Chapter 119. Rationalization
2023.12.28.
Herdin's gloved fingers brushed below Blair's lips. At the cool sensation of leather grazing her tender flesh, Blair's body flinched.
The price.
Mulling over the word his lips had whispered, Blair finally realized what he meant by 'the price.'
Earlier, she had made the condition that she would do as he wished if he let Mikhail go, and he had indeed left Mikhail alone as she requested.
So now it was her turn to accept his demands.
He, who would normally have devoured her lips greedily, was waiting quietly. Yet he kept his hand cupping her cheek so she couldn't look away from him.
Whenever his hot breath touched her, it felt as though her mouth was parching dry.
'This is the price I promised first.'
Gazing blankly into his blue eyes that hungered for her, Blair carefully overlaid her lips upon his.
With that single passive kiss, his desire ignited as if a fuse had been lit.
When Blair tried to pull away, Herdin dragged her back and roughly swallowed her lips. As she shrank back in surprise at his relentless onslaught, he pursued her like a beast chasing its prey.
Then, as if that wasn't enough, he scooped her up entirely and sat her on his lap, gripping the back of her neck to cut off any retreat.
"Mmm..."
Caught by him, Blair helplessly had her breath and saliva stolen away. In her dizzying consciousness from her ragged breathing, only the hot movement plundering her mouth remained vivid.
Simultaneously, she felt his hand caressing her stomach. That hand she used to be so desperate to avoid felt strangely comforting in this moment.
She only came to her senses when his lips touched the tender skin of her nape.
The air hitting the bare skin of her back was cool. It prickled into goosebumps in contrast to his hot breath scattering across her nape. Without her noticing, the buttons on the back of her dress had been unfastened, and it had slipped down to her upper chest.
Only then realizing his intention, Blair desperately called out to him.
"Herdin!"
"Yes."
He answered her call obediently, but had no intention of stopping. His lips traced kisses along the curve of her upper chest as they descended.
Blair desperately clutched the dress he was trying to pull down further and pleaded.
"Not here... not here, please."
But to a beast starved for over two months, nothing else registered. There was only the thought of devouring this woman as quickly as possible.
He pulled her back against him, kissed her, pried her hands from the dress, and grabbed her plump buttocks.
His beastly ravishing halted the moment he discovered the questionable dampness seeping through her clothes.
Seeing that, he recalled Blair asking the doctor called for an examination yesterday whether her milk could already have come in.
So this was proof that her body was preparing to become a mother.
A woman carrying my child.
As that fact registered, a thread-thin strand of reason returned—reminding him that he mustn't handle her as recklessly as before, not when her body had grown heavy enough that even her steps were cautious.
Herdin swallowed a sigh and closed his eyes. Just seeing Blair's flushed face felt too much to bear right now. The desire he barely managed to swallow down scraped roughly down his throat.
Gripping his frayed reason that felt like it could snap at any moment, he gently kissed her collarbone.
Then, with his other hand, he began refastening the buttons of her dress. To keep himself from seeing at all.
"Herdin, no—"
Thinking he was trying to undress her further, a terrified Blair struggled, and Herdin swallowed a pained sigh as he whispered.
"...Stay still. Just stay still."
It wasn't intentional, but every time she moved, her buttocks rubbed against his thigh, stimulating him. Belatedly realizing his reaction, Blair froze and became meek.
Herdin stroked her stomach, clinging to his fraying reason.
But his shallow patience quickly reached its limit just from her hair tickling his cheek and the scent of her skin rising from her nape.
By the time he wanted to rip open the dress buttons he had just fastened with his own hands, the carriage stopped.
Herdin carried Blair inside the annex, barely acknowledging the servants' greetings. A meaningless thought crossed his mind—that it was fortunate the annex they were staying in was small.
The moment they reached the bedroom, he pressed his lips to hers again. By the time they reached the bed, Blair's breathing had grown ragged once more.
Herdin shed his clothes haphazardly the instant he set Blair down on the bed. His lips were still consuming hers.
Next, he unfastened a few buttons of her dress before finally tearing them off roughly. The buttons ripped away with that single motion, scattering across the floor.
He stopped his wild rampage around the time he had completely removed her dress.
His gaze fixed on her rounded stomach.
Freed from his kiss at the same time, Blair snapped to her senses at his stare. It wasn't the first time she had exposed her body before him, but it was the first time since her belly had swelled.
