Chapter 24
“Then I’ll begin.”
“Mm….”
When he tilted the uncapped bottle, oil with a distinctive scent trickled over my hand.
Herbs and wood scents, with a faint hint of flowers.
It was a completely different kind of scent from the one I used when I washed.
Sluuurp.
“…Ugh.”
Eventually, Heter began kneading my hand and spreading the scented oil over it.
Starting with the back of my hand, he worked over my palm and fingers, even massaging the gaps between them and the tips of my fingers.
“Haaah.”
As the oil seeped into every nook and cranny of my hand, a pleasant moan escaped me of its own accord.
‘What is with this guy? Why is he so good at massage, too?’
The way he varied the pressure as he kneaded my fingers, and the care he took with the gaps I never even thought about when washing my hands!
He seemed extremely familiar with this sort of massage.
If he were a noble, shouldn’t he be the one receiving massages instead?
“Y-you’re good at massage, aren’t you? Who taught you?”
“I told you before that I had an older sister. She often had me massage her.”
Heter answered my question with an unconcerned expression, never stopping his hands.
‘No, but why didn’t his sister just leave it to a servant… Urgh!’
Agh, this was driving me crazy.
Even though it was embarrassing to keep moaning, I couldn’t stop myself.
“Ahk.”
“This spot must hurt quite a bit.”
It seemed that, without my realizing it, all the work I did with a pen and paper had caused a lot of fatigue to build up in my hands.
I couldn’t stop the moans that escaped my mouth along with the pleasant ache.
‘Damn it.’
I wanted to let out a gruff exclamation like ‘That feels good~’ or ‘Ungh,’ as I had in my previous life, instead of these suggestive moans, but…
“Haaah…!”
If I could have done that, I wouldn’t have been moaning in the first place.
And as if these sensations weren’t enough,
Sluuurp, pop, pop.
‘Oh, man….’
I was only having my hand massaged with oil, but the sounds were, well… how should I put it… um….
Sounds that should only have been heard on the secret websites bookmarked on my old computer were being broadcast live.
The atmosphere was far too suggestive.
Even though I hadn’t lit the stove, my body had inexplicably grown hot, and sweat began to trickle down my skin as well… Ah.
Plop.
“…!”
The sweat trickling down my cheek suddenly plopped between my breasts.
Heter, who had been kneeling on one knee to massage my hand, saw it happen right before his eyes.
His eyes, calm until then, began to tremble violently.
“Uh, well….”
“….”
“Um….”
The hand massaging mine came to a stop, and a deep silence fell between Heter and me.
‘What am I supposed to do?’
Heter stared blankly at the breasts before him, his eyes unfocused.
As he had said in the hallway, I understood perfectly well why he was acting that way.
He wasn’t having any improper thoughts; there were simply breasts right in front of him, so he was looking at them.
So…
‘Should I let him touch them once?’
If I were an ordinary woman, that would never be acceptable, but I had been a man in my previous life.
In other words, I didn’t have much aversion to someone touching my breasts.
After all, objectively speaking, breasts were nothing more than lumps of fat attached to the body, weren’t they?
Bluntly put, it shouldn’t be much different from touching an upper arm or thigh.
If I didn’t make a big deal of it, then whether it was my hand or my breasts, they were both parts of my body, so why should it matter?
There was definitely a clause in the contract I had written with Heter that transferred ownership of my breasts to him. (Of course, there was still a very long way to go before we reached that point.)
Eventually, in the distant future, Heter would be allowed to touch them freely.
If that was the case, allowing him to touch them in advance as a little preview should be fine.
“Heter….”
“…Ah, yes!”
When I called his name, a spark returned to his eyes.
Then, not only his face but even his hands flushed bright red, and his eyes began to tremble violently once more.
“If you’d like.”
“Yes?”
“You can touch my breasts….”
At the moment my lips parted, dazed by the warmer air and the oil’s fragrance,
Smack!
“Huh?”
The moment he heard the word breasts, he punched himself in the cheek.
He hit himself so hard that—
Trickle.
His lip had split, and blood was running down his chin!
“Are you insane? Why did you suddenly hit yourself in the face?!”
“Phew….”
While I hurried to my feet and searched for a handkerchief, Heter knelt with his eyes closed and let out a deep sigh.
