With a “huh,” Kaiden suddenly pounced on top of Dana. He covered her body with his own. Dana was startled by his sudden approach and the waft of his scent that hit her. She could even feel his heat. Kaiden’s face drew close above her body.

“So?”

Kaiden’s eyes were on Dana. Dana was scared of his expression. Scared, but also too close. Kaiden was looking at her with a face that seemed ready to do something, regardless of what answer came.

Dana answered tensely.

“S-so…”

Dana thought they should pretend to have relations. Since he pleasured himself every night anyway. She thought maybe the man could leave slight traces on the bed. Then the palace maids who cleaned the bedroom would report that fact to the king.

“So, so…”

But it was too embarrassing and sorry to say those words. She thought how embarrassing it must be from his perspective too.

Dana tried to think of how to convey her thoughts in a refined and indirect way. But she couldn’t find an answer at all.

‘How could a proper lady say such things…’

So instead, she tried to express it with brief words and looks. With a face flushed red and about to cry, she looked up at Kaiden and said.

“We need…”

Traces of his self-pleasure.

And the words she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud, the aroused man couldn’t help but misunderstand.

Kaiden moaned with rising intensity. Like when she first met him alone and made that marriage proposal, Dana had aroused him with words he hadn’t dared to hope for.

Kaiden hurriedly grabbed himself below. He rushed to soothe and release the heat from below that had been vaguely aroused alone.

“Kuh, hah, uh!”

Kaiden’s movements quickened as he grimaced. Dana unconsciously lowered her gaze to look below. Kaiden followed her gaze down.

‘Ah.’

And this time Dana truly turned to stone. Above where her legs had been exposed from her skirt rolling up as she lay down, above her thighs barely covered by her skirt. She could see something swollen and *rect hanging heavily. It was aimed at her from above, looking ready to plunge down at any moment.

And the man’s hand gripping it with all his might had veins standing out. His hand was gripping the twitching pillar, and above it his tensed arm moved without rest. Beyond the *rect member, she could see his abs heaving and moving. Everything was a sight Dana had never seen before and couldn’t even have imagined.

Dana was so shocked that she couldn’t tear her gaze away, staring intently at Kaiden’s member and the hand gripping it. The movement of bones protruding as he gripped tightly in his hand, the veins throbbing between as if about to burst. The male symbol standing proudly in his grip. The man’s excitement that confronted her was very intense, already weighing down on her in ways and forms she couldn’t have imagined.

Her whole body trembled as she directly faced not the noble act of conceiving new life, but a primal act purely for feeling, taking, and releasing. It was movement solely for bodily sensation with no other purpose. Her breath caught. Her whole body felt too hot.

Under Dana’s gaze, his hand moved faster and faster. He was moving at a pace that seemed it might hurt. As Kaiden rocked above, the bed shook and Dana below shook with it. The refined world she had built up through the teachings of noble ladies was shaking too.

The rocking gradually quickened. Kaiden’s body tensed.

“Kuh…”

The movement stopped and Kaiden cl*maxed. Dana felt his hot breath flowing over her nape. She saw his gripped member trembling as fluid of desire burst from its tip. The falling liquid dropped onto Dana’s clothes. Dana bit her lip hard.

“Hah…”

“Hah…”

Goosebumps rose along her ear at the sound of the man’s breathing by her ear.

‘Ah. Good heavens.’

Dana felt her clothes grow hot and wet on her belly, and wet below between her legs too. She didn’t know who should be more embarrassed.

For now, she was embarrassed. It was indecent and awkward. Her face felt burning hot enough to hurt. No, perhaps below was.

As Dana trembled, Kaiden raised his head to meet her eyes. Dana saw his eyes hazily unfocused. The area below covered by hot wet clothes tingled.

A lewd and sensual expression of male pleasure. Even the creases of his furrowed brows felt strange somehow. She had never seen such an expression before in her life.

With that erotic face, Kaiden whispered.

“…Are you changing the terms?”

Dana blinked repeatedly. Terms? Change? For a moment she didn’t understand, then realized he meant the terms of their marriage.

Not to consummate, and to nullify this marriage after three years. To help each other and live as friends until becoming strangers after three years.

‘Is he asking if I want to change those terms?’

