“Serena!” Lance called softly. “I can’t hang on much longer.”
“I’m almost there!” she replied, and a couple of strokes later, the climax hit, clamping her pussy around his dick as she screamed into the pillow again. He groaned and held still inside her as his own orgasm hit. Then he collapsed beside her on the bed.
“Fuck,” he said softly. “I’ve missed you.”
She crawled into his arms and rested her head on his chest. “I missed you, too.”
He pulled the condom off and dropped it into the garbage bin beside the nightstand. He cuddled into her, pressing his front against her back and it wasn’t long before he was snoring softly behind her. Serena lay deep in thought. She ran her hand lightly over her breasts, noting the tenderness there. And she thought he was right—they did seem bigger. And when she came, there had been a strange cramping sensation in her lower abdomen. It hadn’t been unpleasant, just different. Panic started to wash through her. She carefully crawled out of Lance’s arms and grabbed the calendar off her desk. She counted backward to the date of her last period. It had been thirty-nine days. She’d never had a perfect twenty-eight day cycle, but it was usually in between twenty-six and thirty-two days. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed how late it had gotten. And she was sure there was only one explanation.
Chapter 16
“Lance! Lance wake up!”
Lance didn’t know where the small voice was coming from. Where was he? He opened his eyes a crack and saw Sam’s face in front of his. The boy’s eyes were wide and scared looking.
“Sam?” he said. “What’s up?”
“It’s my mom,” the boy replied. “She went out early this morning for a bit and when she came back, she locked herself in the bathroom. She’s been in there a while and I can hear her crying but she won’t come out.”
Lance began to pull back the sheet, remembered he was naked, and said, “Go wait in the living room. I’ll get up and check on her in a second.”
Sam left, closing the door behind him. Lance quickly got out of the bed and pulled his pants on. He went across the hall to the bathroom and knocked.
“Serena? What’s wrong?”
“Go away!” came the muffled reply.
Lance jiggled the door handle. It was locked. “Serena, I’m worried about you.”
She didn’t respond this time. He looked at the door handle. It had the kind of lock you could undo from the outside by putting a coin in the slot and turning. He reached into his pockets and pulled out a dime and was opening the door a second later. Serena was sitting on the floor in front of the sink, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her head on them. She was crying quietly, her shoulders shaking with each sob. Lance went over and knelt down in front of her. He reached out and touched her shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her, but got no response. Flustered, he ran his hand through his hair as he looked around. He saw a small box on the counter under an unfolded instruction sheet. Beside it was a flat, plastic, sticklike thing. He picked it up and looked at it. On the top were two round openings. In each opening was a whitish surface. One had a single blue line through it. The other had two blue lines. What the hell? He picked up the instruction sheet and two words stopped him. Pregnancy test. He glanced quickly over the sheet until he found a diagram that matched the stick. Underneath that, a caption said, “If two lines appear in the results window, the test is positive. You are pregnant.”
Lance sat on the floor, stunned. Serena was pregnant. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been out having wild, unprotected sex with a bunch of men in the last few weeks, so that meant either he or Liam was the father. He suddenly felt overwhelmed with happiness. She was having their baby! They would finally get a chance to be dads. He pulled her into his arms.
“Serena,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she cried. “It was hard enough raising one child by myself! I can’t handle two!”
Confused, Lance said, “Why would you be by yourself? You’ll have me and Liam.”
She laughed derisively. “Right. Liam blames me for you getting shot, and how can I expect you to stick around and help raise your brother’s baby?”
“How do you know it’s Liam’s?” he asked.
“The day you were shot,” she said. “He fucked me in the ICU waiting room. It was spontaneous, and we didn’t use anything.”
“You fucked my brother in the hospital waiting room, while you didn’t know if I would live or die?”
She sobbed louder. “It was incredibly insensitive, I know. He just, he needed me.”
Lance stroked her hair. “I’m not mad,” he said. “That came out wrong. I was just surprised. Serena, I’m happy about this. We’ve always wanted kids.”
