“Carson,” Fabian sighed out, long-suffering.
“Oh,” Alex said, slowly. He kept a hand on Jeremiah’s shoulder, turning to Fabian. Something unspoken and serious passed between them. Jeremiah kicked his feet against the chair, waiting for whatever bro-ritual was occurring to conclude.
“So, hungry, huh?” Alex said after a moment, turning appraisingly to Jeremiah. “We feeling cereal or we feeling eggs?”
Jeremiah nodded, preening a little. “Yes, please.”
Alex laughed, sharing a fond look over Jeremiah’s head with Fabian, which Jeremiah pretended to scowl at. Mostly he felt warm and still a little dizzy from fainting and the baby was moving around and it was perfect.
“You want some breakfast too?” Alex asked Fabian.
Fabian looked to Jeremiah, who nodded begrudgingly.“Only if you let Emily come over and play too. It was unfair that you got to keep her in the separation.”
“She’s my fiancée, man.”
“Erroneous. Erroneous on all counts.”
Fabian and Alex laughed, and Jeremiah grinned, helpless.
“Yeah, man. Cereal, please,” Fabian told Alex.
They ate breakfast, and Jeremiah smiled the entire time, helpless to do anything but.
***
The fact was, though, Jeremiah couldn’t help but be a monster a lot of the time, and it was becoming a problem.
He found that no matter what Alex said, it was impossible for Jeremiah to believe that Alex had really forgiven him-there was just no way. It didn’t make any sense.
So Jeremiah started to push at him. Pick at Alex’s cool exterior. Anything to get him to finally yell and scream and punish Jeremiah like he really deserved.
Alex resisted, stubbornly, for weeks, but slowly Jeremiah got to him. Jeremiah didn’t know how he had held out for that long; he was truly being such a pain in the ass.
But he couldn’t stop. He just needed Alex to be sure, was the thing. That he really wanted this. That he knew Jeremiah wasn’t going to get any easier. Far from it. That there might be a cute baby at the end of this, but Jeremiah was definitely the weaker half of that bargain.
So he kept pushing, and Alex’s mouth started to affect a constant grim line, and Jeremiah didn’t know what he was trying to prove, really.
It came to a head with Jeremiah throwing a dish in the sink one afternoon and whirling on Alex, who was stonily refusing to argue back. “Just leave me alone, then, if you’re going to ignore me.” He stomped into the bedroom, flopping down, fuming.
Alex came barreling in after him, apparently ready to fight. Finally. Jeremiah didn’t know why he was so unnerved at the prospect, if it was what he had been angling for.
He watched Alex sit hard on the bed, Jeremiah obstinately refusing to sit up, crossing his arms and glaring. Rolling his eyes, Alex caught his hands and trapped them against the bed above Jeremiah’s head, holding him down but making sure not to strain his shoulders, so careful with him it was nauseating. Jeremiah wanted to kick at him, uselessly. Alex threw a leg over him, pinning him down.
“Just-behave, for once? Okay?” Alex squeezed his wrists warningly.
Jeremiah glared up at him, feeling pretty damn insubordinate. “Don’t pretend like you actually want me,” he spat out. “You’re only here because of the baby, and pretty soon you’re going to hate both of us for trapping you into something you never wanted.”
He stubbornly enjoyed how Alex’s mouth was working, his face going red. “How can you say that?” He looked like Jeremiah had kicked him in the head. Good, Jeremiah thought mutinously. He couldn’t really bend that way anymore so it was nice to know he could at least get the job done metaphorically. “Jeremiah, how can you even think that?”
Alex let go of Jeremiah’s wrists, hunching over so he could cup Jeremiah’s head with both hands, trapping Jeremiah down so he couldn’t turn away, only roll his eyes.
“Because it’s true!” Jeremiah grabbed for Alex’s wrists, grappling to pull them away, to escape, digging into his forearms, but Alex wasn’t budging. “You’re still mad at me for not telling you, I can tell, even though I was trying to do this for you. You don’t want this.”
Alex shook him once by the head, soft but firm, like a golden retriever tugging on a rope but not wanting to hurt anyone, really.
“You don’t get to tell me what I want. I don’t know why you don’t trust me, but that’s on you. That’s not my fault.”
