Willingly
The flames in the fireplace leapt high. Crackling bursts filled the narrow space to the brim.
Though it was still early afternoon, the drawn curtains left the room as dark as night.
Every time the firelight flickered across her pale skin, his heart seemed to sway with it.
He lifted her into his arms and settled her on his thigh. Her elbow came to rest on his shoulder; still-damp hair brushed his cheek.
The lingering scent of water mixed with the growing smell of fire, dizzying the air between them.
A soft, wet sound. Breath tangled until his mouth felt too narrow. Cesare felt her faint tremor travel along the tip of his tongue.
"Haa……"
Every time their saliva-slick lips rubbed together, their breathing grew ragged.
His hand slipped beneath the blanket and slowly traced upward from the base of her spine. Her back was so thin it bordered on skeletal—unbearably pitiful one moment, and the next he wanted to devour her whole. Desire surged hot and sudden.
When he brushed her still-wet hair back from her face, she laughed low in her throat. Strangely, his ribs ached.
She said nothing.
Why she remained so indifferent even while submerged in water; what the wound inside her mouth meant.
Then Cesare asked, as if he could no longer swallow the question down.
"My lady… what are you thinking?"
An essential question he had deliberately avoided slipped free. It was strange that a woman who considered even fish bones with such care could decide her own future so lightly, as though discarding it.
"The thought that I want to think of nothing at all?"
And the look in her eyes said only he could make that wish real. Under that gaze, every half-digested thought evaporated; he wanted only to give her what she asked. She was a woman who knew exactly how to make desire burn hotter. Even now her words made him want to wag his tail like a dog.
It had been that way last time. He could not allow it now.
If I let this pass, she’ll act as though nothing happened again.
No different from the other suitors. The thought made something unknown surge up inside him.
"…I’m curious about you."
Why she forced herself to meet suitors by rolling dice, even while people called her eccentric. The source of the loneliness so piercing she would borrow a stranger’s warmth to ease it. He wanted to know.
Before purchasing the mansion he had investigated the people of the Pignatelli Mansion. The letters written on paper had offered no answers at all.
His nose brushed hers. Even in the dark her green eyes shone clear, holding only him.
"More than this?"
Her palm pressed against his chest with unmistakable meaning.
"My lady…"
"Yes?"
It was all right that there was only him for now—but if some later suitor proved dangerous… In that night of hers, isolated like a lonely island at the far end of the Pignatelli Mansion corridor, she would let other suitors in again, and this strange method of courtship would eventually end.
And that end will almost certainly come from her marriage.
The thought left him strangely low. She claimed there was only him for the moment, yet he could not believe any real feeling lay behind it. That very attitude drove Cesare madder still—because he could never quite read what she was thinking.
"How do you see me… no. Never mind."
Questions he should never ask if he meant only to keep proper manners and stay within bounds.
"Your expression looks bad… Are you all right?"
In a relationship that had crossed every line from the start, continuing to keep any line at all was absurd. From the moment he had spent a day with her without knowing her name or face, then searched for her unable to forget, it had already been too late.
"I’m fine."
He buried his face against her shoulder and drew the sweet scent of her skin deep into his lungs. Even receiving her concern felt like deception. If only she had been colder. Instead he had discovered how sweet that seemingly dry flesh truly was. Every time her scent seeped into the depths of his chest, his carefully laid plans grew hazy and his worry denser.
If he admitted he worried for a woman who would live in lifelong ease on the vast fortune from selling the mansion, people would only sneer—what right did a commoner have to worry over anyone?
What a contradiction.
He had come here to deceive this woman, yet found himself wanting to help her.
"Then are you thinking of something else while you’re with me?"
Her upturned eyes fixed on him. Lush lashes fluttered like butterfly wings and settled against him. In that instant a powerful certainty struck him: he would not be able to refuse her any longer.
"…Of course not."
With those words he laid her down and climbed over her. His lower belly already ached with need.
"If we go all the way here, it will be hard on you. If you mean to stop, say so now."
The setting was hardly ideal for this. He gave her the warning before the last thread of reason snapped. As he spoke he pressed his hips firmly against her lower abdomen. Heat radiated from the heavy weight of him, palpable even through cloth.
Instead of fear she only looped her arms around his shoulders.
"And yet if I say it hurts even a little, you’ll stop."
"Ha."
"…Because you’re kind."
"…I’m far from kind."
That was precisely why he was deceiving her like this. He swallowed the rest and kissed her again—parting her lips, exploring the soft membrane inside as though mapping it. When their mouths finally separated, a thin, transparent thread stretched between them.
"Then prove it."
How could he refuse a request to take her apart, dismantle her, and stir her thoroughly? This feeling could not be love. It was only restless, flickering lust.
"Willingly."
He lowered his head and kissed a path from her cheek to her collarbone and lower still. Traces of desire bloomed across her white skin. His large hand closed over one pale breast; between his fingers the nipple, already hard with excitement, slipped free.
"Hoo… euh."
When he scraped the tip with a fingernail her body jerked. He pointed his tongue and slowly traced the boundary between soft flesh and areola until her breath turned shallow and quick. Then he took the saliva-darkened nipple into his mouth and sucked hard enough for his cheeks to hollow.
"Ha…… euh…!"
The head that had lingered at her chest began to travel downward again—sternum, belly, and further still. He parted her legs and licked up the tender inner flesh of her thighs. His red tongue, vivid against her white skin, opened her. A light stroke across her clitoris made her whole body vibrate; when he sucked as though savoring ripe fruit she shuddered hard.
"Ah—no…"
She tried to push his head away and failed. Her fingers slipped into his hair instead, trying to hold him there even as her hands trembled too hard to grip properly.
Wet sounds grew louder. Her toes curled. She tried to close her thighs on instinct, but he was already settled between them; it was far too late.
"I-it’s strange—hah."
If their previous encounters had offered a kind of violent pleasure, the texture now was different. Sharp enough to tingle through her waist, and at the same time she ached with unfinished need. A hair’s breadth of emptiness kept her from the edge.
"Strange? You’ll have to say it properly."
Each pass of his tongue made slick heat pour from her in sudden rushes. Delfina shook her head as though the words were impossible. He swept a finger through the wetness that overflowed and dripped even beneath her, then eased one thick-knuckled finger inside. The soft walls clung to him stickily, like something alive.
"Tsk. It had gotten used to my shape."
Cesare murmured the words with open regret.
"…Hurry…"
Delfina clutched his arm, unable to wait any longer. He shoved his underwear down. As if already past its limit, his cock sprang free and pressed tight against his lower belly; pre-cum beaded at the head and ran in a thin trail down the shaft. When he stroked himself once the sound was obscenely wet. Delfina tightened involuntarily.
He rubbed the heavy head against her entrance in slow, deliberate circles—then drove into her in one stroke, seating himself to the root as though he meant to pierce straight through her.
"Aheuk…!"