Eve inhaled a long breath once she made it the top of their dwelling, the ladder swinging slightly behind her in the gentle breeze.

In the back of her mind, she wondered how long she’d be able to climb it. How long into her pregnancy would she still be able to? She wondered if they should think about getting a lift installed, which were quite common on Dumera, especially for elderly beings that lived in the tree dwellings.

Eve entered their home, fishing out the clear bottle she’d just retrieved from Kxiwi. She’d gone to the healer about her intense morning sickness, how it had come on quickly, and left her, some mornings, unable to get out of bed for a couple hours.

The healer said it was a common symptom among human females carrying hybrid ‘youngbloods,’ but that it might not pass for a few more moon cycles, depending on how long she would gestate for. To help with the nausea and the dizziness, she’d given her a bottle of something. The liquid was a light blue and seemed slightly thicker than water. When Eve uncapped it to take a whiff, she almost retched, thinking that it wouldn’t help her morning sickness, but that it might make her more sick if she had to drink it.

But she would try anything, so she would take it in the morning, just as Kxiwi suggested.

Eve was so distracted by the bottle, about the prospect that she might have morning sickness for a few more months, that she almost didn’t notice that the lamps were lit inside the dwelling.

But her heart stopped in her chest when she spied movement out of the corner of her eye and she gasped.

“Khiva,” she breathed, blinking, intense relief drowning out the startled panic. “You’re…you’re home. You’re okay.”

“Leeldra,” he rasped, immediately coming to her. He’d been sitting on the cushions in the sitting room, no doubt waiting for her to return home.

Tears welled up in her eyes when his arms wrapped around her, tight and snug, and she breathed in his scent as if she’d been starved for it.

It had been five days since he’d left. Only five days, but they had felt like a lifetime.

“Khiva,” she whispered, pressing her cheek into his warm chest, feeling the thumping of one of his hearts flutter against her skin.

Her tears dampened his shirt, but he didn’t move an inch.

He didn’t say anything either. He simply held her close and Eve hugged him back, so tightly, as if she was afraid he’d leave again.

A part of her was still hurt about how he’d handled that night, that he’d left so soon afterwards. But right then, she was just so relieved and glad that he’d returned in one piece, safe.

Eve didn’t know how long they stood there, but eventually, Khiva pulled back to get a look at her face, bringing his fingertips up to smooth them over her lips, her shimmering cheeks, her brows.

His touch was tender, almost reverent.

When Eve looked up at him, she realized that she couldn’t get a read on him. His expression was warm, full of longing, but there something in his eyes that didn’t belong and it made dread pool in her belly.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” she whispered.

Khiva shook his head. For a moment, he looked at a loss for words.

“What can I do?” she asked. “What do you need?”

“I need,” he began, his eyes closing for a brief moment before they connected with her own again, “I need you to kiss me. I just need your touch right now, though I do not deserve it, leeldra. Please.”

Eve frowned, her eyebrows furrowing, but she didn’t hesitate. She stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her hand around his neck to bring him closer, and kissed him.

From the start, the kiss was fierce, intense. Khiva’s hands gripped her hips, bringing her as close as he could to his body and her fingernails dug into his neck, like she worried he would pull away.

And as she kissed him, Eve knew that they still had so much to discuss, so much to talk about. Right then, however, she sensed that her male needed her. Desperately.

Right then, they didn’t need to talk. It could wait.

Khiva’s tongue swept inside her mouth and just like always, whenever she kissed him, she was reminded of how he’d kissed her their first time: soft and slow, but demanding. Patient, yet impatient.

She’d always felt desired when he kissed her, needed.

“K-Khiva,” she breathed against his lips, pulling back to catch her breath. When she looked up at his eyes, she recognized that need in his gaze. She was painfully aware that since Everton, five days had been the longest they’d gone without sex.

Six, she realized. It had been six days. The night before he’d left, they hadn’t had sex. They’d been distant from one another, both withdrawn after their fight.

Khiva dragged her lips back and Eve felt a familiar pooling of arousal between her thighs as her mind went a little foggy and the needs of her body took over.

When she pulled back from their kiss a second time, it was to drop her satchel and the bottle of liquid on their dining table. Then she took Khiva’s hand and led him to their bedroom.

Except they didn’t make it to the bed. They’d just stepped inside the room when she felt Khiva grab her from behind and turn her to kiss her again, his palms grabbing her backside possessively, a low growl rising in his throat.

And when he got like this, Eve knew not to tease him, not to make him wait. His grip was firm, his muscles tense, his pupils dilated.

Her male needed it. Right then.

Eve gasped when he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his powerful, lean hips. He leaned her back against the stone wall of their bedroom as her fingers tugged at the laces of his pants until his cock sprung free, bobbing and engorged with blood.

Khiva’s hands pushed her dress around her waist, tugging aside her undergarments. Then he angled his hips in that perfect way and he was there.

