Contract Marriage Rewritten
Chapter 33
He could tell Laniakea was nearing her limit just by the sound of her voice.
The harder he pushed her, the sweeter the sounds spilling from her lips became.
Her voice had no physical form, yet it clung stickily to his ears like boiled sugar, refusing to fade away.
It felt intoxicating. When in his life had he ever tasted anything so sweet?
And so, right before Laniakea could reach the very edge, Hyperion eased his touch again.
Her shallow, breathless gasps at being denied the peak carried a faint trace of resentment toward him. He loved even that to the point of madness.
Pushing her, letting go, biting and tormenting her to her limit, then easing off once more. After repeating the cycle again and again, Laniakea eventually fell silent.
When he checked on her carefully, her eyes were moist as she struggled to catch her breath.
Soon after, utterly exhausted, she collapsed into sleep as if passing out.
Staring begrudgingly at the small lips that no longer offered him those sweet sounds, Hyperion finally released the hand he had been holding all along.
Laniakea probably believed this was one of the assignments given to them by Mr. and Mrs. Ency.
It was true that Mr. and Mrs. Ency had told them to engage in close physical contact more often. But they had never said to hold hands all day long.
Hyperion opened and closed his sweaty palm a few times.
He didn’t find it unpleasant in the least. If anything, he simply wondered whether he should lick it off, since it was something Laniakea had shed.
He soon abandoned the thought, however. What he truly wanted to taste was something far richer and deeper than this.
Gazing at the sleeping Laniakea for a long while, Hyperion noticed her breathing had grown easier and rose to his feet.
He had caught and tormented her before she even had a chance to change clothes. Because of that, she was still not in her nightclothes.
Looking down at her, a soft smile curved Hyperion’s lips.
While teasing Laniakea earlier, Hyperion had asked her:
“May I help you change tonight as well?”
At his question, Laniakea had nodded frantically. Whether she was answering his question or merely reacting to him gently biting her earlobe and caressing her neck was impossible to tell.
Nor did he care to ask and find out.
Regardless, she had nodded at his question. Wasn’t that enough?
Hyperion first reached for her hair, which was thoroughly disheveled.
When she had first entered the room, her hair had been neatly tied up, but now stray strands spilled everywhere, half-undone.
It was clear evidence of how violently she had writhed in pleasure.
Hyperion pulled at the hair ornament. Having undone it once before, he was able to remove the accessories far more skillfully this time.
Removing every last pin without catching a single strand of hair, he slid his hand beneath her lower back and lifted her upper body.
Gathering her astonishingly light body straight into his arms, he briefly buried his face against the nape of her neck that drew near.
Though he had done it to his heart’s content just moments ago, why did it make his pulse race with excitement every single time?
Desperately ignoring the unsightly erection throbbing between his legs, he moved his hands.
One by one, the buttons along the back of her neck were undone by his fingers.
For a moment, Hyperion debated whether he should undress her more slowly.
To think that undressing someone else could be such an enchanting experience.
Even though he had done this before, today felt far more enjoyable—likely because he was in full possession of his senses, savoring every single moment completely.
It would have been wonderful to linger and indulge in this moment a little longer, yet his hands unbuttoning her clothes only grew more urgent.
That was because he knew all too well what awaited him once everything was undone.
After undoing the buttons and stripping away her top completely, he gazed at her exposed body for a long while.
In the biting, bone-chilling cold of the Border, people closed their eyes before falling asleep and envisioned the most beautiful thing they could imagine. Without doing so, there was simply no enduring that harshness.
Some recalled the strong liquor of the far Southern Sea, while others thought of the peaceful village where they had lived for a brief time in their childhood.
Most, however, pictured the people they loved.
In those lands, the term “loved one” carried a remarkably broad meaning.
Parents, family, lovers, the person who had offered the greatest help in one’s life, or even a nameless stranger who had saved them.
Thus, before drifting off to sleep, everyone in the Border wore a smile. Occasionally, some slipped into an eternal slumber with that smile still lingering on their lips.
That was why they clung all the more desperately to thoughts of what they cherished, loved, admired, and yearned for. No one wanted to die with a face contorted in fear of the cold and the enemy.
