A/N :

This fic was written a few years ago as a challenge to write a mature story for KSE's birthday. It was basically a free prompt; the only rule was to include the number 6 and 9, since her birthday falls on the 6th of September. Sadly, the original site hosting this fic is no more.

This fic is rated M for a reason. Warning for extremely bad language and excessive swearing beside the obvious adult situation.

Disclaimer : BOF belongs to KBS, I only play with the characters.

TANGLED

NOW

He ordered a bottle of champagne delivered to the room at exactly ten p.m. He was ready for her. She would come, he thought. Six times, he had had almost encounters with her, only to find out that she had already gone five or ten minutes before his arrival. But today was his lucky day. He looked at his watch. Nine past ten. She had to come. He had waited for this moment for so long. She would come.

He sat next to her. His formal dinner jacket brushed her bare arm. Another place, another time, she would have been elated to be in such close proximity to his charm, his musky after shave, his presence. She tried to move her arm from the hand rest, but she fought a losing battle. For as soon as she moved her hand onto her lap, he took it into his own. In the dark, his hand rested on her thigh. In the dark, they played the chasing game. In the dark, she felt his fingers laced into hers. Fucking asshole, she thought bitterly. Fucking arrogant asshole.

'I heard you two are acquaintances,' their host said excitedly. She, a fifty year old museum curator from one of the most prestigious institutions in New York City.

He smiled at her, bowed a little, 'We were,' he said ever so charmingly. 'We haven't been in touch for, what, two, three years?' His head cocked a little to her side. She forced herself to smile. She wouldn't have been there had she known the guest list would include his name.

The invitation was for an early dinner and show afterwards. Madama Butterfly. She had watched it a few years earlier but the thought was still the same.

It was her on stage, she thought bitterly. It was her. Bumbling stupidly on edge, waiting for a man that never returned. In her case, he returned only to leave her again. She couldn't quite decide about which one was sadder.

He watched her curiously in the dark. She wore an almost replica of the dress he bought her the first time they went on their fake date. Only this one was creamy, and she had put her hair up. But her dainty feature was still the same. Her almost bare shoulders and long neckline were milky white in contrast with strands of black wavy hair that artfully strayed from the loose silver band. She painted her lips in the palest of pink, her face nude except for her eyes. They were smoky, intense, smoldering, sexy. He could see how she got where she was now.

Had someone asked him why he did what he had done years before, he would have readily answered, because he had been one stupid bastard. But he would then back up his answer with, she should have never run away either. Things might have been played out differently had they learned to be patient with each other.
As always, he was left annoyed with the thought.
Some things were never really changed.

He asked her where she stayed for the night. She was tempted not to answer his question. But they were in the presence of their host, so she gritted her teeth and gave him the answer.

'Ah, only five doors away,' he exclaimed happily.

She refused his offer to walk her all the way to her room (even though it really was only five doors away from his). Opting to sneak out when he was away at the rest room.

She threw her silver beaded clutch in anger once she was safe inside her suite. Who was he anyway, she fumed in silence, appeared in front of her without warning. She thought it was their unsaid agreement to not see each other ever again. He had left her broken hearted when he said he wasn't ready a mere five weeks before their supposed wedding day. Five weeks! It was she, who had to call the wedding organizer to cancel everything off. She, with the red face, who had to call the most famous Korean designer at that time, to say that she wouldn't need that wedding dress anymore. She, who in turn had to face a scrutinizing media wanting to know the truth behind the rumors flying around the tabloids.

Stupid, stupid, little girl, she thought in a mixture of anger and self pity. Thinking that there had ever been a thing called soul mates in this world.

She took a deep breath and took the bag off the floor. It was opened, lipstick, a little note book, pencil, coins and what not were scattered on the floor. A card was amongst those lay on the floor. A key card. A hotel key card, five doors away from hers.

Asshole, she thought bitterly.

He was not joking when he told her that he wasn't ready three years ago. But he did not exactly expect her reaction either. Running away was pretty much the sum up of any long winded stories one could have told you about the whole messy affair. She disappeared from his life, like he disappeared from hers years before, when he decided to go to Sweden. Only this was without warning. Only this was bitter without the sweet part. He couldn't trace her, and her friend was not helping either.

Two years later, she emerged from nowhere in the form of an article in a magazine - an exclusive annual art magazine, to be precise. She had made a quite successful career for herself as an art writer abroad (must be his influence, he thought rather proudly). But that wasn't why she was featured in the magazine. She was the muse of the most prolific of young American painters. Her face was the object of his brush on canvas. Her bare shoulders and breasts, her flowing hair, had become the art of composition. She adorned (and sold) a whole gallery with glimpses of her body parts. There, her beautiful hand holding a tall champagne flute. Here, her partly opened mouth without lipstick but with red cherry filled the whole canvas.

