by Kian Rhodes
To my surprise, Sylas just smiled and nodded his thanks but didn’t correct him as he kissed my cheek, looking every inch the proud papa. “Paul’s doing all the hard work,” he said with a teasing grin.
The doctor glanced at the chart in his hand and smiled approvingly. “You must be doing something right,” he said with a grin. “In this day and age, it’s rare to see a pregnant Omega in such prime condition.” He winked at me. “That’s always a sign of an Alpha who takes his responsibilities seriously.”
I couldn’t help but snicker. “Sylas is very, very thorough when it comes to my care,” I agreed, ignoring the groan from Sylas as I smiled innocently at the doctor. “Always at my beck and call.”
“Excellent,” the doctor commented, scribbling a note on the chart. “Now, what do you say we get baby’s first picture?”
I felt my jaw drop a bit. “What?”
“An ultrasound,” Dr. Kalen specified, holding up a bulbous wand. “It might seem a little intrusive, but it will let us check on the baby’s development and you’ll have a picture to take home.” He hesitated and raised a brow at Sylas. “Assuming your Alpha is okay with it?”
“Of course, I am,” Sylas said immediately with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Hop up on the bed, love.”
“Um, okay.” I was suddenly out of my depth. It hadn’t really occurred to me to google what would happen at the doctor when I looked up the information on when my first appointment should be. Climbing up to sit on the high cot, I cast a nervous look at Sylas who immediately asked the doctor to give us a moment alone.
When the door closed behind Dr. Kalen, Sylas began to stroke my back. “What’s wrong?”
“I, uh, don’t know what to do,” I admitted.
That must have been minor, because Sylas smiled at me and kissed my cheek again. Those cheek kisses were becoming a habit with him. “He has to insert that wand into your bottom,” he explained. “Then it will show a picture of the baby on the monitor,” he said, pointing to what looked like a seriously outdated tv set on the counter by the cot. “You’ll feel a little stretch, but it shouldn’t hurt.”
“The hot doctor is going to fuck me with that thing and you’re okay with this?” I asked disbelievingly.
Sylas colored slightly but held my eyes. “No, but it’s important to check on the baby’s development, so I’ll deal. Are you okay with it?”
I sighed. “I guess I really don’t have a choice.”
“Of course, you do,” Sylas disputed immediately. “There are other types of ultrasounds. We can find another doctor.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know an awful lot about this stuff,” I accused.
Sylas just shrugged. “You do need to make up your mind, Tiger, before we lose our appointment.”
“You’ll stay the whole time?” I checked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Of course,” Sylas said promptly. “I’ll never take my eyes off you.”
I drew in a deep breath and then sighed it out. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Sylas poked his head out in the hall to tell the doctor that we were ready and then walked over to help me position myself on my hands and knees on the cot.
The probe was just large enough to be slightly uncomfortable going in and cold from the glob of lube that eased its way, but, as he’d promised, Sylas stood in front of me, holding my gaze with his, barely even blinking.
It was very comforting until the wand brushed over my prostate and my entire body began to sing. Then things got just the slightest bit, well, awkward.
Chapter Sixteen
Sylas
Paul’s eyes widened in horror as the doctor began to press the ultrasound wand inside him. Before I could ask if he was okay, the cause of his, ahem, distress became obvious to any Alpha in the immediate area when the sugary sweet scent of an aroused Omega began to fill the air.
To his credit, Doctor Kalen remained completely professional, pointing to the monitor and explaining the various measurements as he did, only stopping once to wipe his slick-coated hand on his lab coat with a rueful wince that was obviously for my eyes only.
As he prattled on, I found my eyes drawn repeatedly to where the handle of the wand disappeared inside my board-stiff Omega who was clearly trying not to make things worse by humping back against the doctor’s hand.
