“You helped me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“What do you mean, ‘didn’t have to’?”

“I mean it was something I was going to have to hear eventually.”

The moment she had Dante Siegfried, it was criticism she was bound to hear someday. Duke Siegfried’s expression stiffened for a moment.

“You shouldn’t have to get used to that sort of thing.”

It sounded like a murmur to himself, yet it came across like a vow that he would never let her hear such words again. Lionette wanted to hide her reddening ears and settled for giving a small nod.

When would the Schperghen end? She couldn’t shake the pull in two directions at once, wanting to step out of his arms and cool down, yet wanting to keep holding his hand and dancing.

It was a truly grand wedding. There were many guests, and congratulations came in abundance.

Which also meant it had drained her completely. Lionette, wearing a slip that the maids had practically peeled her into, leaned back against the headboard and let out a sigh.

Her feet, her back, there wasn’t a spot on her that didn’t ache or pull. Taking a small sip of the red wine on the side table seemed to dull the feeling a little.

Was she always this much of a lightweight? She couldn’t quite remember, but she took another sip and exhaled. Dante appeared then, almost out of nowhere.

“You haven’t fallen asleep yet tonight.”

The teasing tone made Lionette stare at him in silence. Dante met her eyes and burst out laughing. She looked exactly like a cat debating whether to swat its owner, and the image got away from him.

They had already agreed on the wedding night. Both of them held the view that you could only fool others if you fooled yourself completely first, so the agreement had come easily.

Because of that, Lionette half expected Dante to lay her down right away. But he did something different. A man of his standing knelt down in front of Lionette where she sat leaning against the headboard and lifted her feet onto his thighs. Then he began to rub them, gently, the way a man would who knew every bit of what she had been through that day.

“No, you really don’t have to go that far, I mean…….”

While Lionette fumbled for words, Dante worked her cold feet with his large, warm hands. He rolled his knuckles slowly along the arch of her foot, then kneaded her toes, looking very much like he intended to keep going until the fatigue had actually left her.

Unable to hold back any longer, Lionette let out a small yelp.

“You really don’t have to do this!”

“If you don’t work it out while you can, the soreness will linger.”

Dante looked up with an expression that said he genuinely didn’t understand. Like he couldn’t figure out why Lionette was trying to stop him. Her face flushed as she muttered.

“Still, my feet…….”

“You washed up before this, didn’t you? Not that it would matter either way.”

“Even so…….”

“If you’re embarrassed over this, what are you going to do when the wedding night comes?”

Dante said it with a wicked little smile. For a moment Lionette had the very strong urge to smack that handsome face of his, and she curled her hand into a fist before letting it go.

Whether or not he knew what was going through her mind, Dante kept massaging Lionette’s feet until they went from lukewarm to genuinely warm, then finally lifted his hands.

“Was the wine to your taste?”

“Yes, well enough.”

He asked as though he might want to try it himself, then stepped back, having apparently only wanted to know Lionette’s opinion.

Tension rose in an instant. A chill ran down her spine on instinct. The smile faded from Dante’s face too. He settled quietly onto the bed beside her. Close enough that even the sound of swallowing felt audible, he spoke.

“This marriage can’t be undone after tonight.”

“The same goes for you, Your Grace.”

Dante gave a faint smile and tilted his head.

Soft lips made contact first. Pliant lips pressed steadily against Lionette’s, then caught her lower lip between them. The movement was as gentle as the lips themselves. When his tongue lightly grazed her teeth, Lionette found herself gripping the front of his shirt without meaning to. It was a sensation she had never felt before.

Before she knew it, he was slowly running his hand down her back. The slip the maids had dressed her in was so thin it felt almost like his hand was touching bare skin.

Lionette drew a quiet breath. Even so, his tongue kept pulling at hers with soft, wet sounds that made her want to disappear, and when it pressed hard against the roof of her mouth, a m*an slipped out before she could swallow it.

Dante lifted Lionette and placed her in the center of the bed. A tension showed in him too, and his hands, which couldn’t seem to stay still, made it clear he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding how worked up he was.

When their lips parted, Lionette swallowed. Taking that as some kind of signal, Dante reached out carefully and slowly drew her slip off. Then he began to s*ck gently at the peak of her br*ast.

“Ngh……!”

One side pulled at by his tongue, the other teased by his fingertips, she felt a tingling shoot straight between her legs. Lionette tried to stop him without thinking, but Dante caught both her wrists in one hand. Holding her still, he kept flicking her n*pple with his index finger, rubbing it slowly over and over. Every time he kneaded the soft flesh, Lionette struggled to hold back the sounds rising in her throat.

“Ah, Dante, hnn…….”

Lionette’s hips trembled faintly without her meaning to. She couldn’t get used to the sounds coming out of her. Her back seemed to arch toward him a little. She was burning up.

Dante parted her thighs with devastating ease and reached between them. His hand slid slowly along the slick folds, wet and bare since she wore nothing underneath, and the damp, slippery sound of it filled the room.

Dante paused for a moment, then lightly rubbed the swollen bud nestled between her folds. Her legs instinctively tried to close, but with his thigh settled between them, all she could manage was a small twitch.

“Mmnn…….”

Dante pressed small kisses along her collarbone, the way a man soothes someone he’s trying to calm. Then he moved his lips lower. Which meant those soft lips, the same ones that had kissed her mouth, now pressed against her, already quite wet. Lionette shuddered before she could stop herself.

“Not there……!”

She barely had time to squirm before his forearms locked around her thighs. Lionette couldn’t bear the feeling of his soft lips gently lapping and sucking at her inner walls, yet at the same time she was too lost in the pleasure to think straight. Every sensation she had ever known before felt like a lie.

“How? How can something like this exist?”

Every time he rolled her cl*t in his mouth, her body refused to stay still. At some point her hips had lifted high enough off the bed for a fist or two to fit beneath her, and Lionette was the only one who didn’t know it. Dante smiled faintly, pulled her closer, and buried himself in licking and working her. He kept at it until Lionette finally came.

“Ah, hh, ngh!”

It felt like heat gathering in the very center of her belly. More precisely, like the desire that had been pooling inside her suddenly boiled over and spread through her entire body. Lionette shook, her outstretched feet cramping, with no time to register it.

Dante licked along the inside of her thigh, then pushed his long middle finger into the place his tongue had been working.