RAMHM Chapter 113

I Want to Have You

When hot skin touched cold feet, she flinched. But there was no escape.

The moment she flinched, thick-jointed fingers wound tighter around her—a trap she couldn't slip, binding her fast.

He'd told her to have him.

Yet Rhodness, as if marking his territory instead, as if branding her, pressed his lips up along her prominent shinbone in a slow, deliberate trail.

"Rho—Rhoan!"

She called out urgently as the atmosphere grew too dangerous, but Rhodness didn't answer.

He simply bit the soft flesh inside her calf—gently, not to hurt—and murmured:

"...Am I too much of a coward?"

Lips curved in self-mockery invaded the inside of her knee before she could blink.

The room spun dizzily for a moment.

Red eyes looking up at her, lips still pressed to her skin—they strangled her throat as if physically clamping it shut. Even the smallest sound wouldn't come.

Eyes like fresh-cut beast's blood, like one ember moment sliced from charcoal that had burned long in fire.

Her throat went bone-dry. She swallowed hard.

"...I'll do whatever you tell me to."

"Rhoan?"

Bewilderment flooded through her.

This violent shaking somewhere inside her—she'd never felt anything like it.

Was this what it meant to be captivated?

She'd always felt tense and trembling before him, but this was a different dimension entirely.

The sensual man who'd been in front of Doris with every button undone had vanished—now he gazed at her with buttons fastened to the throat, eyes absorbed in her alone, and those eyes were thousands, tens of thousands of times more erotic.

Breath from the mouth buried in her bare skin stimulated the inside of her thigh past her knee with every word he spoke.

She trembled briefly at the thrill racing down her spine, then gripped his gleaming platinum hair in both hands and held firm—refusing to permit further invasion.

But Rhodness, far from looking displeased at her resistance, seemed stimulated instead.

"Too much, it's too much... at least for now..."

"...For now?"

His slow reply came as his lips made wet sounds, now turning toward the hem of her dress that had ridden slightly up.

With sensual lips he bit the dress hem languorously, eyes still fixed on her.

As if binding her entire body with his gaze alone. As if gently herding prey not to startle it before the kill.

"Rhoan..."

Strange emotion churned inside her body.

To draw closer to him. The peculiar possessiveness of wanting him to be entirely hers, as he'd said—it heated to burning like the skin his lips had touched.

Somewhere in her body she couldn't precisely identify trembled with tension and excitement.

When she moistened her parched lips with her tongue, the red gaze that had been shooting through her moved immediately there.

She watched those eyes, which had seemed aflame, sink heavily in an instant.

"I want to... I want to..."

Strength flooded into both hands that had been gripping his hair like rope.

He must have clearly felt the trembling in her hands against his skull.

"I want to have you, Rhoan."

She recalled the breath they'd tangled all night long. Sweet, and damp, and hot.

And the powerful strength that had moved between reason and unreason, absorbed in her alone in the rain.

"To have you... how do I... what should I do?"

Though she hadn't been running, she had to choose her words through labored breathing.

He was clearly recalling last night's sensations too.

Given how his firm hand rubbed slowly at the leg he was holding. Given how the corners of his lips, still biting the dress hem, stretched long.

Soon Rhodness's low laughter spread thick across the floor.

His deeply sunken eyes began sparkling like stars.

And she witnessed right before her eyes the process of those pretty stars crackling alight and changing into various colors.

Instead of answering, he gently but firmly gripped and removed her hands that had been clutching his hair, blocking his advance.

The plump lips that had just been rolled around the dress hem immediately began advancing toward the territory they hadn't yet conquered.

Beneath the black mourning dress.

When his breath scattered across the tender flesh inside her thighs, she threw her head back.

Light from the chandelier hanging high on the ceiling stabbed her eyes and made her vision swim.

Just before reason fled completely, she twisted free both wrists caught simply in his one hand.

When she pressed down firmly on his head as he savored the tender flesh like a beast discovering delicious food, he finally raised his face.

She wasn't the only one captivated.

"Adrienne."

His deeply sunken voice held inexplicable pleading.

"This is... your office..."

Rhodness pulled toward himself the hand that had been gripping her dress hem, at a loss.

Immediately his hot lips blocked her mouth as if refusing to hear, plunging straight in.

Rhodness's breath swam freely inside her.

As the force pulling her head and waist drew her naturally closer, she slowly slid the hand she'd pressed against his chest as if to block him up to his shoulder.

When the growling sound like an angry beast traveled from his lower abdomen to her mouth, she used all her strength to pull her lips slightly apart.

Though his lips immediately tried to follow, releasing breath laden with moisture, she shook her head slightly.

"Not... here."

"Adrienne, please..."

A voice like groaning scattered right before her nose.

But her mind, on the verge of exploding with excessive excitement, ironically struggled desperately to grasp reason.

"It's my first time, it's too bright. I'm scared. This isn't a bedroom."

"...First time?"

The force that had been pulling ceaselessly like a whining child stopped abruptly.

