I closed the book I’d been reading over and over these past few days until I was sick of it.

『A Guide to the Kingdom’s Tourist Attractions for Your Perfect Journey』

The title, stamped in yellow on purple leather, had caught my eye when I picked it out. The book turned out to be far more detailed and thorough than I expected, introducing various regions of the kingdom—detailed enough to use as a reference for settling down somewhere.

It was the most useful book I’d read lately, so a satisfied smile naturally formed on my lips.

I recalled a couple of regions I’d learned about from that book and a few others. Libel and Haieron. Both were western towns, located on the opposite side of the kingdom from here in Hern.

“The seaside would be good.”

Because there are ships. If it comes down to it, it’d be easy to leave for another country.

I slumped over the desk, sifting through the information I’d frantically absorbed these past few days. When I pressed my forehead against my arm, my cheek touched the desk, and then the cold pooled on the smooth surface seeped into my skin. I shivered slightly and closed my eyes. 

Warmth filled the space in no time.

Once my eyes closed, falling asleep was the natural next step. A pitch-black world filled entirely with darkness. My eyes trembled at the terrifyingly lonely feeling, but the solitude quickly vanished. A child suddenly appeared and threw themselves into my arms.

I naturally wrapped my arms around the child and gently stroked their back. Pale golden hair tickled my chin like a feather.

The innocent laughter sounded strangely familiar, and my lips curved upward without realizing it. At the same time, I felt like I was floating on clouds. Has a dream ever been this vivid?

I barely managed to lift my heavy eyelids, still weighed down by drowsiness. Dim light flooded in all at once, and a familiar voice reached me in a murmur.

“Oh dear. You woke up.”

The plain voice was right in front of me. A theatrical tone that held no concern whatsoever. The familiar situation brought me back to reality slightly, and I opened my eyes a bit wider.

Blue eyes rippling with heat were right before me. Ah, he’s here.

“If you sleep now, you’ll wake up at dawn. Just stay up.”

His lips curved faintly into an arc. His smiling lips landed on my forehead, and in an instant, my body dropped onto the soft bed.

“Liv, you’ve been sleeping a lot lately. Always falling asleep in weird places.”

The drowsiness still hadn’t cleared, so I was just realizing I’d been in his arms moments ago when he climbed right on top of me. As his large frame pressed against me, the familiar scent of lavender hit me sharply.

“You’re still sleepy, Liv.”

A gentle voice whispered. His fingers softly brushed away the hair stuck haphazardly to my cheek.

“No, I’m not.”

My voice came out thick with sleep. He laughed quietly and kissed my eyelids. Then he buried his lips against my neck. His prominent nose kept tickling my throat.

I was gradually waking up. Goosebumps rose on my skin from the whisper that suddenly burrowed into my ear like a breath.

“It’s okay. You’ll wake up soon.”

That was the beginning.

In an instant, all the buttons on my blouse came undone. The skirt that reached my knees had been torn off long ago. In the blink of an eye, I was completely stripped bare.

The coolness against my skin snapped me fully awake. I thought to protest—he’d stripped me like this while not even loosening his own shirt collar. But my complaint came to nothing. That devastatingly beautiful face had drawn too close. Annoyingly, I was weak to this face.

I bit my lip hard without thinking. But Ernst wasn’t a man who would let my body get hurt.

He devoured my lips. I tried to resist, but eventually my strength gave out and I left an opening. His familiar tongue immediately pushed in and began darting around. 

As if that weren’t enough, he sucked and tormented my tongue for a long while, and now he was even caressing and licking my chest.

My body twisted from the ticklish sensation. But he wasn’t soft enough to let me escape.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

A large hand gripped my waist tightly. And soon, hot lips began roaming over my stomach. My insides started to tickle. A bad sign. I clenched my teeth and turned my head.

A large window came into view. The room Ernst had given me—saying I needed to get some sunlight—had the biggest window in the house. Yet the curtains he’d hung, saying too much would be bad, looked particularly dark.

“Where are you looking?”

The voice that fell like a whisper was unbearably sweet, but I stubbornly held out. Eventually, the lips that had been nibbling on my earlobe pulled away. Perhaps because the warmth disappeared all at once, I felt a chill. 

Was he hurt that I wouldn’t look back?

I was enduring the cool air when suddenly the large hand that had been running through my hair moved to my cheek. With a gentle push, my face turned from its defiant side view to face forward.

“You need to look at me, Liv.”

Blue eyes holding the sunset sky gazed solely at me from a hand’s width away. The unrefined heat pooled in those eyes was so intensely hot that I ended up closing mine.

“Open your eyes.”

At the same time, my tightly pressed lips parted. I had no choice but to surrender to the lips approaching so fiercely they seemed ready to devour me.

“I’ll be free starting two weeks from now.”

He whispered. He spoke with his lips still pressed to mine, so his hot breath tickled. It was an out-of-the-blue statement, but I had no time to guess what he meant. A large hand was slowly creeping up the inside of my thigh.

“Think about it until then. Where you want to go.”

The added words finally made me understand. He was talking about the book title he’d seen when I fell asleep reading. Since I’d suddenly started picking up travel books when I usually read scripts or literature, he seemed to think I wanted to go on a trip with him.

There was no reason to correct his misunderstanding, so I didn’t deny it. Ernst seemed satisfied with my reaction and smiled softly. 

At the same time, hot, thick fingers rubbed gently between my legs. The touch playing around the twitching entrance, seeming like it would invade but not quite, finally made me give up. A moan escaped my lips.

“Haah.”

“Anywhere is fine.”

“Haa, ngh, mm.”

“Even if it’s disappointing, just wait two weeks, Liv.”

“Ahh, ngh.”

“You like that? I like it too.”

Whether his mind had gone blank, he interpreted my moans however he pleased. I wanted to object, but when his long finger slipped inside, my protest was swallowed down my throat instead of becoming words.

He pressed his lips to my sharply furrowed brow. Then he moved slowly down to my lips, my chin, my neck, and lower still.

“Ah, mmm.”

His lips bit down hard on my left br*ast. The sound of him sucking on the soft flesh and the peak rising above it shook the silent space. I covered my face with both hands. 

Thinking I was embarrassed, he didn’t lower my hands but instead began kneading my right br*ast.

Ernst still hadn’t removed even his shirt.

“Haa.”

From below, where he’d been thrusting, a squelching sound gradually emerged. At some point, my lower half had become thoroughly soaked with the fluid I was releasing. His fingers already knew every one of my weak spots inside and out, and they spitefully poked only at those places.

“St-stop.”

“No.”

His lips were still playing with my n*pple. Speaking with his lips attached made my body shudder instead. He laughed quietly, finding something amusing. The ticklish breath brushed my skin, and the lips that had been sucking painfully finally pulled away.

Then they moved lower. The tongue that had been licking thoroughly around my navel swept below it and began tickling the space between the parted gap, seeming like it would penetrate but not quite.

“We could go see the flowers too.”

He sucked my lower parts all the way in, released them, and kissed them.

“Stop reading books. Come with me.”

His lips moved sweetly, making the flesh below twitch and tremble. I resisted weakly by tensing up, but my resistance didn’t last long against the tongue sweeping the area.

Instead, I thought:

That would never happen. Never.