Chapter 178: Creating an Opportunity - 19
Chapter 178: Creating an Opportunity - 19
Morning came early.
Jiha opened his eyes in his bedroom.
Two people in the bed.
The blonde elf, Leticia, lay naked with her face buried against his chest, fast asleep.
The sight of her sleeping so soundly was impossibly sweet and lovely.
"......."
When Jiha idly stroked her hair, her eyes fluttered open.
Blinking dazedly with her green eyes, Leticia looked up at Jiha and rubbed her cheek against him.
The faint blush coloring her pale cheeks made it obvious that she was deeply embarrassed.
It wasn't the first time she'd greeted the morning in Jiha's bed.
But now, despite her embarrassment, she was the one reaching for him first. That was new.
She did it because she didn't want to be apart from him.
"......Hey."
"Want some water?"
"No, it's something a little strange......."
Leticia trailed off, cutting a glance at him.
Jiha didn't press her and simply combed his fingers gently through her hair.
After he'd repeated the motion a few times, Leticia seemed to find her nerve.
"You won't get mad if I ask something weird?"
"I had a good time."
"......That's a relief."
She smiled with relief, then flinched.
She realized a beat too late that she was being teased.
At Jiha's laughter, Leticia pouted her lips before asking in a very quiet voice.
"......Why did you let me go back then?"
"Hm? When?"
"That time....... When we were alone at the City Hall."
After Jiha had taken Leticia.
She meant the moment when he'd officially crossed swords with the elves by offering to resolve her fiancé problem.
As Jiha considered it, Leticia elaborated.
"......We were alone in the storage room."
"Right."
"Back then, why......."
Leticia let her words die away.
At that time, Jiha and Leticia had been alone together in an enclosed space.
And while Leticia had put on a brave front, she'd been genuinely frightened inside.
Jiha had merely touched her a little and then sent her back that day.
But afterward, seeing his almost supernatural skill at untangling situations and his meticulous handling of affairs—
Leticia had only belatedly realized that Jiha had gone easy on her back then.
"......Why did you let me go back then?"
"That's what you're curious about?"
"Just, sort of......."
When Jiha smiled, Leticia dropped her green gaze.
She clearly had a lot on her mind.
'She's wondering whether I slept with another woman that day.'
Leticia had accepted Jiha's philandering, accepted other women—but that didn't mean she was completely indifferent to it.
All kinds of tangled thoughts must be passing through her head.
Maybe she wasn't really Jiha's type.
On top of that, Jiha had sent her back several times after doing nothing more than touching her.
"......."
She'd been agonizing over this and that.
Burying her face in his chest, hunching her shoulders tight.
Her thoughts tangled with anxiety about the future and doubt about her own appeal.
Jiha whispered into Leticia's pointed ear.
"You're asking why I didn't fuck you then? That's what you want to know?"
"......You could have, if you'd wanted to."
That Leticia was a Unique but was still in the palm of Jiha's hand regardless, that she'd have had to take whatever he gave—she knew this painfully well.
Raising himself halfway, Jiha looked down at her.
A slender, delicate body with sleek lines, curves softening at the chest and flaring at the hips—a lure of shape that drew the eye.
The woman who'd spent the night with him was gauging his mood, wanting to read his thoughts.
Hoping he might like her, just a little.
"Were you that curious about it?"
Bending down, Jiha kissed the rim of Leticia's ear softly.
Again and again on that pale, pointed ear with exquisite delicacy.
A male gently soothing a female.
Peck. Peck.
As Jiha continued, Leticia shivered as if it tickled.
After spending a long while soothing and kissing her ear, Jiha abruptly stopped and whispered.
"Because that place was too filthy."
"......Huh?"
"It was a storage room. It doesn't matter to me where we do it."
A man is an animal who can do it anytime, anywhere, as long as he has the strength in his hips and can pull his pants down.
But a woman, by necessity, cares about a lot more.
"A dirty place like that isn't right for our second time."
"......."
Leticia's eyes went wide.
She'd been secretly worrying, hoping to figure out where she stood with him, and this was the last answer she'd expected.
He'd held back out of consideration for her feelings.
Jiha trailed kisses from her ear to her cheek, then to her forehead, whispering like he was sharing a secret.
"So I wanted to, but I just touched you and held back."
"......You didn't hold back other places."
"Those weren't dirty. And they had a certain atmosphere."
Jiha gave a teasing grin.
"And you liked it too."
"......Idiot."
Bringing up how he'd grabbed her ass and sucked her chest every time they'd met outdoors afterward.
Leticia's face went red as she curled up.
But Jiha, getting into it, pressed his advantage.
"You really liked doing it outside yesterday too."
"......No, I didn't. I was scared."
"Aren't elves supposed to be forest-dwellers? Isn't outdoor sex a daily routine for you?"
"......."
