Deceived, Yet Drawn to You - Chapter 97

The moment she collided with Edmund, their tongues tangled. Unlike before, Blair slowly lowered her eyelids. The thought that she should push him away flickered through her mind, then scattered like smoke and vanished. The instant their lips met, she lost all sense of judgment. Reading the turmoil in her heart, the man plunged straight into her deepest place. He sucked at her lips and drew in breath with a desperate hunger, as if desperate to steal every last breath from her.

It was a kiss so intense it stole her breath. And yet, the fact that she didn’t want to avoid him meant she truly was not in her right mind. Blair no longer even knew what to call the emotion devouring her.

“…Ngh.”

At that moment, Edmund, who had been roughly tangling their tongues, yanked her waist sharply with one arm. The sudden pull jolted Blair’s body, her back knocking hard against the door behind her. Pulling his lips away, Edmund slipped an arm beneath her buttocks and lifted her up with ease. He strode across the wide conference room and set Blair down on top of the mahogany table. As their eye levels evened out, their lips were just about to meet again.

“Don’t do this.”

Blair murmured as she stared down at the floor.

“We can’t just let it slide like this.”

Gathering the last of her pride, she quietly parted her lips. Unresolved matters and an uneasy sense of foreboding lingered. It made their contact feel wrong, and after the heated kiss, cool reason awoke.

If we go any further, the wounds won’t heal. They’ll only fester.

Edmund, standing before Blair as she sat with her thighs parted, stayed silent for a moment, then reached out and cupped her face. His thumb brushed over her soft cheek and soothed the trembling corner of her mouth. Then he leaned in and placed a light kiss on her lips. With their noses touching, he whispered, “If you don’t want it, push me away.”

“….”

“You can just push me away.”

“…I know.”

“Blair, do you still love me?”

As always, his low voice sounded painfully close to a desperate plea. Blair steadied her ragged breathing and looked up at Edmund. His face looked flawless and perfect, yet somehow unbearably wistful. The man standing before her was not a cold, calculating duke. He was simply an anxious human who had lost his way because he couldn’t have his affection confirmed.

“…I love you.”

So that was the only answer she could give. Even though she knew exactly how he would move after hearing it, even though she knew it would drag her toward ruin once again.

At her answer, a flicker close to rapture passed over Edmund’s face. Grasping the woman’s small face with both hands, he let his confession fall onto her lips.

“I can’t live without you anymore.”

“….”

“Blair, I love you.”

Stay by my side for the rest of your life.

Murmuring softly, Edmund pressed a kiss to the woman’s chin. He slowly moved downward, brushing his lips over her nape, her exposed shoulder and collarbone, then parted the neckline of her dress and lingered a little longer at the upper swell of her breasts, where they rose prominently.

Each time he kissed her, something deep in her chest ached. The certainty of being loved and the anxiety of being used mixed together, leaving her head spinning. One thing was certain. Pushing away the man who came to her like comfort, the man who seeped into her like guilt, was utterly impossible.

So Blair swallowed dryly and did nothing but accept the contact. The heavy warmth of his breath spreading over her sensitive skin felt good, and she tilted her head languidly. A moan began to mix into her breathing when Edmund’s hand pushed its way inside the front of her dress.

His hand, unusually large and strong, grabbed her breast in one motion and kneaded it. He rubbed her nipple at a slow pace, then pinched it with his fingertips. When Blair flinched and her waist trembled at the sudden stimulation, Edmund dropped a gentle kiss on her cheek as if to soothe her. Then he pulled the front of her dress fully aside so that only her breasts were exposed. The moment they spilled free and bounced, he buried his face there.

“…Ah…!”

He took her full breast into his mouth and sucked greedily. He rolled the soft nipple with his tongue, then bit down with his teeth until it stood sharply erect. With his right hand, he shoved the other breast, which was not receiving his tongue’s attention, between his fingers and shook it shamelessly. Blair was just about to let out a sweet moan, unable to endure the rush of arousal.

Suddenly, Edmund pulled his lips away and quietly looked up at Blair. The string of saliva stretching down from her breast snapped.

“It seems bigger than before.”

“Ah… What?”

Blinking, Blair let out an incredulous laugh. What was he talking about all of a sudden?

“That can’t be… I actually lost weight.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t have an appetite. I was stressed.”

Hearing that, Edmund gave a bitter smile.

“Because of me?”

“Then who else?”

“I’m sorry.”

Even as he apologized, the way he kissed her exposed chest was shamelessly brazen.

“I’m a real bastard. Making the woman I love suffer like that.”

“…Enough.”

“I should apologize properly.”

Edmund knelt between her legs. He lifted the long skirts of her dress and slowly pressed kisses from the inside of her ankle upward. Blair looked down at the man kneeling beneath her with a strange feeling.

Why was he lowering himself this far? She couldn’t tell whether he truly wanted to make love with sincerity, or was simply trying to sate his desire, or was desperately trying to regain control he’d lost.

Even after being deceived once, a woman who had fallen into the swamp of love didn’t know how to escape it. So, despite her uncertain feelings, she could only grasp the man’s outstretched hand.

“…Ah.”

The first sharp jolt of pleasure struck when his lips passed her calf and touched the inside of her thigh. Edmund pushed aside the thin undergarment and immediately pressed his lips to her exposed pussy.

An unbelievable pleasure crashed down on her. It was not the first time he’d used his mouth on her, yet her waist jerked as if she had been struck by lightning. Afraid a cry might burst out, Blair had to clamp a hand over her mouth.

Since Edmund became the acting duke, cracks had begun to form between them. Blair avoided his touch, and Edmund stopped approaching her as well. The truth of the witnessing ritual she heard from Isabelle and the duke’s will stating that he could only inherit the title if he produced an heir served as the fuse.

After a long cold war, when they pulled each other back into an embrace, the pleasure they had briefly forgotten surged all at once. Just as much as that, she’d longed for his warmth, and the longing she’d piled up alone had grown immense.

Below her knees, the wet sounds of his mouth sucking her swollen membranes rang out obscenely. After focusing for a long while on pleasuring her with his lips, the man began to slowly rub the soaked entrance with his fingers. Blair alternated between swallowing her trembling breaths and moans, then suddenly grabbed Edmund’s wrist. Only then did he lift his head and meet her gaze.

“Should I stop?”

“…Yes, stop.”

“….”

“Apologize properly now.”

As she said it, Blair’s face was flushed red, soft with heat. The perceptive man immediately understood what she meant. He took his time looking up at her reddened face, then folded the long corners of his eyes and smiled beautifully.

“If that’s what you want.”

Edmund rose in a stride and grasped the nape of Blair’s neck. When she slowly closed her eyes, his lips came down onto hers. As gentle kisses followed one after another, the sound of a belt buckle being undone came from below. Even though this was not their first time, a sense that things were slipping past the point of no return kept rising. Even she didn’t know why.

“Mmngh….”

The heavy, swollen column of flesh pushed in at a slow pace. Blair let out a thin moan and wrapped her arms around the solid body before her. The moment she took him inside, everything that had been raging chaotically seemed to fall back into place. Even knowing it was an illusion, there was only one thing she could do in that fleeting sense of stability.

She held him tightly, wishing to be joined deeply with the man she hated so much, resented so bitterly, and yet loved beyond measure.