They moved upstairs not long after. The comfortable rhythm continued, she brushed her teeth while he showered, utterly unbothered by her teasing remarks about his lack of modesty. When he emerged, towelling his hair dry, she was already in bed with a book. He turned off the light and climbed in behind her, drawing her gently against him. His hand settled around her waist, his breath warm against the back of her neck. His erection pressed against her back, but he made no move to take it further, beyond gently cupping her breast. They both lay pressed together, enjoying the sensation of skin against warm skin.
For a while they just lay there, the house quiet except for the sound of the rain beginning again and the creak of timber. Rune felt the steady rise and fall of his chest, the calm rhythm of a life that had somehow begun to fit around them both.
She smiled sleepily. "You're still thinking about names, aren't you?"
"Maybe," he murmured. "Go to sleep, Rune."
She drifted off with his heartbeat against her back and the unfamiliar sense that she was home.
***
Morning light spilled across the room in thin, gold lines. Rune stirred, feeling the warmth of Dorian's arm around her, the familiar weight of his body close behind hers as his morning wood pressed insistently against her back. She could get used to this.
Her wandering hand lazily closed around him and lazily explored his steely length, making him stir and gasp with pleasure. She felt his hands tighten around her waist before they travelled up to cup her breast and play with her sensitive nipple. Somewhere between waking and dreaming, she pressed her hips back against him. Their foreheads brushed as he kissed her cheek, and the rest of the world seemed to blur. Then he urgently lifted her leg to shove a pillow between her thighs. She could feel him guide himself to her moist opening before pressing in while one hand bracing her belly gently. Her inner muscles parted easily for him. The hand on her belly wandered downwards to press circles against her engorged clit. He moved his hips in short thrusts until he was fully sheathed inside her.
"I love you," she murmured without thinking, half-asleep, half-awake, on the verge of climax.
Everything stilled.
Dorian froze, the arm banded around her breasts reaching her chin to turn her face to his. His eyes searched hers with a burning question. "What did you just say?" he asked, his voice low but roughened by something deeper.
Rune blinked, suddenly aware of what she'd said. "I..."
"Say it again," he said, the words almost a plea as his hips moved in urgent thrusts.
Her heart thudded in her chest. "Dorian..."
"Please," he whispered.
She hesitated, then reached up to touch his cheek, her thumb brushing the faint shadow of stubble there. "I love you."
His eyes closed for a moment, as if he were memorising the sound of it before his hips moved in urgent thrusts ,tipping them both overto a blinding orgasm. When he looked at her again, the fierceness in his expression had softened into something raw and somehow full of gratitude.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "Because I'm not letting you take it back."
She smiled, her face breaking into a sudden warmth in her chest. "I wasn't planning to."
He exhaled, forehead coming to rest against hers, and for a long time they stayed like that-no walls, no pretence-just the fragile, extraordinary simplicity of being loved and believing it.
***
Months later...
The London trip had gone better than any of them expected. Gramps' knees and Nana's wrists had healed beautifully, the surgeries smooth and uneventful. They'd stayed for several weeks in Dorian's Kensington townhouse, a place with high ceilings, marble floors, and a garden that looked too perfect to be real.
He'd treated her grandparents as if they were his own—patient with Nana's stories, indulgent with Gramps' endless curiosity about his "fancy house gadgets." Rune had watched him help her grandfather into the lift, hand steady under his elbow, and she'd thought,so this is what change looks like.
They'd planned to return together, but her blood pressure had been slightly high. The doctor insisted she rest a few extra days, and Dorian took that as a personal mission. He arranged a private nurse, kept a running log of her meals, and was one blood test away from installing a cardiac monitor. Her grandparents went back ahead of them,promising to continue the physiotherapy at home. Dorian had already arrange for regular private sessions on the farm. Now, the flat seemed too large once they'd gone, the silence broken only by Dorian's low voice murmuring to his laptop or the rustle of papers. Dorian himself was on edge in the weeks to come.
One night, Rune woke to find the other side of the bed empty. A faint glow spilled from the living room. Dorian was pacing, barefoot, hair mussed, a half-empty glass of whiskey abandoned on the side table.
She padded over and slipped her arms around him from behind, as far as her rounded belly would allow.
"Can't sleep?" she whispered as she rested her face against his back.
He stiffened, then relaxed, his hands coming to rest over hers. "Didn't mean to wake you."
"Too late." She rested her cheek against his back. "What's wrong?"
