Princess Sherry’s Tale - Chapter 3

Sherri’s body trembled with the weight of her tumultuous emotions, and she felt her eyes start to burn with unshed tears.

Tol looked stricken, standing perfectly still as he watched the emotions move over her beautiful face. It was rare that her perfect composure ever cracked, and for him to witness her so momentarily flustered was a bit of a shock for him.

She just couldn’t figure out what to do with his rejections. His nervousness around her and innocence had been endearing, but she was growing more frustrated with each passing day. She felt like sulking. She couldn’t recall ever having been denied like this, by anyone for any reason, in her whole life. It was difficult to mask the disappointment in her eyes, but she tried. Tol was a challenge that she planned to conquer.

Don’t be so flustered; hurry up and embrace me! Pick me up, you silly idiot, Tol!

“Tollllll…”

“…this is inappropriate, but will you get on my back, Miss Kasheira?”

Ha! Finally, he’d agreed.

As soon as Tol turned around and bent down with his back towards Sherri, she fervently blinked back the tears. It would have been better if he had hugged her, but instead he offered to give her a piggyback ride? Well, it was bizarre, but at least it was progress.

This place was a forest deep inside the castle. So, it meant that he had to spend a considerable amount of time walking to her room. In the meantime, Sherri would have to find a way to use the piggyback ride to further seduce the innocent young man.

It had been two months. Two months! It was the first time she had endured for this long since she had learned the joys of the night under Hans’ introduction. However, when she had seen the wide, broad shoulders in front of her, those complaints melted away.

“Madam? Miss Kasheira?”

“Y-yes, one moment.”

Sherri, who had gently wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her delicate pale fingers, gently put her hand over his broad shoulder. Then, she felt the tension in the corded muscles of Tol’s back as she climbed on him, wrapping her arms and legs around his large torso, a dangerous smile on her face. Once she was firmly settled on him, her legs looped through his strong arms, she reached over his shoulders to briefly rub his thick chest as if to soothe his pitifully tense muscles.

Was it because their bodies were touching? He was so tense, and with her body pressed against him she could feel every twitch, every flinch in his muscles. She grinned to herself triumphantly.

What is this? A strong reaction to me? One he cannot hide. I guess it wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything, but perhaps that he felt too much? 

Many have accused men of being nothing more than animals. Slaves to their desires. The truth, however, whether male or female, was what made people crazy was when they could not predict where their desires would take them. Similarly, stimulation while blindfolded, and being forced to feel through your other senses, including through your imagination, could drive a person’s desire to dizzying intensity. And Sherri knew that fact too well.

Until now, Tol had defended himself by refusing to acknowledge her subtle invitations and her brief touches. He had been blocking her from the beginning. Now, however, with Sherri on his back, he would be at her mercy for at least the next ten minutes.

If he’s this tightly wound already, he’s more sensitive than I thought.

Adequately enjoying his stiff response, Sherri hugged Tol’s neck harder. In this position her bre*sts were pressed tightly against his back. As Sherri had intended, Tol’s back became tenser against her. And more, Tol’s earlobes were burning red. So red, in fact, that she worried for a moment. When she realized that he was just reacting to her proximity, however, she relaxed again, and pressed even closer to his back, enjoying her body’s own warm reaction to his.

Hmm… Should I just shift his balance, and knock us both down? Down into a delicious heap? No, Sherri, control yourself just a little longer.

Of course, she could just always ask him to lower his pants, saying it’s an order. However, Sherri didn’t want that sort of coerced relationship. And she was enjoying watching his futile battle against himself. Against his own desire for her. She could not force his hand, even if he resisted her in the end and the time she’d spent pursuing him was a waste of time.

And finally, above all, if she conquered Tol with an order, her campaign to seduce him would become a crime, and though she was many things, she was not that.

Still, their situation was not easy to define. Their relationship was somewhere in the grey, where Tol struggled with his feelings, never acting on his desires but also never rejecting her.

What in the world is his problem?

He was the first man to withstand her advances, and her beauty which she’d been told on many occasions was incomparable to any other woman in the empire… This had never happened before, and she hoped it would never happen again in the future.

From her vantage point on his back, she looked appreciatively at his short turquoise hair and thickly corded neck. A neck, which she noticed, was tanned, but also reddening under her scrutiny. As red as his ears.

Sherri, shook herself out of her thoughts, and suddenly put her lips close to his neck, her breath whispered against his neck, “Tol, am I not heavy?”

“…not at all, Madam Kasheira. With your petite size…”

Look at him. Every time he took a breath, his body stiffened further, and his earlobes and neck heated up even hotter. Sherri knew that he was feeling it. Feeling the intensity between them.

I’m not immune to this strange pull between us either. If he ever chose to unleash his sexual energy, he would be a force. Even if I was more of a player than Hans, I’d still need to fight off the line of women who would be hanging onto him.

