Chapter 124: I Will Take Care of You (Part 3)

Levan’s voice reached her before his touch did, grounding and steady, and then his hand followed, settling on her thigh, two fingers resting higher while his palm enclosed her knee.

“Tell me if anything feels wrong,” he said. “Even a little.”

Ilaria swallowed. Her chest rose too quickly, then slowed as she forced herself to follow his cadence instead. Her gaze dipped to where his hand rested, registering the quiet weight of it. She could not tell whether it was meant to steady her or hold her there.

“I’m here,” he continued, voice low and even. “Not ahead of you. Not dragging you anywhere you’re not ready to be.”

His thumb shifted once, barely there, more promise than pressure. “If you need me to stop, you stop me.”

She nodded, a little faster this time, and heat coursed through her before she could even understand why, leaving her frozen and disoriented. Because she thought she could handle it, but when a sudden glow traced the sensitive skin along her inner thigh, it stole a sound from her despite herself.

She tried instinctively to draw her legs together, startled by her own response, but the hand on her outer thigh held her gently in place, not allowing her to retreat. Levan did not move otherwise. He simply watched her, attentive to every breath and every tremor.

At that moment, Ilaria’s mind spun. Husband and wife… this is how they make babies… right? The thought should not have startled her, but it did, because this loving and patient touch was not how she imagined it. Didn’t people just… go for it? Dive in with no hesitation? So why was he… touching her there?

Her pulse fluttered in confusion, in anticipation, in something else entirely, and she could not tell if she was more frightened or excited. “H-Husband… wait…” she gulped, wondering and mortified all at once. “W-wouldn’t… your hand… get… dirty…?”

His thumb stroked the sensitive skin there, a feather-light reassurance doing little to calm the frantic beat of her heart. “Dirty?” he asked, a flicker of rapture passing over his features. “There is nothing about you that is dirty. Not when you’re with me.”

Her chest rose and fell faster. “But… but… husbands and wives… they—” She stammered, her words tripping over themselves, flushed heat crawling up her neck. “…they don’t make babies like this…”

At that, a deep, quiet rumble escaped him, half laugh, half growl. Oh, so that’s what she was worrying about.

“No, Aria,” he said, gentle but unyielding. “I had no thought of that… yet. My entire focus right now is on you and nothing else.”

Ilaria’s lips parted, a small, shaken whimper escaping as her chest heaved. She tried to focus on his words, but the heat pooling low in her belly betrayed her entirely. She blinked up at him, still incredulous. “I… I don’t understand… why…?”

Levan studied her for a long moment, eyes alight with hunger as if her confusion itself stirred something deep and dangerous in him. His thumb slowed, lingering with intention.

“Because I want you to feel,” he said quietly, each word deliberate. “Not rushed. Not used for purpose. Just… wanted.”

He leaned closer, close enough that she could feel the weight of his attention settle over her like blazing fire. “Because I like seeing you unravel like this,” he continued steadily, “when you don’t know what comes next, but you trust me enough to stay anyway.”

His gaze traced her lips before meeting hers again. “And because I need you to know,” he added, softer now, “that this isn’t something I’m taking from you. It’s something I’m giving you… only if you let me.”

The two fingers hovered at the most secret part of her, close enough to be felt without touching, and the restraint was almost worse than contact. When she met his golden orbs, they were shining, uncertain and open, as if she were asking him silently whether it was all right to fall.

“Levan…” His name slipped from her like a plea she had not meant to make. Her grip tightened on his shoulders, clinging to the solid warmth of him as if he were the only thing keeping her grounded.

Something in his chest gave at that. Not the man who had stood unshaken before courts and blades, but the husband, undone by her mere voice. He had never imagined wanting like this, never thought tenderness could feel so fierce, or that his wife — this woman with her wide eyes and unguarded heart — would be the one to unmake him so completely.

“It’s alright,” he murmured, the words shaped with care. “You’re going to be okay.”

He shifted slightly, his weight settling more fully over her, caging her in a cocoon of warmth and scent. Then, with excruciating slowness, his wet fingertip brushed against the delicate folds, causing Ilaria to gasp in startled disbelief, her voice breaking as her body betrayed her before her thoughts could catch up.

Her body arched without her permission, the feeling striking like lightning that was too intoxicating to deny. It stole the air from her lungs and left her trembling in its wake. Heat flooded her cheeks, a furious, helpless bloom of crimson, and shame chased closely after it.

With nowhere for the feeling to go and no words to contain it, she squeezed her eyes shut, as if darkness might spare her from being seen like this. But Levan would not allow her to disappear.

“Look at me, Aria.” The command was absolute, threaded with control and a promise that he was still right there.

Her lashes lifted reluctantly, betraying her. Her eyes were glassy, bright with unshed tears and a dazed, bewildered longing she did not yet have the language for. She looked at him as if standing on the edge of something vast, terrifying, and irrevocable.

And the sight of her like that, so open and ethereally defenseless beneath him sent a violent rush of heat through his body, sharp enough to make his breath hitch. It was restraint that burned now, not desire alone, and it took everything in him not to lose himself to the way she was looking at him like he was both her refuge and her ruin.

