Chapter 8

When he deliberately made the sound of footsteps, he could see the Empress's shoulders twitching with each step closer.

'It's amazing.'

Raniero reached out towards the Empress's hair. Immediately, her lips trembled involuntarily. It was because of fear. In the first place, she was essentially a different person from him—insignificant and timid.

'But, how... does she understand me so well?'

He thought that if someone could understand him, it would be someone like himself. And, Raniero was determined that if he met his kind, he would never miss it.

It will be fun just to talk to someone like himself.

However, the woman in front of him was too weak and humble to be his own kind. Rather than intense aspirations, she merely aroused lukewarm interest.

She was a woman who had never deviated from a 'normal life' and never suffered from 'extraordinary impulses.' And yet, she doesn't make mistakes, and she sometimes says nice things...

As if she knew what Raniero was like.

How could a woman who had met him for just one day do that...?

Even Marquis Jacques, who has been serving the Imperial Family for a long time, also has an absurd misunderstanding about the Emperor...

That paradox alone was just a little tempting.

In most cases, thinking is boring, though finding an answer to this question doesn't seem too bad...

"You. Raise your head."

Then, the cheeks and soft lips that were as white as the white bread of the Empress raised her head. The emotion on the surface in her eyes, Raniero could know through the instinctive insight of the predators.

She was terrified.

It felt good because it seemed to prove his absoluteness.

He wondered how the Empress understood him, although the Emperor, who had no intention of understanding the real Empress, peered into the Empress's pale pink hair.

'I don't need to know the details of what's going on in her tiny head.'

Trying to understand ordinary people is boring, boring, and useless.

Raniero's thumb lightly brushed the fluff on her cheek. At that, her backbone shooked lightly at the calm excitement brought on by the fear that she revealed.

Raniero Actilus does not shy away from impulse.

He wet her Empress's lips.

* * *

...What was going on in Raniero's head, a person like me shouldn't try to guess.

For instance, why does he kiss me in this situation... No matter how hard I turned my head, I couldn't seem to figure it out. I just passively stretched my arms and lowered my eyes as my eyelashes trembled.

Raniero pulled me on my back. My chest was pressed against his chest, and my lips were almost swallowed. Meanwhile, he kept stroking my hair under my ears.

"Uh..."

The reason why my pulse keeps getting faster...

Must be because I'm scared, right?

He stroked my tongue with the tip of his tongue and pressed his cheek closer against my lips. Then, while feeling the lack of air, he shoved his tongue deep into my mouth. It was slippery and we tangled even more as he dug in deeper.

My back and stomach were shivering. As he slowly lifted up his hand on my back, untying the laces on my dress just a little bit, his fingers slid through the dress closure and lightly scratched my back.

"Ah, hmm..."

The touch that scraped my spine was strangely itchy. At the same time, my chest rose and fell sharply.

His hand, which had been touching my hair, ran across my chin, neckline, and played around my collarbone. As if he was about to grab my chest.

'Ah, it's a little... strange. My stomach is feeling tingling...'

It was different from the first night.

Somehow, it didn't seem like this would be a good situation for me. I thought I could hang on, though, if he kept messing around with my neck..., then I'm done. A red light went off in my head, but I couldn't tell him to stop.

Because no one can order Raniero Actilus

Raniero's lips fell. It felt as though it was a fleeting moment or an eternity when our lips met...

He let out a wet breath and whispered in my ear in a low, hoarse voice.

"You make no mistakes..."

Well, if I make a mistake, I'll die. Especially, since I have just witnessed the consequences of a momentary mistake not too long ago...

My shoulders shivered. My body, which had been cold a while ago, had a little heat.

"Ah, ha—Sigh..."

I was out of breath.

"...How long can you not make a mistake?"

Raniero's eyes, again, were like a cat in front of a mouse... No, maybe it turned into a snake instead now.

"How much can I push you?"

