“I study the Grand Ducal Castle every day. I happened to learn that the Bliber Knights raise leopards and have them join the search teams.”

“So you came yourself? Without a shred of fear.”

“I’ve always been close with animals.”

Meliciel straightened up and rose to her feet. She pulled out a handkerchief with a refreshed expression and dabbed the wet spots dry.

His gaze caught on her damp lashes and the strands of hair across her forehead. Meliciel spread the handkerchief wide, covered her face with it, and pressed it gently.

Kahar, watching her, let out a sigh.

“What is this?”

He muttered it like a thought to himself and chewed on his unease.

Lani’s image kept layering itself over Meliciel’s actions.

The way she divided her cold water before drinking it, her dislike of carrots, the way she spread a cloth wide when wiping her face, the way animals took to her so readily.

But things like that could easily overlap by coincidence.

That was why. That was exactly why. It was driving him mad.

Meliciel was gnawing away at his world little by little. Except for the absence of Lani, his world was peaceful, and Meliciel was shaking it without a trace of guilt.

“Did you eat? You didn’t come to the dining hall at lunch.”

Kahar didn’t answer her prying question. He only gazed steadily at the wet front of her dress.

Meliciel, who seemed to prefer simple clothes and always wore thin or slightly sheer dresses, was objectively captivating.

He felt tested day after day. He wasn’t especially driven by desire to begin with, but every time she appeared, his lower abdomen pulled with an irritating ache.

“Grand Duke, would it be all right if I borrowed a lady’s maid?”

“A lady’s maid? Do you need one?”

“I received several invitations over the past few days. It seems word about me has spread in social circles.”

“And?”

“I thought that to attend parties, I would need a lady’s maid who knows that world well.”

“A party? Why would the young lady go somewhere like that?”

Kahar questioned her with a slight edge.

Does she even listen to what people say?

“You don’t need to involve yourself in parties.”

“But……”

“From now on, Chayden will handle all invitations.”

Kahar cut her off as though he would not entertain any further objections.

Meliciel felt a surge of frustration again for a moment, but she calmly repeated it inwardly.

Step 2. Be kind.

Kindly. Kindly.

“Is it because you’re worried I’ll cause trouble for you if I attend parties?”

“Less trouble, more nuisance.”

“Then you can simply not concern yourself with me, the way you do now. I won’t cause any unseemly incidents.”

Kahar’s eyes grew sharper. He stepped toward Meliciel.

Meliciel stepped back by the same measure.

“Once you get tangled up with someone, you end up stuck together in a messy knot. That’s how this world works. Isn’t that already happening?”

“Right now, you mean……”

“Every time we run into each other, we get messily tangled up.”

Meliciel looked at Kahar’s suddenly darkened gaze and turned his words over in her mind with a puzzled expression.

For something he called a messy tangle, their interactions were far too brief.

It was only Kahar working himself up alone.

“And there is no way for me to be completely uninvolved with the Grand Duchess. If we become husband and wife, our names will follow each other regardless.”

“Grand Duke.”

“So you should be the one to keep your distance. Stop hovering around and stoking flames.”

“S, stop coming closer.”

Just as Meliciel was about to trip over a stone, he reached out his hand.

Kahar lay back on the grass and pulled Meliciel down onto him.

“Ugh!”

The firm hand around her waist tightened slightly, and their stomachs pressed together.

“No heart, just bodies, then push you away again. Then just bodies again, then distance. Is that what you want?”

Kahar laid out his feelings with blunt directness. Yes, he desired Meliciel.

But he gave her no part of his heart. This irritating feeling most resembled desire, and it was felt most clearly in moments like this, when skin met skin.

Her sweet, sweet scent was driving him mad.

“Grand Duke, do you like my body?”

Meliciel blinked and asked calmly, and he felt like a fool for it.

Was this another trick she picked up from that Ron, or whoever it was?

A man’s desire is nothing to make much of, is that it?

“If that’s the case.”

“I…… I’m fine with it. I think.”

Kahar smiled bitterly at Meliciel’s answer. No, he laughed out loud.

