Page 253 of The Enslaved Duet
God only knew that was saying something.
My entire body felt like a building burning down, the seams aching to hold up the increasing weight of walls as it threatened to cave in, the wood sweating from the heat as it rose higher and higher.
It was pure agony.
But I gloried in it.
Not because my Master was using one of his many wicked toys to draw whimpers and sighs from me. Though he was, in essence, also the reason for this pain.
But because I was sweating and heaving and splitting apart at the seams between my thighs to give birth to the baby we’d made together.
“Why in the bloody hell is she in so much pain, Doctor?” my husband snarled at the country’s most renowned obstetrician. His handsome face was screwed up tight, his skin red with the force of bottling up all his considerable rage.
It went without saying that after everything we’d been through together, Alexander didn’t like to see me hurt.
“This is a completely natural process, your Grace,” Dr. Reinhardt promised, totally unfazed by the large, angry man scowling at him from my bedside. “Your wife is doing amazingly well considering the size of the baby.”
This placated him slightly. It pleased some manly sensibility in my husband to know that he had produced a big, healthy baby, and more, that I was doing so well under stress.
Praising me was the quickest way to get on Alexander’s good side.
As long as that praise was platonic.
Even then, if it was from a man who was unattached or in any way handsome, he might make a point to threaten him as a friendly reminder that I was, and always would be, his.
Pain ripped through my groin and up my spin to resonate in my brain like a radioactive strike.
Alexander cursed bloody murder at the guttural groan that sprang from my ravaged throat, but he took up his position by my side once more and let me grip his hand so hard his joints ground together in protest.
“You are so beautiful,” he told me in a broken voice as he leaned over to press his forehead against my sweat-soaked one. “You are so beautiful to me. At this moment, more beautiful than any other. No one has ever been prouder or more in love with their wife than me, do you understand that, my beauty?”
I nodded, my teeth gritted so tightly I could speak as another contraction rippled through me.
“Okay, time to push, Lady Greythorn,” the doctor encouraged me from his intimate position between my legs.
It had shocked me that Alexander had allowed a male doctor to be my obstetrician, but he was the undisputed top doctor in the United Kingdom.
And he was also gay, happily married to his childhood sweetheart.
Which explained Alexander’s willingness, though he did make Dr. Reinhardt interview with us three times before he gave him the position as the Duchess of Greythorn’s doctor.
“I’m ready,” I told him, my smile twisted like hot metal on my face.
My entire body felt like an overloaded electrical wire ready to explode. I was desperate to push and release the tension even though the pain as I bore down was nearly unbearable.
“I love you, my beauty, mytopolina, my duchess,” Alexander chanted as he propped my back against his torso and held both my hands so I could squeeze them hard enough to break them as I struggled to push our child into the world. “You are my greatest treasure.”
I tilted my head back, muscles strained tight enough to pop and let the scream boiling in my throat erupt into the air.
A moment later, a piercing wail underscored the last notes of my scream.
I blinked slowly through my sweat-stung eyes, trying to focus beyond the pain as I’d become so adept at doing so that I could focus on the being Dr. Reinhardt held aloft in his hands.
“My God,” Alexander’s voice broke as he smoothed my wet hair away from my forehead and then softly laid me back down on the bed so that he could accept the clippers from the doctor and cut the umbilical cord. “My good God.”
My eyes burned, and my body felt like a deflated balloon, incapable of animation as I gave in to the impulse to close my lids and rest for a moment.
“My beauty,” Alexander’s soft voice pulled me gently from slumber. “It’s time to meet your son.”
