“Do you have to escort Her Highness the Princess?”

Thud. When the words he couldn’t bring himself to say first flowed from those small, pretty lips, Casian’s heart dropped to the floor.

“I understand.”

“…Rihana.”

“If you’re going to apologize, it’s fine. I have to guard His Majesty the Emperor that day anyway, and also…”

Her throat closed up. She had definitely been fine, but for some reason, when she tried to voice it, something blocked her words completely.

“I’m sorry, Rihana. I can’t explain the circumstances to you right now, but…”

“It’s fine.”

Rihana cut off Casian’s words and slowly lowered and raised her eyelids.

“So from now on, you don’t need to come all the way here to discuss such matters. Please handle it through letters instead and avoid visiting like this.”

At her words, Casian’s face instantly hardened.

“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll take my leave now. Travel safely.”

When Rihana finished speaking and tried to stand up, Casian called out to her urgently.

“Rihana.”

“Yes.”

“Even so, I’m your fiancé, and telling me not to visit—what kind of…”

“So you are aware that you’re my fiancé.”

Rihana looked straight at Casian with an impassive face and asked. Casian felt a sense of disconnect with the current Rihana as he recalled how she used to look at him before.

Something had grown cold. No, perhaps the emotions had disappeared from the way she looked at him. The gaze that used to contain various mixed emotions when she looked at him had somehow changed to indifference. 

Why? How?

“Awareness? What do you mean?”

“Just that. I’m surprised you have any awareness of being my fiancé when you were forced into an engagement with me due to my selfishness.”

Rihana lowered her gaze to her teacup.

“Rihana.”

“Among all those crowded parties, when you were entangled with Her Highness the Princess in the imperial corridor, you seemed to have no awareness whatsoever of being my fiancé.”

“…!”

“I hope you won’t visit like this for a while. On my days off…”

Rihana, who had been looking at her teacup, raised her gaze again to look straight at Casian.

“I really want to rest.”

Casian’s sudden appearance had been quite uncomfortable. Partly because she hadn’t decided how to treat him or how to sort out their relationship after the ball, and partly because she was displeased that her time to seduce Raiden had been reduced. 

Moreover, thinking that Raiden had either eaten uncomfortably with the servants or hadn’t eaten at all because of her meal with Casian made her angry, so she spoke whatever came to mind.

Casian moved his lips at Rihana’s words, trying to say something, but soon gave up.

“I had no intention of interrogating you. I have no such desire either.”

Casian felt frustrated that he couldn’t tell Rihana why he was currently courting the Princess. Even though all of this was for her sake, he couldn’t speak of it—it was for her sake that she would soon be sent to the frontier. 

To protect her life, she couldn’t stay here next to the Emperor, so he had been working for her until now and would have to continue working for her. He thought this was the only thing he could do for her as her fiancé.

He believed that even if a rebellion occurred and the empire’s sun changed, all these misunderstandings could be resolved if she just stayed alive. 

So he could endure having her heart ache like this and having that pain return to him. If she just stayed alive, he was confident he could endure anything.

“…I’ll go back now.”

“Goodbye.”

To Casian, who turned around without being able to say anything, Rihana bid farewell with an impassive face.

She stood on the second-floor balcony, watching until Casian’s carriage disappeared from view. The tender emotions she used to feel had mysteriously disappeared completely. 

The sadness of loving him one-sidedly, the situation where it seemed the Princess rather than herself was his fiancée, and the agony of witnessing him clinging to the Princess with her own eyes—all of it had become strangely okay, like a lie. 

She had become okay with it all, exactly to the extent that she was more worried about Raiden’s meal.

Was it because of Raiden…? 

She thought that perhaps she was the type who fell in love quickly and changed partners just as quickly. Just like how Letia, whose body was light like a feather, changed men every night for s*x, perhaps her own heart was also light—quickly giving her heart to this man, then soon transferring it to another man. 

But such troubled thoughts quickly disappeared at Raiden’s pleasant baritone voice.

“Are you alright?”

At his worried voice, her nose somehow began to sting.

“…Did you… eat?”

“I asked if you were alright.”

Ah, perhaps this time her heart wouldn’t move elsewhere so quickly.

“I’m not alright.”

