Heat for sale

“I liked the pictures of him as a young boy. And you were very handsome back then. Not that you’re not handsome now!”

Simon chortled. “Oh, I well remember how old men look to the young. I was handsome, though, wasn’t I? My Earl certainly thought so.”

“Oh, so you do have a lover?”

“A lover?” Simon laughed again. “Earl and I have been married for forty years. Lover…pfft.” He worked the eggs expertly in the skillet and then slid them onto a plate for Adrien to eat.

“What does Earl think of Heath?”

“He thinks he’s spoiled,” Simon said obviously without a care about how that might sound. “And he is spoiled, but he’s a good man. Devoted. Loyal.”

He said that intently, with a particular gaze at Adrien.

“Yes, I can see that.” He rested his hand on his stomach as he ate. The baby flipped around inside, shoving off his liver. He tapped himself and sighed contentedly. He even liked when the little booger hurt him.

“Sometimes Heath makes poor choices, rash ones, but he’s a good man.”

“Of course.”

“I’m glad you know that.”

Adrien pondered his eggs and then decided to just ask. “Who was Nathan? His lover, I know, but how long were they together? How did they meet?”

Simon froze and stared at him. “So you saw the pictures of Nathan, then?”

“No. He’d removed them from the books I got a chance to see. He came in and found me looking just as I was getting ready to open the one with Nathan’s name on it. Now, it’s gone.” Not that he’d pla

Here he was prying again.

“So they were in love, then?”

“Heath was in love. Nathan was greedy.” Simon frowned. “Don’t get me wrong. Nathan was a delight to be around socially. Made me laugh like there was no tomorrow. But, in the end, he liked Heath’s money and his cock, and that was about all he truly cared about.”

Adrien gaped. He’d never heard Simon be so crude before.

“Truth isn’t pretty,” Simon said as if he was dusting his hands of the whole thing. “What did Heath say when you asked him about Nathan?”

Adrien poked at his eggs, feeling restless and not as hungry as usual. “He said he was dead. That he’d loved him, but he was dead.”

Simon snorted. “Just like Heath to be so brutally succinct.”

“He said he loved me,” Adrien whispered, his eyes down. A smile broke over his lips, and he poked at his eggs again. He took off his glasses and set them aside, wiping at his suddenly damp eyes. “He said it twice.”

Simon laughed and squeezed Adrien’s hand. “I could have told you that.”

“Really?”

“It’s been evident.”

“How?”

“Are you so oblivious?” Simon rolled his eyes, which, even blurry, looked sort of silly on a man of his age.

“So you think he’ll want me to stay? He won’t send me away or expect me to leave him behind?” Adrien stroked his stomach again. “The baby, I mean, or Heath, for that matter.”

“I doubt very much that he’ll want you to ever leave. I suspect that choice will be up to you.”

“I want to stay with him.”

“What about your studies and school? You auctioned your heat and breeding to become a professor. What of that?”

“What does that matter?” Adrien asked, dreamily, his fingers tracing his stomach softly, his heart a pulpy mess of affection for the life inside and for Heath. “Our family matters more.”

“Oh, boy. Those pregnancy hormones sure do a number on men. Alphas and omegas alike. I’m telling you now, keep your options open. Don’t make promises you won’t want to keep.”

“The rest of the world just doesn’t seem to matter,” Adrien said again. He pushed his glasses even farther away on the counter and turned his attention back to his stomach. “Not when I feel happy here. Safe and content. What’s wrong with wanting that? For me and for my baby?”

“Nothing is wrong with it. But life isn’t about safety. And feelings change.”

“Not my feelings,” Adrien said, and even as the words came out of his mouth he felt both certain and stupidly young. “Nothing could change my feelings for Heath.”

“Nothing?” Simon said. Then he walked away mumbling under his breath, “I’ll have to remind you of that.”

But Adrien knew he would never need reminding. His life was perfect.

Nothing could shake his happiness.

PART THREE

Birth and Afterbirth

Chapter Eighteen

“WHICH OF YOU plan to raise the child? Or do you plan to raise the child together?” Heath read aloud from the book, his voice almost shaking with anxiety. His forehead and the small of his back broke out into a sweat, and he held his breath to keep from begging Adrien to stay here with him forever.

“I…” Adrien glanced up at him, as if trying to read his face.

Heath gazed back down at him as carefully neutral as possible. “What would you like, Adrien?”

“What are my options?” Adrien asked.

Heath read the question again, “Which of you plan to raise the child? Or do you plan to raise the child together?”

