Wrap your legs around my waist. Following Van’s instructions, Eurene felt him cage her face between his arms and rotate his hips. It was a moment of gentle pleasure as he ground and rubbed against her inner walls. While Van’s s*x was rough and intense, he also enjoyed melting his partner like this and watching their reactions. The problem was that after this brief tease, he would soon ravage her completely. Anyway, thanks to this, Van’s speech became smoother as he slowly inserted and withdrew his member, lost in his own memories(?).

“It’s quite sad. After discovering my mother fooling around with that skinny teacher, I couldn’t stand the sight of political science. I became an idle duke because I met the wrong teacher. Hmm? Don’t lie? You’re right. Actually, I hated political science from the beginning. It was boring.”

After chuckling once, Van placed Eurene’s legs on his shoulders and increased his speed without warning. The table rattled loudly with his rough thrusts. Her vision went white. The man’s flesh slapping against her b*ttocks was explicit. The pleasure made her head spin. Through her dazed ears, Van’s broken voice flowed in, unfiltered.

“The third was, my father’s, kuk! knight!”

“Ahng! Aah!”

“A knight my father, somewhat, trusted, huk! Honestly, my father, probably didn’t know. The man who bowed his head during the day speaking of loyalty, kruk, haah, would crawl under, my mother’s, skirt at, night. I wonder how he would have reacted if he had seen it. Kuk kuk.”

A proper gentleman. Though I suppose even a homosexual can be proper.

His rough hand, heated with passion, suddenly reached to where their bodies joined and tore apart the underwear that had been pushed to one side. It tore so easily with a ripping sound that a hot emptiness washed over her. After stuffing it into his pants pocket, Van grabbed Eurene’s waist, now with clothes clinging to her from sweat. In the blink of an eye, her field of vision rotated.

Suddenly Eurene found herself lying flat on the table. Doggy style, his favorite position. Having felt the pleasant tightness unfiltered as he turned her body while still inside her, he exhaled a deep, hot breath and grabbed her plump b*ttocks. Van tenderly concluded the fairy tale of his youth.

“And what I saw was those three and my mother, all four of them rolling around together.”

Shocking, right? Van snickered.

* * *

“So, are you going?”

“Going where?”

“Sonya’s tea party.”

Van asked while zipping up Eurene’s dress. Eurene, whose mind was hazy from the intense lovemaking just now and the somewhat shocking confession—which he didn’t seem to attach much importance to—made an “ah” sound as if waking from sleep. Come to think of it, there had been an important event. She had forgotten about meeting the duchess after getting caught up in Van’s pace. Both she and the nonchalant person involved were problematic. Eurene messed up her hair frantically while muttering, “Uwaaah!”

“Wah! What should I do? The duchess(?) personally invited me, so it would be rude to refuse!”

“What’s with ‘the duchess’? Eurene, you’re the duke’s lover.”

“That’s exactly the problem! Somehow my chest feels prickly. Partly because she’s so beautiful.”

“Hmm, I didn’t know you had a conscience to be pricked, Eurene.”

He smirked as he put a cigarette in his mouth, wearing only his shirt on his upper body. Eurene turned around sharply and glared at him fiercely. When she narrowed her eyes into triangles with her characteristically gentle face, Van flinched and quickly corrected himself.

“No, of course you’re kind, Eurene. Absolutely.”

“Put out that cigarette!”

“Hmm?”

“I hate cigarettes more than anything in the world! If you do such a bad thing in my room, I won’t let you touch me!”

“……Ah, this?”

The duke, a smoker, habitually wanted to smoke after making love. Since Eurene detested it, he usually restrained himself, but today he had forgotten, perhaps because the s*x had been particularly satisfying. Van awkwardly glanced at the cigar in his hand before putting it back. Since this was almost the only thing that made the normally docile and gentle woman fierce, even the self-willed duke somehow wanted to show this much patience for Eurene. Or perhaps it was because once he had playfully blown cigarette smoke into her face in bed, causing Eurene to get extremely upset and burst into tears. Eurene was naturally optimistic and rarely cried, but when angry, she had the strange habit of sniffling. In truth, even her anger was cute.

Anyway, that cigarette incident had been a nightmare. It had been quite shocking to see her, whose body usually melted at his touch, reject him by swatting his hands away like an angry cat. He was a nicotine addict who would unhesitatingly light one up in front of the emperor if necessary.