Jeremiah flinched. Their faces were so close together he could head butt Alex, or lean up and kiss him, he wasn’t sure what he wanted right now.
Alex made the call. He pressed their foreheads together, eyes closed. Jeremiah found he didn’t want to pull away. He was trembling, holding on for dear life to Alex’s stupid strong forearms, his dumb belly knocking Alex in the stomach so he had to curve over Jeremiah like a comma to keep his hold on his head.
“You’re such a martyr, I hate it,” Jeremiah muttered.
Alex shook his head, brushing their foreheads together. “God, you’re insane,” he said wonderingly. “You make me insane.”
Jeremiah huffed. “Why do you even want this, then.” It didn’t make any sense. Jeremiah wasn’t going to get any easier. If anything, Alex would probably look back on this moment as when Jeremiah was at his most biddable. He would probably long for the halcyon days of this disaster pregnancy.
Above him, Alex was sitting up again, just enough to rest his weight on one elbow and use his other hand to touch Jeremiah’s face. Jeremiah thought people only touched each other’s faces this much in the movies, but apparently, it was a Vane signature move.
He combed Jeremiah’s hair back with his fingers. He still looked fired up, like he wanted to keep arguing, but his eyes were also going hot and Jeremiah was pretty much hardwired to react to that at this point.
“I already told you, Carson, I want you,” Alex said.
“You have terrible taste.”
Alex threw his head back in frustration, a strangled sound issuing forth. “Just let me love you, you stubborn idiot!”
Jeremiah went still. Alex hadn’t said that since the day Jeremiah had finally told him the baby was his. Jeremiah had assumed he had changed his mind or, more likely, realized that he’d never really felt that strongly for Jeremiah in the first place.
“God, Alex.” Jeremiah’s mouth trembled. Alex’s eyes darted to it but he didn’t comment. “Okay. Okay.”
Alex looked instantly alert. “Yeah?” he clarified, hopeful, always so hopeful. And when Jeremiah nodded, he smiled, mouth going wide and almost scary with how open it made his face look.
Jeremiah needed him, suddenly. Needed him so bad he practically threw him off the bed getting his hands on him. Alex seemed just as desperate, though, so it was alright.
They fucked face to face, on their sides, a thousand pillows propping up Jeremiah’s hips and legs and belly, Alex situated below him at a weird angle that nonetheless got his dick inside Jeremiah, which was all he really wanted.
They kept clutching at each other, gasping, straining to go slow and make it last, unable to keep from speeding up, the pace going ruthless and out of control quickly.
When they were finished, Jeremiah couldn’t let him move away. Alex was shaking. Jeremiah was sweaty and unbalanced and he couldn’t stop clenching his hands on Alex’s heaving sides.
He really loved him.
“I really love you,” he whispered, finally.
Alex rubbed his forehead into Jeremiah’s neck together tiredly. “Hard same.”
Jeremiah chortled, and they settled in. Between them, the baby was jabbing at his bladder but Jeremiah forced himself to hold out for a bit longer.
He took Alex’s hand and put it on his stomach, and they felt the baby ram around in there. He always got more active after they fuck, which he liked to remind Alex of sometimes because of the screwed up look of horror it put on his face.
Not now, though. Instead, he lay there quietly and hoped the
baby knew they were out there, waiting for it.
***
Time seemed to tilt after that until the sand was running out twice as fast during the final trimester as it seemed to in the first two.
The baby made up for its earlier silence by going bonkers.
Jeremiah wondered constantly about its personality, getting lost for minutes staring off, puzzling over who it would be, what kind of person. Trying to piece together clues, by how it kicked when Jeremiah stood up after sitting for too long or wiggled sluggishly as Jeremiah fell asleep with Alex snoring in his ear, heavy and draped half on top of him.
Alex came with to all his appointments, and it wasn’t like Jeremiah paid attention any less-it was still his kid, and he was still terrified about delivery, and he had a compulsive need to know as much as he could about uncertain situations-but he also knew anything he forgot he could just cross-reference with Alex.
Alex, who took incredibly diligent notes, and asked all kinds of thoughtful questions, and who Dr. Stevens obviously preferred for his studiousness and his disinclination to make as many nervous jokes as Jeremiah did.
