by Aiden Bates
For my part, as I spoke, I took the opposite approach than Roman. I didn’t take my eyes off of his face the entire time, so I was keenly aware of the way his eyes began to light up as he started to catch my meaning.
“So, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry to you for forgetting who you are and what you’ve always meant to me. I’m sorry to Lima Bean for not being excited from the get-go. And I’m sorry to me for beating myself up over what I thought I ought to want instead of just choosing what I already knew I wanted. I want you, and I want this, and I guess it’s time to step back from the other person I was trying to be.”
“Hell no!” Roman swore and spit at the ground. “Absolutely not. You’re doing it all over again. You think you ought to pick one part of yourself over another. You used to pick the at-work-Teddy, and now you’re picking the at-home-Teddy. But that’s my point. I don’t want you to have to give up on any of it—because it all makes you happy, just in different ways. I don’t know how yet, but you’re the smart one so I guess I won’t be the one to figure it out, but you have to create a balance. A work life balance where you get to do both. Anyway, you oughta be running the place. Those assholes don’t hold a candle to you, and they sure as shit can’t keep you down. You just have to think your way out, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Think my way into a corporate takeover, that’s all, no big deal, not a tall order at all.
“Yeah. That’s all. Because I’m your alpha now, and that means what I say goes. Right? And I’m telling you that you’re not allowed to give up on your dreams and get your shit pushed around by little no-talent pencil-necks. Your marching orders are to go for what you want with both hands and that is all.”
“Oh, really? Those are my orders?” I asked, mischievously quirking an eyebrow at Roman as he broke into that lopsided smile of his.
I sprang off the bench as he opened his arms to catch me in an embrace. As soon as I landed, I went up onto my tiptoes and pulled his head down into a deep and hungry kiss. It felt different than the other kisses we’d shared, even those we’d shared in the heat of the moment. It felt like two halves coming together now, it felt complete.
Roman was always solid and certain. And if Roman was solid and certain about me, then that meant maybe I could be solid and certain about me, too. I wanted to believe in what Roman believed in, and one of those things was apparently me. And that… Well, that was intoxicating. That was the kind of thing that left you kissing your alpha’s lips raw in the middle of the park without thinking anything of it.
“Lovelace,” I said, when I finally came up for air.
“Loveless?” Roman asked in a worried tone, perhaps worried I’d reconsidered during the kiss and now pronounced us cold and unfeeling. Loveless.
“No, Lovelace like Lady Ada Lovelace,” I explained to Roman’s blinking confusion. “Mother of Computer Science? Anyway. They’re a company. It’s a long shot, but I was thinking of showing them my simulator. Maybe they’d have ideas about how and where I could keep on working on it. I don’t know. It’s a thought. Not a very fully-formed thought. And anyway, I don’t have time right now.”
“Uh…yeah, you do? You’ve got another, like, eight months? At least? I’m gonna make more in Montana, and it’s cheaper up there anyway, so you wouldn’t have to find a job, you could just relax. Focus on us, focus on your side project, focus on—”
“What? God. No, that’s too much!”
“Oh,” Roman said, simply. “Okay, never mind, you don’t have to focus on us, if you’re not ready.”
“What? No, Roman. I meant… Jesus.” I shook my head. “No. We’re turning over a new leaf. Focusing on us is exactly what I’m going to be doing for the time being. I meant I can’t just spend all eight months thinking of the project. We’ve got to start getting ready for Lima Bean.”
“Lima Bean?”
It was Roman’s turn to arch an eyebrow and laugh at me.
“See? First priority, we have to start thinking up names before ‘Lima Bean’ sticks.”
At the thought of picking out names and earnestly designing nurseries and all of what was to come, I grew serious. Not somber, still overwhelmingly happy. Just serious. Earnest. Genuine. I went up on tiptoes to kiss him again.
“As long as I have you, that is. That’s all I need to be able to focus on this task.”
“Well, for better or for worse, you do,” Roman said reassuringly before he kissed me back. The rest of the conversation in the park progressed in much the same rhythm. We kissed, we talked, we kissed, we clarified, we kissed, we asked a question, kissed, and then thought of something else we had to think about it, and kissed again, all the while never breaking apart, making up for all the time we’d lost with each other.
“So, we’re doing this? We’re really, really doing this?” Roman asked sort of incredulously during one such break.
“We’re doing this,” I answered a little dreamily and kiss-drunk.
Roman pushed me down off my tiptoes as I prepared to dive into another kiss. “Then is there any way we can take this somewhere else? If we’re serious, then I was hoping to show you how serious, but I’m pretty sure that old lady on that bench is about to have a heart attack if we don’t stop making out in public.”
I angled myself around Roman’s body to catch sight of what indeed was a very shocked, very concerned older lady who’d been feeding birds across from where we’d been talking.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea that twelve hours ago, this had all been super secret and here we were now, out in the open, disturbing the peace and scandalizing the elderly.
“Yeah,” I said, before I pecked him one last time. “Well, go on then, soldier. You’ve got your orders. Find us somewhere private on the double.”
