Chapter 23

I like to have my cake and eat it, too. I also like to have your cake and eat it, too.

-Krisney to Reed

Reed

During the days, I spent half of them at work, half of them in the NICU, and my nights working on my secret project.

It was a bonus that my brothers were helping, too.

The progress we were making meant that we might have a new house to bring our children to rather than bringing them to my place, and I was honestly quite excited by the prospect.

It’d been four weeks since the day that our children had a setback, but ever since, we hadn’t had anything else go wrong on their end. They were thriving.

And today, we were finally, finally going to hold our children without the eight thousand cords and tubes attached to them.

As of eight this morning, they graduated from the endotracheal tube and the CPAP, which forced air down their windpipes into their lungs, to just a nasal cannula. The next step would be them breathing without any assistance.

I couldn’t fuckin’ wait.

There was practically a skip to my step as I made my way down one flight of stairs. Each day it came more and more easily until one day I was no longer getting winded. My body didn’t feel any different than it had before I’d donated my kidney and half of my liver to Krisney, and I was grateful.

That pain was a constant reminder of what had almost happened to her, and it fuckin’ hurt to think about. Hurt to breathe. Hurt so bad sometimes that I woke up in the middle of the night with sweat drenching my body.

“Heard you had a big one!”

I looked up to find another labor and delivery nurse headed my way from upstairs.

I grinned. “Sure did. Eleven and a half pounds.”

“Yikes!” She giggled as she passed. “Not the biggest, though.”

No, it hadn’t been. The biggest this hospital had ever seen had been a thirteen-pound baby.

I’d just delivered a baby who was two weeks late and looked like the fuckin’ Michelin Man compared to my own, but he was absolutely adorable.

I wondered if our kids would one day have rolls like that. Sure, they were finally starting to get some fat in their cheeks at an adjusted age of thirty-eight weeks, but they were nothin’ compared to this baby who had just been delivered—naturally.

Grinning, I stopped at the scrub station and washed up before putting on a gown and a pair booties which were stored there.

Once I was covered from shoulder to mid-calf, I headed inside and grinned at my mom.

“How are they doing?” I asked as I looked around for Krisney.

“She’s getting lunch,” Mom said, then sighed. “Reed, I’d like to talk to you while she’s not here.”

I frowned.

My mother and I hadn’t had the best of relationships lately.

She felt bad for how she’d acted. I could tell. Yet, I couldn’t quite forgive her. I couldn’t get over the fact that she tried to guilt me into choosing myself over the woman that everyone knew I loved.

It’d been six weeks, and she was avoiding the issue. She was going on with life like she hadn’t said such hurtful things.

“What about?” I asked, moving to the closest baby which happened to be Baxter—who was now in an open-top radiant warmer bed that made handling the babies so much easier while still helping to maintain their body temperatures.

It was a big step.

Dash, though, was still in his incubator, but they expected him to move to a convertible warmer any day now.

“Heya, Bax,” I spoke to my son. “Whatcha doin’?”

He turned his head toward me, and I swear I saw a tiny smile grace his features before he craned his neck and squirmed the other way.

Grinning, I moved back to Dash and reached my hand into the opening.

Running my finger down the length of his arm, I smiled at his sleeping form.

“You want to hold them now?”

I nodded, excitement tearing through me, making me bounce in excitement once again.

“It’s about feeding time, too,” my mother said. “Take a seat, and we’ll get Dash for you. When Krisney gets back, we’ll get them started on their bottles.”

I stripped off my gown and shirt, knowing that they’d allow me to hold him skin-to-skin—what we called kangaroo care—since Dash still wasn’t able to maintain his own body temperature completely.

Dash was just under five pounds, and Baxter was an even five pounds.

Both boys were still tiny as hell, but they were getting cuter by the day.

Once I was situated, my mother lowered the sides of the incubator and moved the baby out with practiced ease.

My mother had been doing this for a very, very long time. She’d been in the NICU for as long as I could remember, but there was something about these children being her grandkids that changed her demeanor slightly.

