The Wedding Night
When night fell, the door of the dark inner chamber opened.
The man, who had dismissed the long line of servants and opened the door, smirked at the sight of his bride sitting bolt upright on the bed.
The white, small face, pouty as on the first day he had seen it, was adorable.
His figure was so slender that his silhouette showed through the thin robe. The wearer himself seemed not to have noticed, but even his plump, protruding nipples showed.
The man, who had been leaning against the doorframe, walked inward. Behind him, the door slowly closed.
“You won’t run away tonight, will you?”
At the man’s joke, Rubio glared at him with wide eyes. Was that something to say right now? Realizing once again that his husband was a man whose shamelessness knew no bounds, Rubio shot back.
“Where would I go? In the middle of the night.”
“True, it’s a fair distance from here to the balcony.” His gaze, flicking toward the balcony attached to the inner chamber, was infuriating beyond words.
The man poured wine into a glass that had been prepared on the side table and handed one to Rubio. Rubio took it with his eyes raised and gulped it down.
‘Well, well. He’s angry.’
Téllez chuckled inwardly and raised his glass to his lips. Perhaps because it was wine served for the wedding night and they had taken care with it, the taste was excellent.
While he savored the wine, Rubio reached out and tugged lightly at his sleeve. The man looked at his spouse with a puzzled face.
“Hurry up and do it.”
“Do what?”
“To me…….”
Rubio muttered it so quietly it could barely be heard, his face flushed crimson.
“….Putting it in?”
They were words he could never have said in his right mind. Perhaps thanks to the wine he had downed, his lips moved of their own accord, and that was a relief.
“We have to make a baby, don’t we?”
Rubio could bear it no longer and whipped his head away. Yet the hand gripping the man’s sleeve still clutched it tight.
Téllez stared at that hand, then carefully pried it loose.
“I have no hobby of pouncing on people like a beast.”
It sounded like he was telling him to rest easy. Rubio raised his head and looked at him as if he had heard something strange.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said.”
“That if you say you don’t want it, I won’t touch you.”
That characteristically direct gaze pierced into Rubio. It was only that Téllez was voicing the thoughts he had held since bringing him here, and his face was its usual indifferent one.
This young child, who still looked as if the down had not left his face though he was past his coming of age, was his spouse.
Rubio was the betrothed who had kept him waiting twenty years by imperial command, not one of the countless one-night partners who had passed him by. It meant that Pedro Téllez, who had never been much of a gentleman in bed, owed Rubio courtesy and sincerity.
He did not sit on the bed where Rubio sat, but in the chair before the side table where the candles burned, and looked at Rubio. The young spouse’s eyes rippled calmly in the firelight.
He did not want to become a frightening person to the one he would spend his whole life with. Whatever the world called him, he did not care, but he did not want Rubio alone to think of him that way.
At the very least, he did not want such a judgment from someone who had come inside his fence.
As if choosing his words, he quietly opened his mouth.
“It is true that a child is needed to bind our houses together. His Imperial Majesty will want that as well.”
“…….”
“But there is no need to concern yourself with such things right away.” Whatever talk went around outside, it was fine so long as it never reached Rubio’s ears. And Téllez was confident he could make it so.
“You are still young, and a child can be had whenever we set our minds to it. If someday you feel inclined, come to me first.”
It meant he did not want to wound him by force tonight, against Rubio’s will.
“However, if afterward a child is born to us, if you bear me my heir.”
“……”
“After that, I promise I will not interfere with however you live.” He had not forgotten what Rubio had confessed to him the night before the wedding.
Rubio had clearly said there was someone else he liked, and that he did not want to part from him. The other person was surely someone he wanted, someone of a similar age.
And yet at this moment he sat meekly before him, did he not?
Duke de la Rosa, sending Rubio off, had told him not to forget that he stood behind his son. But even without such words, Téllez would have respected him as a matter of course.
Téllez’s eyes turned to his quiet spouse. Rubio was looking at him with a puzzled expression.
“Are you treating me like a child right now?”
“…No, that’s not it.”
That was not the important part of what he had just said, so why did the conversation veer that way? Though dumbfounded, he listened to what followed.
“You said I was young just now. I turned twenty last spring. I came of age and married, and if it becomes known that nothing happened on the wedding night, it will spell trouble. Not only for me, but for de la Rosa too.” With a fine frown on his brow, Rubio spoke in a calm tone. Téllez’s mouth fell slightly open.
