“Did you come because you missed me?”

The low voice came without him turning around. Liz’s shoulders jumped.

He had remarkable awareness. She stepped in with her chin up and set the plate down on the table with a deliberate clatter.

“…… Y, yes. Stop staring at documents and play with me. I’m bored.”

She stuck out her lower lip on purpose and let her voice take on a grating whine. She was aiming for something childish and unbearable.

Johann set down his pen without hurry and looked up. His blue eyes curved, and that polished smile settled at the corner of his mouth.

“Of course. How would you like me to entertain you.”

No irritation, no reluctance. He looked almost pleased, as if he had been waiting. Liz faltered for a moment, then reminded herself he was not someone to underestimate.

It needs to be something he’ll find even more unbearable.

She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped herself squarely onto Johann’s firm thigh.

“……”

A flicker of surprise crossed his face, faint but real. His expression asked what she thought she was doing, and her face burned, but it seemed to be landing.

“My legs are sore.”

Liz answered with deliberate shamelessness and nodded toward the fine leather chair beside her.

“The chair is hard on my back. Sit with me like this.”

His thigh was all muscle and anything but soft, more uncomfortable than the chair if she was honest, but Liz kept up the pretense and swung her dangling legs lightly.

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to entertain you like this. If you want me to hold you, I’m more than willing.”

Johann’s arm curled around her waist and pulled her flush against him. At the closeness, near enough for their noses to brush, his steady gaze found hers, and her heart began a quick, shallow flutter.

She realized too late that the situation had taken on a strange shape, but pulling back now felt like defeat. Liz kept her chin raised and her burning face hidden.

“You won’t let me go downstairs, and I have nothing to do. Put the documents away and play with me.”

“Tell me specifically what kind of playing you have in mind.”

She had expected a flat refusal. Instead he asked for details, and her mind went blank. Something ridiculous slipped out before she could stop it.

“G…… give me a piggyback ride.”

“……A piggyback ride?”

One eyebrow lifted. The look on his face was pure bewilderment, and despair settled over her.

Of all the things to say in this situation.

She wanted to bite her own tongue, but the words were already out. Johann studied her for a moment, then gave his leg a light, sudden bounce.

“Oh!”

Liz lost her balance and grabbed his neck on instinct. He let out a low laugh.

“I didn’t realize that was what you meant. Was the piggyback ride just an excuse to ride me?”

Her face went the color of a ripe tomato. She had expected anger. Instead he watched her with a patient, unhurried look that made her throat move.

“You’re welcome to ride me however you like, as long as we’re both enjoying it.”

His face tilted toward her as if to kiss her. Liz jerked her head back in a hurry, and Johann’s expression cooled with mild displeasure.

“No. That’s not what I meant…… even for a married couple, doing this in broad daylight is……”

She fumbled for an excuse, and a hand caught the back of her neck and took her lips.

There was a wet, dizzying friction as their mouths pressed together. His warm tongue parted her teeth and wound around hers with single-minded intent. Every time it dragged roughly across the roof of her mouth and the corners of her gums, a sharp shiver raced down her spine.

“Mmph!”

The hand around her waist moved to her back and drew the laces of her dress loose. Cool air touched her skin for just a moment before a warm palm slid down her bare back.

“Haa…… Jo, Johann……!”

“I can’t give you a piggyback ride, but I can play with you like this as much as you’d like.”

His laugh-threaded breath pressed through her lips again. Wet sounds filled the quiet study. Breaths tangled and grew uneven, and saliva traced a sticky line along the corner of her mouth.

Liz pushed him back, gasping.

“No, that isn’t what I meant when I said……”

“You said to play with you. That’s what we’re doing.”

He took her interpretation as entirely s*xual and covered her lips again. His other hand had already slipped inside the front of her dress and closed around the soft swell of her chest, kneading it in his palm. A sharp, sweet ache bloomed where the pressure gathered.

“Ah-uh, this is a study.”

“It doesn’t matter. My wife asked me to play with her. A husband can’t very well ignore that.”

The utterly mistaken tone was shameless beyond measure.

His fingertip traced the edge of her *reola and flicked lightly at her n*pple. The sensation shot through her in an instant and stung at the corners of her eyes.

“Even so, it’s still light out. Over there, through the glass door…… if someone were to see……”

Liz pointed at the wide window, her voice close to breaking. The servants crossing the deck could glance over at any moment. Johann paid it no mind and rolled her n*pple under his thumb.

“Mm-uh……”

The sensation reached all the way to the top of her head, and a sound slipped from between her parted lips.

“Don’t worry about it. No one on this ship has the nerve to look into my study.”

His other hand slipped under her skirt and swept up the inside of her thigh. Liz’s body lifted slightly without her meaning it to. She knew this was wrong, but her body grew warmer and more flushed regardless of what her head said. The same feeling that had undone her the night before came flooding back, vivid and immediate.

His lips worked at the curve of her ear and slid down her throat. His fingertips traced the line of her trembling body, and her heart beat faster with each touch.

“Haa……”

Johann exhaled softly and swept the documents off the desk with one hand.

Dozens of contracts and signed papers scattered to the floor. He lifted Liz with ease, set her on the desk, and leaned down over her.

“Mm. Johann. What are you doing.”

“Playing with you, obviously. Taking the boredom away.”

His grin was wicked and, infuriatingly, beautiful.

He bent his knees, parted hers, and pressed between them.

“Haa, mm-uh……!”

His warm lips moved from her chest down past her navel. He breathed hot air through the thin fabric below, and her hips rose in a shallow arch.

“Mm, don’t…… that’s……”

“If I cared about that, I wouldn’t have started. I want to see more. Don’t cover yourself.”

He pressed the tip of his tongue against the thin fabric and teased her through it.

“Haa…… Johann, wait. The documents……”

The sound of papers crinkling beneath her made Liz panic and try to shift back, but he gave her no room to retreat.

A large hand closed around her slender ankle and pulled her toward him.

“Are the documents really what matters right now?”

His low voice carried not a trace of hesitation, rolling intimately between her thighs and making her shiver. He pressed his lips to the softest, palest skin along her inner thigh and worked his way upward. Each time the bridge of his nose grazed her inner thigh, Liz’s body gave a small, helpless jerk.

“Hnn, mm……!”

“A moment ago you were whining like a lost puppy, and now you want to tuck your tail and run?”

His index finger slipped under the thin fabric of her underwear and pushed it aside. The sight of bare, flushed skin and the moisture gathered there made the corner of his mouth curl upward.

“You’re wet, just as I thought.”

That upward slant to his lips held something wicked, as though he had known all along.

“Ha…… Johann…… don’t look, please.”

“You’re this soaked just from a kiss. You were looking forward to this, weren’t you.”

Johann whispered, watching her flustered expression with open enjoyment.

He spread her open with his index and middle fingers, and the swollen, slick flesh glistened in the light, flushed deep red. Her p*ssy fluttered in the noon sunlight, wet and shamefully exposed. The sweet, ripe scent of her made his mouth water.

His fingertips stroked down through the slick folds, and the strength drained from the hands Liz had been using to push him away. Having every intimate part of her laid bare before him in broad daylight left her face completely white.

The shame of being stripped n*ked outdoors and a rush of arousal hit her at the same time.

“Johann, now that I think about it, I feel bad for interrupting when you’re busy.”

“Why. I’m trying to make you feel good.”

Despite Liz’s protest, his hot lips made direct contact with her p*ssy. His tongue swept up through the pooled slick, and as his lips slid along the parted folds, an unbearable shudder shot up her spine.