The Wet Nurse | NEON LIT

The contract is straightforward.

Provider of infant nutrition services. Room and board included. Two-year minimum commitment.

They don't say wet nurse in the corporate territories. Too archaic, too human. But that's what I am—forty-four years old, perpetually lactating thanks to a hormone mod that keeps my breasts full and flowing, selling the only product my body has ever been able to reliably produce.

The Ashworth estate is the largest I've ever worked.

A private island in the Neo-Caribbean, all glass and white stone, staffed by a small army of servants in matching uniforms. The heir—a sickly infant whose corporate-exec mother died in childbirth—needs round-the-clock feeding. The synthetics won't take. The formula makes him scream.

So they hired me.

I've worked for rich families before. Spent my whole career in the shadows of their wealth, feeding their children while they attended galas and closed deals. This should be no different.

But this time, the master of the house is watching.

Lord Marcus Ashworth is not what I expected.

Thirty-two years old. Widower as of three months. Built like old money should be—tall, sharp-featured, with dark hair silvering at the temples and eyes the color of storm clouds. He runs his empire from a home office that overlooks the sea, and he takes every meal alone.

Except when I'm feeding his son.

That's when he appears. Quietly, always, lingering in doorways or sitting in the far corner of the nursery. Watching. Not the baby—me.

At first I think he's protective. Paranoid. A grieving father ensuring his only heir is cared for properly.

But the way he watches isn't parental.

It's hungry.

The first time he speaks to me directly is three weeks into my contract.

I'm in the nursery, the infant latched to my breast, rocking slowly in the chair they provided. My nursing gown is open, one breast exposed—heavy, full, leaking slightly around the baby's mouth. The room smells like milk and talcum powder.

He appears in the doorway.

"You're good with him."

I look up, startled. "Thank you, my lord. He's an easy baby."

"He's a difficult baby. Screams for everyone else." He steps into the room, moves closer. "But not for you."

"I have experience."

"I'm sure you do." He stops beside my chair. Close enough that I can smell him—something expensive, something sharp. "How long have you been doing this? The... nursing."

"Twenty years, my lord. Started when my own daughter was born."

"And the modifications? The ones that keep you producing?"

I hesitate. This isn't usually something employers ask about. "Fifteen years. It's more reliable than natural production."

"I imagine so." His eyes drop to my exposed breast. To the baby suckling. To the milk that pearls at the corner of the infant's mouth. "Does it hurt? Being so... full?"

My nipples tighten. Not from cold.

"Sometimes, my lord. When I haven't fed in too long."

"And now?"

"Now I'm feeding. So no."

He nods slowly. Doesn't look away.

"If you ever need... relief. Between feedings." His voice is low. Rough. "You can come to me."

He leaves before I can respond.

I tell myself I imagined it.

A grieving widower, lonely, making an inappropriate comment he didn't mean. The kind of thing I should forget and never speak of again.

But I can't forget.

Because every night, alone in my quarters, my breasts aching with fullness, I think about what he said. Come to me. I think about his eyes on my chest. I think about what it would feel like to let him—

No.

I'm staff. He's the lord of the house. This is a job, nothing more. I've spent twenty years keeping things professional. I'm not going to ruin my reputation because a handsome widower looked at me too long.

But the next time I feed the baby, I notice his eyes linger.

And the time after that.

The breaking point comes six weeks in.

The baby has been sleeping through the night, which means I haven't expressed in fourteen hours. My breasts are swollen, aching, leaking through my nightgown despite the pads. The discomfort is bordering on pain.

I should use the pump. That's what the pump is for.

Instead, I find myself walking through the quiet halls of the estate, toward the master's chambers.

I knock before I can talk myself out of it.

The door opens.

He's in a robe—dark silk, loosely tied, revealing a chest I try not to stare at. His eyes drop to the wet spots spreading across my gown.

"You came."

"I need—" I can barely speak. "I need relief, my lord."

He steps back. Opens the door wider.

"Then come inside."

His chambers are vast. Dark wood, white linens, a bed that could sleep a dozen people. He leads me to it without speaking, sits on the edge, and pulls me to stand between his knees.

"Show me."

My hands shake as I pull down my nightgown. My breasts spill free—heavy, swollen, veined with the pressure of too much milk. Droplets bead at my nipples and run down the curve of my flesh.

He makes a sound low in his throat.

