TCBW C17

Chapter 17

As the strong grip on his lower jaw forced his mouth open without resistance, Dowoon pushed his hot, slick tongue inside without hesitation.

It pried past tender flesh, seeking out the pliant tongue and tangling with it.

“Mm—mmph…!”

What followed was a kiss so deep, relentless, and rough that it stole his breath.

With a short, muffled cry, all the courage Suhoe had so tenuously gathered was swept away without a trace.

It was his first time experiencing something so fierce—paired with the alien sensation of his mouth being invaded and plundered so completely—that it left his mind utterly blank.

Unable to endure, his body tilted back, knees buckling, the fists clutching Dowoon’s shirtfront losing their strength and slipping away.

If not for the arm locked like iron around his waist, he would have collapsed entirely. But even as he stayed upright, he realized—

It wasn’t kindness holding him there.

It was an act of pure restraint, a deliberate confinement to keep him from escaping.

In the end, it was Suhoe who lost balance first, unable to match his partner in the kiss.

Starved of proper air, he broke into coughing, reflexively shoving Dowoon away and stumbling clear.

Falling to the floor, he gasped violently, struggling for breath as though choking on a misplaced sip of water.

“—cough—hah… hah, hah…”

Tears-lined his reddened eyes, and spit clung to the corner of his lips.

But he didn’t have the strength to wipe them away—his entire body was trembling from an unfamiliar heat, and just calming that was overwhelming enough.

By contrast, Dowoon stood unruffled. Moving at an unhurried pace, he crossed to a standing lamp in the corner of the living room and switched it on.

Soft amber light immediately filled the wide apartment. He stepped to the table, picked up the pile of documents he had set down earlier, and presented them to Suhoe still trembling before him.

“Read it.”

The air of heat between them had vanished completely; his voice was so businesslike it was hard to believe what had just happened.

Blinking in confusion, still trying to catch his breath, Suhoe could only glance between the papers and Dowoon’s utterly unaffected face.

For long moments he did just that. Then, as if suddenly snapping back to himself, he spoke in a wavering voice, his words thick from the lingering heat:

“Wh‑what… is this…?”

Dowoon watched him for a beat, then, as though displeased by the question, dropped the bundle onto the floor with a dull thud.

“A contract.”

“…A contract?”

His voice rasped on the unfamiliar word.

Lowering his gaze, he picked the papers up with trembling hands and opened to the first page.

Dense legal jargon covered the sheet, making his brow knit instinctively.

Most of it he couldn’t even begin to understand, let alone guess at.

He looked up silently for help, but Dowoon only gazed back coldly, offering no explanation whatsoever.

So… I just sign it?

That thought barely formed before his hand moved of its own accord toward the pen on the table. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the vague notion—contracts were signed—that guided his body now.

It was partly reflex: after such heat and emotional turbulence, his reason was fogged and sluggish.

Believing this “contract” was, as Dowoon had said, all there was to it, he grasped the pen without a flicker of suspicion and lowered its tip toward the paper.

Dowoon’s brow creased at the dangerously naïve response.

“If you don’t want to make excuses later…”

His low voice cut across the moment, stilling Suhoe’s hand in mid‑air.

“…shouldn’t you at least read it first?”

The icy rebuke jolted him.

“O‑oh… yes.”

He set the pen back down and flipped open the contract again.

The stiff, foreign legal terms made his temples pound just as before, the tightly‑spaced lines swimming before his eyes like undecipherable code. Still, it felt safer to do exactly as Dowoon had said—for now.

As he stumbled through clauses about term length and confidentiality, his eyes snagged on a part he could actually read and understand.

[The Party B (____) shall conceive and give birth to a child of Party A (Lee Dowoon).]

…

[Upon birth, Party B shall be deprived of any and all parental rights regarding the child.]

That was the core of the agreement—and, in fact, the one thing Suhoe already knew.

Wait—so this…

It took a moment for the realization to click.

Dowoon had handed him a contract.

A tacit proof and permission that he would accept a male partner—

In other words, an open path for Suhoe to fulfill his “duty.”

Good lord.

As he reeled in surprise at this easier‑than‑expected consent, Dowoon simply leaned back against the sofa and said,

“There’s still plenty left to read. You’d better hurry if you want to finish today.”

Suhoe cut himself off before asking why, faced with that offhand tone, and ducked back over the pages.

What did the reasons matter? For now, not being thrown out outright was half the victory.

Turning carefully toward the signature lines, he stumbled on a section describing the “method of fulfilling the contract,” phrased in uncomfortably explicit detail.

[…By mutual agreement, parties shall have intercourse at least twice per week until conception. Contraceptives are prohibited during this period…]

…

[…During the term of the contract, particularly before successful conception, Party B shall engage in no private relations whatsoever with other alpha or beta males.]

Minimum twice a week, no contraception, no relations with others.

The bald explicitness scattered across the page sent a rush of heat to his face, and he quickly flipped past before he could burn any hotter.

The next clause caught his attention for very different reasons:

[Upon fulfilling all the above terms, Party B’s role shall be deemed complete, after which their life shall be entirely their own choice.]

At the Mount Unbang shrine, there were more than a few shamans who resided under the title of hired hands.

Life there was permitted only on condition of severing ties with the outside world and enduring heavy labor—and once they left, they could never return.

But still, they stayed. Usually for one of two reasons.

The first was Gye‑geum herself—there to train under her formidable spiritual power.

The second was more mercenary: the shrine was a “rich” place, often visited by affluent patrons with high‑paying commissions—a place where, simply put, there was good money to be made.

In the latter cases, once enough had been earned, some did leave to set up shrines of their own. In that light, it could have been seen as “a well‑paid but grueling job.”

Yet it was not a place open to just anyone.

Even with spiritual ability, one could not stay unless they were a beta woman—an unspoken rule as strict as any written law.

And “unspoken” because there were, in fact, two exceptions.

One was a beta male, Unhyo, whom Gye‑geum had brought in herself “for a special reason.”

The other, a male alpha‑class omega, Suhoe—taken in and raised by Gye‑geum from the time he was a small child.

“Young master, what’s your name?”

“Hm? Why do you ask?”

“Oh, it’s just… you seem so different from the others. You never take part in the rites, and sometimes you don’t even notice when a gwi is right there beside you. You’re so young too—it’s odd.”

“Ah, you’re new here, aren’t you?”

The senior hand who asked the question nodded as if the reason were obvious now.