27
Roman
We finally made it inside his apartment, and the impulse to push Teddy’s back against the wall was too great to ignore, so I didn’t. I pinned his hands above his head and nosed at the long line of his throat before tracing over it with my tongue. It had only been a day, but because of all the stress and turmoil and the relief I was feeling now, I was starving for him. Teddy moved his head to the side and I breathed him in, filling my nose with the scent I’d subconsciously been hunting for on Silas and Garret’s guest room sheets this morning.
“Missed you,” I said.
Teddy chuckled. “It’s only been a day.”
I shook my head. “No, had to be at least six years.” I kissed a line up the jut of his jaw, and just before I found his lips, I felt them tug up into a smile.
“Yeah, in some ways, I think it has been.”
I pulled back slightly and looked at him. So often, Teddy’s eyes held all the things he couldn’t quite find the right words for. He took his time with words, like each one mattered and was to be placed just so. I could see the humor, the hurt or the confusion there long before he’d actually settled on the right phrases to express it. Now, when I looked up at him, I saw something new. If I were a more romantic man, I’d have said it took my breath away. The reality was I was already panting like a black dog in July, so it wouldn’t have been saying much. His eyes were unguarded, and I could see his vulnerability; the light tinge of his cheeks just as much from his embarrassment as arousal.
At first, I wasn’t sure what he meant, but then I realized. When we’d first done this six years ago, things had been a lot more innocent, but more honest. The weeks we’d spent together now had been wonderful, but there was always the fear of being caught, the anxiety of the pregnancy, the concern about what exactly it was we were doing falling into bed with each other after all this time. Now, it felt as though all those issues had shifted. They weren’t all gone, but we knew where we stood with each other, and that made it much easier to handle everything else. Because we would. And we’d do it together.
I was sort of overwhelmed by it all, so I poured myself into what I was doing. Maybe neither of us were ready for more words, not yet, but b
oth of us were more than ready for this.
I moved to kiss him, and Teddy pushed forward from his pinned position to meet me halfway as best he could. Our teeth clacked in our eagerness to map and tease and taste each other’s mouths. It wasn’t the best kiss I’ve ever given. It was probably too messy and enthusiastic, but what it lacked in finesse it made up for with feeling.
Unable to wait any longer, I bent down to catch the backs of Teddy’s thighs. Realizing what I was after, he helped me as I guided his legs to wrap around my waist, and then I carried him to the bedroom.
Clothes came off. I wasn’t really paying enough attention to describe how, but one second they were on, and the next they were on the floor in disarray, and possibly just a little torn here and there. I didn’t care. Any self-consciousness I’d previously felt about the new way my body looked was gone. It just didn’t matter. Nothing else in the world mattered other than Teddy being stretched out beneath me, looking at me like I’d hung the moon.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Teddy.”
“You’re biased.” He reached up to stroke my bicep.
“Nope. I’m not.”
Teddy gave me a look.
“Alright, maybe a bit. But it’s true, either way. I’ll just keep telling you every day until you believe it.”
Teddy smiled, and I focused in on loving him.
The pregnancy had made his already sensitive nipples even more responsive, and I spent an age tasting and teasing at them, drawing out a steady stream of moaning from Teddy that seemed hardwired to my dick. Once both buds were flushed dark-red and hard, I palmed his cock, drawing my thumb over the sensitive head.
“Look at you, you’re dripping,” I said.
This proved the exact right thing to say as I was awarded with another dewy drop of precum. I didn’t stroke him with any intent, keeping my grip just tight enough to feel, and just loose enough to ensure things weren’t over before they’d even got good and going.
“Tell me what you want, sweetheart,” I gently demanded.
“Oh god—Roman. Oh, that feels…” Teddy groaned then sighed in frustration as I slowed my strokes. “God, I want to ride you. Do you remember that first time?”
“I do.”
“The way you looked at me. Like you wanted to keep me there on your cock forever.”
“I did.”
“Can we, fuck, can we do it like that?”
“We can.”
I rolled us over until Teddy was on top of me, straddling my hips with his creamy thighs. I groped for the bottle of lubricant we kept stashed on the nightstand, and Teddy reached for it. He poured a generous amount onto his palm before stroking me with firm, slow strokes from root to tip. He moved so slowly it almost felt like he wasn’t moving at all. I wanted to urge him on, but I knew better. He knew better. He knew what this did to me, how crazy and eager it made me.
After a few moments, however, I couldn’t help it. “Honey, please,” I growled.
Teddy just cocked his head. “When I’m ready.”
“You figure you’re gonna be ready any time this century?”
Teddy hummed. “Not if you’re gonna behave like that, I’m not. Go back to the begging, if you please.”
“Darling, anything. Please. I want you.”
I thought Teddy would guide my hands to his entrance to prepare him, or he would lean back and do it himself. Instead, he took a deep breath and guided my cock to his opening. I could feel the very tip of my cock pressing just so against the skin.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’ll go slow. I’ll be careful. I just want to feel you opening me up this way.”
