by TJ Cross
"No! No. Honestly. I mean, yeah, I'm sort of abstractly fascinated by the idea of guys being pregnant... but not fascinated enough to want it to happen to me. Again, it's just a feeling, okay? I might not be."
"If it was just a feeling you'd be playing on your Playstation right now or planning a goddamn painting or even going out shopping for groceries. You're here at my place, Finn, so I'm going to assume this is more than just a feeling. It's your intuition. It might not even be human intuition, for all I know it could be some sort of lasting shifter presence in you," Rufus explained, sitting down again. "Do you want Jodie to come over?"
"Ugh, I don't even know yet," I answered. "I feel like if I tell her she'll start berating me for making terrible life decisions. I'm unemployed, fresh out of college, wanting to make a name for myself in art... with nothing going for me. I love Jodie, but sometimes when she's in a mean mood all she does is criticize me because unlike her, my life's stuck in a rut."
"I feel you on that, man," Rufus said, offering a sympathetic smile. Of course, as her boyfriend, he'd know exactly what I meant. "You're welcome to chill out here."
"Appreciate it a lot, Rufus," I said, blinking back sudden tears that began to weep out of my eyes.
My friend offered me tissues for me to dab my eyes with. "So, who's the lucky dad? He's got to be in love with you."
"What do you mean?" I said, crying and laughing at the same time. "I wish he was in love with me. But it was just a one-night stand on New Year's Eve with this gorgeous, cocky guy. Everett."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Rufus said, arching his eyebrows. "Chosen pregnancies come from destined mates. You don't understand, humans fall in love, sure, but shifters are fated... they're soul-bound. Love is the mystery that fuels most types of this shifter magic. Even I know that and I'm not gifted in any way when it comes to anything shifter."
"Maybe I was so good in bed he just fell in love with me and he started shooting out super-sperm," I joked, trying to make light of the situation. Rufus' intense protests against me being pregnant from a one-night stand was such a bizarre thing, but then I realized this was no more bizarre than me actually, you know, being pregnant to begin with.
"I think I'm going to have to call a cousin on this," Rufus said. "In the mean time, you may want to get in touch with this Everett."
"I don't even know his last name. Actually, I'm not even sure he knows my first name!" I squeaked.
Rufus grinned. "Whose name did he moan when you were so good in bed, then?"
"Touche," I laughed. "He does know my name. Again, a first name. Good luck finding me."
Rufus led me away from the kitchenette to go to a guest bedroom, which opened out into a balcony he used to dry his clothes on a clothesline. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, looking around for a lighter, before realizing I was with him. "Oh, dammit. I forgot. Sorry, man. Smoke's not going to be good for the baby. Forget about it."
"Or for the budding soccer star," I remarked.
He crumpled the pack and flung it off the balcony. Rufus sighed, rolling his eyes to the back of his head. "Do you know what sort of a shifter Everett is? If he's a wolf he'll be part of a pack, and that pack will want to know about you."
"Didn't say a word about it," I confessed. "If you take away the strong, almost alien features, the whole cold disposition he's got going on, and extremely potent libido, you might even think he was human. But I knew he was a shifter, of course. He wouldn't have been at that party otherwise."
"Probably not," Rufus concurred. He rubbed his hands through his smooth head as he tried to think. "I guess your best bet is with the hotel. You know his hotel room, maybe he's still there. Not unusual for wealthy shifters to eschew homes and prefer living out of fancy hotels instead. Alphas like them love being fawned over, the whole five-star treatment."
He had a great point there. "That sounds exactly like Everett."
"Just be prepared to hear he's not interested in a baby, though," my friend warned, tempering his tough love act with a tenderness that attempted to avoid hurting me.
"That's a discussion between me and him that'll probably have to take place much later down the road," I suggested, my hands instinctively falling to my waist. My belly... if I was going to have a swollen belly.
It would look especially odd on me, I thought. My body type would either make me look extremely pregnant or not at all. I had a swimmer's body, the result of spending every morning I could at the Olympic-sized public pool right by my apartment complex. Staying fit was my favorite thing, the one thing that kept me motivated during periods in which I wasn't enjoying the best of luck.
Being fit was probably what helped capture Everett's eye to begin with.
That night, after our third session -- one in which I had started by telling him to carry me to bed -- I heard him finally catch his breath, panting and recovering slower than before. "You're unbelievable," Everett murmured to me, his lips hovering just over my forehead.