Eyes that had been flashing like red crystals of temptation colored with bewilderment.

Her face suddenly flushed hot.

"You might not be, but... I'm not used to this sort of thing..."

"You were married—"

She could clearly see him swallow the rest: weren't you.

She wrapped her arms around the dazed Rhodness's neck to hide her burning face.

"Even though I was married, I wasn't. After marriage my body got worse..."

The words circled in her mouth: because Novian, who'd tried to push me as the Crown Prince's mistress, never touched me. But she didn't continue.

Rhodness must understand this much. What mattered was that it was her first time and she wasn't used to this.

Her heart pounded strong and fast as if it were in her head.

Rhodness's heart pressed against hers beat the same way. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, clinging to his neck in ceaseless rising embarrassment.

"Don't ask anymore. Anyway. Right now, right here... I don't want to."

"..."

When he didn't answer, anxiety flooded back.

She peeked up at him—Rhodness with his nape flushed bright red was looking down at her with lowered eyes.

"Adrienne."

"Yeah."

Immediately, he stood while holding her.

She had no choice but to cling to his neck helplessly, wrapping her dangling legs naturally around his waist.

She could feel his heaving chest directly, but Rhodness, having stood abruptly, spun round and round.

"...Rhoan?"

No, rather than spinning, he was rampaging aimlessly through the office, unable to suppress his surging emotions.

When she grew dizzy, Rhodness quickly sat her on the windowsill, then braced his arms against it as if caging her and kissed her briefly.

The sensual man who'd seemed about to swallow her moments ago had vanished—a beautiful youth gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the window gazed at her as if at a wondrous work of art.

"I didn't know I was such a cowardly, petty bastard."

"Rhoan?"

"Thinking I might be your first and your last—my heart feels like it'll burst with joy."

And she was pulled tightly into his arms.

The heartbeat in her ears seemed no longer hers but his.

"I might go mad with jealousy sometimes. But even if you'd lived however promiscuously, I honestly don't care about that. If you just stayed by my side without leaving, I feel like I could tear out my heart and offer it to you."

"Rhoan!"

"But hearing that the only person in this world who can reach your deepest place is me alone—I want to laugh loud enough to echo through this entire palace. Even if I gained the whole world, I couldn't feel like I do right now."

In him pouring out words like rapid fire with reddened eyes, she glimpsed flashes of a boy fulfilling his first love.

"Calm down, Rhoan."

"How can I calm down?"

Rhodness pulled her even more tightly. Her body felt like it would burst.

"I... that whole first and last thing... and you reaching my deepest place or whatever, I wasn't really thinking..."

She'd meant to calm his overly dramatic reaction.

Rhodness pulled her slightly away from his embrace, then instantly erased his dazed expression and flashed his eyes like lightning.

"You set fire to a virgin's heart, and now you'll burn it to black ashes leaving nothing behind?"

"No, that's not—"

"I didn't know either. That I had so little patience."

A smile bloomed like heat shimmer on his face trying not to laugh.

That too was picturesque, so she could only stare blankly.

"Take responsibility."

And again, he pulled her tight enough to steal her breath.

Around the time a vaguely sacrilegious emotion rose at people in mourning while being so frantic to touch each other—

Knock knock.

A precise knocking sound shattered the ticklish atmosphere crisply.

The motion of burying his lips in the nape wrapped tight in black dress stopped.

Rhodness's face crumpled violently.

Knock knock.

When the face that had been moving again stopped despite ignoring it, now she climbed down from the windowsill and quickly straightened her clothes.

"Who is it?"

Rhodness, who'd been watching that process with sunken eyes, answered irritably.

"Brother! I've brought good news!"

It was unmistakably Epero's excited voice.

Epero, who played the gentle lamb only before Rhodness, had a voice sweet as honey.

But Rhodness wrapped his arm around her shoulder with lingering reluctance and rested his head on her crown. The signs of forcibly suppressing surging emotion were obvious.

She patted his hand comfortingly, then wiped his still-damp lips with her fingertips.

Rhodness caught that hand without missing a beat and rubbed it ostentatiously against his lips.

Creak—

Epero, not long on patience, opened the office door.

Discovering Rhodness kissing her fingertips, Epero's mouth fell open before he quickly blocked Viktor's eyes with his hand.

"What are you doing? Let go."

As Epero's hand lowered, she also pulled her hand from Rhodness's lips.

Rhodness turned to Epero with a gaze still thick with regret.

"What is it? I didn't give permission to enter."

"I'm sorry, brother. But this fellow said he urgently needed to meet the Madam and talk."

Epero pushed Viktor's back quickly, making excuses.

"Found it. The medicine name."

Her head, which had seemed filled with hot steam, cleared as if ventilated.

She erased her embarrassed expression and guided them to the sofa.

Rhodness's gaze, arms folded, moved between her using his office as if it were hers, and his younger brother who couldn't hide his pleasure at entering his domain regardless.

"You worked hard. Searching for it."

And he glared fiercely at the back of Viktor's head, who looked obviously eager for her praise.