SBWCM 24

Chapter 24

“E-Eda.”

Astaldo stumbled over her name as he called out to her, but Eda couldn’t hear him.

As Eda buried her face in her two hands, weeping endlessly, Astaldo wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Facing his visibly flustered expression, Eda spoke:

“N-No…… this……. I’m not crying because I’m upset.”

Not knowing what else to do, Eda simply reached out and wrapped her arms around his waist.

She could feel his warm, bare skin. The soft scents of wood and fresh grass washed over her in a rush.

At the touch of that soft, bare skin against her, Eda let out a soft sob.

“……Hold on.”

As he took a step backward, the sheet he had been draped in slipped down. Once again, his bare body was fully exposed.

Taut abdominal muscles, thick thighs, and his dark lower body came into view. Eda flinched in surprise.

“I had barely managed to calm it down, and then you suddenly……”

Damn it. Astaldo muttered curses under his breath.

With a dazed expression, Eda looked back and forth between his face and his lower body. As his erect shaft twitched once more, Eda’s face flushed bright red as well.

“I’ll step outside. No, you step outside.”

Because I hugged him…… it became like that? Just from that?

Eda stared intently at Astaldo as he stepped away from her. She slowly closed and re-opened her eyes.

“You said that because you are my husband, there is no need for me to feel ashamed, right?”

“I am your wife…… so it is fine.”

“I am…… fine.”

There was no need for either of them to explain what was fine. The man lusted for the woman, and the woman had opened her heart to him.

In this moment, neither knew how to express the feelings within their hearts. Astaldo simply stared quietly at Eda. That gaze looked fierce, yet at the same time, it seemed filled with deep compassion for her.

“Eda.”

He reached out his hand and cradled Eda’s face. Long, rough fingers settled gently against Eda’s ear.

“I will not refuse.”

“And I will absolute not stop.”

His breath ran scorching hot. It was a low, quiet warning. Looking into his eyes, clouded with desire, Eda closed her eyes. This was her consent.

An implicit consent.

It was only natural. He was Eda’s husband. Was this not a wife’s duty?

When Ivar used to weigh down on Eda, he would aggressively demand that she fulfill her duties as a wife. Yet Eda had never once fulfilled that duty for him.

Even so, she opened her body to Astaldo. Because it was her duty as a wife. To fulfill it.

Eda refrained from thinking about the ‘difference’ between the two. She simply regarded this as the fulfillment of her duty, as well.

As his hand touched Eda’s body, he untied the knots of the garment she was wearing. Her scrawny body was revealed before him.

It was neither a plump body nor one graced with alluring curves. It was a plain, uninteresting body. That was how Ivar used to describe Eda’s physique.

“Eda.”

A clear voice pulled her back to reality, rescuing her from the muddy, suffocating swamps of her past.

When Eda raised her head, her eyes met Astaldo’s as he leaned down over her.

Golden eyes met her own.

The sharp shape of his eyes was undeniably beastly and intense, carrying a chill that could send a shudder down one’s spine.

Yet for some strange reason, that gaze…… felt strangely familiar. Was it simply because he was her husband?

Gradually bringing his face closer, he pressed his lips against hers. As his plump, soft lips made contact, Eda opened her mouth without realizing it.

His tongue pushed inward, swallowing Eda’s lips whole. Like a parched man eagerly gulping down water from a fresh spring, he greedily sucked on Eda’s lips and drew her tongue into his own.

The kiss lasted for a long time. He pulled his mouth away as if trying to regain his senses, yet whenever he looked down at Eda’s face, he found himself kissing her again.

Gathering Eda into his arms by her waist, Astaldo laid her back down on the bed and sucked on the soft skin of her white neck.

When Eda flinched at the ticklish sensation, Astaldo quietly pinned down her wrists. His hot tongue licked and sucked at her neck until he was satisfied, then drifted down toward her breasts.

Slurp, suctioning sounds—the noise was scandalously erotic. Eda tried to cover her mouth, but with her wrists held fast, she could only let out constrained, breathless gasps.

A peach-colored blush bloomed across her lips and cheeks, and under the slow, deliberate movements of his tongue, her areolas flushed into a lovely, rosy hue.

A fair, delicate face, and erect nipples. Eda, slowly being stained with his marks. Eda looked up at Astaldo with great effort through tear-filled eyes.

Her teal eyes held something deep within them. Without turning away from that gaze, Astaldo pressed his lower body tightly against hers.

