Chapter 22

The two of them arrived in front of their quarters before they knew it. He put on the shoes left awkwardly among the weeds. Then, placing the shirt from the table over his shoulder, he grabbed a water bottle and handed it to Isu.

“Drink.”

Isu tossed her slippers away onto the ground and grabbed the water bottle. The field of vision, which she had expected to drop back down to normal, remained matched to his height.

Her body was being carried toward the lake. The moonlit surface of the lake could be seen rippling gently.

“You’re not r-really going to throw me into the lake, are you?”

He smiled wickedly, like a villain. She had no idea what he was thinking, but she gulped down the water first.

As all her blood vessels and cells were soaked with cool water, endorphins burst throughout her entire body. Her heart pounded and her breath was heavy. If Declan wanted to feel exhilarating pleasure, she wanted to tell him not to masturbate with a snake, but to work out for seven hours and then chug some water.

“Ah, ah… I suddenly feel so drowsy.”

While her whole body throbbed like a heartbeat and her consciousness grew hazy, she was seated on a flat rock at the edge of the lake.

Water rose up to the tops of her feet. The cool temperature snapped her back to senses, so she looked up and scanned him.

His hands, blackened with dirt and dust, were in no position to scold anyone else. As she was about to point that out, she suddenly noticed his knee stained with blood.

She asked in surprise.

“Your knee… Did you fall?”

The knee that had been neat until this morning had its outer skin scraped off and hardened into a reddish crust. He looked down at his knee as if he didn’t even know he had been wounded and replied.

“Well, I didn’t know I was hurt. My mind was somewhere else.”

A reply came, implying he hadn’t even known if he was hurt while searching for the missing woman.

That was unexpected. He possessed the sort of selfish image that made it seem like he only looked out for his own well-being.

She lowered her head, feeling a mix of pity and gratitude.

“That must hurt…”

She wanted to wipe the dirt off the wound, but her hands were far too dirty right now.

Actually, what was even dirtier than that was her clothes, layered with heaps of dirt and dust. Finding those clothes quite bothersome, he loosened the necktie around her waist and pulled back the shoulders of her jacket.

His bright blue eyes scanned her shoulders and chest, but she didn’t feel as embarrassed as she thought she would. A layer of dirt was already clinging to her skin like clothing anyway.

She took off the musty, cumbersome jacket and pants herself. Then she asked him, who was watching her bold action.

“I want to go into the water and wash up, is it very deep?”

She had often seen him swimming in this lake. If it was deep enough for a man of his towering height to swim leisurely, the depth must be well over 7 feet (213 cm)…

For a petite woman, probably even taking three steps out from the shoreline would cause her to sink straight down due to the cliff-like terrain. Nodding his head, he confirmed that her guess was correct.

“The lowest spot is up to my chest.”

It was a depth where even standing on her tiptoes with all her might would result in her nose plunging into the water.

“I see…”

Soothing her disappointment, Isu put both hands into the water and washed them. At that moment, his arm slid right behind her knees and scooped her up into his arms.

“Ugh, g-get away!”

“If you hold onto me tight, you won’t fall.”

Wrapping his arms securely around Isu’s waist to hold her, he took steps toward the lake.

The water rose higher and higher. As it climbed up to his knees, thighs, and chest, sudden fear gripped her.

“U-Urgh, d-don’t go in any deeper.”

Her senses sharpened as the cold lake water rippled against her shoulders. Fearing her face might submerge in the water, she lifted her chin, only for a languid laugh to drop from above her head.

“If you hold on half-heartedly, you’ll be swept away by the current. Try wrapping your thighs properly around my waist and holding on.”

The softly murmured instruction sounded inexplicably lewd. Moreover, telling her to wrap her thighs properly around his waist… Her cheeks flushed a burning red, but doing as he said would surely give her hands their freedom.

Hanging onto his tree-trunk-like shoulders, Isu turned her body to face him directly. Even though she trusted her entire weight to him, he didn’t budge an inch, possessing such incredible strength.

That was why she didn’t feel anxious even though she had entrusted her life to him entirely. Staring straight into his dark, deep-blue eyes, Isu spread her legs and wrapped the insides of her thighs around his ribcage area.

For a moment, he tensed his upper body muscles and pushed against her thighs playfully. Such a mischievous man. Such a strange person. As she mentally described him like that, she looked up at the sky.

A bright yellow full moon had risen into the purplish-violet sky. She thought the reason the sky had poured down rain persistently for the past few days must have been to show off this incomparably clear and pristine full moon.

Yet, because of the gaze that felt like it was piercing right through her face, she kept forgetting how beautiful the full moon was. Or perhaps it was because his face, incomparably more stunning than the full moon, was right up close. She dropped a hot breath onto his elongated collarbone.

Perhaps because it tickled, the thick muscles attached to his straight, level shoulders twitched. It felt as though he was tempting her to touch him properly, but she only let out stray breaths. At that moment…

“Look at me.”

His water-soaked lips concentrated Isu’s focus. Managing to meet his gaze, he began to wipe her cheeks with hands drenched thoroughly in water.

His fingertips, adjusted to the cold water temperature, grew warmer the more they touched her cheeks. By the time he wiped her forehead and earlobes, a burning warmth was radiating from his hands.

