Scent Matches Ever After

Baby Ever After

This summer,we loaded our stuff into some suitcases, put our tiny new schnauzer, Sunday, into a little carrier, and flew to Ohio to spend six full weeks at the Everett family farm. Caleb’s dads have a few huge projects they want to knock out before the big pumpkin harvest, and who better to come help with manual labor than their son and his line-backer-esque husband?

I help, too, just. . . less with the heavy lifting and literal erecting of farm buildings.

I’d never spent time on a farm before meeting Caleb. I grew up in a suburb and expected that farmhouses would look like they do in old movies: a wood stove heating a house, lacey white curtains, maybe a cherry pie cooling in the windowsill.

I didn”t expect farming to be so lucrative.

Caleb grew up practically in a farm mansion, though with three parents and five kids, I suppose I should have considered that. Farm or not, they needed a huge house.

The farm as a whole is very impressive. Apart from the pumpkin patches, there are various barns that house huge equipment; a chicken coop near the house, the main house, and two of his brothers have houses that are also on the property. And somehow, there’s still room for plenty more. Caleb’s dad Dean reminds him quarterly that as soon as we say the word, a house of our own can be built here. When I first heard this, I thought it was a hilarious suggestion, but after four weeks on the farm, I can’t pretend that I don’t see the appeal.

When Caleb first brought us home to see his family, I felt so exposed in the wide-open space of this place. Everything was so green and so, so quiet. It was disconcerting.

But now, the place has won me over; I soak in the fresh air, the tiny breeze cooling damp skin, and I even look forward to checking on the chickens each day. Sunday is also obsessed with the farm, she loves bounding around the yard with the farm dogs or staying close to Caleb’s heels as he moves about helping his dads and brothers. I don’t know how she will adapt back to city life with our tiny patio and loud neighborhood.

Plus, I love to see Caleb in a pair of cowboy boots and light blue jeans instead of his usual loafers and button-up. It does something for me, it really does.

He and Grant both show the work they’ve been doing; Caleb’s cheeks are tan and freckled after the days in the sun and his hair is almost blonde, and both of them look toned in new places. Not sitting at a desk all day will do that, I guess.

We”ve continued our Walton Marketing work, but the load is less intense, especially since we were able to hire more help earlier this year (hallelujah).

Lily and I were working ourselves ragged for months there. Caleb and Grant too, but I suppose if you are going to have that many late nights working on something you really believe in, it”s bound to pay off eventually.

I do love how this place forces us to slow down. When the sun has just set, it would be a travesty not to sit on the porch chairs with cool lemonade and dinner. Caleb has a sister who lives in town, and another sister who lives in the city over, both close enough for weekly family dinners where our nieces and nephews dash around inside the house and outside until they”re so worn out that all they can do is lay back on a blanket and stare at the stars until their parents are ready to take them home.

It”s so different from our usual quick trips. The longest we”ve stayed is two weeks when we got married, but this time feels different because we”ve really been able to settle into everyone”s routines. Having so many loved ones around reminds me of home.

Caleb”s mom, Molly, is attempting to teach me how to cook and assures me that, with practice, I too can learn the ways of the master chef.

I am exceedingly wary of this, but I do try my best.

We are in the process of preparing chicken pot pies for dinner tonight when the sight and smell of the cream of chicken soup we are using for the filling sends my stomach churning. I take a quick sip of water, but then I really must rush to the bathroom where I vomit our entire delicious breakfast, barely making it to the toilet to do so.

“Alice?” Molly calls. She rushes into the bathroom behind me while I lose the contents of my stomach. She pulls my braid behind my back and rubs a soft hand between my shoulder blades. I cannot remember the last time I threw up. Maybe before I met Caleb and Grant when I got food poisoning from that dumpling place? But never since.

We sit in the bathroom for another five minutes until the dry heaving is done and I can finally rest back against the side of the bathtub. Molly runs to get me some water which I sip gingerly. While throwing up, Sunday had come into the bathroom and is now curled up on the bathmat next to my leg. I scratch her neck and her tail thumps against the tile.

All the guys are out repairing fences today, a massive project that I do not envy, so that house is quiet as the three of us sit.

“Are you going into heat soon, hon?” Molly asks.

