Chapter 443: The Underworld (XIX)

"Y-you..."

She did not finish it.

"Mhm!!!"

Her mouth found his again, rougher this time, as if the smirk itself had been an insult.

She kissed him off-center first, then corrected, pressing him into the wall until the stone bit his shoulders.

Her fingers slid from his chin into his hair and pulled, keeping his head where she wanted it.

"Chuup... mmph—"

Gray let the kiss happen.

His lips parted when hers demanded it, though he didn’t exactly move his tongue.

When she pushed past his teeth anyway, he answered only enough for her to feel the contact, then stopped there.

That was worse for her than if he had taken over.

"Hurmh...!"

She made another low sound against his mouth and kissed him deeper.

The wet edge of it turned messy.

Her tongue dragged along his, then pulled back, then came again, impatient with the way he refused to steal the lead.

A thin thread of saliva broke between them when she shifted her angle and immediately closed it with another press of her lips.

"Churup...♡, slurp!~"

The tail at her waist tightened a fraction, not dragging her in, only following the movement of her body as she pushed closer.

Her chest met his, and the wall took the rest of the force.

Every time she thought she had settled the kiss into something she controlled, his lack of chase pulled her back in.

She bit his lower lip again, harder.

"Nnn!"

"Hiss..."

Gray exhaled into her mouth, still not reaching for her.

His thumb brushed the wet corner of her lips once, then stayed there, the only point of contact while she did all the taking.

The princess kissed him through that too.

"Mmh... chu... chuup~"

When she finally tore away, it was only far enough to breathe.

"Haah~"

A string of saliva stretched between their mouths and snapped against her lower lip.

She stared at it, then at him, pupils blown, mouth still open.

Gray’s smirk had not gone anywhere.

That was all it took.

She surged back in.

"Mmph!"

This kiss landed fully, no correction needed.

She licked into him with less anger and more want, sucking at his lip, then his tongue, as if she could force a reaction out of the stillness he was offering her.

Her hips shifted once against him without her meaning to.

The heart-shaped tip of his tail traced a small line at the small of her back and went still again.

"Haa... chuup... mmh♡"

She kept going until her lungs made her stop.

"Huff... haah..."

Her forehead rested against his for a second; her lips were a little swollen and completely wet as she took deep breaths to calm down her racing heart.

Just then... the pink mist slowly began to dissipate.

It left her skin the way heat leaves a room when a window is opened. One breath it was still there.

The next it was gone, and the alley came back with it: stone, distant voices, the smell of grilled meat from the restaurant they had just left.

That was when she saw his face properly.

The smirk was not there.

What sat in its place was rigid and cold, as if the mouth she had been kissing belonged to someone else.

His eyes had lost the pink.

They were dark again, and they did not look at her like a man who had been wanting to kiss her... instead, they looked at her like a man who had been thoroughly abused without his own consent.

"Are you done now?"

The words came out even colder than his face.

There was even killing intent under them, causing the heat on her body to completely vanish.

Not slowly.

All at once, as if it had never been there.

The princess blinked.

Her hand still held his hair, and his tail still rested at her waist. Her mouth was still wet.

None of them matched the voice that had just spoken.

She stepped back first.

The tail slid off her without holding on, and his thumb left the corner of her lips.

"What...?"

She whispered in pure disbelief in shock.

Gray did not repeat himself. He only watched her, expression locked down, as if the kiss had been an inconvenience she had forced onto him.

Her own words from earlier returned without mercy.

If a mere incubus like you dares to make a move on me, then go ahead.

I am literally in front of you, offering my lips.

She had moved.

She had kissed him.

She had kissed him again.

And now he was looking at her as if she should be ashamed of it.

The smirk.

Had there even been a smirk?

She tried to hold the image and found it slipping.

The pink light in his eyes.

The way his mouth had seemed to curl.

The way that curl had pulled her back in. It had felt real when her blood was burning.

With the mist gone, it sat in her memory like something she might have put there herself.

A hallucination.

Or a trick.

Or both.

The princess touched her own lips, then dropped her hand as if the gesture had confessed too much.

Gray watched her do it and kept his face cold on purpose.

’There it is...’

His lips curled up inwardly.

His plan had worked.

She would replay the scene in her mind now. Step by step... the offer she made, the mist leaking out of his body... his completely still figure... her pressing a kiss onto his lips...

Then... his cold face.

If her character was as sharp as her pride, she would land where he wanted her to land.

Not he seduced me.

I imagined the part that made it his fault.

[You are disgusting...]

Jasmine suddenly spoke after hearing his thoughts.

Gray did not answer her out loud.

[Look at her... she looks soft. For a demon princess, I mean. She opened a Domain on you in the street and still ended up kissing you like she was the one who lost. And you stood there with that dead face as if she had assaulted a wall.]

’She asked me to use my ’incubus’ capabilities, didn’t she?’

[She asked because you wound her up until asking felt like winning.]

Jasmine clicked her tongue inside his head.

[Do not act holy. I was the one who told you to seduce her. I know. I still did not think you would make her doubt her own eyes this fast.]

Gray’s gaze stayed on the princess.

Her expression had already given her away.

She was clearly checking whether the smirk he had made had existed or not. That just made him want to laugh.

[She is thinking it was a hallucination...]

Jasmine stated... in a strangely unwilling voice.

[You can see it. She is trying to put the warmth on the mist and the kisses on herself. That is... efficient... ugh!]

’Efficient is the point. If she decides I forced her, she becomes an enemy with a grudge. If she decides she forced me, she owes the night a different kind of debt.’

[And lodging.]

’And lodging.’

Jasmine sighed.

[I suggested this. I know I did. I still want it on record that I did not tell you to look at her like you might kill her after she kissed you.]

Gray finally spoke, still in that same flat tone, as if the thought had never passed through him at all.

"Have you decided? I can find an inn if the offer was only heat."

The princess’s eyes snapped back to him.

Whatever conclusion she was building, his voice pushed it further in.

He looked like a man waiting for an answer, not a man who had just rearranged her memory of the last five minutes.

[She looks so damn helpless...]

Jasmine muttered.

[She is going to say yes, and she is going to hate that she is the one who feels guilty about those kisses...]

Gray rolled his eyes at Jasmine.

’Stop trying to look innocent... who knows how many ’good people’ you killed during your lifetime as a God!’

[That...]

’You’re the literal God of Destruction... Why do you look so soft now?’

At those words, Jasmine puffed her cheeks and ignored him, causing a vein to pop on Gray’s forehead.

[’Didn’t you force me into submission... you damn bastard!’]

She complained inwardly.

"U-Uh... I-I... I’ll let you live with me..." The princess managed to utter it after taking a deep breath.

Her eyes glazed over his face, as if trying to figure out if that smirk was real or fake, but she was met with a rigid coldness.

She had confirmed now...

That smirk clearly was a hallucination made by that pink mist.

Or so she thought.

"Follow me..."

She whispered in a soft voice.

Gray coldly nodded before following right behind her. His plan had worked perfectly, and he had even gotten a free stay at a princess’s place.

Leaving under the same roof...

A lot of misunderstandings could happen, no?

Gray was already creating a few plans to make this ’innocent-like’ demon princess fall in love with him.