Page 27

Five Years Later

Noel

“I’ll send a car to the airport to pick you up,” I tell my mother over the phone. “Look, Mom, I really need to go. We’re trying to pack the hospital bags, and Kate just got here.”

Hanging up, I look over at Declan who is trying to put our four-year-old daughter, Esmeray, into his suitcase. She’s giggling so hard that she can’t catch her breath.

He’s pretending to be serious about stuffing her inside but tickling her every time he tucks her arms and legs back in. He is the father I never had, and I’m just as excited to see how he will be with our little boy.

“Alright, Ray, breathe, sweet girl,” he chuckles and picks her up.

She still giggles between breaths as they walk over to me. His smile still takes my breath away.

“Mommy, Daddy wants to pack me in a suitcase!” She exclaims.

“He’s so silly!” I tell her, smiling at them both.

“Grandma will be here in a little while. She and Aunt Kate are going to stay with you while Daddy and I go get you a baby brother!” I try to say as cheerfully as possible .

“Baby sister,” she argues.

We’ve done our best, but she’s still very adamantly against the baby being a boy. Hopefully, she will be so enthralled with helping that she won’t care as much when he’s actually here.

“Was your mom on the way to the airport?” Declan asks.

“Yes. I told her we would send a car for her and that Kate was already here.”

My mother moved into my old house after my father ran off with their cook. Surprisingly, he’s never come back. She thinks he figured out a way to embezzle the money to avoid the inheritance being donated and didn’t bother to divorce her because she’d get half.

It’s been a long road, but we’ve managed to build a relationship. She’s been a much better grandmother than she was a mother. Then again, Declan laid out the ground rules pretty harshly before Ray was born.

He pays her bills and gives her an allowance, since my dad drained their accounts on his way out of town. I’m glad it’s worked out this way. I’m sure I would not have been able to have this with her if my father had stuck around and fought with me over the money.

I put the last of the items I need into my bag and have to stop to breathe through a contraction.

“Ray, go find Aunt Kate and tell her I said you could have a snack,” Declan tells our little girl.

She takes off yelling for Aunt Kate through the house.

His hands immediately rub into my lower back as I breathe through the pain. He moves one hand to my belly to feel as he waits for it to pass.

I stand up straight, my back to his front, and he uses both of his hands to hold the weight of my belly up just a bit. Laying my head back into his chest, I groan at the relief .

“This boy needs his own room,” I say.

“You amaze me,” he says from over my head.

“Women have babies every day,” I say, dismissing his compliment.

“Only one woman has mine, and you are so good at it that I already have some new ideas of how to put the next one in you,” his deep voice turns husky, and his dick hardens into my ass.

“Dec! I’m literally in labor!”

“Can’t tell my cock a damn thing, sorry.”

I turn around to face him, my belly putting distance between me and his cock with its own mind. We discovered Declan’s pregnancy kink when I started showing with Esmeray. Now that we’ve crossed off my major travel destinations, he seems to be on a mission to make lots of babies. It’s sweet, but big men make big babies, and no woman in the history of ever wants to talk about having another one when they’re in labor.

“I’m ready,” I say, pointing to my bag.

“Off to the next adventure, sunshine. ”