Kaela grew up loved in an environment where she wanted for nothing.
She never particularly yearned for anything desperately, and because she had so much, she gave things up easily. She had never acted impulsively or spontaneously. However, there were exceptions to everything, and for Kaela, Peon was that exception.
Just once before dying. If not once but twice, she would be even happier, and if not twice but thrice, she would be overjoyed.
That’s what he meant to her. Someone she would regret even after death, someone she wanted to hold onto even while pushing aside her resentment and grudges for a moment. Perhaps it had been her only desire since her young days as the naive princess.
“So, what would you like me to do, my client?”
Peon asked while holding Kaela’s waist and kissing her nape. The woman, who couldn’t understand why she had allowed him, just shrank her shoulders and blushed.
Though he felt burning inside and was afraid she might push him away at any moment, Peon deliberately pressed smaller kisses to her cheek to suppress his anxiety.
“I can do much better than before. Tell me, anything.”
Even when he was just a simple human he had been incredible, but now Peon wasn’t making empty promises – he knew every single point of her nerves and pleasure.
The most beautiful man Kaela knew smiled at her. Every time he smiled, she felt chills down her spine and her heart constricted.
It was frightening, yet it was a smile that made her want to throw herself in and fall. Anyone, man or woman, who saw that smile would probably lay themselves before him.
“…How much do you want me?”
Peon laughed at her tiny voice.
“Touch me.”
Without even touching the clothes he was wearing, they fell away like thin sugar candy melting.
Without any fabric blocking in between, heat that was beyond warm – almost hot – reached Kaela. Instead of answering, he faced her with that heat fully present.
“If you don’t like my body, I can change everything.”
Though not as much as before, Kaela was still shy about many things. Peon took her hesitating hand and placed it on himself.
Even when told to touch, she couldn’t move a finger, so he had to guide her himself. Just her small hand touching him made him throb hotly to the point of frenzy. His heartbeat quickened, and heat rose to his head.
“How should I change?”
Was it the bone structure that was the problem, or was it his appearance? He could change anything to Kaela’s preference. After all, he was just wearing a human shell and imitating human behavior, so what did this body matter?
He covered her hand with his. Kaela’s face reddened at the changing sensation beneath her hand. How cute.
“Don’t you like this?”
“Ah, doesn’t it hurt?”
“Unless you scratch or bite, it won’t hurt. Your grip is too weak anyway.”
Peon kept kissing Kaela continuously as she remained motionless with her hand held, her shoulders hunched.
“Why aren’t you saying anything, Kaela? You bought me, so you should enjoy it.”
His eyes were already red with excitement. With veins visible on his neck, it was almost frightening to look at.
“That day too…”
As she spoke in a tiny voice, he smiled and waited for her to finish. While waiting, there was plenty to do.
“Were you like this that day?”
“That day?”
“Our wedding day.”
“Ah.”
He let out a pleasant sigh.
“I struggled to calm down and hold myself back.”
While Kaela slept, he had berated himself repeatedly, drowning in all kinds of guilt and forbidden desires.
“Even though you were in pain, I tried not to show how excited I was like a beast… Did you notice?”
The strange atmosphere of that day couldn’t be forgotten. The escaping moans were strange, and Peon’s stiffness was strange too.
The skin that felt burning hot just from a touch, and his eyes that were even hotter – it went beyond embarrassment and shyness to a sense of crisis that something serious would happen if it went any deeper.
“Hmm?”
Calling softly, he gripped her warm, small hand tightly. Their breaths mixed with a “haa.” Kaela squeezed back as he did. His purple eyes rolled sharply.
“Yes. I felt like I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.”
At her bold words, Peon looked at her as if enchanted, as if in ecstasy. Only now could Kaela finally speak about what she had felt then.
“So you knew.”
He lifted Kaela’s hand again and licked her small palm.
“Then how about now?”
Peon, growing more languid, smiled contentedly with a sigh.
“Is it still the same?”
Her heat was rising to match Peon’s temperature perfectly. While he, who had rushed ahead first, slowed down and buried his face in Kaela’s narrow shoulders, calming himself in her soft hands, she breathed heavily with her small chest heaving.
[Just touching you makes me feel disgusted.]
Some words can’t be forgotten no matter how hard you try. Now it seemed Peon wasn’t disgusted by her.
Feeling both defiant and curious whether those words about being disgusted had anything to do with the spell, Kaela had provoked Peon and now tightly hugged his broad shoulders. Even while mocking herself for being relieved that she wasn’t disgusting to him, she couldn’t let go.
“Kaela.”
He called her name sensually, as if it were a secret pet name between lovers.
While seeming to leisurely rest in her embrace, the huge man who ended up supporting all her weight was like a massive fireball. Though he had barely managed to calm down once, this fire would eventually consume her too.
“You asked how much I want you?”
His voice was rough. In his embrace, Kaela felt like everything that shouldn’t melt was melting away. Her clothes, her brain, her thoughts – everything disappeared without a trace.
“Look. I have to use every method possible to hold back so I don’t hurt you.”
Now that she had given permission, he finally had a chance to speak. If there was a chance, he absolutely couldn’t let it slip away.
“For days on end, all day long, I want to do this with just the two of us.”
He held Kaela, gauging her weight and volume, then sighed slightly.
“If only you would become healthier.”
Would that even be possible if she became healthier? Peon already didn’t need to be healthier for it to be possible. But Kaela – she who was not just ordinary but belonged to the weaker type of humans – was not.
“Even if I become healthier, I couldn’t do that.”
Kaela shook her head with wide eyes.
“Oh? You have room for other thoughts?”
