Instinctive curiosity arose. She wanted to know more about what the sun power was, the enormous power that tormented him. Wanting to fully feel his power, she grasped his hands with both of hers. The water power inside her body poured toward him.

“Uh…… mm.”

A satisfied moan flowed from Felix. Even though it was just a brief contact, his body temperature seemed to subside.

“Really…… if you had shown how difficult this was, I would have given you my hand right away.”

She muttered while sitting on the edge of his bed.

‘Sigh, no. What am I saying. A deal is a deal……’

She recalled Felix’s leisurely face when he had investigated her background, created scandals, and tempted her with wealth, as her heart unnecessarily softened.

The original work described that Felix didn’t trust people easily. His deceased mother had been displeased with Felix, who was born with the sun power for both his and his brother’s share. The current emperor, who was lying on his sickbed waiting only for the day to die, was also a person without affection for his sons.

‘There are reasons for personalities to become twisted.’

To the proud Felix, the original Marina’s puppet show was a very humiliating treatment. Felix hated Marina. But he had no choice but to depend on her, who helped him breathe by escaping from the sun power even briefly. Marina was an object of love and hate for Felix.

‘Felix’s anger was as great as his love for Marina.’

So all the more, Felix and she must not be connected in such a complicated love-hate relationship!

‘Right, no love-hate. We need to go with a clean contractual relationship.’

According to the contract, she was supposed to help calm his power and avoid getting involved with him beyond that. So she’d feel sorry for him only this much, interfere only this much…

“By the way, when will all this power subside?”

Even though quite a long time had passed since she held Felix’s hand, the heat filling the room didn’t subside at all.

‘This isn’t as efficient as I thought. I need to widen the area where our skin touches……’

While pondering, Felix’s solid upper body came into view. He showed no signs of regaining consciousness yet.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to use a method to definitely calm the heat rather than just holding hands like this?’

After brief consideration, she decided to choose efficiency.

“Um, excuse me? I’ll be rude for a moment?”

Preparing for any possibility, she waved her hand in front of his eyes. He only let out moans and didn’t move.

“Right, since I’ve decided to make a contract anyway, let’s consider it doing my job properly……”

She sat close to him while recalling her decision to help Felix to survive. The moment she rolled up her sleeves and pressed the front of her dress with slightly exposed skin against his forearm—

‘Eek! Wow, look at this body. Crazy.’

Felix’s bumpy frame was felt completely under her upper body that stuck close.

‘Should I get closer?’

As she felt his temperature changing and moved her body little by little, she found herself half-lying down and embracing him. She adjusted her posture because the somewhat awkward position was uncomfortable. What came next was easy.

‘Half-leaning or lying down completely…… it’s the same thing anyway.’

In the end, she lay down completely beside Felix and embraced him. After their bodies pressed close together, Felix’s heat began to subside rapidly.

“Haah, Marina……”

“Gasp.”

A sigh full of regret flowed from him. At the same time, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes at the sun power that gulped down her water power. Even though she couldn’t properly handle the water power yet, she instinctively became scared at the clearly felt craving and tried to separate her body from him.

“Don’t go.”

“Wait, Let go of me.”

However, Felix climbed over her body and covered her to prevent her from escaping. She, who found herself looking at the ceiling in an instant, tried to push away Felix who was pouring down on her with a hazy face, but……

“Mm……”

With a moan, Felix’s movements began to heat up like smoldering fire, and she was helplessly trapped in his embrace. At the sensation of his solid body subtly pressing against hers, she strangely felt a tightening in her lower abdomen.

Instinctively, she ended up wrapping both arms around his neck.

“Haah……”

Felix exhaled a low breath near her nape. At the strange sensation, she couldn’t help but tremble with a start. His hot touch reached various parts of her body. Each time, it seemed like the water power inside her body was surging with joy.

More strength was naturally added to her arms that embraced Felix’s nape. A strange desire arose slowly from below her lower abdomen, wanting Felix’s body, which was more than warm but hot, to press down on her to the fullest.