Leticia clamped her mouth shut and buried her face in the bed.
Exercising her right to remain silent.
In response, Jiha ran his fingertips along the curve of her back.
As the man's fingers traced lightly over her back, spread out like a field of pure white snow, Leticia twitched where she lay face down.
"Hmm."
Jiha spread his palm and pressed into Leticia's shoulders and back, kneading.
Working a massage technique into her muscles.
"Ah. Mmm? Mh, ngh. Wha, what are you......."
"Loosening you up."
Leticia let out pleasured moans as she twisted her body.
But Jiha lightly pressed her hips down with his knee to keep her in place and kept kneading.
"Ah, mh, mm. S-Stop it."
As the man's hands pressed firmly into her back and waist and loosened her sides, the blonde elf moaned with pleasure and writhed.
"Mh, I s-said stop."
Then suddenly Leticia slapped the bed with her palm, twisted her hips sharply, and slipped free.
As she fled, she snatched the blanket and wrapped it around herself in an instant, hunching into a ball.
Truly nimble skill—Leticia might not show it off, but she was a Unique specializing in close combat.
By specs alone, one of the top martial fighters in Warsland.
"......."
She lay curled on her side like a cocoon, wrapped tight in the blanket, peering at Jiha's face.
Jiha just smiled and gazed steadily down at her.
"Did you get wet?"
"N-No."
"Yeah? I'm cold."
"......."
The reason Leticia had suddenly freaked out and fled—her body responding as the man's hands relaxed her.
Jiha already knew but played it cool and oblivious.
Without meaning to, Leticia glanced at Jiha's naked body, especially his lower half, then ducked her head sharply.
Even as she blushed, she quietly held out a corner of the blanket.
An invitation to get under it with her.
"Oh, I was cold, this works out nicely."
Jiha casually lay down beside Leticia.
She stole glances at him again.
"......Can I ask one more thing?"
"It's fine when it's just the two of us."
"That......."
Leticia swallowed, took a long moment, then spoke.
"......Did Enril come before me?"
"......."
That foul-tempered Enril actually had sex with Jiha?
Leticia had never imagined it before.
But when Jiha quietly stared at her, Leticia's voice shrank.
"It's just, her mood has been strangely better lately. Something......."
"Something?"
"......She's been acting cocky and dismissing me. When before she always had her claws out."
Enril had noticed Jiha and Leticia's relationship a long time ago.
She kept a perfect poker face of ignorance in front of Jiha.
But when she ran into Leticia alone, she'd apparently been waging all sorts of psychological warfare.
Then Enril's reactions had shifted subtly.
"......."
Leticia had no idea why, and was only now slowly connecting the dots.
That Enril had made major progress in her relationship with Jiha.
Jiha could guess, too.
The night he'd gone to Enril's house, spent the night making love and baring their hearts.
After that, Enril's demeanor toward Leticia must have grown relaxed and changed completely.
Treating her as a cat her man played with now and then? Something like that.
"......."
Leticia's uneasy eyes.
Had she fallen behind in the hierarchy? This was a situation she'd never imagined—how should she handle herself? Was she supposed to defer to Enril as a superior?
Her secret anxiety showed without any pretense.
Jiha calmly pulled Leticia's neck close and said,
"I don't draw distinctions over that kind of thing. If you start, there's no end to it."
"......Really?"
Peck.
Don't you trust me?
Instead of a cliché line like that, Jiha kissed her.
Leticia closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Jiha's neck.
The blonde elf who had turned her back on her own kind and decided to follow only Jiha clung to him, hiding her anxiety.
Jiha whispered against her lips.
"I can't stand seeing my women treated poorly. If something feels unfair, something that makes you angry—just tell me when we're alone. Don't go throwing punches on your own."
"......I-I won't."
Whether she meant she wouldn't tattle or wouldn't throw punches was unclear.
Well, Leticia was an elf who did the pounding, not the getting pounded.
She possessed top-tier close-quarters combat ability in Warsland, and her personality reacted razor-sharp like a wildcat to any provocation.
But she was a complete novice when it came to the bed.
What if Jiha started to neglect her? What if she got pushed to the sidelines among all the other women?
Imagining such anxieties and fears, she would end up dejected.
Belatedly confirming the storage room incident was also because she'd been uneasy, wondering if she wasn't that attractive to Jiha.
Smooch.
Jiha sucked on Leticia's lips and whispered.
"I told you, you can do it."
"......Uh, yeah. Really? You, you won't be mad?"
"If something bothers you......."
Mid-sentence, Jiha stopped as Leticia slipped her tongue in, and tangled with hers instead.
Sluuurp. Churp. Smack.
Meeting her tongue, which was trying so hard, as saliva messily intertwined, their heads grew hot.
Holding a woman who was anxious, wanting to soothe her.
Blood rushed downward.