He pulled me from the truck, and we kissed against every wall between the front door and the bathroom where my mate stripped me bare while steam filled the bathroom.
“You make me feel alive,” he whispered into my ear while washing my back. His hands, soapy and rough, ran down my ass, and then he teased my crack with his finger. I turned in his embrace, ready to try something.
I got onto my knees and ignored his protests while taking him into my mouth. He had been hard since I kissed him in the truck, and by the time we were in the shower, he was beyond ready to blow.
“Theta, no. I don’t need you to…” He tried once again to complain, but his hips bucking him farther down my throat told another story. “Oh fuck, that feels amazing.”
I fondled his sac while he called out my name and braced himself, palms on the shower wall, legs spread for better balance.
I wondered how my alpha would respond to a little ass play.
Only one way to find out.
I slipped my hand between his legs and rubbed the length of his crease up and down. I looked up at him and he nodded, giving me permission.
“Touch me anywhere you want to, Miles. Any-fucking-where.”
With some of my slick to ease the way, I gently slipped my digit inside of him while still pumping his cock in and out of my mouth. His hips rocked at a greater pace as his body shook, so close to the cusp of orgasm. He reached down and tangled his fingers in my hair and fucked my mouth with the same fury as he had on the trail and, before I knew it, warm liquid spurted down my throat while he called my name.
Alois stepped back and helped me to my feet and pulled me against his chest. “That was incredible. I really need food now.” We laughed together then rewashed and got out.
“I’m going to make us food,” I told him. “Did you want another nap?”
While I toweled off and put on some shorts, he didn’t answer. I glanced over to see his eyes trained on my stomach. “What?”
“You have my child inside you. I’m overwhelmed in the best way possible, Miles. You’ve changed my life.” He stalked over to me and rubbed a circle on my belly. “You’re everything to me, theta. I hope you know that.”
A tear ran down my face. “You’re everything to me, Alois.”
We shared a tender kiss and then he slapped my butt as I went down the hallway and to the kitchen while he lay on the couch. I had just opened the fridge when I heard his snores.
I threw together some triple-thick roast beef sandwiches while some sweet potato fries crisped in the air fryer. I still glanced out the window at various intervals, looking out for Kent, even though I knew he would never get past Alois. I guessed that fear would have to dwindle in time.
Before waking my alpha, I plated up a sandwich, tons of fries, and put a tall glass of lemonade on the table. “Alois?” I called to him and he woke with a smile.
“I fell asleep again. You’ve worn me to shreds,” he said while chuckling.
“Come eat, love.”
He got up and came to the table to sit and pull me onto his lap. “You need to eat more, Miles. You’re growing our child now.”
I nodded and pulled my plate next to his. “Yeah, I sure do.”
Chapter Sixteen
Alois
It was amazing how quickly we fell into domesticity from the day I knotted my theta. Or rather, the day he “thetad” me. He said there was no such word, but I had to find some way to describe the unique process that joined us and made us a family. Although it was apparent from the very next day that Miles was correct and he was pregnant, he refused to go to a doctor. His experience with the doctors my former boss—I couldn’t think of him as Miles’ former anything—used to cover up his crimes had made him gun-shy. While I understood, I made it clear that we were not going through the entire pregnancy without the benefit of experts.
He swore that thetas had very hearty constitutions, few health problems, and were practically baby factories. His own dad had given birth to him at home without any doctors or midwives.
So only two issues disturbed the domestic bliss of his first four months of pregnancy. One, I exerted gentle but constant pressure for him to visit a doctor. And two...I wanted him to reconnect with his folks. He had no morning sickness and according to the bathroom scale I’d purchased had gained about six pounds. His color was good, his energy great as long as he took a short afternoon nap, and provided I didn’t ask him to make a medical visit, his spirits were up. I’d asked around and learned that Theta Sanctuary had earned its name for a reason. I’d never questioned the meaning before, thinking it was just one of those weird things. Thetas often ended up there, and there were a couple of specialists who dealt only with them. I hadn’t told Miles for fear he’d be even more opposed and worried if he knew I’d mentioned him.
