About Becoming My Ex-Husband's Mistress - Chapter 137

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 137. I Loved You
The atmosphere was such that we could have embraced each other and rolled across the bed without a single moment of hesitation.
Luderne unfastened several buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. His exposed forearms were corded with muscle, their curves radiating masculine appeal.
My bandaged leg still ached, but as long as we didn’t deliberately put pressure on it during intimacy, it should be fine.
My body filled with anticipation at the thought of spending the night with him.
But soon I felt embarrassed.
Luderne pulled a table right up beside the bed and arranged it with a basin of hot water, several towels, and oil.
Aroma drifted from a candle lit on the nightstand. No matter how I looked at it, this was clearly a massage setup to ease my tense muscles.
“No matter how I think about it, I’m the most qualified for this.”
“Your Majesty, if it’s a massage, perhaps you should entrust it to someone else…”
Luderne shook his head.
“No, no one but me can do this. Now let me ease those knots. Just stay still.”
He swept away the blanket, pulled down my negligee, and in an instant had me completely bare. Then he had me lie face down and straddled me.
His movements were so natural that I let him proceed. Though I soon realized what was happening and felt my face flush.
“Wait, Your Majesty, just a moment…”
But it was already too late.
His oil-slicked hands began at my waist, pressing firmly as they slowly traveled upward along my back.
“Ah…”
A moan escaped me unbidden, caught between the ache of my muscles and the stimulation of the massage.
His long fingers pressed gently and deliberately across my shoulders, back, and waist.
“Mm, ah, oh…”
I tried to suppress the sounds that came naturally, but the sensation—a blend of pain and relief—left me helpless to resist.
“How does it feel?”
“It aches. Mm…”
“Only aches? I don’t think that’s quite right.”
I bit my lip slightly and nodded.
“You’re right. It feels wonderful and… ah!”
Mid-answer, a moan burst from me as he pressed a particularly sensitive spot.
Behind me, Luderne chuckled softly.
“There. My massage is worth something, isn’t it? No one knows your body the way I do.”
Luderne worked with meticulous care to ease my tense muscles.
When his hands moved to my buttocks and thighs, a wave of sensual stimulation accompanied the touch, and my body trembled involuntarily.
The oil made everything slick, yet his body heat warmed my skin as his touch glided softly over me, his pressure carefully controlled and deliberate.
It hurt, yet it felt incredibly good.
Meanwhile, everywhere his hands touched, my body ignited with desire.
This left me in quite a predicament.
Luderne remained focused on the massage, but with each press of his hands, exquisite sensations awakened, threatening to drive me mad. My lower abdomen kept tingling and clenching.
My breathing grew ragged despite myself.
“Your Majesty, that area, we shouldn’t… ah! Ah…”
“Shouldn’t? But it seems to feel quite good there.”
Luderne’s touch grew more insistent.
I gasped, overwhelmed by the cascade of sensations flooding through me all at once.
It wasn’t the curse tormenting me.
I had no choice but to open my mouth in supplication.
“Your Majesty, just… just…”
“Just?”
“I can’t hold back. Please, just do it.”
“I am doing it.”
His response was infuriatingly casual.
“Not that. The other part.”
“?”
If I turned over, I could see his face, but the uncertainty only made me more frustrated.
“Won’t you touch the front?”
Of course, I knew that turning over would expose my arousal to him plainly. Yet I asked anyway, with bold abandon.
Luderne’s hand stilled for a moment.
“Your back and the back of my thighs seem to have loosened up somewhat. We’ve already seen everything there is to see between us, so there’s nothing particularly shameful about it.”
The sound of him wringing out a cloth in the basin of water followed immediately.
For an instant, I thought I heard him swallow hard, but I couldn’t be certain if I’d actually heard it.
“Sigh.”
Luderne exhaled and wrung out the cloth, wiping away the remaining oil from my back.
Just as I wondered if he would grant my request,
“Keep your body warm for now. There’s an order to this if I’m to ease your resentment.”
He draped the blanket over my back and settled onto the edge of the bed.
