Epilogue
Lawrie
- Two years later -
“What?” Davidson barked as I entered his office.
“I have your schedule and know your stress levels better than my own. It’s a good time to talk.”
My boss rolled his eyes and straightened in his chair. “Please, have a seat, Lawrence. What can I do for you?” He forced a fake smile.
“So kind of you to make the time to talk to me, sir,” I said, not trying to hide my sarcasm. I’d been trying to hunt him down for a week, but there had always been something more important.
“Talk, Lawrence. I don’t have the whole day.”
“In fact, you have more free time than ever, but that’s not the point. What I meant to say—”
“Are you quitting?” He blurted the question, his expression tense. Was that why he’d been avoiding me? Was he afraid he was losing me?
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked.
He only glared at me.
“Look, Davidson, I’m not obliged to tell you this as my boss, but I will tell you because I consider you my friend as well.”
Davidson blinked, looking stunned, but he didn’t protest my claim. We were friends. Odd ones, for sure, but I cared about his well-being and he, even though he had the weirdest ways of showing it, cared about mine.
“I am not quitting. However, Ernest and I are going to be away for two weeks starting on Monday, as you know. Hopefully, in nine months from now, we’ll have a baby.”
“There’s nothing uncertain about that. You’re a dragon mate. So you are quitting, just not immediately.”
“I’m not. Why do you keep saying that?”
He grunted and shifted in his seat nervously. “For fuck’s sake, Lawrence, spit it out already.”
“When the baby is born, I’m taking the four-months leave we agreed upon. I’d like two more unpaid after that. I’ll train my stand-in myself. I was thinking Marcel—”
“And then you’ll be back?” The hopeful look was adorable on his usually gloomy face.
“Well, yes. If you still want me at Sullivan Aerospace?”
“Of course, I want you here,” he snapped. “What a stupid question! The fucking building falls apart when you’re not here. If I still want you here… Don’t you know your own value, Lawrence? You’ll never get anywhere with this meek, good-boy nonsense.”
“You give the best compliments in disguise, sir. Is that a yes, then? Four months paid and two unpaid, starting October.”
He glowered at me, then directed his gaze to his laptop, suddenly preoccupied with whatever was on the screen. “Six months paid and get out of my office.”
I managed to refrain from fist-bumping the air, but my arm itched with the effort. “Dinner is at our place tomorrow,” I said. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”
“How could I? You keep reminding me daily.”
“See you then. Have a great evening!”
“Ugh.”
“What was that?”
He lifted his gaze from the laptop and met mine. “Have a nice evening, Lawrence,” he said, his voice mild.
I smiled. “Almost human. You’re getting there. See you!”
I shot out of the office before he could give me another of his frosty comebacks. Grinning from ear to ear, I hurried to the atrium where Ernest was already waiting.
As soon as I was within reach, he tugged me to him. He cast a perfunctory glance at our surroundings before giving me a sound kiss on the lips.
“Hello, my darling husband, how was your day?” he asked.
“Awesome. I negotiated an additional two months of paid parental leave.”
“Negotiated?” Ernest scoffed. “You simply told Davidson, and he complied because he never says no to you.”
“Well, this time I was worried because he knew we were going away for the heat next week, so he could have listed out why I needed to talk in private. Except paranoid as he is, he thought I was quitting.”
“Really?”
“Yes. He was relieved I only wanted two extra months.”
“That’s great. And he’s still coming tomorrow?”
“Unless he calls it off again.”
“He’s getting worse. A true hermit. He hasn’t shown up at any of the local shifter gatherings since last spring. And he excused himself from the personal invitation my dad sent before the holidays.”
“We have to find him a mate.”
Ernest laughed. “Sure. Put an ad in the local newspaper.”
“We could. A bitter, scowly dragon, approaching fifty, searching for his fated omega mate. Come so I can sniff at you.”
“Huh. That might actually work. He wouldn’t find his mate, but I’m sure enough people would respond. The city is full of kinky weirdos.”
“It is? How would you know?”
“Um…”
While he was distracted, thinking of a reply, I snatched the car keys from his hand.
“Hey!” he protested.
“I want to drive,” I said. Ernest was getting better at letting me but never offered. I suspected it was one of his safety obsessions.
“Okay. But we need to stop by the grocery store and buy food to bring with us.”
