Page 100 of How to Rescue Your Surprise Baby

Mav snuffled and jerked awake. “What?”

Telos repeated his order. “Piddly Dunkins makes them best.”

“What time is it? Are they even open?” Mav mumbled, rubbing his face.

“3 AM. Yes. I checked. Go get the baby some.”

“Mm.” Mav cupped Telos’ belly—now half the size of a watermelon—and gave a proud rumble when their baby kicked. “I felt that. Did you feel it? Our baby kicked!”

Telos rolled his eyes. “No, I didn’t notice a foot connecting with my insides, hard enough that someoneoutside my bodycould feel it.”

Mav snorted, leaning in to nuzzle Telos’ chest. “Yeah, sass me while I’m too sleepy to think of a reply.”

“Fries. Now.”

“Fine.” Mav fumbled himself upright, pressing a sloppy kiss to Telos’ lips before shuffling out of bed. At the bedroom door, he paused. “Couldn’t you have asked one of the butlers? They’re probably both eavesdropping on us.”

“No one’s eavesdropping,” Hadley said from somewhere in the mansion.

“We’re totally not paid to keep our ears open for all sounds, including extremely private sex sounds,” Hilly-Billy added.

Telos groaned. “Shut up, both of you.”

“Would you like a pickup line with your sundae? We have one you need to hear,” Hadley said.

“No.I’m going. Bye.” Mav was downstairs, car keys in hand.

“‘You should clap your buttcheeks like cymbals,’” Hilly-Billy said anyway. “‘They will announce your presence and my heart will open to swallow the thunder of your majestic jiggly bottom.’”

“Who the hell even writes this insanity?” Mav muttered, before slamming the car door.

“Our patron god,” Hadley said. “Did you hear? Dicky Mems agreed to the pickup line fortune cookies! They are going to bein our future.”

Mav drove off with a loud roar of his engine. Telos laughed and settled back into bed, squirming over to Mav’s side so he could roll in the combined scents of Mav and sex.

“He still owes me a pickup line,” Telos said.

“Better hold him to it,” Hilly-Billy answered. “He seems the sort who’ll conveniently forget an amazing pickup line.”

Telos nuzzled Mav’s pillow and wriggled a little, enjoying the solidness of the plug inside him. Even then, the bed began to feel too empty as the seconds ticked by. He hugged Mav’s pillow, then brought it out of bed with him, shuffling to the nursery.

Estie was fast asleep in her crib. A second crib waited patiently on the other side of the room—also from Mav’s hoard.

Telos’ heart thumped. Soon, he would have two babies to hold. Being a dad didn’t feel so scary now that he had Mav promising to help.

He padded the rest of the way through Mav’s gorgeous, spacious mansion, past paintings of horses and cars. Dickens, Mass, and BH found him and squeaked their wheels excitedly, following him down the gentle stairs.

In the basement, Telos peered into the retina scanner, and the double doors slid open soundlessly. The carts trailed after him.

The strangest thing in Mav’s hoard was a large leather couch. At least, Telos had thought it strange, before Mav had sat in it to polish the riding gear he’d collected over the centuries.

The couch no longer only smelled like leather and polish. Ever since Telos had pulled Mav onto it, the couch had begun smelling like sex, too.

He sat down on it now, Mav’s pillow hugged to his chest. And he stared at the new empty space on one side of Mav’s hoard.

Was Mav selling off his treasures? Did he need the money?

After looking around, he realized that Mavhadn’tsold his things—he’d just crammed them together on the other side of the large room.

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