**Mature Warning**

The storm the morning Kai left was just a harbinger of more to come. Over the next few days, it rained and thundered so much, I half considered whether or not I should be looking for an old man with a boat and a lot of animals. The weather was so bad, business at the shop all but died out altogether.

I never did see who was following me that day in the alley, but several times when I was outside moving between my apartment and the shop, I smelled him. Despite knowing he was tracking me like quarry, the scent was familiar and comforting somehow. I hated how much I loved it.

Another week passed and nothing came of the hunter. I was so nervous, I started bunking with Minnie in her upstairs apartment. I didn't dare tell Kai about the problem, though. He had too much going on with Suho and the rest of EXO. He'd been right about Suho being mad and, while he didn't kill him, he did make Kai's life miserable for the secrets he kept and found every way possible to keep us from seeing each other. We all knew he couldn't keep it up forever, but Kai had the feeling he was at least hoping to buy some time. For what, neither of us knew.

We had talked several times, but not about the night and morning we'd spent together. I didn't regret what happened, but the more time stretched between that moment and the present, the more I wondered whether it should have happened in the first place. I cared about Kai and I knew he cared about me, but I couldn't give him what he deserved. The only thing I could give him was grief and the more I spent cooped up in the shop, the more I obsessed about that thought.

Finally, I got tired of being stuck inside the shop for days. Some people could handle isolation, but I'd had my fill of it. I didn't go crazy, but I just had to step outside for a few minutes. Still, it was more than I'd done in days.

Winter had finally released its grip on the city and the weather was warming up nicely. In fact, it was almost too warm, the air nearly stifling, but I enjoyed it. I hated the cold oppression of winter and welcomed the balmy afternoons of spring. I'd even borrowed a short pleated skirt and thin tights from Minnie to celebrate the seasonal improvement and try to knock myself out of the gloomy mood I'd been in.

As I stepped out into the back alley behind the shop, I tipped my head back and leaned against the ancient brick. Most of the buildings around were steel and glass, but this was one of the few remaining made from wood and brick. It was a comforting feeling to be next to something so old that had seen hundreds of years of humans pass by it. It gave me a sense of stability that I was sorely missing in my life.

Footsteps echoed down the alley toward the main road, but I didn't bother trying to see who it was. It wasn't uncommon for people to use that alley as a shortcut. That is, until the scent of earth and spice blew across my face, carried on the warm evening breeze. My heart seized in my chest as I struggled to breathe. With him so close, I remembered how I knew that smell.

"Morgan."

My eyes shot open, but it took a little too long for me to turn my face to him. I knew that deep voice and the warning that it carried. I'd heard it many times before getting my ass handed to me on the sparring mats.

Nobody but Gina had called me that name since leaving the mansion.

I rolled my head to see the outline of Jungkook's muscular frame standing at the other end of the alley. Even looking like a really buff ghost backlit by the streetlights as they flickered on around us, there was no mistaking who he was. I knew that body as well as I knew my own.

"Oh fuck..." I breathed.

"Don't you fucking do it," he warned even as his muscles tensed in anticipation.

Not one to be bossed around, I took off running in the opposite direction. His heavy-booted feet were already pounding on the cobbles behind me. I wasn't sure why I was running other than the fact that he looked pretty scary in those shadows and I was supposed to be staying away from the men. Per Jin's explicit orders.

Unfortunately for me, my lack of a regular training schedule for the past six months caught up with me in the form of two strong hands clamping down on my shoulders and shoving me to my left. In half a second, Jungkook's massive body slammed against mine, his hands pinning my wrists by my head. The worn brick against my back nipped and caught my tights, immediately ripping holes in them. I wasn't dressed for a fight and the realization only served to piss me off.

"God, get off me," I grumbled, trying in vain to push him away. He countered my every move and managed to spread my feet so he could get closer, preventing me from getting a foothold or a crotch-shot. His breath was hot on my face as he rolled his bottom lip over his teeth and panted against me, hollowing out his cheeks in a way that had once been dangerously sexy.

Who was I kidding? It still was.

"Not on your life. I told you not to fucking run."

I looked up at him then. His hair was longer, hanging in his face and wet from the rain. In its dampness, curls had begun to form, but they did nothing to soften the danger that was written all over him like a flashing neon sign.

"You didn't have to chase me."

He chuckled into the swiftly approaching night, sounding slightly insane. "Right. Like I wouldn't jump at the chance to chase you down."

"Well, you caught me, so how about a little space?"

His face was so close to mine that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. I turned my head away from him, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

"Fine," he growled. He stepped back, swaying from one foot to the other as he gave me all of a foot of distance. His eyes were dark and stony. His eyebrows two angry slashes under an unruly mop of black hair. Pouty lips separated as he breathed before his tongue slid across the lower one like the warning of a snake before it struck. He was anger and pain and longing hidden behind the mask of a predator long desensitized to the emotions of the hunt.

He was deadly and beautiful all rolled into one and I shivered as I thought about all the nights he had stalked me through the city. How easily he'd gone unseen. Had it not been for my enhanced senses, I wouldn't have known he was there.

It wasn't a side I was used to seeing from him and I realized how scary he could be when he was on a mission.

"How'd you find me?"