“I just had one before we came down, I should be good for another two months at least. Plus, vomiting has never been one of my pre-heat symptoms.” I rub my hands over my forehead which is clammy.

I try to think through what I’ve been eating for the last twelve hours—nothing out of the ordinary; pancakes for breakfast, chicken for dinner last night, I’ve had plenty of water and felt fine otherwise. Not even queasy, really.

When I look back at Molly, she is watching me with wide, thoughtful eyes, and after a moment of confusion, mine go as wide as hers.

“No way,” I say.

“No?”

“No,” I repeat, but think about it again and lightly gasp. “Maybe.”

“Have you been nesting?”

“No,” I say, but realize I’ve worn only Grant and Caleb’s clothes for the last three days, even now, I have on her son’s old college t-shirt over leggings, because?—

Because, well, it smells like them.

I inhale through my nose and meet Molly’s stare. “Can you drive me into town?”

I make it to dinner without another vomiting incident, but there is a fluttering nervousness about my gut for the rest of the day. When they call it quits on the fences for the day, Grant and Caleb ditch their boots in the mudroom, kiss my cheek, and then head straight to shower. I distract myself from running in there by going to the stable and petting one of the horses, Dove, and sneaking her an extra apple treat.

Sunday follows me like it’s her full-time job, extra clingy since my sick moment this morning, not even rushing to be with the other dogs when I came outside, even though I’m sure she really, really wants to.

She was a good birthday present. I never grew up with dogs, but she’s sweet and loyal and can now do three tricks, which really impresses Lily every time she comes over.

“Alice?” I hear from the door of the stable. I turn to find Caleb’s youngest sister, Joanie, with her littlest baby strapped to her chest. “You in here?”

“Yeah, with Dove,” I call back.

I try to morph my face into cool, relaxed, normal, because me? I am cool, relaxed, and feeling very, very normal. “How—how are you doing? I am good,” I say then realize she had yet to ask how I was doing.

Joanie’s eyebrows shoot up on her forehead. “I am also good. Something on your mind?”

I look back to the horse, who I do believe is looking back at me like it knows all of my secrets and I wear everything on my sleeve—which is really the sleeve of one of Grant’s flannels.

“Just. . . the horse,” I say. “How was the shop today?”

Joanie squints for another moment before I see her decide to drop it and shrug. The newborn on her chest sighs and turns his head but keeps sleeping.

“No complaints. It’s busy season, everyone needs a new tool or a box of screws or some paint.” Joanie’s husband owns the hardware store in town, which doesn’t sound glamorous, but Joanie grows and sells fresh flowers from a stall in the store, which is exceptionally charming. They come for dinner at least twice a week, if not more while we’re in town and I quite like her.

Joanie goes on about her day, which I want to hear about, but I keep looking at the baby in the wrap on her chest. Little Eli is four months old, the plumpest little cheeks with tiny hands and feet and ten little toes and?—

“Alice?”

My eyes snap back up to Joanie’s and she looks like, without even speaking, I have just told her a big secret. I open my mouth to tell her something, anything, but before I can, Sunday is jumping and barking and circling around with glee because Caleb has just waltzed into the barn with still-wet hair and clean clothes.

I shake my head at Joanie just barely as if to say, Please, dear God, do not say anything, please I am begging you, and she is quick on the uptake, relaxing her shoulders and offering a casual side hug to her brother. Eli picks this time to start waking up, blinking open his big brown eyes and yawning so big for his tiny face.

“I didn’t know you were coming over tonight,” Caleb says.

“Can’t miss pot pie night,” Joanie says. The memory of the pie filling makes my stomach lurch, but I do not throw up, only lean on Dove in my sudden queasiness.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that because this little guy called me and told me he wants to hang out with his favorite uncle.” Caleb lightly lifts Eli’s foot, making baby faces at him and taking on the voice reserved for small animals and small humans, saying baby gibberish like, “Isn’t that right? You used your teeny tiny fingers to call me and say you wanted to hang out, huh?”

Eli, who cannot, of course, speak nor operate a phone, smiles at Caleb. Joanie takes the baby out of the carrier and hands him over. Caleb loves holding the babies. If there is a baby in the room, Caleb is likely going to be holding, or attempting to hold it. He is like a moth and small creatures are the flame to which he gravitates at any function.

