Smitten (32 page)

He sucked the delicate nerve button again and Ēostre soared, her body cresting on waves of indescribable pleasure. At the moment of her climax, he was above her again, slipping into her in a single thrust. Her legs automatically raised to lock around his hips, and she drew him to a hilted fit.

He thrust in and out, granting her body something to hold onto until long after the timed clenches of orgasm subsided. Then he made love to her again. Face to face, one tender stroke after the next with gentle touches accompanied by whispered words.

When they finally collapsed together in a boneless heap, they were slick with sweat. Ēostre stretched beneath him then sighed, sated and beyond content. “What brought that on? Mm… not that I’m complaining.”

“I needed to show you what you did for me goes both ways,” he murmured huskily, “and I’ve wanted to taste you for a long while. I just thought…” He stopped himself and chuckled quietly. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“That I’d believe you were strange?”

He nodded briefly.

“No, Bel… I…” Her cheeks warmed, a sudden rush of warmth overtaking them. “I think… I want to try everything with you.”

“A good thing we have all the time in the world then.”

Chapter 23

“What are you doing to her?” Max asked, interrupting the obstetrician for the third time. “She flinched.”

“It’s only a lubricant. See? You can touch it if you want.”

Their doctor came with high recommendations and thirty years’ experience. She even gave them an enthusiastic welcome, either naturally fearless or too eager to have the prestigious accomplishment under her belt of delivering a dragon’s child. Age had lined her face, and she wore her steel gray hair in a severe chin-length bob. She couldn’t be younger than seventy, and despite her unveiled fascination with their dragon halves, she exuded only warmth and a caring, grandmotherly feeling that put Ēostre at ease.

“Max, relax, my love. It’s only cold.” She chuckled at his fretting. “Chloe told me all about this.”

“Oh.”

Her husband quieted, but he remained tense as a coiled spring beside her, perched precariously on the edge of his seat and leaning forward to stare at the black screen. Ēostre didn’t blame him. Waiting for something besides her name, the date, and the time to appear was killing her, too.

“Now, you’re going to see me change the angle and stop to take measurements on occasion,” Dr. Shapiro explained. “If you have any questions, feel free to ask.” The woman beamed at them, providing the reassurances Ēostre needed. Max was a bundle of nerves, and with their link, it meant all of his anticipation and worries flowed through to her whether he tried to suppress it or not.

The doctor pressed a device into the puddle of clear gel on Ēostre’s belly. A spherical shape snapped into focus, and as she rolled the device over Ēostre’s mildly rounded tummy, it gained further clarity. “Here’s the face. Eyes here, and a nose.”

“It’s like magic,” Max breathed. “How can it see inside of her?”

The doctor chuckled at his enthusiasm and adjusted the angle. “It isn’t magic, Mr. Emberthorn. Only science. Now right here is the arm. We’ll also listen to the heart rhythm, and I’ll be attempt to estimate the due date based on the fetal size. A typical dragon pregnancy is two years, you said?”

“Twenty-five months,” Ēostre clarified.

“We’ll figure it out.” As promised, she saved pictures, measured internal organs, and then a rapid noise whoosh-whooshed into the private examination room, catching Ēostre by surprise.

“What’s that?” Ēostre asked, furrowing her brow.

Frozen in place with a bewildered expression on her face, the doctor stared at first. “A heartbeat, but…” The image changed, their fetus becoming smaller, a tiny bean-shaped silhouette beside its mirrored image. “
Two
heartbeats. Twins. It’s twins. Are twins typical for dragonkind?”

“No,” Ēostre breathed. “Far from it.” Beside her in the chair, Max had yet to utter a word. His mouth hung open, amber eyes fixated on the image of their unborn children.

“This is amazing,” the doctor told them. “You’ll have to forgive me but I—”

“You expected them to look different,” Ēostre finished for her without ever losing her smile. “The same magic that allows us to shapeshift also works on the children we carry until they are born. Were we to try this in my natural shape, the babies would take on dragon form as well.”

“Can we do that?” Doctor Shapiro’s eyes widened and she blushed at her own enthusiastic outburst. Her professional demeanor returned with the utterance of an apologetic, “Sorry.”

“No, no need to apologize. Personally, I’d prefer for you to share in our excitement than to judge or fear us. Your idea has merit,” Max murmured. Bringing their linked hands to his lips, he kissed Ēostre’s knuckles. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Twins. The revelation awed her, leaving her and Max speechless through most of the remaining sonogram. They asked few questions, unwilling to interrupt or provide unnecessary distractions. By the time the doctor had wiped Ēostre’s tummy clean and lowered her shirt, the shock was finally beginning to fade.

“And these are for you,” Dr. Shapiro said, placing a strip of black and white photos into Ēostre’s hands. “It’s too soon to tell you what you’re having as far as gender goes, but we’ll do this again in a few months when they’ve developed further. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d actually like to get an ultrasound each month of your pregnancy for documentation.”

Ēostre gazed down at the tiny, twin silhouettes in the photos then turned to her husband and squeezed his hand. “I think that is a marvelous idea. It will be good to have actual medical information if something were ever to happen in a future dragon pregnancy.”
Or in ours,
she worried, fretting over the unknown possibilities. While dragons were tough and hardy individuals, she’d known a few females over the centuries who lost their unborn cubs to mysterious reasons.

“Agreed,” Max said.

“Excellent. Now, I know I questioned you at length prior to the sonogram, but a few more thoughts have occurred to me since then. You do plan to birth the children in your human body, correct?”

“I believe I will. I like your office, as well as your bedside manner, and would be reluctant to part from that.” Ēostre hesitated. “I delivered my older son by myself, and while I was pleased with the outcome, the birth itself was a lonely process.

