CHAPTER 344: GNAWING ANXIETY-II

Arabella felt how Cassius’s arms tightened around her shoulders and turned around, smiling wide when she could see his handsome face. Her fingers traced the line of his face, recalling how the maids had whispered how it would be a waste that Cassius was going to marry just one woman when he had the face that could turn the entire world under his heels.

She had to agree with it.

It felt kind of a waste that this man was hers but she didn’t plan on letting him go, ever.

"Why are you frowning?" Arabella pressed her index finger between his eyebrows and pouted, "Did I make you mad?"

"You didn’t," Cassius answered, closing his eyes to snuggle to her palm.

"But you feel quite annoyed. Is it the new ministers or the households? If they tell you to quickly pick a wife again, I have told you not to kill them right away, did I?" She gently tapped his face, "After all, they had said that because they wanted you to have a strong support."

"You’re wrong there, they wanted their own daughter to be the Queen and I won’t let that happen. No concubine, no other women in my life."

She could sense that he really hadn’t killed anyone or was irked by the ministers so why is it that his mood felt utterly terrible today? He didn’t even have the curl that constantly tug the edges of his lips and his atmosphere felt similar to the time when Marissa died.

"Cassius?" She whispered, "If it’s not them then what else have put you in such a terrible mood?"

Cassius couldn’t say anything.

He opened his eyes and then took her hand that had touched his face, kissing it gently, "Will you not stand so closely to the window? You could fall and," he hung his words but she could fill it at once.

Turning to the window, she quickly closed them and nodded back at him, "Then I promise I won’t lean on it anymore. What else, Cassius?"

He looked at her and for a moment, his eyes fell to her ankles.

The idea of losing Arabella terrifies him.

Not only did it terrifies him, the anxiety of imagining it happen before his eyes drove him to the point of insanity.

Even earlier when he saw how close she had leaned to the opened window, his heart felt horrified as his water turned cold. He could only rushed and pulled her into his embrace, preventing from her falling down.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t knew that she was careful as she leaned at the window.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t trust that she could protect herself from falling out of the window.

But it still terrifies him.

The chances of her falling was still there and that was something he couldn’t let happen.

He wondered if he could just lock her inside his room, keep her here and far from any danger. She could rest here, she could be far from danger. When she’s ill, he would be there to protect her.

If he could shackle her inside this castle for good, protect her from the slightest danger that even a paper cut could never occur to her, would that finally put his heart at ease?

Keep her here, keep her tied down, protect her.

This was the only way for him to feel at ease.

"Cassius?" Arabella didn’t know what those lovely crimson eyes were thinking as it stared at her legs, making her wonder if she had perhaps dirtied her feet earlier near the window.

But he isn’t someone who would be bothered by this, so she doubted that was the case.

"If you have something you don’t like me to do, you can tell me," she couldn’t help but say such words as she could tell that his furrowed eyebrows and complicated gaze didn’t come from his anger, rather a deep sense of fear and anxiety.

At that, Cassius’s crimson eyes flickered.

He locked his gaze with those green eyes and the thought of locking her felt like a sin to him now.

She was so willing to protect his peace but he?

Just because he was anxious of losing her, he had even thought of cutting her freedom.

If he was still his past self, perhaps Cassius wouldn’t hesitate before locking the door and boarding the windows, locking her inside by tying her feet with a shackle and only letting her open the door when he was there.

But that wasn’t love was it? That wasn’t protection, it had became control.

Cassius who only knew how to control learns from her how to protect and that sense of wanting to protect her with control frustrate him.

At a hand, he thought of how foolish worrying about her freedom when death loom around her neck.

At another, he was embarrassed by how terrible of a person he was when she was shining so brightly even in this dim room.

"Cas- ah," Arabella hadn’t completed her words as suddenly Cassius had leaned forward and his lips captured hers.

His tongue licked her lips, pushing them to open in a rush.

For the first time, it didn’t seem like desire was the only thing she could taste from his lips but also rush.

Without giving her a moment to breathe, he had sucked her tongue, licking the roof of her mouth again and again until she felt breathless.

Her toes curls as he knew that she loved when his tongue would rub the temple of her mouth before nibbling down to her lips while drawing a line on her back.

Shivers run down from her spine as Cassius only pulled away when she felt her knees buckling.

"Cassius-"

"For tonight," Cassius spoke as he rubbed the saliva from her lips, his eyes staring at her was filled with such sorrow that it could almost stung her to tears.

"Be with me."

Arabella couldn’t ask what he meant.

After all weren’t she was with him now?

Hadn’t she promised that she would be with him for the rest of her life following today?

What was he worried for? Why is he in such a rush?

What is it Cassius?

What is it that frightened you so much?

But those questions were drowned as Cassius’s fingers tugged the intricate laces of her corset, loosening her dress as they both tumble to the soft bed.