by Kari Gregg
Mitch closed the door and leaned back against it to watch. His dick jerked in his pants, eager to join the fun, but if Mitch lowered his zipper, they wouldn't finish until long after the sun had set and their natural light was gone.
And he wanted them to see what he'd found.
So he waited, need stirring his belly, until Sammy lunged into her, his head thrown back and teeth gritted as his dick pumped cum into her.
When Sam's shoulders sagged and he released her wrists to give her ass a fond, reconciling squeeze, Mitch stepped forward to brush a kiss over Sam's gasping mouth. He bent to slide his lips over Liv's. "Get dressed," Mitch told them. Sam arched an eyebrow.
Mitch grinned.
Yeah, he knew just how unusual that request was.
"C'mon. You can clean up later," Mitch said, shooting a critical glance at the fading sunlight behind the curtains of his living room windows. "There's something I want to show you."
They piled into his truck.
Sammy, his cock still sticky, had yanked on a pair of sweats, the one with the hole in the knee, and shoved Mitch's favorite sweatshirt over his head. Liv had scrambled back into the figure-hugging navy sweater dress she'd worn to work, no panties, her pussy a sodden mess.
But Mitch had herded them, grousing and complaining, into his truck for the drive out of town. Since broken glass littered the driveway and Mitch valued his tires, he parallel parked on the street when they reached the address and turned to them, jerking his jaw toward the house. "What do you think?" he asked. Turning the truck off, he pulled his keys from the ignition.
Sam's brow furrowed at the decaying monstrosity of a Victorian. Liv darted a glance at the place, then a questioning look at Mitch. "What do we think of what?"
"The house, Liv." Sam reached for his door handle, climbed from the truck.
"Mitch thinks he's found us a house."
Gaping in horror, she followed Sam out of the truck.
Mitch shoved open his own door, rounding the hood of the truck to stand with them, staring, at the side of the road. Sam had crossed his arms, fingers rubbing his jaw, his blue eyes assessing the Victorian with somber consideration. Liv grabbed Sam's arm. "He wants us to live there?"
"Not at first." Mitch looped an arm around her. "It needs a little work." He laughed when she shuddered.
Sam's mouth curved. "Do ya think?"
Eyes wide, Liv tipped her head at him. "The place should be condemned." Sam chuckled. "I think it already has been."
"Condemned means cheap, which is what we can afford." Mitch fished the keys from his coat pocket, urging Liv forward. "Before you make any snap judgments, take a look inside." He led them up the paint-chipped steps to the wide porch and jammed the key in the lock. "Go ahead." He swung the door wide.
Sammy walked in.
Liv followed, scowling at the piled debris in the entry.
"Picture its potential, babe, what the place could be like if someone gave it a little love."
"A lot of love maybe." She wrinkled her nose. "And a vat of Lysol." Mitch snatched her hand, eager happiness washing over him. "Let me show you around."
Mitch guided them from room to room, though the shadows cast by the fading sun lengthened. He showed them the wall he'd remove between the living and dining rooms. The satisfyingly big kitchen. "Bathrooms upstairs and down," Mitch said, leading them toward the stairs. He nodded to a gaping door near the steps. "Whoever lived here last used that as storage, but it's big enough for a home office." Sam, who strung his files over Mitch's dining room table every night, ducked his head inside. He nodded. "Just."
Glee streaked through him as he tugged a very reluctant Liv up the stairs. Because Sammy was sold on the place. The younger man could see the possibilities, was already imagining the three of them in the house.
Liv?
Not so much.
She frowned at the grimy wallpaper, holes in the drywall where the punks had ripped out the wiring. She daintily stepped around loose beer cans and filth in the upper hallway, her body stiff next to Mitch's.
"This is the master bedroom." He steered her through a doorway. "I'll drop this," he said, letting go of her hand to cross the room and pat the far wall, "so we'll lose one of the extra bedrooms, but with three of us, we need the space more than the house needs three bedrooms. The house sits on a large plot of land so we can add an extension for more bedrooms later, if we want."
Liv hugged her arms around herself. Her glance skipped around the room, her teeth chewing away at that lush bottom lip. "The view's pretty," she finally said, looking out a dirt-encrusted window to the undeveloped woodlands that comprised the back yard.