At the same time, her vision became hazy. Her head was dizzy, and her breathing was stifling.

“Uh, uhh……”

“Hoo……”

Completely bound by him, she let out meaningless moans in small pieces. Felix exhaled a satisfied sigh as if pleased by this……

Soon her arms went limp and powerless, and instead she felt something wet and hot stick to her left shoulder with a smack.

“Hng!”

At the unfamiliar sensation, she grabbed her fading consciousness and turned her gaze. Felix’s face was touching near her shoulder.

That something hotter than skin was his…… lips. As if one contact wasn’t satisfying enough, Felix made a low growling sound.

— Smack, smack……

The hot feeling touching her shoulder continued several times. That hot and soft feeling seemed to change position slightly each time it touched again.

Precariously, toward the dangerous side……

“Ah, wait a moment. Wa, wait……”

She tried to wave her hands desperately, but pressed down by something solid and heavy, she couldn’t move her arms at all. When she lifted her head slightly in the hazy atmosphere, both her hands were already bound by him.

Compared to Marina’s wrists that seemed fragile enough to break, his hands were absurdly large and thick. As she had felt when he threatened her before, his hands were so large that he could easily grab and neutralize both her wrists with one hand.

Moreover, perhaps because the power craving the water power was great, she couldn’t exert more strength.

‘No, somehow my body feels languid…… I can’t come to my senses.’

Her eyelids kept drooping. Perhaps it was because she had used a lot of water power to neutralize the sun power.

Whether she did that or not, Felix’s lips seemed to have lost interest in her shoulder that they had already conquered and shifted his body. To prevent his face from moving to another place, she desperately tried to pull out her upper body but…… with a mind that seemed about to fall asleep at any moment, she couldn’t push away the large man who was clinging earnestly.

‘The heat seems to have transferred.’

Before she knew it, she couldn’t distinguish whether the heat filling the room was Felix’s or hers. What was strange was that the feeling of her body melting in the blazing heat wasn’t entirely bad.

Like how she had unknowingly wrapped her arms around Felix’s nape earlier and actively encouraged his movements……

‘This is trouble, I clearly intended to be connected only as business……’

At the very end of her fading consciousness, her only remaining reason was shouting loudly that she shouldn’t do this. But her body, highly aroused by Felix’s skinship, eventually raised the white flag.

And she was helplessly captivated by the sleep demon just like that.

⁕⁕⁕

Felix, surprised by the cozy feeling, opened his eyes with a start.

Every morning, when he opened his eyes, he first had to suppress the sun power that surged hotly within his body. But today was different. Awakening from sleep, he realized for the first time in a long while that the sun power he possessed was as quiet as a calm lake on a clear day.

‘My body feels refreshed.’

It was the first time since childhood when the sun power manifested.

The power that tormented him daily, that seemed to pierce his own body because it couldn’t be released somewhere, was sleeping quietly deep within his body like a dead mouse. Reflexively, Felix placed his left hand over his heart.

The sun power condensed there wriggled as if satisfied.

“What is this…… there’s never been a time like this before.”

Felix, muttering quietly, belatedly realized that he had been quite troubled by his inability to control his power.

After the incident where a rampage almost occurred at the ball, the sun power tormented Felix endlessly like aftereffects. The bewildering and helpless feeling that he could only feel when very young swallowed Felix.

Was it because his nerves had been on edge day and night to watch Kervic’s side while simultaneously trying to win over Marina?

‘I ended up collapsing after all.’

After visiting the Enchester house, Felix succumbed to the fatigue accumulated in his body. As soon as he sat down in front of the bed, Felix ordered the entire floor to be emptied, worried that his people nearby might get hurt.

And……

‘Right, I ordered them to bring the lady of the Enchester house.’

It seemed his faithful retainer, Kale, had performed that command well. Judging by how the sun power had subsided.

It was the very moment Felix thought of Marina.

“Mmm……”

At the unfamiliar woman’s moan, Felix was startled and quickly raised his upper body. And he discovered it. Platinum hair scattered over the sheets.

“……!!”