by Aiden Bates
As I followed that trail through the house, the items slowly became more sophisticated and complex. A tiny set of toy plastic tools, still in its package from the store. A set of children’s sing-along CDs, the titles of which all sounded like they were crafted specifically to make a man like Logan groan and roll his eyes. On the upper landing of the stairs I found my path blocked by an unopened box containing what looked like a playhouse similar to the one I’d played in during daycare back when I was a kid. My arms were so full of other little gifts and toys by that point I had to push it aside with my knee to move past it.
The path ended at the door to what had once been Teddy’s room. Back when we’d been in high school together, he’d had a sign on it scrawled out in thick black sharpie: NO ALPHAS ALLOWED. Now, it was replaced with a little propellered airplane that had been stenciled on beautifully in red and blue paint.
I brushed my fingers over the painting, taking a deep breath before I opened the door. I already had a good guess about what I would find inside, but even in my wildest imaginings I couldn’t have come up with anything that would have prepared me enough for what was really waiting for me within.
The walls were painted in clouds and sunbeams, all yellow and white and sky blue. There was a crib in one corner, a little airplane mobile tinkling away and spinning slowly over it, a changing table up against one wall, fully stocked with baby wipes and complete with industrial-strength diaper pail. From the curtains to the soft carpet of the floor, it was all perfect—right down to the framed photo of my ultrasound picture hanging up next to the door.
I raised my fingers to it, breathing a soft little oh of a sigh. I hadn’t even realized I’d left it behind. In the flurry of my retreat I hadn’t had time to take inventory of anything. But Logan had obviously found it. Framed it. Hung it with care.
“Particularly proud of that one,” Logan said from one corner of the room, chuckling softly as I startled at the sound of his voice.
“Logan! I…” I turned to look at him, amazed that out of everything I’d been taking in, I’d somehow overlooked the tall, broad shouldered alpha waiting in the room for me. His salt and pepper hair was as well-kempt as ever, but the stubble on his chin and cheeks looked slightly out of place on his normally clean-shaven face.
He looked good. Too good. Dressed in a soft navy-blue t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans instead of his uniform, he tilted himself forward in a rocking chair he’d placed in the corner, then patted the arm of a matching chair next to him as he let himself tilt back again.
“Sit down, Bennet. I mean, if you’d like.”
I approached the chair carefully, like the entire room had been peppered with land mines. It was all so beautiful, so perfect. Far too good to be true, to the point I felt like it almost had to be a trap.
“What is all this?” I asked, easing myself into the chair next to Logan and eying the baby book on his lap. Goodnight, Moon. It had been my favorite as a kid, though Logan couldn’t have possibly known that.
“Well, it’s a nursery, I guess. See? It’s got the crib, and the diaper…thing.” Logan pushed the back of my chair gently, setting it rocking back and forth. “These chairs, for when we’re up late with—”
“I know it’s a nursery, Logan. Just…what does all of this mean?”
Tentatively, Logan reached for my hand, hovering over my knuckles for a moment before he folded his palm over them.
“I’m not good at this,” he admitted like it pained him to do so. “Marching, ordering troops around, that I can do. I can parachute out of a helicopter into the desert and find my way to water before sundown. Hit a bullseye with my pistol from a hundred yards. Make a tourniquet out of nothing but my boot laces. All of that… That’s easy stuff.” A sound rumbled through his chest; more masculine than a sigh, but without the annoyance of a groan. “This is hard for me, Bennet. It always has been. Probably always will be.”
“So you…painted and decorated a nursery?” I quirked an eyebrow. “Strange coping mechanism, Sarge.”
Logan chuckled. “Some of the recruits and I did, yes. If you see Private Young around town, you’ll have to thank him for lending his hand with the walls. I’ve never been much of an artist, but he’s got an eye for it.”
“I see. But if this is hard for you…” I stalled, not sure of what to say next. It felt like Logan was offering me all the gold and jewels in the world here, even though he hadn’t said it outright yet. But it was all far too good to be believable. Instead of being overjoyed, I found myself constantly searching for the trick. The caveat. The catch.
