Chapter 24

“…Yet?”

Hearing Lino’s answer, Grondil tilted his head in genuine, intrigued confusion.

“I am perfectly aware that you are twenty-three years old, Sir Cliff, yet you claim it ‘hasn’t grown yet’. While I suppose there are rare cases of people continuing to grow taller throughout their lives, regarding this specific area, you either grow hair permanently or you remain hairless permanently. Are those not the only two options?”

“Well, yes, but exceptions exist in everything. Think about how diverse the people in this world are. There are people like this, people like that, and then there are people like me.”

“Ah. So what you are saying is, there actually exists a twenty-three-year-old man whose genitals are completely devoid of hair, rendering the area as pale, bare, soft, and squishy as a child’s, and possessing such a delightful, chewy resilience when pressed that it makes one want to shove the entire mound into their mouth and chew on it?”

“……”

What the absolute fuck did I just hear?

“In your… mouth?”

And chew on it?! Unable to bring himself to vocalize the horrifying second half of that sentence, Lino, his face entirely crumpled in pure misery, barely managed to choke out the question.

“Because it seems like it would have a phenomenally satisfying chewy texture.”

“Aagh!”

Genuine tears instantly welled up in Lino’s miserable eyes. Grondil had sunk his teeth violently into Lino’s shoulder. It wasn’t a playful, teasing nip; he had bitten down with the savage intensity of a predator tearing into raw meat. The sheer agony instantly caused Lino’s half-erect cock—which was still artificially sustained by the lingering drugs—to instantly lose all power and flop completely limp.

“If merely chewing on this part is this exhilarating, just imagining what it will be like down below is making me incredibly aroused.”

You don’t need to verbally announce that you’re aroused; I can already feel the massive monstrosity rapidly expanding against my spine. They say some people grow taller their entire lives, but Your Highness, does your dick literally never stop growing?

Lino violently swallowed the sarcastic retort he desperately wanted to scream. Having believed his time at the Haklan estate was the most oppressive, agonizing period of his twenty-three years of life, he officially corrected that assumption. The sheer volume of patience and torturous endurance he had been forced to exercise in this bathtub with the Duke over the past few dozen minutes was exponentially darker and deeper than eight solid years of captivity.

They say time heals all wounds, but the colossal chasm between eight years and a few dozen minutes was mathematically impossible to bridge. Yet, the Duke had flawlessly achieved the impossible.

Torn between whether he should genuinely applaud Grondil for this astonishing feat or scream a barrage of curses at him for being a vastly more toxic, psychotic bastard than Baron Haklan—though, naturally, he had zero intention of actually vocalizing these thoughts—Grondil ran his tongue over the exact spot on Lino’s shoulder he had just bitten. Twisting his neck to inspect the damage, Lino saw that while no flesh had been torn away and no puncture wounds had broken the skin, an angry, raised red bite mark bloomed fiercely across his skin.

After aggressively slathering Lino’s shoulder with his tongue several times, Grondil pulled Lino’s body firmly backward, leaning him comfortably against his broad chest. He could detect a faint, trembling resistance, but Grondil completely dismissed it. Ultimately, Lino Cliff was going to submit entirely to his will anyway.

Therefore, there was no need to deliberately play the villain. If he could smoothly guide the boy with gentle words, why bother resorting to exhausting, forceful methods?

Genuinely perceiving himself as an incredibly kind, deeply considerate employer, Grondil spoke.

“While I absolutely never release anything that has caught my fancy, I do not possess the vile, depraved hobby of locking my possessions in a room and forbidding them from taking a single step outside.”

“……”

The words spilling from his lips violently forced Lino to confront the jagged, traumatic shards of the past he had desperately tried to bury. It hadn’t even been that long since he had finally escaped the suffocating, eight-year captivity under Baron Haklan’s relentless surveillance. He hadn’t even managed to get remotely close to Isberg, the place he had dreamed of reaching his entire life.

He absolutely could not allow himself to be dragged back into that agonizing darkness.

“You seem… remarkably well-informed. Regarding exactly how I survived in that estate.”

“It is entirely thanks to my highly competent aide.”

Dismissing Grondil’s casual, superficial praise of Enoch, Lino threw out a desperate, high-stakes gamble to secure his survival.

“I have absolutely zero intention of ever returning to Baron Haklan. Furthermore, I have absolutely zero intention of ever enduring the exact same, or even remotely similar, treatment again.”

“Is that so? Then, tell me, have you ever engaged in the activities we are currently participating in with Baron Haklan?”

“…Are you out of your fucking mind? Why on earth would I do something like this with that decrepit, rotting old tree?!”

Spitting such a wildly disrespectful, arrogant retort at a man who had just bitten his shoulder hard enough to draw blood and threatened to rip his testicles off was incredibly dangerous. However, before his brain could even process the risk, his primal fury had already launched the counterattack.

For a brief, blinding moment, Grondil’s question was so profoundly absurd, so utterly, outrageously offensive, that Lino completely forgot the value of his own life.

“And what about that bastard who acted as your older brother?”

“You don’t have to worry about him, because that pathetic sack of shit is an impotent bastard who can’t even get his dick up.”

Having already discarded the value of his life, Lino naturally discarded his fear along with it. Consequently, he aggressively hurled the most vulgar, filthy slum profanity directly into the Duke’s face.

Normally, no matter what horrific abuse he suffered, Lino meticulously maintained a smiling face, unwavering composure, and perfect politeness. However, Baron Haklan and his biological son, Iscazel Noth Haklan, were the absolute, non-negotiable exceptions.

He had spent years desperately fleeing and hiding from Baron Haklan, hitting the absolute, miserable rock bottom of life over and over again. He had managed to scrape his shattered mind back together and resolve to live a new life back then, and he fully intended to do the exact same thing now.

“Your Highness, does my body please you?”

Twisting his upper torso slightly to glance back over his shoulder, Lino asked the question. Holding Lino’s gaze steadily, the Duke answered.

“Yes, immensely. So much so that I desperately want to take a massive bite out of you right this very second.”

***