Chapter 138
Before her words could finish, Riina’s eyes widened at the slight pain she felt.
Einar gently bit the side of her hand, nibbling on it, and while maintaining eye contact, licked it.
The sensation of his hot breath holding the cold ice cream was so vivid that Riina instinctively swallowed her own breath.
At her reaction, Einar’s smile deepened, and he slowly took her slender pinky finger into his mouth.
Because Riina had chosen lemon-flavored ice cream, a slightly sour taste and an overwhelming sweetness spread.
As her blue eyes trembled like the legs of a newborn lamb, Riina’s white cheeks turned bright red, as if about to drip fruit juice.
She rubbed her flushed, heated cheeks and pulled her hand away from Einar’s grip.
As his teeth lightly grazed her knuckles, her spine twitched at the electrifying sensation, and Einar, acutely perceiving her reaction, swallowed a breath hot as lava.
At the longing and thirst dripping from that burning gaze, Riina instinctively stepped back, but she couldn’t move far from Einar, who had already recaptured her hand.
Finally, Riina blurted out in a deeply husky voice:
“Don’t look at me.”
She tried to cover her face with her free hand, but since not only her cheeks but even the edges of her forehead had already turned bright red, it was rather meaningless.
No, her desperate attempt to cover her face held great meaning for Einar.
Einar’s ash-gray eyes sank deeply and thickly as he gazed at Riina’s cheeks, dyed the color of an overly ripe tomato that seemed ready to burst at the slightest touch.
If I were to bite those cheeks, they would taste several times sweeter than the sweet ice cream lingering on the tip of my tongue.
Sweet saliva rolled down his throat.
How long had it been? Riina, who had been pressing her burning eyes with her palms, slightly spread her fingers to peek at him, only to have her eyes meet his directly.
Like a blue bud blooming in a field dyed entirely gray, and as their distance suddenly drew close, it fully blossomed.
At the moment when their breath, exhaled simultaneously, intermingled at a distance where their noses nearly brushed—
“Mph.”
In an instant, Einar consumed Riina’s breath.
The faint scent of blooming roses that always surrounded her spread through his veins beneath his skin.
Einar’s deep, very deep sincerity, which had been lurking like a seasoned hunter watching for an opportunity, growled up his throat.
Riina’s vision grew distant as her breath was taken away.
No, it felt dizzying.
As she lost her balance and staggered, about to collapse, Einar wrapped his firm arm around her waist and pulled her close, not giving her a chance to breathe.
Finally, when Riina, lacking air, instinctively pushed against his chest with teardrops hanging from her reddened eyes, only then did Einar tilt his head so that their noses were no longer aligned, and detached his lips.
“Hah, ha, haah. Haah.”
Riina, taking in a full breath, half-lifted her eyelids, but as Einar immediately lowered his lips to her eyelids, she reflexively closed her eyes again.
The kiss that had been placed on her eyelids continued without stopping, falling like fine rain on the bridge of her nose, gently pressing on her cheek, and eventually sliding to just beside her lips.
The sweet scent flowing from her slightly parted lips, which had become a bit swollen and fuller than usual from his persistent kisses, was soon swallowed by Einar.
Riina couldn’t control her body.
It felt as if fireworks were bursting before her eyes, or bombs exploding in her ears.
Was it just a kiss?
Even though there had been a previous accidental kiss with Einar.
No, that’s not it.
Like when they held hands, this moment and that time could never be the same.
“Riina.”
Wasn’t the yearning layered in his voice as he called her name terribly clear?
Somehow feeling as if the ground beneath her feet was crumbling, Riina wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
Their lukewarm breaths intermingled, rising so hot it seemed to melt their minds completely.
Einar was painfully suppressing his desires, which were boiling madly with hunger and thirst that he only felt when with Riina.
If he didn’t, he felt as if he would swallow his one and only person—who was taking shallow, clumsy breaths even as she lost her breath to him—in one bite, from head to toe.
Even after tasting her, swallowing her, it still wasn’t enough, so Einar wished:
That this moment would become eternal.