A smirk cut across his lips. "You took my favorite sweatshirt."

"Fuck. I was afraid you'd seen it. I didn't have time to hide it that day."

The smirk fell from his face as his expression hardened again. "What the fuck, Morgan? Why'd you run?"

I could tell by the tone of his voice and the way he stretched out his hand that he wasn't talking about this particular incident. But how could I tell him that Jin made me without also telling him why?

"I can't," I whispered into the chasm between us. "I can't tell you."

He ran his hand through his hair and glared at me. "Can't or won't?"

I looked at him with every bit of pleading I could muster. "Both."

Jungkook cursed loudly as he spun around, then just as quickly he was back, his head tilted to the side and his eyes pouring out emotions he didn't know how to voice.

"Really, Morgan? Six months without a word and that's the best you can give me? 'I can't tell you'. That's some fucking bullshit!"

"I know, Jungkook, but that's the best I have."

He stared at me for a few more seconds, the pain and the anguish blatant in his features. "I don't know why I bothered tracking you down." He shook his head, then turned away and I thought I was going to shatter into a thousand pieces if he left me alone in that alley.

All at once, my pain was replaced by white hot rage. "Why did you track me down, Jungkook? It's not like you miss me. You've already moved on and got you another girl warming your bed at night."

He laughed cruelly, tossing his head back before bending forward with his hand across his stomach. "You don't fucking get it, do you?" I stared blankly at him, not wanting him to see the fact that I, apparently, did not fucking get it. He laughed again and shook his head before crossing the distance between us again. He bent down to put his face right in mine. I tried not to think about how his skin looked like burnished gold in the streetlights.

"Did you forget what my job is? I've been watching Gina for weeks. I knew she was meeting you, but she'd take a different route every time. I couldn't follow her without her knowing, so I decided to smoke you out. I fucking knew how jealous you'd be if you heard I was with someone else." He moved closer to me and I felt a primal pull between the fear of prey and the desire caused by knowing exactly what his body could do. God, I had missed him.

"What I didn't anticipate was how stubborn you'd be. I've never had to work so hard for a mark before."

I don't know why I did it. Maybe I was scared. Maybe I was just done with everything over the last six months. But as soon as I heard him call me a mark, something snapped. With a speed even the almighty Jungkook didn't anticipate, I pulled my fist back and punched him in his pretty mouth. He stumbled back, looking at me with something between rage and pride.

"The last six months have been the worst six months of my life, Jeon Jungkook. You've been hunting me like a dog the whole time I've been trying to stay away from you for your own protection! I did it for you, you stupid prick and I don't deserve for you to talk to me like that."

Jungkook wiped away the blood that was leaking from his lip where I'd split it. He looked down at the crimson on his fingers like it was something foreign. When his eyes flashed back up to me again, I thought he was going to kill me.

Instead, he took two steps, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me roughly into his kiss. I didn't have time to think about it before we were together and he was tilting into the kiss, his tongue sliding between my lips and dancing with mine. I whimpered against him just as my eyes fluttered closed.

Our hands were rough and demanding against each other as we both tried to pull the other closer, tighter, harder, trying to erase the pain of loss after the last six months apart. I sighed into his touch even as I cursed at myself to stop. It was crazy. We couldn't just jump into each other's arms like that. Not after everything that had happened. And yet, I couldn't bring myself to push him away.

Jungkook bent down to tug at my tights and I sucked in a sharp breath against the cold air that hit my skin.

"Jungkook, we can't do this," I whispered between panting breaths. My senses were coming back to me in fits and starts, but not my willpower. "Not here. Not now. There's so much I need to tell you."

His mouth was hot against my inner thigh as he worked the cloth over my legs. Dominant and aggressive, his touch sent shock waves straight to my core. "Do you want me," he murmured against my goosebump-covered flesh.

I didn't even think about what I was saying as I tilted my head back and grabbed a handful of his hair. "More than anything."

"Then shut the fuck up," he ground out before he went after my tights and underwear again, cussing the whole time as he fought to get them off my feet. He barely managed one side before growling and standing up, latching his mouth onto my neck and collarbone as he lifted my legs and pinned me against the wall. There was the jingling of his belt and then I was gasping as he was thrusting inside me.

My hands were gripping his shoulders, my legs holding onto his waist, my lips bruising from his attention, our need and want and longing boiling over like a long-forgotten pot on the back burner of a stove. He gave as much as he took and before long I had to pull my mouth away from his so I could suck in greedy breaths. I was vaguely aware of the back door opening and closing, and of a soft yelp, but I didn't care. All I could think about was that I had my Jungkook back.

As I reached closer to an orgasm, I bit down on Jungkook's shoulder to keep from screaming. He threw his head back and cried out, his eyes scrunched closed as he neared his own release. I rocked my hips against him as my orgasm burst through me, blinding white and as intense as the sun. He followed shortly after, slamming me into the wall with each pulse of his cock.

With each of us coming down, he slowly lowered my legs so he could cup my face with both of his hands, kissing me deeply with all of his body pressed up against all of mine.

"Told you public sex was hot," he said with a grin against my lips.

"Ten out of ten would do it again," I grinned back, panting and wondering what the hell I'd just done.