Chapter 2.3

So Kaiden hastily cut her off without hearing her entire sentence. Watching her cheeks flush and pale made him so anxious he could go mad.

“I’ll return to Ferindale by fall.”

“What…?”

“Of course, if circumstances allow, I might return sooner, and I can come back anytime for a break.”

He had imagined she would respond with a joyful smile, but it was a futile hope.

“I am the youngest of the king’s knights and unmarried, so I’ve never left His Majesty’s castle for long. But older knights married to women from distant territories live outside the castle, only staying at the royal capital when called by His Majesty. So when I return to His Majesty in spring and report…”

Rian looked up at him, frozen, with no trace of the smile Kaiden had hoped for.

“…I want to introduce you to His Majesty.”

Ah, it felt like his heart was collapsing.

“Formally introduce you and get permission to marry, so you can always be by my side…. Rian. Please don’t tell me to leave alone.”

Kaiden suddenly embraced her as if crumbling. His voice, trying to maintain minimal dignity, weakly broke, scattering like a faint breeze.

“Don’t tell me to return alone. Since before I was picked up by your relatives after being drenched by rain and entering this house, since I saw you by chance climbing the eastern hill, I’ve always dreamed this dream. A desperate, desperate dream.”

Through his tightly pressed chest, the frantic beating of a small heart was transmitted. Tears seemed about to leak out disgracefully.

“Rian…”

Kaiden fearfully held her tightly.

“Become my wife.”

Become my family.

To him, she felt more noble and precious than a queen. A confession he dared not make to such a woman.

“Become my wife. If you don’t want to go to the royal capital, I’ll go alone to get permission from His Majesty and return. Wait for me.”

Please allow it.

Kaiden repeated like a drunkard. It took a long time to notice Rian’s hands clutching his back and holding on.

“…Sir.”

When Rian’s soft voice reached his ears, he unconsciously released his tight grip and checked her complexion.

“Yes, Rian. I’m listening.”

He looked at her with a stiff face, swallowing hard. Her wet eyelashes and cheeks were drenched, and she smiled awkwardly.

“I don’t think I can go with you in spring.”

His heart felt like it dropped to the ground for a moment.

“The child…”

Rian gently wrapped her still-flat belly with both hands and continued.

“Our child needs to grow a bit more inside, so I have to be careful. It’s very far and the road is rough, so it might be difficult.”

Kaiden stared at her without breathing.

A child?

Rian is carrying my child….

“I’ll wait here.”

Rian’s face was as bright and beautiful as Kaiden had imagined in his happiest dreams.

“I’ll wait with the child for you to return.”

Before Kaiden, lost in thought, could respond, she leaned her head against his chest and embraced him.

“Please return with a marriage certificate from His Majesty. Bring gifts for me and our child. Then….”

His heart, which had collapsed miserably, regained its form and beat strongly with Rian’s gentle gestures and voice.

“Then I’ll become your wife. And when the child grows a little, the three of us will travel anywhere together. Anywhere… I’ll follow you.”

“Ah….”

His eyes brimmed with tears. Overwhelmed by indescribable emotions, Kaiden tightly embraced her.

She promised to follow him anywhere, to wait with the child.

Her words sounded to Kaiden like she was offering him the whole world.

He chuckled, feeling his heart swell with her soft laughter in his arms.

Happy. So happy….

“…It feels like a dream, Rian.”

He hugged her tightly.

The woman who would become his family, his home, his world.

“Oh, no. Too strong….”

As he wrapped his arms around her slender waist and squeezed, she pushed him away with a grunt. With her weak hands, she pressed against his chest and shook her head.

“If you hug too tightly, the child will feel suffocated.”

Kaiden erased his smile and furrowed his brow.

“There’s no bump yet, how can a child feel suffocated?”

“It’s slightly rounded. I was worried you’d notice.”

“Where is it rounded? If that’s a pregnant belly, then I must be carrying twins.”

He muttered, slightly pushing out his thickly muscled abdomen, and Rian burst into laughter. Her lovely laughter seemed to lift him onto a cloud.

Kaiden carefully kissed her. To avoid startling her, he began gently licking her neck. As he slipped his hand inside her long tunic and stroked between her thighs, a moist breath escaped.

“Ah….”

The house was filled with steamy humidity. It was because she had prepared bathing water for him on the gently warmed hearth. He realized it only now.

“Shall we bathe together?”

Kaiden asked lowly, blowing hot breath over her lips.

“I want to wash you with my hands. On the first day I bathed here, I was driven mad wanting to watch you bathe. I wanted to watch you by my side, wash your body with my hands. And take out mine…”

His voice, filled with intense joy and excitement, was drowned. With one hand, he circled the small nub hidden beneath her and tasted her lips with his tongue, seducing her.

“Imagining rubbing here, and here, and slowly pushing it in. I’ve never seen a woman’s body, so I couldn’t quite imagine this part. So listening to the splashing water… I comforted myself.”

Rian’s eyes, like the surface reflecting the blue of spring skies, waved like the ocean.

“That night, when you snuggled up to me in your sleep and rubbed against me, I couldn’t hold back. Even before we made love, I actually imagined putting it inside you twice, and spilled my seed. Ah… just thinking about it drives me crazy. You, with your thin nightgown-clad bottom rubbing against my, my…”

His hips naturally leaned forward. Kaiden clenched his teeth, rubbing his hard er*ction against her side.

“Ha, Rian… touch me. Ah….”

She also reached out to him, breathing hotly with flushed cheeks. Her gentle hands wrapped around and squeezed him skillfully.

He soon felt the climax approaching.

“Stop, wait a moment.”

Holding back the urge to climax by squeezing his b*ttocks, he carried her, bewildered, and laid her on the sofa.

“I want to finish inside. Feel it together with you.”

“Can you do it gently?”

She opened her mouth, urging him despite her doubt. When he lifted her long tunic and pushed aside her underwear, pressing the tip against her, she moaned, covering her flushed face with her hand.

“Mm, pushing all the way in, no, it’s too deep.”

Kaiden grasped his member with one hand and pushed only half inside her. Holding the base in his hand, he moved only the inserted part slowly.

“Ah, ah… Kaiden….”

She, who had been avoiding him to hide her condition, now embraced him, moving her hips herself.

It wasn’t because she disliked him. Relieved, he bit her lips and slowly rotated his hips, enjoying the sticky friction.

Should he think of this as training to build patience from now on? For a while, he would have to indulge in beast-like fantasies of thrusting his enormous member to the base only in his imagination.

“Ha, it’s so hot inside, so warm, Rian,”

“Mm, I like it, I like it….”

“Rian…. Rian, my wife….”

Ah, how will he endure while they’re apart? He longs to see her, kiss her, feed her delicious things, show her beautiful sights, and hold her….

Already overwhelmed by longing, Kaiden shivered, holding Rian deeply in his arms.

Their rough breaths mingled. The desperate movements to share all their love inevitably grew intense. Amidst the rushing pleasure, Kaiden groaned, pouring his rising desire into Rian’s depths, yet continued to thrust.

The east wind gently tapped the shutters. Water droplets carried by the wind clung to the window frame, meeting the warmth seeping from inside the house, and trickled down.

The sound of rain, carrying the warmth of spring, enveloped Ferindale, but the two, drenched in a downpour of love, heard nothing but each other’s sounds.