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Chapter six: Lost & Found

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I desire the things
which will destroy me
at the end.

-Sylvia Plath

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(a/n)
Warning!
Please know that this chapter contains mature and sexual contents, if you're not into that kind of stuff skip this, and if you are enjoy and leave me your thought xx
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Luna

No one saw or heard me leave. I consulted my memory, using it as a guide to take me through the woods, hedging only once at a bend.

An owl hooted. The moon popped from the sky.

For many, trying to find a lake with only the moon as a light source was foolish. Yet the forest didn't intimidate me. It was the one place I knew I would never get lost.

I recalled the path Taehyung had taken me down and smiled when I found it. I listened to the steady rhythm of my steps, calming me like a gulp of precious mulled wine.

Sometimes I wondered if darkness was more real than daylight. Daylight tended to prune away the harsher truths of the world, magnifying instead the illusion that life was simple and endurable if one kept faith.

But on nights like tonight, people had no choice but to confront who they really were, what truly mattered, what hindered them. If one had the will to face the dark, one really knew how to endure.

The darkness should have threatened me, but it didn't. It wasn't one of my fears. I had plenty of others.

Losing my family. Their deaths being my fault. My fiancé. Fading into his shadow. Never knowing who I was beyond him. Starvation, even though comparing the quantity and quality of my meals couldn't match the hunger of other people, those who existed without a Baron for a father.

Seeing my mother again someday, although she'd abandoned us, disgraced our family long ago, and I harbored no secret desires for her return. She left my father for a pauper. The man's status was inconsequential to me, but I would not forgive her for severing my sister's fragile heart. I would not turn my back on my sister like that. Ever.

And my father. He stared into space for months afterward. In this past year, he began to return to us, trying every day to atone for the grievances he'd inflicted on my sister and I.

In a way, marrying Seokjin was safe. It would prevent me from growing so vulnerable to love that I'd collapse if my husband ever left me.

I would never have to miss the sounds my companion made in the morning, or the special touches he reserved for me, or the signs of an impending quarrel.

A marriage of convenience would prevent me from clinging, keep me from becoming my father.

Perhaps I'd been too quick to accept his apology. But he was my papa. Unlike my mother, he'd come back to me. He taught me to swim.

The pool appeared to be deep. What would I find at the bottom?

My sister or Jisoo might make something up like a hidden city or mermaids or a prince who'd drowned himself from a broken heart. I thought about practical things like a lost knife or missing arrow. A tool to slit one's wrist.

I glanced away, annoyed as usual when my thoughts drifted toward death.

I wouldn't do it, leave my sister or Jisoo or Papa. Nevertheless, that didn't mean the possibility didn't march across my mind occasionally.

For shame! My life wasn't so very bad. Seokjin may be a monster, and I was slated to promise myself to him.

I was liar, pledged to become a glamorous whore and to obey someone else's rules, to adopt their morals, but my life wasn't bad. My sister loved me, and I loved her. I had friends, shelter, food. I had no right to envision giving up.

Jimin hadn't. Hoseok hadn't. Jungkook hadn't. Jieun hadn't.

Taehyung hadn't.

I pulled apart my hair, shaking out the long tresses. Holding up my hair, I let the breeze beat against my neck and the pearls of sweat that had gathered there.

I thought of Jungkook and Jieun's anger, the main ingredient of their passion. I remembered their sounds, the changes it had ignited in the lower region of my body.

I sighed and pulled my tunic over my head, unwound the bandage on my arm, and then dared look down at my reflection.

Rarely did I inspect it with enthusiasm. I didn't have a looking glass in my room for this very reason. Admiring oneself was vain.

Who knew why the sight of my person captured my interest now. I stared at my breasts, how they peeked out of my chest, small and pliant as dough, pursing in the center, stretching out as though asking for something. What in the world did men see in them?

I pulled off my boots, feeling spontaneously ceremonious about shedding my garments. I'd never been naked out of doors before. No need to rush. There weren't many firsts in my future that I could look forward to.

Undoing my breeches, I slid them down and used my toe to fling them aside. Clad only in my ivory underpinnings, I turned from side to side, quizzical, critical as I studied myself against the lake's surface.

I revealed myself fully, pushing the last remaining cloth over my thighs and dropping it to the grass. Pressing my palms against my lower back, I deduced how little curves I had, how the night turned my skin gray.

