Chapter 27
Gregor
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“You are just full of surprises this week,”
August murmured, nuzzling against my chest as I carried him up to the bedroom.
After his early start, his brother’s news, the bombshell revelation I still hadn’t fully processed yet, and an afternoon helping around the candy shop kitchen while he drew up detailed maps of the cases, the candy rotations, and an extensive list of what he needed his crew to put out each day, I was glad to have him home.
The sharp pain he’d experienced earlier had taken awhile to fade, prompting his declaration that he was going to take tomorrow off, in addition to the day of our handfasting and the weekend the way he’d planned.
“I think you are really going to like this one.”
“I have loved every last one of them and you know it.”
“Well, this one fulfills a very specific desire you had while staying within your doctors’ parameters of safe temperatures for you to be submerged in.”
“I can’t believe she axed the hot tub idea.”
“No one axed the hot tub idea,”
Gregor reminded him. “She said you couldn’t use it until after the whelplets were delivered. But if you remember, she did tell us that warm bubble baths were perfectly fine.”
“Yeah, I know,”
August grumbled as I sat him on the couch and began undressing him.
It had become part of our nightly ritual for me to strip him this way before we cleaned up for bed.
“The tub in the master bathroom is nice, but I wanted those whirlpool massaging jets, my back could really use them tonight.”
“Well, you know, that tub was nice, but like you said it was lacking a few key features,”
I pointed out as I removed the last of his clothes and started peeling off my own.
“What do you mean was?”
“Well, that’s the surprise,”
I said as I slid my arm around him and escorted him through the bathroom door, where the new whirlpool tub had been installed just that afternoon.
“Is…oh my…Gregor!”
He squealed, giggling and wiggling his hips in a little pregnant dance that was just the cutest damn thing. “You got me a whirlpool tub? This wasn’t even on the renovations list.”
“No, but it was on the list of things I felt my mate needed to be more comfortable in his current state and your comfort will always be my top concern,”
I reminded him. “Now let’s get your bath going.”
His eyes went wide when I guided him to the other new addition I’d had installed in the bathroom. My mate would no longer need to be undressed on the couch. I’d had a plush, overstuffed chair installed in the bathroom, with removeable cloth covering for easy cleaning as well as replacing when we wanted to change it. That August loved my ocean décor and all the nautical themes I’d filled the place with had made me proud of the effort I’d put in to make the place feel homey long before I’d even thought about the possibility of finding my mate.
When I was being truly honest with myself, I could admit that I’d never trusted that it would happen, not with my aversion to spending time getting to know people. Now that it had, I was glad that I’d at least been a little prepared before finding August.
“This is heaven,”
August moaned as he sank into the chair, eyes closing as he sighed and let his head loll back to rest against the back of the chair.
Chuckling, I started the water, added bubbles, and let things start to build up before determining that it could be a little warmer, as long as it wasn’t steaming.
“Ready for another little slice of paradise?”
I asked as I turned back to him.
He didn’t need to start giggling for me to know how corny I sounded, the moment I’d said it my inner wolverine sat up with one fang bared and a what the fuck look on his face.
“Tell me you did not just say that,”
August said, still snickering as I helped him.
“Yeah, yeah,”
I muttered as I lifted him and placed him in the tub before turning the jets on just so I could enjoy the blissed out look on his face before I got in.
“Ohh, I take it back,”
August moaned. “Every word and every snicker. This is in fact a little slice of heaven and you are the sinfully wicked angel sent to deliver it to me.”
“Sinfully wicked, huh,”
I said as I stepped into the tub in front of him. It was every bit as spacious as the previous one, in fact, it was several inches wider, stretching out farther onto the floor, not that it really changed the space. I’d gone big with that room, just like the loft, because one of my guilty pleasures had always to indulge in the few little luxuries I’d allowed myself.
Soaking in the tub while listening to music had aways been one of them.
Now, I slithered on my belly through the suds to indulge myself in another luxury I’d come to appreciate. The taste of my mate in all of his sudsy, naked glory.
“I promised you something this morning that work wouldn’t let you enjoy,”
I said as I cleared a path to his round, swollen belly, slid my hands beneath his tush and raised his hips until his cock poked up out of the water.
“Yeah, you did,”
he said, that warm, hooded gaze peering down at me. “Are you gonna make good?”
“Of course I am,”
I growled as I wrapped my mouth around him.
The warm water bubbled and lapped against my sides as I flattened my tongue against his shaft and gently hummed until he was moaning.
It was easy to keep him floating there as I licked, sucked, and took my time pleasuring him until he was squirming and trying to rock his hips.
“No rushing,”
I said, caressing his thigh before I drew him closer and dipped my face beneath the water to lick over his opening, treating it to the same slow, drawn out teasing as I’d treated his cock.
I came up for air only when I needed to, drawing curses and whines from him until I returned to my destination, prodding with my tongue, before sliding it inside of him.
“Yes,”
he whined, canting his hips as best he could.
When he started trembling I moved my attention back to his cock, chuckling around the hard, heated flesh when he snarled at me.
“Why are you tormenting me?!”
His wail made me chuckle again, which just made him moan, then groan loudly when I hollowed my cheeks and started sucking him. This time he gripped my hair, determined to keep me where he wanted me. The rasp of his fingernails along my scalp offered pinpricks of pain that only ramped up my pleasure.
Because of how much you enjoy it.
Though I’d spoken in his mind, he growled out loud at me, then whined when I laughed again, tremors running through his body as he came, his cum hitting the back of my throat, prompting me to swallow, suck and draw out his orgasm until his fingers relaxed in my hair and he keened softly.