They had so much to do, all of a sudden-furniture, clothes, getting the house ready and painting the spare office that was now a nursery. If you were Alex, reading an endless supply of deeply terrifying books about everything that could go wrong with the pregnancy and early childhood, and if you were Jeremiah, thinking up excuses to not go to the Lamaze class.
Fabian and Emily were around a lot. They spent endless nights watching movies on Jeremiah’s couch. He complained about being smothered, but really he loved being so firmly at the center of everyone’s attention.
It felt like he spent whole days getting his stomach rubbed, being able to demand water or a snack whenever he wanted, shoving his foot into a lap to get rubbed. Really these were still mostly Alex, but Fabian and Emily watched and didn’t roll their eyes at Jeremiah’s demands, so it was like they were spoiling him by accessory.
It was good. Even as the date approached, and he got increasingly uncomfortable, and the baby kept him up, it was really good.
One day Jeremiah came over to Fabian’s, phone still in his hand, and found Alex in the office alone, getting work done while Emily and Fabian were gone for the weekend.
He walked up to him. “Did you call my dad?” he asked suspiciously.
Alex didn’t look up from his laptop, humming interrogatively in question. Playing coy.
“My dad called me today, and I just wondered-were you perhaps behind that miraculous turnaround?”
“I just…couldn’t stop thinking, what if our kid told me something like this, and I reacted like a total dick, and then I wasn’t there for them like they needed me. That would be horrible, Carson. It would eat me alive.”
Jeremiah opened his mouth. Let it hang for a moment. “Huh. That is…conceptual.”
“I just wanted to give your dad a chance to get his act together, that’s all,” Alex said in a hurry, like he was embarrassed. “My dad was good at that. Giving people a second chance, sometimes.” He paused, then, “Was it-was he nice to you, at least?”
Nice. Oh, man. Jeremiah’s dad wasn’t nice. But he had asked Jeremiah deliberately how work was going, and then they talked about the best dog training methods to keep Penny from jumping on the kitchen table when Jeremiah was out of the room, and by the time they hung up, they hadn’t argued about anything, and his dad said he was going to call again in a few days.
It had been nice, in its own way, Jeremiah supposed.
He got up and walked over to Alex, ignoring the laptop Alex was intently focused on to wedge himself between Alex and the desk, edging in until the width of his belly forced Alex to sit up, leaning back against his chair.
“Carson,” he protested, but he was already laughing and holding Jeremiah steady as he settled.
He spread both big hands on Jeremiah’s belly, thumbs rubbing softly up and down, up and down. He held him firm, holding him up so Jeremiah could slouch a little, confident that Alex would hold his weight.
As Jeremiah looked at him, smiling up at Jeremiah, touching him so sweetly, letting Jeremiah interrupt him on a whim for just the promise of groping Jeremiah’s pregnant belly-god, there was so much he needed to tell him. So much Alex deserved to hear, about how Jeremiah felt about him. How good Alex was. How little Jeremiah deserved him.
But the words got caught up in his throat. Nothing felt big enough to hold the feeling.
“You can blow me, if you want,” is what he found himself saying instead.
It surprised a laugh out of Alex, who also blushed, charmingly. “Such a sweet talker.”
Jeremiah widened his knees, walking his feet out so Alex was between his legs.
“What, you saying you’re too good to suck my dick?” He tangled a hand in Alex’s hair, tugging lightly. “You don’t want it?” Jeremiah knew he did. It was one of a million weird things he was learning about him. He loved sucking Jeremiah off. It was almost embarrassing how much.
Alex was still red but his smile slipped away, eyes dark. He swallowed. Jeremiah watched his Adam’s apple bob. “No,” he admitted. “But Fabian told us we’re not allowed to have sex in here anymore, remember?”
Jeremiah smirked at him. “What, gonna let Fabian tell you what to do?”
It was a stupid goad, but Alex’s eyes glinted, and he ducked his head under the desk, pushing Jeremiah’s knees apart.
There’d been a sharp learning curve over the last month over blowjobs and Jeremiah, but they’d figured it out. It mostly involved Jeremiah leaning back and letting Alex bend his tall frame mostly in half to get Jeremiah’s dick in his mouth, so all told it was a solid win for Jeremiah.
