At his muttered words, the maid’s face turned deathly pale.

“Tell her that Baron Luce’s daughter is unavailable.”

“…Yes, Your Grace.”

At that moment, Alyona Matwood’s clear, ringing voice could be heard through the wide-open window, instructing the servants below.

The sharp sound grated harshly against Aiden’s nerves.

He moved to close the window and, suddenly, the office brightened.

His Sky had entered.

“Your Grace, may I come in?”

“Come closer.”

Leaning against the window ledge, Aiden slowly extended his hand.

“Closer.”

Sveta glanced back briefly as the maid slipped out and quietly closed the door behind her. Then she approached him with light, measured steps.

The moment she came within reach, he caught her wrist and drew her closer.

He took in the scent of the oil she had carefully worked into her freshly brushed hair, the faint floral fragrance lingering at the nape of her neck, and the soft warmth of her breath — subtle yet achingly familiar.

All of it stirred something deep within him.

Lowering his face to the curve of her slender neck, he inhaled slowly and deeply, as though trying to breathe her in.

His fingers traced the line of buttons fastened neatly down her straight back, making her shiver slightly.

The small tremor drew a quiet, amused chuckle from his lips.

“I didn’t expect you to come looking for me.”

“I came because I have a request.”

“Tell me. Anything.”

As he brushed his lips lazily over the bare curve of her neck, she moved her full lips hesitantly.

“When we go to Renan, I’d like to go out.”

“….”

“It feels stifling. Of course, the ducal estate is large, but still—I want to go out, ah…!”

She could not finish her sentence.

Beneath the delicate line of her jaw, he roughly drew her tender, fluttering throat pulse into his mouth.

Aiden’s lips moved slowly downwards, leaving dark marks in their wake.

“Your Grace…”

She never resisted when she wanted something from him. She never pushed him away. And yet, today, her obedience unsettled him more than anything else had before.

Perhaps being confined to the estate was making her feel suffocated.

Maybe she just wanted to share a cup of tea with someone kind. After all, Henrik Meriner had always been kind to her.

But why did it disturb him so much?

Aiden found the thought unbearable. The mere image of her standing in the same room as another man caused him sharp, unreasonable distress.

He grasped her slender waist, spun her around lightly, and placed her on the wide window ledge. In an instant, their positions were reversed.

With the open window behind her, Sveta must have felt dangerously exposed; she instinctively clutched his arm. The corners of her upturned eyes were faintly flushed pink as she looked up at him.

“…This won’t do.”

“What do you mean it won’t? Do you dislike the idea of me going out… that much?”

With his gloved hand, he brushed down the reddened nape of her neck.

“No.”

“Then why—”

He silenced her by pressing his lips against hers.

Their tongues gently entwined. The sensation was unbearably sweet.

A tingling warmth spread through his body. He wanted to feel more of her.

Breaking the kiss briefly, he murmured.

“Take off the gloves.”

Blushing all the way to her ears, Sveta fumbled as she took her shoes off for him.

As she did so, Aiden pulled her chin back and kissed her again.

The ticklish sensation from earlier intensified, engulfing him from head to toe.

His fingers moved to the line of small buttons running down her back, undoing them one by one. When they refused to cooperate, he tore the lower ones loose with force.

A button snapped free and flew aside. Startled, Sveta dropped the glove she was holding.

“The glove…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Light spilled through the parted curtains and illuminated her pale back.

Aiden pulled the dress down to her waist. With a few swift movements, the garment binding her chest slipped away.

His gaze lingered once more on the spot where the moonlight had rested the previous night.

“Your Grace… it’s too bright.”

Tilting his head slightly, he replied.

“I don’t mind.”

The hue of her flushed, rose-colored cheeks deepened.

The noise of Alyona Matwood tormenting the servants again clung to the air behind her.

Aiden reached out and drew the curtains closed.

“Is that better?”

“…Yes. But about going out—”

Again.

Displeased with her persistence, Aiden captured her full lips once more.

“Ah…”

The soft, startled sound that escaped her quivering lips was dangerously alluring.

In one swift motion, he lifted the hem of her skirt. At the same time, he turned his head and took off his final glove with his teeth.

He moved with impatience.

Aiden clenched his jaw.

He had kissed her countless times before. He had left marks on her neck on more than one occasion. But he had never crossed the final line.

And yet Sveta, who had clearly drawn a boundary between them, behaved as though she would allow him to cross it at any moment.

How fiercely he had restrained himself from pulling her fully into his arms!

Since last summer.

Nearly a whole year had passed.

He had made up his mind that he would not take her completely until she led him to the bed herself. He intended to stop at the right moment.

There was even a petty part of him — an unworthy impulse — that if she asked him for something he disliked, she should offer him something he desired in return.