“You’re saying being treated like a wh*re is fine?”

He dropped the smile and pulled Meliciel’s waist tightly against him.

“Are you going to treat me like a wh*re?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying not to do.”

Meliciel tilted her head slightly as though she didn’t understand, and her expression was as guileless as a leopard cub.

And yet she had a bewitching quality that drew people in.

“I can’t tell if you’re being honest, or if you just don’t know, or if you’re sitting right on top of my head.”

In that instant, Meliciel cupped Kahar’s face in both hands. Her fingers were cool and soft.

“You can do whatever you want, Grand Duke.”

Watching Kahar’s eyes grow darker and darker, Meliciel naively thought everything was going according to plan.

Kindly.

“I mean it.”

“What makes you think you know what I want?”

Kahar’s voice dropped even lower.

“And didn’t you yourself babble on about doing things properly? We’re on a patch of grass.”

The word “babble” was quite unpleasant, but Meliciel kept her expression in check.

“Step 3. Show the depth of the ocean in your embrace.”

According to the book, the worse a man was, the more he longed for a warmth like a mother’s.

Meliciel lowered herself slightly and held him close. A warm embrace surely meant something like this hug, right?

How much time passed as they lay pressed together close enough to feel his heartbeat?

The wind blew, and the sound of rustling leaves tickled noisily at her ears.

“It wouldn’t be right to refuse something offered on a platter, either.”

In an instant, Meliciel’s body was flipped over and he rose above her.

The moment the soft, cool grass touched her back, blue eyes half-hidden behind his falling hair began to scrutinize her intently.

He settled between her thighs and pressed his lower body down a little more firmly.

“Ugh……”

Trees were dense all around, but Barix might be somewhere nearby……

Meliciel rolled her deep green eyes toward the outside, and Kahar lifted her chin.

“Do you have room to be thinking about other things?”

“What if…… someone comes.”

“At least right now, there is no one who can turn their eyes this way. And even if there were, there should be no room to care.”

The quietly burning blue eyes drew closer. Unable to look straight at him, Meliciel lowered her lashes.

Hot lips pressed and brushed, and the tip of his tongue grazed hers. Like soft fruit flesh mingling together, slick warmth slid through the sweetness.

“Ugh……”

He sucked her tongue a little harder and gripped her thigh from the outside.

Kahar wrapped his large hand around her thigh, which was fuller than the rest of her, and swept her skirt upward without a trace of hesitation.

The man who spoke of wh*res and acted like he only wanted her body was now wholly absorbed in taking Meliciel, true to his nature.

When the heat gathered at her core pressed against Meliciel’s most sensitive point, she let out a tearful gasp.

“Ugh……!”

Just a moment. Just a moment.

Kahar bore down on her as though mocking her provocation. As though the kiss just before was only a prelude, he tangled his tongue with hers.

He began consuming her without restraint. A warning rang in her head, but her defenses already crumbled.

A hot tongue ran rampant, pushing in and out of her small entrance as it fell open helplessly.

There was something Meliciel overlooked. He was a lecher. A shameless man who, given an inch, would burrow in without end.

She forgot that.

“Ah!”

A hot hand gripped her backside and refused to let go. She lifted her hips to escape the fingers sliding deeper, and he pressed himself against her even more intimately.

“Ugh…… G, Grand Duke.”

His lips buried at her neck, he growled low.

“Do whatever I want? If I really do, are you sure you won’t cry?”

Only then did Meliciel realize she poked the wrong bear.

The wet front of her dress was pulled halfway down by his hand. A faint mark hovered over the moisture-beaded skin.

Kahar looked at the mark he left and……

let his gaze drop a little lower.

“I’m curious what’s underneath.”

He hooked his finger at the hem of her barely-clinging dress. If Kahar decided to, the thin dress would tear at any moment.

Following Meliciel’s quickened breathing, his fingertips touched and lifted away from the soft mound of flesh, over and over.

His other hand was already gently pressing into the back of her.

Meliciel squeezed her eyes shut.