My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 41

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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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Episode 41
Chapter 4. A Lull (8)
The man swallowed a ragged breath, then tilted the corner of his mouth into a smile.
“Aren’t you curious what might happen if you got swept up in this atmosphere?”
He draped one long arm over the back of the sofa, shifting his posture with ease. Celia, flustered, quickly placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Like you said, no one here knows us.”
“So what exactly are you suggesting we do? Here?”
“Nothing of the sort. I’ve no taste for laying my wife down in filth.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I wonder what would be nice.”
“Lucius—”
“Shall we find out together?”
Lucius smiled with his eyes closed, and the light bleeding beneath his lashes deepened slowly, a thin flush blooming across his eyelids like a hairline fracture.
Her throat tightened with surprise; her lips moved soundlessly, opening and closing without words.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I haven’t lost it, but you know better than anyone that I’m not in my right mind.”
He knew far too well how effective his own imperfection could be as a card played before her.
As he pressed his weight down, the voluminous folds of her skirt caught spitefully beneath his knees.
“You’re the only one who knows me like this.”
Between her lifted gaze and his lowered body, a single breath hung suspended, their eyes tangling together.
“Break me down more.”
His eyes were wet as a flooded forest.
Beneath the mask, green eyes gazed down at her, and Celia’s fingertips began to curl inward of their own accord. The braid trimming his shoulder seemed to slip between her fingers, parting her skin from within.
“You—”
She should say something, anything…
Celia’s hand slipped falteringly across him. Unable to decide, it trembled, about to rise to encircle his neck, when suddenly Lucius turned his head away.
“One moment.”
He turned around alertly, his posture stiffening.
“Good evening?”
“And who might you be?”
The Fox-masked Man approaching from behind them and Lucius spoke in unison.
“Well, I’ve been watching since earlier, and you two just kept playing with each other. Why not let us join in too?”
The man scratched his neck as he answered Lucius’s question.
“……I’m afraid that won’t be possible. It would be a waste of your expectations. Please, return to what you were doing.”
“You came all this way just to entertain yourselves? Why do something so tedious?”
Lucius was a man who grew more measured the more displeased he became. He met his counterpart’s gaze directly without flinching.
“I’m sure your mind would change if you spent time with us?”
“We stumbled in here by chance. While we respect this place’s customs, we have no intention of participating in them.”
All the while, Celia remained frozen on the sofa, unable to straighten her reclined body.
‘Insane… absolutely insane…!’
What had I been about to do?
Shame rippled down the back of her neck in an instant.
The fact that Lucius’s few words and a glance had shaken the locks inside her cut at her savagely.
“Don’t decide everything for yourself, hmm? Shouldn’t you hear what your companion has to say as well?”
The man’s gaze swept slowly over Lucius’s shoulder.
“My lady, why don’t we start with a drink while we have a conversation?”
Celia caught sight of the figure suddenly thrust into her field of vision.
The Fox-masked Man held out a glass of red wine toward her. The moment he did, Lucius’s calm demeanor shifted.
“I believe I told you not to do that.”
He stepped in front of her, but Celia was faster to speak.
“Shut up. Get lost.”
Both Lucius and the man froze.
“Huh? Ha, ha… My lady, don’t be like that.”
“There’s no lady here. Get out.”
Did I drown my age and dignity in whatever I was drinking?
Celia swatted the glass away with her fan. Though “swatted” hardly captured it—it would be more accurate to say she’d flung its contents at him.
Splash!
“—! What in— What kind of rudeness is this! Even if we don’t know each other’s status, how could you be so discourteous!”
The man stared down at his soaked clothing, sputtering.
Celia swept her disheveled hair back over her shoulder. Only once the strands had slipped through her fingers and been tucked behind her ear did a low click of her tongue emerge.
“I don’t know which house you’re from, but judging by that bloated attitude and shameless tongue of yours… I can only assume your mother taught you permission better than propriety, and your father taught you indulgence better than restraint.”
Beneath the fox mask, the man’s face transformed into something savage.
At the same moment, Lucius’s eyes widened. Shock crossed his features.
‘…Oh no.’
I’ve made a blunder over some worthless pest.
Harsh words and naked mockery—exactly the sort of thing Lucius would find distasteful.
“……Ah.”
Yet what followed was a response entirely at odds with her expectation.
Lucius’s mouth curved upward. Beneath the shadow of his lowered lashes, his green eyes melted with an eerie softness. Celia’s fingertips curled inward of their own volition.
‘Why is he looking at me like that?’
Her brief confusion was cut short by the intruder’s naked fury.
“This woman is really—!”
The Fox-masked Man reached out toward her. In that brief instant, Lucius subdued his action effortlessly.
Instead, the shallow remnant of wine at the bottom of the glass spread slowly across his sleeve, and the wet droplets rolled down his wrist. Lucius glanced at it only briefly—a gaze so barren it raised the hair on one’s skin.
“Enough.”
A glacial reproof fell. All warmth vanished from his face as though it had never been.
Where anger had been, only the smooth form sculpted by skin and bone remained. His downward gaze had become so parched it seemed to deny his counterpart even the courtesy of being human.
A chill swept across the man’s skin. Beneath that gaze, the Fox-masked Man stiffened like wax.
“No, I didn’t mean—”
Thunk!
The door, which opened only once every two hours, swung open with a dull sound.
“Shall we go?”
Lucius smoothed his wet sleeve once more, then turned back to her.
“…….”
The chill from moments before had lifted like a lie, leaving only a docile face in its wake.
“Ah, it’s a bit dirty, isn’t it? Here, let me—your other hand—”
Not waiting for him to finish, Celia grasped his hand without hesitation.
“Let’s go.”
***
Her breath came in gasps.
The moment the door opened, they fled outside.
Only when they reached the narrow gap between walls where even moonlight was cut off at the alley’s mouth did they finally stop.
“Mmph—!”
A desperate kiss followed, urgent enough to heave her chest.
He cupped the back of her head, pressing his lips to hers.
“Lucius—oh!”
Their breath collided against each other’s lips again and again, scattering. Celia received him as he plunged deeper, her hands bunching his clothes into tight fists.
Lucius gazed down at her, flushed to a vivid crimson from breathlessness or the kiss—he could no longer tell—before finally letting out a low laugh.
He had already tasted her thoroughly, yet he lingered in his hunger still, a faint thirst remaining in the corner of his crescent eyes.
“I’ll undress you.”
He tilted his head slightly as he kissed her, threading his hand into her hair.
Silver strands slipped between his fingers, and each time he smoothed away a tangled lock, his fingertips grazed her scalp with sharp precision. That delicate sensation traced down the back of her neck and spread coolly through her belly.
Lucius swallowed her trembling whole as he felt along the mask’s edge.
When his fingers found the knot hidden behind her ear, it felt as though more than just the mask was being removed.
“Ah. Beautiful.”
The low murmur was rawer than any studied words.
“You… are annoying.”
“Don’t be that way. Love me too.”
Eventually, Celia let the tension drain from her fingers little by little.
Her hand moved slowly. It braced his shoulder, traced his neck, hesitated uncertainly, and finally came to rest lightly around his throat.
Lucius’s eyes widened very briefly.
But that surprise faded quickly, replaced instead by a thin joy spreading across his lips.
“Open your mouth wider for me.”
Summer’s swelter was drawing to a close.
A cool season was slowly settling over the heat that had roiled so violently.
***
In the place where the two had fled.
The Fox-masked Man removed his mask, his face gone pale.
Fahrenheit looked down at him. The sociable smile from moments before had vanished without a trace.
“Can’t you even manage one simple task?”
The man bowed his head deeply at the terse rebuke.
“He… was so vigilant. I apologize.”
“What’s so hard about handing over a glass of wine!”
Fahrenheit’s voice dropped to a low pitch. His shoulders trembled, and his hand had already moved to cover his face.
What remained was anxiety, irritation, and a warped obsession.
“This won’t do.”
He lowered his hand, muttering.
“Contact Marquis Larendel’s Daughter.”

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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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