Until You Can Take Me
"Ah, ah... ngh!"
The short moan had barely left her when Laniakea found herself wondering what time it was. How long had they been like this...?
The thought could not last. From behind, the arm that held her tightened, and Hyperion's hand caught the tip of her breast, pinching and twisting it as if he meant to wring it dry.
"Nnh... hk."
She had felt it again and again, and still she could never grow used to it. The intensity raced through her whole body. Pleasure reached her fingers and her toes, found nowhere left to flee, and set her trembling. Her toes curled helplessly and raked the sheet, but his teasing did not stop for that.
Before her moans could turn to strain, he released what he had been twisting. He did not take his hand away. Instead he cupped the breast, already covered in red marks, and lifted it from beneath. His palm pressed into the tender flesh under the round swell, and then, carefully, he rubbed the tip he had tormented only a moment before.
It still tingled. When he rubbed it, the heat gathered there broke apart and flooded through her, stirring her mind as an entirely different sensation. Leaning against Hyperion's chest, she slid sideways and nearly collapsed. His arm caught her before she could fall and closed her back into his embrace.
Panting in short, ragged breaths, Laniakea had no choice but to give herself wholly over to his hands.
She was certain she had been lying down at the start. At some point he had sat back against the headboard and drawn her into his lap. One arm held her from behind, just beneath her breasts, while the other hand went on toying with her without pause. Now and then, as if he could no longer bear it, he turned her in his arms and sucked at her in a daze.
Not yet weary of the sight, Laniakea looked down at the hand kneading her breast. Skin that had been pale was mottled now with red: the prints of his fingers, and the faint marks of his teeth. Hyperion had bitten and sucked at her past the point of satiety. She wondered whether the tips had swollen thick.
She had no strength left to do anything about it, so she leaned into his arm.
Is it... over now?
He had said he would accustom her, all the way to the deepest place. Every time his hand touched her she only gasped at the pleasure he gave. She no longer pushed him away, nor startled at the contact.
Then the man who had been moving so gently, as if to praise her for enduring, slowly tightened his grip again and seized her flesh.
"Haa..."
Laniakea let out a hot breath. While he devoured her like a man gone mad, she felt that she, too, was aroused. The stimulation that had gone on and on would come again. She was just beginning to wait for a sensation she had learned, in the space of a few hours, to enjoy.
"You seem a great deal more loosened now."
"Loosened... what is..."
Instead of answering, Hyperion moved his hand. It traveled carefully down her waist and stroked her flat belly once.
"Ah..."
A tickle rose. She caught his hand to pull it away, but he did not yield an inch, stroking her stomach as if he hoped something might already be there. Then he set his fingers and pressed, again and again, just below her navel.
Laniakea flinched and shuddered. It was only a light press upon her belly, and she could not understand why she was growing wet between her thighs.
"What on earth... have you been learning... ngh..."
She had asked Gemma what she herself ought to do for a proper coupling. Hyperion could not be the only one making an effort. When she asked whether there was something she, too, needed to learn, Gemma had smiled and shaken her head.
"Of course Your Majesty the Empress has a great deal to learn as well. But for tonight, at least, there is more that His Majesty must see to."
With that, Gemma had explained the inner places of a woman's body, the sort one rarely spoke of aloud. Laniakea had been taught by the imperial tutors before, yet Gemma's account was more precise: how one part differed from another, what pleasure might be felt there, and, conversely, what might prove unpleasant. All the while she listened, Laniakea had to fan her burning face with her hand. Had it been like the palace lessons, a calm recital of anatomy, she might have borne it. Gemma spoke instead of the places where pleasure could be found, and told her that this time Hyperion would take care she never again fainted from tension and pain—that she would be able to enjoy it.
Is this one of those things, too?
If she did it with her own hand, there would be none of this strange feeling. The only person who could call such a sensation out of her was Hyperion.
With anyone else...
While she remained in the Imperial Palace, it was utterly impossible. And after she left the palace?
The thought carried her that far, and she trembled.
This? With someone else?
The revulsion was so sharp it startled her. At the same time a question rose. Why was this act, unpleasant even to imagine, perfectly all right with Hyperion?
She caught the arm stroking her lower belly. Just as her gown had slipped to the floor before she could remember it happening, he had stripped off his upper clothes entirely. Skin faintly damp with sweat clung to her bare body, and there was no displeasure in it. He touched her secret places without restraint, licked them, even bit, and still she did not dislike the time she was spending with him.
No. She liked it. At first she had thought it something she must do from duty. Now she was plainly enjoying it. Otherwise...
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
He whispered it at her ear and caught the rim of it between his lips.
"I must be too clumsy, if you cannot keep your mind on me."
"Th-that's not... ah, again, again... mm..."
He knew she was weak there, and still he bit down with such force. Her wandering thoughts had clearly displeased him more than a little. All the while his hand kept sweeping over her belly. Then it seemed to drift lower, and a finger slipped in among the coarse curls.
"Hht!"
The finger that parted the hidden cleft stirred the shallow place. Something far larger had entered her before, and even so she could not help but startle. She grabbed his arm and tried to sit up. This time, too, Hyperion did not let her go.
"Still, the effort does not seem wholly wasted. You are this wet, after all."
Even as he spoke, a wet sound came from between her legs. He was only rubbing the shallow place now, but Laniakea remembered the tremendous weight that had pushed into somewhere deeper, and the pain she had felt then. At the memory, tension returned to her slackened body. He noticed, and his voice went gentle.
"Last time you suffered because I entered you with no preparation. So now, before I go in, I must loosen you well below, until you can take me without difficulty."
His finger slid in another joint.
Inwardly, Hyperion clicked his tongue. This was a body that had already crested more than once. She kept spilling enough to soak his trousers, and the whole of her had gone soft and yielding, yet her depths still struggled to take a single finger. He had shoved himself into a body like this with no sense at all. Of course she could not have endured it.
He moved his finger with care, and did not forget to caress her breast again with his other hand. Hours of effort must have told. After a little while, fortunately, his finger could slip farther in with greater ease.
"There was worth in loosening you all this while. Look. You are swallowing it far more easily than a moment ago."
Laniakea's lips moved. She seemed to be murmuring something he could not quite hear.
"I did not catch that. Would you say it once more?"
He leaned closer, and her voice reached him, very thin.
At those words his hand stopped. He looked at his wife—face flushed, clinging to his arm, whispering that she trusted him.
For a moment he could not breathe. Was there anything in the world lewder than this, or lovelier?
He felt a sincere gratitude toward the former empress. Where in the world had she found such a person and sent her to him?
Hyperion caught Laniakea by the waist and drew her closer against him. Each time her round hips shifted on his thigh, he felt his lower garments, soaked through with what she had spilled. He wanted to tear off that clinging nuisance at once and push what had swollen to its limit into her richly wet heat.
But not now.
"Do not worry, Laniakea."
Gathering every last shred of his patience, he whispered it tenderly.
"I will loosen you well, until you can take me."
His finger delved toward a deeper place once more.
The next day, the maids awaiting the Empress received word from the Main Palace.
She had meant to move her schedule forward and return to her duties beginning today. After the imperial physician examined Laniakea, however, and judged that she needed further rest, word came that she would not return for another two days.