Mine was a practical figure and would have to suffice for Seokjin. Soon, all of what I saw within the pool would be his.

I waded into the water, gasping at the cold that pinched my toes, then my knees, then my hips. A thwack of leaves came from behind. Crossing my arms over my chest, I whipped around and scanned the woods.

Nothing. No one.

I shook myself, but I hurried the rest of the way into the lake until I was submerged.

For a while, I stood there shivering, needing to be certain I was alone. After a few hectic moments, I relaxed again. I fell backward and floated like a lily pad, letting the moon's rays coat me.

Once I began to move, getting used to the temperature took no time.

I dove under, my hair swirling around like vines, my mouth blowing bubbles.

Maybe this was how birds felt. Maybe this was as close to flight as one would ever get.

I came up for air, restraining my sudden urge to laugh because this felt so good. The feeling was mine and mine alone. This lake was mine.

I thought it was. But then I heard a distant plop. The surface rippled, and it was hard to decipher if it had been me, or an animal, or something else. The silence that followed felt suspect. It had to be some nocturnal creature mistaking me for prey.

I reminded myself that I wasn't afraid of the dark. I swam backward...back...back.

Someone's back.

Someone's slick back.

Someone's slick back against mine.

My scream hit the tree tops. I veered around, thrashing wildly and flopping like a hooked fish.

"Would. You. Stop. Splashing. Me?" a man's voice snapped.

I wiped the water from my eyes and discovered a set of dark irises fastening onto me. Taehyung Kim. What was he doing here?

"What are you doing here?" we hissed at the same time.

He bobbed a few feet away, staring at me like I was either a ghost or a madwoman. He was soaked from my onslaught. His nose dripped. His sodden brown hair was darker than normal. His shoulders...

His shoulders. A mountain of bare skin peeked out from the surface. What was he wearing beneath the water? What was he not wearing? Why did he not seem bothered by the fact that we were naked and in close proximity to one another?

A mortifying possibility sneaked into my mind.

"Wh-what did you see?" I demanded, wanting to cover myself even though the lake did a considerable job. "Were you watching me?"

"Watching you do what? Swim? I didn't know you were here. I told you not to leave the camp without one of us."

I felt defensive. "I do not require a leash."

"I'm beginning to doubt that," he said, panting from having to swim in place.

"I couldn't sleep." It did not matter that my tone was steady. My skin prickled with warmth, and my cheeks blazed, offering a more detailed answer than I could have provided verbally.

Taehyung was quiet. "Neither could I," he said finally, the weight of his voice surprising me.

He sounded thoughtful. Aware. Far too aware of what I meant.

He heard Jungkook and Jieun, too.

Around us, the leaves sprouting from the alders and oaks brushed like lovers. What had this shift in my life's course done to my presence of mind?

"In any case," Taehyung said, sobering and giving me a territorial look. "This is my lake."

"No, it's not. It's mine. I was here first."

"You wouldn't know about this place if I hadn't brought you here."

"You're right. Thank you for that," I said politely. "Are you getting tired?"

"No," he snapped.

"You appear to be getting winded, Mr. Kim-"

"I swear to God. It's Taehyung."

"Well, it's Lady Luna to the likes of you. Would you like to go to the shallow end? It's much easier on beginners."

"I can swim, thank you."

I pursed my lips. "My suggestion was in earnest. I don't want you drowning on my account. You're too heavy to rescue."

He laughed suddenly, and the sound shook me to the core. He was infuriating and far too fetching for his own good.

"Fancy yourself an expert, Lady Luna? Care to truly find out who owns this lake?"

I knew a challenge when I heard it. I turned away, lampooned by my state of undress and mad because he tempted me, probed that side of me that longed to play.

"Race me," he said.

"No."

"Do you see that rock formation across the lake?"

"No."

"I'll count to three."

"No."

"One, two-"

I cut him off, slicing through the water the way my father showed me how, careful not to expose myself. I made it to the stone wall, which turned out to be a shallow portion of the lake. When my feet hit the muddy floor, I glanced around, triumphant.

My jaw dropped when I saw him already there, grinning like court jester. "How..." I trailed off.

"I guess we know who the real champion is."

I scowled. I slapped the water, drenching him once more.

Taehyung tsked. "Poor sport."

"You cheated!"

