Chapter 1

Prologue

At some point, neither tranquilizers nor sleeping pills worked on the man anymore.

The dosage had long since reached its maximum.

But the woman hadn’t crossed the seas to this distant land just to treat him.

She closed the man’s chart and rolled up the white sleeves of her garment down to her elbows.

Then, she opened a drawer and pulled out a jet-black pistol.

Click, clack.

After checking the loading with practiced hands, she walked over to the bed and placed the loaded pistol beneath the pillow.

When wrinkles formed on the pristine white bedding, she smoothed them out with her palm until it looked as perfect as before.

The spotless white fabric hid the pitch-black pistol well.

The curtains whipped about in the wind.

She changed out of her clothes into a shower gown, revealing her slender body with sharply defined collarbones.

Just as she was about to lie down on the bed, the door opened without so much as a knock.

There was only one person in the mansion who could do that.

The master of the house.

Grand Duke Damias Eldéard.

There was no need to ask why he had come.

The symptoms he confessed to were always the same, and each time, her prescription never changed either.

“How are you tonight?”

“Still no different.”

It was a question she had asked hundreds of times over the past few months, and a reply she had heard just as many times.

Ash-gray eyes, burned through until only embers remained.

Inside them, the woman was trapped.

The treatment for the Grand Duke’s insomnia.

That was the reason he gave her the highest level of care in this mansion.

And there was exactly one month left until the “treatment” would be over.

“From now on, it’ll be difficult.”

It was about time to end it.

A game of winning and losing.

A tangle of threads, twisting and unraveling.

A hunt of chasing and being chased.

“But, doctor, you still have your job to do.”

Yet the Grand Duke, as if he knew nothing, lazily lifted his gaze.

His hand gently caressed her jawline, but his voice was mercilessly cold.

“Your job is to put me to sleep.”

The moonlight devoured half of his face, revealing a beauty so breathtaking that anyone would admire it.

But even at the sight of that stunning portrait, the woman felt nothing.

She had been trained that way from the beginning — to keep her mouth shut, and only open her eyes and ears.

“Did you understand?”

The Grand Duke’s fingers stroked the woman’s plump lower lip, almost as if trying to gauge how much it had swelled.

As if displeased with how untouched her lips were, the man narrowed his eyes.

“If you won’t answer, then I’ll just have to make you.”

When he firmly pressed the woman’s cheeks with his rough hands, her lips, unable to withstand the force, weakly parted.

As if he had been waiting for it, the man captured her breath through the gap.

Their noses collided silently.

The kiss was hot yet cold, gentle yet rough, as if it ruled over all their senses.

The woman’s breathing gradually grew more ragged.

Even then, she didn’t let a single sound escape.

After a moment, the man pulled away.

A sticky thread of saliva stretched between them before snapping.

“Still not saying anything, huh? You’re really tough, Doctor Solion.”

” ……. ”

“That’s why I like you. It wouldn’t be any fun if you gave in too easily.”

He sneered in a confident tone, as if testing how long she could keep it up, then tugged at her shower gown.

With the loosening of the sash, her dazzling bare body was revealed.

Her pale body lay against the even whiter bed sheets, pinned like a butterfly.

The man placed his hand on her heated body.

Unlike her sealed lips, her dampened body readily accepted and swallowed the intruder.

“Tsk, lying again, aren’t you?”

The Grand Duke began to move slowly, yet deeply.

The woman still looked straight up at him with her lips pressed tightly together.

She didn’t believe in the saying that eyes couldn’t lie.

Gazes and expressions could always be manipulated with enough control over the facial muscles.

But she could say for certain — no one could control lust.

The woman was that strong-willed.

She was capable of suppressing even the aching sensations rising from below, desperately resisting her own desires.

The man openly mocked her patience.

“Yeah. Let’s see how long you can endure.”

This game had been decided from the very beginning.

Every time, every moment, she was the loser in the bed, and he was the victor.