“Did you have a good day?” Caleb asks, and it takes me a few silent seconds to realize that he is talking to me.

“Hm?”

“Did you do something fun? Mom said you two drove into town,” Caleb says. Joanie realizes something about this outing and comes deftly to my aid.

“She came to visit me,” Joanie says.

“Yes,” I lie. “Thought flowers would be nice with the dinner.”

I pray silently that there are flowers in the house. Joanie usually brings flowers, please let this not be the one day where she decides not to bring any.

“That’s sweet of you,” Caleb says, not even the slightest bit suspicious. He lightly bounces the baby and the four of us (six of us if we count Sunday and Dove) stand quietly outside of the horse stall. “Should we go in?”

“Right,” I say at the same time Joanie says, “Yep, I am so hungry.”

Caleb looks like—though the interaction is a little strange—it’s nothing to concern himself with, not when Eli is using his teensy little hand to try to grab Caleb’s jaw and there is pot pie inside to be eaten.

I cringe again at the thought of eating what I usually consider one of my favorite meals, but today could not sound more unappetizing.

Sunday stays at my side as we head back for the house, and thankfully Joanie and Caleb do most of the talking so I can stare nervously into the middle distance.

When we get inside, Grant picks me up in a big hug and spins me around before leaning next to my ear.

“You good?”

“Why wouldn’t I be good?” I ask, startled.

“Just sensing some… distress?”

The bond. Because of course, there can be no true secrets between us when our mating bond links our emotions together like a sieve between one another. In this vein, I try to manifest peace, coolness, relaxation. . . It doesn’t work, and I can see that on his face.

“Stomach issues today,” I say. Not a lie. “Still a bit, um, turbulent.”

He looks sincerely sorry about this and pulls me in for another hug and a whole bunch of kisses on the forehead. The attention and his scent do make me feel somewhat better, and when he pulls away, my smile is genuine.

“I love you,” he says and tugs me into the dining room where the family is already starting to get situated. Joanie yells for her two older kids to come sit down, and their little limbs race past us toward their chairs.

With so many chatty people at the table, dinner goes well, and I skate by not saying much. I also don’t go for any pie; instead, I load my plate up with salad, fruit, and bread rolls because the thought of these items doesn’t make me want to heave. I chance it on some ice cream afterward and am rewarded with no hint of queasiness when I’m all done.

Overall, I am winning this dinner, and maintaining a calm, cool, collected presence about me. Sunday is being clingy and jumpy, though, and Caleb keeps mentioning how cute it is that she wants to stay right by my side like my little shadow.

Yes, sure.

After Joanie et al leave, the guys are tired from their long day, but I have been keeping a secret for approximately seven hours and if I go through the night, I will burst, so I ask Caleb and Grant if we can take a drive and maybe star gaze, just for a little while.

Surely, they know something is up because they just grab blankets and pillows and get their shoes right on before heading for one of the trucks and throwing the stuff into the bed.

We drive to one side of the farm where there’s a nice little grove of trees and park the truck before putting together our make-shift truck bed. First a plush quilt for padding, then softer smaller blankets for warmth. Three pillows. A little bug detractor device.

It’s perfectly lovely.

It’s been ten minutes tops since we left the main house, and I have had a nervous energy all the while. Caleb and Grant sit with their backs against the cab of the truck and I kneel between them looking at them with what I am sure are big, wide eyes.

My husbands wait for me to speak, to tell them whatever has been weighing on my mind, but instead, I open and close my mouth a few times and then shrug.

“Truck sex, anyone?” I ask, and they both break out laughing. It lightens the coil of tension in my chest just a little. “What? I think this is a reasonable request!”

“And what of our perfectly comfortable bed inside the house?” Caleb asks.

He’s right, the bed is quite comfortable, and on the opposite side of the house so really, I’m never too worried about his parents hearing us make a ruckus, though I do try to be very quiet just in case.

I’m stalling, I know this, and the bed of a truck is not the most convenient place for some group sex, but we do have all these blankets and pillows, so conditions could be way worse. With this in mind, I crawl towards them and kiss each of them. When I try to take the kiss with Grant further, though, he pulls back with a chuckle.