“Now you said your magic shifts them for now. What about after they’re born?”

Ēostre blew out a breath. “It will be a new experience for us all. No dragon has ever birthed in human form before. So the twins will have to learn to shift into their dragon shapes as they grow, rather than the opposite.”

“Regardless of the decision you make, we’ll adapt our birthing plan to work with you. Please let me know if anything changes.”

“Thank you, Dr. Shapiro.”

“Michelle. Please call me Michelle,” the woman said, voice warm and comforting in the otherwise sterile room.

“Only if you call us Ēostre and Max. I insist. If we’re to use your services for our little ones over the next year and a half, at the very least, we must be on a first name basis.”

“Deal. Now as I said, I have a few more concerns, and afterward, we’ll schedule your next appointment. Join me in my office. It’s a little more comfortable than that exam table.” She flashed them a reassuring grin, and led the way from the room to a sunny office with two plush visitor chairs. “Water?”

“Yes please.”

Michelle’s questions never felt like an interrogation — Ēostre and Max answered her candidly, withholding nothing about their species and unique habits.

When it was all done, the expectant dragoness floated on air from the office to the car awaiting them outside. This time, she had no fear of dragonslaying assassins and bombs. Ian worked closely with the head of the Secret Service in providing the best shifters he could find, and their security retinue had tightened without depriving them of further privacy and freedom. He hadn’t merely cut through the red tape to make it happen, he’d eviscerated the system and leaned on it until they were happy to accept his “recommendations.”

“Are you happy with the news?” she whispered to him once they were safely seated inside “The Beast.” “Are you truly happy?”

“Impossibly happy. Thrilled,” Max said. He brought Ēostre closer, and she turned her face into his neck, pressing her cheek against the heat her husband naturally exuded. “I can’t believe it. Twins.”

“It’s certainly made you a man of few words,” she teased.

“How could I possibly be anything but elated, my love?” His lips skimmed the top of her head. “Today is a day for celebration, we must tell your family—”

“Our family,” she corrected him.

“Of course. Our family. Saul, Chloe, and Astrid must be the first to know before we release the information to the media,” the dragon mused thoughtfully. “Unless you would prefer for the pregnancy to remain secret. I’ll be happy to do whatever you feel is best for you.”

Ēostre leaned back to gaze up at him. “Let’s tell them. Let’s tell the world.”

***

Max met a limited number of reporters for a small press release in the rose garden. He loved it there, the serene environment paired with memories of his wedding day to Ēostre. He went without the suit and tie, opting for khakis and a casual button-down shirt, and with the summer breeze rustling his auburn hair he felt invincible, bulletproof, and absolutely in control of his life. Ēostre loved him, the Ancestors had favored them with not one, but two little ones, and the world was gradually coming to accept supernatural existence.

“President Emberthorn, can you tell us when the baby will be due?”

Max’s grin widened. “The
babies
will arrive in the fall. A year and a half from now.”

He’d expected a stunned reaction. At first, the open yard dropped into silence. Then a flurry of questions broke out. He raised his hands and waited for the noise to die down before he answered.

“Yes, we were incredibly amazed to discover my wife is carrying twins, and we couldn’t be happier. As for the time… Dragonkind gestate for two years. Ēostre won’t begin to truly show, as you put it, until Thanksgiving later this year.”

“Do you know what you’re having?”

“Two healthy little ones are what I hope for,” Max replied. “Boys or girls, we’re happy with whatever blessings we receive. We only ask that the press respect our privacy during this time and in return we promise ample opportunities to get your pictures.”

“Do you have names picked out?”

The question resulted in another good-humored laugh. “Not yet, but knowing Ēostre they’ll be beautiful and impressive.”

“Where is the first lady?” someone asked from the crowd.

“My wife is with her family, delighting in their happy attentions at the news, and I am due to join them. Thank you all for your questions, and I am honored you were able to attend. I have time for one final question.”

“Will they hatch from eggs?”

Max, as well as a few of the other journalists, chuckled. “No. My kind are as warm-blooded as your people and quite similar in many ways. She’s chosen to birth them in her human form.”

After promising to keep them updated on the pregnancy, he was escorted into the building by his security team.

“We’ll be at the California estate,” he told his security team. “If you’re needed for a public outing, Ēostre will send for you. I don’t expect for us to be gone past dinner.”

“Excellent. Enjoy your time away, Mr. President. We’ll remain here, pretending you’re still on the premises.”

As he took the steps two at a time, Max sent a text message to Ēostre. She told him the portal would be awaiting him in the bedroom, and he found it open, without his wife waiting beside it. The clear window to California displayed the serene interior of Saul’s roomy den and enormous sectional sofa.

“Where you going?” Spartacus asked him. He sat on a perch beside the window, eyeballing the portal with uncertainty. Spartacus had seen and traveled through them before for visits to California. Sometimes Ēostre left a pocket portal beside his perch for him to visit Astrid during their busy days. He was never without a friend who loved him dearly.

“We’re going to see Ēostre’s family. Would you like to come?”

“Yes!”

Once Max held out his arm, the bird flew to his wrist without hesitation. “Astrid will be glad to see you, buddy.”

“Spartacus loves Astrid.”

“I know you do. I hope you’ll love our twins as well, as they will be little ones for quite a while.”

Max had missed some of the best parts of Brigid’s childhood and looked forward to swaddling them at night and giving Ēostre a rest. He grinned at the thought, excited by the prospect of diaper changing. When Mahuika brought Brigid to him for the first time, she’d been a thirty-year-old cub without a human shape, although that changed once he took her to Ireland to meet her first humans. Within days of their arrival, his beautiful little girl became a fiery-haired toddler.