We were driving up to the mountains first thing on Sunday. The heat would come between Monday and Wednesday, and we needed to have supplies ready. The cottage Ernest had rented for us was almost an hour away from the nearest town, too far to drive in the middle of my heat.
At the supermarket, we stocked up on protein bars and shakes, granola, some ready-made pasta dinners for Ernest, and energy drinks in case things got truly intense.
My phone rang when I was driving us home.
“It’s Josh,” Ernest said. “Should I put him on speaker?”
“Yes, please.”
“Hi, Josh, we’re in the car and Lawrie is driving. You’re on speaker.”
“Oh hi, Ernest. Laaaawreeeence!” Josh all but screeched.
“Lord, you’re loud. What’s up?”
“I got the promotion!”
“Really? I was about to recommend you our receptionist as your new roommate.”
“No need. As of next month, I can easily afford the apartment on my own.”
“That’s fantastic, Josh. I’m so proud of you.”
“Congratulations,” Ernest interjected.
“I’m booking you a table for Friday next week. We have to celebrate.”
“Um, we’re away on Friday.”
“Oh. Sorry, I forgot about that. We’ll do it when you’re back and recovered.”
The heat recovery would be barely three days and easy—one of the perks of being a dragon mate—but Josh couldn’t know that.
“I’d love to celebrate. We’ll be in touch as soon as we’re back.”
“Cool, I must call my pops. Have a lovely heat!”
I snorted at the casual wish he gave us regarding our sex life and the conception of our first child. “Bye, Josh.”
“Have a great weekend, Josh,” Ernest added, but the line had already gone dead.
I parked the car in the garage, and we carried the grocery bags upstairs.
A package waited in front of our door, a bulky thing in bubble wrap.
“Have you ordered something?” I asked.
“No. But I think I know what it is.”
We opened it in the living room. It was a brand-new harness for flying, custom-made, with extra straps and hooks for camping equipment. The card was from Ernest’s dad.
Try it out during the week.
I spread out the harness on the floor, figuring out what went where. It looked sturdier than our old harness, the straps thicker yet softer. It even had a little cushion for a seat and would be more comfortable for us both.
“Pity we won’t use it all that much once the kid is born.”
Ernest gave me a small kiss on the cheek. “My parents are dying to babysit. I’m sure we can be off more often than we’ll want to.”
“Don’t they have enough grandchildren already?”
“There hasn’t been a new Bracknell baby for two years, Lawrie. My dad’s climbing the walls, not knowing what to do with himself on weekends.”
It sounded like an exaggeration, but I’d gotten to know Manny quite well.
“You’re probably right. Let’s try it out when we arrive. Unless it’s raining buckets.”
Ernest was already checking his phone. “The prognosis says cloudy with occasional showers.”
“Great. We’re flying on Sunday evening.”
“We are.”
We did fly, in more ways than one. Sex just after a flight always got more intense.
Maybe Ernest’s dragon still loomed right under the surface, or maybe it was me, exhilarated and high on endorphins, close to my heat.
Whatever the reason, as soon as the cottage door clicked shut behind us, we were ripping each other’s clothes off.
We did it in the hallway, me on all fours and Ernest slamming into me from behind.
He fucked me hard, but I begged for more, strangely unsatisfied.
The storm was already building up inside me.
It would become real. All my fantasies, my kinky little dreams, even the big, important ones—they would come true.
And I was ready. My body definitely was, parched and wound up, ready to bloom, and oh so horny.
But this time, my mind was prepared as well.
We’d make love, Ernest would breed me, and we’d have a child.
I couldn’t wait.
Considering my eagerness and the quivering restlessness that seemed to permeate every muscle and organ in my body, the early onset heat wave shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
I sat up on the bed in the middle of the night, shaking, my crease drenched with slick and my erection aching.
Ernest woke up at the same time—he must have smelled me.
Desperate, I ripped the duvet off him and straddled his hips.
To my heated brain, his cock seemed bigger than ever before, wonderfully thick, and my insides squeezed with yearning.
I sank onto it with a relieved moan. The ridges rubbed me just right, and when the half-swollen knot popped past my rim, I almost came right then.
I grabbed my twitching erection and swiveled my hips, eager to feel my husband everywhere.
“Lawrie…your scent. I won’t last.”
“Don’t care. Fuck me with the knot then.”