“Ah, you know how it is, Bennet. Some people change more easily than others. That father of yours… I know you must have tried your best to help him. Make him better. Kinder. Love you more.”
“I did, yeah,” I admitted, feeling more vulnerable than ever. “But that didn’t stop him from beating the crap out of me any time he had too much to drink.”
“And that last alpha of yours, the one who hurt you.” Logan’s brow lowered into a scowl. “You must’ve tried to change him, too.”
“Of course I did. I thought… I guess I thought I loved him. That’s what I thought you did for people you loved.”
Logan gave a short, dark laugh. “And then you ran into my stubborn old ass. I must’ve seemed like the perfect storm, given your history.”
I smiled gently at that. “Your ass isn’t that old, Logan. I still liked it alright.”
Logan matched my smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. But what I’m trying to say is, I guess, I’ve been afraid I was just like the other alphas in your life, in a way. I thought it would be easy to change at first. You’re, well…” He rolled his lips between his teeth for a moment, looking me up and down. “You’re a very compelling person to want to make changes for, quite frankly.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.” He chuckled. “At least, not yet. I thought it would be easy now I’m older. Wiser. Finally ready for a proper do-over. A second chance. But when I found myself falling back into the same old behaviors… I did you a wrong turn. I was so worried I couldn’t change who I was. So scared.”
“I can’t imagine you scared,” I said softly. The man had seen war, for Pete’s sake—how on earth could he be afraid of me? Of us?
“Pardon my French, but I was scared shitless. To the point that I was ducking for cover at the base just so I could stop feeling like I was going to muck things up all over again.”
“That sounds…” My chest heaved with sympathy for him. I knew how it felt to be afraid of fucking things up. “That sounds really hard, Logan.”
“I sure thought so, at the time. Thought so back when I was with Roland, too. I hid from him. Hid from Teddy and Jason as well. Anything to avoid the feeling that I might treat them badly. Do them harm. Become my own asshole of a father—and in the process, I made the exact same mistakes my father did. Now that Teddy is up in Montana and Jason is…” He swallowed hard, eyes shifting away from me for a moment. “Now that Jason is gone, I’ve been living with all kinds of regrets I’ll never be able to fix.”
“Do you regret me?” I asked, unable to help myself.
A wounded look flashed across Logan’s hazel gaze. He shifted out of the chair, down to his knees as he took both my hands in his and shook his head. “God, no, Bennet. How could I ever regret you?”
“You were hiding from me, too,” I said, feeling a pang in my heart as I did so. “From this baby.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I was. But Bennet…” He gave my hands a squeeze, staring up at me with love in his eyes. “I’m done with that now. Forever. For good. I’m not going to hide from either of you anymore.”
“Logan…” I felt my voice on the verge of breaking with how badly I wanted to believe it. Believe him. But at the same time… “You’ve promised me this before. How is it different this time?”
A slow, confident grin curled up onto Logan’s handsome lips. “Because I’m not afraid anymore.”
He laid his plan out for me like we were going into battle together, but this time, instead of one of his soldiers, I felt like a fellow commander, preparing to take the enemy together. He wanted me to move in with him, properly and officially this time. Full time. For good. To help him become the kind of father he should have been from the start. But this time, instead of telling me, he asked. Not pleadingly—Logan wasn’t that kind of man. But in a way that told me he really, truly wanted it. Wanted me. Wanted this baby—wanted us. This. All of it.
“It’s going to be hard,” I admitted, remembering how lonely I’d been when Logan had been on base all the time. “I… I love you, Logan. I want us to be a family. But I also know how important your work is to you. I don’t want to get between you and your career.”
“But you want this? You’ll move back in so we can have a life together?”
“Of course I will. Just… It’s going to be an uphill battle, I guess.”
Logan cracked another grin. “Well, maybe for six months or so.”
I gave him a dubious look. “This won’t get any easier once the baby is born, Logan. If anything, it will only get harder.”