"I've been thinking about this," he says. "Since the first day you arrived. Since I saw you with my son. This body—" His hands find my hips, grip tight. "—these breasts. Everything about you."

"My lord—"

"Marcus." He looks up at me. "When we're alone like this, call me Marcus."

"Marcus." The name feels dangerous on my tongue. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to taste you." His thumbs brush the underside of my breasts, and I shiver. "I want to drink from you the way my son does. I want to know what you feel like in my mouth."

My nipples are aching. Leaking. Begging for release.

"Then do it," I hear myself say. "Please."

He's gentle at first.

His mouth finds my nipple, and he sucks—soft, exploratory, like he's learning. The relief is immediate. Milk flows from me, and I hear him swallow, groan against my flesh.

"Fuck," he breathes. "You taste—I can't—"

"Harder." The word comes out desperate. "Please, harder—"

He obeys.

His mouth clamps down, and he drinks—really drinks, like a starving man at an oasis. His hands grip my waist, pull me closer, and I find myself straddling his lap, my swollen breasts in his face, milk streaming into his mouth.

The sensation is indescribable. Not just physical relief—something deeper. Something primal. Being consumed like this, being needed—

I moan.

He switches to the other breast, and I nearly scream. His hands are everywhere now—my hips, my ass, the soft rolls of my belly. He touches me like I'm precious. Like I'm exactly what he wants.

"I've been so empty," he gasps between swallows. "Since she died. So fucking empty. But you—you—"

"I'm here." I cradle his head against my chest. "I'm here. Take what you need."

He takes everything.

When my breasts are finally empty, he lays me on his bed.

"Let me return the favor."

His mouth finds other places. My throat. My belly—soft and round, nothing like his dead wife probably was. The thick spread of my thighs, which part for him without hesitation.

When his tongue finds my center, I cry out.

He's skilled. Patient. He works me with the same intensity he brought to drinking from me—like he needs this, like consuming my pleasure is as vital as consuming my milk. I come twice before he finally rises, strips off his robe, and positions himself between my legs.

"Is this allowed?" he asks. "In your contract—"

"Fuck the contract."

He enters me in one smooth thrust.

We move together like we've been doing this for years.

His hands grip my hips—sinking into the soft flesh, using my body as leverage. He drives into me with a desperation that matches my own—a man who's been starving finding sustenance at last.

"You're incredible," he pants. "So soft—so full—"

"Harder. I can take it."

He gives me harder. Pounds into me until the bed shakes, until I'm screaming, until milk starts leaking from my overstimulated breasts again—and then he's there, his mouth on my nipple, drinking while he fucks me, and I shatter into a thousand pieces.

I come so hard I black out.

When I resurface, he's still inside me, still drinking, his own release pulsing hot and deep.

"This wasn't in the contract," I say later.

We're tangled in his sheets, my body aching in the best ways. My breasts are finally empty, finally at peace. His head rests on my chest like a child's.

"I'll write a new one." His voice is sleepy. Satisfied. "Room and board. Personal services to the lord of the house. Lifetime position."

"You can't be serious."

"I haven't felt alive in three months." He lifts his head, looks at me with those storm-grey eyes. "Not since Charlotte died. But tonight—with you—I remembered what it feels like to want something. To need something."

"I'm your wet nurse."

"You're whatever I need you to be. And right now—" He pulls me closer. "—I need you to be mine. Completely. Permanently."

I should refuse. Should remember my place, my profession, the lines that shouldn't be crossed.

Instead, I kiss him.

"Write the new contract," I say against his mouth. "I'll sign it."

The heir grows up healthy and strong.

He knows me as the woman who nursed him, then as his father's partner, then—eventually—as his stepmother. The world thinks Marcus Ashworth remarried too quickly, too strangely, to a woman too old and too fat and too common.

We don't care.

In our bedroom, in the dark hours of the morning, he still drinks from me. Still buries his face in my abundant flesh. Still looks at me like I'm the only source of nourishment he's ever needed.

"I love you," he says, and milk pearls on his lips.

"I love you too." I pull him closer, let him latch again. "Now drink."

He drinks.

And somewhere in the Neo-Caribbean, a wet nurse becomes a wife, a servant becomes a lady, and two people who never should have touched find in each other the only sustenance that matters.

Fill me. Empty me. Fill me again.

Forever.