Chapter 7

Once the cold wind brought her back to her senses, Adeline shoved hard at his shoulder.

“Wait, Ishiel, think rationally.”

Rolling around with another man during the mourning period, this was the kind of scene that seemed fit only for some scandalous novel.

“If we get caught like this, it won’t be good for you either.”

Adeline had left on her own because she wanted Ishiel to do well. But if it became like this, then what had been the point of leaving at all?

She did not want to become a stain on his life. People could say they simply must not get caught, but how was that ever as easy as it sounded?

Besides, wasn’t the balcony door still open? No one would be spying from outside a third-floor balcony, but that did not make her any less uneasy.

“Poor Susanna. She seemed like such a loyal maid, and in the end she’ll die for her master.”

When Ishiel brought up Susanna yet again, Adeline hurriedly blurted out whatever came to mind.

“I’ll give you something else, something else. Wh, what about the Marquis title?”

“…The Marquis title?”

“Yes, I can just adopt you as my heir. We’re the same age, so people might talk a little, but it happens often enough, so it’ll be fine.”

That would mean revising the original plan on a large scale, but that was something she could think through slowly later.

“Adeline.”

He said her name as though bewildered.

“Do you perhaps have a taste for those kinds of forbidden relationships?”

“No!”

“They do say a strong denial is a strong affirmation.”

Ishiel seemed to think for a moment, then answered in an ordinary tone.

“There’s no need to go so far as adopting me. If that’s your taste, I’ll play along. Does the relationship between a new mother and son excite you? Or siblings without shared blood doing things in secret behind their parents’ backs?”

Since we’re already doing this in secret right now, I suppose the latter feels more realistic. Do you want to be the older sister or the younger one? At the voice seriously asking such a thing, Adeline flared up.

“I said no!”

“Lower your voice, Adeline. It’ll be terrible if our parents come.”

Adeline shot a glare at Ishiel, who had apparently already begun his little roleplay.

“Stop joking around. I’m serious. Don’t you want the Marquis title?”

“I like the position behind the Marquis more, Adeline.”

At the lewd remark, something she had never expected to hear from Ishiel’s mouth, Adeline drew in a breath.

Just what had turned Ishiel into this kind of degenerate? Had he picked it up from living with only men on a ship?

“You liked it too. When I went in deeper.”

“When did I ever… ah.”

Pretending to smooth back her hair, the hand that had slipped behind her back suddenly untied the ribbon of her nightdress. Startled by the looseness of the garment at once, Adeline hurriedly grabbed the front of her nightdress at the chest.

But perhaps he had only done it to distract her from the start, because instead of pulling the nightdress down, he simply slid his hand up beneath her skirt. Adeline tried hitting his shoulder, telling him to stop, but her own hand only hurt against muscles as hard as armor.

Even before, his body had been firm, but now hard was the better word for it.

“For someone saying this can’t happen, you’re already very wet, Adeline.”

Whether the balcony door was open or not, Ishiel did not spare that direction a single glance. His gaze was fixed only on Adeline, who was too flustered to know what to do, while his fingers wandered over the dampened cloth.

He brushed across the fabric of her undergarment without quite touching. At the teasing sensation, her toes curled on their own.

“What are you going to do if you’re already like this. We’ve barely done anything.”

“Ishiel, w, wait a moment.”

Adeline’s voice trembled pitifully. It was the sort of voice that made it hard to tell whether she truly meant to ask him to wait a moment or not. Her face burned hot.

It was enough to make her resent her own body, which kept responding so obediently even while she was trying to push him away, telling him no.

“If I stop, I feel like I’ll be resented for it.”

Ishiel’s lips twisted at an angle. His hand seemed as though it would brush back her disheveled hair, but instead it seized her br*ast.

“It feels like these got a little bigger too.”

As if measuring a lump of bread dough, he gripped Adeline’s br*ast in one hand and shook it up and down. It was unbearably humiliating, but inside her belly a heat she could no longer control kept rising.

“Really? Have they gotten bigger?”

“I, I don’t know.”

Adeline shook her head. She had never particularly felt that her chest had gotten any bigger.

“It’s your body, so why don’t you know? You can tell when you put your clothes on and things like that.”

There was a faint irritation mixed into Ishiel’s voice as he asked again. Why had he suddenly gotten angry? If anyone had the right to be angry, it should have been Adeline, the one being teased about the size of her chest.

And besides, he had always liked Adeline’s full br*asts from before. If, as he claimed, they had gotten bigger, should he not have liked them more?

“Mmngh……!”

Her puzzlement did not last long. He suddenly pinched at the tip there. As though annoyed that she was thinking of something else while he was right in front of her.

“Considering how much it must’ve been touched and kneaded.”

Clicking his tongue in displeasure, he spoke.

“Well, he could touch them legally, so it’s not as if he would’ve left them alone, unless the bastard was impotent.”

Still, it pisses me off. Ishiel muttered. Adeline could not understand what in the world he was talking about. 

He swallowed her lips again, which had parted to let out a sound. The tongue that pried between her lips roamed freely through every part of Adeline’s mouth.

