It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 12.7

Ines shook her head and pushed against his chest.
She had prepared herself for this moment countless times by recalling her memories, but the reality was far more overwhelming.
It felt like she was completely filled with Rayan—her body, her mind, her heart.

 

Ines was confused about where she was in time.
The face of the man looking down at her with burning eyes was exactly the same as in her memories.

 

“Be honest. Tell me what you did while I was gone. What you were thinking.”
“Don’t meet Edgar. If you must, only when I’m there. Never alone.”

 

The man’s body that consumed her completely, his furrowed brows, his rough breathing—everything was Rayan.
Yes, it was with eyes like those that he once parted her lips and forced his tongue inside…

 

“It’s okay. This isn’t strange.”
Was he still a man?

 

His lips touched hers lightly, again and again, and Ines’s mind returned to the present. The past slipped away.

 

His thick fingers pressed gently just below her belly button.
“Just up to here. That way, it won’t be too hard for you.”

 

“Hah…”

 

“Tell me if it’s too much.”

 

Just as he said, it didn’t hurt. But every time he moved, her overly sensitive body trembled. Her mind turned white, swept away by waves of pleasure.

 

In that vast sea, the only thing she could hold onto was him. Ines clung to him desperately.

 

As her slender body tensed, Rayan let out a suppressed groan.
When the control in his green eyes vanished for just a moment, a rush of overwhelming pleasure swept through him.

 

“…!”

 

It felt like the only part of her body still alive was the one he kept striking.

 

Whenever Ines couldn’t even catch her breath and let out broken gasps, he would stop and stroke her cheek.
“Breathe, Ines. Don’t hold in your voice.”

 

His tightly clenched fist on her shoulder showed how much he was restraining himself.

 

Rayan focused only on Ines’s reactions.
He set aside his own pleasure and gave all his attention to increasing hers.

 

It was strange—too strange.

 

But also… it felt good. Her moans grew louder without her realizing, her body drawn to him like a magnet.

 

How could this be?
It was the same person.
The same act.
It was something she was more than used to.

 

This was the act that would finally complete the memory she had put off for so long.
The clearest way to recall everything.

 

Her choice hadn’t been wrong.
And yet…

 

“What are you thinking about?”

 

Each time he moved deeply and fast,
“If you’re not thinking about me, stop. It’s not fair if only you’re calm… ngh…”

 

Two times, three times—each time he went deeper, fear that things would never go back to normal mixed with the desire to be even closer to him.

 

“Don’t think about anything.”

 

Whenever she saw her tear-filled face reflected in his sharp green eyes.
Whenever the words he once said during the same act came back vividly…
She didn’t want to remember anything anymore.

 

Ines barely managed to speak through the shaking.
“You’re… thinking right now.”

 

I’m thinking about our past.
“I hate you.”
“I really, really hate you.”

 

Her head spun from the pleasure.
Her heart pounded madly from the haunting visions of the past.
She was walking a tightrope between ecstasy and despair.

 

“Even if we meet again in the next life, let’s not see each other.”

 

Instinct moved her.
“Ray… ne.”

 

This relationship was supposed to bring back her memories.
But now, that original purpose had vanished, and only the pleasure remained.

 

She didn’t want to think anymore.
Maybe it was because she could feel the end of the fragile peace they’d had for almost a month.

 

“Stop whining. Provoking me like this isn’t a smart choice.”
“Even I have limits.”

 

She wanted to hear his gentle voice instead of the cold one echoing in her ear.

 

“You just stay right there. Then there won’t be any problems.”

 

These memories I found—are they real? You didn’t say those things, did you?
She wanted to ask and hear him deny it, just to feel relieved.

 

She was foolish.
Even knowing all that, Ines still said the words that would drive him wild.
“More… hold me deeper.”

 

Her thin legs wrapped around his waist and pulled him in.
Rayan, drawn closer, couldn’t hide the crack in his barely restrained desire.

 

“No. If I go any further, it’ll be too hard on you—”
“It’s not too much. I…”

 

If not now, she’d never be able to say it.
Never be able to accept him with her own words.
Only now—only this moment.

 

That thought moved her lips.
“I want to feel you completely.”

 

Rayan stared down at her flushed face, stunned.
She begged him, voice trembling.
“Just like you said… I want to be unable to think. I want to worry about nothing but you…”

 

His face changed as he looked into her blurry blue eyes.
From the moment she touched and clung to him desperately, Rayan’s mind went blank.

 

The desire he had held back all day finally exploded.
As their bodies fully connected and he breathed harshly, Ines could no longer think either.

