by Jade White
New anxiety lit up inside Macy. “Is something wrong? Is something the matter with the baby? Has something happened?”
The doctor looked at them with an unreadable expression—unreadable, but calm. Then, she softly smiled and replied, “You might say that. Something has happened.”
Squeezing Aaron’s hand again, Macy asked, “What? Just tell us. What’s wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong,” Ling replied. “It’s just…something I didn’t expect.”
“Is it all right?” Aaron asked insistently.
“Not ‘it,’ Mr. Bedford,” Ling answered. “Them.”
Aaron’s eyes widened. He looked down at Macy, whose mouth hung open wordlessly. Macy’s eyes darted back and forth between Aaron and the doctor. She managed to stammer out, “Th-them?”
“Them,” the doctor said with a nod.
“Twins?” Aaron blurted.
“Not two,” the doctor said. “Three. There are three of them.”
Macy gasped loudly, then looked up at Aaron, more shocked now by far than she had been when she saw the plus signs on the sticks. She was close to screaming. “THREE?”
The doctor nodded again. “Triplets.”
Aaron let his hand slip from Macy’s. He rustled both hands through his hair. He spun around on his heels. “Holy crap!” he cried. “Triplets! TRIPLETS! We’ve been preparing for a him or a her and we’re having a…THEM!”
Macy, the hand that a moment ago held Aaron’s now lolling at her side, stared blankly and numbly at the sonogram screen. “Triplets…” she breathed.
“Here, let me show you,” Ling offered. And she began to point out the little shapes that she had found on the image of what was happening in Macy’s body. She indicated them, one at a time. Three.
The number reverberated in Macy’s mind and Aaron’s.
Three.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With the same resolve they had shown in the building of their respective businesses, Macy and Aaron prepared for what would within a year be their new reality as a party of five.
Aaron continued to accompany Macy to all of her doctor’s appointments. This was perhaps the easiest part of it, as each of them was “the boss” at work and could get the time off with no problem. Other adjustments posed a bit more of a challenge.
The first decision was never to spend another night apart. That was the happiest part of their “new normal,” spending every night either at the penthouse or Macy’s apartment. At the beginning, their evenings and overnights were filled with “we’re expecting babies” celebration sex, which was in every way as satisfying as the time they had spent in bed that one fateful weekend, if not more so. After several weeks of this—and of Aaron helping Macy through morning sickness that did not necessarily come first thing in the morning, but was apt to strike at any time of day—came the next decision: to occupy a single residence. The most practical thing, of course, was for Macy to move to the penthouse, which she did. In a very real way, Aaron found himself in a place where he never thought he’d be, at least not now: making space in his home for one woman who would be there for keeps, and changing one of the bedrooms to a nursery.
Then again, the part that made him feel a warmth inside that he’d never known in his life was that very thing of knowing that Macy would be there for keeps and that soon his penthouse would be the home of his family. The alpha dragon had made his nest. It made him feel swollen and puffed up with pride to know this. Let half his walk-in closet and drawer space now be taken up with a woman’s things. Let a woman’s things now occupy his bathroom. Let three cribs and assorted baby things now fill one of his rooms. He was a dragon with a nest, and every unfolding day made him love the reality all the better.
Aaron studied up on the needs of a pregnant spouse—or lover, as the case may be—and made himself an expert on tending to Macy’s needs. One day, he surprised her with a full-body pillow for the bed. Pregnant women, he had learned, did best sleeping on their sides; the full-body pillow was designed to support the back and cradle the belly. Macy would start using this when she began to show. It impressed her that Aaron was actually being proactive about the whole thing and planning things ahead. He was already looking out for her and the little Nathairfear they were expecting, which gave her a most welcome sense of security.
Other things presented a bit more of a challenge, and it was difficult to say whether they were more challenging for Macy or for Aaron. It was Aaron’s love of raw, unbridled, uninhibited, constant sex, and Macy’s love of Aaron’s body and what he brandished below the waist, that had brought them together, and in the carnal abandon of sex, they had fallen in love. But in the third trimester came an abrupt and steep downward shift in Macy’s sex drive. To Aaron’s utter dismay, even though he had read about this and knew it was possible, Macy entered a phase of either wanting him inside her just once a night or not at all. Aaron did his best to cover his disappointment and frustration at this, accustomed as he was to getting as much as he wanted whenever he wanted it. Entering a dry spell, and one should only pardon the expression, was a complete shock to Aaron’s libido. He did not complain to Macy because it would only make him sound insensitive and selfish, and hurt her feelings. But during this time, Aaron found himself spending more time in the gym than he had spent since his early modeling days, straining and grunting with his weights and on his machines the way he wished he were doing on top of his frustratingly disinterested mate. Alone in the shower after a workout, he would gratify himself with his hand the way he wished Macy were gratifying him with her mouth or with a vigorous pumping between her thighs, and he would pour out his appreciation onto the shower floor as he wished he were pouring it into her.
