Page 48 of His Prodigal Alpha

Still, I knew better than to push Damon just because I was feeling overly protective the closer we got to his due date. We had been making good progress on our relationship since I’d arrived in town. I wasn’t dumb enough to undo it all by giving in to my mildly irrational shifter urges, especially when allsigns pointed to things being quiet on the cult-y front.

Besides, I was a shifter who couldn’t shift. Just how much protecting did my inner puma think he could do while he was stuck on the inside, anyway?

Instead of voicing those thoughts or wallowing in my concerns, I reveled in Damon’s increased displays of affection. The more he seemed to understand I wasn’t going to leave, the more he opened up. He was still sassy, but less prickly with me. And, on one memorable occasion, possessive as fuck.Thathad been hot as sin.

He’d brought lunch to Sam & Becca’s farm during his first week of forced leave from his job, and had stumbled upon me mucking out the stalls. It was an unseasonably warm day and the labor-intensive job had seen me removing my shirt only fifteen minutes before his surprise arrival. His hungry gaze had swept over my body and his Adam’s apple had bobbed tellingly…and then he’d caught sight of Tim.

Tim, Sam and Becca’sbarelylegal at nineteen-years-old omega son.

Tim, who I’ll admit seemed really quite interested in learning about alphas.

Tim, who might have been giggling at my antics as I regaled him with tales from the farm I’d grown up on as we mucked the stalls together.

I hadn’t made it to almost forty-three without some sense of whatmightseem like a compromising situation under specific circumstances. I had opened my mouth to try and head off any potential misunderstanding, but Damon had raised his chin, offered Tim an incredibly frosty smile and greeting, and had pointedly stared the younger omega down in an unspoken challenge. Damon may as well have shifted and pissed on myleg, marking his territory in every way possible.

At that point, if he’d been shifted, I assumed Tim would have literally fled with his tail between his legs. As it was, he’d turned pink and made a swift retreat in human form.

Damon’s smile had turned into one of smug self-satisfaction before he’d closed the distance between us and kissed me with more heat and passion than I had been braced for, rubbing against me, covering me with his scent.

I’d had an erection that wouldn’t quit for hours after that. My inner cat had felt claimed, and my feelings had never felt more reciprocated.

Then, as his due date seemed to rush at us, Damon nested, for lack of a better description. Eric and Brandt had made him completely stop working at his thirty-sixth week, which came as a relief — or at least it did for me. His belly had grown to a point where I knew his back and hips ached more often than not, and staying put in his bed or on the couch was preferable to walking around town. Even so, he had turned his nose up at the strange inflatablethingOllie had bought him to supposedly ease his sleeping woes. Instead, Damon’s bed now housed a mountain of pillows to support his back and bump, and I was pretty sure he had shifted into his mountain lion form and curled up to sleep among them on more than one occasion. (I kept finding fur in his bed.)

But, during his thirty-ninth week of pregnancy, when I arrived at his apartment with a bag of takeout from the town diner after a long-ass day on the farm, I was not greeted by the sleepy, uncomfortable Damon I’d become familiar with. No…instead, I was greeted by a version of the man similar to the one I’d first met in a bar.

His eyes were bright and his smile was sultry as he tuggedme into his apartment by the collar of my gingham shirt. I barely managed to get out a ‘hey’ in greeting before his lips were on mine, his talented tongue begging entrance into my mouth.

It had beenweekssince Damon had had the energy to do more than cuddle, and my cock was more than happy to go with this sudden —but entirely welcome— change of pace.

Deciding that the burgers I’d bought would be just fine eaten cold, I dropped the paper bag on the couch as Damon manhandled me towards the bed.

“I’m so horny I could die,” he declared between kisses, moments before he shoved me backwards onto the mattress.

“Well, we can’t have—oof!” I landed among the pile of pillows and barely had time to get myself situated properly before Damon was crawling over my body, his belly grazing my thighs and cock, then stomach. My hands moved to his hips, supporting him as he wriggled and maneuvered his shirt over his head, tossing it to parts unknown. In my jeans, my own dick strained under the unintentional lapdance, and it only got harder as my eyes drank in my lover’s exposed skin. “That’s it, kitten,” I praised, smoothing my hands up his sides, “take what you need from me. I’ve got you.”

He undulated his hips, more graceful than I would have been if I’d been nine months pregnant, closing his eyes and sighing with delight. But then he crawled back off me to rummage through his bedside table drawer, and I wanted to whine.

I had no idea what he was looking for, considering we didn’t need lube or condoms, but I didn’t have to wait long.

“Ah ha!” he declared triumphantly, turning to show me his find.

My eyes bulged from their sockets and I scrambled to sit upagainst the headboard. “What are you plannin’ on doin’ with that?” I gestured to the bundle he held in a loose fist.

Rope.

It was red and had a shine to it, and even though I hadn’t reached out to touch it, I knew it would be silky beneath my fingertips.

Biting his lip, my kitten turned shy. “I was hoping you’d be the one doing stuff with it,” he answered.

My heart hammered. “Now?” Holding up my index finger, I took a moment to breathe, aware that my question had come out sharp and incredulous. When I looked back at him again, I was careful to soften my tone. “Darlin’, you’re due to give birth next week…”

“I Googled,” he insisted, crawling back onto the mattress, still clutching the figure eight of soft red rope. “And, yeah, there are some positions that we should avoid, but some that are still safe. We just have to err on the vanilla side this time, that’s all.”

This time.

“I mean,” he continued before I could get hung up on the implications of those two little words, “you’re a cowboy. You said you were good with ropes when I asked.”

I couldn’t deny that. Weeks earlier, the topic of rope play had come up seemingly out of the blue, and I’d admitted that I did have some experience with the kink, and that I did enjoy it. Damon had nodded, humming thoughtfully, and the conversation had moved on. I’d thought that maybe —just maybe— we might revisit the topic and negotiate a scene one day, but never in a million years would I have thought it would happen before he gave birth. Especially not so close to his due date.

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