The memory Damon was conjuring while pleasuring himself was, absurdly enough, the scene where he slipped away from the party to speak with Nate O’Hara.

‘Why did you… help me, Master Preston?’

‘I happened to see you being led out to the balcony by Master Lovitz.’

‘I see. But you didn’t have to go this far, Master Preston.’

He stroked his c*ck in rough, careless pulls, and the memory that drifted through his mind seemed to displease him. A low click of his tongue escaped. But even with that displeasure, Damon’s c*ck didn’t soften. If anything, it swelled further.

‘B-but Master Preston doesn’t call me by my name either.’

‘Ah, do you want me to call you by your name?’

‘No. I’ve already decided to move on, so I don’t particularly want that……’

That forlorn face, staring at him with wide, startled eyes, wasn’t the least bit arousing. She looked ready to faint, yet there she stood, calmly speaking the name of the very man who reduced her to that state. It was foolish. That kind of woman was not his type at all.

So he had to be the one with the problem. If he was in his right mind, there was something seriously wrong with him for stroking his c*ck while thinking about that.

Damon recalled the moment he stepped closer to Nate. The faint sweet scent that brushed past him as the distance between them closed. The small, downy ear beneath the straight fall of her chestnut hair. The slender line of her neck and shoulders that followed below.

“Ngh… f-f*ck.”

The curse slipped out alongside a surge of deep pleasure. Damon stubbed out the cigar he held in his other hand without a second thought. Then, to push himself over the edge, he tightened his grip around the shaft and stroked with focused, frantic intensity. The vast bedroom filled with obscene sounds.

At last, the head of his c*ck twitched in small spasms and shot out thick, viscous fl*id in long spurts. As though determined to wring out every last drop, his hand didn’t stop even as he crested.

“Haa, haa……”

Only after milking himself dry did Damon catch his breath and linger in the afterglow before slowly rising from his seat. He shook off his hand and moved across the room. Through the open front of his robe, his c*ck was still visibly swollen, looking ready to burst. Lately, a single round of self-pleasure wasn’t enough to bring it down.

Damon wiped his hand on a towel left on one side of the bedroom. The hand was smeared with traces of c*m. He then reached out to wipe down his c*ck, which was still dripping, when a knock came at the door.

“Young master, it’s me, Marcus.”

Damon answered without much thought.

“Come in.”

At his word, the attendant Marcus entered the bedroom.

“It’s regarding the incident you instructed me to look into……”

Marcus launched straight into his report, then startled at the sight of his master’s son. Damon’s n*ked body was in full view. He wore a robe, but with the front hanging open, it was no different from wearing nothing at all.

N*dity itself wasn’t something that shocked Marcus after years of personal service. The problem was the state of what hung between his master’s legs. It was obvious he just finished pleasuring himself, yet Damon’s c*ck was still fully *rect.

Marcus couldn’t keep the flustered note out of his voice.

“My goodness, young master, you could have told me to come in a little later.”

Damon gave only a light shrug.

“Why? I just finished once and it won’t go down.”

“I have no interest in its condition…… Shall I come back later?”

“Forget it. Just talk.”

With that, Damon finished wiping the c*m from his c*ck with the towel. Marcus let out a small sigh and opened his mouth.

“About the person you asked me to track down. We weren’t able to find any notable information this time either.”

The ‘person’ he referred to was the girl who was kidnapped alongside Damon during an abduction he suffered in the past.

Damon frowned and pulled his robe closed.

“The fact that finding information is this difficult makes me think the other side is deliberately keeping her hidden.”

“We’re already considering that possibility. If so, there’s a chance she’s a noble like yourself, young master.”

The kidnapping by a lower-class criminal organization was motivated by money. So from the start, they likely bypassed gentry and minor nobility to target the children of wealthy, high-ranking nobles.

Interrogating the culprits directly would have been ideal, but they were already expelled from the country long ago, maimed on charges of treason.

Marcus put on a contemplative expression and carefully posed his question to Damon.

“If she is indeed a child of the upper nobility and is deliberately concealing the past to save face, she won’t be easy to find. Do you still plan to keep looking?”

Damon answered at once.

“Yeah. Keep looking. I need to find that girl no matter what. I want to know whether she’s living without any trouble after going through something like that.”

He wanted to know whether she, like him, was confined by her family after the incident, and whether she was left with any lasting effects.

‘Don’t cry. Everything will be fine. Someone will surely come to rescue us.’

They were trapped in a dark space, so they couldn’t even see each other’s faces properly at the time. The only thing they could make out was each other’s voices.

‘Let’s make sure we get out of here together. And once we’re out safely, we’ll have them punished and laugh at them together.’

‘Nothing bad will happen. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’

The girl kept speaking to Damon without pause, the way one might reassure a younger sibling. She may have sensed how frightened he was in the dark, or perhaps she spoke more than necessary to reassure herself.

One thing was certain: the girl’s voice was trembling terribly at the time as well.

Damon thought the girl was quite a bit younger than him. Her manner toward him was mature, but the small frame he sensed in the darkness and her delicate voice didn’t seem like those of a peer or someone older.

While Damon lingered briefly in the past, Marcus said he understood and left the bedroom. Before stepping out, he noted that the floor Damon walked across was soiled with traces of c*m and added that he would have the maids clean it up.

Left alone, Damon stared blankly at the spot where Marcus disappeared, then dropped his gaze. Through the white robe, the outline of his c*ck was still visibly raised. Reflexively, Nate O’Hara’s name slipped from his lips.

“…If I put this inside Miss O’Hara and moved it around, would she change her mind?”

He seemed not to fully register what he was saying.

He spent years engaging in all manner of lewd acts with women, yet in truth he never went all the way. That is to say, Damon Preston never had penetrative s*x.

It wasn’t that anything was wrong with him. It was entirely his own choice. Because if a partner ended up pregnant, things would get complicated. It came down to a matter of responsibility.

It was a garbage reason, but there was nothing to be done about it. Damon figured that getting involved with someone like him, a rake, would bring no good to the other party anyway. Most young ladies approached him simply because of his looks.

With heavy eyes, he glanced down at the raised outline beneath the robe and moved across the room. He picked up one of the party invitations sitting on the table. No sender was listed. Instead, the venue for the party was printed clearly.

〈Hotel Ombra〉

The expression on Damon’s face as he looked at the invitation was one of pure boredom.