Page 74 of Real

“The daycare knows I’m going to your appointment this morning. I’ll be back in an hour. Go put your feet up, okay? I can clean up the kitchen when I get back,” he says.

Even when I don’t mention how swollen and painful my feet have become in the last few weeks, he notices. He takes such good care of me.

Maisy, Merrick, and Skylar all give me a quick hug before they leave with Timothy. Maisy almost forgets her lunch and comes scurrying back to get it. As I watch her run out the door, I can’t help but chuckle. She absolutely beams with a child-like joy that is such a big part of my new reality. All those years with Dorian, I was trapped alone or with adults. I had no idea how wonderful children could be.

I wash my hands and grab my paints, even though I should probably put my feet up before our appointment like Timothy said. But being happy makes me want to paint. Skatt said it was common for our kind to love art. The Illusors paint with their light, and I paint the old-fashioned way.

While I paint, I hum to myself. The babies seem to like music. One of them starts kicking, which makes the others start up as well. I love the feeling of them moving inside me. It’s my favorite thing about staying in my human form.

After a while, the front door opens, and Timothy stands in the doorway, staring at me. He does this sometimes. Usually while I’m painting. I can feel his love from all the way across the room.

I’ve become a lot more familiar with the concept of love in the last year. I feel it from the kids, from Timothy, and from my friends at the Den.

It reminds me of light magic. Technically, love isn’t a thing scientists can capture and put under a magnifying glass. It’s not made of atoms or molecules. It only exists in our minds.

I’ve come to understand that it doesn’t matter what something is made of. What matters is the value we assign to it.

The love Timothy has for me has more value to me than anything else in the world.

“We still have an hour before your appointment,” Timothy says. “We could do a little training.”

I smile. “Yeah?”

He looks me up and down as if I’m just as attractive with an enormous stomach as I was five months ago before I got pregnant. It makes me ache between my legs.

Last month, I told my doctor I wanted to be able to lactate like a red wolf shifter. They feed their pups with milk from their chest. Since I’m not a red wolf shifter, I had to take certain hormones to make it happen.

Red wolf shifters “train” their milk ducts to produce more milk by doing a daily milk-letting up to a month before the birth. It’s supposed to help them make enough milk to feed their twins or triplets. It’s unclear if this actually works, but it’s a time-honored custom among red wolf shifters.

It’s also a bonding experience between mates. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to do it.

I slowly stand. “I wouldn’t say no to some help getting to the bedroom.” I could certainly walk, but I love it when Timothy carries me. It reminds me of the time he carried me before we bonded.

He sweeps me off my feet like I weigh nothing, even though I’m heavily pregnant. “I’ll carry you, baby.”

Timothy steps on a Lego and almost trips on a naked Barbie on our way there, but we make it to the bedroom mostly unscathed. Like every other part of our house, it’s scattered with toys. I ask the kids to not bring them in our room, but sometimes I need a nap in the middle of the day, and Maisy comes in here to play by herself.

Timothy lays me on the bed. “You’re so fucking sexy like this.” He kisses the top of my belly. “I love knowing you’re full of my pups, baby. I can’t get enough of you.”

His words make my cock harden under my paternity jeans. Those are definitely not sexy, but Timothy pulls them down with an eagerness that makes me love him all the more. After the last few months, I know he isn’t flattering me. He really finds my pregnancy hot.

I don’t know how I got so lucky.

He takes my jeans off completely because he knows how unsexy I find them. He also takes off my very unsexy paternity shirt. I’m okay with that. I know his clothes are coming off too, and I love how intimate being naked with Timothy feels.

Our sex life has changed a lot since I got pregnant. Before, I went into heat every night, and I was absolutely ravenous for him. Now I still want him but not as desperately. He’s had to be more aggressive if he wants sex every day, and I won’t lie, I kind of like that.

“Oh, fuck. You know how much I like the black ones,” he says, lowering his head to lick my cock through my black lace underwear.

I decided I like wearing lace. It makes me feel fancy like Candlewick. And it drives Timothy wild.

He licks and sucks at my skin through the fabric. It feels good, but it’s not quite enough.

“Stop teasing,” I say.

He chuckles, his breath staccato against my wet underwear. “What do you want, baby? A little of this?” He traces his finger along the edge of my underwear, then slips it underneath until he reaches my hole where I’m already wet for him.

“Oh, Timothy. Please.”

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