.

Once she was settled against his chest, he bent his head and whispered, “Look in the glass.”

She sighed.  “Must I?”

He nodded.  “Definitely.”

She glanced at her reflection.  

“What do you see?”

“Plain Jina.”

He bent his head farther, and his lips brushed her hairline as he murmured, “No.  That Jina is not plain.  Look again.”

She was trembling.  From the touch of his lips against her skin.  And the caress of his voice against her ear.  She had dreamed a man would speak so sweetly to her.  But she had never really expected it to happen.  Especially not with this man.

But it had, so she obeyed that caress.  Her eyes faced the mirror.  She gazed into them first.  

“My eyes are brown,” she sighed.  “Just like everyone else’s.”

Except for Minha.  Her eyes were an exotic, glowing jade.  All the men must be fascinated by them.  But poor Jina had been born with boring, brown eyes.  Everyday eyes.  Not extraordinary eyes.

His lips brushed her ear as he whispered, “Look closer.”

She was quaking.  His breath was melting her insides.  She wanted to turn towards him and kiss those beautiful lips.  She wanted to sink into his arms and never emerge again to face the cold, hard world alone.

She continued to gaze into the looking glass.  But it wasn’t easy.  His breath was teasing her skin.  Just below her ear.  The wind flowing from his lips was slipping over her throat.  Making her ache for something she couldn’t even define.

“They’re brown.”

“You can do better than that.”

“Dark brown,” she murmured.

His lips brushed her ear again.  “Chocolate brown,” he breathed.  “Like the intense flavor of the darkest variety.”  He’d sampled it once.  Yoongi had given him a piece the chef had prepared for the royal table.

Her eyes met his in the mirror now.  His obsidian orbs were gleaming at her like two polished gemstones.  As she stared into those gorgeous jewels, she was forcibly reminded of all the reasons she’d fallen in love with him at first sight.  Her stomach was turning somersaults right now.

She was in bed with those eyes.  She was wrapped in those strong arms.  That lovely breath was flowing over her skin.  Those beautiful lips kept brushing her skin too.  Promising delights she could only guess at.  Dare she believe all his eyes, and his arms, and his breath, and his lips promised her?

“Your eyes are lovely.  Like deep velvet.  Or the richest of chocolates.  Your eyes move me,” he breathed as he remembered a line of poetry that had once jumped out at him.

Those eyes narrowed at him.  “Did you read that in your book of poetry?”

His eyes widened.  How had she guessed that?

“I spoke the words from my heart.  What does it matter where I found them?”

His eyes held hers intensely.  Breathless, she stared at him.  Did he truly mean such words?  Or was he just trying to woo her into his arms?

Actually, she was already in his arms.  No wooing required.  Her eyes grazed his lips in that mirror.  Did he wish to kiss her?  Was he trying to lead her into a relaxed state so that she would give him her lips?  Her eyes traveled back up to his.  He smiled faintly at her.  

“Look at your lips,” he whispered.

Ah-ha!  

He had been thinking of kissing her!

She glanced down at her own lips.  They weren’t as beautiful as his.  Hers were too plump for her slender face.  And not bright enough.  They were just a pale shade of pink.  Nothing noteworthy about them.  Unless one complained of their size.

“They’re too big,” she bemoaned their size.

“No,” he breathed into her ear.  “They’re just perfect for kissing.”

He was thinking of all the things he wanted to do with those lips.

Her eyes flew to his again.  But his gaze was still fixed on her mouth.  

“How do you know?  Have you kissed these lips before?”

He grinned crookedly.  “Only in my dreams.”

Her heart began to race.   She swallowed.  Her eyes fastened on his lips.  He had fantasized about kissing her?

“Do you need me to demonstrate their perfection?” he provoked her.

She blinked several times in quick succession.  She dragged her eyes away from his and looked at her nose.

“Let’s talk about my nose and how insignificant it is,” she redirected his attention. 

He frowned at her.  “Your nose is anything but insignificant.  Look at its elegant slope and its slender perfection.  It fits your tiny face to a T.”

She stared at the nose she had always considered too pert.  “If only I had your eyes.  To see what you see.”

He bent close to her ear again and breathed, “Your nose is perfect.”

She turned her head then to look straight into those gorgeous eyes of his.  She inhaled sharply as her stomach dropped and her heart raced.  She was melting inside.  Being this close to him was pure torture.  

Why?  

The look in his eyes was melting her.  She could feel her resistance sliding away from her.  Would she give him all of herself?  And lose the precious thing that made her unique?

She broke eye contact with him and turned her face back towards the mirror.  

“Plain, black hair,” she brusquely categorized one of her most beautiful assets as her eyes raked over her raven locks.

Jungkook buried his face in them and breathed in.  Today a different scent greeted him.  Enrapturing him.  “Soft, silken strands that comfort me with apples.”  He glanced up at her.  “Why do you smell like apples?”

“Mari taught me how to make perfume out of apple blossoms.”

He smiled.  “I love it.  Apples are one of my favorite fruits.”  

He ran his nose across her scalp and breathed in again.  Deeply.  She watched him in the mirror.  He looked lost in ecstasy.  

Over her hair?

Suddenly, she frowned.  “You sound like you enjoy my appearance.”

His eyes met hers.  “I do.”  His lips curved into a sultry smile.

She simply stared at him for several long moments.  He held that questioning gaze.  She didn’t believe him.  He could tell.  His words were so outside her box that she couldn’t take them in. 

She rolled towards him, turning around in his arms again, until she was facing him once more.

“Truly?”

Breathless with her newfound beauty, he simply nodded his head.

Then her beautiful countenance faltered, and she buried her face against his chest and wept.  No one had ever enjoyed her appearance.  Not one person.  Not even in her earliest memories.