Okay, maybe we had a third problem. I wanted to shout our love to the world, but other than shopping together, he liked to spend our recreational time either at home or out in the hills where we ran into few others. I still wanted to kill my former boss.
I went to work at the new job site across town every day, with a little bit of nerves. Kent had not tracked us down, as I’d been very sure he would. In fact, we hadn’t heard a word from him. One of the guys at work said he heard that Kent was now spending most of his time at a new site two towns over, which worked great for me. But I’d installed a camera system outside the house just to be safe. And I tried to make sure we ran errands together because since Miles began online college classes, we were both busy during the workday anyway.
Seventeen weeks in, we sat side by side at the table at breakfast casually spooning up oatmeal with blueberries and walnuts. I’d never wanted to touch the stuff before I had the creamy, toothsome version my omega served twice a week. He believed in eating seasonally and always bought the best the farmer’s market on the corner had to offer.
Suddenly his spoon clattered to the table and he gripped his middle, the color fleeing his cheeks. Only the fact we’d started sitting next to one another put me close enough to catch him before he fell to the floor in a dead faint. “Miles?” I gave him a little shake then stopped. What if that hurt the baby? “Miles,” I begged, cradling him against my chest, “what’s wrong?”
His eyelids fluttered open and he sucked in a long breath. “I don’t know...it hurts.” His lip trembled. “Oh no. The baby.”
Before he could say another word, I stood, bringing him with me, and grabbed my keys, phone, and wallet. I set him on the truck seat and carefully fastened the seat belt around his slumpng form. “It’s okay. The baby is fine, and so will you be.” I closed the door and ran around to the driver’s side.
“Alpha, where are we going?” He had to know.
“Doctor, theta.”
He struggled to sit straighter and fisted his hands at his sides, probably to keep them off his belly. “No, you can’t.”
“I can and I am. Unless you’d prefer the hospital emergency room?”
He paled again, and I cursed my poor handling of the situation. “No, he has friends there—they know me.”
I stifled an additional round of cursing. “Theta, I wish you’d let me go to the authorities with all this. He caused you so much harm.”
“No...I can’t. He has a lot of friends and why would they believe me? He told me no records of my treatment were kept.”
“We will address this, at some point, theta,” I vowed. “You cannot be afraid your whole life. But for now, we’re going to a doctor who specializes in thetas. Since Kent had no idea why you didn’t get pregnant, I’m going to hazard a guess he didn’t know they exist. Right?” I glanced at him as we approached the doctor’s office building. Lucky it was so close. I’d texted a request at the last stoplight and they told me they would fit us in.
“He didn’t, and even though I was young and dumb, I never told him.” He blew out a breath in a long whoosh. “I made a lot of mistakes since leaving home, but I dodged a bullet there.”
&nbs
p; I spotted a parking place just down the block from the address and pulled in. “Survival instinct, likely.” I didn’t have to tell him to stay put since I’d been opening his door for almost our whole time together, but when I did, this time, I asked, “Want me to carry you?”
“Carry me?” he scoffed. “I am sure I can walk.” To prove it he took a few steps ahead of me, but wobbled, and I caught up and steadied him then held his arm as we entered the building and consulted the listings on the wall by the elevator. The doors slid open, but, before he entered, Miles gave me a sheepish smile. “Thank you. I don’t have a lot of dignity, but you sure make me feel like I do.”
I ached with love for him. “Theta, you are the epitome of dignity and grace. Few people would have gone through what you did and come out the other side in such good shape.”
We stepped inside, and I pushed the button for two. We were a small town, but growing, and with the city just an hour away, buildings of several stories were rapidly rising. Which was also why I had no trouble finding work in my trade.
