Chapter 20
20
CONNOR
Driving Ben's little hatchback was a bit of a hassle, but I didn't mind it. I slid the seat as far back as it would go and adjusted the angle so my head didn't brush the ceiling. For once, I stayed at the speed limit and gently eased between lanes to keep Ben as comfortable as possible.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way back to the condo. I picked up some saltines and ginger tea while Ben grabbed milk and orange juice. While he walked through the junk food aisles, I searched for the pharmacy. The grocery store layout was still a little foreign to me, but I finally found the pregnancy tests.
When I returned to the cart, fully prepared to see it stocked high with cookies and candy, I found it full of fruits and vegetables instead.
"Looking at the rest made me feel queasy," he grumbled as we rolled the cart to the shortest line.
"We're going to need a bigger car," I said when we were back in the parking lot. The groceries filled the hatch and the back seat. Where was a baby supposed to go?
Ben groaned. "Don't tell Pops. He bought Jake and Matt a minivan when they had Jeffrey."
"An SUV would be nice," I said. "Or a truck." I'd never owned my own car. Starting out, I couldn't afford it. Later, I traveled so much, it didn't make sense to have a car for the few days a month I was home. Since I started working at the bank, either Ben or his family had driven me to and from work.
"We don't need another car," Ben insisted. "I quit my job, remember?"
I also remembered his dad saying he had a job in the foreign finance department, if he wanted it. That meant we'd be commuting to the same place each day. The bank had an excellent daycare on the second floor …
I was getting ahead of myself. We'd just found out Ben was pregnant. Granted, I knew Ben was pregnant from his scent, but the pregnancy test would confirm it for his human family and friends. Now was the time to share good news, not to make plans.
Ben's condo was more like a row house, but his was on the end. He shared only one wall, part of it the garage, with another property. When we reached the short driveway, he tapped the garage door opener, and we glided inside.
Once we'd carried everything inside, I gave Ben some space to take the pregnancy test. He called for me a few minutes later as I tucked noodle boxes into the pantry. I followed the sound of his voice to the bathroom.
He directed my attention to the little stick with two blue lines. "It's real."
I kissed his temple and pulled him to me. "It's real. We're having a baby."
"It's not too soon?" Ben asked.
"There's no one else I'd rather have a baby with than you."
He blinked up at me in the mirror. "Yeah. I think …" He turned in my arms and kissed me hard. He tasted of toothpaste and desperation. "I think It's time for you to mark me."
I hadn't been thinking about marking Ben until that moment, but my wolf surged to the surface, sharpening my eyesight. I could almost see our mate bond through his eyes.
"Mark me," Ben whispered again before sealing our lips together for another kiss.
I picked him up and carried him to his bedroom, where I'd stayed since that first night. I wondered if he'd gotten pregnant that night, or one of the many afterward when we'd taken turns pleasuring each other.
My wolf wanted me to hurry, to mark and claim my mate, but I unbuttoned his short-sleeved shirt and lavished attention on the bare skin underneath. I kissed down his torso until I was eye-level with his pants zipper. His cock strained behind the fabric and gave a little twitch when my knees hit the floor.
Gazing up at him, I unzipped his pants and helped him out of them. From here, I could smell his arousal, which only heightened my own.
I tugged off his briefs slowly, leaving them around his knees while I licked and sucked on the head of his cock. Then, I helped him step out of his pile of clothes.
He grabbed a towel from the stand beside his bed. We'd laughed at the hideous wolf pattern on them when we found them on clearance, but then we'd both agreed we wanted them for our sex towels. Slick was messy, and neither of us enjoyed doing laundry every night.
Ben arranged the wolf towel over his pillow and placed it beneath his hips, leaving no question as to how he wanted me. I kneeled between his legs and he lifted them apart, displaying his slick-covered hole.
"Fuck me, alpha."
I leaned over him for a kiss while I pushed two fingers inside. He whimpered into my mouth before breaking our kiss to pant, "Why the fuck does that feel so good?"
"Better than before?"
"I'm really sensitive." He grinned up at me. "Must be the baby hormones."
I plied my fingers and added a third to stretch him further. He fucked himself on my hand, hips canting and cock slapping his belly with each motion.
"Now, Connor. Please."
His need was serious when he used my name. I circled my fingers again, rubbing his prostate before I removed them.
"Hurry!"
I coated my cock with his slick and slid into him. Instead of pulling out, I lay on top of him, my body covering him as I nibbled at his neck. I held myself up on my elbows and knees, not wanting to crush him but also wanting to be as close as possible. With tiny thrusts, I nudged further into him. I wanted to burrow inside him and live there.
He tugged at my hair, pulling my mouth to his for another heated kiss. He keened into my mouth when I tugged his hips further up. I took that as a good sound, especially when he did it every time I pulled out and then slammed back into him.