“My lady.”
“I thought I’d left the handkerchief around here.”
“I’ll stop here for today.”
“…Huh?”
Clutching the handkerchief I had finally found, I froze, but he sprang to his feet without even waiting for my answer and headed for the door.
“You haven’t massaged my left hand yet, though?”
“I’ll come back tomorrow and do it for you.”
“Why all of a sudden?!”
I could more or less guess why he was acting that way.
He probably thought that if this continued, he might cross the line.
But if that was the reason, wouldn’t that actually be a good thing for him?
“Wait!”
“….”
This time, Heter didn’t obey my command.
“Damn it!”
“M-my lady!”
In the end, Heter only stopped when I moved myself and clung to one of his arms.
‘No, why is this guy, who’s usually so smooth and flirty, suddenly acting like this now?’
I couldn’t understand his attitude at all.
Heter’s behavior was basically the same as refusing a feast after the table had been fully set for him.
“Let go of me.”
“Answer me before you go. Why are you suddenly trying to run away?”
The mood was ruined anyway, so I might as well find out why he was suddenly trying to run away.
“Tell me. Otherwise, I’m not letting go.”
“….”
I lifted my head to look at his face above mine and saw him biting his lip, one hand covering his face.
“If I stay here like this,”
“Yes.”
“I feel like I’ll definitely regret it when I wake up tomorrow.”
“Regret?”
Heter nodded.
“If I were the only one who regretted it, that would be one thing, but there’s a high chance you’d regret it too, my lady….”
No, why would I regret it?
I was offering it because, after thinking it through with complete rationality, I didn’t think giving him a reward like this would be a bad idea.
“If that happened, you might come to dislike me. So I don’t think I can stay with you any longer tonight.”
“I don’t think I would.”
“Phew….”
“Huh?!”
Seeing my reaction, Heter took another deep breath, then used his free hand to pull me away in an instant.
‘What just happened?’
I couldn’t even follow with my eyes what Heter had done with his other hand.
Then he snatched my fumbling hand.
Peck.
“?!”
“Sleep well, Alice.”
After kissing the back of my hand, he vanished behind the door in an instant.
After standing there dazed for about five seconds, I stuck my head outside, but there wasn’t even an ant in the hallway.
“What was that?”
Did he just call me by my name?
My face burned.
“Fuck?”
It was only my name, so why was my face suddenly burning?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I sank down in front of the door, rubbed my face, and muttered meaningless curses.
“Hm?”
At that moment, the scented oil on my hand tickled my nose, and I realized something.
It smelled like the fragrance that often clung to Heter.
Apparently, it was the same scented oil he usually used.
“Ugh.”
Smelling it while thinking of him stirred up feelings that had just settled down.
A hot energy slowly spread from my lower abdomen throughout my body, while the memory of Heter’s hand massaging mine filled my thoughts…
“Damn, this won’t do. I need to get to sleep.”
I gave up on changing clothes and threw myself onto the bed.
I usually fell asleep quickly as soon as my head touched the pillow, and since I had just come back from riding in a carriage, I thought I would fall asleep even faster today, but…
‘I can’t sleep.’
Contrary to my expectations, I was wide awake.
To make matters worse, once I got under the covers, the scent of the oil grew even stronger, making my body grow hotter.
“Ahh… seriously.”
Thinking I might really have to spend the night wide awake, I reluctantly slid my hand slowly under the covers.
The hand Heter had massaged tonight.
“Ugh.”
With that, I pulled the covers over my head and only managed to fall asleep after quite a while—no, a long while—had passed.
Chirp, cheep.
Morning came, the moon and stars gone and the sun risen.
“Ah….”
I discovered the reason my body temperature had been high last night and I had felt so strange.
I also discovered why Heter had kept coming to mind.
The blanket, bedsheets, négligée, and underwear were stained red with blood.
“It was that time of the month.”
Fuck, no wonder something had felt off.
Clutching my throbbing stomach, I changed out of my pajamas and underwear.
Come to think of it, this négligée is Ruby’s.
“….”
Well, I didn’t need to worry about it.
Ruby was the one who had brought it without asking, after all.
So… how was I supposed to face Heter?
“Sigh.”
I wished someone would turn back time by just one night.
Really.