Chapter 048. Injured wound
After emptying the trash can and replacing the lamp’s oil, Deborah walked back to the opposite side where the display cabinet was.
Even while busily moving around here and there like that, there was one place where Deborah’s gaze uniquely did not reach.
It was the window side where the Cheister Duke was sitting.
She didn’t know from when, but the piercing gaze stabbing down made her feel suffocated.
Of course, it hadn’t been like that from the beginning.
Just as he had instructed her to continue cleaning with an indifferent face, he seemed truly unconcerned about someone like Deborah.
With an atmosphere fully immersed in the letter in his hand, she too could focus on cleaning with relief for the initial while.
But people have an instinctive sense.
The gaze of someone watching you, that is something you naturally come to know even without seeing it with your eyes.
Moreover, if it’s in a sealed space where only the two of them are present like now, even more so.
She tried hard to pretend to be calm, but in fact, her mind was already a mess.
The man’s actions, which were erratic and impossible to pin down, were utterly incomprehensible.
One day, as cold and icy as to make her heart sink,
Another day, closing the distance in strides enough to make her heart jolt,
Then again, as if it had never happened, clearly drawing a line.
In the midst of the confusion over which end to align with, she suddenly started to feel anger.
‘Why on earth…… do I have to have such worries?’
Even if she couldn’t know the exact intention, that person is probably just doing this without any particular meaning.
As if she were a momentary plaything.
She felt herself so foolish for being swayed by such meaningless whims.
With the thought to just not pay attention and finish her work quickly to get out of here soon, the movements of her hand wiping the display cabinet gradually sped up.
Perhaps because her emotions kept jumping around chaotically.
Uncharacteristically hasty, she failed to notice the protrusion sticking out below.
“Eut!”
A groan escaped Deborah’s mouth at the sharp pain felt at her fingertip.
Plip plip-
Red bloodstains falling onto the floor in an instant.
More startled by the stain falling on the floor than the fact that she had hurt her hand, Deborah tried to quickly wipe the bloodstain with the cloth she was holding.
If it weren’t for the hand that suddenly shot out and grabbed her wrist.
The person who grabbed her wrist was the Cheister Duke.
Setting aside for now how he had come all the way here from where he was sitting at the side table, no, more than that—
“Ah, um…….”
Deborah tried to pull out her held hand at the bloodstain slowly seeping into the hem of the man’s white shirt.
But faster than that, the man’s head moved down there.
A gasp, “Heuk,” swallowing sound came from Deborah’s throat at the action of putting the bleeding finger into his mouth and sucking it long.
So startled that her mind went blank white for a moment.
Chup, chup- the strange sensation of her fingertip being sucked wrapped in the soft tongue.
The electric current arising from the fingertip quickly spread through her arm to her whole body.
Deborah’s face, recognizing the situation, flushed red like a begonia in an instant.
After doing that for a long time, Raymond detached his mouth after a while and examined the wound on the finger.
Blood was still slightly seeping from the wound, but the situation had improved considerably compared to the beginning.
Raymond, holding Deborah’s arm, started walking somewhere in strides.
When Deborah, in a dazed state being dragged, came to her senses, she was already sitting on his bed.
Raymond grabbed Deborah who startled and tried to get down.
“Stay still.”
“Ah, no…… it’s fine, it’s fine.”
“Stretch it out.”
“It’s fine…….”
“I said stretch out your hand.”
“…….”
She shook her head saying this much is fine, but he was relentless.
Eventually, Raymond grabbed and lifted the fidgeting hand.
“Ah!”
As white herbal powder was sprinkled on the tip of the wounded finger, a groan escaped her unknowingly due to the stinging.
She immediately clamped her mouth shut like a clam at the gaze staring up plainly.
Over the white herb sprinkled, a clean linen cloth was wrapped.
“Foolish, where on earth did you sell your mind.”
“…….”
As he fixed the wrapped linen cloth with thread, a tsk, tongue-clicking sound flowed from his mouth.