Eve huffed out a breathless moan, her head falling back against the wall. Whenever he fucked her like this, the angle was just right and he got so deep. She felt him everywhere, every slide of his cock into her sex was so sublime that goosebumps erupted over her flesh.

It had been too long.

Much too long.

Eve’s fingers dug into his shoulders as his hips fucked between her thighs, her gaze half-lidded with pleasure as she watched him at his finest. Even though they were still clothed, she saw his shifting muscles under his tight shirt, saw the way his tendons bunched and flexed, the way the muscles in his ropey forearms seemed to grow in his exertion.

In between growls, he captured her lips again, as if he needed to taste her, needed to feel her. Then his lips trailed over her cheek, down her jaw, nipping at the skin, marking her in a way he felt compelled to do. He suckled on her neck before she felt his hot exhalations just below her ear. And she moaned when he nipped her there because he knew that spot always drove her crazy.

Sounds of sex filled the room, of flesh against flesh, of groans and half-whispered words.

It didn’t take Eve long to cum around his cock, but it didn’t take Khiva long to join her.

In the haze of her orgasm, she heard his roar and felt jets and jets of hot cum unleash within her. Khiva continued to fuck between her thighs, however, his erection never subsiding, even as his teela began to react within her body.

Eve thought she would be used to his teela by then. But every single time, every morning and night, she was constantly surprised by the intensity of her never-ending orgasm. As she panted and gasped and screamed through it, Khiva never stopped driving his cock inside her, even as her walls tightened like a vice around him.

Soon, reality seemed to give way to the high-like pleasure that enveloped her. Her nipples tingled and tightened in diamond points and her dress felt too constricting, too rough against her overly-sensitive skin.

“My d-dress, Khiva,” she breathed, choking out the words.

Luckily, he knew what she needed and with hurried fingers, though he never stopped fucking her, he managed to tear off the ties at the back—which she would have to repair later—and helped her drag it over her head.

Sweet relief came as she was freed from the tight confines, but then pleasurable torment started when Khiva latched his lips over one breast, sucking on her nipple with deep, greedy tugs.

And all the while, her orgasm continued to rip through her body.

Her gaze fluttered shut, her head lolling against the wall, never wanting it to end, but wondering how much more she could take.

Eventually, she felt Khiva move. He brought her over to their bed and laid her gently down before lifting her hips, never leaving her tight sheath. He rose to his knees on the bed and then began all over again, driving his cock into her body.

“Love you, leeldra,” he rasped above her, his beautiful eyes never leaving her own. His fingers laced between hers as he rolled his hips in that perfect way that drove her crazy.

“I-I love you,” she whispered, huffing out deep breaths as her abdomen continued to clench.

It didn’t take him long to cum for a second time and he bellowed his pleasure, his spine arching, his eyes squeezing shut. More jets of his teela filled her and she groaned, knowing she wouldn’t be able to handle much more.

Khiva fell to her side, catching himself on a shaking forearm at the last moment, managing to never leave her body.

Eve let him recover, let him catch his breath, before she whispered in a ragged tone, “Khiva, please.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat but then he pulled away from her, pushing off the bed, before disappearing from sight. He returned with a clean, warm, damp cloth from their washroom and kneeled between her splayed thighs.

Relief from her orgasm came as he cleaned away his teela and Eve pulled in greedy breaths, filling her lungs, as the intense pleasure slowly faded into something more manageable.

Her body felt hot, her cheeks flushed, and Khiva dropped the rag to the floor after cleaning off his cock, and climbed into bed next to her.

As the pleasure faded, reality returned in little pieces.

Khiva dragged her close, turning them on their sides so they faced one another. He was still fully clothed and she was still naked and his fingertips smoothed over her sensitive, warm skin.

Some of the tension she’d sensed from before had drained from him. Keriv’i needed sex like air sometimes. And sometimes sex was the only communication they needed.

But not right then.

They still had a lot to talk about and Eve was aware that they’d left much unsaid the last time they’d spoken.

Dread replaced some of the pleasure in her warm belly, remembering the strange look in his eyes when he’d embraced her.

It was pure dread, because she feared she already knew why that look permeated his gaze.

Eve swallowed, but it was a question that needed to be asked. After a deep breath, she placed her hand on Khiva’s cheek, rubbing her thumb over the bridge of his sharp nose.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Did you make contact with Dhrika?”

Khiva’s gaze never left her own. “Pax.”

“And? Does he know what happened to your mother and brother?”

“Pax, he did,” Khiva murmured.

“Khiva,” she whispered, her throat burning.

He swallowed. And Eve knew that if Keriv’i could cry, Khiva would be shedding tears right then. The grief poured off of him in waves and because he couldn’t cry, Eve cried for him.

“They are dead, leeldra. They are dead.”