Arranged marriage to the princess of the Red Scorpions
Chapter 168 - Making It Worse

Samuel paused for a second as tried to study Lena's face in the dark. It proved to be rather difficult with the way that she had tucked her face away from him.

"Well why don't you just embrace them for the time being if they aren't bad?" He suggested. It had been what he was working on doing when he noticed his feelings for the princess had started to grow. He just let it take it's course and waited to see what direction it would lead him in.

"Because it's different." was the only response that she could give him. She couldn't say that what she was feeling was bad per say, it was just a confusing feeling that she wasn't sure what she do with it.

"I think that right now I would rather prefer some space to deal with this." She told him after there was another moment of silence between them.

"If I do leave, does that mean I'm allowed to go back with Jovani tomorrow?" He suddenly asked, a topic in Lena's mind that wasn't even related to what was going on at the current moment in time.

"That has nothing to do with this." She replied back, making the mistake of turning her head to glare at him only to realize how close their faces were.

"Of course it does. Because those feelings you're talking about would be more than enough of a reason for you to not want me to go back with him." Samuel pointed out.

"I don't want you to go back with him because I don't think it's safe and I don't trust what might happen when you're somewhere that I know nothing about." the princess argued.

"This and that are the same, love." Samuel replied with small smile before leaning down to give her a quick kiss. This didn't make anything better for her, if anything it made the strange sensation worse. She certainly wasn't used to being in this type of situation and she couldn't say that she was enjoying very much.

"Samuel." She tried to warn after the kiss was broken, but she knew her voice didn't sound as firm as she wanted it to. The soft look in eyes was still there as he stared down at her while waiting to hear what she was going to say.

"I said this and that aren't related. We can talk more about that tomorrow." She repeated. She wasn't per say trying to deny the fact that they were related as much as she hadn't given it much thought to consider if it was a possibility.

In her mind it came down to the matter of sensibility and protection. It wasn't sensible to her to let him leave with Jovani even if they were cousins after what just happened. She couldn't trust that the other would even let Samuel come back despite what he said once they were in Vedova Nera territory. She wouldn't even have the ability to push too far if such thing occurred to demand he be returned since he was part of their family and they weren't technically doing anything wrong by keeping him there.

"All you have to give is a small yes or no if you've made up your mind." Samuel replied. He knew better than to push his luck too far with the princess, but since she wasn't really pushing back against him too much, he took it as a sign that he wasn't pushing boundaries he ought not to.

"Tomorrow." Lena repeated again taking in a deep breath as she turned her face away from him again.

"Now, let me be so that I can sleep tonight and think things over." The princess insisted without turning her face to look at Samuel again.

"If you don't have an answer to the question I think that it would be better for me to stay here so that you don't worry as much while you're thinking things through." He replied. He didn't really want to move from his position on top of her, but he could that he was likely reaching the limits of what he could get away with from the princess.

"I'm asking for space because you're making things worse right now." She replied, trying to say it in a level tone that got the point she was trying to make across without sounding to cross. When Samuel didn't reply though she got the feeling that he didn't quite understand what she meant by that.

"I don't mean that in the bad way, I'm just saying your current actions aren't helping me to be able to think clearly about anything. That's why I'm asking you for space." she tried her best to explain what she meant, but she wasn't sure she was doing such a good job of it.

"That's okay, you still have time to decide what you want to do. I'll stay here though because I think sometimes it's good not to be able to think clearly about everything and just be swept away by the emotions around you." Samuel told her as he kissed her cheek releasing her wrists and shifting so that he was back to lying down next to her.

He had wanted to stay in that position a while longer to see what other reactions he could get from the Princess since recently it seemed like it was far easier than it ever had been in the past to cause her to be flustered and caught off guard. Was this what she had always been hiding under her hard exterior or was this just the temporary result of everything that had been going on recently taking it's toll on her?

Samuel wasn't sure which it was, he knew however that it was something that he wanted to continue exploring over time in order to understand which part of Lena was real and which parts were just used a means of defense.. It would probably take some time for that to happen, but at the moment he felt like it would be worth the wait to sort out.