The tension and stimulation from a while ago loosened my legs. Thankfully, he hugged me so easily as I was about to collapse and whispered.

"It's not bad yet."

I was relieved by those words again.

"Ah..."

My body that was held unsteadily was anxious. If he let me go, it felt like I would fall to the floor and break at any moment.

I wanted to wrap my legs around his waist and I wanted to wrap my arms around him. But, without his permission, I just tried not to touch anything.

Raniero licked my lips again at my crying call. I swallowed little by little to keep the saliva from spilling out, which led to me sucking his tongue. Fortunately, he didn't look offended. Rather, he just twisted his head slightly and went deeper.

His body and mine were tightly attached to each other.

A large audience room where no one was there, the place where a high-ranking nobleman who was trying to frame me a while ago was lying down...

The only thing that echoed behind the spurt was the wet sound of lips caressing and tongue.

While I was thinking about something else for a moment, the stimulus in my mouth rubbed a soft spot and I involuntarily tilted my head.

"Ah... "

This person, really...

My only feelings for him were only fear, though this kiss made my tailbone feel tingly. That must be why I have lost my mind for a moment and held onto him.

At that moment, I could feel a hard sensation on the back of my back, and suddenly I was petrified.

"Ack...!"

When I opened my eyes in surprise, I was sitting on the throne of Actilus.

"Yo, Your Majesty—"

"Is there someone you want to talk to?"

Raniero parted his lips and pressed his forehead onto mine. His lips and breath were hot as we had been mixing tongues for a while and sharing body temperature.

"Ha, but, here..."

"An audience chamber."

"Th, that's not it!"

Ugh, it's the throne...!

Raniero hates seeing other people take over his position. The most obvious part of that is that he didn't allow anyone to touch his body. Nevertheless, he put others on the throne...

My mind went blank.

"Your Majesty. H, how dare I..."

As I, who had now become poorly dressed, sat down on the throne, Raniero took a few steps back and gazed at me before opening his mouth.

"You are small."

That was absurd.

Obviously, I am small compared to Raniero. Even though he was slender, he was tall and strong, while I, Angelica, was much shorter than him. Of course, it was also because the people of the Unro Kingdom were smaller than the people of Actilus.

Perhaps, it was more appropriate to say that I am buried rather than sitting on a throne even now...

"Very small... Insignificant."

A voice that sounds like a whisper to a lover, but his words were cold.

Hearing that, I looked at him with a face as though I was having a stomach ache as I glanced at the throne like it was burdening. My lips quivered as words I couldn't say just lingered.

Raniero clenched his neck and smiled low.

"Ahaha, you don't fit the throne at all."

Only then did I know why he was able to put me on the throne.

...Because Angelica Unro was so small and insignificant that there was no threat to his existence.

No matter if you put a dog at the table, he could never become a human.

I was happy that I had such a presence to him.

It was good that he didn't pay too much attention to me, because it would be difficult to run away.

Eventually, he walked towards me again.

As I lowered my eyes with my lips trembling, he tucked the hair behind my ears tenderly before raising up my dress to expose my calves. Then, from the neck of my ankles to my calves, he swept his palms softly and touched the concave part of the knee with his thumb.

Slowly, Raniero shoved his fingertips through the end of my socks and rolled them down.

Feeling helpless, I kept waving my hand somewhere in the air above his hand. Seeing that, he laughed without even telling me what to do with how ridiculous it looked.

"Why? Are you happy?"

It was the tone of a boy who shot a bird for the first time with a slingshot he made himself.

It seemed as though it became fun entertainment for him to torment me in pleasure. This was a game to gauge when I would hang on to him without knowing the topic and offend him.

In the original, he only played a winning game. So, needless to say, Raniero had the confidence to bring me down. I had no choice but to speak honestly as I struggled with his touch digging into me.

Because he doesn't tolerate lies.

"...Yes, your majesty. I feel good..."