He splashed me back. I retaliated. He snapped his fingers against the surface, sending a miniature gust of water at me. He made a funny face.

But this wasn't funny. This wasn't proper. This was a breach in civility and dignity. This was deviance. This was scandal.

If anyone saw us, I could be ruined. I should not have come here. We were indecent and by ourselves and...why was he smirking? This wasn't funny. It wasn't!

My smile betrayed me. I sucked my lips between my teeth to stop it.

Taehyung's eyes flashed, renewed with energy. He crossed them comically. A wanton giggle tumbled out of me.

He grinned. I hesitated. We paused.

We played. We pitched wave after wave of water at each other to the point where I could barely see in front of me, unaware of how close we'd gotten until his hand whacked my arm.

I reeled back. What were we doing? How was it that things happened so fast and so effortlessly with him?

I opened my mouth to speak. He stood, half of his body rising from the water. My tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I may as well have perished right there.

Taehyung was glorious, his broad shoulders and chest tapering toward a bank of muscles just above...above the...above...

"We should get back," I croaked.

Taehyung's smile faded. He tilted his head and scrutinized me. "Don't you ever let go?"

Disappointment, frustration, and sympathy contorted his features. I did not care for his ability to read me so easily. And the last thing I required was his pity.

"I was letting go until you got here," I complained, growing more than a trifle heated by the sight of him. Another minute of this and I would get myself into trouble.

"We were having fun," he grated, his voice rising.

"You're a pest."

"So are you. You're the one who wants to be amongst into our circle, so unbutton yourself. Or was I right to be guarded?"

"I am not duplicitous," I said, horrified that my chin was quivering.

"Really? Because I can't see the real you. I thought I just did, but maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time I was-"

I flung myself at him, the impact sending us careening back into the water as I crushed my lips against his.

Taehyung froze, arms extended out behind me. Not until a few seconds into it did I realize he wasn't responding.

I lurched away, my hands covering my mouth. I couldn't even muster up an apology. I wanted to die. I needed to go back to my tent this instant so I could die in peace.

I barely got two feet away before he whipped me around. "Wait," he said.

"Taehyung, I'm sorry. I'm not-, I-"

"That's alright. I don't need..." Something dawned on him. He released me. "You said my name."

"Pardon?"

"You said my name." He inched closer, his eyes dropping to my lips. "Was that your first kiss?"

How he was able to discern this so quickly was beyond me, but I didn't care. The question hadn't been smeared in condescension. On the contrary, it was attentive and gentle.

Hidden beneath the pool, my body quaked. "Did it seem like it was?"

Taehyung nodded, content to dwell in the realm of uncomfortable silence. While I squirmed and wrung my hands and sought a means of escape, he calmly considered something.

What he said next terrified me. "Let me fix this."

I shook my head. "You can't."

"Let me try."

"The moment is over."

"It's not over until I kiss back."

I didn't deserve it. What did this man see in me? What had I done to earn this?

The sound of crickets droned around us, creating an invisible ring. My heart became a presence in every part of me, blotting out the rest of the world and eclipsing my wish to flee. I could let this happen, whatever this was.

Or perhaps I had no choice at this point. Not when I caught that strange aroma of cinnamon that followed him wherever he went.

Not when combined with the heady, earthy scents of a slumbering woodland. Not with such an eager face daring me to stop him.

"You're thinking too much," he murmured. His palms found their way to my face, cupping the sides, thumbs brushing my cheeks. He brought my head nearer to his, nearer still. How close before something happened?

"And you're nervous," he said, watching me intently. He smiled, as if to say there's nothing wrong with that, and it seduced me.

I suffered from his tenderness, near tears from the anticipation and relief and excitement and fear.

"A real kiss doesn't happen merely with mouths," he said, his fingers outlining my lips, studying them as they trembled.

"We kiss with our whole bodies. Our hands and limbs. Our minds. Our..."

Our hearts, I thought.

I leaned into his touch, wanting more, but he pulled back and said, "Lick your lips."

When I did, bowing them into my mouth to hide this action, he shook his head. "Show me," he coaxed. "Let me see."

I tried to think of this in terms of his hunting lesson. He knew what to do, and inexplicably I wanted to learn, and his instruction would be thorough, and I needed to be brave. And to not swoon.

My free tongue roamed over my mouth. Taehyung exhaled shakily. "Good."

He skimmed my cheek, then kissed me there, chaste and saying, "Lightly."