“As much as I would love to have truck sex with the two of you right now, something has been eating at you.” Grant pushes the hair out of my face, tucking red strands behind my ears. “What’s going on?”

I take a big slow breath.

“Should we go back early?” Caleb asks. “We can change our flights if you think your heat is coming?”

“Oh, it’s not,” I say. I don’t say that the very opposite of a heat is coming, but I do lean in for another kiss. “I’m just . . . horny.”

I know that they can tell I’m not divulging everything, but Grant still smiles and lets me kiss him senselessly before leaning over and doing the same to Caleb. I really have been horny for them, it’s not like that was a lie.

On a base level, I want them all the time. Sex with them has always been intense, but after we completed the mating bond, it has become even better. Heightened in ways that I was always told about growing up, but didn’t comprehend until I had the bond living within me, tying each of us together in a tangible way like a living thing between us.

“There is something about seeing you two doing manual labor that makes me want to ravage you thoroughly.” I slide my palms up both of their chests.

Caleb leans up towards me to suck on the sensitive skin of my collarbone and up my neck. Grant follows suit.

“Farm life looks good on you, too,” Caleb says against my ear, and it sends a shiver up my spine.

What started a diversion is quickly becoming a hot burning between my legs, and I very much would like one or both of them to knot me right this instant.

This desire must come across in the bond because Grant and Caleb both start unzipping their jeans while trying to keep their mouths on me. Grant gets his off first and uses his now free hands to unbutton his shirt from my body, revealing a cotton bralette beneath. I shrug off the shirt and sit back to help Caleb slip my shorts and underwear down my legs. It’s a team effort, one that takes our share of coordination in the tight space. But soon enough, we are all naked, goosebumps forming on our limbs, both from the cool night air and the heat of this moment.

Caleb’s hands venture between my legs first, lightly touching the area that is already slick for them both. He curses and pulls his fingers away only to put them in Grant’s mouth. I blink at the gesture and tip my head back as Grant laps at Caleb’s offering. I didn’t know men could love the taste of slick so much as these two do, and the thought never ceases to make me quiver.

“So good, mate,” Grant says, almost like a growl.

Caleb removes his fingers, only to slip them inside of me, met with no resistance. Grant sits forward and pulls one of my tits into his mouth, sucking and biting while I clench around Caleb’s fingers. We couldn’t find a place in the city to have car sex, no less sex in the open bed of a truck, but here we are, completely alone, no risk of anyone seeing us together like this.

My skin grows hotter as they work me closer to orgasm with Caleb’s fingers and Grant’s mouth alone. I can’t reach Caleb’s erection, but I can grab Grants, and the hot hard length fills my grip as I begin to stroke.

He sucks in a hiss at the feel of my hand then pulls me down by the back of my neck so my mouth can meet his.

“She’s clamping around my fingers,” Caleb says, and Grant and I both groan. “I want you to feel her like this, Grant. Climb on his lap, sweetheart, yes, just like that.”

I do what he says while still trying to maintain the sloppy kiss happening. I do have to stop when Caleb lines Grant’s cock up beneath me and urges me gently to sit down on our husband.

Who am I to refuse?

I sink down onto Grant, both of us moaning at the feeling of it. I take him all the way past his knot, then out to the head before he can expand and lock inside of me.

“That’s it, take him just like that,” Caleb says. He’s positioned himself behind me with his hands on my hips as he works me up and down on Grant. “Lean forward now.”

I do as Caleb says, leaning my chest onto Grant’s and letting Caleb push us down until we are laid flat, Grant’s head on one of the pillows. My breasts pressed against the hot skin of his feels so intimate and charged that I know I can get carried away into my orgasm with just a few more strokes of him inside of me.

Caleb lifts my hips until Grant’s cock slides out of me, though, slapping against his stomach between us.

“Wh—” Before I can even successfully whine my protest, Caleb thrusts the whole of his length into me in one motion, winning a loud moan from me as he does. “Alpha,” I moan and he thrusts in harder, jerking my body against Grant’s, who lies beneath me while his hands rove over my sides, my upper arms, and my neck.

