“What?” Did he change his mind?
“I just think it’s too soon. I mean, we have the twins, isn’t that enough to look after while you’re going to school?”
He didn’t want to be saddled with an extra baby to look after. “Oh,” I said after a moment. “You’re right, I hadn’t thought about how much extra work it made for you.” I started to pull my hands away from his, but his grip tightened, and I looked up at him in surprise.
“What do you mean, more work for me?” he asked. “I don’t care about that. Two babies, three, it doesn’t matter. But you’re going to have another three and a half years of courses, and some of them are going to be really hard. And that’s just for your nursing. What about after? We’ve got plenty of time to have more pups. Don’t let it interfere with your future.”
It was a hard thing to admit, but yeah, he was right. So why did it leave a painful hollow just under my heart?
I nodded and sat on the bed. Duke trailed his fingers softly over my cheek, then turned to the dresser. “I picked some up the last time I was out. I figured this would be soon.”
My voice wouldn’t work, so I just nodded and my hand went to my empty belly. I hadn’t realized how much I’d misunderstood him when we talked about this. He was halfway across the room when the sob I’d been fighting not to let him hear escaped me.
I’d never seen him move so fast in my life. He spun on his heel and was on his knees in front of me before I’d done much more than take another breath. “Bram, sweetheart, no, I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“I know that!” I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes. “I know, I know. It’s just—” I shook my head. “Go get it. Please.”
The bed sank as he sat beside me and turned me to face him, gently pulling my hands away from my face. “It really means that much to you? You know I don’t see you as just someone to have my pups.”
“That’s just it!” I cried. “I haven’t given you any. And I want to! I want to crawl into that bed and do things that will put your baby inside me. But you’re right, and I’m mad because you are and I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to because you already had to do things you didn’t want to for us and it all sucks and I hate it! I hate Justin and I hate school!”
He laughed softly. “Do you really hate school?”
“Noooo.” Oh, fuck. Now I sounded like one of the pups I’d looked after in the enclave. “I’m sorry, Duke. I’m being a baby.”
“Or just wanting one?” He pulled me close and rested his cheek on top of my head. We sat there quietly, while my body howled and snapped at me, wanting him inside right now. “I don’t mind having a baby with you. I’m a little upset that you think I don’t love those two brats out there as much as I love the big one in here.”
“I don’t think that. I just…” What did I want? “I love them, and they’re ours. But I want to have one with you because with them, it was just my heat. It wasn’t me, I didn’t choose that. I want to choose you.” I slid my arms around his ribs. “I want to feel that. I want to wake up tomorrow excited, not sick and thinking about killing myself. But I can wait.”
His grip on me tightened. “Did you really think that?”
I nodded, my cheek rubbing against his shoulder. “For a little bit. Not long, but when I first realized what happened, it felt like the only way out.”
“I see.” He rubbed my back, and I wanted to stretch and push myself into his hand. “Can you promise me something?” he murmured, his voice rumbling comfortingly in my ear.
“Anything.” I’d agree to anything, for him.
“You won’t let your grades drop. You won’t pretend you don’t need help if you do and you’ll ask for it before it turns into an emergency. I mean it. It’s not just about us, but the pack. We need more skilled people. Not like your mom, with six months of school, or Mac’s aunt, who learned by doing. With this new land, the pack is going to get bigger. We’re going to need another person to keep people from getting sick, just like we’re going to need more people who can do wiring, or weld, or can saw a board.” He pulled back so I could see his face, worry and determination and pride all fighting for victory over his expression. “We need you to do what you’re doing. And I think my job right now isn’t about looking after this house, but making sure you get where you need to get, because it isn’t all about us. It’s about everyone.”
Now that he said that, I felt selfish. “Duke—”
“Do you want another baby?”
“I do, but you’re right. I have to think about the pack too.”
He let out an exasperated snort. “Didn’t I just explain that I’ll look after the baby so you can go to school? I’m no one special. I do some carpentry, I stomp on fights when things get out of hand.” He took one of my hands and held it up between us. “You, with this hand. I’ve seen you take away tears, I’ve seen you comfort a frightened pup and send them off to play happy again. I’ve seen you fix scrapes and cuts and broken toys.” He brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed the fingers. “There’s love and skill and talent in these hands, and they should be used for what they’re meant for. I won’t let anything stand in their way. If you want a pup, I’m happy to make one with you. As long as you let me carry the heavy end of the load, so that you can become what you’re meant to be.”
I stared at him with wide eyes. “You mean that?”
He smiled. “Get your clothes off, mate.” And he grabbed my t-shirt by the bottom and tugged it up to my chest. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“Not a chance. You better get your clothes off too. Mate.” I put special emphasis on the last word, and he laughed and grabbed my head to kiss me the way an alpha kisses his omega. And I was completely his.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
We were naked almost as soon as the kiss ended and then I was on my back, pinned beneath Duke’s muscular body, and I was deliriously happy. He kissed me, and kissed me some more, and said silly, loving things to me, and all I could do was squirm and whine and try to pull him even closer than gravity was doing. He laughed, low and sexy, and turned his head to nibble down the side of my neck.
