by J. L. Wilder
“You know I do, baby.”
“All I need is you,” she said. “All I need is you inside me, and then I’ll have everything. Please.”
His breath was hot on her neck as he entered her. He moved slowly, stopping every few inches and holding his position as she gasped and writhed, trying and failing to take him deeper.
“I love you so much,” he said. “I can’t wait to watch you get all big and ripe. I can’t wait for you to have my babies. You’re so beautiful. Jesus.”
He was breathing hard, as if he had just run a race. “Move,” she begged. “Fuck me hard.”
“Not yet.”
“Please, Tom! You’re driving me insane.”
“I want you insane,” he said, his voice raw with need. “I want you just like this. I want you aching for it so bad that you can’t even stay still. Fuck, I love the way you look when you’re desperate. You’re the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”
She let out a little sound, something like a sob, and rocked her hips, trying to take him deeper, trying to get the friction she so badly needed. Her skin felt overheated as if she had developed a fever, and her muscles were shaking with desire.
“I can’t take this,” she moaned.
He traced his fingers up and down her thigh. “You did so well today,” he whispered. “You were a perfect omega. You won that competition for us, Haley. It wouldn’t have happened without you.”
She whimpered, reaching for his hand, trying to move his fingers to where they might give her some relief.
He pulled away. “I know,” he said. “I know what you’re thinking. You deserve to come, don’t you?”
She didn’t dare answer him. What if the answer she gave was wrong? What if he tormented her further?
“Answer the question, baby.” His fingers moved between her legs now, his touch excruciatingly light, barely even there. “You think you deserve to come, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Haley whispered.
He kissed the back of her neck.
“You’re right,” he whispered back. “You do.”
And he began to fuck her hard, his fingers stimulating her, his free hand locked over her breast as if it were a handle. He clutched her body to his and thrust into her as hard as he could, over and over, a low growl rising from somewhere deep within him.
Haley closed her eyes and listened to the sound of that growl, and to the steady sound of his hips slapping against hers. Somehow, she was able to tune out her cries of ecstasy. She was aware that she was screaming, but it seemed to be something separate from everything else that was happening to her body.
Her orgasm crashed over her, and she drifted back to Earth slowly, the stars above her head coming into gentle focus as she blinked her way out of her stupor and into Tom’s arms.
“Good?” he asked her.
“Perfect,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you.” He leaned over and kissed her gently.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Graduation is in three days. Where are we going to go?”
“We’ll find a place to live,” Tom said, running a hand absently through her hair. “All of us together. And then we’ll take extra special care of you until those babies arrive.”
“We’re going to be parents,” Haley marveled. “Just a few weeks ago, I wondered whether I’d ever find my mate at all.”
“And I had no idea what I was going to do about finding a pack after graduation,” Tom recalled. “Those other alphas are not my idea of ideal family members.”
“Speaking of whom,” Haley said, “what about Zach? Are we going to talk to anyone about him?”
“Jasper filed a report as soon as the Games were over,” Tom said. “We didn’t want you to have to worry about it.”
Haley closed her eyes, overwhelmed by their love and protectiveness. “Did anyone tell Clarisse?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll write her a letter,” Haley said. “And I’ll tell her the report was filed.”
Tom nodded. “That ought to get her to at least look into the situation. It’s probably the best you can do.”
“Do you have to go back to Shifter U tonight?” she asked.
“No,” Tom said. “All the alphas and omegas are staying together. School’s effectively over now that the Games are done. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
She rolled over in his arms so that she was facing him. “So you can stay with me?” she asked.
“I can stay.”
“And Jasper and Dean? Can they come to stay with us too?”
Tom smiled. “Thought you’d never ask. I’ll send them a text.”
Half an hour later, the whole pack lay piled together on a blanket under the stars, all of them slowly drifting off to sleep. Haley rested her head on Tom’s shoulder, stretching across his chest to hold Dean’s hand. Jasper lay stretched out behind her, his hand on her hip.
Her last thought before falling into the grip of sleep was that she had never in her life imagined such happiness.
Chapter Twenty
JASPER
He came jogging out of the woods with the day’s catch—a wild turkey—slung over one shoulder. It would make a fine dinner for the pack tonight.
As he entered the clearing, he saw that Dean was sitting up on the porch railing, an open beer in his hand. It looked as if he had finished building the porch swing he had been working on for the past couple of weeks. Now the thing just needed to be installed. Jasper imagined his brother would need some help with that. It would be a good project for them to work on tomorrow.
Not tonight. Tonight was his night with Haley.
She lay on her side on a sleeping bag by the bonfire with her head resting in Tom’s lap. He must have said something funny because she was laughing and beaming up at him
It made Jasper feel better to know that someone was always with her, that she wasn’t alone when he went into the woods to hunt. Especially now that she was so pregnant.
I don’t know how other alphas do it, he thought, not for the first time. How can they stand choosing between protecting their omegas and doing the things that need to be done for the sake of the pack?
