Chapter 4.2

When he arrived below the 17th dormitory for female students, he saw light spilling out from Dania’s room.

Had she returned?

When?

Could she have… come back with him?

Once the thought entered his mind, it spiraled into an even more dramatic and sordid fantasy. 

Yes, someone as innocent as Dania might think such things should be done at home… Well, not that Dania’s room was exactly a home, but still. The idea that she had invited that nerd into her room to enjoy what he himself hadn’t dared to do consumed him.

No, it could still be something else entirely. Dania was a studious person, so they might just be studying together. Being an assistant instructor, perhaps he was giving her a lecture. 

But then again, what if it was a lecture on… nocturnal activities?

‘Damn it.’

As he wallowed in such pathetic and miserable thoughts, the dormitory’s curfew approached. Although the sky hadn’t fully darkened yet, students began rushing to their respective places to comply with the curfew.

Wait. It’s curfew already.

Why hasn’t that bastard left yet?

By now, the blonde man, who had become an unwelcome fixture in Luel’s imagination, was firmly branded as an audacious pervert who refused to leave a lady’s room even as curfew loomed.

Luel’s chest churned with emotions. He stood as if nailed to the ground beneath the seventeenth dormitory, glaring up at the window of Dania’s room, where light seeped through. His gaze burned with intensity.

Cadets returning in time for curfew glanced at him briefly. They were merely curious as to why such a famous figure from the academy was standing there, but to Luel, their gazes felt like nothing but mockery and encouragement.

Look at that pathetic guy. Coming to beg Dania, but too cowardly to actually beg.

Why just stand there? Why not go in and flip everything over?

Luel faithfully followed two pieces of advice, which led him to knock on Dania’s door.

Fortunately, he was the only man in her room.

Apparently, she hadn’t even brought anyone near the dormitory. This diligent woman had been studying with him to perform well on that accursed retake exam.

Damn it, what if she really passes the graduation exam?

What could he do? He’d have to wait.

But the taste of Dania’s bare skin that he had experienced that day was so addictive that he had no choice but to endure and wait until she returned after completing her six years of apprenticeship training.

With a mix of relief and frustration, his expression darkened, but then he heard an odd voice.

“Seriously, what were you even imagining? That senior has standards, you know.”

This was what made Dania Lancaster so difficult. As much as Luel, who was waiting for their proper wedding night to ‘legally devour her,’ found it hard to believe, Dania had no awareness of her own charm. No, it was closer to self-deprecation.

Her ignorance about male-female relationships was convenient for Luel, but for some reason, Dania seemed to think she lacked any feminine allure.

〈That Lady Lambert is really beautiful. Someone like me shouldn’t even go near her.〉

She didn’t even realize how one of his scandalous friends, Lady Lambert, adored her, calling her as cute as a hamster.

〈Someone like Lady Bertling, with impeccable taste, must see me as nothing more than a dwarf in a sackcloth.〉

She’d never know that another of his scandalous friends, Lady Bertling, was dying to exchange even a single word with her.

Had she lived so long with a chaste mindset that she didn’t even know what kind of desire she could evoke in others? Whether male or female, everyone around her, including Luel, was ready to fall head over heels for her.

Luel’s gaze lingered on Dania with a complicated expression. Her cheeks, as red as apples, looked so soft that he wanted to touch them. And those plump, adorable lips—having kissed them once, he now understood how inadequate and lowbrow the metaphors of cherries and such, used by poets to describe a woman’s lips, truly were. Her supple waist and hips fit perfectly in his hands, her white neck begged for his lips to leave marks, and her n*pples, which adorably responded to his touch, were unforgettable. Even the sweet moisture that flowed from her flushed, delicate inner flesh…

Dania Lancaster was pure desire incarnate for him.

But Dani, how dare you belittle yourself—my Dani?

Luel’s annoyed gaze fell upon the piece of fabric she clutched tightly in her small hands.

It was a piece of fabric he had removed before.

The fabric that touched the most private part of Dania, the part he wished to one day claim as his own.

However, the area near the gusset was damp, and from it wafted the scent that had driven him mad with longing, forcing him to spend sleepless nights in self-gratification.

In other words, while Dania hadn’t done anything explicit with that blonde bastard, something indecent had clearly happened—her undergarments were wet.

The sight of Dania, combined with the scent of her arousal, made his already hardened member throb with a strange kind of excitement.

