“Your… High… ness…?”

Aidel’s eyes were still hazy. She barely managed to turn her body to confirm who it was.

“Ah…!”

As her unsteady body swayed again, Caeron wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tightly against him.

Aidel also clung to him, gripping his forearms tightly. This caused his loosely draped robe to part on both sides, revealing his perfectly chiseled chest muscles.

Their bodies pressed together without an inch of space between them. Through the deeply cut neckline, the swell of her upper chest touched directly against his bare chest.

At that vivid sensation of skin against skin, the smile disappeared completely from Caeron’s face.

The woman’s body was tantalizingly warm and soft. The fragrant scent emanating from her body grew even stronger due to her elevated temperature.

Caeron gritted his teeth as the desire to bury himself in the woman’s body welled up. His grip tightened on Aidel’s slender waist.

“It is you…”

Having confirmed Caeron’s face, Aidel smiled brightly, oblivious to his state.

Her hand touched Caeron’s cheek. Barely lifting her half-closed eyelids, she carefully traced his blurry face.

“Your Highness the Grand Duke…”

Was it because of the alcohol? Aidel felt unusually brave.

She had regretted just looking at him in her dream last time and then closing her eyes.

‘Since it’s just a dream anyway…’

Back then she had only looked at him, but… today she wanted to freely express what she had kept only in her heart.

“…What are you doing?”

Caeron’s face, which had been full of tension from her stimulation, now showed clear bewilderment at her sudden actions.

The woman who normally wouldn’t even make proper eye contact was now boldly touching his face from forehead to chin.

“How… did you come to look like this…”

Her gaze as she muttered to herself was like that of a scholar absorbed in research, or an artist studying a work of art.

Her fingers traced a gentle line, slowly moving down from his face. That movement passed over his prominently bobbing Adam’s apple and continued to his straight collarbone.

“Like a sculpture…”

With a soft sigh, her fingers circled over his firmly built chest muscles after passing his collarbone.

“…You…”

Though her exploring touch lacked any sticky feeling and was utterly innocent, the fact that it was Aidel doing it made it extraordinary.

Just making eye contact with her was enough to ignite his desires, and now everywhere her hands touched felt burning hot.

‘This is maddening…’

He laughed bitterly. Caeron was truly on the verge of losing his mind at this unexpected situation.

This woman smiling faintly and exploring his body with hazy eyes was clearly not in her right mind.

Caeron had entered the Grand Duchess’s room connected to the Grand Duke’s chamber and spotted the silhouette of a woman leaning against the table by the window.

Seeing the half-empty wine bottle and Aidel’s unusually disheveled posture, Caeron raised an eyebrow.

Even as he approached, she didn’t notice his presence and remained blankly leaning on the table. Suddenly she stood up and began slowly walking towards the bed.

Her unsteady, swaying movements looked precarious. The moment he caught her in his arms as she lost her sense of direction and fell, he instantly realized. That this woman was intoxicated.

‘I thought she would have sobered up somewhat by now…’

Looking closely, she was far beyond the light tipsiness from earlier at the banquet. Moreover, in her completely drunken state, she began to act in ways he could never have imagined.

If these actions were meant to seduce him, he would have carried her straight to bed without hesitation, but…

Her childlike, innocent gaze looked at him with pure admiration. In contrast, the alluring figure of the woman in her daring negligee created a conflicting harmony that drove the observer mad.

Feeling powerless for the first time in his life, Caeron gritted his teeth. He was enduring her torture, unable to do this or that.

As the innocent torturer’s fingers passed his split pectorals and moved lower, he finally couldn’t bear it anymore and grabbed her wrist.

The skilled negotiator quickly thought of an appropriate way to subdue this reckless woman. He gazed at her with meaningful eyes.

“Do you want to touch more?”

At his suggestive tone, Aidel nodded her head with a bright smile.

At first, she had wanted to imprint every detail of the face of this man she normally wouldn’t dare touch. Then as her gaze gradually moved lower, exclamations of admiration came naturally.

The man’s well-built body, like a masterpiece sculpture, was delicate and beautiful. It felt completely different from the anatomical structures she had seen in book illustrations.

That unfamiliar curiosity drew her in. She wanted to know more, to feel it for herself.

“Then stay still.”

Hearing the answer he wanted, Caeron smiled deeply and lifted Aidel into his arms. He immediately headed for the bed and laid her down on the sheets. He too got onto the bed.

The woman in the see-through negligee was visually stimulating enough just lying on the bed.

Though he was desperate with the urge to explore every inch of her beautiful body right away… looking at her bewildered eyes, Caeron barely managed to rein in his rationality.

“Listen carefully. If you touch me, I’ll touch you too.”