"Keep talking like that and I might just worship your cock again," I grinned, feeling sweat drip from my body to his body to the bed.
"You know I'd always be an appreciative audience for that sort of thing."
So I got down on my hands and knees and started sucking at him, enjoying the way he stiffened rapidly in my mouth despite seemingly having already been drained of any more lust by me over the last few hours.
Now he growled in an even more passionate way, rocking his thighs forward so I would have to adapt to the deeper thrusts by opening my mouth out for him.
He never asked, he only ever took.
But in spite of that somewhat selfish attitude, I found him an endlessly giving lover. He took great pleasure in teasing me before fucking me, using me as he pleased but only so I would derive more and more arousal from submitting to him... a shallow interpretation of this might think he enjoyed fucking me because it exalted him, because every moan I made, every orgasm I had, every scream of his name made him feel powerful.
No, it wasn't that. He was just so naturally dominant.
It made me wish I could see more of it outside of sex, when we tangled together in bed and felt our hearts beat as one, waiting for our bodies to relax enough to go for another round.
"Why are you so goddamn cocky?" I mumbled as I threw a glance over to him.
"Because I deserve it," he answered with his smirk. The ongoing seduction of my body and mind by him had succeeded in changing my opinion about his smirk. He still looked magnificently arrogant when he did that, but that was only after you underlined and emphasized magnificent.
He looked fucking regal.
I closed my eyes again. Thinking about our night together in all its vivid, unforgettable, erotic power... only made me want him again. But I had played this game before. Our rendezvous probably wasn't meant to be repeated.
Cringing at the thought, I suspected he was probably even married.
"Okay," I murmured, looking up to Rufus once more. He shrugged, letting me say or do whatever I wanted, and I eventually thanked him and decided to head out.
At the door, I came across Jodie, who was just coming home. She held large shopping bags in both hands. "Finn!" she said, her eyes lighting up. "Jesus, you look terrible. What the hell's wrong? And, uh... why are you even here at my boyfriend's place?"
"Someone's got a big crush on a center midfielder and wants me to hook him up," Rufus said, casually giving me a cover story.
"Boys and sports. Figures," Jodie shook her head. "You're heading out already, Finn?"
"Err, yeah," I answered. I glanced back to Rufus and then to Jodie once more. "Got a date with the soccer guy. Needed to consult on the right terminology so I don't sound like an idiot. I'm actually about to see him now."
"Well, that's really great for you!" Jodie said, setting her bags down and hugging me. "God knows you've gone too long single."
"Tell me about it," I said drily as I moved to let her pass. I summoned a smile and waved at my best frien
d as she walked inside, then shot a panicked look to Rufus.
Please don't tell her anything!
CHAPTER THREE
"Excuse me, do you know if, um, Everett is still registered as a guest in room 1301?" I tried my luck, as I leaned forward against the lavish marble front desk.
The thin man standing behind the iMac barely gave a glance at me. "And who is asking, if I may?" he said, finally deigning to look at me. I could instantly tell the Pacifica's default attitude to prying questions was to answer them at arm's length, if they were going to answer me at all.
"Someone who left something behind in said suite," I said, biting back any desire to be sassy or sarcastic to him.
"Everett who was that again?"
"I..."
"Last name will suffice, sir," he said, with the lightest lilt of a French accent in the cutting tone he gave me.
"Don't know," I finished, blinking as I prepared myself to face a blank wall. A glance around the reception would tell me just as much. The Pacifica was a hotel styled in the manner of the old world, with solid, luxurious trappings paired perfectly with utmost discretion. The kind of place you'd only hold a party at if you didn't want a lot of attention, especially of the nosey human kind.
"I'm afraid I can't discuss guests -- if your friend is even a guest -- unless you furnish me with proper information about the room," he sneered.
"You know, all I need is to know if he's still staying here or not," I said through my teeth. "I'm not asking for any personal information, just if he's still staying here."
"And what would you do with that information, mister..."
"Graystone," I immediately offered, hoping the pseudo-high class the name sounded would make me seem a lot more important. I stiffened, pushing my shoulders out, intending to look more severe and serious. "Yes, that's right, Graystone."
"Grey or brown or blue or white, what color your stone is has no impact on me," he answered, uncooperatively. "Thank you, sir, and I hope you have a very good day ahead of you."
