Was this what newlywed life was meant to be?

No. The life of Tom, the neighbor who had only recently married, was nothing like this. He might have worn a boyish, foolish grin, but at least he still came out every morning to work.

So then… was this how noble newlyweds lived?

She couldn’t say. She had never seen one herself. On the hills of Tilea, where she had grown up, nobles never even set foot.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Ah…!”

The hard thr*st drove into her, and Ilenia’s body shuddered before she realized it. As Delphius buried himself deep, the fl*ids filling her slipped free. A light cl*max rippled through her body, making her thighs tremble. With a faint m*an, she gripped the bedclothes tighter.

“I was just… remembering the place where I used to live.”

“So you have the leisure to think of other things in a moment like this?”

There was no way that could be true. Ilenia wanted to dismiss everything that Delphius had said. Comparing her to his absurd stamina wasn’t a daydream. And how could it possibly be considered leisurely when she could barely feel her lower body, even now?

“I won’t be holding back any longer.”

“Ah…!”

But everything crumbled with the single drive of his hips. The pleasure crushed her, stealing her senses whole.

How many hours had passed? Time itself felt lost to her. Even the sunlight through the window did nothing to restore her sense of it—only confused her more. She could no longer tell whether she was seeing the rising sun, or the setting one. All she could do was give herself over to Delphius.

It wasn’t that he never gave her pause. When Ilenia, overwhelmed, shook her head in protest, he would sometimes pull out, straightening above her. But the problem was how quickly he pressed in again. Like now—

How long had it been since she wiped the dried fl*id from her thighs? Her clothes were rumpled again, pressed into disorder. She had long since abandoned the fundamental question of whether he would ever tire of her. The same went for her thoughts on her new clothes being ruined.

“Here.”

His hand came down, right above where the swollen flesh plunged deep inside her. His fingers tapped at her cl*toris, swollen and flushed.

“You know you take me better than you did at first, don’t you?”

Ilenia bit hard on her lip. She couldn’t deny it—her whole body betrayed her, proving him right. What once came with a measure of pain was now nothing but rapture. Even the swollen walls within her seemed to strike at her peak.

Whenever she was left breathless from the strain, his fingers found her mouth. Pressing down on her tongue, coaxing the air from her lungs, he slowly rubbed along her tongue.

“Hhh…!”

The fresh sheets were crumpled beneath her mercilessly. Between her trembling thighs, fl*ids spattered down once more. The work of the maids at the House of Lukehardt was undone in an instant.

Burying her head in the pillow, Ilenia gasped for breath. She had never liked this position — it left her feeling smothered — but with her body drained of strength, she had no choice.

A slow hand brushed along her shoulders, moving down over her spine. Her shoulder blades. Her back. Then, when his palm pressed firmly into the ridge of her spine and he was still buried deep inside her, he throbbed with another pulse.

The p*nis did not plunge in fully, instead lingering shallow at her entrance, teasing below as though to consider him after his recent cl*max. But for Ilenia, none of it was a sensation she could truly accept.

“Ah!”

She let out a sharp cry as a dull ache spread across her shoulder. This was the result of Delphius holding back from going too deep. His hands grew restless and insistent as he tried to satisfy his desire from above, if not below. Leaning her against his chest, he toyed with her body until it was sore and sensitive.

“Hnn…”

When his lips brushed over her hardened n*pple, the breath that left her was half a sigh. It wasn’t good. At this rate, she would be left moaning in shallow waves of pleasure for endless minutes.

That thought pushed Ilenia to clutch at him without realizing it.

“What is it?”

“More…”

“More?”

His teeth grazed her neck as he repeated her words. A chilling spark raced down her spine, but it wasn’t enough to release the tension building inside her. She pleaded again.

“Harder… please.”

“I rather like it just as it is.”

His teasing words caused her to knit her brows. She, too, had once preferred sensations that never reached the edge — gentle waves that hovered just shy of excess. But not when it stretched on endlessly, leaving her trembling in a limbo of desire. Not when he never let her go until she broke down, begging him to stop.

She glared at him, and a smile spread across his composed face.

“So my wife does enjoy it a bit forceful, after all.”

“That’s… not—hn, not true.”

“Oh? It seems my lady wife has already forgotten what she herself said only moments ago.”

She was about to protest when she nearly bit her own tongue. The shallow thr*sts that had teased her entrance suddenly became hard and deep, piercing her depths in one stroke.

“Unhh…!”

Her pink eyes flew wide open. The thr*st was so fierce that she felt as though her stomach might bulge outwards. It was nothing like before — the sheer force tore her half-closed flesh apart.

The deep, gut-wrenching force erased every thought and word from Ilenia’s mind. Even as he lifted her hips in his grip, forcing her into a position as raw as an animal’s coupling, she no longer resisted. Every time her knees trembled in that unstable stance, a dizzying shiver ran through her entire body. The tighter his hands clamped around her waist, the more her toes curled.