A spark burst from somewhere deep in her stomach. Whenever that ill-tempered hand slowly toyed with her sensitive peak and then pressed it down, Adeline’s upper body shuddered.

The n*pple, flicked by his finger and rolled beneath his palm, hardened tightly. It flustered her that her body was heating up wildly before anything had even truly begun. Adeline’s reason screamed that she had to stop this, even if she had to bite down on Ishiel’s tongue.

This kind of immoral thing would be bad for both of them. She had left without even saying goodbye because she did not want to become a burden to Ishiel, and now she could not become an even greater burden to him.

If things went wrong, the plan Adeline had worked so hard to build might fall apart. But every time she saw those eyes fixed on her as though he still wanted her fiercely, her insides went unsteady.

Each time she tried to gather strength in her hands to push him away, she seemed to hear a whisper from somewhere telling her she had to save Susanna’s life. Yes, Susanna has to live. The desire burning through her kept trying to justify itself.

“Haa, mm.”

Her breathing was ragged. The lack of air made her head swim. The floating sensation did not feel bad, and so Adeline did not spit out his tongue, only held it helplessly.

“Haa, ha……”

“You’re obedient. Was that your husband’s preference?”

The rasping voice scraping her ears was dark and suggestive. It was not her husband’s preference. This had been Ishiel’s preference. Whenever Adeline had pushed him away in the middle of kissing, he had never hidden how hurt he felt.

From then on, no matter how breathless she became, Adeline never pulled her lips away without Ishiel’s permission. And yet now he was asking if it had been her husband’s preference.

For a moment Adeline nearly felt wronged herself, but the hand pushing aside the soaked undergarment left her unable to even properly explain.

“Mmnh……!”

At the rough sensation touching tender flesh, Adeline trembled. The pleasure she had not felt in far too long cut through her like a blade.

“My, Adeline. It seems the material of your underwear is rather poor. It doesn’t absorb any of your wetness at all. Look, it’s pooled up in here.”

At the fingers teasing the entrance, a wet sloshing sound echoed all through the room. Adeline’s face flushed bright red.

Just as his fingers had grown rougher, so too had his mouth. Before, at most, he had said things like, ‘You’re wet.’

The  boy who used to grow shy even over a kiss had become a man who spoke vulgar things without the slightest hesitation.

It felt strangely unfamiliar, as if she were kissing a man she had never known before. What flustered her was that she did not dislike it. Rather, the stranger Ishiel felt, the more something inside her fluttered.

“You’re still so wet.”

The hand that had been stroking around the entrance paused for a moment. As if considering something, his finger parted the closed folds and slid upward, and in the end found the tender hidden bud.

“Do you still like it when I touch you here?”

“Mm, w, wait……”

The sensitive little pearl was pressed beneath his fingertip. At the pleasure that pierced all the way to her toes, Adeline shuddered sharply.

“So you still like it, Adeline.”

At some point, the voice that had been whispering lewd words returned to the same gentle tone it had once had, yet his touch did not become any gentler.

His fingers tormented the delicate little nub, pressing it, then rolling it beneath his fingertips without mercy. Heat that began at that hidden peak rushed down into her lower belly.

“Did your husband touch you here a lot too?”

“Haa, ngh……”

As the heat gathered and pooled, her lower belly tightened. Wetness slowly began to leak out from below.

“Does your husband know you like it when I press here like this? Ah, you like it when it’s sucked and then lightly bitten, don’t you. Has your husband ever used his mouth on you?”

“Hh, ah, no……”

“Why not. He was older, so I thought he’d have plenty of experience.”

Adeline shook her head again and again. It was partly an answer to his question, and partly because she could do nothing but shake her head under the pleasure building over her.

The tingling, prickling sensation began to spread up along her spine. The heat gathered low in her belly swelled as though it might burst at any moment.

Just a little, just a little more. Forgetting even her shame, Adeline gave herself over to the pleasure drawing near. But just before the peak arrived, Ishiel stopped his hand.

Why. Adeline looked up at Ishiel with pleading eyes. Her chest, brought to a forced halt right before the peak, rose and fell over and over.

After quietly watching her catch her breath, Ishiel suddenly pushed his finger inside her narrow entrance.

“Ahh……!”

His fingers, thickened at every joint, entered, forcing open the closed passage. As he stirred through her heated interior, he seemed to decide he could add one more, and pushed in another finger.

Her wet opening accepted him easily enough, but at the sensation of being spread below after so long, Adeline did not know what to do with herself. Her arms, which had been wrapped around Ishiel’s nape, tightened with force.

“Relax, Adeline.”

His gentle kiss landed at the corner of her squeezed-shut eyes. Unlike his quite tender voice, the hand moving inside her showed not the slightest consideration for Adeline’s condition.

“Why are you acting as if this is your first time when you’re a married woman? Even if that old Hartmann never used his mouth on you, surely he still put it in.”

Inside the narrow inner walls, his fingers kept spreading apart and closing again. Slick, wet sounds of her opening widening and closing echoed plainly through the bedroom.

“How many times did you do it with your husband?”

What kind of ridiculous question was that. She had not done it many times with her husband, but Adeline had never once counted the number.