31. Lincoln
Lincoln
Five months later, Mary stood in the middle of the upstairs pack room, one week from her due date, wearing one of my shirts, Hudson’s socks, and a sour look on her face.
“I’m enormous,” she said.
Hudson looked up from the chair near the window, where he had been reading a medical article. “You’re not enormous.”
Mary stared at him.
I kept my mouth shut.
I'd learned many things. Among them was that when a heavily pregnant omega announced she was enormous, the correct response was rarely obvious and never quick.
Practical as ever, Hudson announced, “You’re pregnant with twins.”
“I know that, Hudson. I was present when the technician announced it and I briefly saw God.”
He bit back a smile.
Mary pursed her lips. “Don’t smile.” Then she spun to me. “Or you. I have two humans inside me trying to break my body and one more day and I'm sure they’ll succeed.”
Hudson looked at her like he hated he couldn’t help. “It won’t be long now.”
“It feels like forever.” She put both hands under her belly and lifted it slightly with a groan that made every alpha instinct in me stand to attention. “I want them out.”
“Soon,” I said.
“I should get induced.”
Hudson set the tablet down, which should have warned me. “There are some natural methods that may help encourage labor.” His voice changed, a little lower and smoother. It was the voice he used when he wanted Mary to forget she'd been angry.
Mary narrowed her eyes. “If you say to take a walk along the river, I will divorce you before the wedding.”
“I wasn’t going to say walking.”
Her scent shifted, and so did mine.
Hudson leaned back in the chair, fingers resting lightly on the arm. “Sex can help to bring your labor on.”
Mary grinned. “You’ve said that every night for the past week.”
“And now I’m saying to try during the daytime. Studies show the more the better.”
“Studies. I see.”
I crossed my arms, because if I didn’t put my hands somewhere, they would go to her. “Love, you don’t have to do anything. The babies will come when they come.”
Mary looked at me, then at Hudson.
Her scent warmed properly now, sweetening under the storm of us. Pregnancy had made her violet scent deeper, softer in the rain and whiskey, and the blackberry even sweeter. When she wanted us, every room knew it.
“Well, slick is already running down my thighs,” she said.
Hudson’s eyes went dark, and my control took a hard step backward.
Mary was heavily pregnant, barefoot, and wearing mismatched socks.
She took three steps, then paused and looked back over her shoulder.
I knew she was trying to look seductive.
She looked like a goddess attempting to waddle with menace.
“Leave. But I will be ready and waiting in my nest in ten minutes.”
It worked.
“Don’t rush,” she said. Then she added, “Actually, rush a little. I don’t want the babies to decide to arrive before I get to come.”
I smiled as she disappeared into the dressing area.
Neither Hudson nor I moved for one second, and then we both moved at once, nearly colliding with the side table on the way out.
Hudson caught the laptop on top before it hit the floor, placed it on the chair, then picked it up again and moved it to a safer surface because apparently imminent sex required proper device management.
“Water,” he said.
“Already by the bed.”
“Towels.”
“Warming drawer.”
“Snacks.”
“Lincoln.”
“She might want snacks afterward.”
“She wants us now.”
“I can multitask.”
He looked at me. I looked at him, and then we both laughed, low and a little helpless, because nothing in our lives had prepared us for loving a woman so much that we became idiots over everything.
Fifteen minutes later we entered the nest, and we looked calm. Mary lay in the center of the nest with a blanket pulled over her from shoulders to knees, which was suspicious.
Her cheeks were flushed. Her dark hair spilled across the pillows. The violet stone on her finger caught the light from the skylight, the curved band and two diamonds tucked against it like a promise we had still not stopped being grateful she wore.
“Why are you covered?” Hudson asked.
“For mystery.”
“Mary.”
“Fine. Because I’m the size of a profitable island.”
I climbed onto the bed beside her. “No.”
Hudson sat on her other side. “Absolutely not.”
She clutched the blanket. “You’re both biased.”
“Deeply,” I said.
Hudson’s hand closed around the top edge of the blanket. “May I?”
Mary’s fingers tightened. I thought she would make a joke, but instead she looked away and nodded.
Hudson pulled the blanket down slowly, and my breath left me. She wore nothing beneath it.
Her body was full, lush, heavy with our children. Her breasts were swollen and sensitive, nipples dark rose, her belly round and taut and beautiful beneath the soft gold light. Slick shone on her thighs. She smelled like want, nerves, sweet warmth, and wild violet.
Mary crossed one arm over her chest.
I caught her wrist gently and kissed the inside. “No hiding.”
“I’m enormous.”