He felt insanely lucky that it was a choice he and his brothers would never have to make.
She saw him coming and struggled to sit up. She was so heavily pregnant now that it took serious effort, and in the end, Tom had to help her by bracing her with one arm. “You caught a turkey!” she called out, delighted.
“You said you wanted turkey,” he reminded her. Her pregnancy cravings were in full force, and Jasper knew he would have done anything to satisfy them. If she had said she was craving lasagna, he would have stolen some from an Italian restaurant. Whatever his omega needed, he would provide.
Turkey, though—that was easy. The woods around here were full of turkeys.
Tom got to his feet and took the bird from Jasper. “I’ll clean it and get it cooking,” he said. “You’ve been working all day.”
“Thanks,” Jasper said, sliding into the place beside Haley that Tom had vacated.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said. “It’s lonely around here without you.”
“How?” he asked her, surprised. “You still had Tom and Dean around all day to keep you company. They didn’t neglect you, did they?”
“No, of course not,” she assured him. “They wouldn’t do that. Tom spent the whole day right here with me. And Dean was up working on his swing, but he came down and had lunch with us, and he’s close enough that we could call out to him if we wanted to.”
“Why were you so lonely, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It just never feels right unless you’re all here. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Jasper thought he understood. Last week, Tom had gone down to the nearest town to visit the bank where their Alpha Games winnings were kept. He had stayed overnight in a hot
el because the distance was so far. The night without him had been strange and uncomfortable, and Jasper hadn’t felt fully at ease until they’d all been back together.
“It was never like that before you came along,” he told Haley. “With me and Dean and Tom. It was never hard for us to be apart, the way it is now. We barely tolerated each other back then.”
“I guess I tied you together,” she said, smiling.
He kissed her. “You did.”
She shifted slightly in his arms. “I’ve been going crazy all day,” she said, taking his hand and bringing it to her heavily swollen breast.
Jasper moved so that he was sitting behind her. The thin white cotton gown she was wearing rode up her hips. She was aroused all the time lately. “Didn’t Tom take care of you?” he murmured, stroking her nipple gently through the cotton. “Do I have to have a talk with him?”
“No,” she murmured, her body already responding to his touch. “He gave me so much. I just...”
“You need more.” He lifted the hem of her gown, exposing her fully, and gave her the flat of his hand to rub herself against. “I’ve got you, baby. Go ahead. Take what you need.”
She closed her eyes and hummed pleasurably, rocking her hips, losing herself in his touch. He skated his free hand over the new and ever-changing shape of her, marveling at how beautiful she was when she was carrying.
Dean could see them from his position on the porch, and that was good. Haley liked an audience. And she was so hot like this that she deserved one. Jasper knew his brother was staring. There was no way anyone would be able to look away from a show like this.
Haley came with a shudder, her legs locking together around Jasper’s hand. She held him there and rolled onto her side, eyes closed, head coming to rest in his lap.
He stroked her hair. “Good girl,” he whispered. “That was perfect. If that were an event in the Alpha Games, you’d win them all over again.”
She snorted. “You’re ridiculous,” she murmured, her words beginning to slur, her breathing becoming deeper.
“Go to sleep,” he told her. “I’ll wake you up when there’s turkey.”
TOM
A hand shook his shoulder in the middle of the night. In his disorientation, Tom didn’t know whether it was Jasper or Dean, but whoever it was spoke urgently. “She’s in labor.”
He blinked. “What?”
“The babies are coming now, Tom.”
That jolted him out of his stupor. A shot of adrenaline seemed to lift him out of bed and onto his feet, and then he was out of his room and in the brightly lit hallway. “Where?” he asked anyone who was listening.
“By the fire.” That was Jasper. He was dressed in nothing but athletic shorts, and his hair was sticking up. “Dean’s with her now.”
“She can’t give birth outside,” Tom said dumbly. “We have to move her, bring her in—”
“No, it’s too late for that,” Jasper said. “It’s happening fast. Come on, we’ve got to go, or we’ll miss it.”
He ran out of the house. Tom was hot on his heels. They vaulted the porch railing to the ground and hurried over to the shadowy shapes beside the fire.
Haley lay propped against Dean, breathing hard. “You’re here,” she managed.
She could have been talking to him or to Jasper, but somehow, Tom knew she was talking to both of them. “We’re here,” he said, kneeling beside her and taking her hand.
“The first one’s coming,” Jasper reported.
Dean dipped a cloth in a bowl of cool water and wiped the sweat from Haley’s face. Tom stayed beside her throughout her delivery, holding her hand tightly, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “You’re amazing,” he told her, over and over. “You’re a hero. You’re doing so well.”
The sun was coming up and the fire had died down to embers by the time the last of the babies emerged. Jasper had cleaned each one and placed him or her in one of the baskets Haley had woven to prepare for their arrival. Now she lay limp in Dean’s arms, sipping water and doing her best to recover from her efforts.
