Chapter 8

Unlike Lee Soo, who was shivering with chills, the football players looked spry and unbothered. Well, they were people who played matches in nothing but short sleeves and shorts even on days when snow was falling heavily, so that made sense.

“Well then, I’m going to go clean up.”

Since she didn’t have much else to do, she figured she might as well dust off the accumulated grime inside the shelter. Manuel raised a brow in mild curiosity.

“What are you going to clean with?”

“It’s a bit of a waste, but I have something usable.”

The players headed out, carrying empty cups and water bottles. Looking down at her rolled-up trouser cuffs, Lee Soo shouted loudly toward the lake situated on a slightly lower level.

“Mr. Hayden! Mr. Hayden!”

Raindrops were pattering down onto the weeds along the lakeside. Perhaps because the air was growing warmer, a thick mist was rising over the water.

Hayden, who had abruptly stopped swimming, walked slowly ashore. Streams of water dripped continuously from the hem of his soaked swim trunks.

However, what truly caught her eye were the thick, well-defined muscles bulging across his thighs.

They looked like the hind legs of a prize-winning stallion. And as for how long his legs were, his stride was easily twice as wide as anyone else’s.

Still, how good was he at security work? Having a solid body didn’t necessarily mean his protection skills were top-notch. Should she make other preparations just in case?

As she looked around trying to figure out what kind of preparations to make, her gaze drifted back to Hayden. He was walking toward her, water droplets dripping steadily from the tips of his grayish hair.

Those droplets brushed past his long collarbones and hit his chest muscles. From there, they lightly grazed his light-colored nipples and came to rest on his abdominal muscles.

Seeing a body where the boundaries between bone and muscle were so distinct sent a flutter of excitement through her.

He was getting closer. Every time he stepped forward, Lee Soo had no choice but to take a half-step back at the sight of his thick thigh muscles tensing up.

“I’m trying to clean up, so I was wondering if I could cut the hems of my pants.”

“Why? Are they uncomfortable?”

“No, I’m going to cut them off and use them as rags.”

When he shook his head to rid his hair of water, lukewarm droplets splashed against her cheek. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and Jenna, who had been sitting on the ground looking utterly despondent, burst out laughing.

“Tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothes going straight to rag duty.”

“Tens of thousands of pounds?”

“I’ve seen the pattern on that jacket lining before. It’s got to be a very expensive piece of clothing.”

Hayden didn’t seem to mind as he asked Lee Soo, “It was a gift, so I didn’t know it was that expensive. How much are you going to cut off? I’ll cut them for you instead.”

Bending his upper body, he sat down right in front of Lee Soo and began unrolling her cuffed trouser hems.

An inverted-triangle back was displayed right before Lee Soo’s eyes. Every time he moved his arms, the well-toned wing muscles shifted into view. The curves of his lower back and hips were so sculpted that it was hard to look away.

Lee Soo squeezed her eyes shut. Rather than getting caught with a blank mind over a man’s alluring, half-naked body, it would be better to go search for some other substitute rag.

“No, I didn’t know it was such an expensive outfit. I’ll look for something else to use instead.”

However, the trouser hems had already been unrolled by his hands and were pooling on the dirt floor.

Asking silently with his eyes, Like what?, he said slowly, “You can just pay me back later when you think of something. There are plenty of ways, aren’t there?”

She had no way of knowing what kinds of acts the “ways” he mentioned referred to. Looking down at his face from above, all she could think was that his dark grayish eyelashes were remarkably thick.

And she thought his eyes, edged with a distinct navy-blue ring, were unimaginably captivating. Just as she felt herself getting sucked into the sky-blue color that brightened from the deep blue irises toward his pupils, he continued.

“Don’t worry, there’s also the option of not paying me back at all.”

He soon went back inside the shelter and came out holding a utility knife.

“Sit down.”

Lee Soo sat down on the weeds just as he told her to. If she resisted, it seemed likely he would just force her down anyway.

“If I had known they were expensive pants, I wouldn’t have thought of cutting them. Besides, you said they were a gift….”

“They’re worth that much.”

Worth that much? What on earth could make it worth turning pants worth tens of thousands of pounds into a rag?

She looked at Hayden with a puzzled expression. He pushed her feet—hidden inside the trousers—further inward and wedged stones underneath the trouser hems.

At first, she had regretted the pants being ruined, but that thought was rapidly fading from her mind. A man kneeling on the weeds with his head bowed. The upper body lowered forward pulled her nerves taut.

He positioned himself at an angle and began slicing the pants with the knife. Screech, screech. The sound of metal scraping against stone scratched at her eardrums.

Low, restrained breathing followed. His rising and falling shoulders, the beads of sweat dotting his forehead, and the man’s lowered gaze heated up her senses. If sex was something that persistently battered the body, Hayden looked like he was having sex with the stone.

Her cheeks felt hot as she watched his private side. As Lee Soo stroked her cheek, his blue eyes flickered toward her.

“Feeling good?”

Feeling good? About what? Faced with him asking like a man actually in the middle of sex, Lee Soo parted her lips and fumbled out a response.

“About what?”

“Getting a rag.”

Thud. The trouser hems were completely separated from the pants. He held up two spans of black fabric and smiled lightly.

She had thought his expressionless face made him look like a germaphobe, but his smiling face felt as fresh as a boy’s. Dazed by that face, Lee Soo moved her parched lips.