“There you are,” he murmured, the words muted by a tenderness that barely masked the hunger beneath it. A faint smile touched his lips, reverent and knowing. “It’s alright. Let me.”

Her jaw trembled then. Every instinct screamed for retreat. But a deeper, more primal part of her that was awakened by his touch yearned for something more. And before she realized it, her hips twitched, a tiny, involuntary movement, pressing subtly against his hand.

Levan’s eyes darkened, a flash of pure, untamed desire crossing his face. “You feel that?” he intoned, his voice laced with a triumphant understanding. “That’s you. That’s for me.”

Slowly, he moved his digit in a feather-light glide along the sensitive ridge. Ilaria’s breath caught again, her head tilting back as a moan escaped her lips, lost somewhere between a whimper and a sigh. It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever known, an heady friction that built and receded, leaving a trail of shimmering heat in its wake.

“Is it too much?” he asked, the question edged with restraint, as though stopping would cost him dearly.

She shook her head, unable to form words. Her gaze locked on his, pleading for him to continue and guide her through this bewildering landscape of ecstasy.

He took that as his cue. His touch dipped lower, finding the moist entrance, a place so intimate it stole the air from her lungs, so utterly exposed that her entire body reacted at once. Ilaria’s entire body tensed. Her hands now clenched his shoulders with white-knuckled intensity. The legs that had once pressed together now parted without her willing them to, surrendering to the pull of him.

“So soft,” he rasped, awe threading through the want in his voice. His eyes never left her face. “Like velvet.”

He pressed again, meeting a delicate resistance, then slowed, circling, lingering, letting the pressure build rather than break. The stimulation bloomed into a sweet, aching throb that spread outward from her core, making her pulse race and her thoughts scatter.

“L-Lev…” Her grip trembled now. Her head rolled helplessly against the pillow, lips parted as she struggled for air, for sense, for anything solid to hold onto as the storm inside her gathered strength.

He bent closer, brushing his mouth against hers in a kiss that barely touched. “Tell me what you feel,” he murmured, the words a coaxing promise. His hand never stopped, patient and unrelenting all at once.

Her unfocused gaze searched his. “I… I don’t know,” she managed, voice no more than a sigh. “It’s… strange.”

A low sound rumbled from his chest. “Strange good,” he prompted, “or strange bad?”

Her answer came not in words at first. Her body arched, hips lifting toward him as the pressure deepened just enough to steal a sound from her lips. “Good,” she finally gasped, the confession burning on her tongue. “So… good.”

His smile curved, slow and satisfied. He watched her with an intensity that bordered on reverence, memorizing every shudder, every broken sound. He loved this… loved the way her usual brightness had melted into something raw and unguarded. Loved that it was him who had brought her here.

When he withdrew his hand just slightly, her reaction was instant.

Her lids flew open, startled and pleading. “No,” she rasped, nails clutching desperately at him as if he might disappear. “Don’t stop.”

That was all the permission he needed.

He claimed her mouth in a deeper kiss, hunger and restraint tangling between them. As their mouths melded, his digit slid back in, deeper this time, finding a new, sensitive pressure point that made her cry out into his lips and her body bowing beneath the intensity.

She wrapped around him instinctively, nails biting into his back as her entire frame began to tremble. He pulled back just enough to see her; to take in the flush of her skin, the damp shine of her lips, the way she looked suspended on the edge of something vast and unnamed.

The sight hit him low and merciless. Something fierce tore loose behind his ribs, an instinct that demanded more even as it warned him to be careful. And he let it consume him, fastening his pace, pushing his finger just a little deeper with each stroke.

The rush built like a spiraling vortex of pleasure that tightened, stretched, and pulled at her. Ilaria’s body felt alien yet headily alive. Her mind surrendered completely. All that existed was the push of him, the scorching friction that stole her breath, and the rising, intoxicating flood of tingling fire that pulled her under.

“Levan…” she panted, her voice cracking, eyes half-lidded and glistening with tears as she looked at him. Her hips rose and fell, chasing the impossible peak. “I… I can’t… I can’t—”

“You can,” he purred, a quiet certainty in every word. “That’s just your body answering me. You’re doing beautifully.”

Without warning, he added a second digit with a slow, careful push, stretching her, filling her in a way that feel both startling and profoundly satisfying. Ilaria’s face contorted in helplessness, her body seizing as a sudden and searing pressure building in her core.

“Oh!” she cried out, her voice raw, a sound of pure, unadulterated experience.

Her body convulsed around his fingers, tremors rippling through her in waves that stole her breath. A choked sob escaped her lips as the intensity broke, washing over her in a tide of shimmering release. Her muscles tightened, then softened, leaving her limp and heaving, clinging to him like a lifeline.

He held her, his body pressed against hers, his stroke still intimately connected until the last of her shiver subsided. Her face pressed into his shoulder, her breaths short and uneven, her body slack with spent pleasure.

And just when she thought everything was over, he suddenly curled his fingers.

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