At some point, she no longer remembered when she had begun to cry, clinging to him. She tore at the pillowcase until it ripped, and in that instant, his release filled her, leaving her body throbbing and spent. She collapsed limply onto the bed, her ragged breaths catching as she felt him slip out of her. The emptiness was startling—though she knew in truth her insides were still heavy, stuffed with what he had left behind.

A fragile relief washed over her at the thought that, for a while, he would not touch her again.

“…!”

Her body jolted with sudden alarm, a survival reflex. She trembled, hands flailing, groping at the sheets.

“I can’t—I can’t do this.”

Ilenia thrashed her arms, clutching the fabric before her so she wouldn’t be dragged away.

“I told you. I said I needed to rest.”

“Rest.”

As he effortlessly lifted her up by the waist, Delphius spoke the word. Her struggles were futile against his powerful arms. Her pelvis was exposed before him, bared without mercy.

“You don’t have to do anything. So rest, completely.”

He took her hand and pulled it away from the sheet. His thick knuckles slid between her slender fingers. Pushing the fabric aside, he forced his way in, grinding his knuckles against her tender flesh until she shuddered.

If only it would end here.

But her intuition was never wrong.

Rip. Tug.

The sound of fabric splitting echoed as the cloth wrapped around her loosened and fell away. Another dress ruined beyond repair. She had barely time to mourn the waste of such finery before his fingers thr*st up between the curve of her raised hips.

“Ahh…”

A breathy m*an slipped out unbidden, mingling with the low, wet sounds that followed. She knew too well the source of it—and wanted nothing more than to cover her ears.

Her upper body, exposed through the shredded fabric, had been spared for the most part. But below, it was a different story. Her thighs, her tender flesh, every part of her glistened with the mingled traces of him, the wetness spreading even lower.

She swore she would never give in. Yet dread twisted with another thought—perhaps, just perhaps… The cruelest truth of all was the urge welling up inside her, the unbearable desire to move her hips in time with his fingers, to surrender against her own will.

She had begged him so desperately to stop and leave her alone. Yet even knowing that the crushing weight of time would soon fall upon her, the sharp taste of pleasure that twisted her mind refused to fade. Just like the subtle sway of her hips.

“This is strange… It’s really strange.”

As she struggled to grasp what she meant, he quickly discerned the truth, a relaxed smile curving his lips.

“There’s nothing strange about it, Ilenia. Nothing suspicious, either.”

Half swept away by the relentless clash of their bodies, Ilenia barely managed to reclaim her senses. No—something was wrong. Deeply wrong. How could he rise again so soon after release? How could there still be more, even after he had spent himself so completely? The thought was irrational, terrifying even. She could not bear it—she shoved at him with her elbows in desperation.

This wasn’t right. She knew it with certainty. Fragile, delicate noblewomen—far more fragile than she—could never endure such a thing.

“Get away from me.”

“And now you would even reject your duty as a wife?”

“We just—just did it!”

She shoved him hard as he pressed his soaked *rect p*nis between the curve of her hips, but he did not budge. That sculpted body bore down on her like a tide, pushing her back, deeper and deeper.

“Not until a child is conceived.”

“That’s more than enough to conceive already!”

“Well now… until there’s a physician’s word, how could we possibly know?”

His refusal was sealed with a low laugh that scraped against her ears.

“If I had known you were this shameless, this brazen, I would have reconsidered the marriage. There’s no way… no way I would have—ah!”

Her protest broke into a cry as he forced open the entrance that had only just begun to close, thrusting inside once more. Her waist went slack. For all her revulsion, the moment she yielded, a shallow release struck her, leaving her stunned by her own betrayal.

Suddenly, Ilenia thought of the village dog. For most of the year, it was gentle, friendly and docile, yet once a year it would become restless and aggressive, baring its teeth as though ready to bite. Even worse, it would grab the hem of her skirt and hump her leg, shaking until she screamed in fright.

When she pushed the dog away, her face burning red with embarrassment, the adults would laugh and say the same thing every time.

That the animal had gone into heat.
That it could no longer tell male from female, front from back—only driven to leave its seed.
That it was the limit of a beast, the instinct of a beast.

She and the man were like beasts in heat; they were desperate to be together, but their bodies would not allow it. In that moment, the whole world narrowed down to one act: breeding. Nothing more.

But did she hate this time? No, not at all. This bedroom was a comforting haven. If it weren’t for the overwhelming pleasure that made her head throb almost unbearably, it would have been perfect. Each time he entered her, the mocking voices that had once clouded her mind and the images of the banquet hall faded away. All her senses and nerves existed solely for the two of them, as though they alone filled the world.

As he lifted her easily in his arms, Ilenia reached for Delphius and wrapped her arms around his neck. Though her limbs were weak, they clung to him without hesitation. Each time she felt the warmth of his body against hers, it whispered that this was where she belonged. As if he were the unshakable support meant to hold her up. As if his embrace alone told her that she could live in this moment for herself. She held him tightly.

“…!”

The broken cry that escaped her lips melted softly against his ear. As he pressed her down and filled her to the very core, she rested her face against his shoulder, shuddering with the force of the release that tore through her.

At last, a heavy, dreamless sleep overcame her—a sleep she had not known for a long, long time.