Sam walked a quick lap around the room, his eyes narrowed, as though he was mentally blocking the space out. "There's water damage on the ceiling of the corner bedroom."
Liv winced.
"I'll patch that for now and replace the roof come spring." Mitch stared with grim entreaty into Liv's dark, troubled eyes. "I'm damned good at what I do, honey. It's rough around the edges now, but I can turn this place into a showpiece." Liv gulped. "You've already made the owners an offer." Sam's attention jerked to Mitch.
"Not yet." The muscles of Mitch's shoulders bunched. "The two of you have a say in this. You'll live here, too. If you don't like it, if you think the house will take too much work, I'll keep looking." He gazed at her, trying to get a grip on her emotional temperature and couldn't. "I do business with the bank that foreclosed on it. They're desperate to sell so the price is rock bottom."
Sam snorted out a laugh. "It'd have to be to afford even the most basic repairs."
"I can make this place a home," Mitch said. "Our home. We should vote on it." Sam rolled his eyes. "I shouldn't get a vote. I'm not in this for the long-haul and you know it."
Mitch smiled at him. "But you'll be able to come home to us whenever you like. So what you think counts."
Sam shook his head. "Not this time. Liv?"
She untangled her arms, wrapping them around his stomach. "You really have your heart set on this?"
Yeah.
He did.
She sighed.
"I guess we're getting a new house for Valentine's Day."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mitch's muscles shrieked when he climbed out of the truck, but it was a good, honest ache. He'd borrowed laborers from one of their crews and put them to work moving new appliances into the house. Stove. Refrigerator. Washer and dryer. He'd paid extra for the rush on the electrical to get the juice flowing in the kitchen. Rewiring an entire house? That could take weeks, months, but the contractor had replaced the circuit breaker box, isolated power to only a couple rooms.
Mitch grabbed his lunch cooler and thermos from the back of the truck and headed to the apartment. The furnace guy was scheduled to assess the damage on the heating system tomorrow. Another day to shovel out debris and close off unused rooms.
Mitch pushed through the door.
If he could talk his lovers into camping, they could be in their new home by the end of next week.
"Mitch!"
His eyes narrowed at Sam's frantic voice coming from the bedroom. He dropped his cooler on the couch. "Yeah?"
"Thank God." Sam emerged at the bedroom door still in his uniform suit from work. The jacket and tie were gone, the first several buttons of his pale blue shirt undone. Its tails hung free from his dress pants. "Why didn't you answer your phone?" His eyes sparkled with wild panic.
"The house is a dead zone. No bars, no service." He mentally moved changing cell providers higher on his to-do list. "What's wrong?"
"It's Liv." Mitch's blood iced in his veins. "Come on." Sam tugged him by the arm into the bedroom and to the bathroom door beyond it. "She's been in there since I got home. She was throwing up earlier." Sam knocked on the door. "Liv? Honey? Mitch is home," he called in a low, soothing voice and when the door remained stubbornly shut, Sam shot an imploring gaze at Mitch. "She's been crying for an hour." Mitch pressed his ear t
o the door. Yeah, he could hear her weeping, soft and helpless. Like her heart was shredding. He rapped his knuckles on the door. "Liv?
Baby?" He reached for the doorknob, but when he turned it, the knob jerked to a stop in his grip. His hand tightened, gave the knob another jiggle.
"It's locked." Sam's blue eyes glittered quiet desperation. Shrill alarm knotted Mitch's gut. "Open the door, Livvy." The faint, broken sobs that answered him stabbed him in his guts. He raised a fist and pounded on the door. "Unlock the goddamn door!"
"She wouldn't let me in, either."
"Jesus H. Christ, Sammy, do you have balls or not?" Mitch glared at Sam, then put his shoulder to the door. "Stay back, honey. I'm coming through." He lunged. Wood cracked, but the door held.
He edged back a few inches and apparently remembering his Y chromosome, Sam moved into position beside him, shoulder abutting the cheap but surprisingly solid wood.
"On three," Mitch told him and counted them down.
With both of them throwing their weight against it, the lock popped, and the door exploded inward. Sam stumbled, catching himself on the sink. Mitch stepped around him, his eyes only for Liv. In panties and a pink camisole, she curled into a fetal ball between the bathtub and the toilet, shaking with the force of her crying.