At the sweet, overwhelming sensation, Eda let out a soft, whimpering moan. Her body was already slick and burning with heat.

The sexual stimulation Astaldo offered felt somewhat unfamiliar. Yet, unlike their wedding night, she did not feel afraid.

Because his touch was gentle, as if promising he would never bring her harm.

Like someone handling fragile, easily torn silk, his careful touch melted away the body that had frozen rigid with tension.

As the sensitive area between her legs was stimulated, her body opened up on its own. Eda instinctively clutched the bedsheets tightly once more.

Astaldo gently opened Eda’s body. Even so, because Astaldo’s sheer size was overwhelming, her body trembled uncontrollably.

Ah, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t catch her breath. Eda’s body repeatedly accepted what Astaldo offered, crumbling beneath it again and again.

Astaldo moved his body continuously. As if he had abandoned all patience, his movements were no longer slow.

The man’s muscular body surged roughly into Eda’s soft form, and Eda did not push him away.

Astaldo looked at Eda’s face over and over with the fierce, intent eyes of a beast devouring its prey.

Their lovemaking was fierce.

Shedding tears, her chin was tilted upward. Perhaps because her mouth had remained open for so long, the air inside felt dry. Sensing this, his lips pushed into Eda’s mouth once more.

He was ravenous to the point of feeling almost violent. Thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, he sucked her lips, entering the deepest part of Eda to claim her body as his own.

She did not dislike that ravenous demand, nor that desperate longing. Even if there was no love between them, and only the obligations of a husband and wife remained, it did not matter to her.

Before long, the movement of his hips grew extraordinarily intense. At the sharp, piercing pleasure, Eda opened her eyes wide and wrapped her arms tightly around Astaldo’s back. Red scratch marks were left trailing down his skin.

Yet such things didn’t matter in the least.

Just when she thought there was no greater pleasure left to feel, Eda’s painful, ecstatic realm reached its conclusion.

As Eda’s body trembled in the throes of climax, Astaldo pulled her tightly into a firm embrace.

At that moment, tears welled up in Eda’s eyes. Astaldo wiped away her tears without uttering a single word.

Even after the man’s body pulled away, Eda remained gasping for air for a long while. It was the languid aftermath of a peak climax.

The air inside the room had grown heavy with humidity.

Astaldo, who had been caressing Eda’s face, lightly kissed her lips before nipping gently at her earlobe.

Then, lying beside her, he whispered in a low, husky voice:

“It’s not over.”

Eda’s body flinched. Soon after, a warm hand traveled erotically between her legs.

“Ah. Mm……”

Her body had grown sensitive to the extreme after a single bout of lovemaking. A broad, calloused hand gently fondled Eda’s thigh.

His hand traced up to her private area and began to stimulate Eda once more with his fingers.

“Ah!”

Because her back was turned toward him, she couldn’t see his face. Beyond the back of her head, the sound of his breathing quickened once again. Against her lower back, she could feel his arousal, which had not cooled in the slightest.

Eda’s body, too, burned hot once again. Her body was already demanding the pleasure it had previously tasted. His other hand gently stroked along Eda’s body.

As his lips touched the nape of Eda’s neck, she shuddered once more.

“A-Ah, Your Highness……”

At the formal title that spilled from Eda’s lips, his hand came to a sudden halt. Then, the sensitive crook where her neck met her shoulder felt a sharp sting.

“Astaldo.”

“You ought to call me Astaldo.”

His fingers playfully stimulated Eda once more. Eda squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Erotic sounds slipped helplessly from her mouth.

“Say Astaldo.”

“A-Astaldo……”

At Eda’s voice, Astaldo embraced her tightly.

True to his word that he would not stop, he held Eda again and again without a shred of mercy.

And so, the sun that had risen in the morning climbed all the way overhead.

Eda stared with dazed, hazy eyes at Astaldo lying beside her.

Seeing him lying there as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Eda thought: Is this what it means to be husband and wife? Is this what a husband is? Sharing warmth side by side after sharing a bed?

Eda looked at the man gazing down at her and thought:

I do not wish for love. Because Eda knew how impossible it was for anyone to truly ‘love’ her.

Furthermore, she knew that love did not last forever, and that it brutally destroyed human beings.

That was likely why her mother, having lost her older sister, chose to end her own life. And why she had crumbled because of Lisonel, the brother she had loved so dearly.

I know this man does not intend to harm me.

However, I will not fall in love with him.

Looking at Astaldo’s face, Eda thought this thought over and over again.