Prologue

In the dead of night, when everyone was asleep, inside the rose garden of the Grand Duchy.

“Mm, ngh!”

“Haah, haah….”

Along with the suggestive, ragged breathing of a man and woman, their moisture-soaked bodies overlapped, making the sound of wet flesh rubbing together.

“Ngh, ah, no… if we do this here….”

Worried that someone might see, Eleanor forcibly swallowed down the m*ans threatening to spill out, and with a face flushed red, tearfully whimpered in a hushed voice.

“Haah….”

Kars barely lifted his lips from Eleanor’s skin and let out a sigh as he brushed back his sweat-damp hair.

“Haah…. This is driving me insane, seriously.”

This was not how he had intended it to go from the beginning.

It had started as nothing more than a simple kiss. But after just one kiss, the sight of her cheeks turning red, her eyes shimmering with tears, stirred indecent thoughts in him.

And on top of that, that muslin nightdress, so sheer her soft flesh showed through! Was it not unfair for her to stand there like that, her chest plainly outlined, damp with sweat?

And so, at that sight, he too lost his reason and, like a beast, sucked at her br*asts and even lowered her undergarments so their lower bodies pressed together.

When he flicked the very tip of her peak, she let out a pained sound and her waist trembled violently. At the end of his hand, which had toyed with her countless times, he took into his mouth the hardened bud of her br*ast and clenched his teeth.

“Ahhk.”

Heat bloomed over Eleanor’s chest, and her face twisted from the thrilling stimulation climbing up from the tips of her br*asts. It was hard to tell whether her expression came from pain or fierce pleasure.

As the private places of the two touched, their already soaked flesh overlapped and made the sound of wet skin rubbing.

The only thing he had barely restrained was the urge to bury his shaft straight inside her. Kars held on with the last thread of reason to his member, which looked ready to push into her entrance at any moment, and endured.

As the mushroom-like head rubbed against her cl*toris, her body shook. It seemed as though a m*an might burst from her lips at any moment.

Though he had not even entered her, her body, already drenched in sweat from climaxing several times, glistened under the moonlight. The head, smeared with her slickness between her thighs, seemed ready to slip into her entrance at any second.

Kars dragged a large hand down over his sweat-wet face. Rationally, he knew they should not be doing this in the garden, but once the fire had started, it was hard to stop.

If the Dowager Grand Duchess learned that he was secretly entwined like this in the middle of the night, behind his mother’s back, with the modest woman his mother wanted to take as her goddaughter, he would be so shocked he might faint. And at that, in a place where others might see them. No matter how late it was, surely some of the servants would still be awake.

But seeing the woman who normally kept her distance from men like a nun now wearing a face dazed with desire beneath him, Kars showed no sign of calming down easily. What stood stiffly below him only swelled more and had no intention of subsiding.

Kars swallowed dryly. His throat was still burning, still thirsty. He could not stop here. He had already tasted just how sweet the forbidden fruit was. Once he had tasted it, he had not stopped craving it.

That was not something he could control. The instinct that had carried humanity down from the beginning of time defeated reason.

He stuck out his red tongue and licked his lips.

“Your Highness?”

At that moment, a night guard patrolling the grand ducal residence spotted Kars.

At the sound of the guard’s voice, Eleanor’s face, languidly loosened with passion, instantly stiffened like a plaster statue. Her body, which had been swaying softly with Kars’s movements, also lost all motion and turned rigid like a fossil.

Though they were already hidden behind the large tree trunk and could not be seen, she drew herself up as tightly as possible so as not to be exposed.

“Ah, I couldn’t sleep, so I came out for a bit of air. I’ll go back in shortly, so do not mind me and continue your rounds.”

“Yes, then. Have a good night.”

Perhaps because she thought the guard had gone, Eleanor’s body relaxed in relief. At that moment, Kars caught the tip of her br*ast and gave it a light pinch.

“Ungh…!”

Caught off guard, a m*an slipped from her lips before she knew it. At the louder-than-expected sound, Eleanor’s eyes widened.

Just as the guard had greeted them and turned away, he heard something nearby that sounded like the cry of a cat and turned his head back again.

“Did I not just hear something?”

“Ah, it must have been a cat. Cats in heat often cry out like this late at night and at dawn.”

The guard tilted his head and moved away.

Eleanor shot Kars a resentful glare. She had nearly been caught and humiliated, yet even now he stretched his lips into a shameless smile.

Rather, seeing her glare at him as though he were beyond saving only stirred more desire in him.

“Hngh… please, inside… do it inside.”

At Eleanor’s tear-bright plea, Kars, who had been thrusting his hips upward, stopped moving.

“Let’s go inside.”

Keeping his member lodged between Eleanor’s thighs, Kars gathered her into his arms and opened the door leading from the garden to the Grand Duke’s secret study.

Past the secret door disguised as a bookshelf inside the Grand Duke’s official study was a hidden space prepared for the Grand Duke’s confidential affairs. The bed set there for emergencies was being used for secret meetings with Eleanor.

When Kars stripped away Eleanor’s thin muslin nightdress, through which her pale skin showed, the moonlight spilling through the crack in the window revealed her dazzling n*ked body. Her wet undergarments had already been removed earlier in the garden and were now inside his pocket.

Without hesitation, Kars threw off his own clothes and spread the legs of the woman he had laid on the bed. She, who would shudder and call any man—especially Kars Beaufort—a libertine, opened the legs she had spread only for ballet in order to receive him.

Now that he admitted it, Kars Beaufort had been such a pervert that even at the very moment she called him shameless and slapped his cheek, he had still desired this woman.

As if she still had not cast off her embarrassment, the woman tried to turn her face away, unable to look at him directly, but he turned her face back toward him and pressed his lips to hers.

“Look at me, Ella.”

Looking down at her face drenched in pleasure, Kars lowered his body over hers.

Eleanor gripped his arm tightly. She had never imagined things would turn out like this with the man she had only hated. Had it not been hatred, but love and hate intertwined? Was hatred in truth merely the reverse side of affection? Whatever its true nature, she could no longer escape it now.

The night of consuming passion that would burn them both was only just about to begin in earnest.