He was staring off into space as he leaned against the headboard on the bed when the aroma of mixed vanilla and strawberry entered his nostrils followed by a soft melodious voice.
"What's up?"
He turned his head to the right to face the speaker and the sight of his freshly showered wife greeted him.
Jaeyoung was wearing only her nighties, her exposed creamy white skin still beaded with water which dripped from her obviously wet, long, raven hair. A towel was draped across her shoulders, her hand using one end to dry her tresses. Ten weeks after giving birth to their second child, she had recovered most of her old figure and Yunho couldn't help but appreciate how his wife looked.
Jae looked simply… delectable.
"Come here," the mesmerized husband beckoned huskily as he tapped the empty space on the bed next to him.
Jae raised a brow in amusement but followed nonetheless. As soon as she did, Yunho pulled her closer to his body and took the towel from her hand. Her husband then proceeded on drying her hair himself and Jae settled contentedly against her husband's broad chest.
Yunho's hands felt glorious on her scalp and Jae let out a satisfied sigh.
"How's your day?" Yunho spoke near her ear and Jae smiled as she tilted her chin, remembering the events of the day.
It was always like this with them at night. Since her husband spent a lot of time at work and came home late most days, he'd like to ask her about what she did with their children. Yunho liked to be updated with them and Jae felt happy about that.
"Good," she answered. "Binnie aced his math quiz at preschool today."
"Really? He takes after me," Yunho stated smugly and Jae elbowed his rib.
"No, he got his math genius from me," his wife countered and they both chuckled, proud of their almost five-year-old.
A couple of months ago, the two of them had a hard time convincing their eldest to attend school since Moonbin wanted to stay at home and help Jae take care of his little brother. It was a good thing that they were able to persuade him by telling him that all big brothers go to school so that their baby siblings would have someone to teach them when they grow up.
"How about Wonnie?" Yunho asked pertaining to their ten-week-old child, Mu Won, and Jae let out a chuckle.
"Now, that little angel really took after you," Jae told her husband and she proceeded on telling Yunho how their baby learned how to yell at the top of his lungs.
"Hey, I don't scream at people," Yunho said defensively but Jae shook her head.
"No you don't. But Wonnie sure knows how to order people around, and we all know who likes to give orders. He wet his nappies earlier but I was still giving Binnie his breakfast and your youngest yelled at us, demanding me to change his diaper ASAP," she continued and they shared another fond laughter.
They spent a few more minutes talking about their children's antics when Yunho stopped drying Jae's hair and embraced her from behind.
"How about my beautiful wife? What else did you do today?"
"Nothing much. Just the usual chores and Ji Hye called this afternoon too. Oh, I got a call from Jisoo also reminding me of our appointment on Thursday."
Jisoo was the doctor who took good care of Jae during pregnancy and was the one who delivered Mu Won over two months ago with the help of her partner Dr. Park Eunji, Jae's anesthesiologist.
"Speaking of Jisoo, do you know that Eunjie already proposed to her?" Jae said and she continued on talking about their friends until she realized her husband wasn't listening to her anymore and she scowled.
"Lee Yunho, stop kissing me!" Jae grumbled her displeasure at her husband's action.
Yunho was raining kisses on her shoulder towards the side of her neck then to her nape going to her other shoulder. "I'm talking to you but you're not paying attention to me."
"Wrong." Yunho grinned against his wife's skin and nipped at it, leaving a love mark. "I'm paying attention to you, love."
"Yunnie, I'm not talking about that kind of attention." Jae tried to sound cross but failed miserably when her husband whispered sexily in her ear.
"But boo, I miss you so much. I haven't held you for almost half a year," Yunho reminded her almost pleadingly as his hand roamed over Jae's chest, before sliding down to her stomach.
It consequently slipped inside her underwear, cupping the wakening jewel there all the while careful not to touch his wife's C-section wound. Although externally, the surgical incision had already closed, Yunho knew it'd take four more months or longer for the wound to heal internally.
"But Yunnie, Wonnie's only two-and-a-half months," Jae protested half-heartedly as she was already becoming aroused.
God knew she missed this kind of attention from her husband too as they had stopped having sex when she became six months pregnant.