Sherri didn’t know a lot about swords, because she had never had much interest in them, but she knew that Tol was an expert swordsman. He was even more of a promising knight than she’d first thought, as soon became clear when she’d heard the reviews about him these past days. On top of that, even though his right to succeed had been pushed back, as the youngest son of the count, and the official knight of the marquis, he met all the conditions required to one day become the most beloved and powerful knight in the capital.

Unaware that Sherri had intentionally blown a soft breath over the sensitive skin of his neck, his skin pebbled, and it felt to Tol like he had sweat running down his back. Her sweet voice and playful tone, so honeyed up-close, were almost too much for him to handle. Tol closed, pressed his lips tightly, and clenched his jaw, attempting to control himself.

He was crazier for his sword than he was for women, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have eyes. He could obviously discern whether a woman was attractive or not, but he chose to focus his attention on his training. He strangely had higher standards than others and would rather improve himself than chase after just any woman.

When he looked at her though, he saw a stunningly beautiful princess who was as close to perfection as he’d ever seen. Even more so now, if that was possible, than when he had first seen her six years ago and almost instantly fell in love.

It was a fresh love then, so new and unanticipated that he’d had no time to prepare, and despite questioning himself, and knowing that nothing could ever come of it, he’d had no choice about his feelings. As the years went by, however, he had pushed those feelings to the very back of his mind and had given up any hope of ever having them reciprocated. But even after that, after accepting his situation, no other woman had ever caught his eye.

He thought that he’d done rather well considering. There was no need to flounder around with women and doomed or distracting relationships like his fellow colleagues, and the risks of suffering from a broken heart were zero for him. Though it was rare, Tol had heard that there were people who had no s*xual desire, or at least no desire to pursue s*x. He had grown to be comfortable with his life as it was. Concentrating only on his swordsmanship.

Two months ago, however, the rug had been pulled out from underneath him and he had realized that he had deluded himself. It was all just his arrogance. He had mistaken himself for someone who was content with abstinence.

Honestly, he couldn’t remember what kind of words they’d exchanged that day two months ago, but when he bowed before her, trembling inside with the will it took to lock his feeling down deep inside, he had been incapable of not seeing her beauty, of not allowing himself the pleasure exquisite agony of looking at her.

He remembered his eyes perusing her face, and then, almost of their own volition, moving downward over the slender column of her graceful neck, and the swell of her bre*sts, bre*sts that looked full on her slender form. And before he knew it his eyes had gone lower, to her tiny waist, which he was certain he could span with his large hands.

The whole process had come over him so naturally, that at the time, Tol had only been half aware of the way his eyes moved over her, over her body, which was much more beautiful than he’d vaguely expected. On top of that, when she smiled so brightly at him that day, as she called him by his nickname Tol, well… frankly, he’d thought that he’d died and gone to Heaven. But soon after, he pulled himself together and took a step back from her, desperately trying to shield himself against the effects of her beautiful form and radiant smile.

Because if this were a dream it would be too painful to awake from it. His having become her escort, however, was not a dream. It had taken him a few days to come to terms with the reality he now faced. He was unable to avoid her now. There was no escaping her.

On top of that, Sherri was normally affectionate to everyone, and she had spoken to him without hesitation even shortly after meeting her. Not only that, but when he was close, she lightly touched his arm or back, creating countless times when his heart trembled in his chest, his hearing faded to a dull roar, and his vision dimmed to anything but her. He couldn’t even remember their conversations during those times, so overwhelmed he was by her touch.

When she clung to his arm, facing him directly with her large eyes, sparkling with her joy… he felt something that was so crushing, that he felt like he was burning up with fever.

When he was half-witted like that in her presence, Tol was able to wrestle his control back and regain his senses by recalling what Hans had hinted at the day before Hans left for the capital.

“Tolcher Begerty, do you know why she is called a princess even though she is the daughter of a marquis?”

“…I know that it’s because of ‘Olivia’ from the Duchy of Randell.”

“Right. At least as long as the name of the empire persists, Olivia is as noble as an empress. That’s why you shouldn’t get caught being too greedy. Even if Miss Sherri is being friendly to you, don’t permit yourself to fantasize about her affections, or dream above your position. Do not vainly misunderstand her kindness.”

Tol hadn’t known how to respond to that, and so with a furrowed brow he just nodded silently.

“From the look in your eyes, I’m guessing that you’re a confident sort. Well, that’s splendid. She’ll need to experience something she can’t easily… pierce.”

It wasn’t like Tol had understood everything Hans had said. But he’d understood most of it and had been convinced. He had taken it for granted that knowing he could never have her would suppress any feeling of desire for her. That he would be able to easily manage his heart. He had taken it for granted until he saw her in front of him. Hans had said the word greedy to him, but Tol swore that he had never had a haughty heart toward Sherri.

But he didn’t know if it was her kindness that made his heart flutter every time he met her in person, or her beauty, or both. Either way, however, despite his best intentions he was imagining beyond his means several times a day.

What Hans had said was right. He was more brazen and shameless than he’d thought himself to be.