Yet until three years ago, Hyperion had thought of nothing at all before falling asleep.
No, to say he had been unable to think of anything would be more accurate.
There was simply nothing in his life that could bring a smile to his face just by thinking of it.
He could not think of a mother whose face he couldn’t even remember, nor could he picture the father who had cast him out the moment he took a new Empress.
In the Monastery where he had been discarded, no one cared for Hyperion.
Part of it was fear of drawing the Empress’s scrutiny, but it was also a place where life itself was little more than ascetic torment.
In summer, he was subjected to labor harsher than that of a slave under the scorching sun, and in winter, he had to curl up without a blanket in a room carved out of stone that lacked even wooden shutters.
Having lived such a life, Hyperion had thought the Border was quite a decent place when he first arrived.
So he had felt no need to close his eyes and imagine anything. Whether his eyes were open or shut, the scenery before him would always be the cold, bleak, endless forest anyway.
Yet from a certain point on, he had begun to close his eyes. And like the others, he became able to fall asleep with a smile.
‘If only I had been content with just that.’
Hyperion carried her in his arms toward the bed. The nightclothes the maids had prepared in advance were laid out there.
Shifting them slightly to the side, he laid Laniakea down.
“Mmh…”
Perhaps disturbed by the movement, Laniakea let out a small, whiny whimper.
“My, my.”
At her soft sound, Hyperion slowly reached for the undergarment covering her breasts.
It was something that had given him quite a bit of trouble last time. Naturally so—he had never had occasion to undress a woman’s undergarments in his life, nor had he ever paid attention to such things.
In fact, he had only learned that women wore such things when he changed Laniakea’s clothes for the first time.
Looking flustered yet thoroughly delighted, Hyperion stripped away the last remaining piece of fabric from Laniakea’s upper body.
The moment it fell onto the bed, Hyperion held his breath.
Ever since the day he began to imagine Laniakea, she had appeared in his dreams from time to time in a different guise than usual.
Just like this. Bare and unhidden by anything—in her purest, primordial form.
The night he first saw Laniakea like this in a dream, Hyperion learned what a wet dream was, something he had only ever read about in books.
To have a wet dream well after reaching adulthood, and over the image of a wife bound to him only on paper, was truly laughable.
He hesitated for a moment.
Having been hidden beneath the fabric and suddenly exposed, the peaks of her breasts had tightened, and he desperately wanted to bite them with his lips just as he had nibbled her earlobe moments before.
Just the thought made his lower body heavy to the point of ache, and his hands clenched tight.
A languid breath slipped through his teeth as a dizzying haze clouded his mind.
He had merely imagined gently biting a part of her body, yet he was so overwhelmed by his own fantasies that he could do nothing.
Just then, the sleeping Laniakea curled her body inward. It seemed she felt chilly with her bare skin completely exposed.
In an instant, Hyperion moved quickly to retrieve the nightclothes and dressed her.
With speed incomparable to how he had undressed her, the buttons of the nightclothes were fastened.
Hyperion changed her lower garments in a flash as well. Then he drew the bedcovers over her, and as if that were not enough, wrapped her snugly like a cocoon.
Though she now resembled a bagworm, the warmth must have reached her, as Laniakea smoothed her faintly furrowed brow and breathed much more easily.
Only then did Hyperion let out a sigh of relief, pulling her into his arms, blanket and all.
Even while holding Laniakea in his embrace, his mind was already contemplating what would come next.
Hyperion’s arms tightened around her.
Next time, he should definitely let her reach climax at least once. And…
The image of her soft, swelling breasts that he had seen moments ago flashed through his mind.
If only Laniakea grew a little more comfortable around him, wouldn’t he then be able to relish her fullness to his heart’s content?
“Haah…”
A sigh laden with longing escaped his lips.
To think that embracing his wife would be such an arduous, prolonged endeavor.
Even so, he would not rush and ruin everything.
‘One year.’
He recalled the span of time he had promised Laniakea.
No matter what happened, he would extend that time.
Since the right to stay rested with Laniakea, he had to win her heart somehow before then. He had no intention of ever letting his wife go.
Hyperion briefly pictured himself letting Laniakea go with his own hands.
And then he scoffed softly at the notion.
For no matter what happened, that day would never come.