Now I just wanna float and never move again.
“You can, if you and the little ones can shift for me,”
I said, caressing his thigh again.
In his current state, the shift was always super slow, especially after I’d turned him into a quivering mass of soft set jelly. Every little caress made him shiver and squirm, which was why I had to stop touching once he started shifting, so he could focus on finishing it completely. The slow change ensured that the little ones inside him shifted, too, the genetics of our species allowing our young to remain safe within us whatever form we were in. The fates little way of ensuring that we could always resort to our animal selves when our human ones were being hunted.
When he’d finished, I held an adorably plump hedgehog in my hands who I gently caressed, before I shifted beneath him, so he could float on my belly. The feel of those bubbles was different in my fur, the jets hitting in ways that sent my body into a lazy rotation with him on top of me. Talk about cool. If I’d have known floating in fur in a whirlpool would feel like this I’d have had the whirlpool tub built into the home in the first place.
There is only one thing that we’re lacking.
August’s voice through their mind link was almost dreamy, the cadence slow, like he was having to focus a little more than he’d like to find the right words.
Flat screen so we can watch movies? I thought back, because now that I eyed the far wall where I’d never bothered to put in a full-length mirror, there were plenty of possibilities.
I-I mean, yeah, if that’s even a thing, but how would we keep the steam from the shower from fucking it up?
No clue, but now I intend to look into it. So what were you thinking the space needed?
A smart speaker.
It has one.
What? Why am I only learning about this now? We could have had all kinds of music playing while we were in here.
Guess I was so interested in the conversation I forgot there were other options.
I felt his pleasure through our mind link and the way he wiggled, burrowing his prickles into my fur until I was reminded that I hadn’t come while he’d been flying apart for me.
I can’t get over how much you like the way that feels.
Like the way everything about you feels.
He wiggled again and my belly clenched, my hands going to still him and run my paws over his prickles.
Let me make you feel good.
I already do.
It wasn’t a lie or even an exaggeration. I felt amazing, floating there with him. Nothing in the world, including an orgasm, would make the moment better.
We should probably put together a few playlists for the smart speaker. That way, we can select one before we get in.
Good idea. A lot easier than trying to teach it to understand hoggish or wolverine snarls.
I don’t know why, but I started to picture us squeaking and snapping at the device while it alternated between telling us it did not understand the direction given, or remaining silent when our noises weren’t close enough to its name to trigger it.
I knew I’d wide up sketching it later, before the inspiration faded. I always waited until August was sleeping soundly to pull my sketchbook from the nightstand drawer and the little clip-on light I attached to it, so I didn’t have to use the bigger one.
In my head, I saw us in our wolverine and hedgehog forms, yelling up at it, standing on the table beside it, him standing on my head, trying to get close enough to make it understand us. In a matter of minutes, a whole cartoon strip began to take place. I would even set up the border like a Sunday morning comic strip and divide each scene into panels as the story unfolded.
Who knew what would happen from that point. It might turn out to be one of those things that was supposed to be one and done, but took on a life of their own, as his little hedgehog fairies had begun to do. Those were just for my Hoggie, though, even if he had promised to add it to list of rejected nicknames, right alongside Auggie.
Okay, so that one had been fair. Things might get a little confusing if they had an Auggie and an Olly around.
I’d just have to keep hoping to land on the perfect pet name for my prickly partner.
Oh my god, Prickles!
I hadn’t meant to blurt the newest nickname attempt into the mind link, but there it was, echoing as my little hedgehog actually bit me, not that I felt it much through my thick fur.
I will literally bite a hole in the seat of everything you own if you ever even think of calling me that again, or any variation, up to and including Prickly-pooh.
Okay, seriously, what the fuck, I would never.
I don’t know after your little tap dance through Cornyville earlier.
Hey, you rescinded that description.
True, but Prickly-pooh would have me rescinding that rescind.
Now, I found myself trying to think up everything that could go with or be used to modify Prickles or Prickly, as yet another scene popped into my head. On a boulder, perched high over a valley of discarded pants with holes in their asses, was a wolverine spouting phrases like Prickly-bear, prickle-butt, and pricklicious, while a grumpy hedgehog sank his teeth into the newest pair.
Hmm, August had said everything he owned, which meant he’d have to have more than just pants strewn around.
At least his leather chaps were assless, there was nothing there for August to sink his teeth into if I slipped up and dropped another variation of Prickles.
For some reason, just being with him, even when we weren’t actively engaged in conversation, was inspiring for me. In the short span since I’d known him, I’d gone from only sketching ideas of driftwood, to reclaiming my passion for drawing as a whole. The silly little illustrations that popped into my head throughout the day had started to fill the pages of my sketchbook, meaning I’d need a new one soon. This one I’d purchased when I’d opened my shop, fresh pages for my fresh start.
Only the real fresh start hadn’t begun until I’d met August, who’d shocked me by insisting that I attend the next open-ice at the indoor rink, so he could watch me play. He wanted me to make it a regular thing, too, and introduce him to Brendon and Janie the first chance we got.
After he’d seen all the things I’d brought home from the toy store he was excited to see the inside of the place himself. Of course, the opportunity to meet someone who could tell him stories of my exploits on the ice, as Olly called them, had certainly fueled his desire. Brendon would have plenty to tell, and it might be nice to have a couple to do whatever couples did when they hang out together. August had a pretty close knit family but I’m sure it would be nice for him to have some friends, too.
I’m gonna have to start thinking up nicknames for you now.
August’s threat should have terrified me, but I was so relaxed and in love with my mate, that I just hugged him between my paws and thought back:
Bring it on.