“Were you thinking about me?”

Could it be that Dania, too, had been fondly reminiscing about that day?

Moreover, seeing how soaked her underwear was, surely…

As he thought this, Dania flailed her arms in front of him, demanding the return of her undergarments. The alluring scent grew stronger with her movements.

“W-Why… Ack!”

…He was losing it.

On impulse, Luel sucked on her fingers, and he almost cl*maxed on the spot.

The taste was musky, tangy, and sweet.

These small, delicate fingers had touched the very place where he longed to bury himself. 

Had she been lying down? On her stomach? On her side? 

The thought of Dania struggling alone filled his mind, and he nearly lost control again.

Luel focused on licking her fingers to avoid embarrassing himself. He sucked on the first joint, which was half the thickness of his own fingers, and carefully licked under her short nails, as if scraping with his taste buds. As his saliva mixed with the dried remnants of her fluids, the scent intensified.

Even her fingers seemed to react, trembling slightly.

“That day… it must’ve felt good, huh? I can taste you here.”

“…Ha, absolutely not!”

And yet, this coy little liar insisted otherwise. Her reddened nose betrayed her untruths.

Knowing that Dania was lying brought Luel a strange sense of relief. If she had touched herself out of longing for the sensations of that day, and now blushed while denying it, then it meant her protests from that day—when she had said “stop,” “I get it,” and “it’s not good”—had also been lies.

In other words…

“What? Don’t you remember? That day, you cried out about how good it felt.”

“T-That was just a physiological reaction…!”

Her face turned a shade of red that could burst, and Luel found her adorable. He barely restrained himself from showering her with kisses.

“So, it wasn’t good?”

“It wasn’t.”

“Really? It wasn’t enjoyable?”

Despite feigning a crestfallen expression, Luel struggled to suppress the grin threatening to break through.

Dania had enjoyed it.

Her daily life was so monotonous that there was no room for any secret escapades unknown to him. Moreover, given her lack of experience, it was clear that she’d never even tried self-pleasure before.

If Dania had wet her underwear alone, without any external influence, then it could only be because of their shared experience.

“Well… it was a good experience.”

“A good experience? But it didn’t feel good?”

“Does it need to feel good? It’s just part of reproduction. Why would anyone break their celibacy over something like that?”

Her cheeky smirk made him want to devour her on the spot. That mouth, pretending to be so composed, was driving him insane. 

Yeah, yeah. You’re so lewd and dirty in my imagination that I can’t even practice abstinence properly. I think about you when I get off—once in the morning, once at night, and sometimes a few more times in between, okay?

But the real problem came next.

“You’ve got no self-restraint, Luel Marchento.”

At that sharp remark, Luel’s composure cracked.

No self-restraint?

If anyone asked him to write an essay on his patience regarding Dania, Luel could confidently produce ten theses.

From the time Dania and Luel had been raised by the same nanny, their fates were intertwined. When Luel wandered through the garden of the Marchento Earldom hand in hand with Dania, he had already resolved to marry her. Naturally, his first act of self-gratification during his teenage years was while imagining Dania, and he had planned to give his first experience to her as well.

So, even that day, didn’t he end up stopping without going all the way?

And yet, she dared to say he lacked self-restraint?

Perhaps it was because he had spent the entire afternoon tormented by the thought of Dania with that blonde man. Or maybe it was due to the late resentment he felt toward Dania, who had clearly enjoyed the climax he had given her but still fled from him in the morning, leaving him in misery.

In the end, what took over Luel was a sense of defiance.

“…This level of restraint is practically saintly. If I’d been acting purely on my desires, you’d already be bent over, crying out as I took you from behind.”

“W-what? Y-You’re insane! Are you saying you’re… turned on by me?”

Ha, what a ridiculous question.

If only he knew how not to be attracted to her.

He had never once been aroused by another woman in his entire life. Yet every time he saw her, without fail, he turned into a fool whose body reacted before his mind.

Instead of uttering such childish words, Luel decided to show her through his actions.

“…You’re insane.”

Chasing after Dania as she tried to flee, he pressed himself against her soft stomach, even through his pants, making his arousal unmistakably evident. The moment Dania felt his silhouette, her pupils contracted in shock.

“Dania.”

“Lu… Luel…”

“I’m holding back a lot, even now.”