Under the moonlight streaming through the window, the man's large body was fully revealed.
His sharply defined collarbone, broad and firm chest, thick frame that couldn't be fully embraced by both arms, and perfectly sculpted abs without a single flaw.
It was the body of a fully mature man.
Blair gazed at his body with eyes as if seeing something novel.
A body she had already seen countless times in her previous life, yet it felt newly strange now. Why was that?
'Because of his expression...'
Unlike her previous life when he had pretended to love her, in this life, his blue eyes were filled solely with desire.
In that moment, Blair felt she understood what it meant to be overwhelmed by someone's gaze.
Tension made her body stiffen. Her heart pounded rapidly. Just from looking at him, she felt as if she would be devoured alive.
Suddenly, his unfamiliar face became frightening. Yet paradoxically, a ticklish heat began to rise from deep within her abdomen.
Even though her body had returned to the past, it remembered the pleasure he had given her in her previous life.
It was pathetic how she reacted to him again even after crossing the threshold of death and returning to the past. Since her body wouldn't obey her will, Blair decided not to look at him at all.
Seeing his wife stubbornly turn her head away, Herdin's brows furrowed.
She had chattered fearlessly about spousal duties and such first, but now that she was laid in bed, her face looked on the verge of tears.
"If I do this, it wouldn't be a 'good relationship,' but more like raping my wife, would it?"
At that, Blair flinched. Soon after, her gaze reluctantly returned. It seemed she had no intention of nullifying that strange contract clause.
Herdin overlapped his lips with hers as if he had been waiting.
"Hmph..."
With the bed sheets blocking her retreat, the kiss deepened, becoming more persistent. A moan like a groan escaped through Blair's teeth.
Herdin released Blair's gasping lips and trailed down to her white nape.
A sweet fragrance emanated from the woman's skin. A scent like flowers or fruit.
Intoxicated by it, he kissed along her neck and rounded shoulder line before tearing away the obstructing nightgown slip. The flimsily made garment ripped easily.
Then, the slender body hidden within was revealed. Far prettier than he had guessed from her silhouette.
Startled by the cool air on her bare skin, Blair urgently tried to cover herself, but Herdin easily stopped her.
He savored the woman in his arms. Her skin was as soft as whipped cream. But one that wouldn't melt away no matter how much he rolled it in his mouth.
Blair whimpered, pushing against his unmoving, firm shoulders.
"This, like this... I don't like it."
She knew he was being considerate with his actions.
But they overlapped too much with the past him, and she hated it.
She feared she might foolishly mistake those touches, that warmth, for love again.
"Just... just do it. Please."
However, far from being pushed away, Herdin grabbed her waist as she tried to retreat further and pulled her close.
"Ah!"
Herdin soon realized she was lying. Seeing her trembling legs, one corner of his mouth curved up slyly.
"Hmm, but this part seems to like it."
Ignoring her resistance, he focused on getting her body accustomed to him. The resistance against his fingers was considerable.
At that reaction, a dull ache began to spread through his lower abdomen.
His already swollen desire urged him on as if commanding him to do as she said, but he clenched his molars and suppressed it.
Of course, she would look pretty even crying.
Imagining that, perhaps fulfilling only his desire as she said would be more arousing. But he felt this fragile woman might shatter if he did.
He couldn't lose the precious witness to 'that' incident to a moment's desire. That wouldn't do.
Judging that Blair was ready at last, Herdin positioned himself over her.
Blair, blinking her hazy eyes, snapped to awareness seeing the large shadow looming over her.
Meeting his heated blue eyes looking down at her, she felt a scorching heat as if burned. It was that insistent presence she had been ignoring until moments ago.
The first night with him in her previous life had been sweet, but also painful. Partly because it was her first time, but above all, it was simply too much for her.
Remembering that pain, Blair's body instinctively stiffened.
Noticing it, Herdin wrapped her legs around his waist and murmured lowly.
"Relax. It'll be fine."
The innocent Blair of her previous life had believed those words, but the Blair of this life knew.
A lie.
Those were blatant lies. The sweet whispers of a devil trying to make her let her guard down and devour her.
