“If I don’t suck on candy, I feel like I’ll do something without realizing it.”

Looking at Elisha’s lips, swollen to a beautiful color like rose petals, Illeon felt his mouth go dry. He felt so suffocated that he wanted to loosen the tie he had hastily put on while dressing in a suit.

“What is it?”

“I wonder.”

If she knew what he wanted to do, Illeon wondered if Elisha could even stand before him. He could bet the duke’s mansion and the lands that came with it that she would run away in a flash if she knew his true intentions.

‘I thought I had seen enough of the bottom.’

Illeon had once fallen from a shining life that others envied to the most miserable place in an instant. Lying miserably on that bottom, floundering, he had witnessed ‘the very bottom of a person named Illeon’ himself.

Those were days stuck in a quagmire, a swamp.

Having abandoned his humanity and becoming selfabandoned, Illeon mocked himself as less than a beast. But because there seemed to be no end to that life, he became stagnant with his soul fading away.

He thought that was the real bottom.

But as he took Rona’s hand and found his daily life one by one, he was able to reassure himself every day that it was better than yesterday.

But could love be so contradictory?

He had conflicting desires to softly touch Elisha’s lips and to bite them until they swelled.

He wanted to see her crying in pain because of him without even seeing her smiling face properly.

He sometimes wanted to become a place where she could feel most relaxed and rest by holding her in his arms, and sometimes he wanted to hold her roughly until her waist was about to break.

This was truly his bottom.

It seemed as if his head had gone strange even though his eyes were fine.

‘I’ve never felt this way before.’

He had never harbored sympathy for a woman. Even at the age of sixteen, when he had an adult ceremony, Illeon had a physique that surpassed an adult’s.

As a result, there were times when curious, seductive glances lingered on him, who was young and outstanding, not just young.

But he did not remember any of those women.

He had doubted himself several times.

When beheading an enemy, their faces were clear, but once he entered the ball, it seemed like a flower garden where the same flowers were blooming.

A rose is a rose, a tulip is a tulip.

Pretty, but even if it blossomed fully in the royal garden, it was just a rose, and he passed by thinking so.

To Illeon, the existence of a woman has been reduced to, um, a woman, and that’s all.

But from the day he first saw Elisha in the palace, when he realized she was Rona, he felt something penetrate him from the top of his head.

‘It’s too hard to bear.’

He was a disciplined knight. He had tempered himself to become the living sword of the empire.

But every time he faced Elisha, he couldn’t bear the urge to touch her as his heart raced like madness.

‘I want to put her where I can touch her?’

Illeon chewed on his politely expressed inner thoughts.

‘I want to take her to the duke’s house right away.’

Skipping all manners and procedures.

But a nobleman’s marriage cannot be dealt with like a barbaric tribe’s plunder marriage.

For Elisha’s honor, to gain her parents’ approval, Illeon had donned the graceful facade of a duke over his beastly, rampaging instincts.

‘Come to think of it, I really haven’t seen her smile.’

Didn’t the butler say so?

“Her hair is blonde, but it’s not a common blonde, you know. It’s not a dull color, but a rich tealike hue. And her eye color is purple, but it’s not a very common purple. It’s dark, and it sparkles and shines when she smiles, giving a pure and cute impression.”

He hadn’t seen her sparkling and shining eyes as she smiled, as Bernard had described. The thought that his situation was even worse than the butler’s made him feel more miserable than anything else.

“If you want to do something, do it.”

Without knowing the thoughts that filled Illeon’s head, Elisha provoked him.

“Do you really think so?”
Yes, it might be better than regretting it later. It’s worth trying something.

The candy that had been sweetening her mouth had long since melted away.

Illeon looked at Elishia.

If only she would give her permission.

He would have nothing more to ask for.

Sharplong, who felt his gaze was unusual, coughed quietly from a distance.

“I’ll think about it a little more. The chances of regretting it seem high for now.”

Illeon took a small candy out of his pocket and handed one to Elishia, putting one in his own mouth as well.

“It’s delicious. It must be made by the Chevalier.”

Elishia casually mentioned the name of the Duke’s chef, seemingly unaware of the mistake she had made in tasting the candy.

“The Duke’s chef is skilled.”

“Oh. Wow. I didn’t know this place existed.”

Elishia exclaimed as she saw small lotuses blooming where the water was flowing thickly.

“This place is so vast that there are too many things I’ve never seen before. Ah, let’s hurry up and go see that.”

“Okay.”