"Touch me, please," Apollo begged in a low voice. Apollo's lips pressed into Grayson's wet shoulder as he grabbed Grayson's hands, placing them on his hips. There was a burning lust in his eyes that left Grayson speechless.
With a shaky hand, Grayson reached out and brushed his fingers along Apollo's hard shaft, the man hissing at the contact. Apollo tilted his head, his tongue demanding against Grayson's lips. It was a demand that speared through him as Apollo gripped Grayson's hips and brought them closer.
He allowed his tongue to caress, to taste, and yet Grayson wanted more. Releasing Apollo's cock, Grayson's hands slid over Apollo's biceps, pulling the man closer, biting at Apollo's lower lip. Their bodies were being pelted by water, and Grayson couldn't care less.
All he knew was Apollo in that moment, and all he wanted was to get closer to his mate than he already was. He wanted to be buried inside Apollo's tight heat. He wanted Apollo to lose himself to the sensations rushing through them, to come apart under his hands, but now wasn't the time-maybe.
A little brown nipple drew him, and he lightly ran his fingertips over the pebbled nub.
Apollo caught his breath. Grayson did it again more firmly, causing Apollo to moan and swivel his hips, pressing against Grayson's trapped cock. He couldn't stop his own moan when Apollo fell forward and began to devour Grayson's mouth with urgent heat.
Apollo pressed him into the wall, his thigh insinuating itself between Grayson's. Apollo lifted him, and Grayson could feel his sac pressing hard against that muscled thigh. His entire body felt like one exposed nerve, sensitive and receptive to Apollo's touch.
When Apollo lifted his head, he looked at Grayson with blistering heat in his eyes. It was a look that sent shivers all through Grayson's body. Looking into the man's face, he only saw amazement and then bliss as Apollo's hand wrapped around their cocks. Gasping with need, Grayson pulled Apollo back down for another kiss, a hand cupped to the back of his head
Grayson reached around his lover's body and pressed his fingers between Apollo's ass cheeks, his fingertips massaging the puckered entrance before he pressed a single digit slowly into Apollo's gripping heat.
The air whooshed out of Apollo's lungs. A soft keening followed, words spilling almost incoherently out of the man's mouth. "Oh Gray … your touch … I need you deeper … don't stop-don t … "
Grayson's gaze ate up Apollo. The arch of his back, the ecstasy on his face, the water dripping off of his ink-black hair, the curve of his neck, all of it, all of it was the most spectacular sight he'd ever seen in his life.
And when he actually pressed against the bump inside Apollo, the man went wild, his hips thrusting, a needy cry leaving his lips as his entrance clamped down on Grayson's finger and Apollo thrust erratically against him.
Grayson watched the beauty of Apollo coming apart before his testicles drew up and his own thrusts became sharper, his hips snapping until he came, too, calling out for his lover with joy.
Apollo collapsed onto him, loose and tension-free. Grayson stroked his hands lightly down Apollo's back, so content he didn't realize he was rumbling again. Apollo released a soft snicker into Grayson's neck.
Turning, Apollo shut the water off, and then before Grayson knew what was going on, Apollo had them in the bedroom, lying next to each other, their bodies snuggled together under the blankets.
"Tomorrow will be better, mate."
Grayson grinned as he pulled Apollo's head down onto his shoulder, wrapping his arms around him. "Today actually wasn't so bad."
Apollo chuckled. "Which means tomorrow should be fucking fantastic."
Grayson bit his lip to keep from laughing at the outraged gasp that came from Apollo when he swatted the man's ass. "No swearing. You're a father now."
Grayson's heart started to sink when Apollo stilled. They were mates. Apollo knew that Grayson intended to raise his niece and nephew. Didn't he? "Apollo, I can't-"
"Should we have them call us uncle or dad?" Apollo's head tilted back so that he could look up at Grayson. "I don't want to dishonor your sister and her mate's memory, so I'm not real sure how we're supposed to do that."
Overwhelming relief flushed through Grayson's body to the point that spots appeared in his vision. He pulled Apollo's head back down to his shoulder and buried his face in the man's short, ink-black hair.