"Shh, baby. I'm here now. I've got you." Mitch knelt on the floor, pulling her into his arms. Her cheeks shone sickly pale, strands of her witchy black hair pasted to them with her tears. He palmed her head, pushed her wet face into his neck. "Please, don't cry. Whatever it is, I'll make it right. It'll be okay."
"No." She shook her head against his throat, smearing her tears, snot and God knows what else all over him. "It won't. It won't!"
Mitch's heart ripped. She was tearing him to pieces, but he held her close, hugging her shuddering body tightly to his as though his will alone would hold her together. "Sweetheart—"
"Oh, Jesus," Sam shrieked. Scrambling backward, he plowed his head into the lip of the shower. His eyes rounded in abject horror on the sink. "Holy shit!" Stroking Liv's hair, Mitch's eyes narrowed on the vanity—
Oh my God.
Oh my fucking God.
Mitch's heart stopped. Buzzing filled his ears. He wondered, vaguely, if he might pass out, but Liv sobbed into his neck, quaking so violently that fear arrowed through him, crowding the faintness away. "Liv, honey, it's all right. You have to calm down. It's fine, I promise. Everything's going to be just—"
"Are you fucking crazy?" Sam shouted, staring at Mitch with wild eyes, his young body tense with raw, unmitigated terror. "Are you freaking insane? This isn't fine." He waved an arm at the sink. "Nothing about that could ever be fine!" Mitch glared at him. "Shut up, Sam. If you can't help, then shut the fuck up." He snarled, but when he nudged Liv's tear-streaked face up with a trembling finger at her chin, he pitched his voice to a low, easy rumble. "We'll go for the blood tests tomorrow. We can be married by Thursday."
Her lip quivered, her mouth opened on another wailing sob and fat tears spilled from her dark, tormented eyes.
"Married!" Sam's voice could've shattered glass. "You can't be thinking of keeping it. For God's sake, you—we—she— Have you lost your damned mind? " Christ, what a mess. Mitch wanted to punch something. Preferably Sam, who was unraveling at the speed of light, which was only making the whole sorry crap-tastic situation worse. "Sammy, drive to the drug store down the street. Buy every brand of EPT they have, two of each. This could be a bad test." But Mitch knew. Pregnancy tests didn't lie. Hell, he could see both lines in the window of the test stick from his position on the floor with Liv. Didn't get much clearer than that. But the possibility of a false positive would settle the younger man down. If nothing else, it'd get Sam out of his hair.
"Sure. That makes sense. I can do that." He jabbered senselessly, lurching to the door.
"Sam!" Mitch called to his retreating backside. When Sammy jerked to a stop and pivoted, Mitch forced a strained smile. "Now is not the time to wrap your Camri around a telephone pole because you're too upset to concentrate on your driving. Take a deep breath. Focus. Then bring back the tests."
Sammy shoved a shaky hand through his honey-blond hair. "I'll be careful." When he left, Mitch leaned down to press his forehead to Liv's. Her eyes were swollen, bloodshot, and still leaking tears. He didn't blame her for bawling. If he wasn't one hundred and ten percent sure this was the only way he'd ever get her to marry him, he'd probably bawl, too. "It doesn't matter. Are you listening to me, honey? We would've wanted kids, anyway."
She closed her streaming eyes, whipped her head from side to side until Mitch palmed her damp cheeks, holding her immobile. "Look at me, babe." When her lashes lifted, he tried for a smile. "Yes. We would've. And soon. You're twenty-eight; I'm thirty. We wouldn't have had much time to play around before we started our family." His mouth curved to form a genuine smile. "Knowing you, I probably would've had to knock you up to get you to marry me, too. So this is okay, completely okay." She choked back tears, struggled to steady herself. "What if it isn't yours?" Her voice broke. "What if it's his?"
Mitch shook his head. "It's mine."
"I had s-sex with b-both of you." Violent tremors wracked her thin body. "Oh Jesus, I'm a slut. I'm a tramp—"
"Don't ever say that." Rage flashed over him, pure and overwhelming. His hand cradling her face, he shook her. Hard. "I don't ever want to hear you talk that way again. You are not a slut. Or a tramp. Or any other damned thing you might get into your head to punish yourself with."
