A dull, heavy heat had settled in his abdomen.
The duke pressed his brow together hard and raked his hand through his hair. He sat up and pushed the covers aside.
The situation was not good.
‘Damn.’
He chewed the word internally and headed for the bathroom. Under water cold enough to raise the skin, he stood and thought.
‘Insufferable.’
He was inexplicably furious at Ivelina.
‘Just the one would have been enough. That she has to be cute ‘and’ indecent on top of it.’
‘Tch.’ Utterly shameless baby rabbit.
The duke muttered criticisms at Ivelina under his breath and dried his wet hair with a towel.
‘Knock knock.’
At that moment—a firm knock—followed immediately by the door being flung open.
“I’m—I’m so sorry! I know it’s rude, but I wanted to see you so much I just came right over!”
“…”
“…’EEEEEK!’ I’m so sorry!”
‘BANG.’
Ivelina, horrified by the sight of him undressed, bolted.
‘She came of her own accord.’
He was going to catch that careless rabbit before she could flee. He threw open the door.
She hadn’t fled so much as collapsed outside it.
The baby rabbit was looking him over—slowly, from top to bottom. Her gaze stopped at his lower half.
And then she swallowed. A visible, dry swallow.
The sight of those parted, slightly damp lips sent a sharp surge of something unmistakable through the duke’s eyes.
His body responded in real time.
“‘Hii—’!”
Ivelina went pale and scrambled away on all fours. The duke caught her by the scruff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
And brought her directly back to the bedroom.
“Put me down! Put me down right now!”
“Isn’t this exactly why you came to my bedroom?”
‘This audacious baby rabbit.’
The duke had every intention of collecting the debt owed by the dream-Ivelina from the real one standing before him.
He finally got her onto the bed, squirming and kicking the whole way.
“Kael…”
She looked up at him with those helpless, plaintive eyes.
They overlapped with the face from the dream.
‘”Sweetheart, hurry. Do it already…”‘
That same expression. That same plea.
The duke pressed the tip of his tongue between her lips and gently traced the crease, teasing it open.
“Why? You want me to hurry?”
“I never—I never said that—”
“You wanted it first.”
“When did ‘I’ ever—’what’—”
“In the dream.”
“What kind of excuse is—’hk!'”
He ignored her objections and pressed his lips to the soft curve of her throat.
She wriggled and kicked—and clasped both hands together in apology.
“I’m—I’m sorry! That I apparently did something like that in a dream! ‘Hk!’ Let me apologize on that version’s behalf—’hhp!'”
The duke devoured his indecent little rabbit.
* * *
“Your Grace! The rabbit dolls you requested.”
Hugo came in carrying a box in his arms. Inside were several varieties of white rabbit dolls.
He set them on the duke’s desk.
“A collection of all the rabbit dolls currently circulating in the empire. I even tracked down the limited editions!”
“Good work.”
The duke had taken up the hobby of collecting rabbit dolls.
They were good for holding when Ivelina wasn’t there.
After Hugo left, the duke picked one up from his desk. He squeezed it and stared quietly at the study door.
‘When will that door open?’
Today was one of Ivelina’s scheduled visit days.
He had been seated at his desk since before dawn, hoping to finish his work before she arrived. But he could not concentrate. His attention kept slipping.
‘Tch. I should have just gone to get her myself.’
He leaned back in his chair and pressed the rabbit doll’s face with his thumb. The squeezed face looked rather like Ivelina mid-pout.
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.
The duke had not been bored once lately.
The baby rabbit was thoroughly committed to digging her own grave.
And he found extraordinary entertainment in watching the work progress. She invaded the manor every day and offered something new each time.
“…”
He had even reached the point of looking forward to when that firmly closed door would open.
She would not be coming through the ‘bedroom’ door, of course. A few days ago, after being rather thoroughly devoured and sent home, she had made her position firm:
‘”I am never coming to the bedroom again! You’re terrible! Seduced by a dream—what kind of excuse is that, honestly!”‘
She had stormed off in high dudgeon. He’d watched her go.
The duke set the now badly crumpled rabbit doll on the desk and tapped the surface slowly with his index finger.
‘Time moves unbearably slowly.’
He adjusted his posture and tried again to focus on the paperwork. He was in the middle of making progress at last when he heard it—the quick, small tapping of the baby rabbit’s footsteps.
