The conversation shared at less than a span’s distance was closer to exchanging breath than words. She inhaled the breath he exhaled, and he drank the breath she exhaled. While their uneven breaths mixed in syncopation, Richard didn’t take his eyes off Olivia.

“With just this much resolve…… did you leave that letter at the bookstore?”

“What?”

“Have you never had anything happen with Tim or Darryl?”

“There’s no reason for me to tell you such things.”

“There wouldn’t have been. If there had been, you wouldn’t have asked me such things.”

Richard ignored Olivia’s words and drew his own conclusion. From the beginning, it was a question where the answer didn’t matter.

Olivia was a little angry. Partly because the brief kiss with Richard had been much better than she had only thought about, and partly because she was angry at herself for feeling that way.

She couldn’t stand that emotions that never arose when spending time with Darryl or Timothy only welled up when she was with Richard Dalton, and she couldn’t bear how much she hated herself for being so easily swayed by all the emotions he stirred up.

Most of all—because it was hard to accept that the kiss she had committed after so much contemplation had to end with hearing such words, Olivia was angry.

“Let go of me.”

“You said you were curious about what your niece said to me.”

“I don’t want to know anymore.”

“Miss Amanda Cornell recommended that we kiss.”

“What?”

Olivia, who had been struggling to free herself from Richard’s hand around her waist, looked up at him with a half-dazed face. It was shocking enough to make her forget that she needed to escape from this embrace. Why on earth? Why would Amanda suddenly say such a thing?

Olivia examined carefully whether he was making up a story, but there was no such sign. Rather, his eyes were even confident, shining challengingly through the darkness.

“Then you would only think of me. She also said it was certain since she had confirmed it through your parents.”

Amanda Cornell. When on earth had she said such things.

Olivia felt more embarrassed now than when she had kissed him. Setting aside what her thoughtless niece had said, Olivia Jennings had now become someone who kissed a man who had heard such words from Amanda and taken no action. She felt at a loss for how to face Richard Dalton in the future.

“…… Let go.”

Still with her chin held, Olivia looked up at Richard. He still hadn’t released the strength in his hands and arms. A moment like eternity continued.

“This is…… just me finishing what you started but couldn’t finish.”

Thus came the second kiss.

He lightly applied pressure to the hand holding her chin, gently parted Olivia’s lips, and overlapped his own lips with them. His tongue, which came with moist breath, penetrated deeper and deeper.

Even then, Olivia didn’t notice that she had tilted her head back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Richard Dalton read Olivia Jennings accurately. Olivia was never satisfied with the first kiss. Her body that pressed against him as if craving more, her tongue that intertwined hotly though clumsily, told him that fact.

Richard didn’t immediately give Olivia what she wanted. Overwhelmed by the heat from his deep, steady—not rough—invasion, Olivia lowered one arm from around his neck to his nape. She wanted to touch him. She wanted him to want her a little more through that.

The tickling, dizzy heat that started from her stomach slowly spread up to her toes and the top of her head. Reality was much more dizzying and hotter than dreams she had dreamed long ago.

Liv—

When the husky voice mixed between breaths called her, Olivia trembled finely. The small hand that had traced down his nape finally rested on his chest. Richard lowered the hand that had been holding her chin. The blanket and shawl that had long since fallen could not be any obstacle.

The large hand descending over the thin chemise was hot with heat. It seemed like red, deep marks would remain wherever his fingers and palm brushed and passed.

Please.

When she whispered that without even knowing what she was hoping for, Richard released the hand that had been gripping Olivia’s chest and parted his lips. Traces of unextinguished desire heavily clouded his eyes that had always been clear. Now his eyes were darker than London’s foggy sky.

He regulated his breathing while releasing the strength of the arm that had been around Olivia’s waist. Richard Dalton had said he was finishing what he couldn’t complete, but the moment she met his clouded eyes, the moment she discovered the heat wavering within them as much as her own, Olivia could know.

Richard Dalton hadn’t finished anything. It would be more correct to say he had started something new by throwing open some door that had been locked and she had only been curious about.

