I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 55

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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 55
A heavy silence settled between them.
The kind of silence that felt as though a bomb would detonate the moment anything went even slightly wrong.
“…….”
“…….”
Behind Luciana’s tightly closed eyes, her pupils began to dart about frantically.
‘Surely not.’
Was she right about what she thought this was?
The presence beneath her hand was too unmistakable to deny.
It announced itself as if to say, How dare you ignore me, do you understand how rare and remarkable a thing this is?
‘This wasn’t what I intended….’
If Edward heard her thoughts, he’d scoff at her—but this truly hadn’t been deliberate.
Though she’d started touching him, and her hand had grown increasingly presumptuous as time wore on….
Because she’d kept her eyes shut the whole time, she hadn’t noticed her own hand slipping lower and lower, hadn’t realized it would slide quite so far!
‘…now that I think about it, I feel a little wronged?’
She’d had her eyes closed, but Edward’s were open.
‘He must have seen exactly where my hand was going!’
So why hadn’t he simply stopped me?
Yet for Edward too, this had been an unforeseen development.
Or rather, even if he’d foreseen it, he couldn’t have responded.
The moment Luciana began moving her hand of her own volition, his body had locked up beyond his control.
He’d only meant to be of service to her.
He never expected she’d move of her own accord.
An impulse seized him to devour this woman whole right then and there.
He had no idea how fiercely he’d reined himself in, how close he’d come to his restraint snapping entirely.
So consumed was he with holding himself together that he couldn’t even track where her hand was going.
…He couldn’t stop it from sliding naturally downward, couldn’t prevent it from coming to rest atop the towel.
Even now, he could feel his lower body responding acutely to the touch of her hand.
Just from her touching him—nothing more.
She hadn’t even begun Purification, and he certainly hadn’t unleashed his Holy Power at her behest.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
‘Like some lovesick adolescent.’
It wasn’t as though he had no experience with women.
While they’d only held hands before, he’d been in contact with Sepina’s skin multiple times.
And that was hardly all.
When the Previous Duke had been alive, he’d often found himself escorting noblewomen and their daughters, and there had been women who’d rubbed themselves against him with pointed subtlety each time.
But all he’d felt toward Sepina and those other women was mild revulsion and weary irritation.
He hadn’t thrown them aside and left only because he was still young then.
And because of the Previous Duke’s gaze fixed upon him so darkly.
How arduous those moments had felt.
‘It’s different.’
Contact with Luciana was something else entirely each time.
It was true when she rubbed his back with that soft sponge.
Whenever this small woman touched his body, Edward felt it respond like a youth experiencing his first awakening during adolescence.
It was as if his heart were pounding in his lower half.
That throbbing—he felt Luciana’s hand, with only cloth between them, flinch in response.
And in the instant she flinched like that….
…It pulsed.
He reacted to that small movement.
Before Edward could even let out a groan.
“Hic.”
Luciana, startled, hiccupped and tightened her grip.
…After which she must have realized what was happening, for she quickly loosened her grip.
“…….”
“…….”
Edward, uncharacteristically, went ashen.
‘Is she doing this on purpose?’
This fearless little mouse—did she know what he was capable of doing?
Of course, this time too, Luciana had meant no harm.
‘What do I do!’
Cold sweat threatened to break across her skin at any moment.
“…ah.”
Edward’s low sigh brushed against Luciana’s forehead and the bridge of her nose.
His voice—neither dismissive nor reproachful, yet somehow both—cracked slightly as it pooled in her ear, and every hair on her body stood on end.
Without opening her eyes, she could feel that ominous gaze, and her mouth went dry.
“I, that, that, that was….”
I really didn’t mean to….
‘This isn’t the time for this!’
The warning bell that sounded told her pulling her hand away took priority over any explanation.
But she couldn’t do it too suddenly either.
If she yanked her hand away now, it would look as though she were recoiling from something filthy.
‘Steady. Breathe.’
She would withdraw as carefully as possible, then prostrate herself in apology afterward.
Luciana was slowly drawing her hand away from the towel, taking pains not to give any undue stimulus, when—
“…ah!”
Don’t.
With a force that seemed to say exactly that, Edward clamped his hand firmly around her wrist.
It wasn’t painful or gripping with excessive strength, yet a gasp escaped her nonetheless.
The heat radiating from his palm seemed to spread goosebumps across her entire body with just that simple grasp.
In that dizzying moment where anything seemed possible, Luciana found herself swallowing repeatedly.
“…it can’t be.”
Edward began muttering to himself.
“…not yet. Not yet.”
What couldn’t be?
She wanted to ask, but couldn’t bring herself to.
Without the courage to open her eyes, Luciana missed it entirely—
The way Edward’s pupils had narrowed to reptilian slits, how his entire frame flushed deep red and trembled as he stared down at his own body.
…….
Every flutter of her long lashes sent Edward’s resolve wavering back and forth a dozen times over.
Part of him wanted to devour this audacious, adorable little creature right then and there—
Yet the vertiginous memory of the moment she’d nearly withdrawn her hand, trying to retreat, cut sharply across his chest.
‘She means to flee.’
She’d provoked him first, and now this?
The fact that he himself had initiated this wanton spectacle had long since slipped from Edward’s mind.
What mattered was that this small creature had grown frightened and attempted to escape.
‘Come to think of it.’
Luciana had fled from him once before in the bathroom, losing consciousness as a means of escape.
Of course, if he accused her of it, she’d leap to protest that his actions bore equal responsibility—but that was beside the point.
‘She’s willing enough to bear my child.’
Yet when it truly mattered, this fickle little creature would change her mind.
‘If I’m too hasty in claiming such a woman….’
She might panic and flee, never to return.
Her lower lip bore fresh marks from where her anxious teeth had worked it raw, a sight that struck him as pitiful all over again.
Softly.
Unable to bear it any longer, Edward slipped his finger between Luciana’s lips.
He meant for her to bite that instead.
“Mmph!”
Luciana started in surprise, then carefully closed her teeth around his finger.
Like an abandoned dog encountering a person for the first time in ages, cautiously licking at the offered hand.
As her small tongue traced delicately along the gaps between her teeth, brushing the tip of his finger, blood rushed visibly to Edward’s neck.
‘How infuriating.’
That she could be so docile in submission, yet always fled when the moment truly arrived.
The urge rose in him again like wildfire.
Edward subdued that impulse by gripping her wrist all the tighter.
A thought had surfaced in his mind—a moment when Luciana could never escape.
‘…it won’t be possible on the First Night.’

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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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