My Summer in Seoul

“Yeah.” I released her fingertips.

And like an idiot, grabbed them again and spun her around, kissing her once more, kissing her hard with all my pent-up frustration and fears, with all the emotions I didn’t feel like I could explore without having a nervous breakdown.

Her hands dug into my hair, tugging my face closer as our kiss turned desperate, too wild to contain, too perfect to stop. The table next to us rocked against the couch, nearly tumbling to the floor.

She tugged on my lower lip; it was the sweetest sort of pain and torture. We were going to get caught was all I kept thinking—yet I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

My body was like a live wire with every flick of her tongue—I’d never understood how people could get into trouble, how they could throw everything away knowing they were doing it and follow through anyway—until that moment.

This was the very reason our label didn’t want us dating—why our manager was constantly breathing down our throats with veiled threats of career suicide.

This sort of kissing.

Because this sort of kissing led down the path of no return, didn’t it?

This sort of kissing encouraged all the things you shouldn’t be doing in the dark—and spreading it into the light.

The sound of a door opening had me dragging her into the music room, shoving her against the wall with a hand across her mouth.

It was Rae.

I don’t know how I knew—I just did.

He was in the kitchen.

Was everyone dehydrated tonight?

I could see parts of his blond hair as he pulled out the bottle of soju, repeating the two shots I’d taken.

Another reason we were close.

He was stressed too.

Couldn’t sleep.

At least the alcohol would hit him like it should, whereas I felt like I had an IV of Red Bull in my system from Grace’s kisses.

Rae leaned against the counter.

I watched him.

And then… I betrayed him.

Eyes still locked on him while he faced the kitchen—I breathed across her neck—I sucked her skin between my teeth and pulled, then sucked again, my tongue making a swirling motion while she moved against the wall, her hands frantically reaching for me, tugging at my body holding it tight, pulling me closer.

A small whimper escaped her lips.

I covered her mouth with my hand and kept sucking, marking her while watching him—knowing how he probably felt.

Knowing that this would divide us—possibly end us.

And only caring about one thing—her knowledge of how I was doing this to her, not him.

Me.

She bit into my hand when I pulled back. He still leaned there but turned his head as though he’d heard us.

The world could burn around us, and I still wouldn’t leave that room.

“We need to go to bed,” she whispered.

I cupped her cheeks and kissed her again. She threw her arms around me, her hips synced with mine. It was a very different sort of dance taking place in that rehearsal room with him a few feet from us.

Her hand slid down the front of my pajama pants. Then she tugged them down, and while I watched my best friend stress out over the next day’s worldwide premiere, she tasted me.

And just like every man in existence when facing heaven or hell—eternal damnation or salvation—I chose to fall at the mercy of the woman on her knees.

Knowing things between my best friend and me would never be the same again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Music Video Drop Day—don’t puke

Lucas

I was going to puke.

Between hiding things from Rae while also seeing the way he was so attentive to Grace behind the scenes of our live Twitter worldwide debut party, my nerves were completely shot.

I’d had at least four coffees already—not helpful.

My chest hurt.

And I couldn’t figure out if it was because Rae was giving so much attention to Grace—or because the news had actually been somewhat kind to me today. I was currently the number two international trending topic on Twitter, second only to our band being number one.

Move, our first video had already garnered close to ten million views in under a few hours. It was one of the top ten trending videos on YouTube. The highest we’d ever been on a single comeback video was two hundred million in twenty days.

This was already going to surpass that, according to CEO Siu, and since we were one of the first groups with this label before we hit it big, our manager was the CEO, which just made things even weirder—we were the first group he’d managed when he started his label. It was why he relied so heavily on Solia and other interns and why he was usually so involved, and also why he was on set.

Scandal cleared, he looked a lot less stressed, wearing his black-rimmed glasses, a light scarf, black jacket, and jeans. I swear CEO Siu was aging backward.

They finished setting everyone up with wireless mics—everyone but Rae. He finally said something that made Grace laugh before coming onto the stage and lifting up his shirt so staff could put the mic behind it.