“No, I mean, could I take my baby with me? Or…” He cleared his throat, gazing down, his neck turning red.

Heath’s heart went off like a bang. He heaved in a panicked breath. “No,”

he said firmly. “You could not take the child with you.”

Adrien fluttered his lashes, his cheeks going pale. “So if I left here, I’d go alone. Would I be allowed to see him again?”

Heath swallowed hard. His mind whirred, and he rubbed at his forehead.

Already this was going all wrong. Adrien was supposed to have said, “I want to raise him together,” and Heath was supposed to say, “I want that, too,” but now Adrien was talking about taking the baby or having visitation rights.

Fuck!

“You would be allowed to see him,” Heath gritted out. “But…”

“But?”

“But that’s not what I want to happen.”

“You don’t want me to see him?” Adrien’s eyes went wide with hurt. He reached for his glasses on the table by the bed and put them on.

“No! I mean…yes, I want you to see him.” Heath took Adrien’s chin in his hands and tilted his head up, gazing at his eyes through the glasses lenses.

“I don’t want you to leave him—or me—at all.”

Adrien’s smile was the sweet, helpless, silly one that made Heath’s gut do

somersaults. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So how would that work? Exactly?”

“You’d stay here.”

“In the nest?”

“No. I imagine once the wee one is a few weeks old, you’ll want to get out and explore. And when he’s a bit older, you’ll want to make a life of some kind. Return to school or take on charity work of some kind. Until you get pregnant again.”

Adrien’s smile was like sunshine in spring. Sweet, uplifting, perfect.

Heath never felt more alpha than when that smile was turned his way. “You want to do this with me again?” Adrien said, touching his stomach. It shifted restlessly beneath his hand. “But you haven’t even met him yet. What if he’s not what you were expecting?”

“He’ll be yours and mine, and that’s what I’ve wanted from the begi

Adrien rubbed his stomach, his joyful expression almost painfully sweet.

“That’s what I want, too,” he said finally. “That’s what I’ve wanted for a long time now.”

Heath’s heart exploded with elation. “So you’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay.”

“And you’ll raise him with me?”

“I don’t want to leave him the way my omega parent left me. I want to be there for him.” Adrien took Heath’s hand with a touching laugh. “I saw those pictures in your album of you and your omega parent, your da, and I felt for the first time how much I wish I’d known mine. Heard his laugh. Known his voice. I don’t want my child to grow up without that. Even though I know you’d take good care of him. You and Simon.”

“Simon’s too old to be his nurse. We’ll need to hire a new one.”

“Simon will be his grandfather,” Adrien said firmly.

“Essentially, I suppose he will.” Heath kissed Adrien’s nose and removed his glasses again, putting them on the nightstand. “I need you on my cock now,” he rasped. “Where you belong.”

Adrien didn’t hesitate, straddling his hips and sliding down onto Heath’s cock with ease. He was wet and clingy on the inside, and it drove Heath wild to watch him writhe on his cock, his pregnant stomach so taut and hard, and

his dick jutting out from beneath it with pink urgency.

“That’s it,” he said as Adrien worked himself up to a frenzy. “You belong right here. With me. Riding my cock.”

“Yes,” Adrien agreed, his chest, throat, and cheeks red, and his cock dripping pre-cum all over Heath’s furry stomach. “Yes, I belong with you.”

“Belong to me,” Heath corrected.

And Adrien didn’t hesitate to agree. “Yes. I belong to you. I’m yours.”

He put one hand over the bulge of his stomach and groaned, “We’re yours.”

“Fuck, yes,” Heath shouted, gripping Adrien’s hips and plowing up into him hard and fast. He loved fucking this boy, loved his noises and his body.

Loved knowing that his child was planted inside, growing so fast, and going to be born so soon. He loved the way milk leaked from Adrien’s nipples, slipping down his sweaty chest and sliding down his stomach. He loved the way Adrien didn’t care anymore, didn’t question it. He was the most accepting, beautiful, delicious man he’d ever met, and he wanted to fuck him until the end of time.

That was his last thought before orgasm took him. He crowed, arching up, fucking deeply into Adrien’s squirming body, and reveled in the rapid-fire spurts of cum that shot from Adrien’s dick. He shuddered and groaned, filling up Adrien’s ass with his semen, eyes rolling back, as he gritted his teeth and rode out the shocks of ecstasy that were almost too much, too good.

He was just coming down from that high when he felt the heat of slick gushing over his stomach, hips, and thighs. Copious slick. Like a water balloon had burst over his groin and body.