Ari

Chapter 34

We performed our nighttime routine just like any other night, just with a little more uneasy steps coming from me. I finally fell into the bed and sighed. The night was a good time, but little part of me wished it would end the way I wanted it to.

Jun pulled me in his arms to sleep just like any other night, and I expected to hear his soft breathing at my ear telling me he'd fallen asleep. But it wasn't there. Just the quiet noise of the room, before he finally spoke.

"Baby?" He called in a hushed tone.

"Hm?" I responded, eyes closed.

"I...I know something has been off, lately," he said. My eyes opened into the darkness of the room. "And it's nothing you're doing. It's just something that I, uh, am working on with myself."

I turned my body around to face him. "What is it?"

The soft glow of the city below lit the room just enough for me to see his face up close. He bit his bottom lip, pulling them both into a hard line.

"That night. I lost control in a way I don't think I ever have before. I wasn't myself...and yet I was. After that, I...I scared myself. And now...I don't know who to be when we're together like that anymore." Said Jun, careful with his words. The emotions hanging on each of them.

"Jun, you don't have to pretend to be someone you're not with me," I said caressing his cheek. He exhaled I felt his body relax next to me. "That night, I saw a part of you that could only make me love you more. Not less."

The scars of his past were on full display now. And the confident sex god of a man that I first met just became more human.

"I don't want to hold myself back from you, baby, I really don't. But there's more of a reason than the obvious I've said no to raw sex before," said Jun tracing a finger along my top lip.

"We can go back to condoms," I said matter-of-factly.

"You don't want to after that. And neither do I," he scoffed licking his lips, creating a stir between my legs.

"I'm already on birth control, so..."

"Ari," sighed Jun. "In my past relationship, condoms were used as a means of control. She let...without them was treated like a reward. And every time I lost myself in that moment. I was out of control. Any good judgement was out the window. She could have asked for the ocean and I would have found away to bottle it up, to feel that way again. I had no physical limits, but my emotions... that was too much for her. I was too much for her.

So we used condoms more and more. I've used them every time since. Even after we parted ways. I found that they kept me on a lead. Invested, pleasured, but not at my truest self.

The night we did, I was in a weird headspace after the party and the little fight. In that moment I let myself go for the first time in a long time. I loved it. I loved feeling you, completely. But it scared me how much I lost myself in the instant we touched," explained Jun.

This was heavy duty stuff. Here I was scared to feel while he was terrified. Sun-Hee really did a number on him. More damage than I had initially thought. Jun wasn't perfect but it didn't matter.

"I know what it feels like to lose yourself in something or someone. Being young and a little blind by it," I said remembering those years with Nate. "But I won't let you Jun. It's ok to be your truest self and the sex pot actor with me, if you want. All the Seokjuns that you are I would love. Forever."

Jun leaned his forehead against mine and grinned. Out lips centimeters away from each other.

"I don't know what I've done to deserve you," he said softly.