“Sure. Right. But I’ll be retired by then,” he said casually. “Lots more free time for changing diapers and slinging fruit snacks without a bunch of recruits to baby on top of it, you know.”
“You’re… You’re not picking up the renewal of your contract?”
Logan shrugged. “Didn’t see any point in it. I’ve got my pension. Talked to my accountant. We’re going to take my retirement fund and make some sound investments. You’ll be able to go back to work if you want, but even if you don’t—”
“Are you sure?” I asked him, hardly able to believe what he was telling me. “I know you’re all about looking out for the family, making sure we have the best shot…”
“My best shot is giving you everything you deserve, Bennet.” He placed his hands on my knees, pushing himself up into a standing position so he could lower his lips just an inch away from mine. “Say you want it. Say you will.”
An order, not a question, this time.
But it was an order I was more than willing to obey when he put it like that.
“I want it,” I said, turning my head so I could press my lips to his. “I will.”
The kiss was firm as a promise, passionate as a prayer. Logan scooped me up into his arms without breaking it, carrying me bridal-style to the bedroom while I wound my arms around his neck, pulling him closer and breathing him in.
He tugged my clothes off of me, replacing them with a kiss on every bare inch of skin as he laid me down on his bed.
“You want me?” he asked, glancing up at me from the waistband of my boxers while tossing my jeans across the room.
I nodded rapidly, chest heaving. “I want you. You know I do.”
“Stroke yourself while you watch me, then.” He pressed a final kiss to my hip, and one to the swell of my belly before backing away and running his thumbs along the belt of his jeans.
I could only gawk like a schoolboy seeing his first issue of Playguy as Logan pulled his t-shirt up over his head, revealing his hairy, perfectly muscled chest. The jeans came next, undone so teasingly I had no choice but to curl my fingers into a fist around my cock out of pure, unadulterated need.
As Logan tugged his jeans, boxers and all down his thighs, leaving his cock springing up from beneath his waistband and slapping hard against the firmness of his abs, I found my mouth watering in a way that was usually reserved for when I was in heat. His thick, veined cock throbbed over and over again as he watched me slide my fingers up over my cockhead in desperation, only reminding me even more how good it felt to have him inside me, throbbing in exactly the same way.
“You want me?” he asked again.
A whimper of longing was my only reply.
It was the only reply he needed.
“I’m going to stay with you, Bennet,” he swore as he came to me, pushing me back on the bed and maneuvering himself between my thighs.
He stole a kiss then, a long one. A kiss so hard and sweet he left me gasping, arching up toward him and hungry for more when he finally pulled away.
“Yes,” I hissed, cooing in the hopes he’d give me another.
Instead, he pressed my thighs further apart, kissing down my body until he was staring up at me with his mouth hovering over the tip of my precum-soaked cock.
“I’m going to be with you every step of the way.” He took my cock in his mouth, sucking his cheeks in and massaging my tip against the roof of his mouth. He plunged his lips lower, wrapped around it so tight I had to clutch at the bedsheets just to feel like I had something to hold onto. As he took me down his throat, I moved my hands to his shoulders, digging the thin crescents of my nails into the muscles there so he could feel it. The intensity. The ecstasy of how good he made me feel.
After several strokes from his mouth, coming up so hard I saw stars, and plunging back down even harder so he could do it all over again, I was so close to coming it was almost unreal. I’d resigned myself to the idea of only having toys and my own hand for comfort when I left him, but the way Logan sucked cock alone was enough to justify my return into his life.
Not that he seemed intent on stopping there. As he finally came up for air, my tip popping out of his mouth with a sound like an uncorked bottle of champagne, there was a bastard’s grin on his lips that only pushed me that much closer to the edge. Made me want him that much more.
“I’m not going to leave your side,” he promised, dipping even lower to suck my balls. He kissed the curves of my ass cheeks, nibbled at the insides of my thighs, and then sought lower still, spreading me for him while he used his tongue to lap at my hole. He rimmed me, tasting the honeyed slick my body was now producing as fast as it could. When he finally came up again, he slipped his tongue into my mouth and I could taste myself on his lips.
