Tantalizing
"Ugh... my head..."
Opening my eyes took only an instant.
It felt as if darkness had simply come and gone once—like night and day had switched places in a single heartbeat. That dazed sensation after a long, exhausting day, when you close your eyes for just a moment in bed and suddenly sunlight is stinging them. It had been a truly long time since I last felt it.
When I carefully tried to sit up, I felt myself completely unable to move and glanced downward.
Ah.
What were these violet cords?
"You're awake."
Looking to the side suddenly terrified me. She was right there beside me, blowing thoroughly damp breath against my ear, her voice fully ripe and heavy with heat.
"Evan. Look this way."
Her hand drifted lightly toward a place it had no business being—almost touching, almost not. Close enough that only the outer hairs brushed against me, yet never coming any nearer. Her mischievous little game.
"...Did you sleep well?"
"Mm. Extremely."
Words even more thoroughly soaked than before spilled from her lips.
"I'm overflowing with energy... enough that I could thrash about right this second."
A soft nasal sound finished the sentence. Her breath drew closer still, lightly tickling my cheek.
"Th-Thea, it's still morning."
"And what's wrong with morning?"
Hoo—
Hot wind swept over me once more. The kind of humid, scorching breeze that rises on a summer day just before rain. Yet the scent was spring—no, peach.
"Someone might see—"
"There's only the two of us here, Evan. You said it yourself—an empty village. Our quiet sanctuary, just for us. A holy place no one else can enter. Ours alone."
My ear was slowly enveloped by the breath she exhaled. The vibration of her throat spread into every curve and hollow of my ear without ever quite touching it.
"Evan... your ears are so tiny and cute, you know? They look like they could fit entirely inside my mouth. Hehe."
Drip.
The sound of a droplet falling. I did not want to know where it had come from. It had not hit the floor, nor my shoulder.
Tok.
A clearer sound rang out this time.
"Evan, how long are you going to keep me yearning, hmm?"
Every time her lips parted and closed, I heard that pleasant wet sound that used to come when our tongues tangled together.
"I've waited for you for so very long. Staying awake alone through every night you weren't there, pouring light from my hands again and again so your cooling body would grow warm, somehow managing to hold you even when sticky holy oil covered you, stroking your already bruised body more times than I can count. Those bitches roughly dumping you off the bed, driving me out of the forest along with you, chasing after me to rape me for taking you away, nearly falling for that necromancer's schemes while he stared at me with filthy eyes—I clenched my teeth and endured every last bit of it. For you."
The words burst out thick and muffled, now wet with tears. Just as I tried to turn my head to face Thea—
"Evan. How long did you wait for me?"
Her outstretched hand seized my face.
"I was this starved. My chest burned until it felt completely hollow now. So why do you keep looking as if you still have all the composure in the world?"
Words that never made it out of my mouth soaked her hand. I tried to turn my eyes to meet hers, but her gaze, hidden behind her hair, remained wrapped only in darkness.
A deep, heavy silence stretched on for a long while. I possessed none of the recklessness needed to break this moment. Regretting that I should have placed the happiness she wanted into her hands long ago, I looked at her staring blankly at me with an expression already hardened as if it were too late—and I felt I did not even have the right to shatter that thought.
"Shall we eat?"
That came a little later. Her hand slowly left my mouth, and another chance arrived for me.
"Euk—Evan—"
This time I did not miss it. Her lips, her body, her hands—everything. If we wanted to tangle, then we would tangle. What was there I could not give the woman who had dragged me out of death? Why had I kept twisting her face into that expression?
"Thea."
A short thread of saliva connected us, but it did not rejoin.
"I think it's all right if you don't force yourself."
"I'm not forcing anything."
"You are, though."
At those words my breath should not have caught in my throat—yet it did.
"...You're embarrassed, aren't you? Being this close to me in broad daylight. Entangling our tongues like this... pressing our bodies together. Is it too much for you?"
I gently pulled Thea's shoulder as she shifted a little closer. She rested a hand against my chest, smiling as she wound herself around me; I forced myself to shake my head. But I could not escape her sharp eyes.
"You know full well that denying it with a face that red is completely useless."
The woman who always caught my subtlest reactions and used them to tease me did not employ that talent for mockery this time. She closed the distance. The body she pressed against me toppled me back onto the bed with ridiculous ease.
Tak. Tak.
Trapped between her arms, I was on the verge of being enveloped by her once more. Yet she did not close the final gap. She simply met my eyes as I lay there and let her words flow slowly, in a coquettish voice.
