He entered their room as silently as he could and undressed again before stretching his tired body next to his mate. He nuzzled Keenan’s neck, drawing in the heady scent his wolf was so crazy about. It was all Keenan, and it helped reassuring Jonah’s wolfish part that their mate was there, safe and in their bed.
It took a while for Jonah to fall asleep. His mind was too full, the thoughts swirling around as he tried to tackle them, to find solutions. But his mind was also sluggish with sleep, so in the end he decided to just push everything away and sleep.
Chapter Seven
Keenan was... happy. He didn’t know why he found it so surprising, really, but he did.
Even as he had watched his brother and his friends get mated, he had never thought he would find his mate, his one and only. Sure, he had hoped he would, but he hadn’t really thought it would happen. What were the probabilities that two human brothers who didn’t have contacts with shifters would both find mates? And yet...
Obviously, the fact that he lived in the mansion had been the only reason he had found Jonah. If Jamie hadn’t met Ward... well, it was useless to think of the what if’s, especially since they were all happy now.
It still amazed Keenan, though, every time he looked at Jonah, every time the man touched him. They had been mated for only a few weeks, but it felt like years. Keenan had had only one serious relationship before Jonah, and it had lasted longer than that, but the feelings had been different.
Keenan had loved Bryce, as much as he could love him. However, he now realized that there was a completely different type of love, or maybe it was just so much stronger. He couldn’t even compare the feelings he had for the two men.
Keenan was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t even hear Jamie enter his office and stand next to him. He realized his brother was there only when Jamie reached out and pinched his nipple, hard.
“Ow, Jamie! What the hell?”
Jamie smirked. “I don’t like talking to myself, you know that.”
“Why don’t you go and annoy your mate, then? I have work to do.”
“I can see that. I’m sure it was Dominic who asked you to stare into space like that instead of taking care of his appointments.”
“Okay, he didn’t, but you still can go annoy someone else.” Keenan made a shooing gesture, praying his brother would do as he asked, but of course, he had no such luck. Jamie had become an annoying little thing since he had befriended Finn and Derick, almost as annoying as Keenan when he wanted to be.
Jamie ignored Keenan and jumped on the desk, settling his butt on one side of the computer.
“Hey! You’re cutting my view! How am I supposed to work if I can’t even see my computer screen?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll work later. For now, I’m in need of a brother-to-brother chat.”
Keenan made a show of widening his eyes and slapped his hands on his mouth. “Oh my god, are you pregnant? Are we finally going to have a mini Ward running around the house?”
Jamie growled, something both brothers had learned to do fairly well since they’d moved into the mansion. He slapped Keenan on the back of the head before saying, “No mini Ward. He would have to sleep with a woman for that, and there’s no way I’m letting him do that.”
“There’s surrogacy, you know?” Keenan knew Jamie wanted children. Maybe not now, but one day.
“Oh, sure, and how do I explain to the surrogate that she’s going to have a half-shifter kid? Besides, it would show on the medical exams Ward would have to do, so it’s a definite no.”
Keenan frowned. He didn’t know if Jamie was really starting to think about kids—he was still young after all, and he would live a lot longer than a normal human—but he could see the problem.
If Jamie and Ward wanted to use surrogacy, Jamie would have to be the father, but even then, something might be found in his blood. If he was lucky and everything went well, he would still have a human kid. That meant that if the kid didn’t somehow find his mate, Jamie and Ward would have to watch him get old and eventually die. The only way to avoid that would be for one of them to father a child that was at least half shifter, but as far as Keenan knew, it wasn’t possible unless they slept with a woman, and it wasn’t possible.
“I wonder if Jared might want to look into a surrogacy program for shifters,” Keenan mused, once again immersed in his thoughts. “Or you could adopt a shifter kid. I’m sure there are orphans even in the shifter community. Look at the ones we found in the lab.”
Jamie shrugged. “I wasn’t here to talk about this anyway.”