It was to his everlasting credit, however, that Aaron never came to Macy with indignation or wounded pride or masculine demands. He was not that kind of Alpha. Instead, at those moments when he was feeling most depressed for want of sex, or when Macy was feeling most uncertain and insecure and frightened, Aaron never missed an opportunity to reassure her of his real feelings. One night, Aaron came into the bedroom from the shower after a workout, towel draped over his shoulders but otherwise naked. His hose hung stiffening, hoping for at least one time inside Macy in spite of the odds against it. He found her sitting up on the bed, clad only in a T-shirt—crying. For an instant, he froze there, the sight of Macy in tears cutting cruelly through him. Then, he bolted from where he stood and bounded onto the bed to take her in his arms and ask her what was wrong. Macy poured out her heart with her tears about her own frustrations with working through nausea and the image of herself becoming fat and unattractive, and her worries about her loss of desire leaving Aaron unsatisfied, and her fear that not being there for Aaron sexually would make him not want her. Aaron held her and took in all the feelings she was expressing, and when she was done, he softly, gently told her, “Sweetheart, not wanting you, that’s not going to happen. I never expected you to end up carrying one of my kids, let alone three. But here we are, looking forward to something neither of us has ever expected, and it’s hard on both of us—but it doesn’t nearly turn me off. Not a bit. I’ll tell you what: it makes me proud. I'm proud of us for committing to this. I’m proud of you for wanting to have my kids. And I’ll tell you something else: the day you told me you were pregnant, I thought I knew how much I’d fallen in love with you. But it didn’t even come close to how it feels now. I’ve loved you more every day, not less. I fall in love with you more all the time.”
Macy wanted to cry again, hearing that. But instead, she felt as though the tears were evaporating inside her, dried by the light of Aaron’s love. She took herself from his embrace just enough to kiss him, a long kiss of unfolding joy. She then broke the embrace and pushed herself to her side of the bed—and peeled off the T-shirt. Casting it aside, she lay herself down naked and offered herself to Aaron. She was not showing—yet—but she soon would be. And she searched his eyes for the look of thrilling lust that he’d worn when they were first together. S
he found it and more. Aaron cast the towel aside, reached over, and petted her muff and stroked her moistening petals and bud. Responding, she petted his hand and his wrist while he petted and played with her sex, and glanced down his body to see his member standing at full, hot, and pulsating attention. With a gaze back into his eyes, Macy invited him. At Macy’s deep sigh and the dreamily aroused shutting of her eyes, he moved on top of her and slipped his fully erect pipe into her. He made the humping last a long time. He went slowly, pausing to hold it inside her and grind his crotch in circles against her mound, stoking the fire inside them and making it hotter, then continuing his deliberate and sweet thrusts. Having missed it so many nights, Aaron wanted to make it something for them both to savor, and they did. He was in her for almost an hour before he came, having brought her to climax by the rubbing of his pubis at her bud. It was the only time he did it to her that night, but that night, once was plenty.
Macy insisted on continuing to work. Her business was exactly that—her business. She owned it and was responsible for everything that happened in it, regardless of the present situation. Her condition notwithstanding, she wanted to work. She could easily have gone on leave, delegated most of her work to staff, and telecommuted, supervising from afar, and Aaron had suggested it to her more than once. Each time, her answer was the same. She had no interest in spending her days hanging around the penthouse, going back and forth from bed to the gym to the office to the bathroom. She needed to work until the last possible moment, even if it meant she was in the middle of a commercial shoot when her water broke. Aaron cared neither for the idea of it nor the image that it put in his mind. He would much rather have her at home, preferably with him, when that time came, so that he could take care of her on the spot. But there was actually no way of knowing when and under what circumstances the moment would come, and Aaron decided the wiser thing was to give in and not fight her on this. He made no protest at Macy continuing to work, and work she did.
_______________
In the eleventh week, Macy could just fit into a non-maternity party dress for the annual Manhattan Media Awards gala. It came every year, and every year she went, as she had been doing since she worked for her father. Everyone who worked in print and electronic media in New York, and everyone who used media firms in the city, attended. It was a night to see and be seen, to socialize and make contacts and initiate deals and proposals. Even if she had been showing, Macy would have wanted to go. She would have gone proudly, pregnant “out to there” with Aaron on her arm, and held up her head. As it happened, there was no need for her to present herself to her gathered industry and its clients in full bloom of pregnancy, and there would be no need to mention it at all if she preferred to keep it quiet. If anyone pointed out that she was gaining a little weight, it would be easy enough for Macy to say that she was now living with a billionaire who was spoiling her and leave it at that. She would play it by ear, and whatever happened would just happen. Outside the entrance to their building, Rudd Ainsleigh was waiting by a white limousine in which he would drive them to the party. Rudd complimented Macy on how especially lovely she looked this evening. Macy thanked him, he helped her and Aaron into the spacious back seat, and off they went.