But Serena just sobbed harder. Lance couldn’t get her to calm down. Finally, he stood and left her there, saying he’d be back later. He went out to the living room.
“Is Mom okay?” Sam asked.
“She’s just a little upset,” Lance said. “But it’ll be okay. I need to go get Liam and we have to get a surprise for her to make her feel better. Do you want to come along?”
“Okay!” Sam said.
They drove out to the house and when they got there, Sam made a beeline for the giant aquarium.
“Hey, kiddo,” Liam said. “What’re you doing here?”
“Mom’s not feeling well, so Lance and me came to get you and a surprise for her.”
Liam looked up at Lance, who beckoned him into the kitchen.
“Liam, did you have sex with Serena in the hospital waiting room the day I got shot?” Lance asked.
Liam’s jaw dropped open and Lance had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing at the guilty look on his brother’s face.
“I…we…fuck,” he exclaimed. “I was upset. I thought I was going to lose you and I didn’t want her to leave. So I kissed her and, well…”
“It was spontaneous, so I’ve heard,” Lance said with a grin.
Liam let out a breath. “You’re not upset?”
“No,” Lance said. “I understand how it could have happened. But I can’t believe you got so carried away you forgot protection.”
“We—” Liam began but stopped short. “Oh, shit. Is she…?”
“Pregnant,” Lance said. “Yes, she is.”
Liam didn’t do anything for a moment. Then a grin spread across his face. “I’m going to be a dad?”
“We are going to be dads,” Lance said. “Because you can’t have her all to yourself. We are going to get her to marry us, and you’d better figure out a way to apologize for being an ass.”
“How can she marry both of us?” Liam said.
“Well, technically she can’t,” Lance said. “So my name can go on the license. But we can live like we’re both married to her. The three of us can sleep together and raise the kids as a team.”
“Great,” said Liam. “I’m all for it. But how are we going to convince her?”
“I’ve got a plan.”
* * * *
Serena was curled up in her bed. She had finally come out of the bathroom after her legs began to stiffen from being bent in one position for so long. She had found a note from Lance saying he’d taken Sam to the store and would be back later. She lay there, stroking her belly, and worrying about what would happen now. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to get herself knocked up again. She hadn’t thought about the lack of protection that day at the hospital until later, but with everything that had happened, it slipped her mind. And it was just once! How did she get herself into these messes?
She heard the door open and Sam yelling for her. Sighing, she got out of the bed, knowing she couldn’t sulk forever. When she came down the hall, she froze. Lance and Liam were both standing there, holding a fish bag. Inside, she saw several colourful fish flashing as they swam. She looked up at them.
Liam cleared his throat. “These are neon tetras,” he said. “They’re schooli
ng fish. Schooling fish need to have a family. If you keep them by themselves, they get lonely and stressed out and they hide from the other fish. We brought five because that’s the minimum number you should have in a tank.”
Serena’s eyes brimmed with tears again. Trust the Dalton brothers to come up with a fish metaphor.
“Five is a good size for a family of fish,” Lance said. “Although the more there are, the happier they are. The fish need each other if they are going to be happy and healthy.”
She began sobbing now as they handed her the bag. Tied around the top was a simple gold band with a small diamond set in the middle. Serena’s hand went to her mouth as both of them got down on one knee before her.
“Serena,” said Liam. “I need you. I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”
“Our family needs more members,” Lance said. “And I think yours does, too. I love you so much. We love Sam, and we will love our baby. Please say that we can be a family.”
She looked from one to the other, sure that she would burst with happiness. She dropped to her knees and threw an arm around each of them.
“We can be a family,” she said.
They each kissed her, and Lance untied the ring so he could slide it onto her finger.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she looked at it.
“It was our mother’s ring,” Liam said. “That was my idea.”
She kissed him and then Lance again. Sam came over and threw his arms around the three of them.
“So I get to have two dads now?” he said.
