The Snake, the Flower, and the Tiger - Chapter 49

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 49

A soft click.
“Haah…….”
Warm lips closed around her lower lip, sucking with wet sounds as if savoring melted candy. Between Hee Seo’s parted lips, a long breath escaped.
“I intend to consume every inch of you, Hee Seo.”
Je Eon whispered against her trembling crimson lips, his teeth barely grazing them. It sounded like a declaration of war.
When she opened her eyes, Je Eon was gazing at her with a hunger that could devour her whole.
“Every sound you make, every movement. Your taste, your heat—I intend to remember it all, forever, starting now.”
“You’re insane. Keep your voice down.”
“I want you so much. Try to understand.”
Hee Seo clenched her teeth, fighting off embarrassment as she snapped back, but Je Eon showed no sign of yielding. Even as their eyes met, his hand had already untied the drawstring at her waist.
“I’ve always wanted to see you like this.”
Je Eon’s gaze traced over her entire body, and then his knuckles brushed lightly across her lean stomach. It was just the back of his hand grazing her skin, yet her body trembled involuntarily.
“So you wanted to see me fall apart for you?”
The words tumbled out to mask her shame, but without any bite. Instead of answering, Je Eon buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply. His sharp nose traced her soft skin, and her lower belly tightened, her legs growing weak.
Je Eon filled his lungs with her scent, then lifted his eyes to meet hers. He still handled her with care, yet the eyes that held hers burned with a heat that threatened to consume her entirely.
“Every part of you—nothing hidden. From your head to your toes, I wanted to know Hee Seo completely. To see you, hear you, breathe you in, and covet you.”
“…….”
“Perhaps this is …….”
As Hee Seo fell into thought, wondering if she had ever been curious about someone the way Je Eon spoke of her, he murmured softly.
He cradled her face gently in his hands, holding her gaze.
“Ah……!”
“That skin you never offered to anyone. I wanted to know what expression you’d make if I tasted you like this.”
“Wait—haah, ah…….”
Je Eon devoted himself to tasting every inch of her, just as he’d promised.
He pressed his lips to her lightly sun-darkened skin and firm shoulders, and when that wasn’t enough, he licked them too.
“Haah, this is madness……. Don’t. Stop.”
It wasn’t ticklish, yet the moment his tongue made contact, her body shuddered with an intensity of sensation she couldn’t resist.
Hee Seo twisted away, trying to escape him, but Je Eon persisted, biting her tender skin. Sweet softness transformed into sharp pain, and she swallowed a small cry.
“Uh—mm……!”
“You know I listen to everything you say, don’t you?”
Je Eon whispered against her ear, teeth still grazing it. Hee Seo struggled to break free, but strong hands wrapped around her waist, anchoring her to him.
Though she could have pushed him away and escaped, instead she let out a shaky breath and gripped his shoulders.
“I told you I wouldn’t miss a single inch.”
“No matter what—haah, please stop, ah.”
“I want to understand the time written into your skin as scars.”
Je Eon wrapped her wrist in his hand and traced every mark from the inside of her elbow to her wrist with his tongue.
Each scar was different in depth and shape. He missed none of them, licking or kissing each one with equal care.
Simply watching him do this made heat pool below her navel, and her legs trembled.
“I want to read through all the time you endured.”
How could she possibly refuse him anymore?
Hee Seo bit her innocent lip. Despite the heat flooding through her aroused body, her eyes inexplicably stung. Her fingers, which had gripped her shirt, began to lose their strength.
Je Eon gave the same devoted attention to the scars on her other arm, licking and kissing them as if engraving them into his own body.
When Je Eon finished his caresses, Hee Seo felt as though her entire body was melting. The man gazed down at her flushed cheeks and pulled his shirt up and over his head.
His broad shoulders and muscular chest, honed by discipline, came into view. Hee Seo reached out, drawn by instinct.
Je Eon wrapped his hand around hers and bent down, letting her touch him.
“Are you curious about me too?”
“……Yes.”
“Still just my name?”
She needed it to push him away? When Hee Seo gently touched his chest, Je Eon let out a short laugh and asked her back.
His question carried a note of bitterness beneath the amusement, so Hee Seo pulled his neck toward her.
Their lips connected with a soft sound, and their tongues tangled between them. Je Eon didn’t hesitate—he pulled her close and collapsed onto the bed. Hee Seo felt her mind swim under his weight, something she’d never experienced before.
Je Eon’s kiss was both tender and intense, stealing her breath. It was a kiss that threatened to unravel her completely. Hee Seo clung to him like a drowning child, gasping for air, while he held her like her only salvation.
“My name is…….”
“Don’t say it.”
“Hee Seo.”
“Just don’t say anything. You’re only curious.”
Je Eon’s face twisted as though torn between a grimace and a smile—a sound that wanted to be laughter but fell short. He pressed his lips to Hee Seo’s neck and drew a long, shuddering breath.
The long night was just beginning.

