31. Lincoln #2
Mary’s moan broke open between us, soft and shattered. Her walls fluttered around me, stretching further, impossibly tight as the friction of Hudson’s shaft slid against mine, sending a raw jolt straight up my spine.
“Fuck—“ I gritted out, forehead dropping to hers. I felt every ridge of him, the slow, careful way he fed himself into her, inch by inch, until he was seated fully and we were both locked inside the same scorching heat.
“Don’t knot me together.” Mary groaned as her head tipped back against Hudson’s shoulder. Her scent spiked, sweet and overwhelming, flooding the nest until I could taste it. She was so full she trembled between us as the soft, broken sounds she made were the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
Hudson stilled, giving her time. His hand stayed under her thigh, holding her open. I kissed her lips.
“Okay?” Hudson asked against her ear.
She nodded, eyes glassy, lips parted. “Move. Please—both of you.”
We started careful. Hudson drew back a fraction as I stayed deep and rolled my hips in a slow grind.
Then I eased out as he pushed in, a deliberate, sliding friction that made Mary’s moan turn into a whimper.
We found a rhythm together that was shallow at first, knowing the way her body accepted both of us.
Every thrust dragged Hudson’s cock along mine, and every time we bottomed out she clenched around us like she was trying to keep us there forever.
Her hands scrambled for purchase, one on my shoulder, one reaching back to tangle in Hudson’s hair. We kept the pace slow, because anything faster felt like it might break the fragile, overwhelming rightness of the moment.
Wet sounds of us moving inside her filled the nest. Her scent. Our scents. The quiet, awed curses that slipped from Hudson’s mouth.
I kissed the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, anywhere I could reach while we rocked into her together.
And we did move together. Our omega was full of us and full of our children, and I wasn’t sure I had ever understood the word sacred until then.
She wasn’t the frantic omega in a hotel heat.
She wasn’t the frightened woman who had tried to leave before she could be sent.
She was Mary, clear-eyed and swollen with our babies, asking for us, taking us, choosing the bond with every breath.
“Say something,” she said.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Something else. That one makes me cry.”
Hudson’s mouth found her ear. “You’re ours.”
“That makes me cry too.”
“Then stop asking,” I said, and she laughed, and the laugh turned into a sound that wasn’t one at all. “Or ask us to claim you.”
Her pleasure built fast. Pregnancy had made her body quick and sensitive, but this was more than that. This was the need to be claimed rising under her skin. I could smell it, Hudson could too. His teeth grazed the side of her throat, and her body clenched hard around us.
“Knot me,” she gasped.
My control fractured. “Not when we’re both inside you.”
Hudson’s teeth scraped over the side of her neck, and his hand tightened over her belly.
Then she turned her face toward Hudson’s mouth at her neck. “Bite me.”
The world stopped.
Hudson froze.
I couldn’t breathe.
It’s what we’ve been so desperate to hear, but we asked first.
Mary’s eyes opened, wet and fierce and absolutely clear. “Bite me. Both of you. Please. I want to be yours.”
“Love,” I said, because my voice had become nothing else.
“I want to be claimed.” Her hand found mine. “I want you. I want everyone to know. I want to feel it when you’re both inside me.”
Hudson looked at me over her shoulder.
I saw want, terror, reverence, and love in his face.
“Both of you,” she said. “At the same time, if you can manage it.”
“That’s ambitious,” Hudson said against her throat.
We had waited because a claim should never be taken in confusion, heat, fear, or debt. Mary had chosen it in her nest, with our babies inside her and our rings on her finger.
“Please. Own me.”
Hudson’s top lip curled back and he bit first, high on the right side of her neck, exactly where his scent always settled. Mary cried out, pleasure and pain breaking together. I felt love flare through the bond before my teeth touched her. Then I bit the left side.
Her blood touched my tongue, the scent of wild violet, sugared blackberry, Irish whiskey, rain and Mary filled the room. And then the bright, frightened, funny, stubborn heart of her poured through the claim with a love so intense I made a sound against her skin that might have been her name.
She shook between us, crying and laughing, one hand over our babies, one in my hair.
“There,” she whispered. “There you are.”
Hudson licked over his bite, soothing it.
I did the same.
We held her between, until her breathing eased, until the skylight darkened above us and the city glittered beneath the rain.
Then Mary shifted slightly and frowned. “Either that was very impressive, you came without me realizing, or my waters just broke.”
Hudson lifted his head. I looked down, and Mary blinked at us.
“I believe,” she said calmly, “the babies have accepted your eviction notice.”
The next day, the babies still hadn’t arrived, and Mary was less calm about that.
“I rescind all eviction notices,” she said from the hospital bed, hair damp at her temples, cheeks flushed, one hand gripping mine and the other gripping Hudson’s after another contraction. “They can stay in there.”
Hudson brushed her hair back. “You’re doing beautifully.”
“I’m doing terribly. I’ve been doing terribly for twenty-two hours.”
“You’re in labor,” I said.