Rock the Cradle: An Mpreg Romance (Silver Oak Medical Center Book 6)

by Aiden Bates

  He got Alex’s shirt off and tossed it onto the floor. Next came Alex’s pants, and those dreadful briefs he loved so much. Those absolutely had to go. Once Alex was naked, he could start to work on himself.

  He knew he didn't look like he had the last time they'd been together. Derek wasn't showing yet, but his muscles had softened thanks to his long period of forced inactivity. He had scars, from his surgery. He tried not to feel self-conscious about it. There was nothing he could do about it, and Alex didn't seem to mind. On the contrary, his big, beautiful cock was filling right before Derek's eyes.

  Derek climbed on top of Alex. He'd missed skin to skin contact. It was such a luxury for him these days, and he needed it. Oh, how he needed it. From what he could tell, Alex appreciated it too. Alex’s hard cock rubbed against Derek's own as Derek controlled their kiss. He ran his hands over Alex’s arms and chest with a feather light touch. He wanted to savor this moment, to feel the joy and the anticipation.

  He also wanted to come so badly he thought he might explode.

  When he didn't think he could take it anymore, he turned around and took Alex into his mouth. He needed it. He wanted it. He wanted so much more, but it wasn't feasible right now. He could only circle his tongue around the tip, slow and tantalizing. He teased the slit with his tongue ring, earning a howl of pleasure from Alex before Alex figured out Derek's intention.

  It was almost too much. Alex’s hot, wet mouth closed around Derek's demanding cock as Derek bobbed his head along Alex’s shaft. He'd never enjoyed giving head before, but with Alex it made him feel powerful. It made him feel like he was in control. He moaned as pleasure engulfed him, which only increased the pleasure for Alex.

  It was a feedback loop. And Derek was more than prepared to ride the wave.

  They finished at about the same time. Derek pulled back with a contented sigh, wiping his mouth before he got off of Alex. His thighs burned from the unaccustomed position and activity, but he'd take it. He hadn't felt that good in at least six weeks.

  Alex took him into his arms. "Next time we do this, it will be in a brand new bed," he murmured into Derek's ear. "And we'll be able to see the stars up above us. Or the sun, whichever."

  Derek laughed. His cheeks hurt. Had it been that long since he had a reason to smile or laugh like this? "It sounds nice."

  "Once we've recovered, we can head down to the house. I'll pack some clothes for you, and then we can hire some people to pack your things. You can supervise." Alex nuzzled him. "I don't want you to lift a finger more than you have to. We'll even recruit help to unpack."

  Derek laughed at him, but didn't say anything. He'd take it.

  They dozed for about an hour, and then they got up. Alex packed some of Derek's clothes into a suitcase, and then they left.

  Derek didn't know what to expect from the new house. It looked pretty enough in the snow. It would probably look even better in the fall, or the summer. Alex had decorated for the holidays with white lights and evergreens, and the effect was magnificent. "You live here?"

  "So do you now," Alex told him, putting an arm around him. "This is your home too. Welcome home."

  Derek needed a minute to process that one before he could go inside.

  Just as Alex promised, the house was a masterpiece of light. Alex led Derek around, showing him everything he could possibly want to see. "I've got a service that comes in to clean, although something tells me they'll have trouble meeting your standards." Alex grinned. "We've got a guest room that Ayla's staying in right now. I want to keep one of the ground floor bedrooms for Mama, in case she needs to move in later in life. The nanny can have one of the other ones, I guess." He bit his lip. "You're okay with a nanny? I'm not going to ask you to stop working, once you're done with being pregnant."

  "Done with being pregnant." Derek chuckled. "That's cute. I was having trouble thinking of how I could find child care for the second shift, you know? That played a role in why I decided to surrender the baby."

  Alex shuddered. "We don't have to do that now."

  "No. No, we don't." Derek let Alex pull him in, and he rested his chin on Alex’s head. "Our baby will grow up here." He looked around again. "Healthy and happy."

  "Healthy and happy." Alex sighed and smiled. "I like the sound of that."

  The master bedroom turned out to be on the second floor, along with the guest room and the room that would become the baby's. All of the rooms were organized along single-sided corridors that looked over an atrium. At the bottom of the atrium was a huge, full-house sized family room.

  Derek kind of liked the symbolism of that. The family room had different areas, of course. There were different sitting areas, some for reading and some for television, but everyplace was functionally arranged so the family was together all of the time. That was the aim, and it was beautiful.

  Ayla was beyond happy when she got home and found Derek there, sitting on a couch wrapped up in a blanket. She threw her arms around him and exclaimed over the ring. Ivy, too, celebrated when she learned the plan.

  Amadi was less enthusiastic. "Have you forgotten what that man put you through, little brother?"

  "Not at all," Derek sighed into the phone. "Not even a little bit. But Amadi, I also remember what he's given me. That's hope. I think he truly does want this to work. I think it can work. If it doesn't, I guess we'll go from there. At least we'll have tried, and at least we'll know."

