## CHAPTER 124
He pressed his lips beneath her earlobe and gently sucked the pulsing skin. Her delicate shoulder flinched with a start.
He massaged with his palm the small muscles that had contracted tightly, pressing his chest against her slippery back. The contact of bare skin was stimulating to an unbearable degree.
"D-don't do that..."
She murmured in a faint voice. He let the sound go in one ear and out the other, and while nipping at her delicate shoulder, he lowered his hand toward her waist.
She was drenched. He gently caressed her skin, slippery with the fluid of them both, and then the woman, who until that moment had been relaxing, began to writhe her entire body.
He instinctively grabbed her wrist.
"What is wrong?"
"I said no! I have no intention of repeating that a second time in a single night!"
She shouted, her countenance filled with apprehension.
Varkas frowned, looking at her, and let out a soft sigh while pulling the duvet over them.
"If Your Highness does not wish it, I will do nothing more. But sleep in my bed all the same."
He wrapped her in the soft fabric and encircled her waist again with his arm; confusion and anxiety crossed her small face.
She poked her face out from inside the duvet, like a snail shrinking into its shell, and looked at him with distrustful eyes.
"Why should I stay here? By this hour, everyone in the castle will already know that we have consummated the marriage. There is no reason to share the same room at the cost of discomfort."
He felt the languid warmth that had enveloped him dissipate in an instant and stared at her. If she had not looked so visibly destabilized, perhaps he would have snapped something sharp at her.
Varkas took a long breath and slowly caressed her curled-up back.
"There is also no reason not to share the same room. For a couple who has spent the night together, sleeping in the same bed is the most natural thing in the world."
"B-but we are not..."
She stammered with a bewildered countenance.
He brushed away the hair that had stuck to her face and brought his lips close to her warming cheek. At the breath that tickled her skin, her thin, small neck flinched.
Feeling increasingly anxious, he slid his palm over her belly from atop the thin duvet.
"We are no different."
When he whispered it in her ear, a faint shudder ran through her body.
The heat rising to her face as it brushed the bridge of her nose increased little by little. Had the room been illuminated, he would have been able to see the blush spreading over her skin, transparent like milky glass.
He felt the desire he believed satiated growing once more, and gently bit her soft earlobe. She flinched with a small cry, and her whole body trembled.
Since she did not seem to dislike it, he molded that ear like a flower bud with his thumb, and then barely brought the tip of his tongue to the small opening. At that, she startled and jerked her head sharply backward.
"You said you wouldn't do anything more!"
"Can I not even simply touch you?"
Whispering in her ear while holding her gathered in his arms—that small body that fit just right within them—her large eyes fluttered intensely.
Varkas, understanding that she was debating with herself, distractedly touched her slender waist over the thin duvet and then brushed the area beside her long, thin navel.
She curled into an even tighter ball. But this time, he knew it was not because of tension or anxiety, but excitement.
His insides burned with anticipation at the possibility that perhaps she would receive him once more.
"Can I remove the duvet?"
"N-no."
"Really no?"
She rolled her eyes as if reflecting, and that was visible with total clarity even in the darkness.
Varkas, with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, stealthily inserted his hand inside the duvet and carefully separated her knees.
At that instant, the woman who had been relaxing began to kick with a violence as if lightning had struck her. He furrowed his brow and held her tightly by the waist. A sharp scream burst from her mouth.
"It hurts!"
He let go of her arm as if he had been burned.
Without letting that moment pass, the woman leapt out of bed, wrapped herself in the duvet until nothing could be seen, and stumbled toward the door.
Varkas looked at her with dark eyes and reached her in a few steps.
"Why are you so eager to return to your room?"
"I-I... do not want to be here. I am more comfortable in my room."
There was a deep and distinct fear in her voice. Perceiving it, it was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head.
She was a woman with an intense revulsion toward physical contact. Perhaps his forced actions had awakened some nightmare of hers.
"Have I made you uncomfortable?"
When he asked her in a muted voice, complicated emotions played out across her countenance.
She lowered her eyes and spoke in a muted voice:
"You have done nothing wrong. It is just... I feel more comfortable in my own way."
"Your way, meaning escaping by running away like a scared hare as soon as it is over?"
He did not want to pressure a woman who seemed so unstable, but his voice sharpened on its own. Fortunately, instead of shrinking back, she responded defensively, raising her quills.
"Who said I am scared? I just prefer efficiency."
In the bluish twilight, Her Highness the arrogant princess raised her head high.
"I will come when I want, I will stay as long as I want, and then I will leave. While the act lasts, you can do as you please, but afterward, I will do things my way!"
He crossed his arms and gave her a sidelong glance. Looking at her form trembling from the shoulders while bluffing at the same time, a cruel impulse assailed him for an instant.
He could do with her whatever he wished. He could hold her in bed by force and vent his desire until satiated.
However, he also knew that if he yielded to that savage impulse, he would wound her in a way from which there would be no turning back.
He closed his eyes gently and then opened them.
In the darkness, the blue eyes that had provoked him relentlessly since childhood shone like broken glass. He looked at them head-on and asked:
"Is that really what you want?"
Something akin to hesitation appeared on her pale countenance. But she thrust her chin out stubbornly.
"Yes."
Varkas contemplated her in silence and then twisted the corner of his lips.
"Then I have no choice but to wait until you want to stay in my room."
It must have been something she did not expect, because confusion settled in her eyes.
"That is never going to happen."
"We shall see about that."
He responded with indifference. Varkas scooped his trousers from the floor with a sweep of his hand and pulled them on quickly. Then he took the tunic hanging on the wall, threw it over his shoulders, and scooped her up in his arms, duvet included.
At the sudden gesture, a cry of surprise burst from her mouth.
"N-no, no! I can go by myself!"
He paid her no attention and stepped out into the hallway, which was fully illuminated.
She immediately hid beneath the duvet. That figure, looking like a larva taking refuge in its cocoon, drew a smile from Varkas, and then he strode down the hallway.
The servants he crossed paths with contemplated him with astonished expressions, but he passed right by them.
As soon as he arrived in front of her bedroom, Varkas held her with one arm across her back and turned the doorknob.
Upon entering the room, she finally poked her face out.
Her slightly damp eyes of a reddish hue and her disheveled golden hair fell into his field of vision, and his throat constricted with a viscous tightness and a burning thirst.
Repressing the urge to join his lips to hers at that very instant, he deposited her onto the bed and knelt before her.
"When do you think you will want to visit my bedroom again?"
"How should I know."
"Tomorrow?"
"I said I don't know!"
She furrowed her brow. If she did not come, he could go. But he was not sure if pressuring her in that manner was the right thing to do.
She wanted to choose on her own. If that was the only way for this woman, with such a colossal fear and without any apparent reason, to feel safe, he had to respect it.
He coiled the hair, bright as golden glass, around his fingers and caressed it with care.
"I will wait."
In her blue iris, the light reflected in multicolored waves. He contemplated for a good while the dark pupils that trembled intensely, and then added slowly:
"Come to me... when you desire it."
He kissed her forehead with a prolonged tenderness, then stood up and gently closed the door behind him.
Talia remained sitting on her bed, wrapped in the blanket, staring at the door for a long time. There was something in her chest that ached... but it was no longer solely about fear.
