Prologue 

What he drew in from the tears that flowed endlessly from her was sorrow, and yet on his tongue only sweetness lingered. To him, she had always been sweet in breath and sweet in flesh alike. Even while thinking himself truly a wretched man for being so, he could not stop licking away every transparent drop that ran down her cheeks, soothing her.

Because he could gradually feel the fear that had wrapped around her whole body, that trembling, changing from the sign of a sharp fracture into a far more fevered energy.

Because somehow it felt as though Irenia, unable to suppress the force rising within her, was accepting without any resistance his tongue that only wished to burrow between those lovely lips.

Because it was so natural for her breath and his to tangle together, until it became impossible to tell in what weave what belonged to whom. Because it felt as though, unless they did so, it would be impossible even to keep breathing in and out.

Thus he realized that kissing her was not merely the joining of lips and lips, but the only act by which, reacting to her alone, he could gather his entire soul at the tip of his tongue and gently smooth her unsteady breathing.

“Hu……”

There was a sign in her breath of something affectionate and desperately boiling over.

The moment Irenia accepted Martinez’s lips, his tongue, even amid that dizzying haze a single sorrowful hope took root in her, and she could not stop the act.

If she accepted him once more like this.

If she fully accepted his love.

She might be able to gain another chance to meet Delphinia again.

She could stake her entire life on that resolve.

At each place touched by Martinez’s heated breath, Irenia felt faint from the heat spreading through her whole body, and realized it.

That she could not help but love again this man who had said he would not part from her for even a single moment, who had swallowed all her tears and set her whole body and heart aflame……

Holding all of him within her, and vowing that this time she would never let the fruit of this love be lost in vain……

She had no choice but to accept him, no longer resisting.

Within his embrace, his breath that filled her mouth bound her completely in a sweetness and richness of love so intense…… and that distant, languid sensation melted away Irenia’s fear. Before she knew it, from between the lips he had bitten and suckled there began to leak, little by little, a faint sound that could only be called a m*an of pleasure.

“Haaah…… hah-eut……”

She clutched at his back with both hands as though seizing hold of it. As if that alone were the only action that could keep her gradually drifting mind anchored.

Even though her gesture did not mean to urge him on, Martinez became still more stirred by it. Gradually tilting the Irenia he had only been supporting so carefully, he slowly collapsed with her onto the bed. Drawing back from licking through her mouth as if to comfort every corner of it, he looked once more into her eyes, which now clearly held not fear but longing, and at last he spoke of love.

“Irenia. From now on I am going to love you. No, I have kept loving you all along. So please become my bride. Become my woman.”

Clear tears welled again in Irenia’s eyes. Before they even had time to fall, he diligently licked away those limpid drops. Irenia moaned every time, with those sweet tears on him, the tip of his tongue touched the corners of her eyes. He could not help but love that beautiful and delicate being.

His lips trailed down along the line of tears he had not quite managed to wipe away, leading to the nape of her neck, and then the place his tongue met at the swell of her chest. Over the layer of pure white lace draped there, he barely steadied his quickened breath and gradually burrowed deeper.

It was just as hard for Irenia to hide her roughened breathing. Her br*asts rose and fell busily, as though they might burst at any moment. With a low sigh, he pressed his mouth to those soft and lovely mounds.

At the unfamiliar sensation of the peaks of her br*asts rising, Irenia’s body gave a start before she even knew it. Even that slight trembling movement was so unbearably lovely that Martinez could endure no more and took one br*ast fully into his mouth, as though biting into it.

For a moment Irenia was too startled to show any reaction at all. While he suckled at her br*ast, that strange sensation spreading from the tip of her n*pple left the place between her legs, that intimate place, damp before she knew it. Afraid he might notice that secret change, she grew even more tense and could not move.

And yet, the feeling of him suckling at her br*ast seemed to fill her hollow heart and pour the energy of love into the whole body that, unable either to receive the love of Martinez, whom she had loved so dearly all this time, or to answer him with love, had only gone cold and stiff. With both body and heart she savored that fullness of happiness.

“Haa…… ha…… I am…… so…… haeugh……”

It is dizzying and hot, and so good I cannot bear it any longer, to a point beyond explanation……. Unable to dare say such words, Irenia quivered in small spasms with her br*ast still caught in his mouth.

As he gently suckled her other br*ast as well, he slowly removed all of her lace gown and caressed that slender and lovely body, from both shoulders down to her wrists, whose trembling had not yet ceased.

The warmth seeping from his touch only heated her further. By now something kept gathering between Irenia’s legs. Afraid that moisture would start to spill out in streams, straining desperately to hold shut that entrance which seemed about to part of its own accord, she could not move in the excitement surging through her from above and below and was simply overwhelmed by the pressure of love he was laying upon her.

“Irenia , you are so beautiful.”

By now he had gone below her waist, sweeping his tongue over her pelvis that formed a perfect curve, and speaking as though in a sigh, he peeled away layer by layer the lace that shyly covered her intimate place.