Keenan raised a brow. “Maybe you weren’t, but now that I raised the question I’m sure you’re thinking about it.”
“So? I’m only twenty-five. I have time. Besides, there are plenty of kids in the mansion.”
That was true. The house was nearly overrun by people under the age of seven. Not only were the straight couples in the pride all reproducing, but they seemed to have decided to do that all together. The age of the kids went from only a few months old to seven years old. Then there were the children who had been rescued from the lab Jonah’s friends had been in.
Three of them had been orphans, so while they had taken the fourth back to his family, the other three were still with them. Sure, they could have dumped them to social services, but no one had wanted to do that. Even if they weren’t shifters, they knew about them, and there were plenty of people in the pride who wanted kids.
Connie and Amanda, the only lesbian couple, were adopting one of the kids already, while the other two had been taken in by two other couples. They had been lucky that Dominic knew a lot of people in a lot of places, even in social services.
“So what did you come here for?”
Jamie frowned. “I can’t remember.”
Keenan laughed. “You know what mom always said—”
“If you can’t remember it, it means it wasn’t important. Yeah, I know.” Jamie smiled. “It probably wasn’t.”
Someone knocked at the door and Keenan groaned, thumping his head on his desk. “Yes?”
Jonah’s head appeared and Keenan couldn’t stop the smile that spread on his face. “What is it with you guys today? Are you trying to get me fired?”
Jonah hesitated, but Jamie only snorted. “Please. You’re doing that well enough on your own.” He gestured to Jonah to come in. “He’s joking, Jonah. You should know by now. Dominic would never fire him. He’s too scared Keenan would stalk him to get his job back.”
Keenan wasn’t listening to Jamie anymore. He was watching his mate stride into his office, his long legs eating the empty space between them. Keenan bit his lower lip, remembering exactly where those legs had been that morning, which was wrapped around Keenan’s waist as he rutted against Jonah’s stomach to get rid of both their morning woods.
He noticed Jonah blush and he smiled. His mate was thinking of the same thing he was. Maybe they could do that again. Or maybe do more.
Keenan stood up, taking care to stay behind his desk to hide his erection as well as he could. “Okay, Jamie. I’m sorry, but I have a, uh, meeting with Jonah. I think you should go. We can talk about whatever it was you wanted when you remember it, mmm?”
“Wait, I think I remember—”
“No, you don’t!” Keenan grabbed his brother’s hand and pulled him closer, baring his teeth at him in warning.
“Okay, I don’t, but maybe I’ll remember as soon as I step out, or in ten minutes,” Jamie said, barely keeping a laugh in.
Keenan growled. “If you do, leave me a message somewhere.”
He pushed Jamie toward the door, his brother still saying he thought he remembered, but Keenan didn’t care. He waved at Jamie once the man was outside the door before slamming it close and locking it.
When he turned to face Jonah, his mate was silently laughing. “Something funny?”
“Yeah, you. Well, the two of you.”
“Oh, w
ell, if you’d rather laugh, I can call Jamie back. Of course, that’ll mean I won’t be able to fuck you right now, but that’s fine. Your choice.” Keenan turned back to the door, but before he could open it again, a weight settled on his back and pushed him against it.
“You wanted to do what?”
“Well, I was thinking a repeat from this morning,” Keenan panted as Jonah’s hands moved over his body, sliding under his clothes. “but then I thought, why stop there?”
Jonah nipped at Keenan’s neck. “Why indeed.”
Keenan shuddered. Yeah, he was happy, and he wouldn’t change a thing in his life.
About the Author
Catherine lives in Italy, country of good food and hot men. She used to write fantasy as a child, but it was reading her first gay erotic romance novel that made her realize that that was what she really wanted to write.
After graduating from college in English language and translation, she divides her day between writing, reading, taking care of her son and reading some more.
You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or on her website: authorcatherinelievens.wordpress.com
Email: [email protected]
Keenan Page 12