"I'll wear protection," Yunho promised as he flipped over so he was topping Jae.
As soon as he did, he sealed their lips with a searing kiss as he peeled off Jae's underwear. With her already yielding, their hands roamed the surface of their skin hungrily, their touches conveying how much they both missed feeling each other's bodies and both succumbed to their romance. Their bodies melded into one, moving with the music of love along with their cries of passion and heartbeats.
After an hour, they lay under the blanket, both sated, with Jae using her husband's shoulder for pillow, as Yunho's hand absently caressed his wife's arm. The latter was staring blankly at space again and Jae felt curious.
"Yunnie, what are you thinking?" she asked as she eyed her husband.
"Nothing much," Yunho answered and Jae pouted.
"You've been spacing out a lot lately and that was 'nothing much'?"
"Hmmnnn…"Yunho looked thoughtful for a while before chuckling as he turned to her. "I really can't hide anything from you – well except my lie about me being your fiancé of course."
"Ha! That's what you think," Jae snorted. "You and Ji Hye haven't been the greatest actors you know. Even if I hadn't recovered my memories, I would have found it very odd that you two seemed to have seizures whenever you made a mistake of mentioning Ian or anything related to our past. I would have put two and two together and found you out. You should have seen your faces when you made some slips! I had a hard time maintaining a poker face. It was sooooo funny!"
"Ah, so I'm funny now?" Yunho countered with mock hurt and Jae giggled.
"Yeah funny."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Yours. You're the one who lied," Jaeyoung answered cheekily.
"Then why did you stay quiet huh? To make fun of me?" Yunho pouted and Jae shook her head as she gave her sulking husband a peck on the lips.
"No Mr. Lee. I kept quiet because I wanted to stay married to my sexy husband."
"You do?"
"I do."
"Really?"
"Really," Jae answered and Yunho smiled as he lowered his head, aiming for a kiss but Jae met his lips with her hand as she pushed him away. "If you think you managed to distract me from my question, then you're wrong."
"Awww Booo…" Yunho pouted again but it didn't work.
Jae eyed him with a stern look on her face and the husband gave in. There's no better time to talk about his thoughts than now anyway. If he procrastinated, his stupid cousin might take it to his hands again and come to this house himself, and if Jae found out he'd been hiding something from her again, he didn't think she would take it kindly.
"Ian," Yunho said and he watched as Jae raised a brow.
"What about him?"
"He came to the office the other day." Yunho studied his wife's reaction if she's going to get angry but she didn't. "He…he wants to reconnect with the family." He watched as Jae blinked several times and then shrugged like he didn't care. "You don't mind?"
Jaeyoung gave another shrug. There was no need to contemplate about things for long. She already knew about this, months ago from a very reliable source.
"He's your cousin," she said nonchalantly. "You and Ji Hye are all he has for family. Even if he's a world class asshole he gets lonely too."
"Right. I thought about that too. We used to be so close after all," Yunho said thoughtfully. "I just didn't want to say yes right away because I'm thinking you might not like it."
"Why wouldn't I?" Jae countered and Yunho shrugged nonchalantly, but deep inside he cared about his wife's answer.
"Well…" He looked totally hesitant but forced himself to speak. "You two used to be engaged after all. I reckon it might get awkward between all of us if he suddenly started visiting."
"It wouldn't." Jae sounded so confident which made Yunho frown in puzzlement. "He'll be a very well behaved uncle too."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
"Very sure. It hurts to have implants, plus Ian hates the dentist," Jae answered cheekily but his husband remained confused.
"What do you mean? What happened?" Yunho asked but Jae already turned her face away, ignoring her husband's question. "Jae?"
He felt Yunnie shake her arm but she pretended to sleep. Deep inside though, she was trying hard not to laugh. After all, she was keeping another little secret from her husband.
When Jae felt her husband shift on the bed, finally giving up, she smiled. She waited until she could feel Yunho's deep, even breathing indicating that he was already asleep before she turned around and gazed at her husband's face. With a mischievous smile, Jae recalled his earlier question.
"Do you want to know what happened, Yunnie?" Her smile widened as she recalled what happened ten weeks ago when Ian first returned to their lives. "The ashtray happened..."