I Thought I Was the Monster Duke's Fake Tranquilizer - Chapter 28
No matter how many times she looked, that chestâseeming to possess a will of its ownâappeared even larger than Lucy’s own.
‘No matter how I think about it, he’s the one who should be wearing a brassiere.’
Lucy’s helplessly trembling pupils were just trailing over his sinewy forearms and the abdominal muscles visible beneath his shirt whenâ
Squish.
Both her cheeks were seized by a large hand.
Startled, she tried to jerk her body back, but that, too, failed quite naturally.
‘How can he do that without even using any force…’
He hadn’t restrained her by force.
But merely having her face cupped firmly in that large, burning hand was enough to make it impossible to pull away.
‘Am I really this pathetically weak?’
Her pride was taking yet another hit whenâ
“…”
Stride.
Edward’s faceâno different from a natural disasterâdrew close.
Admiration erupted unbidden in Lucy’s heart.
‘A male lead is a male lead, I suppose.’
Even with his brow furrowed, it was a face so exquisitely pretty it was terrifying.
No. Was it pretty, but terrifying?
It was the sort of face that entranced you beyond all resistance, even when you knew full well what a bastard he was, what a frightening person.
“…You.”
The low voice that emerged lingered just above Lucy’s lips.
His long lashes grazed her forehead precariously. The sculpted bridge of his nose flaunted its presence over her cheek.
And beneath that, further still.
‘Even his lips are pretty.’
Those thin, composed, red lips…
[Edward’s scorching lips crawled over Sepina’s lips.]
[The fervent red flesh parted her teeth, swept across the roof of her mouth, and then…]
The phrases from the original work streaked across Lucy’s mind before she could stop them. It was beyond her control.
‘Th-Think of something else.’
Something unrelated to those lips, anything…
“And kisses?”
“Why would we need to do kisâ I mean! Yes, of course!”
“This purifier can do it all!”
Yet what surfaced was, once again, a thought involving lips.
Worse still, it was something she herself had boldly declared.
The conversation they’d shared about the contract, the one that still hadn’t been stamped.
‘Could it be…?’
Was he about to receive a kissâno, a purificationâright now…
‘…No. He couldn’t be. Of course not.’
Lucy’s reason, which had been on the verge of fleeing, came scrambling back.
After all, unfurling his wings like that must have expended a fair amount of magic power.
And if he had been at the temple to see Sepina, some taint must have accumulated as well.
‘So it would make sense that he needs a purification…’
But the soul of a veteran romance fantasy reader whispered slyly.
‘Still, this development is a bit much.’
The male lead drawing close. And herself thinking, oh my, is he going to kiss me? Her heart skipping a beat before she even knew it.
‘This is far too familiar a development.’
The kind that usually ended with a misunderstanding on her part.
Come to think of it, she had bumped into his armor just moments ago.
‘Could it be that he’s worrying about me again?’
It didn’t feel unpleasant.
She had thought it would be difficult to appease the capricious male lead, but it seemed she was managing to do so sooner than expected. There was even a hint of pride in that.
Giving up on freeing herself from the hand that held her, Lucy grinned.
Her small hands were already rubbing together, fully prepared to fawn.
‘Were you surprised? I’m not hurt at all. If you’re bothered by the face-print I left on your armor, I’ll polish it up so shiny for yâ…’
“Shall we kiss?”
“Ye… What?!”
But the words she had so carefully prepared crumbled to dust in the face of that single sentence.
* * *
While Lucy was widening her eyes in something that wasâand wasn’tâshock.
Edward had been staring at her dumbfounded face the entire time.
The woman’s mouth hung open like a cave.
Soon, the small, red tongue within it caught sharply in his gaze.
It was an adorably tiny tongue, the kind that made you want to press down on it with your thumb.
‘So that’s the tongue she’s been using to fawn over me all this time.’
A coy little tongue that made him curiousâjust how high would she jump if he were to bite down on it?
Feeling a strange thirst, Edward cocked his head.
Truth be told, he hadn’t originally intended to say something that amounted to, “Well, if we’re idle, shall we kiss?”
Bump.
Just moments ago, as he’d entered the room, something had collided with his back.
A very faint, soft soundâsomething not very strong making contact.
It was probably the woman following behind him who had bumped into him.
‘She must have been spacing out.’
As if, perhaps, she had been staring blankly at his back in admiration.
