Exhausted from handling official schedules after so long, Elizaveta ordered her ladies-in-waiting to fill the bath with water.

Using the large bathtub in the Imperial Palace’s bathhouse instead of her bedroom was a first since entering the palace.

It took quite some time to fill the spacious, clean tub. While the water rose, maids clung to Elizaveta, kneading her arms, legs, and shoulders.

“Does it feel good, Your Highness?”

Between the lukewarm indoor temperature and their diligent hands, Elizaveta’s entire body melted languidly. Leaning diagonally against the tub’s backrest while receiving the massage, she dozed off.

When she opened her eyes, the bathhouse had filled with hazy steam. With the ladies-in-waiting and maids all withdrawn, leaving only Elizaveta, the gentle splashing of water echoed quietly through the space.

Elizaveta submerged her half-immersed body deeper into the bath. Her long blonde hair, which a maid had tied only halfway, rippled across the water’s surface. The sparkling golden strands were beautiful like finely scattered gold dust.

After holding her breath underwater with closed eyes for a while, she surfaced. The steam had grown even thicker in the meantime.

“…?”

Just as she exhaled her held breath and swept back her hair, a hazy shadow appeared in her vision.

“Who’s there? Selina?”

Elizaveta rubbed her wet eyes and called her lady-in-waiting’s name, but the other person remained silent.

Water dripped from her wet hair. Those droplets soaked her long eyelashes, making her vision no different from being underwater.

The silent figure moved behind her. Then slowly gathered her hair.

The hands arranging her long, wet blonde hair were very clumsy. Elizaveta quickly realized it wasn’t her lady-in-waiting.

“Who…”

“Elizaveta.”

It was a very low voice.

“Elizaveta.”

The man called her name once more. His voice, swimming through the steam, resonated extremely low and slow.

The owner of that familiar voice was Nikolai.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. What are you doing here alone without a word?”

He was still arranging her hair. Displeased with how he devoted himself to that unsuitable task, she deliberately shook her head vigorously. The hair Nikolai had painstakingly organized became disheveled again.

“Still angry?”

Yet Nikolai remained calm. His fingertips gently swept up the hair stuck to her nape. He soon succeeded in clumsily gathering and securing her hair in place.

He slowly traced Elizaveta’s smooth nape and shoulders. His touch was cunning like a serpent. Goosebumps rose exactly where his hand passed.

He soon filled a small basin with lukewarm water, then slowly poured it over her nape and shoulders. As the water touched her hairless shoulders, a languid m*an escaped Elizaveta’s lips.

“How long are you going to keep this up without even looking at my face?”

He kissed her nape like he was acting coquettish, asking her to let go of her anger. She could feel the hot, strange warmth of his lips directly.

His tongue licked and sucked her right earlobe, cheek, nape, and shoulder in sequence. It was dense, persistent caressing.

“Haah…”

Elizaveta’s head tilted left as her breathing quickened. Taking that as a signal, Nikolai entered the bath.

Splash. Slosh.

The bath’s surface swayed violently, but that resistance soon subsided.

Nikolai sat behind her after entering. Then pressed his body perfectly against Elizaveta’s back.

He too was completely n*ked without a thread of clothing.

The muscles of Nikolai’s upper body touching her small back pulsed noisily, flaunting their presence.

“What should I do, hmm?”

“Ah.”

One of Elizaveta’s eyebrows crumpled prettily. He had firmly grasped her br*asts, half-submerged in water.

The water level that had risen to about her chest playfully rippled, hiding then slightly revealing her n*pples. Nikolai gently rubbed her n*pples and *reolas with both his thumbs.

“Hngh.”

Elizaveta trembled slightly, burying her face in his shoulder. The manipulation by a man who knew her body well was becoming unbearable. A massive club even mercilessly jabbed at her buttocks and spine.

With this much weight, he must be half-*rect. Not even fully hard yet this size. Truly impressive size and girth.

As Elizaveta gauged his fully enlarged and *rect member, she found it newly amazing how that massive thing fit entirely into her narrow hole. 

Though it was always too painful and overwhelming, she had somehow managed to stuff it in and never once failed to swallow it. She marveled once again at how truly mysterious the human body was.

“Tell me. How can I ease your anger?”

The man, rubbing his increasingly heavy *rection, wrapped his thick arms around her slender waist and whispered affectionately.

His low whisper sensitively scratched at Elizaveta’s hearing. Because she felt an inexplicable sense of dissonance in his manner of speaking.

Elizaveta, who had hesitated, finally turned her head toward him. Then for the first time since he entered, she examined his face.

It was Nikolai.

Deep blue eyes and somewhat sharp eye shape. Those unique eyes that revealed the cruelty of an apex predator with absolutely no generosity to be found.

This was something uniquely Nikolai’s that couldn’t be fabricated or imitated.

This man was definitely Nikolai. Yet a strand of nagging discomfort kept irritating Elizaveta’s throat.