***

The woman who had fallen asleep exhausted was beautiful. The marks scattered across her smooth skin were endearing, and the warmth still radiating from her body kept Je Eon from growing weary.
Though he had no desire to wake her, Je Eon found himself brushing his lips against Hee Seo’s cheek without thinking.
Afterward, he carefully wiped her body with a towel dampened in hot water.
When he wiped away the lingering flush on her cheeks and the darker patches of pooled blood beneath her skin, his chest felt unsettled, as though his heart were being tossed about like a ship on rough waves.
“……Hee Seo.”
She had only fallen asleep past midnight, and even when he called her name aloud, her eyes remained firmly shut. Only then did Je Eon kneel before her, holding her hand, and curl his large frame into a tight ball.
He knew what this feeling was. A heavy, dark emotion that he could not bring himself to confess to her.
He loved Hee Seo.
Since when?
At first, he had merely been curious about her—a woman who had even consented to a fake marriage just to erase herself from her own body. But the more he learned about her, the deeper Je Eon fell.
It was ridiculous. Hee Seo knew nothing about him. Of course she didn’t, for he had never been honest with her.
And so she was being used by Kim Jong Hyeop, just as he was.
Perhaps he had felt a kinship in that.
Pawns on a chessboard moved by Kim Jong Hyeop’s calculations. That was true of himself, of Hee Seo, and of Je Seon, his own brother.
Je Eon thought of Je Seon, who slept somewhere within his own body.

—He’s your brother, Je Eon.
She had spoken in a gentle voice, but young Je Eon had already understood: he could never truly be family to them.
He was merely proof of his father’s infidelity. Though Kim Soo Yeon—Kim Jong Hyeop’s daughter and Je Seon’s mother—had accepted Je Seon as her child despite his illegitimate birth, the fact that he had been born of that transgression could not be undone.
Je Seon and Je Eon’s father, Jung Jae Seop, was a man of great ambition. And seducing Kim Soo Yeon had been one of the easiest things in his life.
But even he had not foreseen how thoroughly he would be snared by that blind emotion called love.
—Salmosa spawn.
Jung Jae Seop’s mistress had died giving birth to Je Eon, and the young boy had not understood why his father called him by the name of a viper. But when Kim Soo Yeon, the one person in the household who had sheltered him, also died, Je Eon finally understood the meaning.
The Salmosa Viper—a creature that devours its own mother to be born.
Je Eon thought: could any word describe him more perfectly?
So when he learned that Kim Jong Hyeop desired his body, Je Eon did not run. He even felt grateful that he could repay the debt for consuming Soo Yeon.
—Your body will become a vessel for Je Seon.
It remained vivid even now. Kim Jong Hyeop had declared it to the young Je Eon with absolute certainty.
What did “vessel” mean? But Je Eon’s contemplation never lasted long.
With sleep still clinging to his youthful face, Je Eon had lain upon Je Seon’s bed. Though they shared their father’s blood, these were brothers lying side by side for the first time.
—Brother.
—Je Eon.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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