Chapter 35

He moved one hand to where they were joined. He traced the l*bia, spread wide to take him, and moved upward. He pushed the prominent cl*t toward the shaft and rubbed it in grinding circles, and Lea threw her head back.

“Nnhh, ah…! So, so good……! Hnn……!”

It felt like sparks were bursting behind her eyes. Lea finally let go of the last thread of reason she had been holding onto. Her honest instincts did exactly what Owen wanted, gasping and moaning that it felt good. Even with her lower body tilted back and nearly inverted, she somehow managed to rock her hips in time with his thr*sts, and Owen stopped speaking and gave himself over to instinct as well.

Wherever his c*ck pressed inside her wet walls, Lea sobbed and cried out in breathless m*ans. Owen stopped thrusting and changed position. He turned Lea onto her back and spread her legs. Her entrance, unable to close, opened wider. Owen drove his already slick c*ck inside her in one thr*st.

Taken to the hilt again in a completely different position, Lea’s body shook as though in spasm. The head was now pressed against the opposite wall entirely. But this position left her even more unable to move than before. She couldn’t rock her hips. Lea had no choice but to take everything he gave, pinned as still as something held under a stone. The c*ck didn’t go as deep as when she had been on her knees with her arms braced beneath her, but the angle pressed upward against her lower abdomen and left her feeling completely full.

“Hnn, nn……!”

Her body shuddered with every thr*st. Lea tried to push herself up with her arms but collapsed each time the head dragged against her inner walls on the way in. Owen’s body covered her completely, and he alone controlled everything. With every movement he made, Lea felt not only the c*ck inside her but the hard tension of his abdomen, his chest, and the heat of his breath. It felt as though the whole world was made of nothing but Owen. His breathing filled her ears.

His c*ck worked into her yielding walls and pressed into a spot that was soft and firm all at once, and Lea’s entire body went rigid before trembling hard. Reaching her cl*max from a single press against her cervix, Lea was given no time to rest. Her vision went white and her lips were slick with saliva, and in her ears she heard his breathing and his low, unsteady gasps. Her swollen cl*t was rubbed again, and Lea was driven easily to another cl*max. Owen groaned at the clenching walls and began moving faster and deeper. He stopped pulling back as far, and the wet sounds grew rapid and close together.

“Hhaah, ahnn…! Nnhh, nn……! Ah……!”

When Lea finally reached her second cl*max, the thrusting grew fast and urgent. Owen let out a low sound as the sensation rushed up through his neck and to his temples. The pleasure of finishing lasted an unbearably long time.

“Hah…… hh……”

Owen caught his breath and slowly withdrew. As his c*ck pulled free, the fl*id that hadn’t pooled inside ran out along the shaft in a slow stream. The sensation of it moving down her inner walls made Lea’s back shudder once more. Owen stroked that back slowly. His hand moved along her side toward her lower abdomen, pressed against the sofa.

“Not bad, opening up in broad daylight.”

“Nn……”

“It’s almost a shame that once you’re pregnant, I won’t be able to do this for months.”

The blunt words made Lea’s face burn. But the word pregnant cut through the lingering warmth of pleasure in an instant. Lea heard in that word not only the pregnancy itself but the other thing Owen had demanded of her from the very beginning: the whereabouts of Zebek. She had completely forgotten about it in the fog of guilt and confusion over the child, but she knew nothing about how Owen’s search for Zebek was going.

“Owen……”

Lea forced her cracked voice to work and called his name. Owen answered easily.

“What?”

“My father…… have you, f, found him……?”

But the moment Lea finished speaking, a strange silence fell. She couldn’t see it because her back was still turned, but Owen’s face, relaxed until just a moment ago, had shifted into a cold smile. He curled his lips and said:

“Why, are you going to wander the streets yourself to look for him if I say I haven’t?”

“……I was just curious. I’m sorry if it bothered you……”

Had it wounded his pride? At Owen’s sharp reply, Lea apologized with a deflated expression. But Owen tapped the back of her head lightly and continued:

“Lea. Why not be curious about something more useful than that. For instance…… something like when you might finally get pregnant.”

“……”

“Don’t worry about your father. When I find him, you’ll be the first person I bring him to. I have enough consideration to arrange a final family reunion. It’ll be very moving.”

A cold laugh followed. Lea’s back went rigid again, for a different reason this time. Owen’s promise to let her see Zebek had frightened her.

Owen paid no attention to whether she was frightened or not. He wrapped his arm around her lower abdomen and pulled her upright in one motion. Lea twisted her legs in surprise, but Owen showed no sign of caring. He pinched her n*pple and said in a cold, commanding tone:

“You’re taking too long. We’ve been at this every night and there’s still no news. If you don’t want seeing your father to be your prenatal activity, you’d better put in more effort.”

“Ah……!”

“Shh. Stop talking and lift your hips. Spread your legs too. ……You did well enough in the dark. It’s brighter now, so you’ll do better.”

With that, Owen said nothing more. Lea hesitated, but in the end did as he said, spreading her legs and lifting her hips. Owen rewarded her by smoothing his fingers gently over the n*pple he had twisted roughly. Lea closed her eyes and chose, once again, to let herself become stupid with pleasure.

❀❀❀

Time kept passing.

It had been a cold winter when Owen came to find Lea in Endelden, and now it was the full tail end of spring.

The winter flowers Lea had seen in the garden when she first arrived at the Tetias residence, the camellias and cyclamens and snowdrops, had long since disappeared, and the fifteen or so gardeners had replaced them with spring flowers in season, daisies and hyacinths and daffodils planted in their proper places.

The garden had been beautiful even in winter, but there had been something architectural about it, uniform and static. Now it was filled with flowers in yellow and red and white and violet, and with the pale green of new leaves. Birds sang at dawn, and in the bright midday hours butterflies and bees moved busily among the blossoms. A few servants with pollen allergies coughed their way through the days, but the vitality of spring put color back into the faces of everyone working inside the residence.

Yet despite being the mistress of a house so full of life, Lea was losing more vitality than she had ever had in the days when she was nothing but a factory worker before Owen came for her.

Regardless of the lively atmosphere, the servants kept watch over Lea as Owen had instructed. Whether she went to the garden or walked the corridors, every servant paused what they were doing when she passed and looked at her. It was partly the surveillance Owen had ordered, but as time went on, the looks carried more and more curiosity and a subtle mockery.

“Sometimes I still feel like there’s no mistress here at all!”

“My thoughts exactly!”

The loose-tongued maids would say things like that and burst out laughing when Lea wasn’t around. A duchess was still a duchess, and they didn’t dare openly mock the mistress of the house, but the servants were well practiced at expressing that kind of veiled contempt.

The master has no interest in his wife. The servants were nearly certain of their mistress’s fate.

It was spring, not winter. Spring was one of the best seasons for outings, and other noblewomen would travel with their husbands on pleasure boats or take trips to country houses with scenic views. Even those who couldn’t leave the residence would ordinarily be busy hosting social gatherings with other ladies their age or enjoying simple outings. But their mistress, with all her country houses and beautiful dresses and shoes and jewels, did none of it. She simply existed in the residence, like a plant slowly withering.