by TJ Cross
I turned around and lifted my shoulders and head up, almost in a sit-up, crunching my abdomen as I pulled my knees to my chest, so he had the most glorious angle to my ass.
"Fuck me, it's New Year's Day," I grinned, feeling him pile down on me again, his cock needing no help from his hands as it guided perfectly right against the opening of my ass.
Clenching hard in resistance, I wanted him to realize the sort of strength and force he would need to make his way into me again.
His cock moved forth with a confidence that already made me convinced I was his. He had taken me in various positions that night -- from the very first time we fucked, just as the fireworks lit the sky up -- but this was by far the most intimate way we had coupled.
It was more than that...
As he fucked me, I had one thought in my mind: that this was like we were mating.
Passion and intensity marked our every bout together, but nothing quite was as impressively sexy as the way he thrusted in and out of me, repeating the motion in a seamless wave of back-and-forth actions with his hips, his cock disappearing into me and then withdrawing all the way until just before the tip.
My body had fallen into a routine, maximizing the pleasure I enjoyed by tightening my ass, clenching down as he withdrew, then relaxing as he began to take me forward again. I felt every slightest micro-movement on my body come like it was an avalanche of physical sensation.
He had me feeling so incredibly sensitive, my temperature burning under the warmth of his body and the heat pregnant in the air as we continued to fuck.
I remembered sweating so much I thought I was going to lose a few pounds just from the water weight I had shed. I remembered the way he held down on my throat, choking me sexily, with his thumbs nearly slipping from the locked position he wanted me in... all the result of our copious sweat together.
Fucking him was like filling my body with the most amazing flame... becoming an elemental presence, absorbing the fire and making it my own.
And there and then, without warning, without the threat shared to me with a teasing wink and the moans through gritted teeth... he came, again.
It was always the most lavish feeling, the way I felt like he bathed me with light, and a lightness, upon his climax inside me. The heat I had felt inside me commingled with a liquid warmth that filled me full. Only sighs followed -- mine, absolutely content; his, still ravenous for me.
As soon as I looked into Everett's eyes, in the meeting room, I could already determine the exact moment he had gotten me pregnant.
"Everett," I murmured, placing my hands on his lap. To my relief, he didn't flinch away, or move my hands. "I know this isn't something that's easy for you, but trust me, it's not easy for me either. That night we shared, well, I'm pregnant now."
He nodded. "I can sense that, yes. But... you are aware that's not possible, right?"
I laughed at the absurdity of everyone continuing to deny this simple truth. "You're the one with magical powers, jeez. If you can so much as look at me and sense that I'm pregnant... how is it you're too afraid to reach out with your feelings and understand that it's yours?"
"I'm not afraid," he answered quickly. He narrowed his eyes at me, unhappy at my accusation.
"But what, then?"
He paused, looking around the room, finally latching his gaze on the elaborately carved mahogany desk positioned at an angle behind the wraparound corner office window.
"This is just... impossible. I can't sire an heir in you without a very specific set of circumstances."
I raised my eyebrows, ready to recite what his mother had told me. "You mean true love?"
He looked down, treading carefully to avoid hurting me with casual disrespect. "I absolutely enjoyed that night we had, and while it's not in my nature to see the same person twice... in your case, I'd make an exception. You're incredible, Finn, but you know I'm not in love with you. Or you with me."
He said that with a twinkle of rebelliousness in his eyes, as if he was challenging me to tell him that I was in love with him.
I felt my heart beat faster and faster at the idea of possibly being in love with him. There was a distant pang of emotion somewhere in me, but it couldn't influence me: I knew the truth, and that was that I wasn't in love.
Yes, the crush I had for him was massive, and I knew that if we were given a chance together, something truly great would build sturdy and strong... but I didn't even know the man. I wasn't in love with him.
Hell, he hadn't even been in the forefront of my mind up until the day I woke up and started suspecting there was something changing in my body.
I had never had sex as good as I had with him, but that was just... sex. Us chasing our lusts and slaking it on each other was no doubt special, but came nowhere near the sort of significance that love could have.
So he was right. "But that doesn't change the fact that I'm pregnant."
"The caveat involving love is specific to my kind of shifter," Everett was quick to add. "If you've been with another kind, this is not as insurmountable of a problem."
"I've never had sex with a shifter," I said, rolling my eyes. I was not going to let him get off the hook now, hiding himself behind the possibility that like him, I too slept around. "And even if I did, which I repeat that I haven't, there's nobody I've slept with that could possibly have the sort of timeline that could even slightly suggest my pregnancy. You know this, too."