The more she felt that touch, the more tense Isu became, her eyelids fluttering nervously. At that moment, his hand dipped back down into the water as if fleeing. As if afraid of shattering the languidly relaxed air. She felt exactly the same kind of fear.

“Will you k-keep doing that?”

The moment he heard the reply, he dropped a wet breath onto Isu’s cheek. His water-colored eyes remained locked onto Isu’s face.

“Yeah, keep going.”

Answering in a low voice, he pulled his hand, submerged in the water, back up out of the water. Soon after, he brushed across Isu’s eye corners with fingertips dripping wet.

And then, her lips…

Isu let out a gasp at the man’s touch brushing against her lips.

“Ah…”

The man’s cool features melted away sensually. Deep within his heavy chest, his heart violently struck Isu’s ribcage for a moment.

His bright blue eyes clearly desired the woman. A kiss on the lips. No, not just a kiss; he seemed to want to pierce straight into the center of the woman’s body, which had grown as close as a rat in a trap, and groan with pleasure.

It was because those eyes seemed to know the thrill of diving wetly and sluggishly with his glans into a damp, wet place. Yet, his lips sinisterly brought up a completely different subject.

“You really look like you never listen.”

That remark dissolved even Isu’s razor-thin wariness. Completely erasing her tense expression, she opened her mouth.

“I want to tell you why I was digging a hole out there.”

Hayden tapped water onto Isu’s hairline, where black baby hairs were sprouting. Then, massaging her scalp as if washing her hair, he listened intently to her story.

“You said I lost my memories. While I still don’t remember my name or where I live, yesterday during the campfire, I heard a man’s voice.”

Listening quietly, Hayden meticulously washed away the face that resembled a sparrow abandoned by its mother. Round eyebrows like crescent moons, a clean-cut bridge of the nose, and small lips successively revealed themselves clean.

With a cleared-up face, Isu continued.

“That man spoke to me as if clinging on. Judging by his tone, it seemed we were in a romantic relationship, but I can’t shake the thought that that man might be Graham. Graham, the man from the video we watched together.”

Hayden swept away a water droplet clinging to his dark-gray eyelashes with the back of his hand. Pouring water over her own head, Isu continued.

“It feels like that man is going to come catch me sooner or later. It feels like he’ll suddenly be sitting next to me, or standing right behind me when I turn around. That’s why I dug a trap. I wanted to find a way to protect myself on my own without relying on anyone else’s help.”

Hayden lifted the corners of his lips in a languid smile.

“So you’re saying you want to bury your ex-lover in a pit.”

“Because I keep getting the feeling that he’s a dangerous person to me.”

“It’s a pity, but I don’t think it’ll work with a sloppy pit like that.”

She knew that much. She had suffered enough to leave her palms blistered from holding the shovel, and she had even angered Hayden.

Yet, she didn’t think it was all in vain. With the conclusion she reached today, she would find a different method from now on.

“I plan to keep trying and figure out a way.”

Answering positively, she looked up at him. Dirt was smeared across the hair and cheek he had swept to one side.

She wanted to wipe away that dirt herself. Half of her wanted to touch his face, and the other half wanted to pass on the feeling she had felt when he washed her face.

“There’s dirt on your cheek, too—wait, let me…”

Isu cautiously raised the hand she had been floating on the water’s surface. He only looked down without moving a muscle.

His gaze was by no means light. It didn’t belong to a Casanova who enjoyed trading witty banter while holding a woman in his arms; it felt like that of a boy infatuated with his first love. It was as intense as feeling sexual desire for the very first time in his life, yet somehow different. She genuinely grew curious about the nature of that look. Peeling back that ambiguous shell, she washed his cheek down with water.

His horizontally elongated eyes closed smoothly and then opened slowly. A clear-eyed woman was trapped in pupils as dark and mysterious as the universe.

Isu was quietly observing that woman. Strangely enough, as if waiting for it, a low voice spread into her ears.

“You look the prettiest when you’re looking at me.”

That was what he had said a few days ago.

“…….”

She grew curious. Facing him right now, what kind of feeling was he experiencing? Did he think she looked pretty, just like he said? If that was really true, why did he look so indifferent?

As she stirred the water around with her hand, she wiped away the dirt clinging to his hair. Then she brushed his temple with her index finger and brought it down to his cheek.

At this moment, his face looked like a meticulously painted picture. Like a painting, there were no blemishes, and no movement.

It was different from yesterday, when he was decadent like an addict. Right now, he looked like an ascetic priest suppressing surging lust.

That straight-laced face, as if he would normally shun women, stimulated her bizarre psychology. It made the temptress sleeping deep inside her brain pop out.

The temptress wanted to break this man down. She wanted to make him speak lewd words like last night, rub his erect center against her, and writhe in lust.

However, that was just the temptress’s thought; Isu was different. Swear, she just wanted to find out why his gaze was different from yesterday. While she had coldly cut him off earlier in the morning out of sheer confusion, right now, the thought of wanting to understand him was growing stronger.

Gently stroking his cheek, Isu gazed at his lips. His lips were closed indifferently, as if they knew nothing of sexual desire. She wanted to press warm kisses onto those lips and apologize for today’s outrageous antics.

Suppressing her heart, which felt as if it were about to burst in an instant, she brought her lips forward. Yet, as she met his lips, he slowly avoided her kiss.