Alex hummed, squeezing him at the base, swallowing the head. Jeremiah twitched, getting all the way hard. He kept a hand on Alex’s hair because he knew how much Alex liked it.
He wanted Alex to have the things he liked. He deserved it.
“You’re so good to me.” His voice was so low. “You’re so good, Alex. You take such good care of me, and I-I love how good you are to me.”
It was so much easier to say this when they were having sex.
Alex made a noise and sucked harder, his free hand rubbing just behind Jeremiah’s balls, just enough for Jeremiah to jerk, arch and come down his throat.
He watched through slitted eyes as Alex leaned back, fumbling for his dick in his jeans. He stared at Jeremiah as he jerked himself off roughly, mouth slightly open, eyes darting from Jeremiah’s mouth to his eyes to his belly to his face again.
Jeremiah blinked at him, sleepy, and lifted a corner of his mouth. “So good to me,” he whispered, and loved watching as Alex’s face went red, his wrist speeding up, and he groaned, loud and long, as he came.
He caught most of the come in his palm but Jeremiah still watched some it slip onto the floor.
“You better clean that come off the floor or Fabian is gonna be pissed,” Jeremiah said faintly.
Alex didn’t answer. He tucked himself back in his pants and stood, grabbing a tissue from over Jeremiah’s shoulder to wipe his hand off. He still staring at Jeremiah, every muscle tense.
Jeremiah started to get a bit uneasy under his gaze. He opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to get defensive, because Alex was bracing himself on the table on either side of Jeremiah’s hips. He leaned down and kissed him, messy, licking into Jeremiah’s mouth. It started hot and gradually came down, until they were kissing softly, lips brushing together.
They pulled apart and looked at each other. Jeremiah felt shy, for some reason. Alex looked like he wanted to say something, but he closed his mouth. He wiped at the sweat on his face and straightened up.
“Want to go home?” He held out a hand to help Jeremiah up. “I’m beat, and I still have to put that crib together all by myself.” He smirked as Jeremiah grumbled, yanking himself up with Alex’s help. He ignored Alex as he pulled Jeremiah’s sweats up above his hips, feeling a rant comi
ng on.
“You know, I’ve gained like thirty pounds and my feet are probably permanently flat and soon I’m going to have a seven-pound baby scooped out of me with a melon-baller, but sure, putting a crib together unaided is practically the same. What a hero.”
Alex laughed easily, looping an arm lightly over Jeremiah’s shoulders. Jeremiah let him, because it was nice and also he felt so off balance anymore.
“I’ll trade with you anytime,” he said, still ranting, and refused to purr or something else stupid when Alex kissed him on the side of the head.
They stepped out of Fabian’s house and into the evening shade, the street mostly quiet.
“No, I think you have this under control,” Alex said, breezily confident in Jeremiah’s ability to gestate-like it wasn’t a big deal, like Jeremiah wasn’t blushing-and led them back to Jeremiah’s house.
***
A month before Jeremiah’s due date, Alex had to go back to Boston for his aunt’s funeral.
“It’s okay,” he kept saying, “I’ll just send some flowers and call my uncle, I don’t have to go.”
Jeremiah was already suspicious that Alex’s mom probably hated him for keeping the baby from Alex for so long. He wasn’t privy to how Alex had ultimately broken the news, but he suspected she could connect the dots on her own. The last thing he wanted was to keep her precious baby boy sequestered halfway across the county, refusing to let him leave Jeremiah’s terrible pregnant lair for a funeral.
So he shook his head, doing his best to be stoic about it. “Alex, it’s fine,” he said. “Just go and come back, we’ve still got plenty of time.”
Alex looked unconvinced, but after a couple days of bickering and Jeremiah covertly buying his plane ticket, Alex finally conceded.
He insisted Jeremiah stay with Emily and Fabian, though, which Jeremiah thought was overkill, but Alex looked anxious enough to snap in half at the prospect of Jeremiah staying home alone, and Jeremiah didn’t relish the idea of being by himself either, so he relented.
Still, it was nearly impossible to kick him out the door the morning of his flight.
“I can reschedule,” he said, his rolly bag packed and ready by the front door. “I can fly out later this afternoon, it’s fine.”
Omega's Joy: An MPREG Romance Page 8