Though it shouldn’t have to go that far…

“Um…”

Dana couldn’t answer right away. Could she endure it? Would Taras, who was already acting like this, really wait a whole three years?

She didn’t know how Taras might find fault if no child was born between them even as time passed. If she had to come to the palace again, she didn’t know how she would avoid Taras’s gaze then. She felt anxious. But even so…

The words she had heard from Taras during the day robbed Dana of her composure and calm. Had it been nonsense from the start? Had she been wrong to think this way from the beginning? As Dana hesitated in anxiety, worry and confusion, Kaiden spoke.

“I’ll change it. I’ll state my terms now.”

Dana watched as Kaiden raised his upper body and threw off his bottoms. While staring directly into Dana’s eyes that had grown wider than ever in shock, Kaiden lowered his upper body, now completely n*ked, and declared as if passing sentence.

“Our marriage will not be nullified after three years.”

As he spoke, he pulled up Dana’s nightgown. With one swift movement of his unhesitating hand, the nightgown was pulled up and off. It made no sense that she felt hotter after having clothes removed. Dana curled up her body. Instinctively she crossed her arms to cover her chest area. She looked at Kaiden with a dumbfounded face.

Kaiden spoke like making an irreversible declaration.

“We will be husband and wife forever – after three years, after thirty years, and beyond.”

The man who had made Dana completely n*ked positioned himself between her two legs as he spread them apart. Ah. Dana startled as if burned at the sensation of his firm hands pressing her thighs. The hands pressing into her flesh felt hot. On one of the hands touching her was the ring they had exchanged when marrying. Dana felt the coolness of the ring amidst the hot palms.

Trembling at the man’s touch, Dana thought about what he had said. Continue this relationship? Not changing it after three years but forever?

Dana asked in a trembling voice.

“T-then do you want to continue being like this with me even after that? With me helping you, and us ruling Khalid together as partners and friends…”

That damned word ‘friends’.

Gritting his teeth, Kaiden spoke in a voice that seemed to be suppressing something boiling over.

“I don’t get aroused for friends.”

Ah.

Dana looked at Kaiden, her breath stopping in surprise. Because along with his words, she clearly felt evidence of his *rousal against her.

The man who never had friends to begin with spoke without moving or blinking his gaze from the woman who was trying to impose an impossible relationship on him.

“I don’t think about wanting to suck a friend’s lips or find joy in spending every day at the same time with a friend.”

Now Kaiden’s hot hands were taking her two hands covering her chest and pinning them to the sides one by one. The woman’s br*asts that had been hidden were fully exposed. The man’s dark gaze turned to them. While staring at the bare skin that had been concealed until now, Kaiden asked.

“…What excuse did you make? When the king asked why we weren’t having relations?”

Dana avoided Kaiden’s gaze. Her face was too hot. Her wrists in his grip felt hot and burning. No, not just her wrists but her face, or rather her whole body. The position was too indecent and her exposed body was embarrassing. The answer she had to give him was even more embarrassing.

“That we were too hot… that we were holding back because of the next day.”

Above her body, Kaiden let out a low moan. It sounded rough, like a beast suppressing itself rather than a human. Kaiden spoke in a deep voice as if grinding out words while restraining something boiling over.

“I understand.”

Dana really couldn’t tell what he had understood. She wanted to confirm clearly.

“But… is it really okay? I am, my condition…”

Dana bit her lower lip, then whispered.

“I… can’t have children.”

Kaiden answered quickly.

“That’s fortunate. Because childbirth is too painful.”

While that was certainly no ordinary matter… Dana was confused. Looking at the bewildered Dana, Kaiden truly thought it fortunate.

He knew many women died in childbirth, and had seen with his own eyes the orphans abandoned at monasteries as a result. Perhaps he himself had been left alone and wandered until reaching a monastery as a result of the same thing.

A precious woman who didn’t even lift a handkerchief with her own hands certainly wouldn’t be able to endure that painful process. Better to not have children at all than put Dana at risk. It was rather fortunate.

Kaiden asked Dana with a frighteningly stern face.

“Is there anything else bothering you?”

Dana shook her head.

“No…”

The only thing that bothered her about becoming this man’s wife was that she was infertile. If not for that, she… wanted to be this man’s wife. She wanted to make their marriage real.

Then Kaiden said, “Then close your eyes.”

And the man devoured her lips.