“Ahem,” Doctor Kalen cleared his throat and caught my eye with an amused grin. “It seems that the photo printer is out of paper,” he announced, smirking as I glanced at the huge roll of paper sitting on the counter. “It’s going to take me ten minutes or so to pop down and requisition a replacement,” he said blandly. “We’re done with the exam, if you want to help your husband clean up and redress.”
“Perfect.” I agreed, not the slightest bit concerned that Doctor Kalen was clearly leaving us alone so I could deal with Paul’s arousal. From the fogged look in his eyes, I doubted Paul was even aware of it.
The door had barely swung closed when I unzipped my jeans and pulled my iron-hard cock free. The exam table put Paul’s perfect butt at the ideal height for me to take him while I stood by the cot.
“We can’t,” Paul started to argue before turning to look at the door. “Can we?”
“I know I won’t need ten minutes,” I snorted, trailing my fingertip down his loosened hole. “You?”
“God, no,” Paul groaned, wiggling his hips in the air before begging, “Fuck me!”
There was no way I was going to make him ask twice.
Paul was slick and soft, the muscles just loose enough to make my entry seamless as I drove into his body with a moan that seemed to come from my very soul. “God, you feel good, Tiger,” I sighed as I pulled back and thrust in again, reveling in the whimpers and moans that I was driving from his body. “You like that?”
“Harder!” Paul begged, his breaths already coming faster as he humped back against me each time I pulled back, sucking my cock deep inside him as he ground his gorgeous butt against my groin. “I need you harder!”
I made a soothing sound with my tongue and increased my tempo, slamming into his willing body hard enough that the brakes on the cot slipped and we rolled forward to bump into the wall. Still Paul was reaching back and grabbing at anything he could reach, trying to pull me harder and deeper into his hungry hole.
“Oh!” Paul gasped, still squirming against me as his body stiffened and then began to throb around me, his tight tunnel squeezing my orgasm from me in hard, desperate pulses that were on the edge between pain and pleasure. “Alpha!”
Grunting my approval, I thrust in deep, burying my cock so hard in him that for a split second I thought we’d never come apart. My release filled his hole, leaking out to run down Paul’s thighs and onto the front of my jeans and still my cock emptied into him.
I was barely in control enough to catch myself and pull out as the base of my cock began to flare. Dropping to my elbows on either side of Paul’s quaking body, I dropped light kisses down his spine, realizing that we hadn’t even bothered to strip the exam gown from him. Not that I imagined it was going to matter given that he’d unloaded his spunk onto the sheets of the examination table, so, really, it wasn’t like the staff wasn’t going to know what we’d gotten up to.
Still, I didn’t want Paul to be any more self-conscious than he had to be.
I rifled through the drawers and found a pack of baby wipes. I cleaned Paul and then removed as much of the mess as I could from the cot before turning to the stack of clothes on the chair.
“Can you move?” I murmured in Paul’s ear, grinning when he shivered at my warm breath. “We should get you dressed.”
“I think you killed me,” Paul mumbled without opening his eyes. “That was amazing.”
I held back a laugh. “Do you have a medical kink or are you an exhibitionist?” I teased as I worked his briefs and jeans back up his prone body, tapping his butt when I needed him to lift his hips.
Paul snickered. “Neither. I’m quit
e sure I’ve got a serious freaking Sylas kink,” he snorted into the pillow. “Every time you’re near me, the word no flies right out the window.” Before I had time to worry about the implications as they applied to consent, Paul reached blindly for my hand and I gave it to him. Pulling it to his lips, he kissed my palm. “I am so glad you didn’t fall in love with Bari, after all.”
I felt my eyebrow creep up, but the doctor chose that moment to announce his return at the door, so I shook it off and turned my attention back to the matter at hand.
Chapter Seventeen
Paul
As the doctor re-entered my exam room, I knew I should have been disgusted with myself for the complete lack of control I had over my body -for fuck’s sake, I’d gotten horny with Sylas watching the doctor examine me, how sick was that? -but with both Sylas and the doctor acting as if everything was perfectly normal and the hefty boost of endorphins running through my body, I just couldn’t seem to care.