I hadn’t ever thought about such a thing until this moment, but as soon as the words left Teddy’s mouth, it was all I could think about. I wanted to feel him tight and snug around me, easing himself down, finding his own pleasure in my cock opening him wide.
“Holy shit, yes,” I said.
It was slow torture, Teddy would ease down little by little, but I could feel his body tensing with pleasure. His cock was as hard as steel, his head thrown back, the muscles of his neck drawn taut as he attempted to master the challenge he’d set himself.
We both groaned when the head of my cock popped in, and from there it was just a gentle, never-ending slide until I found his ass pressed flush against my hips.
“You’re so fucking big, Roman. You fill me up like no one else.” The words caught my alpha brain, the part of me that wanted to preen for having such a beautiful omega, the part that wanted to answer, ‘Yes, and no one else ever will, ever again.’
Instead, I just said, “Mine.”
Teddy groaned, tightening around me where he still sat at the base of my cock. “Yeah, Roman. Yours. Always yours. Come on, now. Fuck me,” he demanded. He grabbed my hands and moved them to his hips, and we found a rhythm together, slowing and speeding up where it felt right. Gradually, the tempo continued to steadily increase until, after planting my feet on the mattress, I was pounding up into him, and Teddy was all but throwing himself down to meet me. The slap of flesh, the groaning, panting cries were all that filled the room until Teddy’s hips started to lose pace and his cries started becoming more and more like whining sobs.
“Oh, right there. Roman, please don’t stop. Don’t stop. I’m about to—oh, god, I’m coming, fuck, I’m coming.”
I watched him come all over himself, untouched. The pulses constricting around me were enough that in a few more strokes, I was coming, too. I slammed home as deep as I could and let it take me, coming in hot ropes inside him.
We laid there for I don’t know how long, quiet as we caught our breaths. Eventually, Teddy persuaded me to follow him to the steam of the shower. He spent ages and ages washing me, putting to shame all my fantasies of him kneeling in front of me and blowing me by doing it in the flesh, pulling an orgasm from my toes to the roots of my hair before washing me again. He was about to get out when I dragged him back under the hot water.
“Nah, c’mere,” I said into the back of his neck as I wrapped around him from behind. We watched together as I found his cock again and set about nearly bringing him to his knees.
Eventually, the hot water ran out and we were forced from the shower. Teddy threw on my old, threadbare robe I’d somehow left here. It was too big for his shoulders, leaving his collarbone vulnerable. His hair was dripping onto the old, faded blue fabric, and the water clung to his eyelashes like crystals. His lips were bee stung with the kisses I’d given him over and over and curled into a lazy smile. His left cheek was also red from the burn of my stubble. I felt like I’d never seen anything more beautiful than him, right here, smiling up at me.
I couldn’t think of anything other than wanting to keep him just like this forever, just as happy, just as loved, just as relaxed. I wanted to keep him. God, did I want to keep him. Randomly, Logan’s words about honor flashed through my head, and I did the only thing I could think to do in this situation.
I got on one knee and took his hand.
Teddy looked puzzled for a moment, before his expression turned to one of shock.
“Oh, no. Nope. I absolutely forbid you from proposing to me right now,” Teddy said, shaking his head for extra emphasis.
I self-consciously got back up and dropped his hand, my pride a little dented.
“Why?”
“Well, we’re naked for one. I’m not telling our kid about how their dad proposed to me buck-naked.”
“Okay, so I’ll go grab some pants.”
“No! Jesus, Ro. It’s just…don’t, okay? I’m not saying no ever, I’m just saying not right now. The moment isn’t right.”
“I…wasn’t going to propose?” I suggested, not even fooling myself.
“Oh, yes you were. Just. Just wait though. Alright? We should do it right. It’s been a long time coming.”
I thought about it for a second, and then nodded, understanding what Teddy meant. That was okay. I didn’t have a ring yet, anyway. I
started making plans in my head about where to get one and how to bribe Bennet and Silas into coming with me to pick something out Teddy would like. Still, I felt so happy I could pop, and I wanted to do something, anything for him.
“Alright, it’s settled, then. If I was in fact proposing to you, which is debatable, I agree to wait. Now, tell me what you do want,” I urged.
Teddy bit his lip, looking a bit sheepish. “We still have all those groceries, right?”
“Yup,” I said.
“I think what would be best given this auspicious occasion would be a whole lot of breakfast food. Like, everything. I’m starving.”
I laughed. “I think I can just about manage that.” And it sounded just right.
Thank god for the weekend. Before Teddy, I’d felt a little at odds on my days off. All that free time and nothing to do, no one to see. Now though, weekends were the very best. It’d been a month since I’d gone to Teddy and we’d managed to find a way forward together, and since then, things had been just about perfect. Now it was all out in the open, it felt like everything was full of sunlight. I’d had to remember more than once that at work, I was the scary bastard who made everybody run and clean until their legs and hands fell off. Not very intimidating to have a drill sergeant grinning from ear to ear all the time.
But now it was Friday afternoon, and all I wanted in the world was to get home to my omega and spend the weekend with him doing whatever in the hell we wanted and fussing over baby names.