Aidel’s eyes widened slightly. He whispered softly in her ear.

“That’s fair, isn’t it, Aidel?”

After pondering for a moment, Aidel nodded readily, recalling the economic concept of equivalent exchange.

With her permission, he lowered his head and kissed her forehead. At the sudden kiss, she trembled slightly and squeezed her eyes shut.

His lips began to slowly trace the path her hands had touched, one by one. From her forehead, over her fluttering eyelids, her delicate eyebrows and cute nose…

Aidel’s senses became extremely sensitive to the hot press of his lingering lips. Ragged breaths escaped between her parted lips.

He completely devoured those lips exhaling sweet breaths. Unlike the light kiss during the ceremony, their breaths now intertwined fiercely.

After gazing satisfactorily at her swollen flower-like lips, he moved his route. It was that white neck he had been dying to bite.

Caeron pressed his lips there where her scent was deeply infused, sucking hard. The increasingly intense fragrance drove him mad.

His movements, which had clearly started at a slow pace, became uncontrollably fast like his pounding heartbeat. He grew increasingly rough, like a beast blindly ravishing a flower.

“…!”

When his lips passed her neck and touched her collarbone, about to go lower, Aidel’s eyes flew open wide as her mind suddenly cleared.

Was this tingling, numb sensation really a dream…?

The hot breath digging into her skin like a branding iron felt so vivid it gave her goosebumps.

“Wait… wait a moment, Your Highness…”

Aidel urgently called out to him in a pained voice. He raised his head from where it had been buried.

Aidel felt dizzy from the breathtakingly intense gaze looking at her.

“…I want to stop now.”

It felt like she would be devoured at any moment. She instinctively squirmed, trying to get away from him.

“…Stay still.”

His voice was deep, as if something was being suppressed. His increasingly rapid breaths could be clearly felt.

“The more you move, the more stimulating it is.”

At Caeron’s words, Aidel’s body flinched and stopped resisting to escape. Her trembling eyes wandered aimlessly over his face, unable to do this or that.

Seeing Aidel’s confused state, Caeron paused his exploration of her for a moment. He intellectually understood the woman’s fear at experiencing unfamiliar acts for the first time. But his damn body was different.

Steadying his rough breathing along with the desire about to burst forth, he soothed her in a subtle voice.

“You may have started this, but I should be the one to finish it.”

The man’s lips that had roughly touched the woman’s body were swollen and flushed red. He smoothly curved those reddened lips as he continued speaking.

“That’s fair, isn’t it, Aidel?”

It was clearly the same question as before. But this time, she couldn’t recall the concept of equivalent exchange.

Now completely sober, her eyes began to recognize the man above her even more clearly.

“Could this possibly be… not a dream?”

Her large lime-green eyes trembled like grass leaves in a harsh wind, filled with disbelief. She shook her head slightly as if denying the reality she absolutely didn’t want to believe.

“Whether it’s a dream or not… does that matter?”

Caeron chuckled lowly, as if amused by her reaction now that she had finally come to her senses, and whispered softly.

“Whether in dreams or reality… you are my Grand Duchess.”

His gaze holding her grew more intense along with his deepening possessiveness.

“Even so… we’re in a contractual relationship, aren’t we?”

It felt like her pounding heart would burst out at any moment. Aidel barely swallowed her panting breaths.

“Yes. We agreed to faithfully fulfill that contract. That you would do your best to fulfill the duties given to the Grand Duchess.”

“This kind of duty… wasn’t in the contract.”

Aidel shook her head in denial. Gazing steadily down at her, he gladly reminded her.

“Wasn’t it you who agreed to the duty of producing an heir?”

‘Producing an heir…?’

Aidel’s eyes widened again at that word being mentioned once more. It was the same word Marlin had said to her yesterday.

− I know about the duty of producing an heir.

− Do you… really know?

− Of course. I already discussed that part with His Highness the Grand Duke.

The expression of utter disbelief on Marlin’s face as she stared blankly at those words came to mind.

“Could it be that producing an heir means…?”

Aidel now realized that the scope of heir production she had thought of was completely different.

Caeron too, seeing her shaking eyes filled with shock, realized that she had agreed without properly understanding what producing an heir entailed.

It had seemed strange from the start when she said with a clear face that she was confident about producing an heir and would do her best.

‘Even if that’s the case…’

Caeron was not generous enough to simply let go of the target that had fallen into his hands.

His way was to bind even more tightly and keep by his side anything trying to escape.

“That’s right. To produce an heir…”

Caeron gently stroked Aidel’s completely stiffened cheek.

“First we need to engage in heir production, don’t we?”

He enlightened her to the merciless truth in the tone of a kind teacher.