Those self-recriminations would probably come later, but at that moment I was much more interested in the slightly blurry black and white photo that the doctor had printed off for me.
“It’s so small,” I murmured, staring with rapt amazement at the outline of the tiny baby with its thumb stuck firmly in its mouth. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
The doctor hesitated. “Not conclusively,” he said with a gentle smile at the same time that Sylas spoke up.
“It’s a boy.”
The doctor turned to him in surprise and Sylas gave one of his usual self-conscious shrugs but didn’t back down his prediction. My heart clenched as I stared at the picture. “We’ll have to find a name for him. A good, strong name.”
Warmth flooded through me, boosting my happiness and I sighed, clutching the picture to my chest as Doctor Kalen handed Sylas a sheet of paper.
“Every indication is that your husband and the baby are both in excellent health,” the doctor announced with a smile. “If you’re right about the gender,” he paused and winked at me, “and the sires often are, you should be welcoming a perfectly healthy baby in six months, give or take a day or two.”
I was still in a daze as Sylas wrapped his arm around my waist and led me from the doctor’s office and helped me into the truck.
“You okay?” Sylas didn’t really sound concerned so much as amused.
“Thanks to you,” I said, the words slipping out before I thought about them. “I mean, yes. I’m fine.” I smoothed a corner of the picture where my tight grip had already wrinkled the thin paper and shook my head. “I guess I’m going to have to get a frame or something to keep from ruining this. Do we have time to stop at a dollar store or something?”
Sylas patted my knee and started the truck. “It’s getting a little late. I think I have something at the house that will work. If not, we can go to the store tomorrow, okay?”
“Perfect,” I agreed, settling back in my seat. “Honestly, I’m a little tired.”
Sylas chuckled. “I wonder why.”
I smacked his shoulder lightly, making him laugh again. “You’re mean.”
Sylas winked at me and blew me a kiss. “I’ll try to make it up to you when you’re not so tired.”
We were still laughing when he parked in the driveway. “Why don’t you go take a quick shower while I look for something for the picture?” he suggested.
“Sounds good,” I agreed with a relaxed sigh. “Being pregnant is exhausting.”
When I came back out forty-five minutes and an extremely hot, very soapy, very relaxing shower later, there was a gift bag on the kitchen table decorated with a teddy bear surrounded by a frame of pink and blue rattles and booties.
“What’s this?” I cocked my head at Sylas who was digging through the refrigerator.
“Why don’t you open it and see?” he countered, closing the fridge and walking over to kiss me.
“Such a cute bag,” I mused, lifting out the tissue on the top to reveal a leather-bound book. Pulling it free, my heart flip-flopped at the sight of my sonogram picture tucked into a protective sleeve on the cover under the heading Welcome to the World. “Oh!”
Flipping the cover open, I saw that the first page had already been filled in in navy blue. The date and other information from the doctor’s visit were all carefully penned in Sylas’s neat script. Tears filled my eyes and overflowed down my cheeks as I looked up to see Sylas watching me with an affectionate smile. “You did this for me?”
Sylas stroked my cheek. “What do you think? Will that work for a frame?”
Awestricken, all I could do was nod as tears continued to roll down my cheeks.
Sylas seemed to understand. He sat down in the seat next to me and grabbed my wrist, tugging until I moved to sit on his lap. Cuddling me close, he murmured sweet words about how special I was as I sobbed against him, soaking his shirt until I was drained.
“I think that’s the sweetest thing anybody has ever done for me.” Forcing myself to sit up, I gave him a watery smile. “Sorry about the breakdown. I absolutely love the baby book. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Sylas wiped the tears from my cheeks and chin with the tail of his shirt and then pulled it over his head and threw it in the direction of the laundry room. “Why don’t we go lay down for a bit and then I’ll fix dinner.”
“Isn’t it my turn?” I reminded him, unsurprised when he just rolled his eyes and helped me to my feet. I yawned and shook my head. “Never mind, we can argue about that when we get up.”
