Dana, who had quickly walked past the pillars surrounding the reception hall, leaned against a pillar in the corridor beyond. Unlike the reception hall filled with light, music, and laughter, the shadowed and darkened corridor felt like a completely different world.

The cold sensation against her back seemed to cool the heat that had suddenly risen. The heat that had risen from the embarrassment and disappointment she hadn’t even realized she felt when the man didn’t answer her suggestion to use first names.

‘Can’t we at least call each other by name?’

Though she and Kaiden weren’t a real couple, and had agreed to maintain a friendly, mutually supportive relationship…

‘Of course, of course…’

Friends wouldn’t kiss each other’s lips…

Dana squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. What was she thinking? Was she really drunk on something?

Just as she was getting her thoughts together, she spotted the shadow of the man who had followed her out. She thought he might have been startled by her sudden departure. Dana was going to say she had just come out because it was too hot. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn around while avoiding looking at Kaiden.

And Kaiden was faster than Dana. He reached out and grabbed her wrist. Looking at the woman who stood there as if calling him to a place where they could be alone, Kaiden called her name.

“…Dana.”

The man’s voice trembled low as he spoke the name of the woman he had longed for. Dana turned her head with a surprised face to look at Kaiden. Her captured wrist felt hot. She realized Kaiden’s face was closer than she had thought. Or perhaps, it felt like it was getting closer and closer.

Kaiden was lowering his head toward her. The moment she realized where his gaze was directed, her face flushed.

‘Is this okay?’

Dana thought as she watched Kaiden draw closer. It was as if he had read her thoughts from the reception hall. Friends, her relationship with Kaiden…

While Dana was watching with wide, startled eyes, Kaiden suddenly remembered how Dana had looked after he had kissed her. Avoiding it, turning away from it. And after that.

Kaiden stopped his face as it moved toward the princess. After kissing the princess, his head had been completely filled with thoughts of it. No, his heart, his entire body had been filled with their kiss. He wanted to feel it again. He wanted to taste those lips again.

But he knew the princess didn’t feel the same way. If she had felt the same way. If she had wanted to kiss him again, the princess wouldn’t have fled behind the instrument to avoid him. But the princess had kept her distance from him, and that behavior was as good as a declaration that she would never allow him to approach again.

Though he had awakened from his brief dream, Kaiden still lingered there filled with attachment. Unable to step back, watching Dana who stared with wide eyes and parted lips, at that moment.

In her confusion, Dana closed her eyes.

Kaiden saw the thick lashes covering her closed eyes, and beneath them, the parted lips waiting for him. Dana stretched her neck like a deer and raised her heels to come closer to him.

The desire that had been forcibly sealed along with the pain burst forth. Kaiden pressed his lips against Dana’s. He reached out to press the back of her neck while delving into her lips. Swallowing her lips, he confirmed if they were as soft as he remembered, wrapping his tongue around hers to verify if it was as smooth as he recalled. He filled her mouth, which must have forgotten him, with his heat again.

Feeling her scent and touch, he confirmed that she before him was real. That she was beside him, called his name, allowed him to use her name, and even permitted his kiss, all of this…

Kaiden bent completely over Dana, holding the back of her neck while wrapping his other arm around her waist. Dana looked up at Kaiden until her neck bent back, receiving his lips. She was in his arms, panting, overwhelmed by his kiss.

In the midst of sensations and heat, the noise and music from the reception hall grew distant. This darkened corridor felt more brilliant than the brightly lit reception hall. This corridor where they were now pressing their lips together felt hotter than the reception hall full of passionate dancers.

While Kaiden and Dana were kissing, Hilda, who had returned to where the princess should have been waiting, noticed Dana’s absence and looked around the reception hall. As she walked around searching for the princess, she saw a man and woman kissing passionately in the corridor beyond the pillars.

Hilda’s eyes widened, then quickly watched the scene with hawk-like eyes.

Hiding her body behind a pillar to avoid disturbing them, Hilda muttered while watching Dana and Kaiden kiss:

“…Seems he wasn’t impotent after all…”

Bitern, who had followed Hilda out, heard her muttering and asked puzzled:

“Who’s impotent?”

“Fortunately, he isn’t…”

Hilda answered while shaking her head and waving her hand. Turning toward Bitern, she smiled while wrinkling her nose. Then she took the puzzled Bitern’s arm, turned around, and returned to the reception hall to greet other guests again.

And after kissing passionately for a long while, Kaiden slowly pulled his lips away from Dana. Dana barely managed to lift her trembling eyelids.

She felt the saliva covering her lips, the hot breath flowing, the chest pressing against her with rapid breaths, and the beating heart. She couldn’t distinguish what was his and what was hers. She felt Kaiden licking the mixed saliva of both of them from his lips. Her head spun.

The first time could have been an impulse.

‘But twice?’

Dana knew the man holding her was watching her without taking his eyes off her for even a moment. She felt how the man who had sat at breakfast every morning barely eating as if he had no appetite had desperately devoured her lips and breath as if satisfying hunger and thirst.

As she panted in his arms, the man whispered in a hoarse, low voice:

“…Close your eyes.”

Once could be impulse. Perhaps a mistake. But twice.

‘Three times?’

Dana closed her eyes. Again, the man pressed his lips against hers.

With movements that weren’t impulse but desire, not mistake but yearning.