“I’ll clean up later.” Jamie breathed into my ear. “Once my knot deflates, I’ll put a towel down, and we can cuddle a bit first.”
The climax sucked all the energy out of me, and I could only passively follow his orders as he moved me to lie fully on the bed. I closed my eyes but sensed his movements as he placed a towel over the mess I made and came to join me, taking me into his arms and spooning me from behind. I mumbled as I drifted off to sleep, “I love you, Jamie.”
“I love you, too, Charlie. Always.” His deep rumble of the last words was the last thing I heard before the darkness claimed me.
I woke with a jolt. An intense pain in my lower abdomen took away my ability to speak for a moment. I swatted at the spot next to me, trying to wake Jamie. My only answer was a loud snore.
The wave of agony washed over me, and I tried to concentrate on breathing my way through it. Once it passed, I hit Jamie again. Who knew how long I had before anothercontraction hit. Through clenched teeth, I made sure I would wake my mate this time. “Jamie, wake the fuck up.”
Immediately, his eyes popped open, and he shot up, sitting now and hands roaming my body, as if looking for a reason I was waking him up. “What? What’s wrong? Is it time?”
“Of course it’s time.” I hissed as my stomach tightened again, and the ability to speak became almost impossible. “Get up and take me to the hospital. Now.”
The next few hours passed in a blur; my mind would later remember it as just a flash of mental images that I mostly blocked out so I wouldn’t remember the pain that accompanied it. An anxious alpha driving so fast that I had to yell at him to remember speed limits existed, the nurse and doctors hovering, examining, and rushing me into the operating room because my omega line wasn’t opening as it should have been, and the sweet, first cries of our twins ringing out and letting the world know they were here and they were safe. And then black silence as I faded into sleep again from my exhaustion.
“Hey, sweeties.” The whispered words of my mate graced my ears as I started to regain consciousness. “Papa will be up soon to hold and feed you two. But right now, Daddy has you.”
I fought to open my eyes, but they were not ready to see light, so I lay there in the hospital bed and listened to my mate speak with our children.
“You two are the most precious thing in our world, and I promise to always show you that. Papa and I have prepared a room for you, and I know you will love it. And you have so many family and friends who are already blowing up your daddy’s phone. They all can’t wait to come and meet you.”
“I can’t wait to meet them.” I finally was able to utter words. And I slowly opened my eyes to see Jamie sitting beside the bed, two tiny babies swaddled in his big arms. “Can you bring them closer?”
“Of course.” Jamie got up and approached the bed, sitting on the edge and twisting his body so that he was sort of facing me. “Can you sit up a bit and hold them yet, do you think?”
I nodded and lifted my upper body, scooting back so that I was leaning my back up against the headboard. We had picked this hospital in the town beside ours since it offered postnatal care suites with actual beds and not those uncomfortable, typical hospital ones. I reached out to take one of the twins.
Jamie placed one of the bundles in my arms, and I looked down at one of the most adorable babies I had ever seen. A head of dark curls and blueish-green eyes. “This is our son. He is a wolf shifter like his daddy. I was waiting for you to name him, though.”
“He is precious.” I bent and kissed my son’s forehead. “Hey, baby. Papa loves you very much.”
Jamie adjusted the other bundle in his arms so I could see our other child. “And this is our daughter, a fox shifter just like her papa.”
I reached out my hand and ran a finger down the side of her face. “Hey, sweetie. Papa loves you too.”
“Ah, I see you are awake. Can I check your vitals and make sure everything is looking good?” A beta nurse came into the room, cheerful and friendly. “Then you two can spend the rest of the day cuddling your babies and resting. How does that sound?”
“I’ll just take the babies over there to the chair for a moment and get out of your way,” Jamie said and took our son out of my arms, taking both twins to the other side of the room.
“Go ahead.” I offered the nurse my arm to take my blood pressure and check my pulse.
The nurse worked swiftly and smoothly, and soon I was alone in the room again with just Jamie and our twins.
Sitting next to me on the bed, my mate let me rest my head on his shoulder as we each held one of the babies. I said out loudthe only thought I had at the moment. “If a moment could last forever, let it be this one.”
Chapter Twenty
Jamie
“How’s your time off going?” Erik’s laugh sounded through the speakerphone as I wrangled one of the twins back into place.
“It’s an adventure.” As they grew older, changing their diapers became harder. But their giggles became louder and more frequent. “Although there are moments that I’m exhausted and pouring coffee into my cereal bowl instead of my mug, there are moments I am just stuck in complete adoration and euphoria.”
“Why do parents always talk like that?”
“You’ll understand one day. Probably soon.” I shook my head, remembering certain rumors going around about Erik and a certain redhead who worked at the bank.
Erik grumbled into the phone. He wouldn’t admit the truth, yet. “I am just enjoying my single life. No rush for babies over here.”