The shadows of the two, who were completely focused on each other to the point where they couldn’t even hear their pounding hearts beating throughout their bodies, overlapped like that of a single person.
As her mind melted into a slush and her toes curled, all strength left Riina’s waist, and simultaneously, her arms around Einar’s neck gradually loosened.
Einar, who had been greedily inhaling her, sensed her limit and slowly detached his lips from hers.
His rough fingertips brushed her swollen red lips, and his Adam’s apple bobbed greatly as if they were burning hot, but instead of swallowing her breath again, he pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Hoo…”
After taking small breaths in his embrace for a while, Riina slowly opened her eyes.
Only he was fully reflected in her blue eyes, moistened by tears that precariously clung to their corners.
The next moment.
Riina smiled at him so brilliantly that it hurt to look at, as if blinded.
“E…inar.”
Ah, and thus Einar sensed it.
That he had been waiting for this moment, this very moment on a day when nothing was particularly special, since the day he was born.
And that he would never forget it until the day he closed his eyes for the last time.
Could the timing be any more appropriate?
Jane responded to the Third Prince’s summons—who called her to the imperial palace anytime, as if calling a neighbor’s dog—with a genuinely decent mood for the first time.
Even in the carriage on the way to the imperial palace, Jane tried hard to process documents without putting them down, but she couldn’t turn a single page.
“If I can’t kill the fake in time…”
Even as she unconsciously voiced her inner thoughts while waiting for the Third Prince, Jane didn’t seem to notice, and her hazy blue eyes were more clouded and glistening than ever.
Since Hans had left after spouting his madness, Jane had struggled to concentrate on her documents.
It was hard enough to process them in time with full concentration, but with her mind constantly distracted, there was no way she could do it properly.
Even at this moment, thinking about the documents that would pile up like a snowball, Jane instinctively bit her lower lip in anxiety before barely stopping herself.
Wasn’t she a Bolshevik?
She should always pay attention to her self-management so as not to be ashamed when she reclaims her position and is officially recognized as the real one.
“You’ve come.”
An impatient voice echoed from behind the door that had opened silently.
Unlike before, the Third Prince didn’t keep her waiting indefinitely and showed himself immediately, uncharacteristically.
At his appearance, the corner of Jane’s mouth twisted slightly.
“Greetings, Your Highness, the Third Prince.”
As Jane elegantly bowed her head in greeting, the corner of her mouth curled up a bit more.
A thirsty person digs a well, as one of the Bolsheviks of a past generation—her ancestor—had said.
Despite openly dismissing her as a commoner, how heated he must be to come to meet her like this.
Jane could see almost all the documents that Riina saw because she was Riina’s shadow, but she couldn’t understand why Smith was so impatient because she had no window to hear external information and lacked the insight to grasp the situation by combining the information from the documents.
If it had been before Riina’s regression, she would have accurately known his current situation from the ravings of Riina, who had already consumed a considerable amount of poison, and the information collected by Becky, but now Jane held neither of these two things.
But even Jane could read how impatient Smith was.
And Jane was the same.
“What happened?”
At Smith’s abrupt question, Jane’s mask-like subtle smile momentarily distorted, but she quickly recovered and instead asked back:
“I apologize, but I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You may try to hide it, but I can clearly see your anxiety.”
He didn’t even bother with the effort of speaking indirectly.
He didn’t hide the fact that he was clearly disrespecting her, and with a scornful expression, he jerked his chin.
“Besides, despite taking your time before appearing when I called in the past, today you came quite quickly.”
Covering her lips, which seemed about to convulse, with a teacup, Jane turned her mind as quickly as possible.
If she loses the initiative here, it’s over.
If the Third Prince becomes the Crown Prince and she reclaims her real position, she would have to coordinate with him, the future Emperor.
But if she submits now, she can’t guarantee what will happen later.
Just as Jane was parting her lips to deny his words, Smith waved his hand.
“Since we both seem to be in a hurry, let’s get to the point. Do you remember what we talked about before?”
“Yes.”
Was it about planning the assassination of the Emperor to eliminate the Second Prince?
In the process, he had wanted to implicate the fake and get rid of her.
Smith tapped the armrest nervously and spoke:
