Garden of May

Every time she parted her lips to speak, the air between them trembled softly. Every one of Theodore’s senses narrowed onto this one small woman.

The hand that had been stroking Vanessa’s pale cheek slowly slid down to her throat, closing around it with a pressure that was almost possessive.

Beneath his palm, her fragile pulse fluttered wildly fast—as it always did whenever he touched her.

She could never hide anything from him properly. She was the sort of woman who would barely even struggle if he decided to tighten his grip around her throat right now.

And yet despite that fragility, she trusted people recklessly. She never hesitated to throw herself into whatever she believed was right, as though her own life had no value worth weighing.

If he was angry, then that was what angered him. Not the absurd rumors surrounding Logan Dawson. But her foolish willingness to risk herself over trivial things.

Her naïve habit of sending letters to companies tangled up with gangs without realizing the danger. Her softness—like a newborn animal born without claws.

“Ah…”

Vanessa’s breathing quickened. As though she had remembered the times he pinned her down completely beneath him.

The edge of her ear, barely visible through her hair, turned red. Even the sound of her trembling breath was lovely. She was a woman who looked precious even to eyes like his—eyes raised among nothing but the finest things in the world.

How could other men possibly see her differently?

“Marriage is difficult.”

The words he had spoken before his cousin held no exaggeration, no empty arrogance. Even during the moments when Vanessa felt perfectly suited to him, that was still the one thing he could never compromise on.

The moment the Duke of Battenberg publicly acknowledged the existence of a mistress in any form was the moment her name itself became a fatal weakness. And no single person could ever be placed on equal footing with his house.

That was precisely why knowing her so deeply was unnecessary. After all the troublesome processes and inevitable gossip of society passed, he still wanted Vanessa to remain untouched by scandal.

Just as she was now. Clear-eyed. Innocent. Looking at the world with endless curiosity shining in her gaze. And when he needed her, he wanted her to remain exactly where she had always been.

In that garden of May.

“Tell me, Vanessa.”

“…Because lately, it feels like you’re beginning to take our relationship seriously.”

He gave a low laugh. She was still hopelessly romantic despite everything.

Theodore slowly lowered his head until his forehead rested against the slender curve of her neck.

Was this love? He still didn’t know. Probably not. The love he knew—the marriages born from it—were like swallowing shattered glass out of sheer stupidity.

A kind of madness. All those destructive moments. The venomous hatred and curses hurled into each other’s faces. Broken furniture scattered across rooms. Mockery. Sharp laughter and bitter tears.

And after every desperate plea had finally burned itself out, the animalistic hunger that remained.

That was what love was.

It consumed people monstrously. It might begin elegantly, but the ending was always the same. Eventually people grew to hate each other. Or resent each other. Or become utterly sick of each other’s existence.

And no matter how he imagined it, he could not picture Vanessa doing such things to him. Which meant, naturally, that whatever this was between them could not possibly be that profound.

“If I made you feel that way, then I’m sorry.”

The world had always divided itself for Theodore according to one simple rule: Things worthy of his attention. And things that were not.

Vanessa somehow belonged to both. She interested him because she was unusual. Yet she was gentle enough that he never needed to obsessively monitor her.

Straightforward and fair in her kindness, like a tree that would never bend easily. And because of that, sometimes he needed reassurance.

Even when she stood directly before him.

Even when she was already within reach of his hands.

He admitted it easily that he wanted all of her. He wanted her so completely that there was hardly any gentler way to phrase it. Right now, immediately.

“I want you, Vanessa.”

Like checking the collar he himself had fastened around her neck, Theodore pressed his lips against the pale skin of her throat.

In truth, thinking had been unnecessary from the very beginning.

Summer had not ended yet and the woman standing before him was irresistible.

* * *

The woman blinking up at him through blurred eyes was unbearably beautiful. The softness of her body. Her warmth. The moans soaked with helpless wetness no matter how hard she tried to suppress them.

The way her chest swayed obscenely every time he thrust hard into her.