Her breath caught on a despairing wail.
Mitch felt destroyed by it, her pain cutting him to the bone. He leaned back against the tub, pulled her to his chest so he could wrap his arms around her. Just to be that close to her. She curled into him, fingers knotting his work shirt as she wept, brokenly.
"We love each other, Livvy. It didn't start that way. None of us wanted it and it happened fast. Damned fast. But we do love each other, all three of us. What we have together isn't wrong." He blew out a soul-weary breath. "The baby we made together isn't wrong, either. In this fucked up world, the three of us—and our baby—may be the only damned thing that's right."
* * * * *
Liv must've finally cried herself out because by the time Sammy returned with the extra tests, the faucet of tears had slowed to a trickle. She obediently peed on sticks, into cups, and they dropped her piss by droppers into wells.
All positive.
Mitch was wholly unsurprised.
Devastated, Sam had retreated to the bedroom as soon as the first bunch of tests showed positive.
Liv had numbly continued each of the gazillion tests.
As if there were any genuine doubt.
In the door of the bathroom, once the marathon of tests had ended, Mitch wrapped his arms around Liv's waist from behind, pulling her back to hug her tightly against him. "I'm pregnant," she said, her voice drained and toneless.
"Holy shit." Sam rubbed a shaky hand over his face. He dropped to sit at the edge of their bed. "I don't believe this!"
"Cut it out." Mitch scowled at him. "Liv and I will be married by the end of the week. My name will go on the birth certificate. Problem solved."
"Solved?" Sam laughed, a hollow and hopeless sound that sent chills down Mitch's spine. "Life is just so simple for you, Mitch. Must be nice." Sam dropped his head into his hands. "Marrying Liv and putting your name on a birth certificate won't genetically engineer the kid to your liking. There's a fifty percent chance that it's mine." When he lifted his eyes, terror glittered in them like icy shards. "I vote for abortion." Fury stiffened Mitch's body to granite, roared in his veins like hungry lions. "We are not voting on whether or not Liv keeps this baby," he said through gritted teeth.
"Why not?" Sam chuckled humorlessly. "We voted on what knocked her up in the first place."
Liv's hands squeezed the arms Mitch had wrapped around her middle. "Don't." Rage shook through him. It felt good. It wiped everything clean. "There's a fifty p
ercent chance the baby is mine and I want it. You don't get a vote on killing my kid, fucktard."
"Stop it." Liv's eyes flashed, black with pain.
Triumph streaked through Mitch, enervating him. "It's her body. Her choice. Liv will be the one to decide."
"She does whatever you want, always has." Sam snorted. Shuddered. "There's no way of knowing whose baby it is. An abortion is the only alternative that's fair to all three of us."
"The baby's mine." Violence, aggression spiked through him. Mitch had never wanted, so badly, to tear another man apart. "You don't want it so that makes it mine." Sam jerked to his feet, but he ignored Mitch, staring instead at Liv. "I'll make the appointment. I'll pay for it. Everything can go back the way it was." Mitch froze. "Get out," he said through gritted teeth. "Get the fuck out." Still sniffling, Liv clamped her fingers over his arm. "I said stop it." She flashed red-rimmed eyes at Sam. "I-I don't know what to do, what's fair or right." Her voice, hoarse form crying, shook. "But we don't have to decide tonight. All of us are just acting and reacting when what we really need to do is think."
Sam's lips curved to a sad smile. "I don't have to think about this, Liv. I don't want that baby. I'm not ready to be a father."
"Then don't be." Mitch sneered at him. "I told you I'll take responsibility for it. For the baby and Liv both."
Liv shifted in his arms. "Maybe I don't want you taking responsibility for me. Did you consider that?"
Yeah, he had. "Too damn bad. If you're pregnant, you'll marry one of us. No child of mine will be raised a bastard."
Sam flinched. "It may not be yours."
"I don't give a shit whose kid it is!"
"Well, I do!" Sam roared, shooting to his feet.
Mitch bristled. "We love each other and we made that baby together, all three of us. That's good enough for me." Mitch's resolute gaze focused on Liv. "And as for you, think about it as much as you want, but tomorrow morning, we're going for blood tests."