She was confident, sure, but she wasn’t as sure of herself as she would normally be.

And I felt that it had a lot to do with me and Krisney rather than them being her grandchildren.

She laid Dash on my chest and then immediately covered me up with a warm blanket, pinning Dash in between my chest and the blanket as she did.

Once she situated his nasal cannula, she reached for Baxter.

The two boys of mine loved being together.

It was like they knew when the other was near, and this time was no different.

Once I flipped the blanket back for my mother to place my other boy on my chest next to Dash, I looked down and grinned.

“Damn, it’s nice not to have that big thing weighing your face down,” I told the two boys. “I can actually see your cute, little noses.”

They felt like tiny weights on my chest, and I wondered if I’d ever get tired of this feeling.

Probably not.

My mother stopped at the side of my chair, and then ran her finger down the length of Baxter’s cheek.

“I want to apologize.”

I blinked, surprised to see her actually acknowledging that she had a problem.

“I already apologized to Krisney.” She swallowed. “It’s taken me weeks to realize that what I said and did was stupid.” She breathed out deeply then continued. “If I had a chance to talk to your sisters again, I’d tell them that I love them. I’d tell them how I’m always thinking about them and how I wish I could give them each a hug one more time. I’m sorry for the ugly words I said to you before you made such a huge, selfless sacrifice for the woman you love. I’m so sorry, Reed, and I hope that one day you’ll forgive me.”

I looked down at my two boys, then back up at my mother.

“I know you said some hurtful things,” I murmured. “But I didn’t take them to heart. I know that you were just hurt and scared.” I paused. “But I’m glad you apologized. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear it until you did.”

She touched the top of my head, and then dropped a kiss on it. “I have other babies to see to, but if you need help, just holler.”

I didn’t reply as she walked away, but my heart was somehow healed, even when I didn’t know it needed to be.

I guess it showed how mothers knew best.

I sat that way for a good twenty minutes, talking and recounting a story to the boys while I waited for their mother to make it back from lunch.

She didn’t take long.

“Seriously, does every cute nurse in the universe have to stop by when you’re shirtless?” she asked with a flustered smile on her face.

I looked up to see Krisney hustling toward me, and behind her were three nurses, none of which I knew, staring inside at me.

“What?”

“They’re here for you, for your information.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s like mommy porn.”

I shook my head. “I feel like you’re high on something.”

She snorted and walked up to me, peeking over my shoulder at her two boys.

Baxter opened his eyes at hearing his mother’s voice and tried valiantly to lift his head.

It didn’t happen, but he was trying and that was all that mattered yet.

“Look at you,” Krisney cooed, running her finger down Baxter’s cheek. “You’re getting so big.”

She was right about that. It felt like they changed, even from day-to-day.

They’d been in the NICU now for six weeks and they looked like entirely different babies from the ones that were first brought here.

“Your mom apologize?” Krisney whispered in my ear.

I nodded, not looking at her. “She did.”

“Did you accept?”

I nodded.

She pressed her lips to my cheek. “Good.”

***

Later that night, I finally had enough of my secret project done that I delegated tasks to my family as well as a few of the men from Hail’s Auto Recovery, and I decided to call it an early night.

Krisney didn’t know what I was doing in my spare down time, but she didn’t ask because I told her it was a surprise.

Ever since she’d gotten out of the hospital, we’d spent quite a lot of time together, so I was sure it was burning her ass not to know what I was doing for two and three hours a night without her.

I expected her to question me on where I’d been, like she always did, when I walked in the door, but found her nowhere to be found.

“Krisney?”

She didn’t answer, but I knew she was home. I’d called on my way to ask if she wanted anything to eat. When she’d denied needing the food, I’d assumed she was already cooking, only I didn’t find her or dinner in the kitchen waiting for me.

I also didn’t find her in the laundry room, the living room or the pantry.

