Page 184 of As The Shifter World Turns

“Why not? How hard can it be?”

I sent him a glowering look because he’d seen the state of the apartment and me when he arrived home in the evening and I told him about my day. And that was without me working.

Wait, was I bonkers wanting to add work onto my crazy schedule? Maybe,but I’d looked at it from different angles and I was way more relaxed about coping with a baby than I had been in those early weeks.

“We’ll need two of everything. Crib, stroller, toys, diapers. Because taking all the paraphernalia back and forth will drive you crazy.” And me.

“We can do that, can’t we, my darling girl?” Dyani snuggled against his chest.

He’d need help. We both would. Working while looking after a baby was far from easy and we might decide it was too much and hire a sitter. But for the moment, things were settled and we were both about to become working dads.

.

Daire

My bear wanted to mate Nate. It rhymed.Mate Nate!I was lying in his arms naked after giving one another mutual blow jobs. Nate had always been a little prickly about the subject of mating. Prickly! Ha! I was making jokes left right and center. Nate—or my Nate as I thought of him—was a hedgehog shifter, so yeah the word prickly came to mind when he came to mind, which I did. Often.

I’d brought up the subject a while ago and he’d been hesitant saying he didn’t want to rush into things. He’d heard me talking about Ryder and Ivor’s journey toward mating. Our own dating life had been rocky and he didn’t want either of us to regret claiming one another. I didn’t see how that was possible after mating.

But perhaps my parents were a prime example. They were each other’s one true love but I got the impression they would have been better experiencing more of life before mating.

“You awake?” I asked.

He wriggled his ass, telling me he was.

“I’ve been thinking.”

Mate.My grizzly was getting impatient, but Nate travelled a lot for work—he was a freelance photographer and videographer—and I had to speak my mind now while he was here.

Centuries or even decades past, it would have been the alpha claiming the omega. There wouldn’t have been a discussion. And definitely no omega, like me, would have broached the subject. But thankfully, times had changed.

“Go on.” He turned to face me.

“Don’t hate me,” I started.

“I could never.” He bopped my nose with one finger.

I hoped that was true after he heard what I had to say. “Mating,” I blurted out. “I love you and I want us to mate.”

Even though shifters’ eyesight was better than humans’, Nate switched on a lamp. “Say that again.”

I gulped, hoping this wasn’t where he read me the riot act.

“Mating. I want us to mate.”

He stroked my cheek. “I like that idea.”

“You do?” I sat up and turned on my lamp. “But I thought?—”

He silenced me with a finger against my lips. “On my last trip away, I gave it a lot of thought. Even though we haven’t known one another long, I know it in my heart—and my beast does too—and it was silly of me to suggest we wait.”

After brushing a stray hair off his brow, I said, “It wasn’t silly. Being forced into mating is not something I’d ever do.”

He held up a hand. “But.”

I made a face and he grinned. “I want a public mating ceremony.”

“Where we get naked in front of everyone and bite and claw one another?”

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