Mal could take no more.
The release was sudden, and it seized him from head to foot. He clenched around Vincent’s shaft as his balls emptied, shooting across his stomach, marking himself with his own cum. Vincent grunted, hurriedly reached between them, then pushed into Mal with a sharp, jerky movement.
Something expanded behind Mal’s ring.
A knot.
Mal moaned. He tossed his head back and arched his hips, letting the knot push him past the point of comfort as it locked him to Vincent. All the while, Vincent worked his hips in small, deliberate movements. He’d come, too, and as he did, he pushed his seed as far as he could into Mal’s body.
“Baby,” Mal uttered when he found breath. Vincent continued to thrust into him, panting softly, his expression somewhere between total ecstasy and relaxed satisfaction. “Baby… what is that? What are you…?”
“Knotting cock ring,” Vincent murmured. He kissed Mal deeply, then cut the kiss short to draw a strained breath. “God, it feels good to knot you. Feels so fucking good…”
Intoxicating need hit Mal all at once, and his cock twitched as it shot one last time, depleting his balls. To think of Vincent knotting him, their bodies locked together while Vincent followed his instincts and bred Mal the way he wanted… Mal moaned.
Eventually, Vincent stilled. He settled on top of Mal, careful of his belly, and held him as his knot receded, and as it did, they kissed in the exhausted, needy way only the clarity following orgasm allowed. From time to time, Mal squeezed around the knot and was rewarded each time by a few shallow thrusts as he rekindled Vincent’s desire.
“I love you,” Vincent whispered as his knot grew small enough to slip from Mal’s ass. “Thank you for letting me be me.”
“And thank you for loving me as I am.” Mal closed his eyes, content. No dark thoughts rose from the abyss of his mind to drag him down. With Vincent, in this tiny window of time, he’d found peace. “We should… we should do that again.”
“Let’s hope Nikki makes lots of friends so she can go on play dates.” Vincent arched a brow. “Speaking of play dates…”
“What?”
Vincent parted from Mal and reached for the bedside table. He opened the drawer and withdrew—
“Hey.” Mal blinked. “That’s my vibrator.”
“Yup.” Vincent tossed it onto the bed. “I think it’s dead. I put it in my drawer for safe keeping, next to your note—”
“My note?”
“The one you left at the hotel.” Vincent lifted it from the drawer. The paper had been folded, but otherwise, it was unchanged—including the smiley face Mal had drawn to try to soften the blow. “I put it all in there so I wouldn’t forget—and, selfishly, so I’d have something to remember you by—but now that you’re here to stay, it’s about time I gave it back.”
“I can’t believe you held my vibrator hostage all this time.” Mal laughed, grabbed it from the sheets, then sank down onto the bed. He pushed the switch with his thumb, and it hummed sadly for a moment before dying. “If I escaped by pumpkin, then this vibrator was my glass slipper. I think you were supposed to have given it back way earlier in the story.”
“I’m no typical Prince Charming.” Vincent put the note back, closed the drawer, and sank back into bed with Mal. “I’d argue that, USB vibrator reunited with you or not, our story ended in a happily ever after.”
That wasn’t right. Mal snorted, pulling himself close to Vincent. Vincent laid a hand on his stomach, and Mal tilted his head to the side so they were lip to lip. “Ended? Our story hasn’t ended.” He kissed Vincent once, making sure he hung on Mal’s word. It was important. What Mal had to say next, he believed with his whole heart. “It just so happens that our story is beginning with a happily ever after. Everything up until now? That was just the prologue.”
45
Mal
Under the examination room’s bright lights, Mal’s ring gleamed. He watched it as his hand rose and fell, placed on his heavily pregnant bare belly while he waited for Dr. Gupta to finish her preparations. At eight months pregnant, it was Mal’s last ultrasound with the clinical trial team.
“How’s the pregnancy been treating you, Mr. Collins?” Dr. Gupta asked as she pulled on a pair of gloves. “Twins can be tough.”
“It’s been… an adventure.” Mal twitched his nose, sliding his hand off his stomach as Dr. Gupta wheeled over the display screen, humming softly to herself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so sore in my life, not even when I was doing work as a groundskeeper. My skin feels so tight, I’m always worried it’s going to crack. And my feet?”
“Oh, trust me, I know.” Dr. Gupta glanced at the screen, toggled through a few options, then picked up the probe. “Are you ready for the gel?”
“Yes.”
“Here it comes.” She grabbed the tube of ultrasound gel from a nearby tray, clicked the cap open with her thumb, and applied it to Mal’s belly. Before Mal had time to shiver, she’d pushed the probe into the gel and started to work it across his skin. “Anyway, all of us here at the clinic arewellaware of the swelling. For the last handful of months, it’s all we heard about.”
“From the other patients?” Mal asked. It wouldn’t have surprised him. Although Vincent wasn’t at liberty to discuss the details of the trial, Mal knew that he wasn’t the only one under observation.