Peon’s eyes narrowed. “Huh?” Kaela hunched her shoulders and covered her mouth with her hand.
“I made a mistake. Even if I’m cheap, I should do my best so that Your Highness might think of me at least once later.”
“W-wait, ah, suddenly…!”
Suddenly it was too fast. He left red marks as he kissed her thin wrist reverently, with soft pecks. When things speed up, reason is lost, and one gets swept away. No, she was already being swept away.
What was that first night like? On that night stolen before death, he had been hot, clumsy, and frantic. After the regression, he had been extremely careful yet still awkward, but became completely skilled after just a few nights. It was incomparable to back then.
“Yes, Kaela.”
“Stop…!”
“Yes, alright. I like it too.”
Kaela tried to shout that wasn’t what she meant. But her voice wouldn’t come out, and she quickly forgot she had even tried to say such things.
“I like it.”
For the first time in a long while, bright red nail marks appeared on his forearm. The excited man’s lips curved up in satisfaction. As his purple eyes sparkled more and more with ecstasy, the solid defenses in her heated blue eyes gradually crumbled as emotional tears welled up.
****
The dim light of dawn filtered into the room still full of heat. Peon shielded Kaela’s eyes from the light.
She had collapsed into exhausted sleep after crying while being tormented by him for a long time. He gently touched her cooled eyelids.
Confessing love through borrowed intimacy was mean, vile, and utterly inadequate. It wasn’t just liking – he obsessed over, yearned for, and held Kaela deep in his soul to the point where even saying “love” wasn’t enough.
“Kaela.”
She didn’t stir at all, sleeping so deeply she couldn’t even have nightmares.
“Why did you buy me?”
He hadn’t expected her to readily accept when he deliberately said something that would shock a well-bred princess.
No, she probably knew it was deliberate and responded in kind. Even so, she must have known that he would back off immediately if she showed even the slightest sign of discomfort, so why did she go all the way?
Though he chose madness because he couldn’t let go despite his anxiety, he wasn’t stupid enough to be satisfied with just blindly holding onto her. Anxiety always gnaws at him and never leaves.
Someday you’ll abandon me.
Someday you’ll abandon me and die.
Someday you’ll abandon me and die and never open your eyes again.
Surely, Kaela, you will do that.
“Why?”
So when she reached out her hand, Peon felt both joy and terror.
He was afraid because it seemed like people who had settled everything always became briefly kind at the end, like a briefly brilliant signal of death. At the same time, the vain hope that hurt him most raised its head and whispered a wicked curse.
Perhaps.
“Was I of any use?”
The poisonous curse suggesting that perhaps she had opened her heart a little more.
“Did you enjoy it?”
If she enjoyed it, he would too. He wanted to be some useful object to her.
An object not easily discarded because it’s needed, because it has uses. If possible, he would be overjoyed if it was entertaining enough to make her want to postpone death for a day or two and play with it more.
So for now, his goal was to at least be a bedroom partner. How amazing it was that he could occasionally satisfy her desires, give her pleasure, and make her briefly forget the tears and wounds that filled her inside.
The knight who swore to walk only the righteous path was now gone. The knight who vowed not to waver at temptation or be deceived by lies was destroyed for breaking his oath.
So forget such oaths, forget being a knight – he’d be satisfied just being an occasional bedmate she sometimes thought of. Even just that would be enough.
He knew. It was utterly pathetic.
When Kaela slept, the nights he spent alone were always filled with fear, anxiety, and pain.
****
It was morning. Definitely morning. A bright summer morning at that.
Even the four-poster bed curtains had long since transformed into summer’s transparent white light. And those transparent bed curtains were insufficient to hide the vigorously moving solid body.
“Stop…”
The man she had readily bought last night tormented her persistently even in the morning. With her ears, cheeks, and eyes all red from crying, Kaela couldn’t endure and covered her eyes with weak hands. Peon immediately stopped all movement.
“I told you not to say such things unless you mean them. Should I really stop?”
At first, it was truly sincere.
She had said stop because the surging sensations were too frightening, because she felt like something would really happen, but the moment Peon withdrew, Kaela opened her eyes wide. That wasn’t what she meant.
He who had been very tender at night smiled and pulled Kaela back. But this morning, Peon wasn’t so tender.
She unconsciously looked at him with eyes saying that wasn’t what she meant. Her eyes, tormented since morning, were full of sadness.
“You have to be honest, Kaela. Do you really want me to stop?”
Though Peon was quite excited himself, Kaela whimpered, frustrated and desperate.
“Th-that’s not, it…!”
“Then what is it?”
The moment Peon asked with slightly raised lips, Kaela realized he absolutely wouldn’t concede. She knew that expression.
“You bought me. You need to command me. Say it.”
Despite having veins standing out on his neck and eyes overflowing with heat himself, Peon saying such things made Kaela feel wronged, irritated, and embarrassed. Above all, she felt urgent and desperate.
“Oppa, you’re really mean…”
The words came out unconsciously. Words from back then, spoken to him when he wore that expression of being ‘oppa.’ Kaela froze watching Peon laugh silently, “ha.”
“You’re really playing with me.”
Even when desperate to hear one honest answer, you end up driving people crazy. He laughed “haha” and resumed what he had stopped.
He erased the words ‘marital duty’ and ‘heir’ from this dutiful Grand Duchess’s mind completely.
He erased all the common noble words that could coldly define this act, and filled her only with heat and pleasure. He had clearly seen it. Her composed eyes that returned to reality the moment she woke up.
OH MY LORRDDDDD😩😩😩💗💗💗💗