Chapter 30: Erick

 

 

 

As Aiden sat in stunned silence, Caleb came into the room to announce that he'd just gotten off the phone with Josh.

"The crew put out the fire," he said grimly, with his lips drawn thin and tight, "and there was a body inside."

"Eliza's dead? It's confirmed?" Rowan said, having just walked in.

Caleb opened his mouth, but it was Aiden who answered.

"Yes."

He said it with perfect certainty.

In that moment, I remembered the first thing Aiden had said after waking. I was with the Lady.

Suddenly, I felt as if all time had funneled down to this single moment, with Eliza dead and Aiden pregnant. I was caught against the cusp of fatherhood. Rowan was the key. All the pieces were there. I just had no idea how they were supposed to fit together.

Thinking about my own encounter with the Lady, I shivered. I wondered what she told him. If he was part of her plan like I was. If the pregnancy had anything to do with it at all.

Shortly after the phone call, Caleb left to attend to "alpha duties." I wondered if that meant Kaden had figured out what Caleb planned and was furious. Rowan left with him so she could pick up her car, which left me and Aiden alone. Still, Aiden didn't say another word the whole night. Not until after the hospital discharged him. By then, it was almost dawn.

"We're going to have a baby together," Aiden said as I guided him into the front seat of Rowan's car. Rowan herself was behind the wheel, having driven the car up to the hospital doors so Aiden wouldn't have to walk far.

That last word bounced around my head like the echo of a shout.

Together.

Because I wasn't alone anymore. I had a mate, a partner for life. In a few weeks, I'd have a baby, too.

A baby!

I went cold, and my vision distorted for a second as I considered the endless mistakes a parent could make in rearing their child. My panic abated when I met Aiden's eyes. He was in the middle of buckling his seatbelt when he caught my gaze. His eyes were full of tenderness, of affection, and suddenly I was feeling light and giddy at the thought of the tiny child growing inside him.

"Yes, we're having a baby. Together," I said.

I bent to kiss him. I was only intending a simple peck, but Aiden grabbed me by the back of my head, forcing me to breathe in his arousing scent. My heart was full. The past night had been one of the worst, only to end on a very high note.

My mate, I thought.

I placed my hand on his knee. We touched tongues, Aiden smiled against my lips, and Rowan emitted a disgusted, groaning noise.

"Why don't you guys get a room already?" she muttered irritably.

 

* * *

 

Rowan dropped us off at Aiden's apartment. Gingerly, I led him up the steps to his front door.

"You don't have to do that. I'm not made of glass," Aiden said as my hand left his waist.

I stared at him as if I'd been slapped. "I know. I just want to take care of you. You're carrying my child."

A few seconds of silence passed as Aiden unlocked the front door. Once we were inside and the door was shut and locked behind us, Aiden continued on, "Pregnant or not, I'm still the same grown man. You're not going to break me or anything, okay?"

He paused to flip a switch on the wall, causing a lamp in the corner of the living room to pop on. Then, he exhaled, sounding impatient and exhausted at the same time. He was clearly overwhelmed from the fire, the hospital, the pregnancy, everything. But we were home now. I wished he would just relax.

"Would you mind if I tried?" I asked.

"Tried what?" Aiden was already distracted, patting his pockets and unloading his phone, keys, wallet, and some loose change onto the coffee table. There was a lime-green bandage wrapped around his left elbow, from having his blood drawn.

I caught that elbow in my hand. Aiden looked at me.

"If I tried to break you," I said.

Even though we'd just come home from the hospital, I let Aiden feel my strength through my grip. After all, he didn't like feeling as if he were made of glass.

Aiden got a helpless, dark look in his eyes. When he spoke next, it was in a much lower voice. "No. I wouldn't mind," he said slyly. He twisted his elbow out of my hand. "Break me, Erick."

He slapped my face.

Blood pounded suddenly in my head. I snarled and grabbed him by the waist. My cheek was still stinging as I pulled him toward me until our foreheads bumped together.

"You'll regret that," I said before giving him a bruising kiss. I let him feel my teeth.

Aiden whimpered in surrender. His breath was soft and quick against my face. His body trembled under my hands. I pulled away from him, just enough to be able to see him.

His cheeks were flushed. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, biting down as he met my eyes.

I was instantly hard.

I grabbed his hand and placed it on my bulge. His fingers formed to my shaft, separated from my bare skin by only a thin layer of clothing, and it was driving me crazy.