That had been his plan.

And yet—

“Please answer me, Your Grace. It was you who said… you wouldn’t keep me confined.”

Why does she want to leave? She has everything she needs here. So why?

A strange sensation crept through him. Even as their lips met, a cold chill seeped into his heart.

What was this unease?

The faint spark of emotion within him suddenly flared up, swelling without warning.

Although she clung to him, breathless in his arms, he felt as if she were drifting further and further away.

Like someone cast alone into the open sea.

Like someone wandering through a snowbound mountain in the dead of winter.

An endless, helpless desolation pressed in around him.

He whispered.

“Lift your leg.”

She had not expected that. Her voice trembled.

“Here…? You mean to—here?”

Her knee shifted unconsciously, her slender calf brushing against his thigh.

That single, trivial touch pushed him to the brink.

The rope that tethered him to reason snapped.

Aiden dragged the fabric caught in his fingers downwards, almost tearing it in the process.

“We’ll stay here.”

Her lips parted slightly in shock.

He pressed his cheek against hers and moved closer to seek her warmth.

This was what he had wanted: her soft, intimate heat.

A wet sound seeped into the stark office air.

“Ah… Your Grace…”

She bit her lower lip and her eyelids fluttered. She shook her head slightly before turning her head to the side.

The elegant line of her neck arched tautly. He had to resist the urge to sink his teeth into it.

Instead, he buried his face in her heaving br*ast.

Each time her narrow shoulders trembled, her sweet, warm scent rose around him.

In this moment, she felt entirely his.

“W-what if someone… sees from outside…”

She cast anxious glances toward the curtain behind her.

“Don’t worry. Look at me.”

He quickened his movements.

Her voice trembled, sounding breathless and unsteady. The sound she made as she neared the brink drew a sharp smile to his lips as he slowly withdrew his hand.

Her brows pulled together and she looked up at him urgently.

A silent plea.

He gently stroked her trembling leg and loosened his belt with his other hand.

The moment she realized what he was doing, a sharp gasp escaped her.

Fearing she might fall from the narrow ledge, Sveta wrapped her arm tightly around his shoulder. With her other hand, she braced herself against the window frame, arching her body slightly backwards.

He lowered his forehead to hers and whispered.

“…Sveta.”

“Ha…”

Their eyes locked as their bodies joined together.

The soft, enveloping warmth made him shudder.

She let out a slow, unsteady breath. Beneath him, her body seemed to pulse and quiver.

It felt as though he were moving in time with her heartbeat.

Slowly and deliberately, he moved against her, bracing one hand beneath her arm and spanning the delicate width of her torso with it. She was so slight that his palm nearly covered her entire side.

At the force of his movement, she arched her back, a broken sound spilling from her lips.

The narrow ledge could not have been comfortable, yet she clung to him, dragging her fingers down his shoulder and whispering.

“Your Grace… the sofa—let’s go to the sofa.”

“Say ‘Aiden.’ Call my name.”

“Ah…”

He pressed firmly behind her knee, forcing her to arch her back even more.

Breathing raggedly and groaning low in his throat, he urged her on.

A thick vein stood out along his neck above the neatly tied cravat and shirt.

Her gentle eyes were distorted by pleasure.

“Aiden, please. The sofa…”

“Again.”

He brushed his thumb along her small chin and whispered.

With her flushed cheeks, unfocused sky-blue eyes, and a glimpse of her red tongue between her parted lips, she was unbearably lovely.

“Ai… den…”

Aiden shuddered as an intense sensation shot up his spine.

It felt as if every nerve in his body had ignited. The world around him came into sharper focus, with the distant murmur of the waves drifting through the open window and the slow spill of afternoon sunlight filtering through the narrow gap in the curtains.

That pale golden light fell directly upon the place where they were joined.

His fingers tightened instinctively around her slender frame.

“Ah, Aiden. Please…”

Her thin plea shattered against his ear. Pleasure, swollen to its limit, drove him onward.

He did not stop.

The last thread of reason, stretched taut like a bowstring, trembled on the verge of snapping.

“Aiden, Aiden…”

At her faint whisper, the last shred of his self-control shattered.

His heightened senses trembled as a powerful surge tore through him, striking deep along his spine. He kissed and bit her so fervently that her lips turned red, as though they were the center of a target.

The sounds between them thinned into something fragile and breathless. The small hand clutching his collar slowly lost its strength.

Cradling her damp back in his palm, he continued to move, his low groans blending with her uneven breaths.

A bead of sweat traced a slow path down the curve of her slender cheek.

Then the overwhelming sensation crashed over him.

Aiden surrendered to it completely.

At the very brink—

— Sveta suddenly pushed against him.

“No. I don’t want this…!”

As she shoved him, Aiden staggered back.