Eloise opened her eyes, her panicked gaze meeting the faintly deep look behind the black lenses.
They locked eyes, each with their own thoughts, their lips entwining for so long that Eloise started to feel a ringing in her ears, hearing the sharp honk of a distant horn. Dizzy, she tried hard to finish this kiss with a perfect French ending.
She forgot her own limits, thinking she could control Isidore? As long as his arm muscles didn't loosen, she was stuck to him like a piece of glue, unable to get free.
Her slight struggle further stirred Isidore's negative emotions. In his golden eyes, which reflected her silly expression, there was a hidden fury. It was unclear whether he was angry with her or with himself.
Isidore released her for a second, using that moment to silently condemn his own actions, yet still keeping their lips pressed together. His breath, speaking just inches away, tickled her skin with a sharp, minty fragrance: "I realize your moral bottom line is quite low. Say something wrong, and you resort to this trick?"
He angrily bit her lip, resentful of how easily he fell for her "seducing trap." Eloise was even angrier. It was true that she had initiated, but who was the real victim in this suffocating kiss?
Isidore further explained what it meant to be petty and calculative, relentlessly bringing up that unavoidable topic. "Was this trick also what you wanted to use on Quintus?"
She wanted to roll her eyes, but was too short of breath to do so. She remembered when they first met, thinking he was lazy and carefree, his actions effortless, with a swagger in every word and movement—an air of being cocky and rebellious.
Now she wished she could travel back in time and slap herself twice—blind as a bat, couldn't even learn how to judge a man in two lifetimes!
It took her a while to realize that he wasn't such a magnanimous person after all. The price of her delayed realization was that now she had to lower her voice and coax him, her breath slightly quickened as she said: "It's all for you, all for you!"
Then, in her mind, she added a big eye-roll, paired with the words "Enough, okay?" full of impatience.
He seemed to finally be somewhat satisfied. His voice deepened, becoming richer and more gravelly. "You said it yourself." He pulled his lips into a flat line, his voice laced with a menacing tone as he squeezed out, "If it's for me, then you'll accept it my way."
"Ah!" Eloise barely had time to scream before her lips were sealed again, this time more urgently and intensely. Her small, soft frame was trapped in his arms, being squeezed as though he wanted to press her into his body.
Isidore calmly thought to himself that he truly wasn't living up to his own standards. But it didn't matter—he would keep track of the score with this heartless little girl, one item at a time, and it couldn't be erased.
He was intoxicated by the feeling of her soft flesh pressing down under his palm, mingled with the sensation of her thin back, his broad, long hand shifting and contracting over that area. Eloise winced in pain, searching for an opening to plead, "Enough, enough!" He responded with authoritarian finality, "Not enough!"
He pressed something somewhere, and a faint mechanical sound followed. The driver's seat behind them smoothly reclined, transforming into a reclining chair. Eloise found herself lying down involuntarily, and her inner alarm bells rang sharply: What's he planning in a situation like this? Is he getting frisky?
She wasn't wrong in her guess. Isidore was indeed thinking along those lines, and his frustration with her resistance only grew. He seized the hand she used to push him away, his shoulder tightening as he trapped her against his chest.
Eloise's slightly frantic resistance was not only due to her unwillingness to be so shameless in broad daylight, but more importantly, because the seatbelt on the passenger side was tightening around her neck. As her body leaned back, it became more and more constricting.
She bent her arm in a desperate attempt to push him away with her elbow, but it didn't budge. The resistance her lower body could offer was negligible, and with her mouth blocked, all she could make were muffled sounds. Her neck was tightening, hurting more with each second, and she could clearly feel the air becoming more and more scarce, struggling to breathe.
What the hell kind of new way to kill someone is this?!
It wasn't until Isidore, dissatisfied with her lack of cooperation, pulled away his mouth and said, "Can you cooperate a bit?" that she found the chance to suck in a huge breath of air, coughing violently, her eyes rolling in frustration.
Only then did Isidore notice that Eloise's lips were turning slightly purple from lack of oxygen. He quickly released her, helping her sit up straight, his hands pressing gently on her chest and back to help her breathe more easily.
Eloise gradually recovered, a feeling of having narrowly escaped death washing over her.
Isidore watched coldly from the side, noticing that her little appearance was indeed quite pitiful. Her hair was disheveled, her face flushed from suffocation, and her eyes misty with tears. He felt a twinge of pity, but gritted his teeth and thought to himself: She deserves it.
The light in the car was dim, but his eyes caught an oddity at the corner of her mouth. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned in to take a closer look. Eloise instinctively shrank back, and Isidore, furious beyond measure, pulled the seatbelt from the passenger seat to its full length and swiftly bound it around her body and wrists.
Eloise had become a tightly bound crab, completely immobile, her eyes filled with terror as she asked, "What are you going to do?"
Isidore didn't answer. After studying her for a few seconds, he tossed his sunglasses aside, opened the door, and stepped out of the car. Eloise caught him in her peripheral vision, seeing him stand by the car door, his back rising and falling twice before he walked over to the tree and lit a cigarette. His gaze, through the dark glass of the window, seemed to be fixed on her from afar.
After finishing the cigarette, he tossed the butt into a trash can, and his whereabouts were unknown.
Just as Eloise was about to fall asleep, she heard the sound of the car door closing, followed by the soothing coolness on her sore lip. Isidore had seen that her lip was cut and bleeding, so he bought an ice cream cone from a convenience store and returned to apply it as a cold compress.
She kept her mouth tightly shut, her lips pressed together, unsure of what to say. Isidore, silent and expressionless, extended his arm, his face as cold as ice cream. After smoothing things over enough, he unwrapped the cone again and held it to her lips. "Eat it."
From the angle where he couldn't see, Eloise shot him a discontented look, but she had no choice but to open her mouth and take a bite. However, her body was bound, and the space for movement was minimal. The ice cream had been sitting for a while, and she couldn't eat it fast enough.
Soon, sticky liquid began to drip from Isidore's thumb, sliding down the clearly defined muscles of his arm, entering the cuff of his shirt, staining the fabric. The impatient sigh that escaped Isidore's nose made her heart tighten.
In her nervousness, she didn't have time to think about her actions. Stretching her neck forward, she extended her tongue and licked Isidore's arm, following the trail of melting ice cream, licking up his hand, the space between his thumb and index finger, and finally his fingers.
Suddenly, Isidore turned to look at her. The ferocity in his gaze made her feel as though she had made an unforgivable mistake. In that brief moment of hesitation, the cold liquid dripped onto her collarbone, sliding down the curve of her chest.