The doctor’s office was quiet, and we were the only people in the waiting room. “Welcome,” a smiling man about Miles’ age wearing blue scrubs said. “We technically don’t open for an hour, but the doctor is coming in early to see you. Would you come with me?”
Miles stood as if his feet were cemented to the carpet. “You opened early for me?” Another surge of heart-deep pain that he felt so unworthy.
“Sure.” He held the door open between the waiting room and the rest of the practice. “Doc has a theta brother quite a bit older than him. He always goes out of his way for others, but especially thetas.” His smile wobbled. “I’m afraid...well, don’t say anything about his brother, okay? He had a hard life for a long time. Some people are assholes.” Leading us into an exam room, he paused. “And don’t tell him I cursed? He doesn’t like it.” He handed Miles a bottle of water. “Drink up.” Miles cracked it open and took a gulp.
What a day for emotional roller coasters. But at this comment, I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “I probably should try to control myself, too, then. On construction sites, cursing is kind of de rigueur. Those who don’t are the ones who are breaking the norm.”
Miles accepted the thin gown and went behind a screen to don it while I sat down to fill out the sheaf of forms the nurse left behind. I asked him for the answers I didn’t know and learned a few more things about my love as I did. When he emerged, wearing the gown and socks, I noticed something. “You look much better. How do you feel?” His color was warmer, and he moved steadily. That had to be good, right?
“Better. My stomach doesn’t hurt anymore. I don’t suppose you’d agree to just going home now? It was probably something I ate.” Considering he was eating a lot, and some odd combos late at night, he was probably right.
The nurse entered again, picking up the end of the conversation. “Don’t tell me you’re going to leave us before even meeting the doc? He’ll be so disappointed.”
Miles flushed. “Well, I uhh.”
“Now hush. Everybody is nervous at their first prenatal exam.” The nurse, whose name tag read Charlie Potter RN, took the clipboard from me and shooed him toward the exam table then spent the next few minutes taking vitals and asking questions to fill in the lines I’d either missed or not answered completely enough. By the time he was done and had offered and given Miles a second bottle of water, the doctor was there.
His tag read Trace Smith, MD followed by another bunch of letters I assumed proclaimed additional education, certification, and qualifications. Overall, the middle-aged man with the salt-and-pepper streaked beard presented the picture of the doctor you’d want to take care of your theta. Were you lucky enough to have one.
“Let’s get going, then.” He washed his hands at the sink then slid them into light-blue gloves. “I didn’t know we had a new theta in town. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miles, and you as well, Alois.” He came to stand next to the table and repeated some of the tests Nurse Potter had already administered before moving to the end. “Well, lie back, feet in the stirrups, and we’ll have a look.” He bustled around, so calm and competent, even Miles didn’t argue. It probably didn’t hurt that he wasn’t confronted with a doctor who he’d already met. Someone in Kent’s pocket.
Of course, had he been one of those, I’d have had to punch his lights out at the very least.
“I’d say you’re about seventeen weeks,” he said. Stripping off the gloves, he tossed them into a waste can to the side and offered miles his hand to sit. “I’d chastise you—or your alpha”—he gave me a serious look I had no reply for except for a shrug—“for waiting so long to show up, but I suspect you had your reasons. Everything looks good, and I don’t think we have anything to worry about. You had a stomach ache it says on the forms?”
Miles nodded.
“Better now?”
“Yes.”
The doc waited, but Miles didn’t add anything. He was still nervous, clearly. “Okay, well as I said I think you and the baby are doing fine. We’ll set up a schedule of appointments for the rest of the pregnancy, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to do an ultrasound today? Just to be 100 percent positive all is as it should be.”
“That’s great, Doc,” I replied for us both. “Will you be able to tell the sex this early?”
“Nurse Potter, if you’d get everything ready?” He faced us again. “Most likely. Now, I do my own ultrasounds, so with no delay…”
The nurse returned pushing a table holding a variety of gadgets. “Let’s do this.”
