His fingers are still inside me when the second knock comes—sharper now, Liv's voice pitched with impatience. "Uncle Kaelen, Grandma says the eggs are getting cold."
I feel him smile against my throat before he calls back, "Five more minutes, little bird." His voice is steady, unhurried, like he's not buried inside his wife with his family waiting on the other side of the door. His thumb presses harder, circling, deliberate, while his other hand pins my hip to the mattress.
I'm already close. Trembling on the edge. My body remembers every orgasm he's dragged out of me and wants another, even as my brain screams that his family is twenty feet away, that Liv is still standing there, that I should be a good wife and go downstairs and pretend I'm not falling apart.
But his grey eyes are on my face. Watching. Seeing everything—the shame and the want and the way my thighs try to clamp around his hand, the way my breath catches when he curls his fingers just right.
"Come for me," he says. Quiet. Not a request.
I shatter against his hand. My back arches off the mattress, my mouth opening to cry out, and he kisses me through it—swallows the sound before it can reach the hallway, his tongue sliding against mine as I pulse around his fingers, the waves of it still rolling through me when he finally pulls back.
He looks at me. That look. The one that says mine.
"Good girl." His thumb brushes my lower lip. "Now let's get you clean."
He pulls his hand out slowly, deliberately, and I feel the loss of him like an absence of gravity. My body is still humming when he swings out of bed and walks naked to the bathroom, and I watch him go—the broad shoulders, the muscles shifting under his skin, the way he moves like he owns every inch of space he occupies.
He owns me too. We both know it.
The water starts running. Steam begins to curl out of the bathroom doorway, and I force my trembling legs to carry me toward it.
He's already in the shower when I step inside, the spray catching the sharp lines of his jaw, his chest, the trail of dark hair below his navel. He reaches for me without looking, pulls me under the stream, and his hands are gentle now—cupping water to rinse my face, fingers sliding through my wet hair, thumbs tracing the curve of my shoulders like he has all the time in the world.
But I know better. The clock on the nightstand said fourteen minutes when we started.
He takes his time anyway. Soap on his palms, working lather over my breasts, my stomach, the swell of my hips. His hands linger on my belly—flat still, but not for much longer—and I see something flicker in his grey eyes before he looks away.
"Kaelen."
He doesn't answer. His hand slides lower, between my thighs, and I gasp when his fingers find me again, already sensitive, oversensitive, aching.
"You're so wet still." His voice is rough. "Been dripping all morning."
"Because you won't stop touching me."
"No." He looks at me. "I won't."
His fingers circle my clit, slow and deliberate, and I grip his arm because my knees are already going weak. "Kaelen, we don't have—"
"We have time."
"We have twelve minutes."
"Twelve minutes is enough for a warm-up."
He works me slowly, lazily, like he's savoring every sound I make, every hitch in my breath, every time my hips roll against his hand. I'm right there again, the edge building, my whole body tightening toward release—and he stops.
Pulls his hand away.
Steps back under the spray.
"Kaelen." My voice cracks. "What—"
"Not yet." He's not even looking at me, just rinsing soap off his chest. "You'll come again when I say you can. Not before."
I want to argue. I want to grab his hand and shove it back where it belongs. But the look he gives me when he turns—the cold grey of the Animal, the hunger barely leashed—shuts my mouth before I can form a word.
I'm his.
He turns off the water and steps out, wraps a towel around his waist, and I follow like a shadow, water still dripping down my thighs, my body thrumming with unspent tension.
He dries me slowly. Methodically. The towel drags over my shoulders, my breasts, my stomach, my legs. He kneels to dry my calves, my feet, and his hands linger on my ankles, my knees, the inside of my thighs. When he stands, he's holding something small and dark.
A vibrator. Smooth. Curved. The kind that fits inside and stays.
My breath catches.
"You said I can't let my family hear my wife in distress," he says, voice low. "So we'll keep you quiet another way."
I watch, mouth dry, as he slicks the toy with lubricant, then guides me to the edge of the bed. His hand presses my shoulder until I lie back, legs open, already slick from the shower and everything before it.
"You ready for me?"
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He slides the vibrator inside me slowly, inch by inch, watching my face the whole time. I feel it settle deep, the curve pressing against that spot inside me, the base tucked against my entrance. A low hum starts, barely noticeable, a vibration that teases rather than satisfies.
"Not yet," he says, and the hum stops.
He takes the remote. Small. Black. Fits in his palm like a weapon.
"Stand up."
I stand. The vibrator shifts inside me, a constant reminder of its presence, of his control.
He dresses me himself. Lingerie first—lace that cups my breasts, that pushes them up, that makes me feel like something displayed. Then a soft cream sweater, one that buttons up the front, and he fastens each button slowly, his knuckles brushing my skin with every one. When he reaches the top, his hands still.
