I would be sucked and kissed until I was too exhausted to stay conscious, and when I woke, it would start again.
This was the rhythm of every single day. So everyone assumed I was simply napping for half the afternoon.
I had imagined that once the pregnancy was confirmed, I would finally be allowed to sleep in peace until the birth. That was a delusion entirely my own.
‘…It’s so unfair. And I can’t even tell anyone.’
Unless he was in his study attending to estate business, my husband never left my side. He had taken over everything—feeding me at mealtimes, bathing me himself—and since the pregnancy, he had declared that no other attendant would lay a hand on me. No one except the physician was permitted near my body.
And so I spent my days thoroughly kissed and touched, helpless to resist. This mortifying situation was not something I could share with anyone.
I exhaled a long, unsteady breath as his tongue continued its unhurried work.
“‘Mm’—’hh’…”
Sounds kept escaping no matter how hard I tried to hold them in. I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth and gripped a fistful of his hair with the other.
‘It really does seem to be getting worse over time.’
It wasn’t as though human skin had any particular flavor. And yet my husband went at me every single day without exception, as though I were some kind of endlessly sweet confection.
“‘Mm’.”
He licked across the peak of my chest with his tongue, then pressed his lips there and kissed deeply. Slowly, he began to move downward.
When I glanced down, my pale skin was scattered all over with red marks.
My gaze drifted further and accidentally met the sight of him—swollen and visibly straining against his clothing. I looked away deliberately.
* * *
Fifteenth week of pregnancy.
At some point, Kael had a private bed installed for me inside his study.
A canopied bed, of all things—half-translucent fabric stretched overhead to block the light—positioned in one corner of the spacious room.
Which meant that even during his working hours, I was now permanently fixed to his study.
The working hours had been the one window of freedom I could count on. And now even that had been taken from me.
He would come to the bed mid-work, touch me and kiss me, then return to his desk as though nothing had happened.
I was beginning to feel like some kind of personal energy source he could tap at any hour.
But there was one good side to all of this.
‘It’s wonderful for the baby’s development.’
After being kissed into sleep, I woke and immediately turned to face him. There he sat, reviewing documents with one arm wrapped loosely around what appeared to be a large stuffed bear. I lay watching him quietly for several minutes, blinking.
Eventually he glanced over with a faint smile and asked:
“What are you doing?”
“Prenatal enrichment.”
He raised both eyebrows and met my eyes.
“Prenatal enrichment?”
“Yes! I’m looking at your face.”
“That’s a rather unusual interpretation of the concept. My understanding was more along the lines of—reading picture books. Looking at pretty flowers.”
“You already read to me. We go to the garden together whenever we can. And flowers aren’t nearly as pretty as you.”
“‘Pretty.’ That’s a first.”
I pushed myself upright, still hugging the stuffed bear to my chest.
“What do you mean, a first? You’re genuinely beautiful! That’s exactly why I want our baby to look like you. And for that, I need to look at you as much as possible!”
I could spend all day looking at his face and never feel I had looked enough. He grew more handsome by the day, which made him, objectively, the finest prenatal enrichment material available.
Kael watched me with one corner of his mouth curved upward. He set down his pen, rose from the chair, and crossed to the bed. A large shadow fell over me.
“I—I’ve had enough looking for now! Go back to work! You must be very busy—”
He began undoing his jacket buttons with unhurried fingers.
“You said looking at me was good for the baby. So look.”
“I meant your ‘face’. Just the face! Only the face!”
I scrambled backward across the bed on my hands and knees. He did not stop.
“‘AHHH’! The face is what’s good for the baby, not—not ‘that thing’—it doesn’t even have a ‘face’—!”
“That’s a bit hurtful, my love. You should love all of me equally.”
He glanced meaningfully down at himself. What had been accommodated against his left thigh was, once again, making its presence known with considerable enthusiasm and zero subtlety.
Completely trapped between his knees, I shrieked:
“I didn’t ‘do’ anything—why is it doing that ‘again’—!”
“You’ve been staring at me.”
“Just ‘looking’ at you shouldn’t cause—I think this is ‘genuinely a medical problem’—’mmph’—”
He swallowed my words entirely. His tongue pushed through my lips and swept slowly across the roof of my mouth, through the even rows of my teeth.
“‘Mm—mmph’.”
He tilted his head and pressed deeper, then buried his face against the curve of my neck.
‘Ha.’ He exhaled—a low, rough sound full of intent—and began to bite at my throat.