  "It's your life. And you do know him best. I hope it does work out, Derek. And if he does you wrong know that I will be waiting for him in the next dark alley he passes."

  Derek laughed. "I appreciate the sentiment, Amadi. But we both know you're a lover, not a fighter."

  Amadi snickered. "True. But for you, Derek, I will learn."

  Christmas came, and the family celebrated in the atrium in the house in Onondaga Hill. Simon's side of the family declined to attend. Joey and Veronica were surprised to be invited, but they happily showed up. Carmela and her family joined them too, as did Amadi and Rashida. It might not have been the family Christmas of Alex’s childhood, but it was a family of choice.

  It was more than enough for Derek.

  ***

  The new year started with a warm bed and a happy heart, at least for Alex.

  Alex hadn't noticed most of Derek's pregnancy symptoms, but then again he hadn't been paying all that close attention. He'd had other things on his mind. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he couldn't believe he'd missed them. Derek was tired all of the time. Idoni didn't have him on strict bed rest, but Derek didn't get out of bed often.

  Alex decided he could live with that.

  Just because Derek wasn't getting out of bed often didn't mean he wasn't active or doing anything. Now that Derek had moved in with Alex, his spirits had perked up significantly. He picked up his laptop and started writing. It wasn't something he'd thought about before he was confined to the house, but he was a voracious reader. He figured he might as well try his hand at telling stories, instead of just consuming them.

  He wasn't half bad at it. With a little practice, he got to be fairly good.

  He blushed when he got his first contract, toward the end of his seventh month of pregnancy. "I know I can't work three jobs anymore," he told Alex. "And that's okay. I've just always worked hard, you know? I don't know what to do if I can't work. So, writing. I can do it on my schedule, when the baby's asleep or when I can't sleep or whatever. And it's fun. It's a good outlet."

  Alex was proud of him for that. He didn't think Derek would be likely to make the best seller list anytime in the near future, but he might be wrong. He'd been wrong before. These things happened. The important thing was that Derek was happy.

  Alex sat down with Mom, and with Dad's care team. Everyone agreed that Dad could not live at home. Even Dad, once he accepted what was happening to him, agreed that Dad couldn't live at home. "I get that I'm not what I was. I don't like it. I'm angry about it." He stared into space for a moment. "I thin
k that maybe me being so angry, and the way I'm angry, is probably part of it. Regardless, I need to stay where there are people who can help me, and who can keep me from hurting others."

  It sounded a little rehearsed to Alex’s ears, but maybe Dad had to work to get the words right. Dementia could work that way sometimes, especially ALS dementia. He accepted it, and so did the rest of the team.

  That left Mama alone in the big old house in which she'd raised her children. She puttered around in the house for a while, and then she reached out to Veronica.

  Veronica was in dire financial straits. Dad had been helping here and there, but only when he could do so in a way that didn't leave a paper trail. She was living in the city, in a bad school district, and things were hard for her. She was surprised to hear from her rival, and she was more than a little bit suspicious.

  When Mama made the offer to let Veronica and Joey move into the house, she laughed out loud. "Why would you offer something like that to me? You don't even like me."

  "No, I don't. But the house is too big for one woman to manage. And honestly, it's not for you. It's for Joey. He's a sweet boy. I like him. Why shouldn't he have the same advantages that Simon's other children had? He'll have the same school district, the same opportunities. Also, it will irritate my in-laws, which delights me."

  Veronica couldn't say no. They moved in June, at the end of the school year. Joey was a little sad to leave his school friends, but given that he would have been starting middle school the next year anyway it wasn't that big a disruption.

  Joey benefited in a huge way, not only from the change in schools. His biggest benefit was from getting to know his siblings. Ayla was his advocate in the case against Simon, so she was already an awesome figure in his eyes. She knew all, as far as he was concerned. Ivy was the "cool" science teacher, and she got immediately involved with helping to bring his grades up. He didn't need a lot of tutoring anyway, but Ivy just liked spending time with him.

  His favorite sibling by far, though, was Alex. Joey didn't have a lot of male role models growing up, and Alex had been the one to step in and help him with Dad. Alex was a doctor. Alex was pretty much everything, to a ten year old.

  Alex basked in being the hero. For most of the world, and most of their family circle, the hero was Derek. Derek was the guy who took the bullet or the stab wound and made snarky comments to the bad guy while doing it. Derek saved girls from human traffickers, Derek broke a criminal's kneecap so badly it needed to be replaced. Joey acknowledged that all of that was "kind of awesome," but none of it could hold a candle to Alex.

  Derek didn't even mind. He just ruffled Joey's hair. "I think he's something special too, buddy."

  The Greer trial continued throughout the long winter. If Alex had thought it would be over once Carmela and Derek testified, he was sorely mistaken. The papers were littered, day in and day out, with lurid quotes from expert witnesses about what they'd found. Now everyone and their mother had to know about the cruel conditions in which the girls had been kept and transported. Three of the girls had died after their rescue, one by suicide. The medical examiner had to give details about his findings.