"More," Ben pleaded. "Need more."
I didn't want him to come yet. I kissed the spot on his neck where I would place my mark, and he squirmed beneath me.
"Please."
I also didn't want to tease him. My wolf rose to the surface as I approached the peak of pleasure. I reached between us to tug on his cock, and he shouted my name. Cum spurted between us, and Ben's channel squeezed around my base. My knot flared to life, and I came hard. I thought I had gone blind until I realized I was looking at Ben through my wolf's eyes. With my half-shifted snout, I bit down, leaving my mark at the crux of Ben's neck and shoulder.
Ben shouted my name again as he writhed on my knot.
I shifted back and kissed the mark I made. "I've got you," I crooned in his ear.
"What am I supposed to do? Do I bite you back?"
"Yes."
No sooner was the word out of my mouth, and Ben clamped his blunt human teeth on my shoulder, too, breaking the skin. It felt like my wolf's essence was seeping out of me and into him, and a magic unlike any I'd felt twisted around us, binding us together forever.
I let Ben nap while I made dinner. Afterward, he sent a picture of the pregnancy test to his family's group chat. Our phones both lit up immediately with congratulations and requests to take us shopping. Matt gave us the name of his midwife, and Jake sent me a link to a house for sale in their neighborhood.
"If you don't buy it, Pops will," his text said.
Like the hatchback, Ben's starter condo had little room to grow, with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a one-stall garage. The new house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a decent-sized backyard. It wasn't far from public transit, either, which would be nice.
I showed Ben the listing while he dried the last of our dishes, and he groaned. "I love them but tell them to stop already."
"They only want to help." I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth, they were the wrong ones to say.
"They've been 'helping' me all my life. Go to this school, Benjamin. Take these courses with these teachers to get the best grades. Apply for these grants, this internship, and join these organizations." His face was almost purple, and he gaped for air. "I don't need their help! We'll get by on our own."
"We will," I agreed, "but it will be easier if we let them help. They love you as much as I do, and they've lived here longer, known you longer."
He looked like he wanted to protest more, but then his face crumpled and he leaned against my shoulder. "You're right."
"If it makes you feel better, you can tell them they have to convince me first."
His warm breath puffed against my chest. "That won't be a problem. You're a pushover."
He wasn't wrong. Still, it gave him a way out. He could blame his family's horrible ideas, like the house and the minivan, on me when the time came.
Except when his dad took him to the dealership to trade in his hatchback, Ben loved the van for its convenient self-opening doors and extra seating. He also loved the house when we walked through it. The laundry appliances had their own little room inside the garage, with a folding table and bench. The main and smallest bedrooms were next to each other, perfect for a nursery, and the third was opposite the kitchen, for when our child wanted more independence.
My favorite part about the house, though, was the eight-foot privacy fence in the backyard. It contained only a stone patio surrounded by a few succulents and a rock garden, but it was a safe place for my wolf.
"It's your fur-ever home," Ben teased once we were back in the van.
The words punched a hole in my chest and squeezed my heart. I turned to him as he snapped his seatbelt into place. "You're my fur-ever home."
His smile was like sunshine peaking from behind a rain cloud. "I am?"
"Remember how my wolf reacted to you after the plane crash? And when we played with the kids?"
"And when you marked me." He quaked with a full-body tremor. "So good."
"You'll always be my home."
When Matt and Jake threw us an impromptu baby shower the day after we moved in, Ben agreed his family wasn't all bad. They'd overheard us talking about going shopping for all the furniture and equipment we needed and pitched in. First, they filled our baby's room with furniture from their garage. Then, they gave us an entire closet's worth of clothes in sizes up to one year.
"We've been waiting to unload this shit, um, stuff on you!" Jake said.
Josie gave Ben a milk pump and a bottle washer. Our little kitchen didn't have much counter space, but Pops said I could trade my coffee machine for the bottle washer once the baby came. "I'll buy you coffee at work!"
Alex and Shelly gave us a stroller, the seat piled high with pregnancy books. Once I had everything put away in the kitchen, I rolled the stroller to the garage, unpacked the books, and took them to our bedroom. We started reading them that night.
I kept a notepad by my bed to jot down all the things we would need. The books surprised me with the level of contradictory information. Each night, I reviewed my list and crossed off items I'd listed earlier.
The book on the bottom of the stack was the most practical. After reading it, I realized I didn't need anything on my list. Ben's family had already supplied us with the essentials, and even some luxuries like the stroller and bottle cleaner.
"We're going to be fine." Ben sounded overtired as he drifted off to sleep. He'd given up reading fifteen minutes before I did.
Still, I worried as I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. I worried my parenting skills would suck because of my strict upbringing. I'd tried to be the exact opposite of what my pack expected an alpha wolf to be, but what if I reverted to the old ways when raising my children? The silly thought kept me awake long into the night.