“You’re the problem here. You made this happen. So naturally you’re the one who has to take responsibility.”
He declared this against my skin, teeth grazing.
It wasn’t—technically—going further. But could this truly be called restraint?
‘Is this… safe for the baby…?’
* * *
Twentieth week.
Again, I had been kissed into unconsciousness the night before.
My husband was still pressed against my back. I reached back and tapped his hand where it rested over my stomach.
“Kael. I’m… thirsty. I want some water.”
He helped me sit up. He drank from the glass first—then cupped my neck in his hand, tipped my chin up, and kissed me.
“‘Mm’.”
Cool, crisp water flowed through his lips into mine. I swallowed it gladly.
“More?”
“No. That’s enough.”
My morning sickness hadn’t been severe, but for some reason I couldn’t bear the taste of plain water—it had a faint, metallic fishiness I couldn’t get past.
After several days of refusing to drink, my husband had come up with this particular solution: he would give me the water himself, mouth to mouth.
At first I assumed it was simply an excuse to kiss me. But it genuinely worked—the water tasted nothing like the tap, not fishy in the least, and it carried that warm, clean scent that was entirely his.
He settled beside me on the edge of the bed and looked quietly at my stomach before reaching out to rub it in a slow, gentle circle.
“Don’t give your mother a hard time.”
“Wait—wait! You can’t speak to the baby like that—that’s a ‘threat’—”
I pulled his hand away and curved both arms protectively around my middle.
* * *
‘That same afternoon at twenty weeks.’
It was the day of my regular prenatal check-up.
“Have you been eating well? Your morning sickness was quite severe for a while there.”
“It’s much better now. The tonics Kael’s been giving me have helped a great deal.”
I had, in fact, begun to suspect the tonics were engineered to keep me in just enough health to be thoroughly kissed and touched without dying. I phrased this as charitably as I could.
“Glad to hear it. And the metallic taste in water—is that still a problem?”
“It’s, ah, it’s been a little better recently. I’ve managed small amounts.”
There was, in fact, a secret to that improvement as well. But it was too embarrassing to mention.
“Your Grace. You have nothing to worry about regarding the duchess’s condition. The baby is growing strong and healthy.”
“You’re certain.”
“Absolutely. Trust this old man completely. Ah—and one more thing. Her ladyship has entered the stable period.”
“The stable period?”
“Yes. From this point on, intimate relations may resume.”
…’What?’
‘Absolutely not.’
I cut in immediately.
“W—wait, wait! That can’t be right, can it? Wouldn’t it be a shock to the baby—?”
My husband’s constitution was formidable enough to be genuinely alarming. A threat to the child’s wellbeing seemed entirely plausible.
I hadn’t even fully adjusted myself. What possible basis was there for—
“As long as the mother’s abdomen is not compressed and the activity is not too vigorous, it’s perfectly safe. The amniotic sac is surrounded by thick muscular walls, and the baby floats within in amniotic fluid—they are very well protected from any external impact.”
“Hmm.”
My husband was listening to the physician with his chin resting in his hand, wearing an expression of earnest attention.
I glanced at him sideways and added hastily:
“It—it wouldn’t be a ‘small’ shock, either. It would be absolutely ‘enormous’. Because my husband’s—! I mean—anyway! The point is, all intimate relations during pregnancy should be strictly—”
“On the contrary, it has a wonderfully positive effect on the baby. The love is transmitted directly, you might say.”
“‘What?’ How is that—there’s simply ‘no benefit’ I can imagine—”
“Relations during the stable period are extraordinarily beneficial for strengthening the couple’s emotional bond. They also substantially aid in rebuilding the mother’s weakened pelvic muscles, and are ‘tremendously’, ‘exceptionally’, ‘remarkably’ effective in relieving the physical and emotional stress and anxiety of pregnancy. And of course the positive developmental effects on the fetus are considerable. I swear to you, there is no better way for a father to make his love felt by his child.”
“…”
My husband had been listening to every word with rapt attention.
‘He never listens to me like that.’
From that day forward, in the name of emotional bonding, my husband came for me at every available opportunity. Our child received an overwhelming abundance of their father’s love. I, naturally, suffered enormously.
* * *
Five months later.
A robust infant’s cry rang out through the halls of the Hardeion Duchy.
The bells announcing the birth of the heir pealed on and on.
”— End of Bonus Chapter —”
* * *
