Winter Rabbit in Wonderland

Chapter 57

Was it raining? As she woke from a deep sleep, the first of SoYoon’s senses to stir was smell, which made her assume this. Her senses of hearing and sight came alive afterward.

Her surroundings were quiet and dark. As her sense of touch awoke, she realized that a smooth-skinned, strongly built body was wrapped around her. It was a familiar warmth, and so she opened her eyes.

What she had assumed was the smell of rain was the dewy, woodsy scent of vetiver. This place, which was filled with his scent, was the room she had visited the most in his house other than his office.

Because she could still not see the sunlight filtering through the thick curtains, she figured that the sun had not set yet.

When he felt SoYoon’s slight movements, Heart woke up and chuckled softly. It was a noise similar to the euphoric sounds of last night.

He pulled SoYoon in close and inhaled deeply. She was unable to decipher whether the sound he made was human or animal, but he growled happily. SoYoon wondered where to put her hands then decided to rest them on his hand. Electricity shot through her hands, but she ignored it and pushed him away.

“Move.”

“Why?”

They had reached a point where Heart would no longer move just because she told him to. He pressed up against her with his whole body. Like a still hungry predator, he stared down at the only prey in front of him.

Her lips were blocked off, and so was her resistance. She couldn’t think to stop him. Her breath was swept away as Heart told SoYoon, “Kiss me.”

The space between them was a mere centimeter. Simply turning her head would have closed that gap.

He didn’t budge and lifted her chin. Her wet lips soon locked with his, and the electricity she had felt in her hand previously spread from her lips to the rest of her body. She knew what this feeling entailed.

Intertwined and breathing hard, their bodies embraced as they melted into each other. Heart pressed her deep into quicksand, using all sorts of methods. Quicksand: that’s what it felt like to SoYoon. If she made one wrong step, there would be no way out. It was a heavy and unyielding feeling.

“Concentrate,” Heart growled as he pushed her down into the bottom of this quicksand. No, they were both drowning in it.

Only after the day had ended did Heart let her go with a content expression. He responded, “Go ahead,” to her statement that she would like to wash up and pointed to the bathroom.

When she got off the bed, SoYoon could understand why his eyes glimmered in that victorious way. All strength drained from her legs, and she flopped onto the floor. Heart laughed as he saw this.

“I know how much stamina you have, but this is something different, isn’t it? Oh, yes. If you don’t get up quickly, you will leave a mark on the carpet.

“Not that I care,” he added as he watched her get up and lean against the edge of the bed. Luckily she didn’t leave a mark, but the liquid that trickled down her thigh did not feel that great.

“Should I help you?” Heart asked as he swept across her back with his finger.

She pushed his finger away, and he laughed heartily. He pulled out the dirty sheets and wrapped her body with them. He then lifted her like a child and headed to the bathroom.

Unlike the office bathroom, which had only a shower, the bathroom attached to the bedroom had a huge bathtub in it. He turned on the water and filled the tub. Still carrying SoYoon, he went to the other side into the shower. He placed SoYoon down next to it and made her lean on him as he removed the sheets.

Warm water came down from the showerhead. When he put body cleanser on a shower ball and created suds, the entire bathroom filled with the scent of vetiver. She reached out for the shower ball, but Heart moved it far from her reach.

“If you don’t stay still, it will only prolong the time to wash up...If that’s all right, should we keep going?” Heart said, smiling with his eyes. She put her hand down, knowing what the extension in time would entail.

He washed SoYoon and himself, then lifted her and headed to the tub. He didn’t pay attention to her insistence that there was no need since she had already showered.

When her body sank into the warm bath, she felt relaxed and drowsy.

“You can sleep,” Heart whispered from behind her back as he poked at the area around her patch.

She woke up, realizing she had nodded off to sleep. When she got up, Heart grabbed her arm and returned her to her previous position. He kissed her head and got up from the tub.

Drowsily, she said without much thought, “You look accustomed to this.”

“This is only my second time. Should I take it as a compliment?”

“Second time?”

“Who do you think washed and dressed you, then brought you into this room last time?”

Heart’s hand slid down her cheeks, then down to her neck, shoulders, and arms. Every place he touched felt hot and tickled and tingled throughout her body. He stopped momentarily at her elbow, sighed as if disappointed, then hugged her waist.

