"Let me go, you bastard!"
Emma's scream tore through her throat as she hammered against Tae-min's broad chest with every ounce of her strength. He was dragging her callously out of Kento's office, his grip on her waist like a pair of steel pliers, nearly lifting her off the ground as he forced her to match his long, enraged strides toward the VIP elevator.
Behind them, Kento's roar filled the hallway as he fought the massive guards like a wolf defending its mate. "I'll kill you, Tae-min! I swear I'll kill you if you lay a finger on her!"
Tae-min slammed the button for the golden elevator with a violent jab, sealing them off from the world. The moment the metallic doors slid shut, he shoved her hard against the elevator's glass wall. Emma's back hit the cold surface, and before she could catch her breath, his massive frame had her completely pinned.
He leaned over her, bracing his knee firmly between her thighs through the fabric of her dress—a dominating, masculine move that was as terrifying as it was lethally provocative. His hard chest, clad in black silk, pressed against her own heaving bosom. He caged her face between his hands, leaving her trapped in a vacuum of heat, musk, and raw fury.
"Were you enjoying your gentle manager's touch, Emma?" Tae-min hissed inches from her lips, his obsidian eyes burning with a dark, inexplicable jealousy. His rough hand slid from her jaw to coil around her slender neck—not a choke, but a possessive, iron grip, his thumb resting boldly over her frantic pulse. "Were you melting in his arms the way you were in mine just minutes ago?"
Darkness.
In that moment—trapped by his crushing proximity, the overpowering scent of masculinity suffocating her senses—Emma's defenses crumbled. The nightmare of the past returned with a vengeance. She remembered her father's breath, the weight of his body, her utter inability to flee. The walls of the elevator seemed to shrink; her breathing became shallow and ragged as if the oxygen had been vacuumed from the air.
"No... don't touch me!" Emma shrieked with a sudden hysteria, tears of terror erupting from her eyes. She wasn't crying like a victim this time, but like a wounded animal fighting for its life. She dug her nails into his bare forearms, scratching his tanned skin with enough force to draw blood under her own nails. "You're all monsters! Every one of you! Get away from me!"
Tae-min's face went pale. He stopped moving entirely. This wasn't feminine posturing, and these weren't crocodile tears. Her body was shaking with a terrifying violence, and her glazed eyes were looking through him, as if seeing a different demon in her past.
He released his grip on her neck instantly and took a half-step back, though he didn't leave her. He was stunned by the sheer depth of agony in her amber eyes. This star, a man women begged to touch, found himself facing a girl who would rather die than let him near her in this moment.
"Emma..." he whispered, his voice losing its edge and softening into a raspy tone filled with dark shock.
But Emma didn't stop. Amidst the panic attack, something strange occurred. Something inside her snapped—but it didn't break her. Instead, it ignited a spark of pure, unadulterated rage. Rage at her past, at her father, at Kento for making her feel weak, and at this arrogant man who thought he owned her body.
She wiped her tears with the back of her trembling hand and lifted her head to look directly into his dark eyes.
"Listen to me carefully, you lunatic," Emma spoke with a voice that quivered but was saturated with an unprecedented defiance. Her chest heaved violently, accentuating her curves with every breath. "You've destroyed my life. You've put my face before the world as your whore. I will play along with your media lie because I have no other choice to save myself, but I swear to you..."
She took a step forward, forcing their bodies to touch again—but this time, she was the one enforcing the contact. She raised a finger and jabbed it hard into his solid chest.
"...This body of mine will never be your toy. I am not one of your obsessive fans, and I will not be your plaything. If you ever try to touch me against my will again, I will burn what's left of your reputation, and I'll burn myself down with you."
Tae-min's pupils dilated. The blatant defiance in her eyes, her sharp words, and the heat radiating from her pressed against him acted like an electric shock. He didn't feel anger. He felt a savage, crushing, forbidden desire erupting in his veins. He wanted to break her rebellion, to subdue her, but at the same time, he was utterly mesmerized by her sudden strength.
He raised his hand with agonizing slowness, ignoring her finger stabbing his chest. He traced the back of his rough knuckles along the line of her tear-streaked jaw. Emma tried to pull away, but the touch was tender and disarmingly intoxicating.
"You're full of surprises, konbini girl," Tae-min whispered, his gaze focusing on her swollen lips with a terrifying hunger. "You talk about burning... while your body is trembling for something else entirely."
He leaned in to plant a slow, searing, and deliberate kiss on the corner of her mouth—a kiss that made the blood boil in her veins and weakened her knees despite all her mental defenses.
Ding!
The elevator stopped abruptly on the floor just below the Royal Suite.
The metallic doors slid open to reveal Kento. He was gasping for air, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his blazer missing after his brawl with the guards and his sprint up the emergency stairs. His hazel eyes were dark, burning with a lethal rage no one had ever seen from him.
"I told you to get away from her," Kento roared in a voice dripping with threat, stepping into the elevator and ignoring all professional boundaries.
Kento didn't hesitate for a second. He reached out and, with a swift, powerful motion, seized Emma's wrist and yanked her away from Tae-min, pulling her against his broad chest and wrapping his arm around her waist in a blatant display of possessiveness.
But Tae-min was faster. He turned with lightning speed and gripped Emma's other arm with crushing strength.
Emma was trapped in the middle, suspended between two solid bodies pulsing with raw masculinity and burning rage.
On her right was Kento—her warm manager who had transformed into a predatory wolf refusing to let her go, his strong hand on her waist pressing her against him, his ragged breath hitting her face. On her left was Tae-min—the arrogant star who represented everything she feared and everything that stoked her darkest desires, his grip on her arm like a shackle of fire.
"Let her go, Kento," Tae-min said in a low, lethal voice, his eyes firing poisoned arrows at the manager. "She is my case, my scandal, and my property now. Go back to your office before I end your pathetic career."
"My career means nothing to me compared to her," Kento shot back with an icy chill. He pulled Emma even closer until his thigh brushed against hers in an intimate, sensitive contact that set her exhausted body ablaze. Kento looked directly into Tae-min's eyes. "I don't care about your cameras or your reporters. Emma belongs with me, and she isn't leaving this hotel with you."
Emma stood in the eye of the storm. The heat of Kento's body behind her, Tae-min's predatory gaze in front of her. Their conflicting touches on her body sent surges of forbidden excitement and a delicious numbness to her lower abdomen. Her mind shrieked to flee, but her womanly body—repressed for years—was drinking in every drop of this primal masculine energy fighting over her.
She looked at Kento, then at Tae-min. She realized in that charged moment that her simple life was truly over. She had fallen into a hell of dark desires, painful memories, and touches that would burn her soul without mercy.