Chapter 1

In a room faintly scented with the refined aroma of tea, a man and a woman sat on a bed soft enough for one’s back to sink deeply into it, each thinking very different thoughts.

“I’m ready, Sir Edwin. You may take it off now.”

Amelia, excited as if she were tasting sweet candy for the first time in her life, spoke in a lively voice.

“…….”

Edwin, as devastated as if he had been beaten with a wooden practice sword for the first time in his life, sat there with trembling hands and a face that looked on the verge of tears.

This was not the reaction he had expected. This development was absolutely not what he had imagined, so how had things turned out like this? He felt like he might truly lose his mind. Licking his dry lips over and over, he timidly opened his mouth.

“Um, Miss Amelia. I, well…….”

“You’re not about to say now that it was a joke, are you? After you said what was the big deal about showing private parts.”

Her round brown eyes sparkled more brightly than usual. Amelia had seen countless illustrations depicting such things, but she had never once seen the real thing. To someone as full of curiosity as she was, Edwin’s words had sounded like a very welcome offer.

Meeting those eyes, Edwin simply wanted to go mad. This is not it. It really is not. Why am I in this situation? As he hesitated, Amelia spoke.

“If it’s embarrassing to take it off, you can close your eyes. I’ll look all by myself and put everything back on you afterward.”

“……I think that would be even more embarrassing.”

“Then hurry and take it off.”

At the sight of Amelia urging him again and again with such an innocent face, Edwin realized there was no way out.

If only he could turn back time. Then he would absolutely never, no matter what happened, have said such a thing to Amelia. No, before that, he would have desperately fled the scene so she would not have been caught by him while pleasing herself.

At the start of this shameful, awkward, mortifying incident, there had been her from the very beginning.

***

「—Even while being toyed with by the men, she was feeling s*xual excitement. It seemed as though she might be able to pull herself free from the wall if she only used a little more force, but she wanted to leave her body just as it was to the hands gripping and rubbing her backside.」

Each time her eyes took in the densely printed words carved across the white page, her lower belly throbbed and heat pooled below. Amelia pressed her thighs together and let out a deep breath.

“Haa…….”

She could feel her underclothes growing damp. Every time she pressed her legs together and then parted them again, the sticky sound was embarrassing and yet strangely stirring.

「When the rough hand tugged at her underclothes, the tender place spilling heat was fully revealed. She could not see it herself, but at the sight of the clear moisture stretching between her folds, the men’s throats bobbed.

The hot, coarse hand that had been kneading her pale flesh at will moved toward the woman’s secret place. The pink folds prettily closed together, the split opening beneath them trembling. It had surely been an accident that she became stuck in the wall, yet seeing how she reacted without putting up much resistance, their hesitation disappeared as well.」

Biting her lip, Amelia’s brown eyes hurried over the words. Her right hand turned the page, while her left had already slipped between her legs. Every time she bent forward and squeezed her thighs tightly together, a chill ran up her back.

“Uh, ah……!”

By the time the page had become full of m*ans, Amelia too let out a small m*an.

At the ticklish sensation, her toes curled tight. Her eyes closed and her head bowed, her eyelashes trembling faintly.

A tingling pleasure rose through her tightly pressed flesh and up her pelvis. Strength drained from her hips, and as her entrance contracted intermittently, warm wetness slid down.

The fingertips pressing over her underclothes grew damp. Amelia, panting for a long while as the peak washed over her at a leisurely pace, suddenly felt something strange. Inside the bookstore, which had always been so quiet, it seemed as if she could hear someone else’s breathing.

“…….”

The instant she became aware of it, her whole body went cold in a flash. Swallowing hard, Amelia raised her face and slowly opened her eyes. Not far from the counter, beside a shelf stacked carelessly with books, someone was standing there. A man, at that.

“Aaaah!”

Without realizing it, Amelia shrieked and sprang to her feet. Her heart pounded as though it might leap out of her chest, and her cheeks burned bright red. She pointed an accusing finger at the unidentified visitor.

“W-w-w-since when……!”

“……Pardon? Ah, um, since you put your hand between your legs……. I’m sorry. It just did not seem like the sort of moment where I could possibly speak to you…….”

The man, wearing an awkward expression with his face somewhat flushed, was a rare beauty of a man with splendid blond hair and blue eyes.

All kinds of thoughts flashed through Amelia’s head. I want to die. I want to turn to dust and disappear just like this. But there are still so many things I want to do. Right, since he is the only witness, if I quietly take care of him……!

“……Why is your gaze so murderous? Please rest assured, I will not tell anyone.”

Taking a step back, the man spoke uneasily. And not without reason—the brown eyes fixed on him were slightly unfocused, carrying even a strange hint of madness.

But Amelia, not in her right mind, nearly screamed her reply at him.

“Usually I can leave this place open from morning till night and still hardly see even the shadow of a customer! So why did you have to come today of all days! At the very least, you could have come at some other time! Still, is it a relief that you’re not a regular customer? Huh? Is it a relief?!”

As she babbled incoherently, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Amelia had always looked gentle by nature, and now that she seemed on the verge of crying, it made one feel as though one had committed some terrible wrong. Of course, the man was not actually at fault, but feeling a slight sense of responsibility, he apologized.

“Well, first of all, I am sorry. But Miss Amelia, from now on, engaging in such private behavior in a place where anyone might come at any time is…….”

“W-wait. How do you know my name? Are you perhaps a customer of this bookstore? But the customers here all have low-productivity faces, and they’re always dressed in shabby clothes…….”

Her eyesight was not especially poor, but when she spent too much time reading, her eyes would sometimes grow tired, so she kept a pair of glasses nearby. Amelia, just in case, even put on her glasses and carefully examined the man, but no matter how she looked at him, he was far too handsome to seem like someone who could possibly have crossed paths with her.

Moreover, he was no ordinary person. The antique silver-white armor marked with the Imperial seal showed that the man was an honorable Knight belonging to the Imperial Palace, and also a noble.

“I have never seen anyone as handsome as you, Sir Knight.”

For Amelia, a commoner, to comment on someone’s appearance like that was frank to the point of rudeness, but the man ended up letting out a small laugh.

She was not exactly wrong. It had been over a year since he first set foot in this bookstore, but the few customers he had happened to encounter during that time were always either elderly old men or poor scholars who looked short on money. In truth, when he himself visited this place, he dressed in much the same way, so it was not unreasonable that Amelia had failed to recognize him.

It was not that he had deliberately hidden his face, but she was always looking elsewhere, which made it all the more understandable.

“It seems you failed to recognize me because of how I was dressed, if not because of productivity. I visited just last week too……. Would you know me if I said my name? I’m Edwin.”

“……Sir Edwin? That Sir Edwin with the shaggy blond hair always sticking up however it pleased, always hunched over, always roughly dressed in ready-made shirts, vests, and trousers, and who sometimes made my heart flutter because he carried an unnecessarily nice scent?”

“……Yes.”

At Amelia’s wide-eyed exclamation, Edwin answered with an awkward expression. He honestly could not tell whether that had been praise or an insult.

Until just a moment ago, she had been so embarrassed over being caught in such a private act that it was enough to make even the onlooker feel embarrassed for her, but now there was not a trace of that left to be found.