Chapter 65
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 65
The moment he stepped into the dreadful place—a space that felt like the very embodiment of death—and started up the stairs, he sensed her. She’d made it to the central landing, but the instant she saw him, she froze and ducked behind a wall.
How ridiculous.
But he was the one who was truly being ridiculous.
He should have just ignored her and walked past. Last night was over. Today was what mattered. She was a person of interest, someone he’d put on hold. He never should have dragged her back into his personal space. And if he couldn’t ignore her, he should have shattered her so completely that she would never dare to crawl back.
“Or did you like it?”
Even to his own ears, the words were vicious.
“Or should I pay you for it each time?”
Back then, he had been absolutely certain of his victory.
Yet this bizarre woman kept moving even when she seemed utterly broken. The way she approached him with those hollow, empty eyes was nothing short of desperate.
“If you didn’t hate it… may I stay by your side, Your Excellency?”
Hadn’t being swayed by those words once been enough?
It should have been.
But his pathetic behavior didn't end there.
The spot over his heart where her cheek had rested throbbed with a dull ache.
Could that even be called an embrace?
It couldn't have been sincere, and as an attempt at seduction, it was pathetic.
She hadn't wrapped her arms around him or clumsily pressed her body against his. In truth, she had barely touched him at all. Yet the moment Oscar realized he’d held his breath before this woman—who had approached with little more than a whisper of contact—he wanted to laugh at his own pathetic state.
Forgetting even to breathe as he stared into her fear-stricken brown eyes, he finally snatched her. He dragged her past the bathroom and into the dim bedroom. The room had been cleaned so immaculately that not a trace of last night remained, yet the phantom stench of raw, filthy lust still stung his nose.
Pathetic bastard.
Oscar let out a shallow breath, glaring at the room where only the roar of the rain echoed.
Fucking lunatic.
Yes, he had to be losing his mind.
If he were in his right mind, he never would have done this. If one of his Wolves had pulled a stunt like this, he would have disposed of them on the spot. And yet, even knowing this, Oscar couldn't stop himself from hurtling headlong toward this Outsider.
Staying by his side... asking when he would return.
He couldn't tell if he was being played by such cheap tricks or if he was simply drowning in his own filthy, wretched lust.
He cupped her small head and gripped her arm. Holding her fast so she couldn't escape, he crashed his mouth onto hers, swallowing the very lips he had devoured all night—the lips that, damn it all, he couldn't stop thinking about.
He tasted copper. Her dry, chapped lips radiated nothing but the heat of a fresh wound. She had no technique, barely pressed back. There was nothing special about her lips at all.
So why did it matter so much? What the hell was this?
Oscar relentlessly pursued her as she tried to turn her head away. Like a man possessed, he tried to swallow every breath that escaped her, ravaging her mouth again and again. Then, he paused.
Shhhhhhh—
The relentless, sickening downpour dragged him back to the abyss.
The woman lay disheveled beneath him, gasping for air as if she were about to die. Realizing his own body was still burning with desire, Oscar thought, Oscar von Reinhardt is being played like a fool by this naive Outsider.
Even as raw, red-hot desire surged through his veins, a splitting headache of pure irritation flared to life.
“I told you.”
She froze, her long, delicate eyelashes trembling. As she reflexively bit her saliva-slicked lips, Oscar spat the words at her.
“If you’re so desperate to throw yourself at me, then do it right.”
He watched his sharp words, each syllable laced with venom, pierce her.
“What the hell am I supposed to do if you just lie there like a corpse?”
Tilting his head, Oscar stared relentlessly into her eyes as she tried to look away, and growled, “Does this look like the face of someone who doesn’t mind? Huh?”
Staring into those brown eyes, which could neither swallow nor shed the tears welling within them, he thought:
Just run away.
Instead of staying here looking as pitiful as a beast caught by the scruff of its neck, just admit it was a mistake and run. As thanks for bringing me the key, I won't even tear your throat out as you flee...
“……”
“……”
It was an afternoon where the torrential downpour seemed to wash everything else away.
The dim light filtering through heavy clouds cast their overlapping shadows into a single, merged silhouette, its hazy outline too faint to capture their slightest tremors.
Oscar stared at her without blinking.
Something incredibly delicate brushed against his cheek. He felt her shivering, cold fingertips trace the edge of his jaw. Beneath long, tear-beaded lashes, her dark, shadowed eyes slowly closed. As a tear escaped her sealed lids and rolled down her cheek, she leaned in closer.
