Some of the faces there that night were new ones for Kenji, but there were others more familiar—and while he’d feared he’d feel an outsider, he didn’t at all. For the first time in his life, he was among family, both blood and chosen, and that was everything to him. He turned to find Qylar staring at him, that same adoration there—but there was a little heat, too.
Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed and the big house was quiet, Kenji lay in Qylar’s arms while their babies slept in a crib on the other side of the room.
“Your thoughts are loud on this peaceful night,” Kenji murmured.
“Just thinking,” Qylar said.
“About?”
“Something Zaadi asked about.”
“What’s that?”
Qylar searched his face in the moonlight coming into the room. “When are we going to have more kids?”
“No time soon,” Kenji replied.
“Oh, I know we need the twins to be a little older than they are now, but I think it was more the question of if. Will we have more children or are we done?”
“I feel very much in the done category,” Kenji said. “I can’t say that won’t change when they get a little older, but right now… I’m happy with the family we have.”
“Me, too,” Qylar said. “But then there’s this other little part of me that wants a bigger family. You know, like five plus kids.”
“Thenyoucan get pregnant,” Kenji said.
Qylar chuckled. “You think I’m a pain in the ass now, just imagine if I was preggo.”
Kenji thought about more children and then thought about all the kids out there without a home. “If we wanted more kids,I’d really want to consider adoption. Not because the pregnancy part, but I was raised in foster care. I know how many kids need good, safe homes we could provide.”
“It might be tough to find an agency on Earth who’d give us a kid considering we have fake identification and created histories. I’d hate for something like applying for adoption to be the thing that brought us down and forced us off the planet.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Kenji said. “So we couldn’t adopt at all, hmm?” That hurt his heart considering there were so many kids in need. “What about Nefyria? Do they have adoption? I know they have wards, which are similar.”
“They do, but it’s highly privatized and there aren’t many children at all because of the spawning grounds.”
“Right,”Kenji said, sighing. “The spawning grounds. I forgot… so we really couldn’t adopt at all?”
“We could do some digging, but our only option might be one of those seedy adoption agencies overseas and those can be problematic.” Qylar smiled.“Ifand when the time came to dig, of course.”
“Yeah,” Kenji said.
“Until we decide differently, I’m happy with our two,” Qylar said. “Though I would love to have some midnight tentacle fun with my husband tonight.”
“I’m game. As long as we’re quiet,” Kenji said.
“You’re not fun,” Qylar said, grinning at him as he got closer and pressed his lips to Kenji’s.
The languid kisses they shared grew hotter by the minute, until they were quietly taking off their clothes under the covers and feasting on one another’s bodies. Qylar soon drove deep, doing his best to please Kenji while not waking the children. When they reached release together, they kissed, swallowing their mutual moans until their bodies calmed.
As they cuddled closer, sated, Kenji’s mind wouldn’t let him sleep.
“Qylar? Are you awake?”
“Mmhmmm,” Qylar mumbled sleepily.
“I might want more kids someday.”
Qylar’s eyes popped open. “What?”