"Actually," Everett bristled, sitting up straighter, "I don't. I know precious little about the Chosen, about how men can get pregnant. I've never once thought about it. I honestly can say I didn't care one bit. Until the night we met, I didn't even consider myself gay."
I laughed. "So you do admit it. You are gay. That ultra-masculine 'I could fuck any supermodel I want' persona you were hiding behind has finally slipped off."
"Let's just say that night invigorated a side in me that had been incredibly dormant... and that I've since reconciled with the truth that is my true desires," he answered slickly.
Now I looked right into his eyes, desperate to have him understand what I was going through. "I just need to say this: I don't care that you or your mother don't think I can be pregnant. I am pregnant, and it's your child. Whether you want to be part of my life -- and the child's, if I keep it -- you need to be the one to decide that."
"Yes," he said, although while my heart soared once more thinking he was accepting my offer to be part of my life for the baby, I realized he was just acknowledging and processing what I was saying.
"Any more argument on whether I can or can't be pregnant is entirely academic at this point," I added. "I am pregnant, and that's something both you and your mother can detect. It really doesn't matter to me if you try to deny that it's yours. I'm not here to lay claim to your money or your company or anything like that. I'm here to--"
I was interrupted before I could complete my sentence. "You're here to lay claim to my life," he said, a steely edge coming to his voice, as if he had decided he no longer wanted this meeting with me.
"No," I insisted.
"Finn, again, I really liked all the things we did together -- and maybe in an alternate universe, I'd be the kind of man who'd be interested in getting to know you better. But honestly? That person isn't me. I'm deeply uninterested in any sort of relationship right now. Unlike you, I'll be alive for many, many more centuries to go. Anything I embark on with a human will only be a recipe for heartbreak for me. I've already experienced that once, and I don't intend to ever again," he said. "True love is what creates the Chosen, they say, but in this case... it's wrong. I'm not in a right place for true love."
"You could be," I suggested softly.
"I'm sorry, Finn. I really don't think so. If you'll give me a few days to gather my thoughts about the baby, I'll get back to your afterwards with my ideas on how I would proceed. Whether I could find it in me to contribute to the baby's life, whether I could at least try to build a friendship with you. Something that
I warn you will have to be based on a lack of commitment, because I'm a very busy man."
That last comment got me snorting. "I can tell that."
"My kind don't take well to surprises like this, but I want to praise you for how well you've managed this. You came through Foster, then my mother, and here I am now. You may not have all the answers you want, but at least you know how I stand on this. And I'm not interested in a relationship... it's not what I do," he said, with an air of finality.
I wanted to sigh and stand up and leave, but I forced myself to stay put, letting him continue speaking if he wanted, negotiating in the tense silence between us if he didn't. But in the end even I had to say something. "I'm not entirely ignorant about shifters," I noted. "But you're greatly exaggerating your lifespan here. Sure, you'll live longer than I will. But you won't be doing so for more than, what, forty or fifty years."
Everett shook his head, surprising me with his gesture. "Not for my kind. You're only thinking in terms of years and decades. For us, we think in terms of centuries, millennia..."
"And what's your kind? Some sort of undying mythical beast?" I asked, biting back a tone of sarcasm.
"I'm a dragon, Finn," he said. My jaw dropped as I came to understand a lot of things at once, upon the revelation. "Even confessing that was a dangerous thing for me."
Something had clicked in place. Dragons were not hunted by humans, but suspicion grew at that species, perhaps the only shifter species with a heritage that boasted a link to ancient mythology.
They were classified under the exotics -- meaning many anthropologists studying the world and culture of shifters had never been able to conclusively prove their existence, at least a community level.
Rumors I had heard involving the dragons were far from pleasant. They all came to my ear through more common shifter breeds, especially wolves, who were happy to spread these rumors to attack the dragons -- who, if they existed, were unquestionably at the top of the food chain.
It struck me as a little strange that the Copperwinds were so openly powerful, influential and wealthy... but that also made sense given the other primary stereotype of the dragon kind: that they were the Illuminati of the shifter world, that they controlled whole governments and giant corporations through their shadowy plays.
"A dragon," I murmured. "Are you, ah, open about this?"