I left the reception area defeated, making a beeline for the bank of phones by the racks of international newspapers. I glanced over to the reception to make sure Mr Grumpy Front Desk wasn't watching me, and then immediately dialled the room number.
Nobody picked up.
I sat down, picking a comfortable single seater so I could think, and tried to figure out options right now. It was admittedly a pretty long shot that Everett was still staying here. I had no idea if he was even from here, or if he was only visiting for the holiday.
There was the option of walking right up to the suite and knocking on the door until someone opened it, but I had a feeling this was the kind of place that would be all too happy to call security at even the slightest whiff of a nuisance like that.
Who even knew if Everett -- assuming he was still lodged here -- was even in the hotel? I glanced over at my watch, a cheap Timex I had been gifted by my grandfather. "Could be at lunch," I decided.
If that was the case then I would wait for him, shifting seats so I could have a vantage point of everyone who entered through the front door. The man at the front desk noticed me and shrugged with a shake of his head, clearly unwilling to bother his day by removing me from the hotel.
All I was going to do was wait, anyway.
I heard the elevator ding and my heart jumped inside me, hoping it would be him. Instead it was just a group of older couples, all white-haired and chatty and clearly excited about whatever fancy restaurant they had reserved a table at.
But from that group emerging from the elevator slipped someone who I thought was familiar, although I couldn't place him. I watched the man idly, trying to figure it out. He had the most average face and body you could ever imagine: dark slicked-back hair with a high hairline, beady eyes that surely hid secrets of some sort, an undistinguished nose his frameless glasses rested on, and a thin mouth covered with stubble.
I felt my mind click as I recognized where I knew him from. I immediately stood up and followed after him, waving him down and whispering to get his attention.
"Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me," I said.
He turned around, displeased to be stopped on his way out. "Yes?"
"I met you at the New Year's Eve party here. Your name is... Ian, was it?"
"No, Ivor," he said, beginning to turn away.
"We spoke for a short while, well, it was in a group. My name's Finn. I just have a few questions, if you don't mind."
He regarded me with a little more distrust and surprise when he heard me say I wanted to ask him a few questions. This probably wasn't the best course of action, I realized. "Are you a journalist of some sort?"
"No, just a..." I said, trailing off as I found no way to answer his question.
"Just a?"
"Jilted lover, so to speak," I finally said, shrugging. "I remember you introducing yourself to me as a shifter, and I'm sort of trying to find this shifter I met at the party. It's important."
"Community's pretty small in this city. You don't need my help to find the guy," he said, eyes glancing back at the door as he impatiently waited for me to leave him.
"But all I know is his first name. Everett. Do you know any shifters named Everett, and do you know where I could find him?"
The man burst out laughing. "You're telling me you were with Everett Copperwind? Be serious. I had no idea the heir preferred a spot of buggery."
I made a face as Ivor gave his unfriendly spiel. "Okay..."
"You can't not be able to find Everett Copperwind. His family practically owns the damn city."
"Like the wine?" I asked blurrily, remembering the casks and bottles of the fine alcohol from the party.
"Like the big construction company, like the big media powerhouse, like the big owns-everything empire. Just walk outside until you see the skyscraper with the big neon C at the top. You'll find the Copperwinds there," he said. "Are we done here?"
"Well, uh, thanks for telling me his last name," I said, letting him leave.
"I'd definitely appreciate it if you mentioned that it was Ivor Hampstead who helped you find him," he said, now smiling. "I hear Copperwinds are very grateful people, when they get what they want."
"Uh huh," I said, turning away. Now I had a name.
I could have done what Ivor suggested, which was to walk right up to their building and demand to talk to the man who had gotten me pregnant... but I knew a hostile surprise like that would only result in having me thrown out of the building.
That wasn't something I wanted at all.
It took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts before I decided to head back home, ignoring the texts that came from both Jodie and Rufus -- checking in on me, although in Jodie's case just so she could ask me out for a night of wine and TV binge-watching, I suspected.
No, today I had a mission. I needed to get in touch with Everett Copperwind. Now the doubt had disappeared from me. I knew I was pregnant, with my conviction on this as sure as me knowing my name, or that I was alive.
CHAPTER FOUR
"I'm Francis Foster," the man entering the office said, choosing a neutral seat beside me, rather than the more authoritative position of sitting across from me behind a desk. "I represent Mr. Copperwind in a number of important affairs, as well as the wider Copperwind family. Consider me a... gatekeeper. I'm here to listen to what you have to say, and decide from there."