“Doesn’t he have to drink a lot of water first?” I asked.
Doc Smith pointed to the two empties in the wastebasket. “I think he’s good. Nurse Potter is tricky like that.”
He laid back and the doc applied the gel and ran a device over his belly while he—and I—watched the screen showing our baby.
“Theta...look, it’s swimming around. It waved.” I had no shame for the tears running down my cheeks. “Our baby. Our little…”
“Sure you want to know?” Doc Smith beamed at us. “Once I tell you, you’ll always know you have...a beautiful daughter.”
Chapter Seventeen
Miles
“This isn’t nice, alpha,” I complained with the bandana tied around my eyes. “I have to pee again, by the way.”
My belly and this seat belt weren’t getting along, especially since we’d been on the road for over seven hours. What possessed my alpha to take a road trip when I was almost seven months pregnant had to be some kind of demon—a peeing demon.
“Can you make it about fifteen more minutes? If not, I can stop.” He touched my thigh with his large, warm hand.
“I can make it. And I’m starving again, so there’s that.”
He chuckled. “I figured, but there’s plenty of food waiting for us where we’re going.”
I sighed and wished I could at least look out the window at the scenery. After we crossed a few states, he’d blindfolded me, and while I was turned on by the gesture at first, now it was just annoying.
“Please, my theta. I promise it will be worth it. Don’t you trust your mate?”
His hand crept farther up my thigh and I moaned. “Unless we are going to a hotel, you’d better slow down, love. These pants stretch at the waistband and nowhere else.”
Yeah, I had to wear paternity pants now. Damn it.
“Well, I’d better save that for later.” He punched something into his phone and made a sharp right, and then it felt like the truck drove upward. Then he put it into park.
“I’m going to keep you blindfolded for a few more minutes but I’m coming around to walk you to the door.”
Alois put his hands on my shoulders and stood behind me while he knocked on a door. With stealthy hands, he took the bandana off and revealed a place and two people I never thought I’d see again.
“Please don’t be angry, my love. Our babe needs to know his grandparents—all of them.�
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Over the last few months, Alois’ parents and I had become close. They came over for Sunday dinners, and his mom and I talked every day on the phone.
In front of me were my two dads, aged, but still the men I loved who raised me. They both had tears in their eyes, and my step back was stopped by Alois’ wall of a chest.
I’d not spoken to them since they told me they didn’t like Kent—didn’t feel right about him. Didn’t want him in my life.
They were right, and now I didn’t know how to face them.
“Miles, come here, Son.” My dad, David, stepped out of the house and opened his arms to me. I froze in place. I’d hurt them so much.
“They love you and want you here, my mate. Let’s not bring our babe into the world with broken relationships in our family.” Alois wrapped his arms around my middle and rubbed my belly. “Thank you for having us. Miles?”
“I’m so sorry for everything.” The sentence rushed out of my mouth, and I broke down crying. My fathers crowded around us and we all embraced and cried together right there in front of the house.
“There is nothing to forgive, Son. The important thing is that you are back, and with this wonderful mate of yours. And we are going to be grandpapas. The past is the past,” my dad Colt whispered into my ear as we let go. “Come on in. Alois, we didn’t get to hug our son-in-law.”
They both held onto Alois, and I found out through their talking that he’d been in contact with them for weeks, planning this trip.
My mate was a fucking king among men.
We went inside where everything had been updated. New wall colors, new furnishings, the works.
“I hate to break up the party, but I have to pee.”
Alois winked at me while one of my dads waved toward the back of the house. “You know where it is. This is your home, still.”
A knot formed in my throat at his words. Kent said that wasn’t my home anymore.
He was wrong.
Actually, it was all wrong. Alois was my home. Wherever he was, that’s where I would lay my head.
Welded: MM Mpreg Romance (Industrial Alphas Book 1) Page 6