"Why does it make you so uncomfortable? This is our space alone. No one will ever be able to interrupt us—that's obvious. Even in the middle of the day, there is no one who can see us. The only person who can appreciate my bare body is you. The only person who can covet your body is me. Just the two of us, inside this room. Are you really trying to refuse me because you're embarrassed, Evan?"
Tok. Tok.
Buttons came undone one by one. The clothes that had sealed her body away loosened. At the same time, that chest that seemed ready to overflow gradually revealed itself.
"Or is it that facing me like this... scares you because you won't be able to look at me 'purely' anymore?"
I wanted to answer her question with pride. I wanted to say that I loved the existence called Thea itself. I wanted to be different from those who had stared at her with ugly eyes, and I wanted to swear before her that I would face her with care. But I could not answer. I could not meet her eyes. I had been completely captivated by the beauty of a body I was seeing for the first time.
It shouldn't be like this. I couldn't disappoint her. Her fingertips toyed with a button, and then—tak—the cloth parted, and the wave of bare flesh that came into view was far too alluring.
Her embrace had always been full of warmth. Covered by a single layer of cloth, it could end as mere warmth. But if my face met that skin directly—if I could face her heat bare flesh to bare flesh... how much better would it feel?
Tik.
Her hand stopped at the fourth button. Still fastened, it held her clothes taut.
"Ha—"
A sigh burst out unbidden. It was not her voice. It was not a sound of disappointment at failing to undo a button, nor a sound of pleasure at being with me. That was why I could not believe it. I wanted to deny it. I could not accept it. Because that voice thick with longing belonged to no one but me.
"Ah."
With a shallow breath that was neither gasp nor sigh, a strange expression rose on her face.
"Evan... what's wrong?"
Tak, tak—the remaining buttons continued to bounce precariously before my eyes. I was growing impatient. I shouldn't. I was aching. I wanted her to hold me right this second. If she would not do it, I was beginning to want to do it myself. Instead of her fretting over a single button she could not free, I started wanting to tear the rest open.
"Why that expression..."
Looking me over through narrowed eyes, she let the tip of her tongue show just a little. The sight of her was fatally tempting. I could not endure it. I did not want to endure it. I wanted to topple her gently swaying body and bury myself in her. But the moment I reached out—just before my fingers touched her button—the chest vanished from before my eyes.
Only the scent of peach remained, alone in the empty space.
Startled by the sight, I turned my head. Thea had already risen from the bed and was calmly rebuttoning her clothes. Expressionless, she bluntly straightened her attire and opened the window. I could only watch her beautiful figure as she shook out her platinum hair.
"We should eat breakfast, shouldn't we?"
Saying that, she left me behind. Her expression looked a little blunt somewhere—different from every reaction she had shown until now.
My heated body cooled. My dazed head slowly cleared. And once it did, something suddenly made me afraid. When I had reached for her, she had left the bed without the slightest hesitation. That stabbed a corner of my heart.
Had the me who was about to fall for her in that moment been right? Beyond expressing love—was it all right to chase after pleasure? I remembered facing the pure white of her. In that instant I had not been looking at Thea's personality, her smile, her existence. I had been looking at her body. This was not pure. Thea had been surrounded by people who chased black desire—how could I treat her with a heart like this? Had she fled after seeing my body stir in pursuit of pleasure? Had she been disappointed in me?
For a long while I could not rise from the bed, sinking deep into thought. Perhaps I had made a terrible mistake. I prayed and prayed that at least it was not that.
I had always thought mornings were simple affairs. She would take a bite of fruit; I would slowly melt a hard piece of bread in my mouth. Sometimes I followed her lead and tasted various fruits as well. But today was different.
"Roast chicken and soup. Fresh-baked bread and tea."
Her face as she sliced a large piece of thigh meat onto my plate was slightly hardened. Thea's face—always full of smiles, always bright whenever she was before me...
I had resolved to love her purely. I had to be different from those who had tormented her. I was supposed to cradle Thea's wounded heart and give her happiness. And yet... the times she had smiled until now were when our tongues mixed, when we held each other, when she buried her face against my chest...?
Something no longer lined up. If she had wanted me to desire her more, she should not have stopped me the moment I tried to covet her. ...Was this not what she had wanted?
It was complicated. My head began to ache.
"Let's eat."
What pulled me back out of my tangled thoughts was her calm pre-meal greeting.
"...Let's eat..."
I faced a meal of unusually fine quality, yet I could not easily pick up my utensils. My heart was trembling. Anxiety was rising. Because it felt as though I had committed far too great a mistake.