Fucking hell, he thought. He would never have allowed her to even bare her legs in front of an audience. But she wasn't his anymore. And it made him intensely angry.

The painter captured her naked back and pert butt with oil and acrylic on canvas. She had a small red and black butterfly tattoo just under her waist line. It wasn't there the last time he kissed her. The picture was sold close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

How did he paint her, he thought. Did he touch her while he asked her to rest that right elbow on her knee? Did they make love in between the strokes of his brush? Did he run his tongue on her while she lay sprawled on those pillows? Were her moans and sighs imprinted on that white canvas? Freeze framed in eternity? Did she blow that fucking blond haired bastard the way she did him years ago?

She made him mad and horny even without her presence. Fucking whore, he thought angrily while touching himself in front of her picture. His wrist ached. He filled her mouth, she was sucking him. Fucking beautiful whore.

He pushed her head down; he made her swallow for his grief.

She waited another half an hour before she opened her door and walked to the room five doors away from hers. The green light flashed as she swept the key card over the lock.

She would be disappointed if she had expected a cheesy serenade and bright lighting.

He sat by the large, thick glass window, looking at the bright city lights from the darkened room. His handsome feature illuminated by the soft light from the bedside table.
'I'm glad you can make it,' he said to her, smiling from the comfy chair he was sitting.

She was not smiling back.

She threw the room key on the table and folded her arms on her chest.
'What do you want?' she said. Her voice was the coldest she could muster.
His smile did not waver.
'We need to talk,' he said, to which she snorted loudly.

'Isn't that a bit too late?' she asked sarcastically. 'Three years too late?'

She was beautiful even when she was angry, he thought.

Correction.

She was especially beautiful whenever she was angry. Five long steps, and he was standing in front of her. His strong fingers ran along her cheek.

'You are beautiful,' he said softly. But she slapped his hand away, her eyes blazed fire.
'You have no right,' she hissed with as much venom she could inject. 'You left.'
'I said I wasn't ready. I didn't ask you to run half the world away.'
'You said you weren't ready. It's the same thing as leaving.'
'It was not the same thing as leaving. You overreacted.'
Her face flushed from anger.
'Coward.'

Her mouth was the softest he had ever tasted, he thought. Her tongue lazily exploring the contour of his skin while her fingers drumming the heavenly beat was the best thing ever happened to him. Bitch. He swallowed back the sentence he was going to say and he kissed her instead.

Did she lose her mind, she thought. This was definitely not the scene she had pictured in her brain half an hour earlier. She was going to tell him not to bother her anymore. But instead, she sat half upright without her panties on his bed, elbows supporting upper body, legs wide apart. He had his hands on each of her knees, half forcing them apart while his face disappeared between her legs. She felt his tongue inside her, felt the warmth teasing her, tickling her most sensitive nervous system, and she had to forcefully keep her mouth closed for fear of moaning too loud.

The room could do with more color, she thought idly while his hands made a rip on her beautiful white dress. Ten seconds. It took exactly ten seconds for him to take off every last remnants of her clothes. It took him another couple of minutes to take off his own.

He was still beautifully sculpted, she thought before looked away in shame. The pink and white diamond ring on her finger faintly reminded her of someone she couldn't recall. It wasn't important, she decided before turned her attention back to him.

She remembered one night when she tied him up to the four poster bed in one of the rooms in his house. He was moving frantically under her, frustrated from her endless teasing, restricted because of the four silk scarves she used to tie his arms and legs onto each of the four pillars. He was unbelievably hard as she rode him mercilessly. His grunts filled up the empty house almost as much as he filled her that night.

He climbed into the bed and lay on his side, one arm supporting his weight while another one reached her and slowly tracing her curves. He pushed himself up to allow his mouth captured the tip of her breast. One thing she remembered clearly was that he was always mad horny from the slightest provocation. So she reached down and put her hand where he wanted it most. Not looking at it, but instead she took a hard look at his half closed ayes and clenched jaws.

'Naughty girl,' he said to her in between heavy breathing. She felt her lower belly melted at his voice. She loved that voice. She loved him even better when he rolled her down and half pulled her up. He knew her too well. He licked her spine before his hands steadied her ass. Her breath hitched as he slowly entered. How she loved that friction, she thought, the glorious, glorious friction, as he started to increase the pace and the force. The bed moved under their hands and knees, her hands grabbed the sheet. Sex was poetry in motion, she thought, lips almost bled from the bite from her teeth.