 

All she could feel was his presence.
Every cell in her body seemed to scream in pleasure.

 

He called her name several times with desperate need, but the sound broke apart before it even reached her ears.
Her body no longer responded to her will.

 

“…!”

 

Finally, at the peak of climax, Ines turned her head to the side.
Her blue eyes looked toward the mirror on the wall.

 

There, their tangled bodies were reflected clearly, overlaid by a vision.

 

Even as she gasped in intense pleasure, she couldn’t take her eyes off the illusion in the mirror.

 

“You keep disobeying me. You think Eleanor would ever like someone like you?”

 

The next moment, Rayan grabbed her chin and turned it toward him, kissing her roughly.
She tasted the blood from his lips on her tongue.

 

She felt everything he gave her melt into her like fire.
Her trembling body couldn’t stop as she hugged him tightly.

 

She had felt this intense climax before—many times.
And now, with her mind blank, she had one clear thought.

 

This is the end…

 

It’s over.
The fog had lifted completely.
She was finally whole.

 

Tears welled up like jewels in her blue eyes and on her dark lashes.
“Hah…”

 

Rayan buried his face in her neck and breathed heavily.
The pleasure in his body and heart refused to let go.

 

He hugged her shaking body tightly and kissed her forehead and cheeks.
“I love you.”

 

“…”

 

“Ines, I thought… I’d never be able to do this with you again.
I thought you’d never let me back in…”

 

Ines flinched and collapsed in his arms.
Rayan stifled a groan and looked down at her small frame.

 

A sticky trail ran down her thin belly and waist.
Realizing he hadn’t completely lost control, he felt a little relieved.

 

He couldn’t risk planting any seed of danger in her still fragile body.
Even if she recovered her health, he never planned to let her have a child again.
He couldn’t let her weaken again because of pregnancy.

 

That was why he had kept drinking the tea with contraceptive effects all evening.
Thinking that, he calmed his breathing.

 

“I love you. Thank you for accepting me…”

 

He kissed her cheek again.

 

And then he felt it—wetness.
Surprised, he lifted his head.

 

Ines’s pale cheeks were soaked with tears.
The teardrops rolled down her temples.

 

While Rayan froze in silence, her delicate face twisted in sorrow.
She tried to hold it back, but finally, a small sob escaped from her lips.
“Huh…”

 

Rayan’s face went pale.
His thoughts stopped.

 

“Ines, why? Why…”

 

She didn’t answer.
The quiet sobs grew louder.
Eventually, she covered her eyes with her arm and cried like a child.

 

Rayan quickly shifted and pulled her onto him.
He held her small face and wiped her flowing tears.

 

“Did it hurt? I’m sorry. I thought I was being careful, but maybe I missed something…”

 

But the tears didn’t stop, soaking her cheeks and his fingers.

 

“Was it the end? I’m sorry. You were too… no, damn it. It’s my fault.”

 

He rambled, uncharacteristically, and Ines could hear it.
Rayan kept kissing her forehead and cheeks, repeating his apologies.

 

But Ines couldn’t stop crying.
After that hellish pleasure, all that remained was sorrow.

 

“Why… did you…”

 

She barely opened her mouth, but her voice was drowned in sobs.
Her weak fists lightly hit his shoulder.

 

The words couldn’t come out.
Her grief stayed trapped deep in her throat.

 

Why?
Why did you do it?
Why?

 

“I don’t know what to do when you cry. Please don’t cry.”

 

The gentle, desperate voice she had heard ever since she woke up now sounded so unfamiliar—it made her even sadder.

 

You could be this kind.
So why weren’t you, before I died?

 

You could be such a devoted father to Caesar—
So why didn’t you care at all back then?

 

What were you doing while I was dying?

 

“Sorry for hurting you. I think I was too hasty. Should we wash up? I’ll help you. Try getting up, okay?”

 

Why did he do that back then…?

 

She couldn’t breathe. There were no more missing parts in her memory now.

 

Every moment was so vivid, she couldn’t believe she had ever forgotten them.

 

Their first meeting. The night they first became one, the first lie he told her that night, the life in that elegant mansion in the duchy.

 

His indifference, his cold eyes, the only thing that cold man ever wanted from her. The days when no one treated her like a human being.

 

Six years of being scorned as a bastard lower than a commoner, a duchess in name only, someone who didn’t matter whether she existed or not. A life so inhuman that, in the end, she even began counting the days until she would die.

 

Only then did Ines understand why she had been so afraid to fully regain her memories.

 

It was because she knew she couldn’t handle them.