“Stay as you are, lying face down, and listen. Why Priscilla must be Priscilla outside of this place. I don’t know how you’ll receive what I’m about to tell you.”
A brief silence fell.
When I glanced back, Luderne was pouring wine into a glass.
After setting the bottle on the table, he drained the glass in one gulp.
Then his past began to spill from his lips.
I had no choice but to listen intently. What he was revealing contained details that differed from what was known.
What shocked me most was the clarity of his origins.
He was known to be the illegitimate fruit born between Fleit Doorban and Hilda Arde, but it turned out to be the result of love that occurred before either of them had even married.
If that were the case, then the legitimacy of the first heir to both the Arde Kingdom and the Doorban Empire was entirely without flaw.
The issue of premarital relations only arose when one party’s status was relatively inferior.
There might be factions that refused to acknowledge it as legitimate, but there would be no one who could openly contest it.
I immediately grasped what that meant.
Luderne, who had sent excessive gifts along with a betrothal letter but never once appeared in person until the wedding ceremony.
The marital bed we shared out of obligation for an heir, the conversations that were almost nonexistent despite being married.
The pieces of the past fit together like a puzzle.
To him, our marriage was a sham—a means to eliminate the possibility of a threat to his life. After all, the first heir of two nations would never marry a mere baron’s daughter.
In other words, I had been used as a chess piece, not his true wife.
But I couldn’t resent the sham marriage itself. Ironically, it was because of that very arrangement that I escaped Matilda’s abuse.
The early days of marriage were happy.
Even if I had been told from the beginning that it was merely a facade, I think I would have become Luderne’s wife regardless.
With such an abundance of betrothal gifts, there was no way Matilda could have refused—so our marriage would have remained unchanged regardless.
Of course, that didn’t mean I harbored no resentment toward Luderne and his inner circle.
For me, the problem began after the war.
I pushed myself upright and turned to sit facing him. Then I pulled the blanket up to cover myself.
“So you deceived me. Which means you were taking contraceptive measures without my knowledge.”
This part infuriated me, and I felt genuinely betrayed.
“I waited every month for news that never came, and I was miserable because of it.”
Luderne, who had been staring into empty space, released a long sigh. His deep eyes turned toward me.
“I’m truly sorry for that. I want to deny it, but the truth is what it is. I told myself it was only a sham marriage, that I wouldn’t give you my heart, but in the end, I… you…”
His eyes held emotions too complex for words to capture—the same look he’d had when he rescued me from the jackals and faced me afterward.
“I loved you. So much that I wouldn’t regret giving you everything. Even now.”
My breath caught, and my heart lurched violently.
The moment I heard those words, my own reaction bewildered me.
I should have trembled with the sting of betrayal and manipulation, yet with just those words—that he loved me—everything I’d felt before dissolved like a lie, and my heart fluttered.
I should have been angry, yet I felt laughter threatening to bubble up from joy.
Get a hold of yourself, Priscilla.
What a fool you are. This is exactly why you’re always being used. How can you be certain his words aren’t a lie?
I chastised myself inwardly and forcibly suppressed the corners of my mouth that were trying to curve upward of their own accord.
This wasn’t the moment to soften my heart at words of love. I needed to have a clear conversation and untangle this knotted mess.
“Love? Are you asking me to believe that?”
Even as I shot the words at him, I couldn’t meet his eyes directly and looked away instead. I was lying to myself.
Even as I berated myself for being foolish, I was already believing his words.
Fortunately, I managed to control my expression. I could only despise myself for being so helpless.
When the sensation of his gaze fixed on me faded, I stole a glance at Luderne’s movements. He was drinking another glass with an expression grown even heavier.
Soon the conversation turned to the war. And its purpose as well.
It was a war fought to find and kill Luderne.
Learning that after being captured by Fleit Doorban, Baron Sellen had been declared dead, I finally understood why he hadn’t returned.
At that point, I had been abandoned twice. Not by Luderne, but by Emperor Fleit Doorban.
“Even so…”
The flutter of hope that had risen in my chest subsided like a lie.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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