“You’re sexy as fuck pregnant,” I said.
Her eyes widened.
Hudson made a low sound.
I didn’t take it back. “You are,” I said. “Do you know what it does to us, seeing you like this? Full of our babies, wearing our rings, in the nest we built for you, slick because you want us.”
“Lincoln.” Mary’s scent bloomed.
“No,” Hudson said softly, leaning over her. “Let him tell you.”
Her breath trembled.
I kissed her wrist again, then her palm. “You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Hudson’s mouth moved to her throat.
Mary tipped her head back.
I shifted lower, one hand over her hip, one on the curve of her stomach. The babies moved beneath my palm, a slow roll of life and impatience.
“They’re listening,” Mary whispered.
Hudson kissed her neck. “They’re very young. Their scandal threshold is low.”
She laughed, then gasped when his mouth found the sensitive place below her ear.
I bent and kissed her belly. Stretch marks had appeared in the seventh month, pale and silver at first, then deeper. Mary had glared at them in the mirror and called them “decorative lightning.” I had nearly gone to my knees then too.
Now I kissed each line I could reach. “Ours,” I said against her skin.
She shook.
Hudson cupped her breast, careful at first, then firmer when she arched into his hand.
Her nipple peaked under his thumb. He knew her body now, knew where pregnancy had made her tender, where pressure soothed, where softness frustrated her because she wanted to be touched like a woman and not a medical condition.
“Tell us if anything hurts,” he murmured.
“It hurts that you’re both still wearing clothes.”
“A solvable problem,” I said.
And we solved it in a rush.
Mary laughed when Hudson’s cuff caught on his watch. I nearly tore my shirt getting it over my head because patience had become a nuisance. By the time we were naked in the nest with her, her laughter had gone soft and breathless.
We positioned her carefully on her side, pillows under her belly, Hudson behind her, me in front. No weight on her. No pressure where it didn’t belong. She was bracketed between us, warm and wet and trembling with trust.
I wanted to bite her, but only when she asked.
Hudson’s mouth moved over her shoulder. His hand slid down to cup her belly while mine slipped between her thighs.
She was slick enough that my fingers glided through her easily.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“So wet and ready,” I said.
“So empty.”
Hudson laughed against her skin.
I stroked her slowly, watching every change in her face, her brows pulling together, her lips parting, the way her hand gripped Hudson’s wrist over her belly when pleasure startled her, and the way she tried to hold back sounds when Hudson kissed a spot on her neck.
“Don’t tease me today,” she said. “I just need you both.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.
Hudson’s hand closed gently around her breast. “You don’t want us to behave?”
“No,” Mary whispered.
I smiled against her thigh. “No?”
“Don’t behave.” That was our Mary, soft enough to ask for tenderness and brave enough to ask for more.
Hudson kissed her first, deep and slow, one hand braced on the pillow and the other spread over her belly. Mary moaned into his mouth while her hips shifted toward my hand with the impatience of a woman who had waited ten minutes and considered that too long.
“Are you okay, omega?” Hudson asked.
“Yes, alphas.” She looked at me. “But I need more.”
I moved between her thighs, careful with her hips, careful with the pillows supporting her belly, not careful at all with the way I looked at her. She needed to see it. I wanted her to see it. Nothing in me found her too big, too much, or too pregnant to want.
Hudson’s mouth went to her throat as I held my dick and guided myself inside her slick heat, slowly.
Mary’s breath broke, and I stopped at once.
“Too much?”
“No.” Her nails bit into my shoulder. “Don’t stop. It’s good.”
So I didn’t. Slick helped. Patience helped more. She took me inch by inch, hot and tight and trembling, while Hudson held her from behind and murmured filthy, beautiful things against her ear.
“You’re so beautiful between us.”
Mary’s scent flooded the nest.
“Do you want to feel us together?” he added.
“Terrible alphas, tempting me in my hour of need,” she whispered, but her hand found Hudson’s wrist. “Together.”
“Are you sure?” Hudson asked.
Her eyes filled, and then she smiled. “I need this to be just us for a little longer. I want my alphas inside me.”
Hudson’s breath left him in a rough exhale against her neck. He shifted behind her, one big hand sliding down to cradle the back of her thigh. He lifted her leg, opening her wider, and the movement made her clench so hard I saw stars.
“Just the tip first,” he murmured, voice low and careful. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
Mary’s fingers tightened on his wrist. “Both of you. Together. Inside me.”
I felt the blunt pressure of him nudging against the place where I was already buried deep. The head of his cock rubbed along the underside of mine as he pressed in, slow and steady.