Andrea was quietly congratulating himself on having used Lady Talbot to accomplish two things at once: ousting the former queen and neutralizing his father’s interference in his own marriage.

Feeling satisfied, he let a quiet smile settle on his face, while Riley scrambled for some way to defend herself.

That wretched marriage talk……!

It had only been a few days since their kiss, and already he was talking about marriage!

She could not understand why someone who had lived so freely was being so principled with her.

If we’re not getting married, does that mean we can’t do any of the fun things couples do?

She had looked at that magnificent body so many times and never once had it for herself, and somehow that felt deeply unfair.

She glanced at Andrea’s broad chest and his long, firm legs and swallowed.

The opportunity is right here. Why can’t I take it……

Can’t we just have a passionate romance, the two of us?

Riley, having made up her mind to take what she could get and leave the rest, blinked up at him with longing hanging from her lashes.

“Let’s think about that later. Marriage is so sudden.”

She swallowed the more pointed sentence she had been about to say, and made a show of arranging the flowers Andrea had brought into a blue glass vase.

Andrea watched her from behind, one arm draped over the back of the sofa, his expression remaining dissatisfied. Riley gathered her courage and ventured a test.

“I’d much rather have a romance with a handsome man.”

That may have been a mistake.

Andrea’s eyebrow shot up at her candid words, and a sharp voice followed.

“What’s that supposed to mean. Are you saying any handsome man will do, as long as it’s not me?”

He had guessed half of it correctly, and Riley felt a pang of guilt and quickly corrected herself.

“Th, that’s not what I meant. I just thought, since things have come to this, maybe instead of thinking about something complicated like marriage, the two of us could, you know, have a really, really passionate romance……”

But before she could finish, her head was turned and Andrea’s lips were on hers.

He began to draw at her upper and lower lips as though they were the sweetest, most precious dessert in the world.

“Mmh.”

Andrea’s lips were so soft as they moved and pressed against hers that Riley let out a faint m*an without meaning to.

In the four days since his first confession, there had been many kisses between them, and she still had not grown used to this sweetness.

His tongue, which had been tracing the slick inner surface, caught hers in one swift motion and began to move against it.

The strange heat that bloomed from that spread languidly through her whole body, and a tingling sensation rose from the skin of her nape where his large palm rested. An odd feeling circled at the base of her spine and she shivered faintly without meaning to.

Her breathing grew ragged. Andrea’s lips pulled away briefly, then wandered close to her ear before beginning to trail down her neck.

Every time Andrea’s lips pressed to the hollow of her collarbone and the pale skin below it, Riley felt as though a brand were being pressed into her flesh, and she whimpered helplessly.

“Mmhh……”

A tight ache pulled low in her abdomen.

But as always, his kisses stopped at a certain point, and the ticklish heat that had been warming her drifted aimlessly inside her and began to fade.

Riley’s eyes flew open.

She listened to Andrea’s ragged breathing against her shoulder and bit her lower lip.

Why do you hold yourself back only with me? Why do you stop?

It felt unfair.

Just kissing felt this good, and even this light caress was enough to make her mind dissolve, so why would he not go further?

How much better would it feel to do with His Highness what she had drawn Captain Alain doing?

Riley glared at him with shimmering eyes, then deliberately tipped the glass vase toward herself. She had not known she was capable of something this childish, but these past few days of being teased to the edge and then left there had made her petty with frustration.

The water that spilled soaked through the chest of her thin summer dress, and the skin of her chest, waist, and thighs became faintly visible through the wet fabric.

……This kind of thing works better if you have more to show.

She was sighing over her own slight frame when Andrea, apparently noticing something at last, cut straight to the point.

“You…… don’t tell me you just want to fool around with me.”

“Mmh…… it’s not exactly that, but……”

“……”

Riley’s hazy eyes said everything, and Andrea did not need to wait for an answer.

Hah, unbelievable.

He had long since forgotten the days when he had worried whether Riley saw him as a man at all. Now that she seemed to be coming around, he was sulking because she would not give him the promise of something more.

The truth was that Andrea was shrewder than anyone.

He had seen straight through Riley’s naive curiosity about physical intimacy, and the fantasy she had built from nothing but illustrations, and understood just how large that desire was inside her.

So that’s how it is.

Annoyed, and yet faintly stirred as a man, Andrea moved on pure instinct.

He pressed his lips to the soft, wet swell visible through her soaked dress, and at the same time his large hand pressed firmly against the underside of her chest.

He drew out his tongue and pulled the soft flesh against it, while gently kneading her br*ast.

Riley flinched for a moment, then let out a faint, yielding sigh and went limp all over.

“Mmhh……”

He had seen through her longing, the longing of a young girl who simply wanted to play with fire, but it was difficult to stay annoyed. The moment he tasted the soft, fragrant flesh, his pride and everything else scattered.

Right, if it’s this kind of game she wants……

Andrea murmured something that sounded almost wounded, then pulled Riley’s bodice down and pressed her back onto the sofa.

But the next moment he went completely still.

Her chest, round and full like risen cream, was rising and falling right before his eyes. Something in Andrea finally snapped.

He began to s*ck and lap at the pink flesh greedily. His hot, rough tongue dragged across the tender skin, and Riley could not hold back and arched her back.

He slipped one arm beneath her and pulled her tight against him, pressing the aching tension of his lower body against her.

“Hhng……”

She trembled, but drew his head against her with something like tenderness.

That one small gesture sent him into a deeper frenzy, and he sucked and wetted the soft skin of her br*asts and collarbone.

His slick tongue moved and pressed against the soft flesh, and Riley panted and squirmed.

The sound of their heartbeats was loud between their pressed chests, and her head felt like it was spinning.

The large hand that had been roaming and stroking her thighs now began to rub deliberately between her legs.

Riley swallowed a m*an and clung tighter to Andrea’s neck.

He scattered kisses across her eyelids and the round, guileless forehead he loved so dearly, then slipped several fingers inside her undergarment.

The moment his index and middle fingers met soft, damp skin, the moment he felt how wet she already was, a raw, animal want surged through him.

Andrea clenched his jaw.

It was to keep the last thread of his reason pulling the beast’s leash taut. No.

With a ferocious act of self-control, he stopped everything and lay still against Riley’s exposed chest, steadying his breath.

The hand that had been moving beneath her skirts was pulled away reluctantly, and he let out a long exhale.

“……We stop here.”

He murmured in a voice cracked and raw, then pressed a kiss to Riley’s flushed cheek and, with gentlemanly care, straightened her dress.

Even he was impressed by his own restraint.

In truth, the reason he had stopped midway these past few days had been a matter of honor, and to protect Riley’s reputation. But today the reason was entirely different.

He had stopped to leave her wanting.

She wants to play with fire. With a handsome man.

And to satisfy the curiosity she had built from her own indecent illustrations, at that.

A measure of indignation and his own far-sighted calculation had overridden the impulse of instinct.

Riley lay there with a dazed expression, breathing in shallow, uneven bursts, and blinked up at him in confusion at this unexpected turn.