The flames in Maks’s eyes started to dim, and a look of concern crossed his face. “Yes,” he answered me cautiously. “I tried to tell you before I claimed you, Dev. My heat makes you fertile. It’s part of being my mate and… I hope you’re okay with it, because I’m pretty sure it’s already happened. I love you, baby, and I want you to bear my child.”
I was almost afraid to let myself believe him. I knew that men couldn’t get pregnant. But then again… up until the day before, I’d also known that dragons didn’t exist. But Maks was a dragon. I’d seen it, ridden it, felt his fire. And if that could be true, then how could I doubt it when the man I loved told me that he’d gotten me pregnant?
“Devin?” He was looking at me anxiously. “I’ve seen you with Holly. I thought you liked kids. Are you— oh, shit.” I hadn’t realized I was crying until he wiped the tears off my cheeks. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said softly. “I’ll… I don’t know. Fuck. We’ll figure something out. I’ll ask Anik—”
I kissed him.
He pushed me away, his eyes filled with worry. “We can ask Wes about the pregnancy, Dev. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before—“
I kissed him again, the happiness bubbling out of me until I was laughing into his mouth. I pushed against his shoulders until he fell back on the bed, and then I crawled on top of him, smiling so wide that I couldn’t talk.
I was pregnant!
I’d never wanted to be. How could I have? Before Maks, it had never been an option—but he’d changed everything. He was giving me every single thing I’d ever dreamed of, including the things I had never let myself want. Everything.
Even the impossible things.
The love in me was too big. I didn’t have words. But we were bonded now, so I didn’t need them. The fire rekindled in Maks’s eyes as everything I was feeling spilled through that connection between us.
“You’re… okay with this?” he asked.
Sharing things through our bond was still new to both of us. I could tell that he felt it, but I knew he needed to hear me say it, too.
“Do you want my baby, love?” he pressed, taking my face in his hands and searching my eyes to confirm the truth.
“Yes. Oh, my God, yes, Maks. I do, and it’s… amazing. I can’t even—”
I was babbling, trying to wrap my mind around this new, magical reality. But this time he was the one to cut me off. He crushed me to him, kissing me until I was breathless and then somehow flipping me over so that I was under him before I even realized we’d moved.
And I felt his happiness, too—I heard it—his thoughts in my mind and his joy in my heart as his body covered mine. He touched me everywhere, loving me with his hands and mouth and lips and tongue, until thoughts of the pregnancy and magic and dragons were all pushed aside and there was only him, moving over me, thrusting inside me, making me his—again and again—until long past the coffee got cold.
19
~ Maksim ~
After two weeks of having Devin all to myself in Wisconsin, it was time to bring him back to Washington. We’d have to leave again once his pregnancy started to show, but he had a job and a life and friends to explain his absence too, and the changes in his body were still subtle enough that no one but me would notice them yet.
I’d flown us into a remote part of Capital Forest to avoid having to deal with compelling humans to forget that they’d seen me. It was where I’d originally intended to bring Devin to show him my dragon. Doing it in Dane’s backyard had meant that the other dragon had had to visit the neighbors after we left to ensure that they forgot anything they might have seen. I’d forewarned him in a note when I’d dropped off his car, but I knew he was still going to give me shit about it.
We’d made our way to the parking lot where Dane was going to pick us up, and my mate was biting his lip the way he did when he was thinking about something—which always made me want to bite it, too.
Devin was like a drug. I couldn’t get enough of him. I pulled him against me and kissed him, and he laughed in that sexy little breathless way that I knew meant he would be climbing all over me in about two seconds… which was exactly what I wanted. But instead of wrapping himself around me the way he usually did, he put a hand on my chest and pushed me away.
“I just saw headlights,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “Do you think it’s Dane?”
I hoped it wasn’t. If it were anyone else, I could compel them to leave us alone.
It was. I sighed, willing my cock down, and turned to face my oldest friend.