Chapter 7

“…Ha, seriously.”

Listening to the sound of horse hooves clattering regularly on the paved road in front of the Imperial Palace, Alexei rubbed his face with both hands over and over. The self-reproach smeared on his skin was so thick, it seemed he might rub his face raw.

Having fled the office, he threw himself into a carriage, telling the coachman to circle the Imperial City as slowly as possible before heading home.

‘…How can I go in like this?’

Like this. That is, with his body, which had never needed calming in the carriage before, now disturbingly hard inside his trousers.

The coachman, puzzled by the Young Master’s unusual mood at coming home before sunset, still loyally obeyed.

The carriage raced along a route completely different from his usual commute. The slanting sunlight bathed the streets warmly, people walked briskly to homes and appointments, and above all, it was the opposite direction of Ramantus’s townhouse, which stood on the northern slope of the Imperial City.

All these sights flashed past Alexei’s blue eyes… but none of them registered in his mind.

Instead, what replayed endlessly in his head were the scenes from when he’d stormed out of the office…

‘Ughhh!’

Alexei screamed silently, ruffling his hair.

How pathetic must he have looked?

He’d always left his hair unstyled because he had the habit of pulling at it when frustrated at work or troubled by his lord’s whims. But this time, it was solely because he felt like a fool.

That foolish brat, still a man at heart…

His gloomy eyes rolled down to his lower half again.

For the second time today.

His merciless lord had only given him playful guidance, yet he’d shamelessly imagined as she instructed and ended up aroused.

〈Th-this is going too far…!〉

〈I’m serious.〉

〈I have dinner with Father tonight.〉

He’d rushed out because he was so turned on he almost accepted her offer for practice, and also because, unlike his composed lord, he was the only one getting flustered, which felt utterly miserable.

‘She didn’t notice, right? She didn’t see, right?’

No, that was just rationalization made up while striding through the wings of the Imperial Palace after leaving Avgenia’s office.

He was just embarrassed and lacked courage.

‘Can’t even seize the opportunity when it comes.’

Idiot. Fool. Simpleton. He’d spent years pleasuring himself in the room where his lifelong crush enjoyed her lovers, years resenting that she’d never once allowed him into her bed. If she’d ever shown him such charity, he should have seized it.

…No. He was glad he didn’t. Their years together were too deep for him to be just a man she’d sleep with once and discard.

Unless he could share her bed more than once, it was better to remain a virgin who’d never served Avgenia.

No, that wasn’t right either.

Wasn’t it?

It should have been.

‘…This is driving me crazy.’

In truth, since storming out of Avgenia’s office, Alexei had replayed the same dilemma about 257 times.

‘Avgenia. Avi. My merciless liege…’

‘Why must I suffer this ordeal…?’

Why, indeed? Because he’d blurted nonsense.

Alexei ruffled his hair again. His light brown hair tangled repeatedly around his long, well-shaped fingers.

〈Why, what’s wrong?〉

Avgenia’s mercilessly innocent face, perched on his desk like a cat, looking at him. Truly… it had been almost twenty years since he’d been swayed by that face and that aura.

Once again, having acted so foolishly under her influence, Alexei hated himself. The reason he’d been able to hide his expressions from Avgenia all these years was thanks to his own self-disgust.

‘Pathetic brat, at least control your face.’

But Avgenia, who had always toyed with him, who could embrace every man in the Imperial City but never him, always smiled in a way that was just too unfair.

‘No, nothing’s wrong with me.’ 

He could have just replied curtly as usual, but today, for some reason, a sense of injustice welled up inside him.

‘I do all the work and all the suffering, right?’

That must have been why he blurted out a truth that was almost a lie.

〈I… have a woman I’m in love with.〉

〈Oh my. Has spring come for you too, our Lexie?〉

But Avgenia was only surprised, and even that seemed amusing to her as she smiled even more. Seeing her lift her cheeks and nod her head, Alexei felt a betrayal that must have been the hundredth time.

‘Spring, my foot.’

He’d always had a woman he loved. The lie was that it had just happened.

If spring came just because he had someone in his heart, Alexei’s life would never see spring flowers fall.

He kept trying to convince himself not to be jealous of her sleeping with countless men, just because she’d never had the same man twice. But she, the merciless tyrant, treated his confession of loving someone as just another piece of gossip… and that alone filled Alexei with clear displeasure.

Not toward Avgenia, just toward the situation itself.

〈I want to try courting her, but I don’t think I have any charm as a man……〉

He’d blurted out the sense of defeat he’d already repeated that morning.

〈There’s no gentleman as well-mannered as you, Lexie.〉

〈Well. I don’t know much about ordinary romance, but isn’t manners important……?〉

〈What? Maybe I could help?〉

This, too, was obviously just a joke to her, not something to be taken seriously. Her reply was half-hearted, her advice not earnest.

And that made him stubborn. He shouldn’t have.

Her smiling face clearly showed only ‘amusement,’ and the fact that she treated his greatest concern as a game made him feel disappointed again.

〈No, what I’m worried about is… things like, um, nighttime matters.〉

Suddenly failing to control his emotions, Alexei responded sincerely to Avgenia’s casualness.

Was it because the face of that bourgeois man he’d seen that morning had annoyed him so much? Because the pillow talk he’d overheard was so trivial compared to a night with Avgenia? It was a luck he’d never have in his life. Or was it because today was exactly the 183rd day since he’d pleasured himself in Avgenia’s bedroom?

…Anyway, the water was already spilled.

Swallowing his embarrassment at his impulsiveness, he watched Avgenia’s reaction, but her elegant face showed not even a hint of displeasure.

She just seemed curious that he, who’d always pretended not to care about women, was now talking about what happens at night.

Seeing Avgenia’s cat-like eyes narrow a bit, Alexei unwittingly gambled again.

〈Would you be able to teach me about what happens at night?〉

Even he knew how pathetic that was.

‘I have women I want besides you, you know?’ That was the kind of childish complaint only he understood.

Even though the truth was nothing like that.

〈There’s no better teacher than me, right?〉

But, contrary to his shadowed feelings, Avgenia just smiled brightly and replied calmly.

Now that he thought about it, expecting to embarrass her when she’d let him into her bedroom even while tangled up with another man was a mistake from the start.

〈Of course. Your Highness, you have always… been superior to me.〉

And then, what he’d added was truly the most pathetic thing…

He didn’t even have the courage to recall it.

From the moment he failed to hide his embarrassment at Avgenia’s advice about using his mouth, to the explanation of a woman’s anatomy, to where women are most sensitive, to how to… use his mouth…

The gentle, nasal voice he’d always listened to as if it were the voice of a god, now poured out words that were overwhelming, and Alexei had really felt like he might faint.

He might have actually fainted. It felt as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his lower half, leaving him pale all over…

If not for the blank expression he’d trained to hide his feelings, he would have been caught out as the only one getting excited.

‘Besides, what good is knowing Her Highness’s personal preferences…’

No, could he even get a chance to use them?

If only he hadn’t run away like this.

“…”

He thumped his disheveled head slowly against the carriage window.

The scenery passing by outside had by now become familiar to Alexei. The coachman, having exhausted all his creativity, was finally heading toward Ramantus’s townhouse after circling the outskirts of the Imperial City.

‘I must be impotent. Yeah, I’m probably impotent. Maybe I’m premature. Maybe I’ll have erectile dysfunction when it comes down to it… Yeah, I protected my image in peace…’

He knew better than anyone that these thoughts were futile.

Thump, thump, thump—the sound of his head hitting the window continued throughout that miserable journey home.

His luck didn’t fade away, either.