It didn't take too long before she felt an explosion in her lower belly, her muscle tightened in that maddening pulse, and he rolled her on her back again, still gasping for breath, caged her with his arms, knees forced her legs to part, smiling in that charming way of his.

'Ready?' he softly asked. He didn't wait for an answer, though. He didn't even ask if she liked it when he half bit her neck as he entered her again. Slowly he built a rhythm while her legs clamped on his. He kissed her mouth hard, she could taste herself on his tongue. She was salty, much like his sweat on his neck she licked while he was pounding into her. Faster and harder with each repetition.

She had forgotten how good it was when she came the second time around. Her muscle clenched and relaxed as he released himself inside her. Tiny little sperms made their speedy run into their safe haven. Their sweat greeted each others, their fingers laced into others. Would there be ends without beginnings? Would there be beginnings without ends? She closed her eyes as he climbed off her, lay next to her, lazily took her right hand and kissed her wrist.

She was as hot as ever. The sex was as satisfying as he remembered. He kissed her wrist and smiled to himself before something caught his attention.

'What's this?'

She pulled her wrist from his grip but he was too strong for her even after the exhausting sexual exercise.
A series of number was inked into her milky white skin, not quite circling her wrist but it was there like printed bathroom ceramic, like a pattern on his pottery.
He wondered why he didn't notice it before. The painter had omitted that detail.

'Is this..?' His eyes widened in shock. 'But why?'
It was the date of their supposed wedding day.
She looked at him almost serenely.
'Are you crazy?'
Was this woman he had just fucked and fucked and fucked again into oblivion really crazy?

'It's a reminder,' she said after a while. Her voice was calm and collected.

'A reminder of what!'
His head throbbed in a familiar pattern of pain.

'A reminder of the day when my dreams died, and that you were right all along.' Her voice cracked, dry and hollow. 'Soul mates never do exist,' she sat up and started to gather her clothes.

She left before he could have thought of an answer.

Was it the end? She rinsed every trace of him under the hot shower in the bathroom. She made a note to buy morning after pills tomorrow. She should have been happy with how the things panned out, right? She had the last fuck from him, and a good one at that. It would be her last hurrah before the new life. Right?

Right? She closed her eyes and increased the stream of water to her face. It's hard and painful on her skin.

No. It didn't feel right. She turned off the shower, dried the excess water and put on her sleepwear before finally lay on the bed.

There was a knock on the door. Loud. She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Twelve minutes after midnight.
She sighed and climbed off the bed. Opened the door and folded her arms at the sight of him.

'I love you,' he said, his left hand raked his hair nervously, his white shirt unusually disheveled and partly unbuttoned to reveal a good part of his skin underneath.

She rolled her eyes before turned her body around and walked inside.

'I'm serious,' he followed her and closed the door behind him.

'It's too late, Yi Jeong.' She showed him the white and pink diamond ring; it's heavy on her finger. The perfectly shaped stones shone brightly under the dim light. 'I'm getting married next winter.'

She had insisted on a winter wedding. Summer wedding held too much bad memories.

'So?'
'What do you mean so?'
'Leave him! I fucking love you!'
She let out a high pitched laugh.

'I'll marry you tomorrow if you want. I'll marry you right now.'

He was crazy, she decided. Love was a word she did not believe exist anymore.

Quietly she walked back into bed and laid herself down, her back facing him. 'I'm sleepy. You know where the door is,' she said curtly. Fuck him. She shouldn't have wasted her time listening to him anymore. She shouldn't have let him entered her room in the first place. The ring on her finger was getting heavier.

'I am serious, Ga Eul,' he followed her and sat at her feet, looking at her beautiful ass under the almost see-through fabrics as he ran his long fingers on her calf. He faltered a little before followed her step and crawled quietly beside her.

'I love you,' he said to her back.
His voice sounded pathetic in this awkward silence.

She rolled on the mattress and pushed herself up, back rested on the pile of soft feather pillows, breasts peeked under silky lingerie, eye met eye.
She swallowed hard before averted her eyes and sighed.

He grabbed her right hand, took the offending ring off and threw it to the far corner of the room before his fingers undid her lingerie robe; his hand disappeared between her legs.
'I love you.'
She felt his hardening lust on her knee, his fingers entered her. Her breath hitched, she was fucking wet.
'I fucking love you.'
His hands unzipped his pants, his mouth found her nipples, erect and ready only for him. She moaned a little, her hands lost within his hair.
'I love you.'
He entered her; he was throbbing from sheer pleasure. Her legs shot up to his hips, her arms circling his neck, she clung on to him as he performed to that all too familiar rhythm.
I fucking love you.

The bed creaked beneath their bodies.

I love you.
I. Fucking. Love. You.