Grant’s dick is pressed between us just so that his knot is against my clit. I can’t imagine that it’s giving him much direct pleasure, but the combination of Caleb’s relentless thrusting and the pressure of Grant’s knot grinding against me makes me tumble headfirst into my first orgasm of the night. I come with a loud moan, louder than I’ve allowed since we got to Ohio a month ago, but Caleb doesn’t seat his knot in me and follow me over, just fucks me through it until I’m relaxing against Grant’s chest and moaning lightly with every trust.

“I’m drenched,” Caleb breathes out as he slides all the way out of me. I can’t help the whine at the emptiness that follows. Everything is so sensitive and my skin prickles for the light breeze that floats around us.

I don’t have to ask for what I need, they already know; a light purr starts in my chest when Caleb nudges my hips up and Grant’s cock slips back into me.

“Thank you, thank you,” I chant, and senselessly start riding him. The way my brain feels foggy and my skin is burning, it feels like a heat spike, though I know I’m not going into heat again anytime soon. It’s something else entirely, a new kind of need to be close to them and have them.

“Open your eyes, baby, eyes on me,” Grant says. I do as he says, watching in the spare moonlight as his eyes bore into mine while his face twists in pleasure.

I am desperate and about to take Grant’s knot when Caleb’s hands slow my hips to a stop as he rubs his cock over my backside. I’m covered in a sheen of sweat, but I shiver when I realize what he’s got planned.

Caleb squeezes my ass and spreads me apart. “Can we have you like this, Omega? Can we take you together?” he asks.

I can’t even supply words for an answer, just whining and nodding as my hips fight to jerk back onto him.

The head of Caleb’s cock circles around my ass, and then presses slowly inside.

“You have to breathe, baby,” Grant says. “Are you breathing?”

“I’m breathing,” I manage, then actually make myself take a few long, shuddering breaths until I feel myself relax to take more of my mate.

“Now you’re breathing.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” I say with a breathy chuckle.

I pry open my eyes and see Grant give a slight nod over my shoulder before the pair of them thrust in tandem, choreographed like a dance, filling me to the brim and wringing the pleasure right out of me until once again I am teetering on the edge.

“Get there with me, Caleb,” I say. I can’t help but be bossy, even now. “I want us to come at the same time and then I need Grant’s knot.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Caleb says, then sucks on the part of my neck where his mating bite is before increasing his speed, chasing his pleasure in my ass. He doesn’t last long, and neither do I, both of us falling together into a climax, Grant speaking filthy things to us all the while.

When Caleb is fully spent, he lays some of his weight on me, making me the sweaty middle of an Alpha sandwich. The primal, Omega ache for them is lessening, but I still am in deep need of a knot, and I wiggle my hips until I can press down over Grant’s knot. He is already swollen, and it’s a tight fit before he locks inside of me and bursts, thrusting from below to get any friction inside of me.

My orgasm reignites, like it never really subsided and Caleb crawls off of me so that he can press his mouth to mine as I come one last time until I’m wholly wrung out, a satisfied husk between my mates.

Caleb drops down on the truck bed next to where Grant and I are locked together but keeps his hand rubbing up and down my spine in gentle circles. Grant pulls a throw blanket over our naked bodies.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt in the tranquil quiet of the night.

I expect a moment of stunned silence, but Caleb’s eyes fill with tears an instant later, and he says “Oh, sweetheart,” in his most tender, cracking voice.

“What?” Grant sits up straight, me still straddling his waist and the blanket slipping down from my shoulders. “You mean it?”

“Yes,” I breathe a laugh just as shocked as them. “Your mom took me to get some tests and I drank so much water. I took like three of them just to be safe?—”

“Alice,” Caleb starts, but he can’t go on. The expression on his face is so overwhelmed and overcome that it sends both me and Grant crying right with him. Caleb holds us both by the back of our necks so our foreheads press together.

“We’re going to have a baby?” he asks. It’s the loveliest, sappiest moment; the three of us naked in the bed of a truck, grinning and weeping at the news, joy ricocheting between us through our bond.

When the night becomes a little too cold, we tug our clothes back on and head back to the main house. As we walk, my hands in one of each of theirs, I stop and squint at the farmhouse.

“What do you two think about moving here?” I ask.

They look first at me, then each other, then up at the house before we all grin and walk inside.

THE END