Expensive - Amy Bellows Page 0,41
me.”
He kisses me. Not gently like before. This kiss is all tongue and teeth. And I kiss him back, hope surging in my chest.
“If I was your mate, then I could be with you forever,” he says.
It doesn’t seem like he would mind.
“Yes, baby boy. Forever.” I nip at his bottom lip, then his chin, and I nuzzle the crook of his neck. “We could be a family. If you were willing.”
He lets out something between a laugh and a sob. “Yes. I want that so much.”
I pull him onto my lap with his legs straddling me. In the back of my mind, a small voice whispers that this is too fast, and I still don’t have a way of keeping Andrew safe. Maybe his bond ache has somehow changed my body chemistry too. I don’t know.
All I know is that I fit with this man, and he’s carrying my child. How could anything else matter?
“Neither of us can bond in the strictest sense of the word, but we could still make a lifetime commitment to each other. I’ll be sure Manny finds us a place to live where we can bring a child. We’ll all run away. All three of us.”
Andrew smiles. “Okay. Thank you, Daddy. Thank you so much.”
20
Andrew
Timber makes love to me slowly, leaving little bite marks down my chest and along my hip bone. When he enters me, there’s something otherworldly about the way he fits inside, about the bliss I feel as his knot stretches me.
I’ve only felt the mark of magic once—when I saw Edward Monroe for the first time after our magical tie. We locked eyes on each other, and there was an emotional click I couldn’t ignore. I knew he was mine. I didn’t exactly want him, but I knew we belonged together.
The connection I feel to Timber isn’t quite the same. The click is slower, like the difference between clapping my hands and clasping them. But it still feels like a click—like magic.
I’m not sure what to think about that.
We lie tangled together in my bed afterwards. He places his hand with the octopus tattoo on my lower belly.
“Dragon shifters carry eggs, don’t they?” he asks, his voice quiet with awe.
“Yes. I mean, I think it’s an egg. I guess it could be a pup.”
He shakes his head. “Red wolf shifters are human in the womb. They can’t shift until after they’re born. But once they start, they like to shift all the time. It’s quite the ordeal, actually. Can’t keep a diaper on them.” He smiles affectionately.
“Dragon shifters stay in their dragon form for the first six months or so,” I say. Not because I’ve ever met a baby dragon. Dragon shifters are very protective of their young for the first year. They rarely bring them to a public place where strangers might see them.
I did a lot of research last night. There are several books in the library about the upbringing of dragon shifters.
“I wonder what our little one will be,” he says.
The books didn’t have much information about children from mixed shifter heritage. One of the books mentioned that dragon shifter eggs couldn’t survive in wombs of other species, but that’s all the information I could find. I didn’t dare do a search on any of the computers.
It would be better if my father never found out about the baby.
Timber twists away from me and bends over the side of the bed. He returns with the cloth bag—the one with the toys.
A part of me wants to forget that I’m going to be a parent soon and open the bag of LEGOs. I haven’t played with them since I was a kid, but everything is different now.
“We probably shouldn’t do this kind of thing anymore. Now that I’m pregnant,” I say. I thought about this a lot last night. I want to be a good dad, which means I need to grow up. No more Frankie. No more playdough ice cream. And no LEGOs either.
“Why?” Timber asks.
“I have to be an adult for our baby.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then grabs the bag of LEGOs, setting it on the bed between us. “Do you know what age play is?” he asks.
“No.”
He opens the bag and pours the LEGOs onto the bed. “Age play is just like D/s. We set up a scene that allows us to explore our fantasies in a way that’s relaxing and safe. We communicate our interests and limits with each other