"You'll leak," he says. "Through the lace, through the sweater. Can't have that."
He reaches for a drawer I've never seen him open, pulls out small circular pads—nursing pads, I realize, my face going hot. He slides them into my bra, presses them against my nipples, and his thumbs circle once, twice, feeling the sensitive flesh beneath the padding.
"There." His voice is rough. "Now you won't embarrass yourself at breakfast."
I want to say something sharp, something that cuts back, but the vibrator shifts when I breathe and all my words dissolve into a shaky exhale.
He dresses me from there—skirt fitted at the waist, stockings that make my legs look endless, low heels that click against the hardwood. When he's done, he steps back and looks at me, and something in his grey eyes goes dark.
"You look like a wife," he says. "My wife."
Then he takes my hand and opens the bedroom door.
Walking down the stairs is agony. Every step shifts the vibrator inside me, brushes it against that spot, sends ripples of sensation through my whole body. I grip the railing, breathe through my nose, try to look normal, try to look like I'm not being slowly tortured with pleasure I can't have.
Kaelen's hand is on my lower back. His thumb presses against my spine. The remote is in his other pocket.
The dining room smells like eggs and coffee and family. Margit is at the head of the table in her wheelchair, Liv beside her, Amanda across from them, Soren and Elara at the far end. There's fruit and toast and a platter of scrambled eggs that someone has already started eating.
"Ah, there they are." Margit's voice is warm, but her grey eyes—Kaelen's eyes—miss nothing. They sweep over me, over my flushed cheeks, over the way I'm holding myself a little too carefully. "Dagmar, dear, are you feeling better? You gave us quite a scare yesterday."
"I'm fine." My voice comes out thin. "Just—still tired."
"Sit." Kaelen pulls out a chair for me, and I lower myself onto it carefully, the vibrator shifting, pressing, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound.
He sits beside me. Pours me coffee. Slides a plate of eggs toward me like he's done this a thousand times, like we're a real married couple who have breakfast together every morning.
And then his hand goes to his pocket.
I see his fingers close around the remote. See his thumb find the dial.
The vibrator hums to life. Low. Barely there. Just enough to remind me it exists.
I grip my coffee cup and try to breathe normally.
"Dagmar?" Liv is looking at me with those too-sharp grey eyes. "You look red. Are you hot?"
"A little." My voice cracks. I take a sip of coffee, and another, and the vibrator stays on that same low hum, steady, patient, driving me insane.
"The eggs are good," Amanda says, and her smile is too sharp. "You should eat, Dagmar. You look like you need the strength."
Kaelen's thumb moves.
Notches up.
The vibration deepens, spreads, and I feel it in my thighs, my stomach, the base of my spine. My fork clatters against my plate, and I grab it again before anyone can ask, but the damage is done—Margit is watching me, Soren is watching me, Elara's eyebrows have climbed toward her hairline.
"Dagmar?" Margit's voice is careful. "Are you unwell?"
"I'm—" The word catches. The vibrator is pulsing now, a steady rhythm that matches my heartbeat, that makes me want to squirm in my chair, that makes me want to grab Kaelen and beg him to let me come. "I'm fine."
"She's been feeling nauseous," Kaelen says, and his voice is so casual, so calm, like he's not torturing me under the table. "Hormonal changes. I told her to see a doctor."
The vibration shifts again, different pattern now—a wave that builds and fades and builds again, cresting toward something that never arrives. My thighs press together under the table. I can't help it. My whole body is straining toward release that won't come, and Kaelen knows it, he knows, and he just takes a bite of toast like this is any normal morning.
"Hormonal changes?" Elara's voice is sharp. "Dagmar, are you—"
The vibration spikes. Hard. Deep. I gasp—actually gasp, audible, the sound escaping before I can stop it—and every head at the table turns toward me.
"I'm sorry." My voice is a whisper. "I just—"
"She's been doing that all week," Kaelen says. "Fainting. Gasping. Feeling faint." His grey eyes meet mine across the table, and there's a smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth. "Right, sweetheart?"
I want to kill him. I want to climb into his lap and ride his cock until I forget my own name. The two urges are almost the same thing.
"Dagmar." Margit sets down her fork. "You're flushed. You're trembling. Is there something you need to tell us?"
Kaelen's thumb is still on the remote. The vibration is still pulsing, still building toward nothing, and I can't think, can't breathe, can't form words while my body is screaming for release.
But Kaelen is looking at me now, looking at Margit, looking at the whole table full of people who are waiting for an answer.
And he says it. Just like the outline said he would.
"Dagmar is pregnant." His voice rings out clear, warm, triumphant. "She was feeling painfully shy to break the news. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"