Then he ventured to the corner of my lips, increasing the pressure, lavishing me with small kisses. My eyelids threatened to fall shut.

"Linger," he whispered, flicking the tip of his tongue against my skin.

Forbidden urges intersected and flourished within me. In desperation, my head swerved to catch his lips, but he moved back.

"Now open your mouth," he commanded, and I didn't waver, and he traced my shape with his velvety tongue, and I died a hundred deaths and came back to life.

Again, he evaded me. "Your turn. Do that to me."

I charted the half-moon of his lower lip, the crook of his upper lip, the crease, the edges where they met. Hissing, he broke our connection and growled, "Give me your tongue."

While our lips brushed, I offered it to him, which he grazed with his own, teasing, endlessly frustrating.

"Just like that. Only longer." He demonstrated behind my ear. "Wider." Another kiss, now more pronounced. "Deeper." Another one, this time using every shameless mechanism.

Taehyung trapped me with his dark gaze. "I'm going to kiss you fully now, my lady."

I could only nod.

"Breathe," he whispered against my mouth.

And then those warm lips claimed mine. It was neither gentle nor wild. It was just right.

I dissolved against his body, braiding my arms around his shoulders, my cooperation eliciting a moan from him. Our mouths stirred. They pushed and retreated. His hands traveled through my hair, securing my head into place as he deepened the kiss, prying my lips apart. When his tongue slipped inside and began its languid stroking, I became a girl on fire. The heat of it dislodged a sigh from my throat.

Without hesitation, Taehyung clutched my hip with one hand, used his other to support my back, and drew me up out of the water. He crushed me to him. The sensation of our bare, wet chests pinned against each other made me ache in indescribable ways.

Gasps escaped us each time we pulled apart in order to kiss from a different angle. My thoughts fogged. They narrowed to the strength of his mouth, the rhythm of his tongue, the pressure of his teeth sinking into my bottom lip.

Everything he did communicated with a spot below my navel, without my control. Between my legs, my body fluttered, aching for him.

Moments later, we broke apart. My vision lacked focus beyond anything but him. His eyes grew darker than I'd ever seen them.

We stared at one another, awed by the sheer abruptness of this moment, faced with the choice of whether to cease or continue. We'd known one another a scant four days.

The life of delicate breeding and morals that I'd been harnessed within were instantly sucked up like debris in a windstorm. I was naked and in the arms of a man.

Heaven almighty, I did not want to stop.

We did not possess the faculty to speak, but the decision was made. Holding my gaze, his hands hooked beneath my knees and lifted, tipped my body further out of the water, exposing me completely.

And I should have been embarrassed. And I should have stopped him. And I ignored all that because I wanted this, something real just once.

So instead I wrapped my legs around his waist, linked my feet at the small of his back, and arched against him.

Do what you want with me. Please.

He groaned and accepted my silent offer. My head fell back, straining for his touch as he trailed kisses along my throat, down to the shallow dip between my collarbone.

He licked the area slowly before drawing the skin into his mouth. Never had I envisioned the spell lips and hands could cast until now.

Reaching my breasts, he paused. His mouth hovered above the right one, his hot breath beating against the sensitive skin.

I pressed myself into him, allowing him.

He fastened his soft lips against the bud and sucked. My mouth gaped, legs squeezed him tighter and tighter with each flick of his tongue.

My body adopted its own will, skin flaring, muscles twitching, fingertips digging into his hair.

A heavy sound of appreciation rumbled from his chest. He shifted from one breast to the other, outlining their shape with his kisses before seizing the nipple again. I mumbled and whimpered and said things I was certain I wouldn't remember.

He raised his head and dropped a whisper into my ear. "Hold onto me, Luna."

Luna. That was my name.

I did as he said, entrapping him with my legs and clasping his shoulder blades.

The lake swirled around us and he carried me to the rock formation and maneuvered us into a cave-like passage, the roof barely high enough for him to stand beneath.

Droplets fell from above and sprinkled into the pool. We tucked ourselves into a secret cove, the water reflecting a bit of the moon, the walls shimmering around us.

Taehyung set me onto a ledge jutting from the wall. My legs dangled in the water, the rest of me available to him as he positioned himself between my thighs. He swiped the hair off my forehead.

I whispered, "I do not know you."

He whispered, "And I don't know you."

