But if I said that… Elhardt would probably stubbornly insist on sleeping on the floor himself.
“…No.”
When I answered hesitantly, he gazed at me for a moment before nodding.
“All right, then.”
Elhardt lay down beside me.
The bed was large enough that our bodies didn’t touch, but we were still very close.
Even the slightest movement would be transmitted directly to the other person.
“……”
How did this happen?
I can’t…
I can’t fall asleep.
Just a few days ago, I had slept without a second thought alongside the expedition members, with our sleeping bags lined up next to one another.
Why did this feel so different?
Especially when it was this man, Elhardt.
For some reason, I felt as though my breathing was unbearably loud.
Once I started paying attention to it, everything felt awkward.
‘Ah… Seriously, what is wrong with me?’
Unable to endure it any longer, I slightly opened my eyes and glanced at Elhardt.
Unlike me, he was sleeping peacefully.
‘Doesn’t sleeping on one side like that make your shoulder uncomfortable?’
Perhaps out of habit, Elhardt always slept facing me with his back against the wall.
Thanks to that, I could take a good look at his face like this.
‘He looks different with his eyes closed.’
Elhardt had long, sharp eyes, so when he was expressionless, he looked incredibly cold.
But whenever he spoke with me, his eyes softened, and there was always the faintest hint of a smile around his lips, making me mistake him for someone gentle by nature.
‘How can someone look like this?’
He really was handsome.
When he dressed himself up, his appearance stood out even more. The moment he entered the banquet hall, women had been stealing countless glances at him.
If he hadn’t been a hostage from Bardia, people would probably have flocked to him just for the chance to speak with him.
‘More than anything, he’s really beautiful when he smiles.’
Sometimes his eyes curved so much that his irises nearly disappeared, and when he smiled like that, faint dimples appeared in his cheeks.
‘Right about here….’
Perhaps I had become careless because he had been sleeping peacefully despite me staring at him for so long.
‘Ah…!’
Lost in thought, I unconsciously reached out and lightly poked his cheek.
I quickly withdrew my hand in surprise and held my breath as I watched him.
‘He won’t wake up from just that… right?’
I carefully pulled my hand away while staring at his closed eyes.
That was when his eyelids slowly lifted.
But for some reason… there wasn’t even a trace of sleepiness in his eyes.
It was as though he had merely been keeping them closed.
“Ser.”
“Hmm…?”
“Your competence is almost too much for me to deserve.”
A sudden compliment…?
“And yet, I still harbor impure intentions toward you. To the point that I sometimes wish you were just an ordinary woman.”
“…That’s only because you’ve seen so little of my abilities yet.”
My work as a maid was only a tiny fraction of what I was capable of.
At my answer, he let out a small laugh.
“Is that so?”
But his smile quickly disappeared.
“If the Crown Prince proposed to you… would you accept?”
What? He had been thinking about that?
Well, I suppose what happened earlier with the Crown Prince could easily have been misunderstood.
He had been holding my dress, while I was pressed closely against him in nothing but my undergarments.
“No. He’s not my type.”
The problem was that he looked far too much like Mikhail.
There was no way I could look at him with a purely romantic gaze.
“What if he offered you a deal in exchange for the things you value most?”
“Even then, no means no.”
If the price were something like sending me and the expedition members back three hundred years, perhaps I might consider it.
But there was no way that man possessed such an absurd ability.
When even stopping time for one or two seconds belonged to the realm of a great mage, turning back three hundred years would surely be something only a goddess could accomplish.
In any case, for anything else, I would choose to accomplish it with my own hands.
Even if it were difficult and meant taking a much longer route, that didn’t mean it was impossible.
“Then….”
Elhardt wrapped his fingers around the finger that had touched his cheek and pulled it toward himself.
“What about me?”
“What…?”
“What do you think of me?”
The moment I heard the question, my mind went completely blank.
What was he asking me right now?
“You said the Crown Prince isn’t your type.”
In other words, he was asking whether he was my type….
“You’re… um….”
I swallowed unconsciously.
I couldn’t bring myself to answer easily.
I had rejected the Crown Prince without hesitation.
‘Well, you are exactly my type.’
His face, his body, even his personality.
“Ser, you said you had a cold, didn’t you?”
Elhardt reached out his large hand and placed it against my forehead.
My face had heated up so quickly that I genuinely felt as though I had a fever.
“If you kiss me, your cold will get better.”
He spoke in a whisper.
“Uh… So, you’re asking me to… kiss you?”
He looked steadily into my eyes and asked again.
“Will you refuse?”
Like on the first day, he wanted to do that… Now…?
‘I want to.’
Where did that sudden urge come from?
Was it because I wanted to experience that strange, sweet sensation from that day again?
Or did I… actually want to do something with this man?
‘I don’t know.’
This was far too unfamiliar and difficult for me.
My mind was clearly engaged in fierce deliberation, yet my body betrayed my will and nodded.
‘He’s worried about me, isn’t he? He says he’ll make my cold go away.’
I didn’t… want to refuse.
Of course, I had never even caught a cold, and hiding behind an excuse was cowardly. I despised cowardice more than anything….
‘But what am I supposed to do when I don’t even understand why I’m acting like this?’
Maybe I would know if I tried just one more time.
Just once.
Countless thoughts collided in my head as I closed the distance of two handspans between us on my own.
Naturally, I approached him very slowly, and it must have taken dozens of breaths before our lips finally met.
But Elhardt didn’t rush me.
He simply waited there.
Waiting for me to kiss him.
“Close your eyes.”
At my whisper, he obediently closed his eyes.
At first, I merely brushed my lips against his lightly before pulling away.
Even that alone made me feel as though my heart were about to burst.
But I didn’t want to stop there.
‘A little more….’
Unable to resist, I lightly took hold of the lips I had kept glancing at because I found them so tempting.
Then I brushed the tip of my tongue against them, and just like that day, they tasted sweet, making my mouth water.
‘Why do they taste like this?’
We had drunk champagne, but we had come back, washed, and even brushed our teeth.
Drawn in by the addictive sweetness, I repeatedly licked his lips.
Then, at some point, I began pulling his tongue toward me and sucking on it.
“Mm…ngh….”
Our tongues tangled together like snakes, and our breathing grew ragged.
At some point, Elhardt had moved on top of me and cupped my cheek in his hand.
His hand was so large that it nearly reached the back of my neck.
His touch was incredibly careful, so gentle that it almost made me want to rub my face against his palm because it tickled.
I think I actually did, at least a little.
I could tell from the way his body stiffened for the briefest moment.
After that, he intertwined his tongue with mine far more urgently than before.
He devoured me as though he had lost all sense of reason.
‘I feel like I’m going to be eaten alive.’
Was I breathing this heavily because I wasn’t used to this?
Or was it because my heart was racing abnormally fast?
My mind was hazy.
“Ser.”
Elhardt parted his lips, glistening with saliva.
I stared intently at his lips.
Why did he stop?
He smiled as though he were pleased.
“Not enough, after all?”
The hand that had moved down from the back of my neck gently stroked my back.
Whenever my waist instinctively tensed, my chest was pressed and molded against his firm chest.
Why did even that feel so good?
My body no longer felt like my own.
Come to think of it, something hard was touching me lower down, too….
“Ah….”
A strange, breathy sound escaped my lips.
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