“There’s sawdust everywhere.”
“I know.” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and the heat in his gaze makes my breath catch. “I’ve wanted you all morning. Your scent’s been driving me crazy.”
Pregnancy hormones, Dr. Lucas had warned us. They can intensify omega scent. Make alphas more responsive.
He wasn’t wrong.
“The babies?—”
“Are fine.” His hand slides up my side, thumb brushing the underside of my breast. “And you smell like you want me too.”
I do. God, I do. Even now, even tired and huge and convinced I look like a whale in yoga pants, I want him. Want all of them, constantly, in a way that would’ve embarrassed me six months ago.
Now I just pull his mouth down to mine.
He kisses me slow and deep, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other splayed possessive across my belly. His purrnever stops. The babies kick against his palm, and he smiles against my lips.
“Later,” I manage when we break apart. “Ben’s coming home soon.”
“I know.” He presses one more kiss to my bond mark. “I can wait.”
He can’t, actually. None of them can. But I appreciate the pretense.
I leave him to his cribs and make my way back up to the house, my body thrumming with want and pack-bond warmth. The house used to be just Elijah’s—quiet, sparse, everything functional and nothing more. Now it’soursin every way that matters.
I’ve nested the hell out of it. Soft throws draped over the couch in deep greens and warm creams. Photos everywhere—the ultrasound pinned to the fridge, the four of us at the spring festival on the mantle, a candid Bea took of Milo kissing my cheek while Ben pretends to gag in the background. Candles on every surface because pregnancy has made me obsessed with how things smell. A reading nook by the window that Elijah built after he caught me curled up on the floor with a book one too many times.
Ben’s cabin—the one where we got snowed in, where everything started—is our weekend escape now. Somewhere to disappear when the town gets too loud and we need just the four of us. But this place is home.
My organizational systems have colonized the kitchen. Color-coded labels on the pantry shelves. A whiteboard calendar by the fridge. Meal prep containers arranged by date in the freezer, because some habits die hard.
But the rest of the house tells a different story. Ben’s jacket thrown over the couch. Milo’s collection of weird hot sauces crowding the fridge door. Elijah’s wood shavings drifting intocorners no matter how much I sweep. A nest in the bedroom that takes up half the floor—blankets and pillows and stolen clothing arranged in careful layers, rebuilt weekly because I can’t stop touching it.
I used to think I needed control to feel safe. Schedules and backup plans and contingencies for the contingencies. I used to think if I just organized everything perfectly, nothing could hurt me.
Turns out what I needed was three alphas who wrecked every plan I ever made.
The rumble of Ben’s truck reaches me before I see it—that same truck that broke down seventeen times while he was trying to avoid me. The one that stranded him at the community center the night of the bachelor auction. The one he’s finally fixed properly, now that he’s not running anymore.
He parks and climbs out, already grinning when he spots me on the porch.
“There she is. My favorite pregnant person.”
“I’m the only pregnant person you know.”
“Still my favorite.” He takes the steps two at a time and drops a kiss on my mouth, then crouches to press another to my belly. “How are my chaos babies?”
“Energetic. I think they’re practicing for the Olympics in there.”
“That’s my girls.”
“We don’t know they’re girls.”
“I have a feeling.” He says this every time. His hand spreads warm over my stomach, and I feel his satisfaction pulse through the bond—bright and teasing, like sunlight on water. “Elijah still in his workshop?”
“Making cribs.”
“He’s been at those things for weeks. You know he carved little details inside the headboards? Where the babies will literally never see them?”
