His adoptive father’s torment was very subtle. What appeared to others, including Renéee, as consideration from his adopted son was a terrible poison to him.

This woman was the same. The man who was on his knees, licking her collarbone with his tongue and savoring the wetness above and below, heard a trembling voice.

“Stop it. This isn’t what you want.”

If Izer had wanted to take her body, he would have done so already. The fact that he was trying to violate her as soon as something reminded him of Celian in her shining days meant that he was now sinking into the past.

To Izer, Celian was misfortune. He shouldn’t recall the past, nor should he be immersed in it.

Celian pleaded in a faint voice.

“You hate me, don’t you?”

She had to remain an object of hatred. That was how Izer could move forward.

Izer was silent. The strength also left the hand that had been holding Celian. An instinctive light of relief appeared in the woman’s eyes.

Celian gathered courage and continued speaking. Hope was in sight.

“Don’t become more broken. Young Duke, you’re not this kind of pers–!”

Her words were cut off.

The hand that had been digging inside her dress suddenly pulled out. Grabbed by the wrist and pulled up, her body, now completely free from the dress, was dragged along with him.

The room was small, and after a few steps, the two arrived at the bed.

In the blink of an eye, Celian’s view changed.

Izer pushed her upper body, which had suddenly risen, back down onto the mattress. As he straddled her pelvis, it was impossible for her to move her legs.

The woman with her shoulders pinned down reached out and grasped his thighs.

A small voice cried out urgently.

“Young Duke, no!”

“I give the orders.”

The man unbuckled his belt.

The blood flowing through his veins went wild. Izer raised his hand and pressed firmly on Celian’s collarbone. The woman could only hold onto his arm, unable to resist any further.

The pale br*asts that had been visible through the window now revealed themselves right before his eyes. It was pitiful to see her small hands trying to cover her br*asts, which were too large for them to fully encompass.

Izer looked down at the woman with contempt. Wearing that expression he had ‘thought’ he had worn in his dreams.

“Miss Berienne, you’re wrong. This is what I want. This is the kind of person I am. Someone who feels ecstasy while crushing and mocking the woman who once looked down on me from above.”

People think that the Young Duke of Chesterfield is elegant and polite. That was true for his outward appearance. Even the women he had shared a bed with spoke of his courtesy — which was actually indifference packaged as politeness.

The fragments of his nature that had been distorted while being crammed into the ill-fitting noble society were strangely reassembled. The twists that had been suppressed with nowhere to be released now flowed out through a small crack.

Their gazes met. Celian’s lips trembled.

“Ignore me. You can live as if I never existed. You can do that now, can’t you?”

Right now, Celian was doing her best to escape the trap set by the Duke. Trying to somehow break the gun that was ready to fire, she whispered quickly.

“It was the Duke who called me, you know that. He certainly didn’t place me by your side with good intentions……”

“He probably wanted to see me go mad and die. That man seems to live to torment me.”

“……”

It was quite an accurate guess. Celian closed her mouth. Izer recited leisurely while loosening his tie.

“I’m frustrated that I fell for the Duke’s ploy, but I don’t think I’ve suffered any loss. I hate you, Miss Berienne. I want you to suffer.”

“……”

“But that doesn’t mean I have to just watch you from afar. Rather……”

The man’s hand grasped her full br*ast. Izer let out a satisfied laugh as he saw the flesh spilling between his fingers.

“This seems like it would be more painful for you.”

“Young Duke!”

Celian’s voice rose.

“No, please don’t do this… mmph!”

A bundle of cloth was stuffed into her open mouth.

Celian gagged as it was pushed down to her throat. Her palm-sized underwear fell to the floor.

With her mouth blocked, the woman could no longer plead.

Izer picked up any string he could see with his cold eyes. As he tied together the slender wrists that were trying to escape his grasp, Izer muttered.

“It’s my first time with someone who says they don’t want me. Please excuse me if I’m rough.”

Long, pale fingers finished their work. The man firmly tied the other end of the ribbon to the iron head of the bed.

He hadn’t realized, but the string he used to tie Celian was the ribbon from the dress. Tied with a sky-blue ribbon similar to her eyes, the woman looked just like a wrapped gift.

Its difference from a present was that he had tied it, not unwrapped it.

Izer looked at his prisoner as he unbuttoned his shirt. Knowing that resistance was futile, the woman deliberately avoided looking at him and only turned her head to the side.

Tears that fell from Celian’s eyes soaked the pillowcase.

She didn’t want to mix bodies with Izer like this. At the very least, being forcibly tied up and violated by the person she had loved was not to her taste.

The head that had been staring at the wall was forcibly turned. The man who had mounted her body made her look at him.

The man sneered.

“You’re crying.”

“Mmph……”

His tongue licked her tears. His breath smelled of wine.

“Today is a series of firsts. A woman who absolutely refuses to spread her legs ends up crying. This will be a good opportunity to figure out your preferences.”

The words he spat out in an elegant tone were consistently vulgar.

She had heard such words before. Once from the ruffians in the market, and once at a nobles’ party when she was still called a lady. They must have thought all the ladies had left, but Celian, hidden behind a tree, had overheard.

So she knew how vulgar the hidden side of young lords could be. The vulgarity that had developed in Izer must be a trace of his association with them.

A murky voice stirred the woman pinned underneath mercilessly.

“Do you understand your position now, Miss Berienne?”

This woman was still trying to manipulate him. As if she was still stuck in the past when he acted like a fool.

It was laughable.

“I told you the Celian Berienne I knew was dead.”

“……”

“You might be curious, so I’ll tell you since it’s come to this.”

“……”

“Izer Ren is dead.”

The stupid Izer Ren who did whatever she said to do and stopped whatever she said not to do was dead. The Izer Ren who dreamed of becoming a polite and family-devoted husband was also dead.

There was no hesitation in Izer Chesterfield’s hands as they skillfully kneaded the woman’s br*asts. He would grasp them firmly, then immediately massage them gently, as if softening them.

Celian’s body tensed and relaxed repeatedly, following the force of the man’s hands. It was an overly attentive caress for someone he claimed to hate.

Then the man completely overlapped his body on top of Celian. Her breath was cut short.

Izer seemed to have grown a bit larger than she remembered. It was the result of being in an environment where he could eat well and exercise comfortably.

His chest, like a rock, mercilessly pressed down on her body, which was as soft as tofu. Soft flesh and hard muscle pressed together without a gap, and the black hair she remembered intertwined with her own, tickling her neck.

The mouth that bit her neck after parting her hair showed no mercy. The scream that tried to escape was blocked by the cloth in her mouth.

A slippery tongue touched where the teeth marks were and licked upwards against the grain of the skin. Seeming to like it after trying once, he licked the flesh upwards again from the hollow of her collarbone.

The places where the moist heat had passed should have cooled, but Izer persistently licked as if he had no intention of allowing a cool sensation on the parts he had explored. Even without the teeth marks, this much friction and heat would surely have made it red.

After licking for a while, he seemed to get bored and moved a little lower. The man who had been leaving teeth marks as if he would tear her collarbone could be clearly heard muttering.

“You seem thinner. Your bones are more pronounced.”

Then he seemed to realize she wasn’t in a position to answer. With a deflating sound, he answered himself.

“Of course you’d be thin. That’s why you came to this house.”

Though his words were full of contempt and hatred, his actions were the opposite. His thoughts told him to hate this woman, but his body passionately desired her.

Now the woman seemed to have given up even the pretense of responding to him.

Celian just squeezed her eyes shut, as if wishing for this time to end. Were the small tears beaded on her eyelashes and the tear tracks flowing down the side of her eyes meant to elicit sympathy?