Prologue

“Ah—ahh… ah…! Aah!”

Jane couldn’t think straight. The pleasure rising from a place she could never bring herself to name was too overwhelming. Her feet thrashed against the sheets. But the finest silk bedding only slid uselessly beneath her heels, refusing to be kicked away.

“Sto—ah, ahh—Rue… Ruelne!”

What she had clutched in her fist was a spill of gray hair, soft and fine as silk thread. The more Jane tried to shove him away, unable to bear the pleasure, the more mercilessly the invader burrowed into her clit.

Lick.

“I’ve imagined this so many times…”

A voice so low it bordered on sinister dampened her ears.

“Ng—hngh—don’t—blow on it…!”

“More sensitive than I pictured.”

Even the faintest breath that slipped out between his words made her flinch.

“So obscene.”

He drew back slightly, only to flick his tongue over her clit again. That wasn’t the end of it—he sealed his lips around it and sucked. White stars burst behind Jane’s eyes.

“Ah—ah! Sto—ah—ngh—this is—ahh!”

“Mm. You can come.”

At his gentle murmur, Jane’s eyes squeezed shut. Clear tears streamed down from the corners. Shamefully, warmth spilled from below as well. God—she had never felt anything like this.

“It’ll feel incredible. Next time, you’ll beg me to suck harder.”

Her friend’s crude jokes hadn’t been exaggerations after all. A body that had never once, in thirty years, accepted a man inside it absorbed the unfamiliar pleasure like a sponge.

As if it had been waiting for it.

The pleasure—combined with the lingering haze of alcohol already ruling her body—blurred even the last threads of her reason.

Jane was weak to drink. She knew it better than anyone and had spent her life wary of alcohol’s dangers, rarely touching it. She had never needed it to enjoy life. She possessed a fortune no one could force her to do anything for.

And yet—

Jane forced her blurred eyes open.

“Haa… hngh…”

She saw him slowly lifting his head from between her thighs.

Gray hair gleamed elegantly in the moonlight. A beautifully shaped forehead. Perfect brows damp with sweat, a straight, aristocratic nose. A jawline sculpted as if chiseled from ice and petals.

A breathtakingly handsome man gazed down at her without expression. His mere look set her skin aflame.

Violet eyes—the very eyes she had cherished every single day, from the moment he lost his sight to the day he regained it.

This… shouldn’t…

The thought drifted through her dazed mind.

“You’re even more responsive than I expected. I’m surprised.”

He spoke calmly. His voice, slightly hoarse, scraped deliciously along her ears. Jane instinctively tried to cover them, but his hand caught her wrist.

His well-shaped lips curved faintly. She had known him for so long, yet had rarely seen him smile like that. Her chest fluttered.

Even more so because his lips glistened—with what was unmistakably hers.

When Jane tried to turn her head away, he caught her chin and turned it back. Their mismatched gazes locked in the air.

“I’ve always imagined it. What kind of face you’d make, when you looked at me in this moment.”

His other hand cupped her bare breast. Long, elegant fingers flicked her nipple.

“Hn—!”

Her slender body trembled violently. Satisfaction flickered across his face. The smile was so beautiful she couldn’t resist it.

“Rue… Ruelne… we—we can’t do this…”

“Can’t?”

Ruelne let out a sharp, blade-thin sneer.

Click. The sound of a clasp coming undone rang out as he freed the rigid length straining against his clothes. Jane’s hazy eyes flew wide.

“You have no idea.”

“……”

His large hand gripped her waist and lifted her upright. The world flipped. Startled at the sensation of her body suspended in midair, she instinctively wrapped her legs tightly around his waist. His shoulders were broad—she remembered the day she had leaned against them absentmindedly and startled herself.

Weakly, she tried to push him away.

But the smallest movement was rendered useless by the hand dragging her hips back down.

“You can’t even imagine how long I’ve waited for this day.”

“Ah…!”

Jane wanted to say something. Anything.

But she couldn’t.

The blunt tip of his cock—the head far too large for the entrance it pressed against—began to push into her most secret place. He had licked and opened her so carefully that, though it was truly her first time, the massive length slowly began to sink inside. She shook her head frantically.

“It won’t fit!”

“It will. Want to bet?”

“Ah—hnn! Nngh!”

Tears pooled at the tips of her long lashes.

“No, we can’t, we—ah! Ngh—if we do this—”

“Then what?”

“Don’t—ahhh!”

Suddenly, Ruelne stood, lifting her fully into his arms. Gravity dragged her body downward.

Thrust—!

The sudden drop forced half of him inside her at once. Jane’s mouth fell open, no sound emerging. Her eyes widened, her whole body trembling violently.

Only halfway in—and yet it felt even more overwhelming than when he had sucked and licked her to climax. Her vision bleached white.

“You’re enjoying this so much.”

He lifted her slightly to adjust, then pushed back in.

Thrust—press.

“Ah—no—ah! Ah! Nngh!”

“See? Even inside says it likes me.”

His voice, laced with laughter and roughened breath, grazed her ear. Yellow and white stars burst across her vision. The world spun away.

“We should’ve done this long ago.”

At last, when his enormous length filled her completely, Jane felt a pleasure unlike anything in this world.

Now that she had tasted it, it felt like something she could never turn back from—a dizzying, ominous thrill spreading through her like an infection. Like someone slipping helplessly into addiction, past the point of resistance.

How… did it come to this?

“Isn’t that right, Patron?”

Yes. Perhaps that was the problem.

Ruelne Scharnhost.

The sole survivor who had restored a fallen ducal house. The Empire’s most ill-fated young lord.

And her… beautiful ward.

Perhaps she should never have met this man.

“Oh dear. Useless thoughts.”

As if he could read her mind, heat pooled darkly in the face she had cherished and adored, and he drove his hips upward.

“It’s fine. The night… is long.”

“…Ah! Ngh—ah, ahhh!”

His low, pleasant laughter drifted faintly away.

“I’ll make you come as much as you want. Just like you wished.”

His voice sounded distant. So very distant.

“I’m better than that bastard, aren’t I?”