Chapter 8

It was true that there was no longer any need to ignore it. Setting down the glass, he straightened his back. The moment he undid the stifling buckle, the thing beneath his black trousers jutted up, flaunting its presence.

“How irritating.”

Unlike its owner, his arousal was excessively honest. Because of that, Kyle’s mood as he stared at it was deeply unpleasant. By nature, desire did nothing but erode reason and was of no help whatsoever. Just like unnecessary feelings between a man and a woman, exactly like that.

With his large hand wrapped around his arousal, he stared blankly at the empty place. Until twenty minutes ago, Hazel had been sitting on that sofa where only the teacup remained. The moment he recalled those anxious blinking eyes, the hardness in his hand swelled a little more.

Leaning his back comfortably against the backrest, he settled into position. The moment he closed his eyes, the outline of her body, faintly revealed beneath her thin clothes, rose before him. There had been nothing especially provocative about them; they were ordinary. Perhaps it would be enough to say they were exactly the sort of clothes Hazel Bennett would wear.

But that only stirred Kyle more. His fully hardened arousal responded to Hazel’s lingering scent in the room.

He closed his mouth and stroked up the shaft with his hand. In the darkness, the head gleamed slick with pre-release that had spilled while he had not even realized it. His eyes, absently sweeping over the slippery length before it had any chance to dry tackily, were already full of heat.

“……”

The vein running from Kyle’s lower abdomen to his arousal stood out tight. A hollow laugh escaped him. It seemed that, without realizing it, his frustration had grown rather severe. To swell as if about to burst just because he had met his first love once.

The thing twitching between his firm thighs, with veins raised all the way across it, was flushed a dark red. By now, the tip, fully ready to jerk in Kyle’s hand with light slapping sounds, was pointed exactly toward the place where Hazel had been sitting.

Kyle’s hand brushed over the head. Tilting his neck back comfortably, he let out a low groan.

“Mm……”

The heat of his whole body gathered in his lower abdomen. His arousal, the hand holding it, and even his mind filled with a woman’s face and scent all felt as though they might catch fire. So hot that he almost doubted a human body could reach such a temperature, so overwhelming that he found himself newly amazed that men lived all their lives inside sensations like this.

Still, once should be all right. Kyle let his imagination flow freely.

You, who had been sitting there, rise and kneel in front of me, wrap your hand around me, push me into that small mouth, and look up at me with cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Then I look down at you and demand that you take more of me, deeper. But because everything is your first time, you would flounder, not knowing how. There would be nothing to worry about. I would simply take hold of your head and guide you forward myself.

Perhaps you would gag. There is no way that small face could have a deep mouth.

If the back of your throat were pressed and you coughed and struggled, I would use those sounds as music and pull you in even more firmly.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Then, when I let you go as if in sudden generosity, you would cough and collapse to the floor. Wiping the saliva dripping from the corner of your mouth with trembling hands. You would fall into the same posture as when cleaning the floorboards, and look up at me with a vague fear of what might pounce on you next.

He was curious. Would she feel betrayed at seeing the man she trusted put his desire first? What would she look like if those eyes, which had known only admiration, came to hold disgust?

The eagerness that had seemed as though it might strip and lie down at once would vanish, and she might say she wanted to go home now.

But by then it would already be too late. For a man after he had been pleasured once, there was no retreat in such an indecent night, and every possible route of escape would be cut off until the only thing left for her was the path of lying beneath him.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

He had seen countless women whose nights were swallowed up by young men of the upper class in just that way.

And before that kind of man, she would.

“I meant that you’ve come one step closer to your goal. Congratulations. And I’m cheering for you.”

……congratulate him.

Kyle blinked slowly. The sofa opposite him looked especially empty tonight.

* * *

“Al, if someone reports me for obstruction of business, how much would the fine be?”

It was a very strange thing to hear from a friend who had only been in Bukata for a week. Alice, brushing her wet hair, met her friend’s eyes through the mirror.

“Did you get yourself into trouble?”

“Some foreigner asked me if the Strauss Hotel was good, so I said I didn’t like it. But then he said he was staying there.”

