Failed to Train the Beast Male Lead

“Move slowly.”

Even though the Duke couldn’t see her, Carol lowered her gaze and paused her breath for a moment.

“Hoo…”

The thought of her exhaling breath touching his hand made her feel strange.

‘I shouldn’t have allowed it.’

Why she agreed at that time, thinking about it now, it was something she couldn’t understand at all.

She felt like giving a hard punch to herself from yesterday who had accepted as if she was bewitched.

“Is it cold?”

“…No.”

Rather, it was a bit warm.

Thump, thump.

Was the flame of the firewood burning in the fireplace a bit more fierce than usual?

“Ah.”

The Duke muttered as if he understood. It wasn’t that her cheeks had cooled down.

“It’s my fingers that have become hot.”

The Duke, as if realizing anew, started moving his fingers that had paused.

‘It feels like my fingertips are pulsating.’

There was a strange sensation. The sensation in the fingertips became clearer and the skin that his finger touched felt more vivid. A thirst suddenly rose, but the Duke didn’t take his hand away.

Caress.

His finger went all the way down and touched the chin. When she finally let out a breath that had reached his throat, his finger rested on her chin.

“What is… this?”

He asked, sounding a little panicked at the distinctly different feel of the skin, but it was actually Carol who was surprised. Carol exerted all her strength, fully focused and trying to pretend nothing had happened.

“It’s my lips.”

Fortunately, Carol’s voice came out calmly as intended. He slightly pulled back his finger in surprise.

Cold air flowed between his fingertip and her lips for a moment, and then the finger moved with a more determined gesture than before.

The finger that traced the boundary between the lips and the skin was not hesitant, instead it was cautious as if touching something that might break.

“…Hmm.”

I felt a shudder in my stomach. I tried to keep a calm appearance with all my might, but a moan-like breath escaped unknowingly.

“It’s warm and soft.”

“…Is that so?”

As a teacher, I should guide properly. Sure enough, it’s not easy to deal with people.

Let’s do something else. I should say that, but I couldn’t even say that.

Her tongue felt stiff. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

When Carol didn’t stop him, his finger daringly touched the space between her lips, where hot breath leaked out.

As her mouth opened, he used another finger to hold her chin.

Carol, who had been evading all along, looked straight ahead.

Somehow, it felt as if their gazes met in mid-air.

“I wonder what the teacher looks like?”

After the curse began, the Duke had been stagnant. All new things were restricted.

New knowledge, new environments, new people.

All these things were something the Duke could no longer have.

‘No. I thought I couldn’t have it.’

Until the teacher in front of him appeared.

All those who guarded the Duke’s side were faces he had seen before until he could no longer see the light of the world.

Although it always ended in failure, the reason he attached new employees to himself might have been to find someone who would accept him.

However, to say that they interacted was embarrassing to the extent that the employees hated and feared him. The employees acted like people trapped in a beast’s cage.

The Duke’s temper and his habit of discarding people were close to a protest against Mrs. Wells.

Reading the signs of others who despised their unchangeable appearance wore down the Duke’s spirit.

‘She must have wanted to say that time passes when you meet new people, and it’s okay to live even if you’re a monster.’

Mrs. Wells’ intentions were not unknown. Although the method she devised was wrong, all her actions were done out of goodwill.

Because the previous generation suffered for the same reason.

The Duke of the previous generation manifested the curse at a very young age and could not bring in a wife. So, he sponsored a family that needed a lot of money and brought the daughter of that family as a duchess.

Although it was elegantly packaged as a marriage, in reality, the act of spending such a huge amount of money to continue the lineage destroyed the Duke’s dignity.

To naturally introduce new people to the Duke who was forced into the room, there was no other way but to hire new employees.

Mrs. Wells must have been trying for a long time. For this moment.

Carol couldn’t help but ask the Duke, who was silently touching her face for a while.

“What are you thinking about?”

The Duke, who suddenly woke up from his thoughts, looked a little embarrassed.

“I was… imagining what the teacher’s face looks like.”

Although it can’t be explained exactly, when I heard this, I was engulfed in a dangerous sensation that something would change from before.

“I look very ugly.”

So Carol had no choice but to quickly lie.

Her lips were tingling. She pulled her head back, thinking that she shouldn’t be touched anymore.

Carol licked her dry lips with her tongue due to the heat, and gently pressed her racing heart as if to calm it down.

At Carol’s words, the Duke seemed to wake up from a trance. He didn’t bother to continue the conversation that Carol had abruptly cut off.

“You have a low self-evaluation.”

“Let’s say it’s objective.”

“Are you lying to me?”

The touch of her skin lingered on his fingertips, disorienting the Duke.

Like a drop of ink in clear water, the color of his heart changed incessantly.

With a tingling sensation, the Duke tightly clenched his other hand.

“There’s no way. You’ll be surprised when you see me in the future. By then, I’ll be gone…”

She distinctly remembered the description of the beautiful blonde, radiant Lady Elisha Chesworth. Compared to her, she was certainly less than ordinary.

“…What?”

At the Duke’s stunned voice, Carol realized what she had just said and was startled.

She pulled her body back and covered her mouth. She was so tense that her brain seemed to have relaxed. She misspoke.

“…Just as the curse suddenly struck, it could suddenly disappear.”

Since she couldn’t claim to know the future, she could only make a clumsy excuse.

“What I asked wasn’t that…”

The Duke tried to say something, but soon trailed off. Then he spoke in a very low voice.

“The curse…is eternal.”

“…I’m, I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize. But if you insist on apologizing, there’s something I want to ask, so please answer.”

As eternal as the curse is, there is a way to cast it, and there is a way to break it. Carol swallowed those words and apologized. Instead of accepting Carol’s apology, the Duke asked her.

“Does the meaning of ‘I will leave when the curse is lifted’ mean, conversely, that you will stay by my side as long as the curse is valid?”

The Duke’s mood seemed to be bad, but his subdued voice held heat, not despair.

“That is…”

Carol licked her lips. As she licked her lower lip with her tongue, she felt her dry, rough tongue.

“What does it mean?”

It sounded as if the Duke was anxiously wondering where she might go.

Carol slowly exhaled and shook her head. That couldn’t be. It was an overactive imagination.

Then suddenly, Carol’s eyes widened.

‘Is it because he’s the male lead that he’s so captivated?’

His appearance had only changed, but before the curse, there were countless young ladies who adored him.

Could some trivial habits remain?

Carol thought that if she were an ignorant young lady and a Duke with outstanding looks at a ball spoke to her in this way, she wouldn’t have been able to resist falling for him.

The focus was on the decadent novel, but this was an adult novel.

His primal desires were described in detail.

[He gently caressed the chin. Every time he breathed, the air felt hot. The heart beat faster as she became aware of the unfamiliar sensation.]

Memories of the heat that she had forgotten and the scene where she swallowed dry saliva came to her mind.

The sensation of the hand that had touched her cheek remained like a lingering impression.

Carol found herself unable to bear it any longer.

Suddenly.

Carol abruptly stood up from her seat, clutching the hem of her dress with her fingers.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

She had made countless assumptions when she came to the Duke’s Mansion.

If the Duke didn’t accept her, if she was kicked out early, if she was scorned for being a beast.

But she had never considered this situation.

The situation where the Duke wanted her to stay was something she had dismissed with a shake of her head, scolding herself for even thinking such an absurd thought.

“I’ve never made fun of you.”

The Duke stood up from his seat.

The Duke, who seemed to believe his appearance was hideous, had never been close when he dismissed all of his previous employees.

“If necessary, the contract will be renewed.”

“What I mean is, let’s re-contract for life.”