To think he would have such thoughts.
He had never imagined Rubio would flare up at being called young and react like this, and inwardly he marveled.
Rubio puffed out his chest and said primly.
“If we have to have a child anyway, the sooner the better, surely.”
“…I was short-sighted. I apologize.”
“Keep your promise.”
And with that he turned his head away sharply and drank his wine.
“…….”
He drank boldly, as if reminding himself that this was a night of strategy, for himself alone. It was enough to put one in a bad mood, yet Téllez found himself interested in him instead.
To think the betrothed he had taken for a mere child had harbored such thoughts.
Where had the troublemaker gone, the one who had leapt off the balcony the night before the wedding? In the small face that spoke of duty and rights and bargains, he could even glimpse a resolute will.
Téllez reached out and brushed Rubio’s cheek. Rubio flinched and closed his eyes.
“Come here.”
He pressed the soft lips gently with his thumb and raised Rubio to his feet.
“May I hold you once?” “…….”
“We’ve even kissed, you and I.”
As if to ask what there was to hesitate about, Téllez opened his arms slightly.
Rubio, blinking his long lashes, hesitated a moment, then slipped into his embrace. Patting the slender back, which was no more than a handful, the man whispered.
“Today, only as much as feels exactly good for you.”
At the low voice flowing along the shell of his ear, the back of his neck prickled. Téllez lifted him lightly and held him. The nightclothes, like a dragonfly’s wings, slid halfway down, baring soft skin.
Holding Rubio securely, supporting his hips and back, the man kissed the white nape that was exposed and said.
“As you said, only enough that no word of it leaks to watching eyes.”
“You can do it roughly.”
Téllez’s strides toward the bed stopped short. The space between his thick brows narrowed and his face crumpled.
Does he dislike it that much?
This was Rubio, who had tried to run away because he hated this marriage. Did it mean that since this was a political match, a bargain with its end already fixed, it did not matter if he was treated roughly? Or else…….
“Because I’m an adult.”
But at Rubio’s next words, he let out a breath like a cough, as if something had caught in his throat.
‘Are you all right?’
Rubio asked Téllez, his head buried against his shoulder, his body shaking.
The man seemed to cough a few more times as if something had gone down the wrong way, and only after a good while cleared his throat and pulled his face away. At the corners of his eyes, which Rubio had thought only cool, tears had gathered. He spoke gravely.
“Yes. You are an adult.”
Rubio nodded as if to say, so you admit it now.
“I don’t know how Pedro has lived, but this is my first time. Still, a lack of experience can be made up for by learning.”
In other words, he would overlook however dissolute a past Pedro might have had, and he would strive to be a satisfying spouse in bed.
While Téllez stared blankly at him, Rubio turned his own words over inwardly and grew pleased with himself.
Didn’t I sound incredibly grown-up just now?
His spouse was an adult a full fifteen years older, no, adulthood itself, and Rubio realized he disliked being treated like a child by such a man.
It was natural that he had less experience than this man. But the two of them were husband and wife now. In a relationship of equals, for one to indulge the other and such, that sort of thing scratched his pride.
“So, do it.”
Besides, had Pedro not said that if only a child was made, he would leave him to live freely? There was no reason not to do it now.
Téllez, gazing at Rubio nestled in his arms, let out a soft laugh. He had nearly forgotten that his spouse was a twenty-year-old packed tight with stubbornness, pride, and a fighting spirit.
“I was only trying to be careful, since I thought you’d be startled.”
The moment he finished speaking, Rubio frowned. Holding back the laughter that threatened to burst out, Téllez laid him down on the bed.
The candles lit in the bridal chamber were bright. When the man’s hands undid the rustling nightclothes, the white naked body was laid bare just as it was. Téllez spread Rubio’s legs, took his place between them, and stared down at him.
“…….” Beautiful, he thought, all over again.
Skin white and smooth as porcelain; not only the face, but the slender neck and shoulders, the chest, the slightly hollowed belly. Down to the groin and the peach-pink knees, and the toes like little shells stuck on.
While his roaming gaze savored the beautiful naked body, the face of the stripped Rubio flared red. Though nothing had been done to him yet, it felt as if heat was already rising in his lower belly from the gaze alone.
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