Something soft and warm pressed gently against his lower lip.
“……”
Oscar froze, his eyes wide as if his soul had fled his body. His heart seemed to stop beating.
A man frozen solid, and a woman kissing him, her trembling fingertips cupping his cheek.
The world around them grew a fraction darker. As the faint light that cast their shadow vanished entirely, Oscar's blue eyes deepened to obsidian black.
When he finally drew in the breath he’d been holding, the warm, earthy scent of fresh greenery filled his senses. The air she exhaled was as warm as her body, and he felt her shallow breath—so faint it couldn't stir a single thread—slip down his throat and fill his lungs.
It was a clumsy, awkward kiss.
So amateurish that if she truly meant to seduce him, she should have been far more provocative. Yet, it was this very clumsy, incomplete kiss that made his world go black.
Her tightly closed eyes, her wet lashes, her trembling fingertips, and her lips carrying that fresh, earthy scent.
He wanted to devour every part of her, leave nothing behind, and burn her to ash.
Every memory of last night, when they had coupled like wild beasts, came flooding back. The slick moisture that had eventually seeped from her tight, dry depths; the lips that had gasped, releasing the breath she’d held as he slowly forced his way up her narrow, smooth passage.
Oscar cupped the back of the head of the woman kissing him so clumsily. In an instant, their barely-touching lips crashed together, leaving no space between them. Her head was forced back, but Oscar cradled her skull with both hands and ruthlessly invaded her mouth.
The shallow breaths passing between their locked lips ground his razor-sharp reason to dust. Oscar swallowed her delicate, ecstatic sighs, tangling his tongue with her small, helpless one again and again.
It wasn't enough.
Lust boiled through him from head to toe, as if he’d been plunged into a furnace of molten desire. He could feel, with agonizing clarity, that the tip of his thick shaft—which had spent the night driving in and out of her—was already wet.
He pressed forward; she retreated. Oscar drove Seo-ah back until she hit the bed. As she fell helplessly onto the mattress and scrambled to sit up, he pinned her down, crushing her beneath his weight. Cupping her cheek, he captured her lips once more.
“Ah… mmph.”
Starved for air, she twisted her head, gasping. Even that small sound was so stimulating it made his blood run hot. Her pale skin flushed red under his touch. The ragged gasps reminded him so much of her cries at the peak of climax that he wanted nothing more than to drive himself into her right then and there.
He grabbed the collar of her coat. But just as he tried to strip her clothes off without breaking the kiss—
“I—I’ll do it!”
“……”
Oscar, who had been mindlessly devouring Seo-ah’s lips, froze at her desperate cry. Hovering over her like a predator pinning its prey, he slowly lifted himself up. He stared down at the disheveled woman beneath him.
“I’ll do it…”
She was deathly pale, a stark contrast to him, who had lost his mind and coupled with her like a beast in heat. The realization that she had been utterly repulsed by every second of their kiss made his unresolved frustration flare into a monstrous rage.
Oscar looked down at Seo-ah with eyes as cold as ice.
Whether she truly meant it or was simply terrified of his heavy silence, her trembling fingertips reached for her buttons.
Pop, pop. The faint sound of buttons slipping loose cut through the roaring downpour.
Lying on her back, she could only manage to unbutton her coat. As it fell open, it revealed the dress underneath—a cream-colored garment embroidered with tiny wildflowers, also fastened with buttons. Running from her collarbone down to her legs, they were much smaller than the ones on her coat.
Oscar watched with a blank expression as her hand moved to the top button of her dress. Her slender fingertips pinched the small, pearl-capped button and coaxed it through the buttonhole.
Click, click.
With each button she carefully undid, a scent that shouldn't have been there seemed to waft toward him. It was nothing like the sickeningly sweet smell of cosmetic powder or heavy perfume.
His damned, twisted lust conjured an incomprehensible urge, a desperate desire to bury his face in the widening gap of her dress.
His dark, sunken eyes grew even darker.
As her fingers reached the buttons over her chest, her movements faltered. Oscar met her eyes, but the moment she squeezed them shut to avoid his gaze, he let out a cruel chuckle and whispered, “I’m getting tired of waiting.”
Her hands quickened.
When told to endure, she endured, even if it felt like death. When told to undress, she undressed.
She was so incredibly obedient. Why, then, could she not obey the one command that mattered most—to leave?