Even knowing his intent, she couldn't push away that cruel and beautiful devil.
As Blair hesitated, neither relaxing nor pushing him away, Herdin kissed her again and pressed his body even closer.
At the blatantly deliberate act, Blair's body heated up. Noticing it, Herdin slowly but mercilessly joined with her.
At the unfamiliar pain, Blair reflexively arched her back away. But Herdin's arms pulled her waist close, drawing her toward him.
Deeply, even deeper.
Herdin gnashed his teeth and exhaled roughly. Even just waiting for her to calm down was already testing the limits of his patience.
Yet the woman driving him mad seemed utterly unaware of what a tremendous act of restraint it was.
Throwing aside all the nonsense she had chattered earlier about good relationships, he wanted to unleash his desire on the verge of exploding.
In the end, Herdin lost his reason and began moving against Blair. Blair, her vision blurring before her, bit her lip.
Gradually, this unfamiliar yet familiar act awakened sensations her body had forgotten but her subconscious remembered.
Blair couldn't even breathe properly amid that dizzying sensation. Watching her, Herdin furrowed his brows.
"Breathe, Blair."
His gravelly voice, scraping like it scratched his throat, rang in her ear. But contrary to his concerned words, he only grew more intense.
In her fading consciousness, Blair instinctively embraced him. Knowing he was the devil tormenting her now, she still had to hold him.
Because in this moment, this world contained only the two of them.
Finally reaching the end, Herdin cooled his heated body while admiring the woman sprawled in his arms.
The woman who had taken him fully was beautiful.
Objectively, she had a pretty face, a fact he didn't dispute but hadn't stirred much emotion in him.
Yet in this moment, it struck him anew.
Her snow-white form as if sculpted from moonlight, her violet eyes brimming with moisture, her lips reddened from biting, and even the voice whimpering his name—all were endearing.
...Truly, damn it.
For a fleeting moment, enough to forget whose daughter she was.
Disgust welled up at his own self. Yet his thirst for this woman remained unquenched. He couldn't stop.
This emotion was merely a moment's desire.
Once he held her until this night passed, these absurd thoughts would cease. Like the snow melting away this night.
With such thoughts, Herdin embraced her again.
"...Herdin?"
Blair, blinking her drowsy eyes, belatedly grasped the situation and squirmed, but it was futile.
Herdin felt a strange sense of satisfaction from the woman clinging to him again.
His firm, massive body became a prison confining her, devouring her like a starving beast.
Throughout the long winter night, without respite.
Buried in that endless mire of dizzying pleasure, Blair endlessly repeated one thought.
Don't forget, Blair.
He doesn't love you.
* * *
"Mm..."
Feeling the sunlight flickering at her eyelids, Blair lifted her heavy lids.
As her blurry vision cleared, the sight of a room both unfamiliar and familiar came into view.
It was the bedroom of the Delmark Duchess where she had stayed before returning to the past.
Seeing that scenery, she almost mistook it for a dream of returning to the past, but realizing the child's dolls and toys that had always been scattered around the room were gone made it real.
Moreover, the throbbing ache throughout her body proved that last night's second first night with him had not been a dream.
'Even if memories remain, since my body returned to the past, it's only natural.'
Just like that first night with him back then—no, even more so—her body felt heavier and more pained.
Tortured by the merciless waves of dizzying pleasure, even when she had briefly dozed off from exhaustion, Herdin hadn't let her go. He had acted as if entrusting something to her.
Blair's last memory, after repeatedly drifting into fainting-like sleep and waking, was at dawn when twilight was breaking: his broad back walking away as she slept from exhaustion.
Only then, seeing that back, did Blair realize.
'So this is your true heart.'
The Herdin of her previous life who had stayed by her side until morning—how desperately he had been trying to extract the truth from her.
And how naively she had believed in it.
Only after miraculously returning to the past did she finally face his true feelings, which were colder and more bitter than expected.
But it was also relieving. She wouldn't have to feel guilty about using him for her own purposes.
Calmly gathering her emotions, Blair forcibly raised her heavy body and pulled the bell cord.