For a moment, she thought if it was worth getting scolded this much, but as always, it remained just a thought.
Tok- With the sound of cutting the tied thread ending, all the situation cleanly concluded.
No, she thought it concluded.
If not for this awkward atmosphere.
“…….”
Deborah, pondering what to say, suddenly had her gaze fall on her own fingertip.
‘It’s tied so prettily…….’
Looking at the knot tied over the neatly wrapped linen cloth, ridiculously, such a thought crossed her mind at that moment.
Somehow, a ticklish feeling at the tip of her heart.
Just when had her emotions been jumping around like that until a moment ago, she felt so pathetic for her heart changing over something like this.
But, what to do.
When her heart is like that.
Deborah looked down at her fingertip like that for a long time and soon slowly raised her head.
“Um…… thank you.”
Raymond’s hand, clearing the medicine box, paused at the small, barely audible voice.
And the met blue eyes.
At the gaze reaching silently, just quietly, Deborah’s pupils began to tremble finely.
“The hand…… yes. Thank you for treating…… it.”
Stammering, calming her trembling voice, Deborah tried to continue her words.
Because the man’s plain gaze, the awkward silence, somehow felt hard to endure.
So perhaps that’s why, Deborah was completely unaware of the action she was doing right now.
That she was unknowingly biting her lower lip, then biting it again, and repeatedly biting it endlessly like that.
And, how the eyes of the man watching that action were changing right now—
Deborah had no idea at all.
* * *
‘No way, does she know and is doing that?’
Looking at the lips reddening here and there, Raymond thought.
A moment ago, the moment he saw the bloodstain flowing along the woman’s hand, his body reacted first without time to think.
Blood flowing profusely, whether it was torn somewhere or seriously injured.
While sucking the finger into his mouth to check the wound hidden by the blood, Raymond hadn’t realized at all that there was some serious problem with that action.
Even if it was merely an intention to check the wound, if someone saw this current appearance, it could lead to a very dishonorable scandal.
When he came to his senses, he had already placed the woman on his bed and finished the treatment.
No, is this coming to his senses.
He had just sat her on the bed because the medicine box was nearby in a hurry, but after grasping the situation, he realized it was a mistake.
Of all places, his own bed, when there were so many other spots.
He cursed himself for the foolish act, but the water had already spilled.
Unnecessarily, as he turned away his gaze from the woman sitting on the bed while clearing the medicine box.
A small voice whispered from behind his back.
“Um…… thank you.”
He should not have turned around just like that.
After blaming himself for doing such a foolish thing a moment ago, he ended up having his gaze stolen again as if bewitched.
Perhaps because that plain gaze was awkward, pink flush began to seep onto those white cheeks soon.
“The hand…… yes. Thank you for treating…… it.”
Stammering words spit out in fluster.
He might have endured up to there.
But, the moment he saw those plump lips twitching, the maddeningly sweet sensation tasted that night a few days ago vividly revived.
Plump and soft lips, the texture that softly squished at the touch, and…… when delving into that opened inside, that suffocatingly sweet……
At the excessively vivid memory, Raymond let out a low curse.
The heavy reaction below was all the more astonishing.
And that arrow pointed back at the woman in front of him.
He knew it was nonsense, but to the extent of even thinking if the nonsense he uttered was actually true.
‘A wicked witch who steals people’s souls.’
She must clearly remember the incident from not long ago, yet the action of sitting blatantly on that opponent’s bed was suspiciously beyond measure.
“…….”
He knows, he knew.
That this was all pointless venting and forced, and she knew that well too.
That it was just a cowardly excuse attached to his base desire to swallow those lips in front of him in one bite and lay the woman down on his bed right there.
As if suppressing the boiling something, Raymond’s jaw clenched tightly.
Looking at the woman peeking at him with gentle eyes, Raymond thought.
If not now, really, it will be irreversible.
Raymond, who lifted one leg over the other to hide the heaviness, commanded toward the mischievous woman.
“Now, get out.”
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By Anna 💓