It was something both of them knew well.

Under the relentless, dizzying stimulation, the woman’s body eventually admitted defeat.

Squish. Squish. Squish.

The stubborn silence broke, and wet sounds echoed like waves crashing against rocks.

“…… Ugh.”

The woman squeezed her eyes shut.

She bit her lips hard enough to taste blood, enduring the overwhelming desire to melt into him right then and there.

“You’re patient.”

The man muttered as he looked down at her, his tone full of amusement, as if curious to see just how long she could endure.

By now, it was starting to feel almost frightening.

“Ah, hff……!”

At last, the woman’s tightly sealed lips parted.

A feverish sound slipped through.

Tonight, his touch was particularly merciless, leaving her with no choice but to surrender.

Even so, she didn’t want anyone else in the mansion to find out about the secret insomnia treatments carried out night after night.

Above all, she didn’t want anyone to discover how close the end of this treatment was.

Before she knew it, the man was pressed against her body, nibbling on her earlobe.

His tongue followed, delving into the intricate curves of her ear.

The sighs escaping between his lips were searingly hot.

He kept pushing her, urging her to make even louder sounds.

His fingers moved in slow circles, crushing her like soft jelly.

His mouth greedily nibbled and then sucked on her earlobe.

The wet sounds filled the room completely.

He explored her body without hesitation, as if every inch of her, from head to toe, belonged to him.

“Spread them.”

At his sharp command, the woman obeyed as if hypnotized.

She immediately felt his hot breath against her bare skin.

Looking down at the steep ridge of his nose, she exhaled a murky breath and stared up at the ceiling.

The light fixture swayed.

From the heat rising through her body, the world blurred for a moment, then came back into focus.

Though she seemed on the verge of succumbing to pleasure, at some point, her eyes gleamed and the corners of her lips curled into a smile without the Grand Duke noticing.

A deep sense of triumph spread like ink soaking into paper.

The man was always trying to break her.

Only when he saw the blood vessels rise in her eyes and the blush spread across her cheeks would he be satisfied.

He was always anxious about things he couldn’t capture with his own senses.

It was only after sleeping with him that she could finally understand the shadows he carried.

Tonight, he was letting himself go completely, closing his eyes and surrendering to pleasure.

It hit her then.

Now was the time.

Intoxicated by victory, she grabbed his head and gently pulled it toward her.

Pretending to be drunk on his deepening touch, she let out a murky moan.

“Haah……!”

Curling her toes, she arched her back.

As their bodies rebounded, bringing them slightly closer to the top of the bed, she reached under the pillow.

Her fingertips brushed against the pistol she had hidden beforehand.

The slick black object kept slipping from her sweat-drenched hand.

She rocked her hips slightly and stretched her arm as far as it would go, desperately wriggling her fingers to grab it again — just as he was fervently ravaging her body.

Just then, the man murmured lowly.

“What are you up to now?”

Before she could even pull her hand out from under the pillow, he was already faster.

“Ah……!”

A strong hand seized her slender wrist in a firm grip.

Then, he laced his fingers tightly with hers.

The heavy pressure of his hand pinned their entangled fingers deep into the mattress.

At the same moment, a seismic jolt of pain erupted between her legs.

“Ugh……!”

At the violation that seemed to split her body cleanly in two, the woman trembled and let out a sound.

He pushed deeper inside her, deeper still.

There was no end.

Then, the man covered her eyes and rubbed his lips thickly against hers.

And he whispered,

“Stop doing bad things. Let’s only do good things now.”

Between pleasure and pain, a dangerous tightrope walk began.

She needed to stay alert.

But as if mocking the desperate scream inside her, the man moved even faster.

The rising heat made her mind blur.

Her vision faded into nothingness.

There was only the man filling her completely.

Held in his embrace, she quietly stretched her hand out again.

Another failure — how many times had it been already?

To be continued in the next chapter▶