No Such Thing as a Chaste Man! Just Give It Ten Tries! - Chapter 24
Seo-ah barely managed to twist her head and break away from his lips.
“Your Holiness, um… a-are you alright?”
Though she turned her face to avoid his kiss, she couldn’t entirely escape. His lips, undeterred by the change in target, clung tenaciously to her cheek, her earlobe, just beneath her ear, and down to the nape of her neck.
Unable to withstand his weight, Seo-ah stumbled back and found herself perched on the edge of a daybed.
The makeshift couch, placed on the balcony for those seeking clandestine moments, was spacious enough for one person to lie down comfortably.
“That wine earlier… are you sure there wasn’t something in it?”
“Why do you think so?”
Her attempt to stall for time proved futile. Lowering himself further, Ephelinus braced himself on either side of her, burying his face against her neck once more.
The organza cape he had draped to cover her bare skin had long since crumpled to the floor, discarded under his movements. Under his steady pressure, Seo-ah unconsciously retreated further back.
By the time her legs were almost entirely on the couch, the man who followed her was so close their shoulders nearly touched. From such an intimate distance, Ephelinus’s lips were now exploring the area just below her collarbone.
Any further, and he would venture into the domain of her rounded chest, where the curve of her cleavage swelled prominently.
And below that…
His breath on her skin felt hotter than it had any right to be.
Even though this was what she had longed for, the surrealness of the situation made it overwhelming.
The lack of hesitation in his actions, his relentless drive, left Seo-ah feeling almost daunted.
She opened her lips, damp with his saliva, and whispered in a trembling voice, almost pleading,
“Your Holiness… you didn’t mean for this to happen, did you?”
At her question, the man who had been pressing his lips against her chest raised his head. His gaze bore down on her—a gaze unlike any she had ever seen before.
The traces of tears that had once marked his face were long gone. His usually clear, dazzling blue eyes now clouded with a heated intensity, his usual resolute composure seemingly eroded.
“Why do you keep asking that now?”
His voice cracked slightly, his expression contorting as though in pain. It seemed like a scornful laugh directed at himself, yet also like the frustration of being held back by her doubts.
“You don’t need it anymore, do you? I took the sleeping aid. We exchanged bodily fluids… I think we’re past that point now.”
“Ah, no…!”
Seo-ah shook her head frantically.
“You’ve done this so many times before. You said you were curious about intimacy, that sleeping alone frightened you, that your bed was unusable because of an accidental fire, that you missed the warmth of another…”
Hearing the list of her ploys spill from his lips, Seo-ah’s face turned a deep, fiery red.
“Even when you took aphrodisiacs and made me explore your most private places…”
At last, when he mentioned the most mortifying incident, Seo-ah’s face twisted as if on the verge of tears.
“Wasn’t it all because you wanted this? Or are you saying you’ll regret it now?”
His relentless barrage of questions sounded almost irritable.
“You said it didn’t have to mean anything at first, but if it did, you’d prefer it to be with someone you liked.”
“……”
“Do you not like me anymore?”
For a moment, his tone shifted, softer, almost vulnerable.
Startled, Seo-ah looked up at him.
His piercing blue eyes, locked on her, glistened faintly with unshed tears. In the moonlight, his watery gaze shimmered like rippling waves on the ocean at night.
“Did I push you too hard? Have you lost interest after kissing me?”
“No, I… I still like you!”
Desperate to prevent him from shedding tears, Seo-ah denied his words immediately. While his tears, with their delicate hue, would surely have looked beautiful, she had no desire to make him cry from misunderstanding.
“But… if Your Holiness’s arousal right now isn’t truly your own, if it’s because of something you unknowingly ingested…”
“Seo-ah.”
A single tear that had been welling up in his eye finally fell, trailing down his impeccably sculpted cheek. The path it carved glinted under the moonlight. As more tears pooled in his eyes, his gaze shone brilliantly, like a blue moon sinking beneath the horizon.
“It’s too late. The reason doesn’t matter anymore.”
His hand moved slowly to her cheek, brushing against her skin with such tenderness that Seo-ah couldn’t help but feel a pang of emotion. His fingers traced the contours of her face, as if memorizing its every line, before catching a stray lock of hair curled delicately by her ear. He pressed his lips to it with a soft, fleeting kiss.
Though the sound of the kiss was faint, in Seo-ah’s ears, it reverberated like a thunderous alarm, declaring that there was no turning back now.
“If you’ll just forgive me… I…”
He pulled back, creating a small distance between them. Seo-ah, relieved for a moment by the slackened tension, hesitated.
“Your Holiness…?”
“I think… I’ll let myself be selfish this once.”