Tom moved to the baskets and knelt beside them, reaching in to touch each of his newborn children’s foreheads.
“How many?” Haley murmured. She had clearly lost count during the delivery.
“Seven,” Tom said. “Three boys and four girls.”
“Are they all right?” she asked.
“They’re perfect,” he said. He lifted one of the babies and held her up so Haley could see.
She reached out her arms. “Let me hold her.”
Tom glanced at Dean. He transferred their daughter to Haley’s arms, and Dean carefully cupped his own arms beneath hers to help her support the baby. “She’s beautiful,” Haley whispered, gazing down at the tiny features. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“She looks just like you,” Jasper said, returning from laying more wood on the fire.
“No, I think she looks like you,” Haley said. “She has your nose, see?”
“That’s not Jasper’s nose; that’s my nose,” Dean teased.
Tom picked up another baby and held him close. Now that they were there, the thing he had anticipated had come to pass. It truly didn’t matter who the biological father had been. It didn’t matter if it was him, or if it was one of his brothers, or if the miracle had actually happened and they’d managed to all impregnate her at once. They were a pack, and these were everyone’s children.
Haley was exhausted, and they wanted nothing more than to let her sleep, but she insisted on feeding the babies before she would allow herself to rest. “The three of you can handle everything else without me,” she pointed out, “but they have to be fed, and I’m the only one who can do that.”
So Tom passed her the babies one by one. She fed each of them, one at a time, even though she could have saved time by feeding two at once, taking the time to bond with each of her children.
“You don’t have to do that,” Jasper said. “I know you’re exhausted. It’s okay to hurry through it a little.”
“I don’t want to hurry through it,” Haley said. “Every moment with them is important.”
Finally, when the last of the babies had been fed and placed in her woven baskets, Haley allowed herself to lay back and close her eyes. Tom arranged her nightgown so that it rested neatly on her shoulders and covered her with a quilt from inside the house.
“I’ll stay with her,” Dean said. “We don’t want to move her just yet. Why don’t you two take the babies inside and get some rest?”
“You’ll call if you need anything?” Jasper said.
“Of course.”
Jasper rested a hand on Dean’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything, but a lot was communicated in that silence. Then he turned and walked back up to the house, two baskets dangling from each hand.
Tom picked up the other three. He hesitated. “Give her our love,” he said quietly. “If she wakes up, I mean. Let her know how proud we are.”
“Of course, I will.”
“Jasper or I will come down in a few hours and take your place so you can have a nap.”
“Thanks,” Dean said. “I’m all right. No rush.”
Tom nodded. He lifted his babies carefully.
If Haley hadn’t woven these baskets, he thought, he might be afraid to carry them like this. He might be afraid that the baskets would break and that the babies would fall out.
But he trusted her. He had faith in her skill with reeds. They would be safe.
He made it up to the house. Jasper had set his baskets on the living room floor and had collapsed beside them. He was already snoring.
He left me the couch, Tom realized.
Minutes later, he was sprawled out on it, lost to sleep.
DEAN
He trailed his fingers gently up and down the skin of her arm, watching the way the flickering firelight played on her face. The sun was still low enough in the sky that the light from the fire was necessary for them to be able to see well, and the ai
r was still cool enough from the night that Dean was grateful for the extra warmth.
He pulled the quilt up around Haley’s shoulders.
“Mmm,” she murmured.
“You’re awake?” he asked.
“Little bit,” she said, not opening her eyes. “The babies?”
“They’re inside,” Dean said. “Tom and Jasper are with them.”
“Are Tom and Jasper okay?”
“Everybody’s fine,” Dean said. “You’re the one we’re all worried about.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you just gave birth,” he said, unable to keep from rolling his eyes and smiling at her. “Why do you think?”
“But I’m fine,” she said. “I’m better than fine. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “So am I,” he said. “I didn’t expect to be. I was glad we were going to have these babies, but I never imagined...I had no idea I was going to feel like this when they arrived.”
“You’re happy?”
“Extremely,” he said.
She closed her eyes. “I’m still so tired,” she admitted.
“You should sleep,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot. Sleep, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Should we go inside?” she asked. “Be with the others?”
“Just rest. We can stay here by the fire for a while,” he said. “Jasper and Tom are handling the babies. We’ll have plenty of work to do when we get up. But for now, you’ve done enough. It’s all right. Just relax.”
She nodded. “You’ll stay, right?”
“Of course,” he said. “That’s the perk of having three alphas, babe. You never have to be alone.”
“I love you,” she said quietly. “I love you so much. I’m so glad we did this. I’m so glad you imprinted, and that the four of us are all here together. I’m so glad we won the Games. Thank you for talking me into entering.”
He kissed her temple. “None of it would have happened without you,” he said quietly. “You’re the glue, Haley.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep.