“…… I think you now understand what I meant by not trusting even myself.”

Richard, who had slowly bent down, picked up the shawl and blanket that had fallen to the ground and shook off the dust. He wrapped the shawl over her still trembling shoulders and spread the large blanket to wrap it around her once more.

Olivia looked at the man who still shared the same heat as her yet tried to ignore it.

“…… I won’t say anything to Tim or Darryl.”

Olivia’s expression immediately hardened. Even though she had little experience kissing men, she knew that wasn’t something to hear from a man she had just shared a kiss with. Especially when it hadn’t been a one-sided kiss.

“…… Your plan is still safe, so don’t worry.”

“…… Do I look like I’m worried about that right now in your eyes?”

“I’m just conveying that such is my intention.”

“How tearfully grateful I am.”

Olivia unwrapped the blanket he had put around her, handed it back to him, and returned to her room just like that.

The words of her proud niece, Amanda Cornell, had missed their mark spectacularly. Olivia had been thinking only of him even before he kissed her. Therefore, thinking of him after the kiss was absolutely not because of that kiss but merely continuing the thoughts she had been having before.

It didn’t matter if this was an absurd rationalization. Olivia didn’t want to believe that everything had changed because of this night’s kiss.

She had to, and it would certainly be so.

***

Richard, leaning against the closed bedroom door, was thinking about what had just happened. Even when he discovered Olivia Jennings wandering outside the mansion in the middle of the night, he had only thought he should quietly send her back to her room and hadn’t harbored any other intentions.

He wouldn’t deny that he had hesitated for a moment when he saw Olivia Jennings wearing only a white chemise, but even then, the plan itself to gentlemanly return Olivia to her bedroom and go back to his own room to sleep remained unchanged.

However, the plan went awry from the moment Olivia refused to return, insisting she had things to think about.

Richard knew it was a dangerous game Olivia was playing. Olivia herself might not have known, but Richard couldn’t help but know. And instead of trying to send such an Olivia away, Richard pressed her. To ignite that dangerous thought, so that she could finally act on what she had only been thinking about.

Ever since hearing Miss Amanda Cornell’s special advice—perhaps even long before hearing that story—what he had been imagining became reality a little while ago. Olivia Jennings when kissing a man exerted a much more powerful force than what he had drawn with his meager imagination.

It was a kiss he had thought would never happen, shouldn’t happen, and would therefore remain forever unknowable. Richard still found it difficult to accept what he had done and its consequences.

Fragrant breath and soft skin, heat that was sometimes shy but ultimately didn’t hesitate to reveal everything she had. Olivia Jennings had used all her abilities to shake Richard Dalton from his roots. Though it was something he had started intending to end, the fact that it had instead caught his own ankle was clear.

Richard could no longer return to before this night, that is, to before sharing a second kiss with Olivia Jennings. This was one of those experiences that sometimes came and changed one’s entire life. But as a result, he could change nothing.

Richard recalled the words he had said to Olivia after the second kiss. When the faces he had forgotten during the entire kiss, or perhaps had merely pushed aside, came to mind, guilt rushed in all at once.

Richard had been recommending to Olivia as well as his two friends to continue their exploratory meetings, spinning plausible words. And in the end, he had even forced them to become good matches for each other according to Olivia’s choice.

He had to admit that in that process, there had been insufficient consideration for his two friends’ positions and feelings.

Such a person had kissed Olivia behind Darryl and Timothy’s backs. While doing shameless things that encouraged the woman instead of stopping or enlightening her. Even if the woman had moved first, it was entirely his sin.

The reason Richard couldn’t forgive himself lay precisely there. That he had stepped back as if passing all responsibility to Olivia. And then kissed the woman once more with absurd words about finishing or whatever. The fact that what he had satisfied through that was his own desire, not the woman’s. Precisely that.

Richard roughly dry-washed his face. As long as he remembered the sensation of the br*ast that had been in his hand and the hot body temperature, he couldn’t fall asleep again. The desire that had been thoroughly stirred up but not resolved at all seethed up and down. It was a more essential heat that couldn’t be cooled by regaining cold reason.