The General's Wife Wants to Leave-Chapter 239: The first person... no others...

The green eyes stared at hers with the intensity that made her unable to look away once the book that she held was no more, as it was now in the hands of the owner of the green eyes, who was sitting right across from her.

Trying to calm her pounding heart, Joanna placed her now-empty hands to clasp on her lap after a few seconds of having her eyes locked with the piercing green ones. Clearing her throat, she said, "I thought you knew that to snatch someone’s belongings without asking for permission is impolite, Sir Canillas." Joanna uttered her complaint without raising her voice, but her brows furrowed.

"Oh, my bad. Please accept my apology then, my lady." Canillas bowed before lifting his head to meet Joanna’s eyes. "For a moment this poor husband forgot what impoliteness is all about, as this poor husband was too immersed in seeking his wife’s whereabouts. He could not find her as she had gone after giving him comfort last night."

Taken aback at what she heard, Joanna lost the confident composure that she tried to show in order to shield her flustered heart. "Please don’t say that, Sir Canillas," Joanna responded in a low voice that was laced with shyness, drifting her eyes away from Canillas’.

"Which part shouldn’t I say? Me asking for an apology or me looking for my wife, who was busy avoiding me since the morning?" came a reply from Canillas. His eyes fell on Joanna’s lips while capturing her flustered state in front of him.

"Stop doing that, Joanna, or you will get tired and hurt your lips more."

Stunned, Joanna, who pressed her lips together, alternately with biting her lower lip, as if it had become her habit, brought her wandering eyes back to Canillas only to make her hear more words from him. "You have done that since the morning."

Upon hearing the words that implied the fact that he had kept his eyes on her regardless of her trying to hide from him, Joanna lowered her eyes and said, "I don’t want people to see." She looked solemn.

"There are no people here but me," Canillas stated matter-of-factly.

"It is uncomfortable." A complaint came as a reply from Joanna as she raised her eyes to look at Canillas with a crease on her forehead.

"Please bear with that. You will get used to it," he replied in no time, causing Joanna’s lips to part as she heard the words. She blinked her eyes when she saw the man before her offer her a grin while she thought that they were having a serious conversation.

"I hope you don’t think that what we did last night is the end of everything, my dear wife." Joanna blinked her eyes again upon hearing the next words that came from the same man who looked serious a few seconds ago, but now a broad smile adorned his face, beaming with the sunlight that filtered through the window. freeweɓnøvel.com

"And I will try to be more gentle next time." Joanna turned her head to see Canillas, who moved to sit next to her after placing the book that he had taken from her on the chair that he had previously occupied. "Like this." And before she could grasp anything, everything that revolved around her froze once again, like the night when the soft, warm lips pressed against hers for the first time.

It was only a light kiss that lasted no longer than five seconds, but she had lost the ability to breathe. Her rebel heart took action again, racing wildly in her chest even after the lips parted from hers.

"Breathe," Canillas demanded when he found the lady whose rosy cheeks gave warmth against his palms frozen like a statue with her dazed eyes fixated on his, and a small smile formed on Canillas’ lips as he saw Joanna take a shallow, rapid breath through her mouth.

Keeping his hands cupping Joanna’s cheeks while his thumb gave a fluttering rub against her lower lip, he said, "It is not obvious enough that it will attract attention. So you don’t need to exert energy for unnecessary worry. No one will notice it."

Canillas indeed noticed the impact of their intimacy on Joanna’s lips and perhaps her body. However, in Canillas’ eyes, it was not something that should be worried about, as it was normal to be seen from a married couple, aside from the fact that it was not too obvious that it would attract attention. But of course his shy, innocent wife had a different perspective about that.

Moving his gaze from Joanna’s lips to her narrowed eyes, he heard her say, "But Lucy and Bianca noticed it." A disapproving tone colored her low voice.

"Perhaps because it was still raw?" Canillas opined, sensing the displeasure that radiated from his wife, giving reasons why she looked like an unsettled rabbit who jumped here and there in order to be away from him.

Noticing Joanna seemed to say something but doubted as she closed her lips that were just opened, he uttered, "Anything you want to say to me." His palms still rested against Joanna’s warm, blushed cheeks, not allowing her to look away from him, urging her to tell him what she kept in her heart and mind. That way he hoped she would expose her inner feelings, becoming more calm and not avoiding him like she did since she woke up from her short sleep.

On the other side, Joanna indeed had something to ask Canillas, but she doubted. She contemplated if it might become offensive, and he would not like her asking him that. But if she did not ask him that, she felt that she would lose the chance to get peace of mind.

More importantly, he suggested she say anything to him, and it was not the first time for him to ask them to be open to each other, building a conversation over any matter to be shared together.

"D-did it... also happen to... others that you... kissed?" Hence, she voiced what had disturbed her mind to get an answer about the unfairness that had lingered in her mind, although it did not come out as smoothly as she attempted it to be.

Joanna bit her lower lip after the words were managed to be delivered. Her hands fidgeting on her lap as she waited for him to answer. And it took all her entire being to keep her eyes on him as she wanted to see the truth behind the answer that he would give her.

The first answer that Joanna obtained from Canillas was a warm smile before his low, deep voice rang in her ears. "No, it didn’t happen to others." It was his answer to which Joanna felt her heart sink when hearing that, and she shifted her head when her lower lip that she bit was gently stroked by the man who gave her the answer. She wanted to avoid that touch.

"Because I never kissed others." And Joanna ceased her attempt to get free from the man who was holding her as if she was pulled back to float from the depth of the sea.

Slowly, she brought her eyes to meet his again with her lips slightly parted, and another word came from him for her to hear. "Believe it or not, my wife is the first person I kiss. There were no others, and there will be no others."

At the moment, Joanna could only function to stare deep into the eyes whose depth was like an ocean—the same eyes that she had seen the most since she met him for the first time that day. And she stayed still when she was pulled into his arms.

As there was only silence that enveloped them, Joanna closed her eyes, resting one side of her cheeks on his taut shoulder, feeling her back gently patted by him, letting him comfort her wholly.

"That’s why we need to kiss more often." But the silence seemed unable to last forever.

Joanna’s eyes flew open at the voice that broke the tranquility that hovered over them.