Tracing the chain of events backward, at the end of it all was the Strauss Hotel. Guilt over having spoken ill of someone else’s hotel kept pricking at Hazel’s heart.

Alice looked interested.

“My. Then he must have asked why you disliked it?”

“Yeah. So I mumbled something about how my friend disliked the hotel.”

“You should have said that friend was the heir who was originally supposed to inherit the hotel. Then that foreigner would have looked at you with a deeply reverent expression.”

“That would have been terrible. Thinking about it now, that man seemed like a reporter.”

“A reporter?”

Alice turned around. Water dripped onto the vanity.

“He had several bags, and they were just the right size to hold a camera…… and the way he spoke to me felt oddly familiar. He must be someone used to doing interviews.”

Her guess turned into certainty. Hazel mumbled gloomily,

“I just went and told a reporter that Bukata’s best hotel wasn’t very good. Even if the Strauss Hotel sues me, I’d have nothing to say.”

“The hotel is not that idle. Don’t worry. More importantly, was that reporter handsome?”

“He was fairly handsome.”

“What country was he from?”

“Well, he was speaking Criscent.”

“How tall? About how old did he look? Any other clues?”

With bright, round eyes, Hazel diligently tried to recall the man’s face.

“He was about as tall as Brother Colin, and I think he was around my age or a little older. As for other clues…… wait a second, you’re trying to investigate him now!”

She had nearly been led along by Alice. Even at Hazel’s sulky expression, Alice only went further and climbed onto the bed where Hazel was sitting. Water was still dripping from her, but if she wanted to get her own bed wet, who was Hazel to stop her.

Alice’s eyes sparkled.

“Tell me more, Hazel. This is a very important issue. A young man approached a young woman who was alone, and on top of that, the topic between them was a hotel? That man definitely had other thoughts!”

“……”

“But the woman was too cold. And he must have caught on. The ‘friend’ that woman was talking about must be a man. Just imagine how crushed he must have been!”

Hazel grabbed a pillow and threw it at Alice’s face.

“You’ve gone too far, Alice Nett. Come back to reality.”

But the other party was Alice Nett. Hugging the pillow, she rattled on like rapid fire.

“Listen. If he’s really a reporter like you said, he’ll definitely come to tomorrow evening’s party. A foreign reporter coming to Bukata at this time? It has to be for covering the Great Holdland commemorative event!”

The Holdland Empire was a vast nation with colonies all over the world. Every spring, the royal family held a huge commemorative event in Bukata in order to show off the nation’s wealth and prestige.

Though it would not be an exaggeration to say all of high society gathered for this event, its center was naturally the royal palace. But political struggles, by nature, were things one preferred to leave to the middle-aged and older. Young people were far more interested in the party held around the same time like a byproduct.

The venue for that party, which by now had solidified into something like a custom, was the Strauss Hotel. Alice proudly pulled a ticket from her wallet and showed it.

“The palace event ends before evening, and our party starts after sunset. If I’m right, that reporter will definitely recognize you tomorrow night and come act friendly.”

“I just hope he doesn’t report me for obstruction of business.”

Hazel replied as she sprawled out. This was as far as she was willing to humor her overexcited friend.

* * *

Why did bad feelings always come true?

[You’re the lady from yesterday. Let me properly introduce myself. I’m Eugene Fawkes. I’m a reporter from Criscent.]

[Ah, hello…….]

So, they had not even been at the party venue for ten minutes. Yet the foreigner from the day before found Hazel immediately with astonishingly sharp eyes. As it turned out, he really was a reporter, and now that he had caught her, she was sitting in a blue armchair in a lounge area set off to one side of the ballroom, having some sort of exchange that could not quite be called an interview, interrogation, or conversation.

[I’m Hazel Bennett. Did you get in all right yesterday?]

[Thanks to you, Miss Bennett. Fortunately, the flaw you were worried about did not apply to me.]

[That’s good. Please don’t pay any attention to what I said.]

The face she had thought handsome even in the darkness was indeed quite fine-looking in reality. If twenty-two-year-old Kyle had sharp features, then this man, though he claimed to be a reporter, had a remarkably gentle…… almost puppy-like face.