“And a little brother or sister,” Serena told him.
“Awesome!” he exclaimed.
And Serena couldn’t help but agree.
Epilogue
Serena watched her family in the pool. My own little school of fish. Sam was diving to the bottom of the pool to retrieve the weighted toys he had dropped there, crowing with delight each time he succeeded. Liam and Lance were bobbing through the water, each one carrying one of the fifteen-month-old twins in his arms. Liam was holding Logan and Lance was holding Savannah. The babies cooed and giggled with delight as their fathers played with them. She couldn’t imagine life being more perfect. Well, she thought as she patted her belly, it won’t be more perfect until five months from now.
It was hard to believe how far they had come over the last two years. Serena and Lance had been married in a civil service at the courthouse, with Liam as best man. That had been followed by a commitment ceremony at the house. Their arrangement had initially been met with shock by Serena’s family, but once her parents had met Liam and Lance and seen how dedicated they were to her and Sam, they had overcome their objections. She became a bit teary as she remembered her son and her father walking her down the aisle. The ceremony had been so beautiful.
The reactions of the community had been varied. They had received some nasty calls and letters from the more religious minded in Hedon Falls, telling them they would be damned to hell, or offering to help them find salvation. That had bothered Liam more than Serena or Lance, but he always seemed to be the more sensitive one. Their friends had all been happy for them, and the rest of the community didn’t seem to care one way or the other, especially because they had gotten a lot of sympathy after Jenna’s meltdown in the store. Sometimes Serena still got angry when she thought about how Angela had set Jenna off in the first place. Serena couldn’t stand the hostility she was getting from her boss, and she had quit her job shortly after Liam and Lance proposed. Since then, she had been working on all the marketing for the store. She had started an online arm for the business, which was proving to be very lucrative, and she looked after that while the twins took care of the store.
Serena enjoyed working from home, especially since it allowed her to be with her babies. They had been overjoyed when they discovered she was expecting twins. One of the happiest days of her life had been the day they were born. And Sam was a wonderful big brother. He had helped her with feeding them, changing diapers, and entertaining them while Serena worked. He had seemed less excited when they told him Serena was expecting again.
“Another baby?” Sam had said. “I’m busy enough with those two!” She smiled as she remembered the conversation. He had warmed up to the idea, though she wondered how he would react when he heard the latest news. She called for everyone to come to dinner. They climbed out of the pool, and she laughed as Savannah wobbled over to the patio table on her chubby little legs, her brother crying in protest as he crawled along behind her. Sam scooped Logan up and blew a raspberry on his tummy, which had the younger boy squealing with laughter. After putting the twins securely in their high chairs, Serena placed a plate of diced chicken and cubed carrots in front of each of them. The other boys dug into their own dinner, and it became comfortably quiet as everyone ate their fill. When they were finished, Serena looked around the table.
“You know,” she said to her husbands, “I think we need to get a bigger patio set.”
“Why would we need to do that?” Liam asked. “There’s enough room.”
“Not for eight,” she said with a smile.
“What do you mean eight?” he replied. “There are six of us now, and when the baby comes…” He trailed off and looked at her.
“Are you sure?” Lance asked her incredulously.
Serena waved the ultrasound pictures at them, showing two distinct shapes within her womb. “Absolutely sure,” she said, beaming.
“More twins?” said Sam. “Wasn’t one set enough?”
“Apparently,” Serena said, “twins run in the family.”
THE END
MICHELLEGRAHAMEROTICROMANCE.BLOGSPOT.CA
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle Graham has dreamed of being a writer since she was very young. Her stories almost always had a happy ending, and once she reached a certain age, they almost always had romance. Michelle loves to recreate that wonderful feeling of falling head over heels in love. The relationships she writes about are definitely not conventional, but the love is always the same.
Michelle has been in love with her wonderful husband for seventeen years, and they have two children and a variety of animals. She lives in southern Ontario, Canada.
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Landing the Big Ones [Hedon Falls] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 15