The event was held at the Plaza Hotel and was as glittering as ever. It reminded her of the night she and Aaron met, except in a public setting. There was an awards presentation, at which it happened that Macy and her firm were not nominated for anything this year. Macy did not care. She had her award, and he had given her three little prizes that she would treasure more than any plaque or statue.
It was the same beautiful, glittering evening that it always was, and Macy had no reason to expect it to be anything else—until it came time for the after-dinner socializing.
At first, nothing seemed amiss. She expected to be surrounded by other women, mostly those she knew or those with whom she had worked, who were intrigued at, and a little envious of her relationship with Aaron, and wanted to know all about the two of them. And she was. As soon as dessert was over and people began to get up from their tables and cross over to other tables to talk, and gather together in clusters of friends and acquaintances, Macy found herself in one part of the room with other formally dressed women while Aaron became part of a nearby knot of men in suits in another part of the room. Aaron took care to keep Macy within his line of sight, attentive to his mate and the mother of his nest even when they were not within arm’s length. Out of the corner of her eye, Macy watched him watching her even as she was set upon by fascinated females.
Macy was buffeted with questions, some of them more intimate than she would expect anyone to ask. But then again, she was in the company of other women, and women did like to talk. Some of the things they were asking her, she would expect to be confined to the more discreet setting of a ladies’ restroom, but at least they were lowering their voices. She was rather relieved that the most intimate and personal questions came from the women who knew her best or those with whom she had worked most closely, but still, this was hardly the kind of talk in which she expected to be engaging this evening. She supposed she was being naive to think they would not ask these things. She was, after all, living with and sharing the bed of one of the wealthiest, hottest men in New York and indeed the whole country. It was to be expected that people would want to know these things. Macy minded her manners and either answered as discreetly as she could or deflected as gracefully as she knew how.
Through it all, she was sorely tempted just to blurt out, I’m pregnant with him, and we’re having triplets, just to see how they’d all react. She pictured the cluster of women surrounding her to make such a collective gasp that everyone present would faint for a sudden lack of oxygen. She imagined lower jaws dropping onto bosoms, eyes bouncing forth like ping pong balls, squeals rising to the ceiling. People were always taken aback to learn that a human woman was having a child with a Nathairfear regardless, but if Macy were to drop this piece of information on them that she was expecting three little dragons, the hotel staff would no doubt be running for the smelling salts. She volunteered no information on that subject.
Her next surprise was the last person to join in on the conversation.
The woman came striding up in a flowing, off-white gown, moving in a way that made her seem almost as if she were levitating over the floor. Macy blinked at the newcomer at first, certain that she had seen this person somewhere before. She was definitely familiar; the decoration—no, the transformation—of parts of her skin was definitely something that Macy had seen, and she soon remembered where. The red hair and the natural dragon scales on her neck, shoulders, and arms, and the rows of small horns dotting either side of the top of her forehead all took Macy back to the night that changed her life. She had seen this woman, though not spoken any more than common pleasantries to her, the night of Aaron’s birthday party.
She stopped in front of Macy. Other women nearby instinctively moved to one side, as human females sometimes did in the presence of a dragon female showing her nature. Macy suspected the woman had shifted part of her human skin into scales deliberately, both to get her attention and to create a space in the gathering and the conversation. And it worked. Everyone went silent at the arrival of Sophia Leland.
“Macy, how do you do? I hope you remember me,” Sophia said.
“Yes, Sophia, I remember you,” said Macy, cordially and curiously.
“I know we didn’t have much of a chance to talk at Aaron’s party,” said Sophia, “but you caught my eye that evening because I could tell how much you’d caught Aaron’s eye. I noticed how he never let you out of his sight once he arrived.”
Macy glanced over at Aaron again, and once again he was casting a watchful eye in her direction, noting that she and Sophia were speaking. “Aaron,” she said, politely turning her attention back to Sophia, “is a very good host.”
“Yes…yes, he is,” Sophia replied in a tone that suggested she knew something that she wasn’t sayin
g.
At that moment, Macy flashed back to that night and remembered the little pas de deux that she and Aaron had done, and of course the hot little detour into the wine room. It was to be expected that people might notice something going on as an undercurrent to the rest of the party. Other people who were there had mentioned to Macy that they sensed something might be going on and that the only surprising thing about her present relationship with Aaron was that it was still in progress and had turned into something that seemed at least to have the intention of permanence. She wondered again what they would think if she told them just how “permanent” it had worked out to be.
In another flash, Macy also remembered what Aaron had told her about Sophia Leland. Oh no, it couldn’t be… she thought, and then she realized that if there were any truth to the redhead’s reputation, she might already have an insight into Macy’s situation that no one else shared.
Sophia asked, “Could I impose on you for a moment, Macy, to discuss something personal? I hope you won’t mind…”
Macy glanced around at the other women gathered and tried to read their quizzical expressions before she politely replied, “Um…of course, Sophia. Is there some problem?”
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘problem,’” Sophia replied. “It’s just something I’d rather discuss between us.”