“Yes, I’m thrilled. It’s probably my first time using a tens-of-thousands-of-pounds rag.”

With a soft chuckle, he placed the opposite trouser hem against a flat stone and began cutting. She found herself growing more and more curious about him. Starting with his first love.

“Was your first love really an Asian person?”

He answered without minding the personal question. “Yeah.”

“May I ask how you met?”

“We met by accident. That woman suddenly pounced on me and ran circles around me while I was just minding my own business.”

The fact that he had been pushed around was surprising enough, but what was even more startling was his quite serious expression. Even though he seemed slick and heavily flirtatious, he genuinely seemed to have cared for that woman.

“Hard to believe.”

Cutting the trouser hem with a firm tug, he replied, “I thought so too.”

“Is what you’re extending to me just a simple favor?”

That was what she had been curious about. Whether what he was offering was a simple favor, or something else entirely.

The sound of rain adding atmosphere was nothing more than noise. The longer the pause in his reply stretched, the more Lee Soo’s gaze focused on his lips.

She thought his pink, full lips were attractive. Because of that, she couldn’t stop dizzy, stray thoughts from taking over her mind.

Just how many women had he seduced with those lips? How passionately had he kissed them? Where and how had he licked them? What kind of reward was he expecting in exchange for promising protection? Or was he simply showing a casual, good-natured favor?

Breaking through her tangled thoughts, he replied, “It’s not a favor.”

The trouser hem was cut away like it had been chewed on by a mouse. Lee Soo’s mind felt just as battered and chaotic.

“You’re awfully easy.”

Lee Soo warned herself. Hayden Wyatt was an easygoing man, so she shouldn’t let herself get lured by any kind of temptation.

As if mocking that thought, Hayden’s lips curved. “Easy, am I? Only for someone who’s worth it.”

Her heart hammered a warning against her ribs. Yet Lee Soo could stop neither her beating heart, nor her quickening breath, nor his smile.

Declan and Manuel, who had gone down to the coastline to fetch water, returned. Only when she sensed their presence from afar was she able to calm her racing mind.

“Man, the rain really doesn’t know when to quit. When is it even going to stop?”

Standing under the reed roof, Manuel wrung out the rainwater from his black T-shirt. Declan stood beside him, shaking out his wet hair.

“Wait, isn’t it fine to just drink the lake water? Is there any need to suffer like this?”

Sitting before them, Hayden cut the remaining trouser hem as he answered, “Judging by the insect larvae floating on the surface, the water quality is trash. You can’t drink it without boiling it first.”

Declan nodded. “Ah, right. Oh, by the way, we found a large tent down at the coastline. It looks like one they used when this island was turned into a tourist spot. It’s still usable, so Nate is bringing it up. What were you guys doing?”

His gaze turned sharp, as if suspecting they had just been slacking off.

Holding the cut trouser hem like a treasure, Lee Soo stood up. “We were making cleaning tools. We’re going to clean.”

Standing next to Declan, Manuel looked down at Lee Soo’s bare feet with more interest than the pieces of cloth.

“Wait, what’s that on your ankle? Is it a tattoo?”

He immediately crouched down and lifted the edge of her pants. There was a barcode-like tattoo inked on her ankle. Beneath it, the words SOUTH KOREA were stamped like a unique serial number.

“South Korea? You’re from South Korea? Your pronunciation is so good I thought you were from the UK.”

Manuel traced Lee Soo’s ankle tattoo with his index finger. It was right when Lee Soo was looking down, bewildered by a tattoo she hadn’t even known she had.

Crossing his arms, Declan rubbed his nose. “Man, isn’t that practically racial profiling?”

Manuel apologized to Lee Soo right away. “My bad if it came off that way.”

Staring at Lee Soo as she stroked the tattoo, Declan opened his mouth as if talking to himself. “If there were more Koreans on this island, we’d have high-speed internet installed within a week.”

The men came hauling the tent over their shoulders down the hill. Nate, leading the pack, glanced back and forth between Declan and Manuel and cracked a joke.

“Then white guys corrupted by capitalism would show up and start charging us admission fees.”

Dehart, trailing behind, condemned them. “Racists.”

Whatever conversation they were having, the tent was safely deposited in the front yard. Dehart brushed his hands together and smoothed back his dark brown hair. “This is the only one that isn’t torn.”

The tent was made by attaching a wide, rectangular plastic sheet to an iron structure. A lump of concrete was attached to the bottom of each iron pole.

There wouldn’t be any problem setting it up as is, but if the wind knocked it over, it could spell disaster. Picking up a tree branch lying on the ground, Lee Soo began digging into the yard’s soil.

“It would be better to bury the concrete in the ground and place stones over top.”

Acting as if it were a great idea, Manuel followed Lee Soo’s lead.

Watching Manuel’s dark hair, Lee Soo asked quietly, “Just in case we need it, should we dismantle the plastic off the torn tent and keep it?”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

The tent setup began. The football players were busy digging up the ground with thick branches and rocks.

Seemingly still lacking any motivation, Jenna sat by the door and watched the tent assembly. Standing near the entrance, Hayden seemed to remember something and began walking up the hill toward the coastline.

She wondered where he was headed. Was he going to look for more usable tent supplies?

Hoping to find other decent items besides a tent, Lee Soo followed behind him.