What Had to Be Done (2)
"Young Master Ethan."
"...Yeah, Lilith."
"There is something I must say to you before we go to sleep like this."
"...Ah, right. I was actually just about to say something myself."
What? So the fact that he was about to bring it up means he'd been having those lecherous thoughts all along too? Even as I noted how unexpectedly honest he could be, the moment I resolved myself to relieve his lust, Ethan sat up on the bed, threw on his coat, and began preparing to leave the room entirely.
"Young Master Ethan? What are you doing right now...?"
"After going through something like that, I completely understand if you don't want to share a bed with me tonight, Lilith. So I'll sleep outside and come back in the morning. I'm sorry for frightening you, Lilith."
"W-Wait a moment...!!"
Thwump!
What the— out of nowhere?! He'd been lunging at me on the bed in a mad rush just minutes ago, and now suddenly he was inventing some absurd misunderstanding and trying to distance himself?!
The instant I grabbed Ethan's sleeve to stop him from walking out through the door, he froze, and this time it was he who seized my wrist, turning back to look at me with a bewildered expression.
"...Lilith?"
"J-Just a moment! What I wanted to say isn't— isn't that at all...!"
"Okay, okay, calm down. You'll wake Isabel."
"......Yes."
Thankfully, a quick glance sideways confirmed that the door to the servants' waiting room where Isabel slept was still firmly shut. I suppose I should count myself lucky she was a heavy sleeper.
"So? What was it you wanted to say, Lilith?"
"Well, it's, um... that is..."
Ethan had turned fully around at my tug on his sleeve, and now he stood there quietly watching me, which made the words I needed to say suddenly refuse to come out.
Stopping Ethan on his way out had been the easy part. But how on earth was I supposed to naturally bring up the topic of 'relieving his lust' in this kind of atmosphere? And beyond that—what exactly was I supposed to do, and how, to relieve it? The same worry spiraling through my head tangled my thoughts in seconds.
Should I just tell him he can grope my chest like usual again? Or do I need to take Ethan's... thing in my hand like last time?
A man's lust, generally speaking, meant wanting enough pleasure to reach climax. At least that was how it had felt back when I'd been a man, so I doubted the reality was any different.
But flatly telling Ethan, "I'll get you off, so drop your pants and take it out" might well only wound his pride instead.
Last time in the bath, Ethan had been just as naked as I was, so having his member touched hadn't been particularly shameful for him. But if I suddenly announced I was going to relieve his lust and then told him to expose himself alone? As a noble's son, he would inevitably feel the burn of humiliation.
There was no need to heap that kind of shame on Ethan, who was already wracked with guilt over what he'd done to me.
On the other hand, having him just grope my chest like always felt too weak an option—because the biggest flaw in that approach was that it couldn't bring him to completion.
Lilith's chest ranked first or second in size among all the heroines, so as far as his heart went, simply seeing and touching it would satisfy him completely. But precisely because the most important act for actually relieving lust would remain impossible, his satisfaction would suffer for it.
To put it in terms of my old world, it would be like edging through hours of porn and then ending happy time still hard, without ever finishing the job. In a sense, it might actually leave Ethan worse off.
Neither act alone could fully discharge the lust modern Ethan carried, and yet I couldn't exactly just let him walk out of the dormitory room either.
...No help for it, then.
In the end, my choice could only converge on a single option—one that would resolve Ethan's lust while sparing him any shame, satisfy his heart, and bring the act itself to a proper finish all at once.
"...Young Master Ethan."
"Yeah, Lilith."
"I was not hurt by you in any way, and what you did just now did not frighten me."
"......"
"This is the proof."
I pulled on the sleeve I'd been gripping and drew his hand up onto the front of my uniform. Ethan's eyes, which had been gazing at me with an apologetic look, went wide and darted left and right.
His hand came to rest on my chest, and he looked profoundly flustered by the sensation he hadn't felt in so long. True, he was feeling it through the thick fabric of my academy uniform—but Lilith's chest was not the kind of thing that went numb through a dozen layers of cloth, the way Agnes's would.
Squish.
"Nnh... hnngh..."
"L-Lilith..."
"I-If I had truly been frightened by what you said, Young Master Ethan, would I be able to bring your hand to my body with my own two hands, like this?"
"......"
"If anything, I am grateful to you for confessing your feelings so honestly. And the mere fact that you spoke aloud the words you'd been keeping bottled up inside tells me that you are, beyond any doubt, a man of real courage, Young Master Ethan."
"Lilith..."
"Which means this time, it is your turn to convince me. ...You must understand, beyond all doubt, that I hold no resentment toward you."
We had stopped Ethan on his way out, and now we were back on the bed.
Seated side by side on the soft mattress, Ethan and I kept stealing awkward glances at each other.
"...Um, Lilith?"
"...Yes, Young Master Ethan."
"I know you trust me, so couldn't we just... sleep side by side like this? You falling asleep peacefully beside me would prove what you said just now well enough on its own, I think."
"...No. It will not."
I shot down Ethan's proposal—an attempt to flip the whole board just when I'd finally, painstakingly built this atmosphere up.
By his logic, simply lying down beside him might prove I wasn't afraid of him. But it fell far short of what I needed.
Because if I let it slide, my plan—relieving Ethan's lust tonight and preventing anything like this from ever happening again—would collapse before it started.
And the chest he'd brushed against moments ago had been burning ever since, too.
No, that part doesn't matter one way or the other.
Either way: no. It had to be no.