Van spread his empty hands as if to show her and tried to touch her hair, but before he could, Eurene jerked her head back. His well-shaped eyebrow twitched uncomfortably. Unconsciously, a somewhat uncomfortable and cynical smile escaped him.

“What are you doing?”

“Your hands smell.”

Eurene pinched her nose and curled up in the corner of the bed. She looked like a small, white, chubby puppy. Like an appetizing cotton candy, too. Deliberately suppressing the irritation that had surged up, he wiped his hands on his pants and spread them again. When Eurene’s round blue eyes just stared blankly at them, irritation crawled up his spine like an insect.

He definitely lacked patience. He seriously considered grabbing those cute ankles and pulling her under him, but fortunately, before the thought was put into action, she scurried over to him and hugged him. Instantly, his chilled nerves relaxed satisfyingly. With what felt like the most relaxed expression of his day, Van buried his face in her disheveled pink hair and exhaled languidly. Eurene chattered in his arms.

“Don’t be angry.”

At times like this, Van was always a little surprised. This gentle woman, the dullest and most ignorant in the world, unexpectedly showed sharp perceptiveness as rare as beans in a drought. Was she a bear or a fox? Clearly a bear, yet occasionally acting like a fox. I don’t think I taught her that. Now completely satisfied, he scratched the tip of her chin. She whimpered and snuggled closer. Smirking, he tensed his jaw to make her look at him. Licking his lips as he observed her large eyes watching for his mood and her pink lips that kept moving, he thought, Haah, this cute thing.

“Don’t refuse what I say.”

Despite his loving gaze and gentle caresses, Van’s voice had a certain sharpness. Eurene nodded obediently with her neck stretched forward like a turtle. Her slightly frightened, submissive demeanor clearly pleased him. Sure enough, Van’s violet pupils settled warmly and deeply.

Eurene suddenly thought that she was becoming more like a pet than a lover—as Van called her—instinctively sensing his preferences and desires and adapting to them rather than using her head. Well, what did it matter? She preferred Van to treat her kindly and playfully rather than getting angry with her.

“But what should I do? Should I go to the tea party?”

“Do as you wish.”

Van replied and then seemed to belatedly remember that it was his wife hosting the party. But he didn’t withdraw his words. With an indifferent expression as if it were someone else’s business, he caressed Eurene’s neck, which was still slightly sweaty, with his fingertips. Bending his head to lick the sweat from his index finger, he continued in a proper voice.

“If it’s uncomfortable, you can refuse.”

“But…… it feels a bit awkward.”

“If you don’t want to go, what can she do? She’s the duchess, not the queen.”

Whenever his wife was occasionally mentioned, Van would maintain an expressionless face devoid of either affection or animosity. It seemed one of boredom, or indifference…… Eurene racked her brain and found the exact word. Yes, precisely businesslike.

Suddenly she became curious about something she had never wondered about before. They were married after all, so they must have slept together. What would he be like with his wife? As a womanizer who loved women, even if they were a marriage of convenience, their s*x might be passionate. They say men get excited physically whether they have feelings or not. Or would he wear that same expression in bed? Working as if it were a duty? That was hard to imagine, so probably not.

Eurene was about to ask all sorts of other questions that suddenly sprang from her curiosity, but Van’s gentle, ticklish touches felt so good that she decided to save them for later. Instead, she said something else.

“She said she wants to be friends with me.”

“Pfft! Who? Sonya?”

“Yes. She said she’s heard a lot about me.”

“That’s interesting. With you?”

A smile like a sneer rose at the corner of his questioning mouth. Like a provocative cynicism directed at someone making a reckless game. Since this was the first time she had seen this side of him, Eurene blinked stupidly.

Van kept stroking her curly hair while fixing his gaze on her slightly stiffened form. From top to bottom, playing with the ends, then back to the top, continuously. He seemed to be thinking about something else. So when he suddenly blurted out these words, she was distracted by his captivating gaze and didn’t immediately understand.

“She’s a smart and cunning woman.”

“……What? Whoo, is?”

“The woman I married.”

Despite her somewhat deficient question, Van kindly explained. His violet pupils were calm. Somehow it felt uncomfortable being stared at so intently by those eyes. So she babbled her foolish thoughts.

“Um, she did look intelligent, but I couldn’t tell if she was cunning.”