I was silent for a little while, thinking. Both of my hands were grasped as usual and Leon-sama’s face was on a distance where his lips almost touched me, but I tried to ignore it as much as possible.
–He loved hands. Moreover, my hands are the best? …I didn’t mind having him take a liking on my hands as he wanted, but I was surprised by his bluntness as a duke. His amicable cousin and fellow duke (Example: Leon-sama) brought a female to whom he was recently intimate to (example: me) while working, then after looking at her face and touching her hand, he was interested, so he was trying to use the opportunity to the maximum degree? Wasn’t he embarrassed at all? That was ill-natured of him, despite having a calm and serious face. Would it be odd for me to raise a question at his deed? Or that it would be seen as a misapprehension?
But I am not odd. In addition, there was another question. If I had to say, this was a serious matter to me.
“…Leon-sama.”
I turned towards the good-shaped lips before my eyes and said.
“Yeah?” Leon-sama answered with a whisper within his mouth.
“I understand the story behind his fetish. Each person’s preference differs, so well, I will try to understand. But I have another question.”
As the carriage shook a little bit, Leon-sama’s lips ended up brushing mine.
I slightly trembled at once, and Leon-sama held out his tongue a bit, gently tracing my lips.
Is it just me who’s feeling a little embarrassed doing this rather than a normal kiss?
–Aah well, as expected, it was hard to strike a conversation with such a close distance.
When I slightly put my strength to talk about it, I spoke as Leon-sama kissed me, making us look like love birds.
I slightly bent my back backward and have my face put on some distance, clearly asking him to please put some more distance as I was about to have a serious talk.
Incidentally, I also requested him to put me down from his lap.
Leon-sama put some distance. It felt like the tip of his nose was behind my ears, which seemed to become the usual place recently. He also sniffed me, but this was better than earlier.
But he didn’t let me go down from his lap. Both of his hands grasped me even stronger as if demonstrating his determination not to put me down, so it couldn’t be helped.
It felt like we were a pair of lovers…anyway, I was wondering whether or not he loved me. Even now, with the example of this behavior of his, I ended up thinking that I was treasured. I wonder if it was just me getting ahead of myself?
If it was indeed my getting ahead of myself, then it would be too sorrowful and painful. But, I’d like to make it clear quickly. So that I could brace myself and be strong when the time to bid our farewell comes.
“…Leon-sama, you seem to be fine seeing my hand grasped by Duke Odile and even seeing my hand getting kissed by him.”
Although I disliked the way I said it, words slipped from my mouth without any filter.
Even so, I couldn’t stop them.
“I thought that you loved me. So, pardon me for saying it like this. –I wanted Leon-sama to stop Duke Odile’s action towards me. Like, telling him not to touch me. After all, it clearly went beyond the proper social order. At that time, at that place.”
As I spoke, my emotions welled up. I was grateful that what spilled over were only my words. The thing that was starting to well up from my eyes pressed down my determination.
“Since you embraced me every night, I ended up getting ahead of myself, huh? Thinking that I was Leon-sama’s. That’s why…”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“…To me, or to my hand…How glad I would be if only you had remonstrated Duke Odile who laid his hand to me.”
“…Princess Riviere Emil la Tuura.”
–I swallowed my next words unconsciously.
Since Leon-sama called out my formal name in this world so calmly.
I wonder why, but it was a voice possessing an appeal that put some composure to myself, so much that I ended up being silent.
“I love you. They weren’t empty words that I uttered in the bed alone. You are the only one for me. First, I want you to believe that.”
“…”
“But, the talk we’re going to have from hereon might be different from what you feel, or I can say that it might give you a feeling of discomfort. I hope it won’t make you feel disgusted, though.”
Leon-sama’s golden eyes looked straight at me. He then slowly said in a very kind and detailed way.
However, there was no longer a trace of sweetness in those eyes now.
And the story that I was about to hear wasn’t a sweet one.
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊
–Thus, I heard various stories after that.
I might even get a teething fever due to it tomorrow.
To me who had a lot of superficial knowledge about sex and (seemingly) lax, there was just too much information to be processed in my mind that my brain was unable to keep up with it.
The Gladius family was too horrifying.