When the two of them came out of the bathroom, the sheets and blankets on the bed were changed. There were no women workers at Heart’s house. She wondered if it was a good or bad thing to realize that she still had some humanity left in her to be embarrassed by this kind of thing.

He wrapped SoYoon tightly in a shower gown and dried her hair. On the other hand, he dried himself off hastily and lay down on the bed. Seeing the water dripping onto the sheets, SoYoon grabbed the towel from his hand and roughly dried his hair.

“It hurts, Whitey.”

“Shut up.”

Heart laughed from under the towel.

“Why are you laughing?” she asked, pressing hard on his head. He flung the towel away from her, hugged her waist, and fell onto the bed.

“I told you before. You are acting too cute.”

“...Are you a fool?”

SoYoon turned away from him. As she did, Heart wrapped her in the blanket and clung tightly to her back. His arms wrapped gently around her body and squeezed warmly.

It had been more comfortable when he treated her like a toy because she could enjoy the warmth without feeling any sense of obligation.

“It might be too late now,” someone inside her whispered.

***

The next morning, SoYoon was looking for some clothes when she found a man-to-man sweater that was ripped in half. She thought it strange that this piece of clothing had come off so easily. Either way, the sleeves were a mess and crusted with so much dried blood that it was probably better to throw it away. Instead, she wore a thick hoodie tee with a zip-up jumper and cargo pants that Heart brought her.

Her boyish attire made it unlikely for anyone to imagine what had happened last night. Heart swept away the hair that had stuck to the back of her neck. As he did, he saw clearly on her neck the imprint of his lips.

He kissed the area lightly, and SoYoon flinched. He laughed quietly and inhaled deeply. Even the scent of the same body cleanser smelled different depending on the person. If his scent was that of a rainy midday inside a forest, hers was a rainy morning at its mouth. If he pulled her in deeper, would they become the same?

He rubbed his nose on her bare skin as SoYoon whined, uninterested.

“I’m hungry.”

With those words, the heated moment fizzled out.

A few moments later, a phenomenal breakfast of eggs benedict and sides lay before SoYoon, who had not eaten all day.

She cut the egg slathered in the pale yellow sauce with her knife and a waterfall of yolk flowed over it. She put the poached egg, spinach, bacon, and the flat English muffin together and savored the combination of its saltiness with the tart hollandaise sauce. She had been extremely hungry and ate four eggs benedict, a large cheese omelet, a shrimp cocktail salad, and a strawberry smoothie.

For dessert, she had a waffle on which Heart placed a hearty scoop of vanilla ice cream. As she ate, he prepared coffee. If anyone had seen Heart listening to the requests of another person like this, they would have thought they were delusional. The two of them thought nothing of it, however.

SoYoon put the mug to her mouth and watched Heart. There was an aura of gentleness about him today. She felt like she was swimming in a warm bath of pudding but tried to rid herself of the feeling and distracted herself with a different subject.

“What about Cheshire?”

Heart lifted his head. He didn’t try to hide the gleam of rage in his auburn eyes. She pretended to be unaware of it and fiddled with her mug then continued.

“I’ll deal with it...”

“He broke the code.”

White Rabbit was not the only one who had to follow the protocol for requests. The client should never lie about their requests. This was one of the few nods at maintaining decency in Wonderland. As Wonderland’s warlord, Heart had a responsibility to punish those who broke the law of the land.

“Let me handle this, Heart.”

Heart put his mug on the table and crossed his legs. He put his chin over his hands and observed SoYoon in a gaze that looked almost bored, but he didn’t fool her. As Wonderland’s Heart, he told her, “I think that’s exceeding authority, Whitey.”

“Don’t exaggerate. How is me seeking revenge exceeding authority?”

SoYoon did not break contact with Heart’s violence-filled eyes. He stared back at her under the pinned bangs and sighed.

“My Whitey sure doesn’t listen.”

“Thank you.”

There was still something Cheshire was meant to do. He needed to obsess over Alice, kidnap her, and push her to the edge of death. SoYoon’s obsession with maintaining the plot of the original story made her suddenly feel a range of complicated emotions. Yes, she only had to proceed like the original story...

“I’m going to go.”

She got up after finishing her coffee. Heart got up and approached her. He leaned over and lightly kissed her on her lips and looked at her.

“Stay safe. You’re probably not a hundred percent, so don’t overwork yourself.”

His blushing eyes and soft voice dripped of seduction. Feeling she might unknowingly get dragged back into bed, she hurriedly left the bedroom.