'...Does it look strange after all?'
She had heard that sometimes men lost interest upon seeing their pregnant wives. Part of her wanted Herdin to stop upon seeing her, yet another part wanted him not to stop.
Blair mocked herself for this. Her feelings for this man were so contradictory.
Just as Blair was about to hide under the covers, upset by his silence as he merely stared at her stomach without any reaction—
Herdin pressed his lips to her stomach. That kiss didn't stop at one, but continued gently.
Blair gazed at him blankly.
In her past life, he had never shown any interest in a child.
Seeing him carefully kiss her stomach as if greeting the child, complex emotions surged up within her.
Despite hating him for trying to use her and the child again in this life as he had in the past, when she thought of the child, she wanted him to love it this time.
At that moment, Herdin, who had been continuously placing kisses, raised his head and their eyes met.
Simultaneously, his eyes like a frozen winter lake overwhelmed her. His breath pressing heavily against her made her mind go blank.
"Mmm..."
His hand stroking her swollen belly moved downward. Startled by the explicit touch grazing over the thin fabric, Blair parted her lips and gasped.
Perhaps because her body had grown sensitive from pregnancy, or because there had been no stimulation for so long, her body heated up quickly.
In the past, he would have teased or tormented her for it, but today, Herdin had no composure to spare either.
Feeling the hot dampness seeping through the fabric, Herdin sat back against the bed and lifted her onto his lap.
His chest pressed against her back, and their bodies immediately overlapped.
"Ah!"
Blair let out a moan at the sensation of tight fullness surging from below.
Herdin gritted his teeth and exhaled a ragged sigh through them. Every time she flinched and moved, he vividly felt the sensation of their contact. That alone was enough to send a dizzying rush of pleasure through him.
"Ah, Herdin..."
Blair called out to him sobbingly and gripped his solid arms.
Moisture gathered on his palm that grasped her roundly swollen body. That dampness reminded him of the faint wetness he had felt through the fabric earlier. At the same time, the wet sounds of friction began echoing more thickly.
The body of a mother that should have felt sacred, in that moment, felt the most debauched in the world. That very sight added a sense of transgression, fueling his desire.
He wanted to see her face calling out to him with her flushed expression, but in their current state, there was no other way.
Herdin drove into her more intensely, if only to hear more of that pleading voice. Then a pained moan burst from her lips.
Blair desperately grabbed his arm and begged.
"Herdin! Slowly, do it slowly."
"..."
"It's... not good... for the baby..."
Herdin flinched at the word 'baby' and mocked himself.
Other men supposedly lose their lust at the sight of their pregnant wives, so why was it harder than usual for him to control his desire?
Whenever he touched her rounded belly, the fact that the seed he had planted was growing inside this woman felt vividly real.
Simultaneously, a sense of fulfillment as though he completely possessed this woman arose, and not satisfied with that alone, a vicious sadism wanting to torment her even more reared its head.
But he mustn't.
Stroking her belly and suppressing his boiling desire, he held her close, rubbing his lips against her white shoulder and back as he moved slowly.
The slow movement, like swimming through hot water, stimulated them both like the ripples of calm waves.
With nothing to hold onto in front of her, Blair had no choice but to cling to his solid arms that embraced her.
"Herdin..."
Every time he moved, the sensation of being overwhelmingly filled made her vision flicker white. She couldn't gather her senses at all. Without even knowing exactly what she wanted, she just called his name desperately.
Because only he could quench this thirst that refused to be slaked.
Blair's steadily escalating moans peaked at some point, letting out a sound almost like a scream before stopping. At the same time, Herdin let out a thick groan and bit her shoulder.
He placed small kisses on her shoulder until Blair's trembling body calmed, then gently separated her from himself and laid her carefully on the bed.
Before Blair could even feel the absence of the warmth that had been against her, his chest wrapped around her back from behind.
"What about the baby?"
Herdin overlapped his hand over Blair's as she checked on the baby's condition first. But the baby that had been moving just a moment ago fell quiet the instant its father's hand touched.
"...It seems fine."
The moment Blair's answer ended, a scorching heat rushed in.
Blair let out a moan and gripped the sheets. Then his rough breath scattering by her ear and the sensation of being overwhelmed like a rushing tide crashed over her.
In her fading consciousness, Blair thought blankly.
That this was merely paying the price she had promised this man.
While turning away from her own racing heart.