Because she seemed to like him so much it made her heart ache.

Rihana turned her head to meet Raiden’s eyes. Her moistly wet pupils intertwined with eyes that shone intensely. Raiden moved his lips—lips that aroused the desire to kiss—and asked Rihana.

“Shall I make you forget?”

There was no answer. No, before Rihana could give any answer, Raiden’s lips covered hers. The moment their soft lips touched, both their lips opened simultaneously, like they had made a promise.

Raiden’s tongue, which naturally pushed into her mouth, blatantly swept up her small tongue. 

After wrapping around Rihana’s tongue—which had boldly opened her mouth but kept hesitating, not knowing what to do next—like a snake and pulling it into his mouth, he continued a kiss that seemed ready to devour her, sucking that small tongue painfully hard. 

Thick flesh intertwined and saliva flowed back and forth, filling the room with lewd sounds.

As the kiss grew increasingly intense, Rihana felt her mind going blank. Breathing through her nose and beginning to move her tongue following Raiden’s lead, she didn’t realize she was actually following his guidance. 

Raiden felt his already taut member swelling to the point of bursting at Rihana’s tongue that followed his movements. He could feel without looking that prec*m was flowing like water from the tip.

Raiden gently bit Rihana’s tongue that kept following him so cutely, then when that tongue flinched, he licked it up softly. Then he swept over the entire surface like melting it gently before suddenly wrapping around it strongly and sucking hard again.

“Mmph…”

A muffled moan flowed from Rihana’s mouth at the relentless kiss that gave her no time to breathe.

The lips that seemed like they would never part were briefly separated. The lips that seemed to give Rihana time to breathe briefly parted and made smacking sounds on her cheeks, earlobes, and neck before returning and stamping marks, then bit down on her lips again like that was their original place.

The tongue that pushed into her mouth without warning swept up along her teeth and slid smoothly over her entire gums. When the tongue that had gone deep into her mouth pressed firmly against the center of her throat like checking it, a single moan burst from Rihana’s mouth. 

The tongue retreated and began thoroughly licking her sensitive palate and the tender flesh inside her cheeks, and Rihana’s tongue followed his tongue again. The two tongues intertwined lewdly in her mouth, truly persistently and intensely.

As such lewd kissing continued, Rihana felt something in her lower abdomen that went beyond tickling to tingling. When enough time had passed for her to realize she was getting wet enough below from obvious arousal, Raiden’s lips parted. He rubbed Rihana’s released lips lightly, seemingly reluctant to let go, then moved straight down.

“Ah…!”

She had already expected it from when his fine blonde hair started moving downward. Raiden covered the n*pple that protruded pertly at the peak of her br*ast with the wet lips that had been biting, sucking, and licking her lips. At his action of baring his teeth and gently biting the tip of her n*pple, Rihana’s body jumped up like she had been electrocuted.

“Mmph…!”

Raiden, who gently stroked Rihana’s waist with his hand like it was okay, took the entire ar*ola into his mouth and began sucking like a baby nursing. 

When the hand that had been stroking her waist moved up and kneaded one br*ast roughly enough to be considered harsh, the breath that had been flowing from Rihana’s mouth like sighs soon changed to lewd moans.

“Ah, ha… Mmph… Mmph…!”

He pressed the n*pple firmly with his pointed tongue, then licked the ar*ola in circles with the flat of his tongue. The n*pple, already hard as it could get, swelled even more plumply from the pleasure Raiden gave. Some secret part below tickled and throbbed, eventually making her tense up and twitch on her own.

Rihana put her hand into Raiden’s fine hair as he sucked her br*ast like a nursing baby and applied pressure. At her instinctive action of pushing downward like asking him to do something below, Raiden released the br*ast he had been holding in his mouth and looked up at Rihana with an endlessly s*xy face.

“…Mm?”

A puzzled face that knew what Rihana wanted but pretended not to know. At that mischievous expression, Rihana made a tearful face and pushed his head down again with force.

“Not there…”

“Not there?”

Raiden’s hand, which had been kneading her br*ast, playfully traveled down her stomach and lingered below her navel.

“Mmph…”

Feeling a sudden urgency, Rihana wiggled her hips, trying to coax his hand—which had stopped just below her navel—to move downward.