Heading down the hall, I peeked my head into the boys’ room which still wasn’t furnished but was gathering supplies for the babies for when they did come home, and still didn’t see her.

“Kris?” I called again.

Pushing through the open door to my room, I came to a sudden, bone-jarring halt right inside the door, and stared.

“Kris,” I croaked.

She was lying on the bed, spread eagle, as she watched me.

“I’ve decided.”

My brows rose. “You’ve decided?”

She nodded, then trailed a single finger from the tip of her wet tongue, all the way down her throat, down her shoulder, and to one perfectly pink nipple.

As she circled it, she watched me.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “I’ve decided that it’s been six weeks, you’re healthy. I’m healthy. And I freakin’ want you.”

My dick was already hard, but at her words, it thickened even further.

There wasn’t a single thing in this world that I wanted more.

“I thought you were going to make me wait for our wedding night?” I teased.

She blushed.

“I can’t be expected to abstain when you take your freakin’ shirt off every time you enter the NICU and hold our boys.” She squirmed. “God,” she closed her eyes, “there’s something wrong with me that all I can think about when I see you hold them is that you’re half naked. I should be excited that you can hold them, not thinking about getting you home later that night and doing bad things to you.”

“What kind of bad things?” I asked, shuffling closer to the bed.

I hadn’t taken anything off yet, but I was about to.

Or at least, I would have had she not spread her legs wider, opening herself up to my gaze.

I growled and kneeled on the bed, my erection straining the front of my scrub bottoms, and leaned forward until my nose was inches from her pussy.

“You know,” I said casually as I took a deep breath, smelling her sweet scent. “I can’t tell you how many times these past few weeks that I thought about rolling you over until your head hung off the side of the bed.”

“W-what?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I leaned down and stuck out my tongue, pressing just the very tip of it to her clit.

She jolted.

“What would t-that accomplish?” She squirmed.

“Then I’d get to fuck your throat,” I informed her.

She gasped, both at the thought of me fucking her mouth and my thumb pressing against her clit.

“I would’ve let you,” she explained.

I grinned. “I know you would.”

Then I ate her, pouring a considerable amount of sexual frustration into reclaiming Krisney’s pussy.

I devoured her.

There were no other words for what I did.

One second I was enjoying myself, tasting and licking, and the next she was pulling me up by my overly long hair.

“Can I help you with something?” I rasped, pressing my mouth to hers.

My beard was glistening with her juices, but that didn’t bother her in the least as she kissed me back, almost as if she were punishing me for what I’d just done to her, stopping when she was so close.

Yet, I wasn’t the one who had stopped—she was by pulling me up by my hair.

Granted, I didn’t have to go, but I could tell that she wanted me inside of her.

Hell, I wanted to be there, too.

“Condom.” She slapped me on the chest, and a crinkle of the condom wrapper followed the movement.

Grinning, I shucked my shirt over my head by pulling the back of the collar and tossed it down on the bed beside us, before hastily yanking at the fastenings to my scrub bottoms.

It took point four seconds to get it loose and shove them down below my balls, and another ten to get the condom rolled into place.

A few seconds after that, I was sliding home.

“Ahhhh, God.” She arched, her pretty pink nipples reaching up into the air. “You feel so good.”

She did, too.

But I was finding it hard to breathe, let alone tell her that.

So instead of speaking, I fucked her in hard, deep strokes. Pulling myself almost all the way out before roughly shoving myself back inside.

Over and over until I felt her start to clench around me.

And when she screamed, I watched her fall over the edge into orgasm.

Once she was sated and lying on the mattress below me, I pulled out, ripped off the condom, and stroked my cock until I released all over her stomach. The white come dotted her belly, which was still slightly stretched out from our sons. Stretch marks lined both sides, and I reached forward to rub it all in, paying extra attention to the areas where our sons were more evident.

“What are you doing?”

My eyes flicked up to hers.

“I’m memorizing everything about you all over again.” I growled. “Every single day, I find something new about you to love.”