“I’m going to protect you, Bennet. Keep you safe. Love you forever. Is that what you want?”
“I want you,” I pleaded, rolling my hips up so I could settle his cock against the pucker of my ass. “Please, Logan. Fuck! I want you.”
“You’ve got me, sweetheart.” His grin flashed again, just before his lips plummeted against mine and his cock pressed inside me.
It was a kiss that muffled nothing short of an orgasmic scream. Our tongues tangled together violently, but Logan’s cock moved inside me with a tenderness that only made me want to cry out all the more.
I could feel him throughout my entire body—not just in my ass, but in every heartbeat. Every breath. Every trembling, tingling cell. Every thrust of his cock sent waves of pleasure crashing throughout me. All I could do was cling to him, losing myself in his kisses as that pleasure took me by the shoulders and pushed me head-under-water into its neon velvet depths.
“Come for me, Bennet. Come with me, sweetheart,” Logan urged, reaching between us to stroke my cock in perfect time with his every thrust. “Give it to me.”
My hips involuntarily jerked up to meet him, cock and balls and ass all flexing with urgent need.
“I want you.”
My fingers trembled as I brushed along the soft stubble of his jawline, pulling him closer to me, kissing him even harder than before.
“I love you.”
I pulled away from him, my entire body going stiff as the orgasm took hold. My ass clenched around him in a rapid frenzy, stroking up his shaft with every pang of sharp, intense heat. My balls tightened, pumping cum up from them until it was fountaining out of my tip, coating the both of us from chest to navel. My lips fell open, a cry escaping from them in a way that was completely feral. Animalistic. So bound up in explosive joy I sounded more beast than man.
It was nothing compared to the sound that roared from Logan’s lips as he released inside me as well, spilling his hot, sticky cum into me like Veuve Clicquot into a champagne glass. All I could do was shudder beneath him, feeling like a sailor tied to the mast of a s
hip in the midst of a hurricane of lust. Of pleasure. Of power.
Of love.
“You meant it?” Logan asked, a hint of urgency to his voice as I gasped and writhed beneath him still. “You really… You want me? Want to be with me? Want the life we could have together?”
I laughed softly, still breathing hard as I reached up with both hands to caress his jawline. Wipe the sweat from his brow. “Logan, you’re still inside me, for fuck’s sake. What do you think?”
His grin was slow and easy. Smug as I’d ever seen it. “Maybe so, Bennet. But still… God, you’re gorgeous.” His gaze focused on my face in parts. My nose. My chin. My brow and my eyes. “Can hardly believe you’re mine.”
“Likewise, handsome,” I said with a giggle.
“Good. Then you can understand why I want to hear it. Want to hear you say it, then.”
“Say what?”
“Say you want me, you sweet, perfect thing. Say you’re mine.”
“Oh, Logan.” I pulled him down on top of me, feeling the heat of his forehead against my own. The tips of our noses rubbed against each other, a handless caress as my hands were too busy tangling in his hair. “Of course I’m yours. How could I ever be anything but?”
“I can think of a few ways.” Logan laughed. “Nearly fucked this up enough times, that’s all I’ve been thinking about lately.”
“Well, stop. You’re already the best man I could have hoped for. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and that’s the end of it.”
“Mm.” Logan’s chest rose and fell, hard and firm against mine. “I’ll take your word for it, sweetheart.”
He shifted off of me with care, making sure not to put too much pressure on the growing baby bump between us. When he rolled off of me, he moved downward, resting his cheek against my belly and holding his breath.
“God.” He ran his hand over the mound of my stomach, petting me like I was something precious and loved. “I know it’s crazy, but I think I can hear a heartbeat.”
“You’re probably just hearing mine.” I smiled, running my fingers through his hair as I lounged back and enjoyed the heat of his cheek and ear against my skin. “It’s beating pretty hard right now. For reasons that should be obvious.”
