Chapter 51
The scar was drinking in her holy power at an even faster rate than when they had kissed before.
It was a ravenous force, as though it meant to devour every last wisp of her energy.
“H-H, haah…”
And that wasn’t all.
Every time her holy power pulsed and pooled into the scar, it was as though the pit of her stomach was stimulated in turn, heat rising and saliva flooding her mouth.
Fever surged to her head, and she felt her reason melting away into a sticky mess.
Crack.
The solid ceramic tub began to splinter into fine cracks along the path of Edward’s grip.
Water seeping from the tub soaked the floor, and thoroughly drenched the hem of Lucy’s skirt where she knelt on the bathroom tiles.
Even then, Lucy couldn’t lift her body.
Every nerve in her body seemed to be rushing to the tips of her fingers where they touched Edward.
Each time her holy power crossed over, the bundles of nerves seemed to shudder, tingling down her entire arm, screaming, “I am here.”
‘Why on earth…’
It was just skin. So why did it feel so dense and thick, so cloying?
As if she had plunged her hand into a jar of sticky, viscous scented oil.
Even though the bathroom was thick with hot air, goosebumps prickled up all over her wet, bare skin.
‘Cold.’
Strange. It was hot, but she was cold.
‘It feels like I’ve swallowed a block of burning ice.’
Hot—no, cold. Hot—no, cold…
Amidst her flailing reason, Lucy moved in search of warmth.
Toward the closest source, the body that radiated heat.
“…Damn it.”
The moment she heard that voice, so low it raised the hair on her skin.
Splash!
In an instant, her body was pulled toward the warmth.
“H-H, ngh…!”
When she came to her senses, she was floundering helplessly in the tub full of hot water.
To be precise, in the arms of Edward, who sat inside it.
‘Ah.’
Red eyes gleamed more dazzlingly than ever before as they looked down at her.
Just meeting those eyes was enough to render her body immobile.
As if she had become a mouse standing before a snake that meant to devour her.
Yet the shiver running through Lucy was not from terror alone.
Her entire body prickled with hypersensitivity, and the space between her legs grew wet before she even knew it.
The peaks at the tips of her b*****s were the same.
Even the brush of her clothes against her skin felt painful.
‘When I haven’t even done anything, why…’
Before she could even force out the question—
“Mm…!”
Something hot and plush covered Lucy’s mouth entirely.
At the sensation of being devoured, she opened her mouth, and a thick, heavy mass pushed deep inside the small space as though it had been waiting.
“Ah…!”
The moan she tried to let out scattered and vanished into the dark cavern of his mouth.
The searing flesh swept over the inside of Lucy’s mouth, over her teeth, and then drove in deep, as though it meant to slide all the way down her throat.
The corners of her mouth, stretched to their limit, ached, but she had no room to care.
Hanging helplessly amidst the deluge of sensation, Lucy simply received the kiss.
Her consciousness grew hazier and hazier.
‘This…’
Is this what a kiss is?
Even the words that surfaced in her fragmenting reason scattered away.
Edward, too, had no composure to spare.
His entire body canted toward the small thing in his arms.
A thirst rose up, billowing—a thirst that no amount of biting or sucking could quench.
“H-H, haah…”
Hearing that moaning voice, a desire so overwhelming that it bewildered even himself encroached upon his mind.
Even though this was the very loss of self-control he so detested…
Rather than having his reason return and delivering a fist of contempt to his lower half, he was willingly throwing his body into it.
‘Damn it.’
This was never—absolutely never—what he had intended from the start.
Just moments before.
The words he had spoken about washing the woman himself had not been empty.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve bathed an animal.’
He had merely been thinking with idle ease, the way one might bathe a pet mouse.
But what had come back at him was the offer to serve him instead.
‘With those tiny hands, what could she possibly…’
Even before that, Edward had never allowed anyone else to assist him in the bath.
He didn’t even let others help him change his clothes.
He disliked the very act of close contact with another person.
So he could have simply refused.
And yet, for some reason, the word no would not leave his lips.