Sylas laughed and stood, leading me to the bedroom and tucking me into the big, comfy bed before curling his body around me in a protective shell. “Sleep, Tiger. I’ve got you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sylas
“Is that another present?”
Paul’s voice stopped me in my tracks as I snuck in through the back door, absurdly raising the nearly four-foot stuffed toy to hide my face. “Who, me?” I asked in a high falsetto, pulling Mr. Panda’s arm over his chest in shock. “No one here but us Pandas!”
Paul giggled and I lowered the bear, peering over his head as I attempted to change the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be napping?” Paul’s sexual appetites had been rapidly growing as his belly began to swell, and as dedicated as I was about ensuring that his needs were met as many times a night -or day- as they needed to be, I’d noticed that it was interfering with his sleep schedule, prompting me to declare from noon to two every afternoon naptime.
“Yeah,” Paul agreed, his forehead knitting into a frown as he held up an envelope. “I couldn’t sleep. This came in the mail and I’m a little freaked out.”
Plopping the toy onto one of the kitchen chairs, I reached for the envelope and read through the neatly folded paper inside. Irritation flared in my gut as I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the paper, immediately texting it to Drey. “Don’t worry about it, Tiger.” I tossed the paper and envelope carelessly onto the tabletop and crossed to take him in my arms. “Let’s find out what Drey thinks before we overreact, okay?”
I felt Paul nod against my chest, but he was still stiff in my arms. Stepping back, I tilted his chin up so he had to meet my eyes. “What?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” he said sadly. “Since I let him knock me up, he is entitled to everything he says in the letter.”
“First of all,” I said firmly, “you didn’t let that bastard do anything,” I huffed. Just thinking about what Paul had finally told me about the day he got pregnant made me see red. “He raped you and you are not to blame.” I paused until Paul looked up from the floor in front of him. “Second, you are not property and neither is your child,” I said, trying to amp back the aggression in my voice. “So, no, he isn’t entitled to you or your baby.” I brushed my lips over his cheek. “I sent the letter to Drey and we need to find out how he wants us to proceed,” I said softly, “but demons from Hell will dance on my grave before anything happens to you or the bun in that sexy little oven, und
erstand?”
“Okay.” Paul managed a small smile at what he probably assumed was a dramatic overstatement on my part. It wasn’t, but there was no point in borrowing trouble by pressing the issue when my husband seemed to be calming down.
“Now,” I redirected the conversation. “You are still due for a nap. Have you had lunch?”
Paul shook his head. “No. I was too upset to eat.”
I nudged him toward a chair and crossed to the fridge to pull out the ingredients for Paul’s current obsession, an assortment of cold cuts and sliced cheese with crackers piled around the plate and a pile of Kalamata olives in the center.
Paul was smiling and shaking his head when I set the plate in front of him and handed over the bottle of strawberry-kiwi water I’d opened. “Something amusing you?”
“Not really,” he said thoughtfully, choosing a cracker and piling it with alternating squares of meat and cheese until it resembled a tiny tower. “You make me smile when you do all this stuff for me.” He popped the cracker tower in his mouth and chewed happily, washing it down with a swallow of water before continuing. “You know I can take care of myself, right? You don’t have to wait on me.”
I stole one of his crackers and a square of cheddar, smirking at his fake-outraged look as I took a bite out of it. “Of course, I know you can feed yourself,” I agreed. “But I like doing it, so if it doesn’t bother you, why shouldn’t I?” It wasn’t the first time Paul had brought up the topic of not needing to be waited on. “Or am I wrong about your liking it? Am I smothering you?”
Paul never paused in the construction of the new cracker tower he was building as he snorted. “I know needy isn’t attractive, but you can smother me all you want unless you pull out an actual pillow. It makes me feel safe and wanted.” He bit down on his bottom lip. “It’s going to be hard for me to leave when I get my trust fund.”