Chapter 39
“So, this is, um…”
The storm-like passion that passed seemed to have shaken Leila badly as well. With hands that held no strength, she straightened her disheveled hair and clothing, her face flushed enough to seem as if red juice might seep out.
Bjorn’s gaze slid from her reddened cheeks to her slightly swollen lips. Without her glasses, Leila’s face looked especially gentle and harmless, which stirred even a strange sense of guilt in him.
A tiny fragment of reason in a corner of his mind hoped she would slap his cheek immediately, but that voice was almost inaudible beneath the instinct screaming to kiss her again.
“Th-that’s exactly what I meant. Even if you’re incapable, in th-this way we can confirm each other’s feelings and passion.”
Still breathing unevenly, Leila awkwardly continued her earlier claim. In short, even if his lower body couldn’t function, light kisses and embraces like this could replace loverlike acts.
‘No, impossible.’
However, Bjorn knew instinctively. If he formed that kind of relationship with Leila Bailey, he would never be satisfied with only this.
It felt as if he had opened his eyes to a new world. The kiss just now could have lasted forever. But inexperienced did not mean clueless. Knowing there was more, he couldn’t pretend otherwise. His unsettled desire asserted its presence plainly between his legs.
Bjorn hurriedly concealed it with his cape. At the same time, reality struck him like cold water. The shameless evidence standing upright reminded him of the deceptive situation he had created.
He had just lied to Leila that he was impotent. If she discovered this, he would not know what excuse to make. And he realized once again.
Bjorn Schmidt could never become that kind of partner with Leila Bailey.
He had only momentarily forgotten his purpose. From the beginning this meeting was meant to cut off her lingering attachment at the root. If he decided to pursue a deeper relationship, he would have to confess the countless lies he had told today and before, and explain them.
Of course, Bjorn had no intention of doing that. He still lacked the qualification.
Thinking of his circumstances, he sank into despair and dejection. Spending time together had made him forget, but in the end, he was someone who couldn’t remain by this woman’s side.
He was a man who did not believe in love. More precisely, he firmly believed it was a value not permitted to him. God had granted him divine power, but not the right to be loved.
The claim that humans were born to give and receive love was false. At least, it was like that for Bjorn. From the moment his mother abandoned him at the temple, he had been a sinner stripped of that qualification.
Even the woman who bore him had abandoned him, so there was no rule that Leila would not do the same. Being discarded by someone he had grown attached to was enough once. It was almost an instinctive premonition. If it happened twice, he would shatter completely.
It was a defensive wall he had built his entire life like a burrowing animal for survival. Consciously blocking the primal desire to share affection, rejecting others’ interest in order to live, deceiving himself that he had never wanted it.
Yet that fortress he hid within was on the verge of collapsing because of the woman before him. Before the final defense line broke, Bjorn barely gathered himself.
“I also… understand well what your words mean, Miss Leila.”
The conclusion did not change. He couldn’t have Leila. He should not, and he did not wish for it.
The moment he reached that conclusion, the divine power that had calmed began raging sensitively again. Bjorn endured the divine authority piercing him with familiar pain.
“Let us think more carefully about our relationship before deciding.”
After tasting heaven briefly, the hell he fell into seemed hotter and more merciless than before.
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