“Haa…… Martin…… stop……. I do not think I can endure any more……”

“Don’t endure it, Irenia……”

At last, with nothing covering her, in a pure white n*ked body, she was trapped beneath him. He too had by then cast off everything around him and was covering her with his body.

Her legs parted of their own accord, and his heavy lower body settled down with a clear weight, fully prepared to push into her.

“Aah, Irenia …… I don’t want to hurt you……”

At some point, he who had seemed as though he would simply enter her with perfect naturalness stopped, with all the strength in his body, halting that instinctive act…… and with his brow drawn in painful strain, after confessing so, he ceased and no longer pushed himself in.

“Heut, Martin……”

“You’ll be hurt, Irenia. So we have to stop here.”

He was already at a point where he could scarcely endure any longer, and his center, holding all that love for her, all that longing and desperate affection, had swelled enormously as though about to burst, rising toward empty air and yearning to enter her. Even so, he was desperately trying to stop just before joining with her.

Now she was the one who could no longer endure.

To hold Delphinia once more was an earnest wish she could not suppress. The sight of him rushing toward her in instinctive desire only to force himself to restrain that flame-like craving instead stirred her more deeply.

“No, Martin. It’s all right even if it hurts.”

Now it was her turn to be resolute. She would hold him. She would accept him.

If he poured all the energy of that love into her, allowing her to hold the fullness of love once again.

This time, in this life……

I will protect it. I will overcome it. I will avoid it.

Even if that could not be done, it was a fate that could not be defied. He and she.

They had always been beings of desperate longing. To her, Delphinia was.

“Aah, Irenia. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Though in pain, he still tried in the end to pull back and raise his body, as if to bear all that passion wholly on his own.

Instead, she, now the more resolute one, opened herself a little more and drew him toward her.

Then he could no longer resist, and with a labored breath he slowly pushed himself into her.

Inside her body, into that deep valley, that place where only the clear and transparent spring of love had gathered and gathered, into that place long awaited by their union, his gl*ns, which had long since released clear fl*id, and that thick, hard length, finally invaded.

“Haeu-wik…… heuk……”

Though sobbing from the foreign fullness pressing through that narrow, narrow passage and the sharp pain as if her tender flesh were tearing, she still accepted him.

“Haa. Irenia. You’re so narrow and warm.”

His thick, heavy length opened and spread her entrance as it went in, driving straight on until it struck at the mouth of her womb. Despite the m*an leaking through her tightly clenched teeth, now he could no longer stop. The pressure of Irenia’s inner walls tightening around Martinez’s heated length, holding and not wanting to let it go, only drove him to greater heights.

“Heut. Ha-heut.”

All while Martinez thr*st into her, as if breathing new life into every ridge of that valley that had drawn so tightly inward, wherever he touched, her inner walls poured forth moisture.

“Heu-wik…… ha-heu-wik……”

She had resolved to endure everything and hold him with the determination of love, but the pain of that vivid sensation that burrowed into her parted flesh and carved out a new path gradually faded…… and what followed was a strange pleasure, and she wept.

Her crying went on, but this time he could not block it all and swallow it down. Instead, by delving into her depths, he only urged that crying further, rougher and fiercer.

“I love you, Irenia. I love you.”

His movements grew more intense, and their joining, while locking together ever more tightly without the smallest gap, still held each other softly and naturally, neither releasing the other.

“Haa. Ha-heut. Ha-wik.”

“Please forgive me, Irenia. I can’t stop loving you.”

Everything of Martinez seeped into Irenia’s whole body. A love firmer and more solid even than the thick and greatly swollen core of him was sinking into each part of the cells where they had become one body.

“Ha-heu…… heut……”

Each time Irenia’s slender body was pierced deeply upon the center that held Martinez’s essence, her white and soft br*asts trembled. And those rounded tips were ripening more and more. Every time Martinez’s blunt gl*ns burrowed deep inside her and touched the mouth of her womb, an indescribably strange and exquisite sensation spread out from the tips of her n*pples.

“Irenia, I missed you so much. Even when I was looking at you. Even when I could not see you. I loved only you, and from now on too I will love only you.”

Something thicker than Irenia’s forearm filled her belly full, giving her an astonishing sense of fullness. And the moment it was pushed back out again, unable to hold on to it, she narrowed her inner walls and shed tears. Instinctively, she wanted to hold on to him. Once more, because she wanted to carry her daughter Delphinia, whom she would not be able to let go until the day she died in piercing regret, no, not even after dying again…….

And whenever he charged into her with all his strength, bearing the fervent energy of love in his whole body and heart, it felt as though she would willingly accept even death if it came while being loved like this…….

No, to live again, to share together that utmost ecstasy, that pinnacle of life’s most passionate moment, to become one within it, and to hold each other without letting go, that desperate yearning overflowed and boiled over…….

All through that night, Irenia accepted every one of Martinez’s tireless thr*sts as he kept driving into her without rest.

“Haeu-eut. Martinez, heut. Please pour everything inside me……”