Page 55 of The Pakhan’s Hidden Heir

“Come again,” he demands. “Let me feel you.”

As if his very voice could command it, I shatter around him, groaning as the orgasm crashes through me. My body jerks, thighs shaking, but he holds me still and keeps thrusting through it.

“That’s it,” he praises, his voice strained. “So good for me.”

He doesn’t slow down. His rhythm turns erratic, desperate even. Then he starts to lose control.

“I’m close,” he groans against my neck. “Fuck, Raina.”

With a final deep thrust he buries himself completely and comes, groaning my name as he pulses hot inside me.

His body tenses against my back, arm tightening around me as he rides it out.

We stay locked together, breathing hard, his cock still twitching with the last of his release.

He presses a kiss to my shoulder, his hand stroking over my belly, and for the first time in days it feels like the man I fell for is lying here beside me instead of the one made of ice.

I lean back into him, letting my eyes fall shut, letting myself believe it.

But pain rolls through my middle and steals the breath straight out of me.

It starts in my lower back, tightening that wraps around from my spine to my front, drawing everything in me tight as a fist and holding there long after his lips leave my skin.

I grab his forearm and dig my nails in, waiting for it to loosen its hold the way the Braxton Hicks ones always have, but this one doesn’t ease.

It builds and builds until I can’t do anything but pant through it, and by the time it finally lets go I’m damp at the temples and shaking.

“Easy.” His hand keeps moving over my belly slowly, his mouth still at my shoulder. “You know this happens; the doctor said it would. Lie still and let it pass.”

“That didn’t feel false.” I try to relax back against him and believe him. The doctor did warn me these types of contractions would come, but it was really painful. “It felt like it was doing something, Bastian.”

“It’s your body practicing, that’s all. You had a good release, Raina. Your body does this.” He gathers my hair off my neck and presses another kiss below my ear. “Breathe with me. In, and out… You’re alright.”

I do as he says, matching my breath to the rise and fall of his chest against my back, and for a moment it works. I start to calm as his hand rubs my belly and I let my eyes drift shut again.

But a second one comes, sharper than the first, curling me over the swell of my belly with a yelp of pain I can’t hold back.

“Oh god,” I grunt. “God it hurts.”

“Count with me.” His arm comes around me, holding me through the worst of the pain as he coaches: “Breathe. Two breaths then three. Nikitin said the false ones come and go, okay? We just breathe through these and let them pass.”

But they don’t spread out.

The next one takes me before the ache of the last has even faded, and this time I can’t count and I can’t breathe.

I can’t do anything but curl into him and moan through the pain while his voice keeps vibrating against my hair.

“Something’s wrong.” I twist to look at him, tears standing in my eyes. “They aren’t stopping. They’re supposed to stop, you said they’d stop⁠—”

“Then we’ll call Nikitin and put your mind at ease.” He’s calm still, but his hand has gone still. “It’s early yet, too soon for⁠—”

When I grunt, he pushes up on his elbow and I feel a gush of wetness between my legs that isn’t just his cum. “Bastian, the baby. My water—it broke. Oh my god.”

He’s up and moving before I finish the sentence, but the contractions continue.

The next one seizes me and I fold over my belly crying.

They aren’t gentle or building slowly the way the books promised. They’re tearing through me one on top of the other, and the baby isn’t supposed to come for another four weeks.