“Oh, Duke!” He was going to make me come just doing that, but I couldn’t tell him to stop. This was what I’d dreamed about the last two years and I was ecstatic to finally know what it felt like, for real, to make love to Duke while I was in heat. I traced the muscles in his back, the way they flattened out, then swelled underneath my fingers absolutely wonderful to me. I’d felt it before, but my body seemed more alive right now, more aware of him and me and everything between us, so each small contact or feeling felt the size of the enclave itself.
He huffed against my neck, warm and ticklish. I wrapped one leg around his waist and groaned at the feel of him against my inner thigh. I wanted him now, inside me. It was a totally different kind of urgency than what I felt when I wasn’t in heat. It was as if I was going to die if he didn’t take me, make me entirely his. I spread one hand over his chest, stretching my fingers wide so I could feel the way the muscles of his chest bunched beneath them as he moved on top of me, planting a line of kisses from one shoulder to the other. I panted and grabbed at him, spreading my other leg wide and pushing my hips upward.
“You are so damn hot, Justin’s a moron, I’m so glad you’re mine,” Duke muttered, like he didn’t even know he was saying it. He began to kiss his way down my chest, stopping to tease at my nipples while I made undignified noises and he grinned like a madman.
“You’re evil,” I told him, or at least I tried. It’s hard to talk when someone’s touching you in a way that makes you feel that loved and wanted.
He must have figured it out, because he popped up to kiss me lightly on the lips and say, “You like me evil. How else am I going to keep up with you?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he practically leaped down my body to rub the soft prickle of his mid-afternoon beard over my belly and then suck me into his mouth
.
The feel of his hot mouth on me made me yowl like a cat and my legs spread as far as they could on their own. He traced my hips with one hand while he tormented me with his mouth, the sensation not lost in the deluge of emotions and pleasure, but adding an odd sharp accent, like spice in a stew. When he reached for my chest I bit my lip and closed my eyes, my fingers tangled in the sheets beneath me. He took my breath away with the way he worshiped my body, with the love and support he showed me, and I was the luckiest shifter in the world.
“Duke, please!” I didn’t know what I was begging for, more, less—my brain was melting out of my head.
He pulled off me and rested his cheek on my thigh. “Yes?”
“Dammit!” I propped myself up on my elbows. “Duke, you’re killing me.”
“No.” His hand left my chest to—fuck!—play with my cock. “I’m treating you like a mate who deserves the best.” He licked up the side of my cock, making my eyes roll back in my head. “Like that?”
“You know I do,” I gasped.
“Good. What else do you want me to do?”
“Get up here and fuck me,” I whispered and twisted my fingers in his hair so when I pulled, he had to come to me.
His lips hovered over mine and we gazed at each other, drawing out the moment, and then he kissed me and he settled more firmly between my thighs. “Do you want this? For sure? Last chance to back out,” he whispered huskily.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Me too,” he said, and hooked my legs over his arms to open me up to him. He pressed his lips to mine and I felt the pressure as he began to push inside.
My body welcomed him eagerly and I moaned and scrabbled at his back as he filled me. This, this was what I needed, so badly, and I buried my face in his neck, pleading with him to move, to stop, to do something to ease this awful, wonderful ache inside me. I needed him like I needed oxygen, and he responded to the urging of my hands and my body like he needed me as badly.
Somewhere at the edge of my attention, I could hear the sounds of the bed as it creaked and banged against the wall, letting the entire world know what we were up to. I didn’t care. All I wanted was Duke and what Duke was giving me.
It didn’t take long before Duke finally pushed me over the edge. The world exploded around me and I thought I might have yelled, or that might only have been in my mind. My legs spasmed and I clung to Duke as the waves of pleasure, and the knowledge that we were truly mated now, in that way that only an omega can mate, washed over me, drowning me in happiness. Duke hummed and grunted, then cried out in my ear, crushing me against the bed as I felt the warmth of his seed inside me. He pushed and pushed until he was done, then slowly sagged down onto the mattress beside me and pulled me to lie close to him.
Time passed, and I slowly dragged myself out of my contented little dream world. “I should check on the pups.”
Duke’s arm around me tightened. “Just another ten minutes.”
“If I wait ten more minutes, we won’t be getting out to check on them for another hour.”
He cracked one eye open to look at me. “Sylva will survive.” He closed his eye again, but his fingers started drawing seductive patterns against the skin of my back, sending sparks of arousal over my body.
I relaxed against him, though I could already tell I wouldn’t be relaxed for long. “If she doesn’t, we’ll have to train Logan to change diapers.”
“Easily done. I learned.” Then Duke put an end to our conversation with a long kiss.
About Ann-Katrin
Ann-Katrin loves to write, read and dream. In her spare time, you can often catch her hunting wild plot bunnies in the fields of her imagination. In her other life, she’s a mother and a translator, but writing about men and the men they fall in love with is so much more fun!
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Other Books by Ann-Katrin
Mercy Hills Pack
Mating the Omega (Book One)
Abel’s Omega (Book Two)
Duke’s Baby Deal (Book Three)—Review it here!
Still to Come:
Legally Mated (Book Four)
The Omega’s Alpha(Book Five)
Fires of Fate
Under the Dragon’s Spell (Book One)
The Dragon of His Dreams (Book Two)
Still to Come:
Dragon’s Love Song (Book Three)
Duke's Baby Deal (MM Mpreg Shifter Romance) (Mercy Hills Pack Book 3) Page 28