Three. Two. One.
‘Knock knock.’
The door opened. The baby rabbit poked her head in. Today’s baby rabbit was thoroughly deflated.
“May I come in…?”
The duke had been waiting for her this whole time. He found her shuffling entrance adorable and absurd in equal measure, and decided to poke at her for no reason at all.
“Ivelina. Why didn’t you go to the bedroom today?”
“Stop teasing me!”
She bared her teeth at him almost immediately. Then, like a small hyena sizing up prey, she narrowed her eyes and began circling the perimeter of his desk.
He suppressed his amusement and shifted his gaze back to his papers, pointedly.
“So then. What did you come to do with me today?”
“I’m going to stay glued to you! Honestly, Kael—you’re so handsome that I find it genuinely anxiety-inducing!”
At this point she seemed to be enjoying herself.
He scooped the puffing, indignant baby rabbit directly onto his knee. Soft and warm, she settled into his arms.
“Will this do?”
“…Yes, more or less.”
She pulled a disgruntled face. He ignored it and turned back to his work.
He had meant to finish before she arrived, but the distraction of her arrival had left him behind. With her small body shifting and fidgeting in his lap, he glanced down to find her lips moving.
“Mm… you have a lot of work today?”
“Almost finished.”
Ivelina made small sounds—like a dog that needed to go out. He set down the papers without thinking.
‘She’s going to be the death of me.’
Work could wait. Reviewing documents while holding this particular warm and adorable creature was simply not a thing a man with a functioning pulse could be expected to do.
He was calculating the right moment to make his move. Tease first, then take? Or take first, then tease?
“Kael.”
“Yes.”
“I want to see your face.”
She was looking up at him—fists clenched tight, eyes wide and earnest.
‘Take her eventually—yes…’
He shifted her on his knee to sit facing him, braced her back, and leaned down to meet her at eye level. Those clear, bright eyes caught the light.
“Will this do?”
She nodded, slowly. Then she started sneaking looks at him in small stolen glances, wiping her hands against her dress.
‘Tease first, then take.’
The trembling of her lashes was like butterfly wings. The flush on her cheeks was the color of pink roses.
He smoothed a strand of honey-gold hair away from her face and thought idly about angles.
“Kael, I have something I need to say…”
“Yes. What is it?”
She bit her lower lip hard and let her eyes slide sideways.
“I, um, so…”
“Yes.”
“You see, it’s that…”
“…”
“Th—this…”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. What on earth was she working up to?
Then the baby rabbit ducked her head, gathered whatever courage remained in her small body, and squeezed out the words in a trembling voice:
“Ivelina…”
“…”
“Ivelina finds this position very uncomfortable…”
She had deployed the third-person speech with full effort.
He was immediately reminded of the night they first met—that very same cunning little rabbit, using that exact same trick while trailing after him.
“Ha.”
There were limits to how far one could push a person. The third-person speech was a clear foul.
‘Shameless, indecent baby rabbit.’
He began undoing the buttons of his uniform from the top.
“Ivelina.”
“…”
“We don’t have to do this only in the bedroom.”
“…”
“If you keep provoking me like this, what exactly do you expect to happen?”
He lifted her lightly from his lap and deposited her on the desk.
“Don’t you agree?”
“‘WHAT!'”
She had done all the tempting, and now she was flopping like a fish on a hook.
‘Tck. Tck.’
He shrugged off his jacket and shirt, unhurried.
The baby rabbit tried to scoot backward along the desk. The further she went, the closer he came.
“I’m sorry! I was wrong! I won’t say strange things again!”
Too late.
The duke enjoyed his rabbit thoroughly. He tried a new configuration this time.
When it was over, Ivelina was a complete wreck.
He gathered his precious, wrecked baby rabbit into his arms and personally delivered her back to her family’s manor.
“Today was also enjoyable, Ivelina.”
“Get away from me! I don’t like you!”
“Don’t forget this.”
He pressed that day’s work report into her hands.
“‘Hmph!'”
She accepted the documents dutifully and blew a thoroughly disgruntled breath through her nose.
He was leaning in to kiss her cheek goodbye when she bolted for the manor door at full speed.
‘Tch. Too cute for her own good. I want to squeeze her until she pops.’
He watched her small stumbling figure until it vanished through the gate, then turned slowly away.
* * *