I had steeled myself to do this for him—if he turned me down, that was something that simply could not be allowed to happen.
"Young Master Ethan."
"...Yeah."
"You may simply do as you always have. Knead my chest to your heart's content, and relieve your 'lust' as before."
"...All right. If you've gone this far to tell me, refusing again would only wound your pride in turn, wouldn't it."
Thankfully, Ethan seemed to have grasped most of what I meant, and at last he nodded to my proposal. He brought both hands to the front of my uniform and began peeling away what I wore, one layer at a time.
Swoosh. Swisssh.
"......"
Tap, pop, tap, tap.
"...Nnh, hnngh."
Rustle, rustle...
"Hnn, hah... hahh..."
Off came the uniform jacket, undone came the buttons of the blouse beneath, then off came the blouse as well.
As Ethan's hands drew closer and closer to my bare body, I was seized by a strange sensation that made it oddly difficult to breathe.
"Hah... hah, hah..."
"Lilith, are you okay? If it scares you, we can stop right now."
"N-No... I am n-not frightened..."
"But you're out of breath. And your breathing's all uneven..."
"...I told you it is not."
"......Understood, Lilith."
At last my words got through to the man who kept interrupting with his irritating little check-ins, and he brought both hands to the center of the front-hook bra I wore.
Click.
"Hnnngh..."
Bounce.
With the final safeguard supporting my chest gone, my breasts spilled free and tumbled forward, right into Ethan's view.
It might be a little immodest to say it about myself, but if any object in this world was made to be described with the word 'bounce,' it was surely these breasts of mine.
"Lilith... did you get bigger since last time?"
"The chest of my clothing has been somewhat tight lately, yes. I have had the blouse and uniform jacket altered with extra fabric, but the structure of my undergarments is beyond what Isabel's sewing skills or my own can manage..."
"...When we get back to the Blackwood Territory, new undergarments go to the top of the list."
"Never mind that—hurry up and knead my chest like you always do. Did you not promise to accept my proof that I trust you, Young Master Ethan?"
"...Understood, Lilith."
Only after hearing me out did Ethan finally lift his hands and press them into my bared breasts—and the instant his palms met my flesh, something like a jolt of lightning shot through my skull.
Squiiiish!
"Hnngh—hnyaaahh...!!"
Counting back from the last time he'd touched me, it had been nearly half a year since Ethan's hands had last found my chest.
In those six months, Ethan had been sparring exclusively against Harold, who fought with every ounce of stamina and mana he possessed—and against that Harold, Ethan still hadn't managed to take a single match.
There had been moments I worried he'd simply grown bored of my chest and lost his enthusiasm. But judging by these still eager, still skillful movements of his hands, apparently not in the slightest.
Squish, squish!
"Hnngh—nh...! Hah, hahgnh...!!"
Squish, squish!
"Hah, hah, h-haah...! Haghnnh...!!"
Every time Ethan's hands kneaded into my breasts, pleasure came crashing over me without pause, like my head was being roasted over an electric grill again and again.
I'd thought that after more than a year of this, I'd grown fairly used to having my chest handled. Apparently that had been nothing but my own delusion.
It had been barely half a year since anyone had touched me there, and yet a pleasure every bit as unfamiliar as the very first time swept through my whole body. No—maybe it was even stronger than back then.
Washed in that relentless, rolling tide of pleasure, I had neither the composure to hold back my moans nor the presence of mind to hide the expression on my face. The thought that I should do something about it never even formed, and neither did any sense of duty that I ought to.
I just wanted to surrender myself to the pleasure, led along by Ethan's hands exactly as I was. Something told me, somehow, that it would be all right to do so.
Pinch.
"Hnyaaaaaahn?!"
Pulling on my nipples is cheating, you bastard...!
Squeeze.
"Hngih—ahgahaaaahn...?!"
And after yanking them hard, he went and pressed his fingers straight in, pushing them back inside.
It had been half a year for Ethan too, apparently, yet he'd remembered every one of my body's weak spots in no time at all.
And with hands that skilled working over my chest, every thought and plan I'd originally intended to carry out kept dissolving like mist in fog before his breast massage.
"Hyaaaah, hah, hah... Nnhyah, hah..."
"Lilith... you sure you're okay...?"
"I-I am fine, Young Master Ethan..."
"If it's too much after so long, we could stop here and..."
"...Young Master Ethan."
"Y-Yes?"
"If you say 'let's stop' one more time, or so much as suggest we quit here... then I may very well genuinely come to dislike you, Young Master Ethan."
"...Understood, Lilith."
"Do not say you will stop until I am the one who tells you we are done."
He nodded his understanding at my grave and solemn demand, then reached right back out for my chest and resumed kneading those great mounds of fat.
Squish, squish.
"Hnngh, nh... haaah..."
And right after that, the deep tide of pleasure came flooding in all over again.
Before this sensation could cloud my thoughts a second time, I had to hurry on to the 'next stage.'
Letting Ethan do nothing but knead my chest from now until forever would never relieve his 'lust' to the end.
Clack.
"...Lilith?"
"Hold still, Young Master Ethan."
Ziiip.
"......"
"......"
I undid the buckle of the uniform trousers Ethan wore, drew down the zipper, and peeled open the front of his pants.
Ignoring his flustered questions as tactfully as I could manage, I pulled his trousers and undergarments down to mid-thigh without a moment's hesitation.
Tug.
"Ah."
Ethan's 'dragon'—hidden away beneath those stiff uniform trousers—revealed itself to the open air at last.