Page 16 of Claim Me

I place my hands on my belly. “Can I be happy or should I feel guilty?”

“Why do you feel guilty exactly?” Hunter asks, embracing her role as the voice of reason. “I understand you were horny, but I’m sure he was, too. Hasn’t he spent years without sex?”

“I don’t know if he’s ever had sex. He seemed to know what to do, though.”

Natasha smiles at me. “You’re having a baby.”

Before we can celebrate, Bear appears from the garage with Tack and asks, “Wait, what’s happening? I thought Siobhan gave up men. Is this a sperm bank baby?”

“Hush, you brute,” Natasha hisses at him. “Be kind.”

“Baby, thisisme being kind.”

“No, you’re a teddy bear when you’re kind.”

Bear and Natasha share a lovestruck moment. Hunter frowns at them and then looks at Tack and demands, “Stare at me.”

Tack moves quickly in front of her, drops to his knees, and stares into her eyes. “Oh, baby, I love you so much.”

“I love you more, baby.”

“Our love is good enough to be a contest.”

Hunter and Tack chuckle at their teasing and then start making out. When I realize I might see how their baby was made, I clear my throat. They look around and find Bear frowning.

“Keep it in your pants, Tack,” he growls like a man-shaped bear. “My kids are in the backyard.”

Tack shoves his ass next to Hunter’s on the couch and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “What a prude.”

Natasha laughs before realizing Bear also wants to sit on the couch. “There’s no way we’re all fitting here.”

“I need attention,” I tell Bear. “Go sit somewhere else.”

He replies, “Because of your sperm bank baby?”

“Indigo knocked me up.”

“Of course, he did,” Tack says and smiles at Hunter. “I told him to plant a seed in Siobhan’s head, so he went ahead and planted a seed in her womb. All that pent-up dick energy was bound to make a kid.”

Hunter studies Tack. “Youdoknow how babies are made, right?”

“Of course,” he says and strokes her belly. “Lots and lots of jizz.”

“You only need one jizz,” Bear replies like he’s a wise sex ed instructor. “One lucky jizz and then a baby happens.”

Natasha frowns at him. He frowns back. With my friends so focused on the proper terminology, they’ve lost sight of how Indigo knocked me up.

“Did Indigo tell you what happened?” I ask Tack and then glance at Bear. “Is he angry at me?”

“He’s in love with you,” Tack says, and his words wrap around my heart and squeeze hard. “Of course, he blames himself, not you.”

“How can I know what I feel when he’s hiding in the hills?”

“Go talk to him,” Bear says and smiles at Natasha. “When you came back to town, I was honest about my feelings and everything worked out.”

“I feel like maybe you have amnesia,” Natasha says, stroking his jaw. “Because you were a brute the first and second time wetalked. You were also weird the third time. I don’t think you were normal until the fourth.”

“In my mind, I nailed every conversation and that’s why you’re mine. I don’t need the truth to interfere with such a solid memory.”

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