Page 53 of Gumiho Kiss
He nodded.
Chin Sun’s mouth fell open.The black-clothed figure she’d been so certain had been a grim reaper had turned out to be none other than her stalwart bodyguard.
He’d caught her just like he’d promised.
The thought generated a rush of blood in her face, but before she could dwell on it, he said in a gruff tone, “Since you seem to be all right, I better be going.”He bowed and turned away.
“Wait a moment,” she called, words ending in a cough.
Mr.Park went rigid, but he didn’t face her.“What?”
“You’re just going to let me go?”She couldn’t keep a tremor from her voice.Was this a trick?Were Hong’s men waiting around the corner?
He slowly swung around, expression icy.“You saved my life; now I’ve saved yours.That makes us even.”
“Yeh, but aren’t you at least going to have me arrested?”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her.“Is that what you want?”
“Of course not,” she replied.“It just doesn’t make sense why you’re doing this.”
“Why I’d show honor to a criminal?”he replied in a low, disappointed tone.As if he cared what she thought of him.
“That you wouldn’t carry out your duty,” she clarified, but she quickly backtracked when she realized that might tip him off about her true identity.“It’s no secret around Sokju why you were hired.”
The man stepped forward until their chests were almost touching.He scowled down at her.“I was hired to protect Lady Lee from threats.And from what I can tell”—his gaze moved over her—“you’re not one.”
Chin Sun’s heart shuddered, both from his words and the intensity in his eyes.It wasn’t just anger radiating off him—it was also something else.Something that reminded her all too much of that moment in the clearing.
Her gaze dropped to his lips before she could stop herself.There was no way she could kiss him right now, not when she was in disguise.The cloth over her mouth was a literal barrier between them.
So, why was she even thinking about it?
A knot rose in her throat as the answer came to her.Her urge to kiss him had nothing to do with the bead and everything to do with the man in front of her.
Park Hyun Soo.
The attraction she felt, this magnetic pull toward him, somehow she’d fooled herself into thinking it was because he was carrying her fox bead.But that didn’t explain her burning need to find out what his lips felt like against her own, to run her fingers along his jaw, to lose herself in his embrace.
Such yearning was foreign to her, yet she wasn’t so ignorant that she didn’t recognize it for what it was.She knew the symptoms of desire.
But he also stirred other feelings within her.Delight each time she saw his smile, guilt for every lie she spun, and worst of all—the strangest urge to shed her disguise and face him openly.
What if this went deeper than physical attraction?What if she’d grown too fond of their game of cat and mouse and something unseemly had sprung up in her heart?
Chin Sun went cold.
That couldn’t happen.She was about to marry Young Master Kang, for heaven’s sake.And what about her family?They were counting on Chin Sun to uphold the Lee name, to open doors of opportunity for Sang Mi and Sang Ook.She couldn’t let them down.
And yet ...
She lifted her gaze to her bodyguard, meeting his fierce, probing stare that seemed to see through her facade, right down to her very soul.
He’d said he didn’t think Gwishin was a threat to Lady Lee’s safety, but whatdidhe think of her, of this vigilante he’d tried so hard to eliminate and had somehow ended up saving?
Her mouth moved with a will of its own.“Then what am I?”
He hesitated, eyes roaming over her again.“I haven’t figured that out yet,” he admitted, so quietly he seemed to be speaking to himself.He lifted his hand slowly, fingers reaching for her mask.