"Give me your mouth," I said urgently.

Aiden scrambled to his knees. His mouth was already open when I pulled out my cock. It felt heavy in my hand as I fed it through his waiting lips. The moment they closed around my sensitive, swollen head, I threw my head back and groaned.

It felt like I was sliding into a warm bath. Aiden cupped my ass as he swallowed my cock. He skimmed his nails down to the backs of my knees and up again. His tongue moved against my shaft. Each deft flick made my stomach contract more and more.

A sudden surge of desire sapped all the strength out of my knees. For a terrifying moment, I was afraid I was on the verge of coming. Twisting my fingers through Aiden's hair, I pulled him off of me before I'd explode.

I considered taking him to bed only briefly, but seeing him on his knees, lips still pink from sucking my cock, made me impatient.

I grabbed his neck and forced him to the floor, front-side down. He cried out as I began pulling at his jeans.

"Tell me if I'm hurting you," I said, my voice strained with anguish.

"I want it to hurt," Aiden said breathlessly. It made my cock swell with a fresh rush of blood.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

With his cheek crushed against the carpet, Aiden undid his jeans and lowered them in two seconds. When he peeled his boxers away from his ass, I lost all control.

My fists fastened on his ass cheeks. I swiftly pried them open and buried my mouth between. My tongue dug into his flesh, and I tasted my way toward the fragrant, tight center of him.

Aiden moaned and kicked his feet. His asshole pulsed around my tongue, and my stomach heaved as I imagined it pulsing around my cock. My hunger for him was savage; I couldn't take it anymore.

I entered him. He yelped when his ring burst open around my wide cockhead. Then, he shuddered silently as I spread him wide and sank all my weight into his tightness.

"Fuck me, Erick," he said.

I took him right there on the living room floor. I reared my hips back and drove them forward, again and again, pounding into Aiden's impossibly delicious tightness. His heat was wrapped around me, making me drunk, making me high. We were still mostly dressed, but our movements made Aiden's pants slip lower and lower, tangling up in his legs and effectively trapping him beneath me.

It was just how I wanted him.

I fucked him until my abs burned. Then, I flipped him onto his back and raised his legs, still trapped in denim, over my left shoulder to fuck him some more. Now, I could see his face and the way his eyes rolled further back with each thrust.

My cock glided wetly in and out of him. I was throbbing with need. With his eyes half shut, Aiden lifted his shirt to expose his nipples. They were darker and larger than usual, like cherries. I pulled my hair out of my face and curled forward to taste one.

"Oh my god, Erick. I'm going to come any second—ahh!"

Aiden convulsed while my column was still buried deep inside of him. His own cock, which was folded up against his stomach, erupted in a wet explosion of cum.

"Oh shit," he muttered, bucking his hips furiously, pulling his twitching asshole along my entire length. "Oh shit."

A second, smaller burst of cum streamed out of him, making a sticky mess in his navel. He arched his back, pushing his nipple into my mouth. I froze as he continued to ride my dick from below, driving me to the apex of pleasure.

I came without warning. One second, I was shoving my cock deep into him, as far as it would go, and in the next I was filling his cavity with my seed. The knot came a few minutes after that, tying us together and sealing my cum inside of him. Of course, Aiden was already pregnant. My knot's only purpose tonight was to keep hold of my fated mate.

Aiden twitched, his body reacting to one final orgasm. When he opened his eyes, his face was completely white, as if I'd drained him.

"You won't be able to fuck me like that once I get big," he said with a curling grin. His shirt was still bunched up under his armpits.

I pinched his right nipple, the one that was still dry. His legs jumped, and his asshole clenched tightly down onto my knot for a brief second.

"Then we'll have to get it all out of our systems," I replied in a low voice.

Aiden's gaze darkened with lust, and we kissed just as my cock deflated and slipped out of him, so that our two bodies never lost their connection.

A few hours later, Aiden was dreaming quietly in bed, and I stepped out onto his balcony.

The night was crisp and black. There was a gentle but relentless wind that lifted my hair.

The folded paper fluttered in my hand. It was Rowan's spell, still warm from my pocket, her promise to me that she'd send me back to the Wood whenever I was ready, but I'd be making another promise tonight.

I'll never leave, I swore to myself, to Aiden, and to my unborn child.

Without looking at the words scrawled on its surface, I tore up the paper and released the pieces to the wind.