  And the defense attorney attacked every single one of them. It disgusted Alex to see the tenacity with which this man went after the character of each and every survivor, and even the witnesses. He needled, and he pestered. He "supposed." He insisted that the girls were "sexually precocious," and had gone with the men of their own free will. He suggested that the expert witnesses were motivated by class bias and, in the case of women, gender bias. He dismissed expert testimony on the basis of whether or not the witness had ever known a sexual assault survivor, because that made her 'too emotionally close to the case to evaluate facts."

  Ayla explained why they behaved this way. "They know their client is guilty. I mean their clients tried to kill people to cover their own asses. All they're trying to do now is to mitigate the damage. They probably don't really believe this stuff, they just have to say it. It's their job."

  "How can they defend these freaks, though?" Alex’s rage could have heated the coffee water by itself.

  "Because someone has to. Everyone is entitled to competent representation. Even dirtbag human traffickers. After all, someone could be falsely accused." Ayla shrugged. "Look at the Salem witch trials."

  Alex had to concede her point. He didn't have to like it, but he had to admit she was right.

  Martin Greer was found guilty on nineteen counts of human trafficking, two counts of murder, one count of criminally negligent homicide, and multiple counts of witness tampering. He was sentenced to fifty years to life, with the possibility of parole.

  Bill Greer, the older brother and the ringleader behind everything, was found guilty of nineteen counts of human trafficking, two counts of murder, one count of criminally negligent homicide, multiple counts of witness tampering, and multiple counts of child sexual abuse. He was sentenced to life without parole.

  The State decided not to try the brothers for the times they tried to kill Derek. If the other convictions were overturned on appeal, they could still nail the Greers on that one. Prosecutors didn't think it likely that either brother would ever see the light of day again.

  Now that the long trial was over, Carmela was free to go back to school and do whatever. She could have gone back to California, but her parents had already gotten jobs up here in Syracuse. They bought a house in North Syracuse, and Carmela finally enrolled in high school there. She was re-integrating into the family dynamic better than anyone had thought—or rather, the whole family was forging a new dynamic. Alex liked what he saw.

  Once the trial was over, Ayla's job in Syracuse was over. She headed back to Albany at first, because that was where her base was. Alex and Derek missed her terribly. Ivy was almost as much of a wreck now as she was when Ayla had first been taken.

  Alex wasn't surprised when Ayla put in for a transfer to the Syracuse office. "I got used to being around my family again," Ayla admitted with a blush. "Sure, it was hard at first, but it was worth working through it. It's good to be part of something again after so long." She grinned wickedly. "Besides, I totally want to be around to spoil my little niece."

  And so Ayla moved back to Syracuse. She got a condo downtown, in one of the converted factory buildings so many doctors were so fond of. Alex helped her move. So did Amadi. They only dropped a few boxes on each other's feet.

  Amadi and Rashida held their commitment ceremony in front of the Jerry Rescue monument downtown in late May, so it wasn't too cold or too hot. Alex wasn't sure what to expect, but the simple ceremony turned out to be beautiful and deeply moving. The happy couple exchanged vows of mutual love, support, and fidelity, and that was it. A reception followed at Pastabilities.

  Mama became almost as much of a fixture around Alex’s house as she'd been at the family house when he'd been growing up. Alex would have loved to have been able to chalk that up to his own influence, but in truth Mama seemed to love Derek as much as she loved him. They did, indeed, bond over vegetarian cuisine. Mama also loved having someone to take care of, and as Derek's belly grew she became even more doting.

  Something else Mama enjoyed was having someone who liked being taught. Derek had a flair for language, and Mama taught language. She sat with him every day and found in Derek a new star pupil. "It bothers me on such a deep level that no one has ever encouraged you to expand your education," she told him. "You'd have been a fantastic professor."

  Derek laughed. "Maybe. I love to learn. I hate to take tests. And if I'd have gone to college, I wouldn't have been in a position to meet Alex, and then I wouldn't have met you."

  "True." She laughed and went back to teaching him Russian grammar.

  Derek gave birth, by a scheduled Caesarian section, on June 16. Their daughter, Natasha Carmel Brennan, was eight pounds exactly and twenty-two inches long. Despite all of the difficulty early in Derek's pregnancy, and despite the challenge of Derek only having one kidney, D
erek came through his surgery and the recovery period with flying colors.

  He didn't get his old job, or jobs, back. The radio stations couldn't keep open DJ slots for nine months. Fortunately for Derek, they offered him the role of music director at the alternative channel. While he wouldn't be speaking on the air anymore, unless he were called on to fill in for someone else, he would get to dictate the play list for the whole channel.

  The job even came with a raise. Plus, he'd get paid the hourly rate for his new job if he had to fill in.

  Derek said yes. The job even had regular hours.

  They were married in August, on the same day that Derek had been shot. It was also the same day that Derek had lay on Alex’s operating table, the first time Alex had lay eyes on Derek. They didn't do a big, high-profile affair, just a small gathering at a local historic site. It was all they needed.

  As Alex slipped the ring onto Derek's finger, he touched his forehead to Derek's. "It's been a heck of a year, right?"