The tiny sips of water were helping, while the snickers that followed my statement pissed me off enough to snap my eyes open to glare at them, only to discover that it wasn’t me they were laughing at. Odem, with both infants in his arms, had wrapped his tail around the potted palm I’d been thinking about puking in and used it to haul the plant further away from the couch.
With his tail.
He had a fucking tail!
“I’ll grab a trash can in case you need it,” Alex declared, while Odem peered at me like he was personally offended on behalf of his plant.
O-kay.
When he turned to cross the room with the infants cuddled to his chest, there was a flap hanging from the ass of his jeans where that tail had torn through and damn, there was no way I was dreaming this. My imagination wasn’t this good and that’s what dreams were, right? Overactive imagination and residual memories colliding?
“Give me those babies and go cover your ass,” Alex said when he returned to the room with an empty trashcan with a fresh bag in it.
Thank fuck, because the smell of food right now, especially old, rotten food, would have fuckin’ killed me.
“Had to save my plant,” Odem declared as he passed the babies over.
And because it seemed like a strange statement coming from him I just had to ask, “What’s so special about that plant?”
“It’s the first thing I’ve ever tried to grow,” he admitted as he headed for the large, arched doorway at the far end of the room.
“It’s magnificent,” Emerson said. “Caro will be so proud of you.”
Watching his bare ass flex as he walked away gave me something to focus on other than my upset stomach, but the moment he disappeared I closed my eyes again, his words still echoing in the back of my head. Why did it feel like there was more to that simple palm tree than the fact that he’d grown it? If I asked, would he tell me the full story?
Did I even want to know?
Maybe? Even if I was still pissed as hell at him.
The couch beneath me was soft and wide enough for two people. It would have been fun to ride him on it, if he’d ever brought me here, but no, we’d always fucked wherever we happened to be when we ran into each other. It sure would have saved my ass from scraping against brick if he’d fucked me here instead of up against a wall.
Or in a bathroom stall.
Or the park, on the ground, where the knee of a very expensive pair of designer jeans had wound up caked with dirt because he’d only given me enough time to get one leg out before tackling me. I was starting to feel like a dirty little secret, someone he’d been too ashamed to bring home with him, which fired up my anger all over again.
Had I not gotten knocked up, would he have just discarded me like I was another fuck toy?
While I pondered that question another thought entered my head. One that reminded me that he and I had never been abouthaving a relationship. There hadn’t been dates or even much conversation outside of dirty talk. We’d both been all about fucking one another stupid and ending the night on an orgasmic high. So, maybe I’d have gotten bored and discarded him. That’s what usually happened, anyway.
And now suddenly I was his mate?
What the fuck was that supposed to look like?
At least, after seeing him with the babies, I could picture him as a father, though that didn’t mean he’d necessarily be thrilled about sharing parenting duties with me. I couldn’t decide if I was pleased about that or pissed at having wound up in this predicament. Still, he hadn’t denied that we’d been together, or tried to shift blame by claiming that the life, or lives, inside of me belonged to someone else, so I guess that was something.
Honestly, this whole mess was completely surreal and made even more so when Emerson tapped me on the knee.
“Raven is here.”
His words prompted me to open my eyes to the sight of a beautiful woman with long hair and a bright, knowing smile as she peered down at me.
“Another Denarious mate has been found, I see,” she declared. “But where is Odem?”
“Right here,” Odem declared as he came skidding around the corner, arms windmilling as his foot caught on the edge of the carpet before he tripped and wound up laying at her feet.
Emerson snorted, Alex snickered, and Raven just shook her head at him while I was flooded with a brief flash of concern over his wellbeing before he chuckled and grinned at her, flashing that panty melting smile as he sat up and attempted to smooth his wrinkled t-shirt.
He didn’t look the least bit ashamed as he shrugged and stood back up. “Oops.”