He shook his head. "The Copperwind name comes with a reputation, of course, but outside of the shifter elite, there's very little need for me to have to tout my lineage. Mother and I have survived centuries. She made it through the great dragon hunts that saw your kind destroy mine... although we deserved it. We had tried to enslave all humans we could find, no matter where we roosted. The dragon inside me is always hot, always greedy, always ready for destruction, Finn."
"But you're a good man," I said, looking into the alpha's eyes.
Everett sighed. "A good man is what it takes to keep the dragon at bay. I am who I am. The dragon is as much who I am, as the human form before you. But make no mistake of it. We are conquerors... no dragon can resist the temptation of ruling over others."
"Even in bed," I remarked, smiling as I remembered the way he so thoroughly dominated me.
He nodded, concurring. "Especially in bed."
We sighed and he actually leaned forward, opening his arms to hug me. I squeezed him back, relieved to feel his body against mine. "If that's a dragon inside you... I don't imagine carrying him to term will be at all easy."
"Why aren't I sitting on a dragon egg instead?" I asked him, trying to turn the seriousness of our conversation a little lighter.
He smiled, chuckling to himself. "Well, look at you. You're hardly the kind of ah, Chosen-bearer who'd lay an egg, are you?"
"Does that mean chicken shifters exist?" I joked back.
Being in the alpha's presence strangely gave me a boost to my morale, even if he was essentially telling me he would have no part in my baby. I knew he wanted a few days to gather his thoughts, but the reality was even I knew a rejection when it came.
"This is my private number," he eventually said, offering me a card. "I've scribbled my mother's number on the back. We're both going to be interested to keep up with your situation. Update us, okay? Don't be a stranger. And don't worry about money. I really don't know if that baby you have is mine... because I stand by the facts."
"That only true love can bear a male pregnancy," I completed for him.
"Yes. I'm sorry."
I held his hands briefly. "You would be doing me the world's biggest favor if you would just try to pay attention to your instincts and sense out the baby inside me. It's there. It's yours, born of your seed, Everett."
He looked away. In any other position I would have understood why he would refuse me: to face the possibility of my pregnancy was one thing, but to confront that it was real, against every possible belief he held dear... that would be too much.
All I could was hope that he might change his mind in the future... but I was ready to move on with my life, ready to head back home and figure out my next step, with or without the alpha.
CHAPTER SIX
The days that followed seemed to blur away. I wouldn't go as far as say that I felt like I was depressed, but handling the pregnancy -- even at its early, barely noticeable stage -- alone was a lot for me. It made me feel like I was isolated from the world.
One day I decided to just get whatever hook-up or dating app on my phone and try to see if I could bring myself to fuck away my disappointment over Everett.
The image of him was one that was practically etched in my mind now. I saw him, smiling down at me, whenever I closed my eyes. That handsome face, capable of empathizing over my situation better than I had imagined.
I had been unfair to judge him as spoiled and entitled. Clearly the arrogance was there, but he was also capable of incredible kindness... like gently letting me down over his refusal to examine if it was indeed his child inside me.
Part of me had, in the days after, tried to justify his behavior by explaining it away as a perfectly normal thing. Maybe he couldn't do that, maybe his dragon powers could only stretch so far.
A shiver ran through me as I thought back on the idea of him truly being a dragon. Was it something that terrified me, or was it something that turned me on? It explained so much. The old money wealth of the Copperwinds, their control over so many industries, right down to the exact inflections of the accent present in the way Everett and his mother spoke.
They were intense private people. The fact that I had now entered the periphery of their busy worlds was a miracle enough.
But it wasn't enough for me, or for the baby inside me. One day my child was going to need to know about his father -- and I had no intention of lying. I was already bracing myself for the possibility of raising my child alone, of having it know that Everett was the father... just one who, for the extremely nebulous reason of 'it's impossible', simply refused to be there for us.
Already I was feeling so incredibly paternal over my child. I dangled the option of an easy way out from this pregnancy, but even as I considered it, I realized it would probably not be as easy with a miracle dragon womb inside me as it would have been with a human.
Nothing I had searched online even broached the prospect of my full extent of options, as someone impregnated under the auspices of this magical Chosen thing the shifters kept referring to.
What did it mean to be Chosen? Only my baby would know. It was strange to learn that shifters held an unusually powerful regard and superstition over the birth of a child born to two male parents. I mean, of course it was an anomaly: the very fact that I could get pregnant was an amazing feat, but the way I understood the concept of this Chosen thing, the more I suspected that there was an almost messianic influence to them.
