Chapter 188: Dinner

*Runze’s POV*

Beautiful

The word lands somewhere I wasn’t expecting.

I’ve heard him say things to me that did real damage —

I love you in a quiet bathroom while the tap was running, your voice is so fucking intoxicating in an elevator, things I’ve had to press my palm to my chest afterward just to contain.

But this one does something different. Something quieter.

He isn’t saying it to flatter me. He’s saying it the way he states things that are simply true.

No performance in it. No hesitation.

I’m standing in a cream nightdress that looks like it belongs on someone else, with my stomach round and obvious underneath the thin fabric, and he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing worth looking at in this whole room.

My fingers slowly loosen on the hem.

His hands find my waist first.

Both of them, smoothing the cream fabric where it falls over the curve of me. His thumbs press lightly against my sides, just resting there, and my breath catches before he’s even done anything else.

Then he cups my face and kisses me.

His mouth is warm and slow, his thumb moving against my cheek in the same unhurried rhythm, and I grip his shirt without deciding to, my fingers curling into the black fabric. He tilts my head slightly and deepens it and my hands tighten further, holding on, and when he finally pulls back I realize my eyes have been closed and I don’t remember closing them.

He looks at my face.

I look at his.

Then he lifts me.

His hands slide under my thighs — careful, precise, both palms positioned so nothing presses against my stomach — and he carries me the few steps to the bed like I weigh nothing at all. He lowers me onto the mattress, and his weight comes over me, braced firmly on his forearms.

I look up at him, my heart doing something my doctor would definitely not approve of.

"Bael." My voice comes out quieter than I planned, almost a whisper.

He doesn’t answer. His mouth finds my jaw, then the side of my neck, then the soft place just below my ear, and whatever I was going to say dissolves completely.

His hands find the hem of the nightdress.

He pushes it up slowly, not rushed, every inch deliberate, and I feel the cool air follow where the fabric lifts. His palms are warm as they smooth upward over my skin, and then he stops.

He pulls back just enough to look at me.

The dress is gathered at my waist. The roundness of my stomach is right there, undeniable and real in the soft light, and he looks at it for a moment with that expression I have no word for yet... the same one from the ultrasound monitor, the one from the early morning when his hand felt the baby kick for the first time.

Then he lowers his head and presses his mouth to my stomach.

Slowly.

His lips move over the curve of it with something that isn’t quite reverence and isn’t quite tenderness and is somehow both.

His hands frame my sides, gentle and firm, and he takes his time there, pressing soft kisses across my skin. Something happens behind my sternum that has nothing to do with anything physical.

My eyes sting briefly. I blink it away into the dark.

He stays there a moment longer, his warm breath fanning against my skin.

Then he moves up.

His mouth finds my nipple through the thin dress. He sucks hard, drawing it deep into his warm mouth. The sudden wet heat and strong pull send a sharp burst of pleasure straight down to my cock.

"Nngh—!" The sound comes out loud and needy.

It feels so good that I push my chest up toward him without thinking. My fingers slide into his hair and pull him closer, holding him there because I do not want him to stop. He makes a low, deep sound against me that vibrates through the thin fabric and into my skin, making my whole body tremble with want.

One of his hands moves to my other nipple. He pinches it gently at first, then rubs and rolls it between his fingers, sending sparks of feeling all over my chest.

At the same time, his other hand slides down my body and wraps firmly around my hard cock. He strokes me with slow, steady movements, his palm warm and sure.

I moan louder, the sound filling the quiet room. My hips lift up on their own, chasing his touch, begging for more.

He looks up at me, his eyes dark.

"I...Bael... The doctor said one week," I manage to croak out, because the thought is still sitting in my head...

"I know. That’s why I’m only going to eat you."

I stare up at him, completely speechless.

He looks back at me with total composure, and then he drops to his knees beside the bed, and I stop forming sentences entirely.

His strong hands lift my hips carefully, making sure my legs are supported and my belly stays completely safe.

Then he puts his face between my thighs.

His hot, wet tongue licks slowly over my hole. The feeling is so intense after so many weeks without it that I cry out loud, my voice breaking.

"Oh god—"

The warmth, the wetness, the way he tastes me so openly makes my head spin. My heart beats fast with a mix of relief and deep need.

Bael pushes his tongue inside me. He fucks me with it in deep, steady, strong strokes.

The wet, slick sounds mix with my loud moans and fill the whole room. My cock leaks steadily onto my round belly, making the skin there shiny and wet.

I grab the sheets tight in both fists, my body shaking with every thrust of his tongue.

He doesn’t rush.

Bael never rushes anything, and this is no different — deliberate and completely focused, reading every sound I make and every movement of my hands in his hair, adjusting, staying at the exact pace that makes me unable to form words.

I’ve been without this for weeks, weeks of white hospital sheets, careful distance, and lying beside him at night knowing neither of us was sleeping and not being able to do a single thing about it.

My body remembers all of it. Every nerve ending wakes up at once with the specific, desperate relief of something long denied.

Pleasure rushes through me like a wave. My body shakes all over, my voice loud and broken as I call out, "Bael... I... I’m cumming...!"

The orgasm hits me so hard my back arches completely off the mattress, my fingers fisting tightly in the sheets, my voice making a sound I’ll think about later with considerable embarrassment. His hands hold my hips steady through all of it, keeping me exactly where he wants me, not letting me pull back or turn away.

And then he keeps going.

Even after I finish, his tongue keeps moving, licking and pushing deeper inside me.

The feeling becomes too strong, almost too much to bear. My thighs shake hard, tears run down the sides of my face from the overload of pleasure and sensitivity. Small, broken sounds keep falling from my mouth.

I feel completely open and helpless under him.

"Too much... Bael... I can’t—" I gasp, my hand weakly reaching for his hair.

He lifts his head just enough. His clear grey eyes find mine over the landscape of the nightdress still gathered at my waist.

"You can," he says, his voice rough and full of heat.

He goes back to what he was doing, steady and determined.

I can’t stop my moans or tears, and I’ve stopped trying. His tongue is relentless and rhythmic, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.

I’m completely at his mercy, gripping the sheets with both hands, making sounds that would humiliate me if I had any capacity left for embarrassment.

The next orgasm hits me even harder. It rolls through my body in long waves. I moan and shake until every muscle feels weak and empty.

Nothing is left in me but warmth and the deep, floating feeling of being completely taken care of.

He looks up at me.

I stare back at him, my chest heaving, my eyes wet, every muscle I own completely spent.

He watches my face for a moment. My eyelids are heavy, drooping at the corners, sleep pulling hard at the edges of my mind because the exhaustion of two orgasms on top of a full day of waiting has apparently been exactly enough to knock me out—

Then his low voice comes close to my ear.

"Sleepy?" He smirks just a little, that small movement full of satisfaction. "Not yet, baby."

My eyes snap wide open.

Baby.

My heart stumbles so hard it almost hurts. Somehow, hearing that one simple word feels even more intimate than everything that came before.