But I want you.

So be it. He continued to devour my memory, claiming my sigh with another kiss. Even as his lips mapped a trail down the center of my body, I did not understand what he was doing. Awareness of my nudity resided in the outer fringes of my mind, but the anticipation of what he planned for us throttled my self-consciousness.

For he looked at me like I was beautiful. I felt that look in the backs of my knees, which he secured in his hands and lifted until my feet settled on his shoulders, forcing me to lean back on my flattened palms.

I became fascinated by our shadows glazed within the rock walls. He lowered himself further into the water, until only his head and his shoulders bridging my heels floated before me, his attention dedicated to the hollow between my legs.

I flushed. My toes flinched and relaxed as he mumbled reassurances and caressed my calves.

And then his head disappeared. And my own head tilted of its own volition, the final crumb of my sensibility gone as his fingers spread my delicate area and his tongue descended upon me, flattening over the damp center and traveling upward, over the curve of me, stoking it like a flame, and then beginning all over again.

When he located a kernel of nerves I had not known I possessed, it stirred from me a fresh batch of moans that clamored with the sounds of water dripping from overhead.

He circled the crest of nerves and then faintly dabbed its peak, no lighter than a feather.

He repeated this pattern. Repeated it. His lips latched onto that kernel and consumed it, draining it like moisture from a sponge, not letting go. His mouth and harsh Mmm engulfed the very core of me.

That's when he began to bob his head. My arms gave out, my back sagged onto the ledge as I gripped its rim and rolled from side to side, and yes, and this, and him, and him...him...him...

I hollered, the reverberation like an avalanche echoing inside this tiny cove. I nearly tipped over into the water, my feet pressing hard into him, limbs quivering, overwhelmed, weakened, and finally still, so very still, and how was this possible? How was it possible to produce such sweetness?

Taehyung nestled me up into his arms. We held each other, bewitched but stunned, pleased but stunned, eager but stunned. We waited a long time, long enough for me to calm down and realize how cold the ledge was. We spoke over each others' shoulders.

"I liked that so much," I whimpered.

"As did I," he said.

"Is that what lovers do?"

"That and more."

I let my silence indicate my wishes. Instead of being satisfied, my greed increased. His as well, because after a moment's deliberation, he slid me off the ledge. We emerged from the cave, where he pressed me flush against a smooth wall.

I buried my face in his neck. He nudged my thighs apart, then his finger explored me. It slipped passed my soft barriers, shooting upward into my body, creating a new kind of heat that had me seeing double. A new type of rapture, from a new angle, and from a new source.

I gasped in shock against his mouth. "Oh...oh my..."

"God," he finished huskily.

He withdrew from me, only to reconnect once more. It was strange, dizzying, but I welcomed the intrusion. The friction brought waves of sensation tearing through my center. They burned in a way that made me inconsolable with pleasure. I wanted to keep his finger inside me all night, until he became a part of me, or until I was certain I would be able to recall this bliss with absolute clarity in the future, so that I might reenact it in the privacy of my chamber.

Our lips brushed. His hand and my hips rose and fell in unison, gently slapping against the water. We panted, as if wounded by what was happening.

A second finger joined the first. I let him know how it felt with my voice. My voice that I no longer recognized. It unleashed and soared above our heads.

"Yes. Sing for me," he hummed.

His free arm supported me beneath my backside. His abdomen began to thump against me and increased the force of our movements, the cadence of it unwinding a knot inside my body. Yet I felt myself clenching as his strokes became quicker. They curled at the ends, beckoning me closer, closer to release, just a bit further.

I shattered once more. I sang and sang and sang. And then I went limp.

As I struggled to regain my senses, I doubted I would get closer to another than this, so unexpectedly, so rapidly, with the last person I would have ever have guessed.

Taehyung was mine. I was his. The rest of my days would not compare. I wished I could make this moment last forever.

Once our breathing slowed, I started crying.

Yet again, I caught Taehyung off guard. He tensed. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," I sobbed. Still suspended against the rocks, I hugged him. He rubbed my side, reminding me how unused to being taken care of I'd become.

"Shhh, I'm here," he said. "I'm here."

I cried because he made me feel actually happy. I cried because I was going to cause him pain. I cried because I had no freedom beyond this lake. I cried because this was one night in which no one had expected anything from me.

I cried so hard. And Taehyung let me.