Neru, a frontier goodwife

My mind still simmered as we entered our room. The anger found only the person beside me for its focus, as nonsensical as it was to blame Vesija for what happened during the hunting trip. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I grimaced at the effort of resisting the impulse to push him away.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"You are the one shot." I slipped out of his grasp and positioned myself at a commandeering distance. "Go take a warm shower, while I patch your trousers."

I kept my eyes away from him to maintain a demeanour as cold as his hands. Only when he reached to offer the torn trousers did I turn to him. The wound on his inner thigh was long, not deep enough to still bleed but enough to reignite my anger. "Now, off with the rest of it. After a shower, you'll go straight under the blankets. I shall warm the bed."

Vesija sighed, his masculine pride not strong enough to overpower common sense. He dropped the rest of his clothes and headed into the bathroom. To the credit of my stubbornness, I kept my ogling eyes away from the statuesque backside.

From a touch on a regulator node, the bed began to purr as it sucked in warm ichor from house's veins. I took out a repair patch and fed it enough honeydew to reconstruct the silk strands of Vesija's trousers and slapped it on top of the gap. It wouldn't be as good as new, but even a dandy like him could bear a rough spot in his outdoors clothes.

I stood in place, too anxious to take the weight off my already sore feet. The house groaned softly in the slow tempo of its ventilation. The familiar scent of mature resin seeped from the distant past, where my childhood resides. To keep my hands from fretting, I undressed down to a gossamer chemise. The garment drooped on my distended like snow on an unpicturesque hill.

The time Vesija took to wash himself was enough for me to collect my composure. As an apology for my earlier rudeness, I tried to smile at him. However, seeing his form covered only by trace moisture sent my emotions surging, and I could only control myself with a dour stare.

"Get in the bed."

"Should––"

"You must remain warm." I brandished the hydrogel atomiser at him.

The man obeyed, and I pulled up a blanket to maintain his decency. Waddling to kneel beside him was unpleasantly difficult, but spraying over the already clean wound was an easy task. In fact, Vesija was the last person, who needed help in such a task, but the pained grimace from the biting disinfectant vindicated my soured feelings a little.

I smiled and dropped the atomiser off the bed. Vesija's arms welcomed me under the blanket, and I pressed against his rapidly warming skin.

"When upset, you resemble your mother to an uncanny extend", he murmured.

"Is that a joke?"

"No! Not at all. She is an impressive woman."

"Perhaps." Impressive, like a cold and sharp iceberg. I buried my frame under my Vesija's arm as best as I could. "You shouldn't have forgiven my parents so easily, Vesija. What they did was vile, even for our kind."

His breath warmed my scalp, bringing back the hot midsummer winds and carefree days on the prairie. "Their actions might be strange, true, but the motive lacks ambiguity. Parents can act irrational when it comes to the welfare of their child. Especially when it pertains to a daughter they only latterly discovered they have. I can scarcely hate anyone for loving the same person as I."

The comfortable warmth had eroded the restrains over my emotions, which now burst out as uncontrolled sobs. I buried my face against the man. Though my abdomen came between us, his heavy arms had the reach to wrap around me regardless. I was safe, happy even, yet still I cried. The only mitigating aspect to the embarrassment was that my outburst infected Vesija strongly enough for him to snivel a little in solicitude.

"You are rather eager to 'understand' my parents."

"It pays to remain amiable with one's in-laws. Especially when they are Jaan."

"They are indeed." Though the manly presence encircled my reality at the moment, he felt terribly temporary. "That's why you..." I swallowed a lump still in my throat and clutched his thick wrist. "It was reckless to come back here instead of fleeing. You couldn't have know my parents only tricked you. They... We are killers."

"I couldn't think of anything save you two." A firm hand guided my head to look at him. "Speaking of Jaan... Your eyes are gorgeous, emphasised by the smudged makeup."

Such compliment deserved to be rewarded with a kiss. Fingers, enervated by warming blood, sought tender flesh to grasp and fondle. Though my minds burned receptive, my body protested a particularly strong squeeze, and I gasped.

"Oh." Vesija retained his grip on the breast in gentler fashion. Oozing liquid glued the chemise against my skin. "Are they sore?"

"What do you think?"

He shifted his grip around as if examining the tissue for abnormalities. "A subset of women experience discomfort when lactating."

I clasped his hand and pressed it against myself. "If you need something warm to drink, mayhap you might help relieve the pressure?" The suggestion was half in jest, yet brimming with expectation.

The sudden change of his expression, into oddly timid intensity, sent me giggling through all of the squirming and struggle required for us to disrobe me. The finely groomed beard tickled the skin of my bosom, while his lips sought the centre. A jolt went through my whole being, when teeth nibbled at the sensitive point. The pricking was supplanted by a suction that seemed to reach like tendrils all the way into my chest. An awkwardly maternal delight and tender anguish rushed to fill my skull. My hands clasped the man's skull, easily engulfing inside spidery fingers.

The man's touch travelled across my distended abdomen, lingering a shuddering moment, before the descend into my anxious nethers. With his in-depth understanding of female anatomy and wealth of practice, Vesija handled his fingers expertly. He had to interpret the tone of my encouragements, as my groans lacked the words to translate.

Nerves across my frame lit with incandescence, slowly forming a web of fissures until the darkening reality cracked open into a blackness deeper than thought.

"Honeydew, are you alright?" Vesija loomed over me, breaking any sense of continuity I had. While his mouth veered towards amusement, his eyes shone with moist worry and he squeezed my hand hard. "You passed out for a moment, Neru. Must have been a sudden spike in your blood pressure."

My hand wavered, as I pushed the man back on the bed. The ache still persisted in my chest, but I had lost any desire to probe it for now. I clung close to the man and let my fingers wander down his firm stomach to his impatiently waiting manhood. My sudden medical experience had fortunately failed to ruin his mood. Our lips approached, and missed each other for a moment of sloppy searching.

"Maybe..." I turned my head to get a word, but the man forced on as if famished. I ran a sharp nail up his sensitive implement, which froze the wanton male in place. "We could avoid a bigger mess––"

Vesija's expression twitched, and a hot shimmer on the skin of my hip revealed that I was woefully late with my plan. With theatrical elegance, I sighed and clutched the impetuous member in a tight enough grip to throttle a sufficiently small vertebrate. I had him squirm until our mess was thoroughly finished. For the torture, Vesija rewarded me with a careless embrace and a hail of kisses.

Eventually, both of us had become tired with all save enjoying the warm of each other's skin. Whatever we hid underneath the blanket didn't bother me, even if I distantly understood the eventual chore.

"It is good..." I crooned in his ear. "That you remain eager. Mother insists that I give her a proper cadre of grandchildren."

Vesija turned to face me. His hand caressed my belly, making it obvious what concern his smirk struggle to hide. "Until... I mean, without doubt there won't be any major complications, but we should be patient when it comes to familial proliferation."

I giggled at his diction. "Only that test of yours convinced me that I am not expecting a veritable litter." With reassuring grace I patted his thigh. "Nonetheless, I am not worried. Not much, at least. Your gods wished this upon me, and even I as Jaan can trust them to follow through with their own designs."