“What. Want me to f*ck you right now?”

The man staring at her pulled up one corner of his mouth in a smile.

Elizaveta was once again convinced he was Nikolai from how he spoke vulgarly with such a noble demeanor.

“I hear a priest kept coming and going besides the physician’s house calls while you stayed at the outer palace.”

He buried his nose in Elizaveta’s nape and asked quietly.

“Did you? With my brother?”

“Whether I roll around like a rag with whoever or not, what does it have to do with Your Highness? Mind your own business.”

Elizaveta responded indifferently.

“Now you don’t even show respect for your husband.”

Nikolai, pretending to be shocked at her rude tone, furrowed his brow.

“After doing such things to me, you expect to be treated like a husband? Truly absurd.”

“So you hated it?”

His voice asking if she hated it was more affectionate than ever.

“You should be grateful you’re not getting divorced. My vow to disgrace your family is still valid. So not provoking my temper as much as possible would be better for you and the Imperial family…”

Just as her voice, having lost composure at Nikolai’s shamelessness, rose with excitement and anger—

“Haha. Haha…”

Nikolai, who had been quietly listening to her, suddenly began laughing aloud.

“Ah. Sorry. I didn’t intend to mock you at all, so please don’t misunderstand.”

His laughter, which had continued for a while, slowly subsided.

“Just, well. It’s unexpected.”

“Unexpected? Explain so I can understand. What exactly do you mean…”

“I like this Elizaveta too.”

After finishing that vague explanation that made no sense regarding his sudden laughter, he began kissing Elizaveta.

“Move. I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Not in the mood? Then I’ll make you in the mood for it.”

The irritated Elizaveta pushed him away, but it was useless. His strength was incomparable to a delicate woman’s.

Rising from the bath, he lifted Elizaveta up. The quiet surface became unsettled once more.

He parted the wide bath’s waters and emerged. Then carefully laid her on a mattress prepared on one side of the bathhouse before lying behind her, turning his body sideways. His solid upper body pressed against her back once more.

“What are you doing now… Huk!”

Elizaveta gasped. Because hot friction rushed into her unprepared lower region.

“Wait… a moment…!”

His member, whose face she couldn’t see, continuously stimulated her opening from behind. It was literally poking and thrusting.

Nikolai slightly lifted one of her legs.

“Ah!”

Then the half-positioned p*nis slid in smoothly.

“Ah, mmm.”

Nikolai, roughly embracing Elizaveta’s waist with his right hand, kissed her shoulder blade. His remaining left hand was busy rubbing and tapping her swollen pearl.

“Mmm! Aah!”

“Huu. Shouldn’t it be getting wider by now? Still so tight. Hng.”

As his thick c*ck moved in and out of the squeaking hole, love fl*ids began flowing from the sensitized area. He caught her overflowing fl*ids with his left hand and strangely rubbed them back onto her front p*ssy.

“Too much! Aah! Your Highness, mmm!”

“Does your c*nt feel good because it’s tight? Is it tight because you feel it so well?”

Each time he spoke vulgarly, his hot breath tickled her spine and scapula.

“C*m as much as you want here today. No matter how much you squirt, no one will know about your shame. It’s a waterproof mattress.”

Nikolai whispered quite affectionately to her, who always released copious fl*ids whenever she cl*maxed.

“Your… High… ness…! Mmm! Haah!”

“Mmm. Yes. Good girl.”

Elizaveta cried out as her lower body trembled. Noticing her *rgasm approaching, he seemed to soothe her, then suddenly lifted one of her long, slender legs into the air and began violently thrusting his hips.

“Good… ah! So deep…!”

Her coldly snapping demeanor toward him had vanished completely. Exhaling heated breaths repeatedly, she cried out strangely, seemingly deciding to entrust her hot body entirely to him.

“Ah! Mmmm!”

It was inconsiderate. His member seemed about to pierce through Elizaveta’s belly. She ended up crying.

“Ugh. Elizaveta. I want to c*m.”

He no longer seemed in any condition to comfort her. He too was barely enduring the approaching *jaculation.

Pulling his p*nis out of her p*ssy, he hurriedly laid Elizaveta down. Then standing properly before her, he bent his knees into an awkward squat and thr*st his fierce c*ck toward her face.

“…!”

That’s when a small mark on the gl*ns entered Elizaveta’s vision.

Did His Highness always have this mark?

Where have I seen this before?

‘H-how… should I do this, Your Highness?’

‘Ah. Ah, good. Aah, Elizaveta…’

Memories began hazily returning of seeing it on their wedding night when she clumsily stroked what she thought was her husband’s member.

Elizaveta finally realized the identity of the strange dissonance she’d felt from him.

“Let me c*m in your mouth.”

Crown Prince Nikolai favored addressing Elizaveta, a somewhat cold and distant form of address. The only person who called her an intimate and affectionate form, was Benedict alone.