"I don't think it matters, Apollo. The pups will decide what to call us in their own time. As long as we remember to share our memories with them, and raise them with love and understanding, we can't go wrong."
"Well." Apollo chuckled ruefully. "At least we have a plan."
Chapter 9
Apollo smiled as he watched Grayson walk out of the kitchen of the alpha house, trying to juggle Molly, a tipsy cup, and a plate of sliced apples meant for CJ. The man was insistent that he had everything under control. Apollo was pretty sure that his mate was unraveling at the seams.
Grayson had been working himself into exhaustion the last couple of weeks, and it was driving Apollo crazy. He knew it took a lot of work to raise kids, but this was ridiculous. Basically, the only time Grayson wasn't running around folding laundry, cooking, or picking up after the kids was when he was unconscious in bed.
It had to stop.
"Why don't you let me give Molly her cup?" Apollo said as he reached for the little chestnut-haired girl. Grayson looked like he was going to resist for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped.
"We're supposed to be doing this together, Grayson," Apollo reminded his mate as he took Molly and settled her in his arms, giving the child her tipsy cup. "You don't have to do everything on your own."
"Apollo, you've been on patrol all night," Grayson argued. "You need to be in bed."
"I'm right where I need to be." Apollo smiled down at the little girl staring up at him with a surprising intelligent glint shining in her big blue eyes. Molly grinned around the edge of the tipsy cup and reached up to pat the side of Apollo's face.
It had been three weeks since he woke to the delicious scent of bacon and found a sex god in his kitchen. Two and a half weeks had passed since Grayson had brought Molly and CJ into his life. One week and his life had changed in ways he never could have imagined, and he could barely remember what life was like before then.
He didn't want to remember either. There had been some adjustment to having small children around all of the time, and Apollo had no doubt that there would be a whole hell of a lot more adjustment before things began to settle down.
But Apollo had never been happier.
He couldn't imagine his life getting any better, even with kid toys all over the floor, a pile of dirty laundry that was giving the washer and dryer a run for their money, and a total loss of privacy or time alone with his mate.
Granted, two days probably wasn't enough time to decide this was what he had been waiting for all of his life, but Apollo knew deep down in his heart that this was it. Not even when he was training with his brothers or watching them fall in love with their mates had he been this happy.
His life had suddenly become very domestic, and he was in heaven. He just wished his mate felt the same way.
"Hey, Molly girl," Apollo crooned down to the child in his arms. She had stolen his heart the second she grabbed on to him. CJ was proving to be a little harder egg to crack. He was standoffish, clinging to Grayson like he was a giant teddy bear. The analogy was not far off.
Grayson just happened to be a gorgeous, sexy god of a teddy bear.
Grrr.
"So, after the kids are down tonight," Apollo said as he glanced over at his harried mate, "want go for a walk down by the lake?"
"Oh … " Grayson grimaced as he looked anywhere but at Apollo. "Maybe we can go tomorrow night? I have a bunch of laundry to do, and I need to make the kids' lunches for tomorrow. Molly needs-"
Apollo tuned Grayson out as he started to fume. He understood that caring for two small children was stressful for Grayson, especially when he wasn't prepared for it, but the man wasn't alone and he didn't seem to understand that.
"Hey, Molly, CJ, how would you two like to go watch some cartoons with Uncle Iben?"
"Oh," Grayson said as he stopped folding laundry to look up at Apollo. "I was just going to put Molly in a bath."
"I think she can go one night without a bath, Grayson."
"But-"
Apollo watched Grayson start to chew on his lower lip as he set Molly down on the floor and sent her in the direction of the recreation room after her brother, who had torn out of the room like cartoons were the be all end all of his existence. He was five, so they probably were.
Grayson had an indecisive frown on his face as if he didn't know whether to go after the kids or stay where he was. Apollo solved that problem for his mate by grabbing the baby sleeper out of his hand and tossing it back in the basket and then grabbing Grayson's hand.