STORY EXCERPT

Sean finally relaxed as the morning and early afternoon went without a hitch. They were all sitting in the living room after lunch and talking when Joseph’s cell phone rang. He reached for it to silence it, then frowned as he stared at the screen.

“What?” Louise asked.

He gave a curt shake of his head before taking the call, stepping out onto the screened porch and closing the slider behind him for privacy.

Sean looked from Louise, who wore a curious expression, to Emery, whose frown mirrored his father’s. Sean was about to ask Emery what he thought was going on when a tap on the sliding glass door caught their attention.

Joseph pointed at Emery and crooked his finger at him.

Sean didn’t stand to follow Emery as he stood and crossed the living room, stepping out onto the porch and closing the slider behind him.

Now everyone watched, silent, as Joseph handed the cell phone to Emery and stood there.

Unwatched, A Christmas Story played on in the background as the entire house focused on whatever was going on outside.

Sean didn’t try to distract Emery with their mate-bond, even though he knew, at that close of a distance, his mate would be able to hear and respond to his silent communication.

Emery turned toward the water, his free hand rubbing at his forehead as he talked with the caller.

From the slump of his shoulders, Sean suspected whatever the news was, it was bad.

His first thought was maybe Erik wasn’t as dead as everyone else wished he was, and had perhaps struck again. Sean didn’t care what Wyatt said. Sean knew that unless he personally saw Erik’s dead body, he wouldn’t be convinced the psychopath was out of their lives for good.

Emery nodded as he spoke, a deep sigh making his shoulders rise and then fall again. Then he ended the call and, staring out at the water, said something to his father.

Joseph met Sean’s gaze and crooked his finger at him.

Now all eyes were on Sean. His face heating, and feeling more than a little like he’d been called to the principal’s office, he rose and slowly walked to the sliders.

Joseph opened them for him, closing them behind him.

“What’s going on?” Sean quietly asked the men.

Joseph didn’t respond. He looked to Emery.

The pod Alpha.

“Em?” Sean said.

Emery turned to face him, looking years older than he had a few minutes earlier. “We need to talk, babe.”

“No conversation starting like that is ever good.”

He nodded. “Seriously.”

“Well, spit it out.”

Emery glanced at his father before meeting Sean’s gaze again. “Were you serious when you said you wanted kids?”

He let out an amused snort. “Dude, I can’t exactly get pregnant.”

Emery arched an eyebrow at him and something told Sean his normally lighthearted mate wasn’t in the mood for his snarky humor.

“Of course I was serious,” Sean said, now serious once more. “What’s going on?”

“We need to decide this, today. As in right now. I know this isn’t the best of circumstances to make a snap decision, but this is a pod Alpha situation.” He glanced at his father yet again before returning his grey gaze to Sean. “There’s been an…accident.”

Sean’s blood ran cold. “Erik?” he whispered.

“I doubt it. A young dolphin couple was killed last night. I still don’t know all the details, something about a fishing accident.”

“They were shifted?”

Emery nodded. “Caught in a net. Drowned.”

“Holy hell.”

Emery took a deep breath. “They have a little girl. And their will leaves full custody of her to her godfather, their pod’s Alpha. That’s who I was talking to on the phone. But he’s older, and doesn’t really want to raise a young child at this point in his life. He wants to know if we would like to adopt her.”

“He doesn’t want…” Realization dawned. “Adopt her? Us?”

Emery slowly nodded. “We need to settle this soon. He has others who might take her, but he really wants to place her with us. He’s over in Orlando. We’re his first choice as alternate adoptive parents. Alexis and Carter told him about us, about me being the Placida Pod Alpha now. He said he can get their attorney to request an emergency hearing for Monday with a sympathetic judge over there to transfer her to our custody before word gets out.”

“What do you mean before word gets out?”

“Apparently he’s worried about the maternal uncle. He’s a non-shifting dolphin married to a human. The Alpha wants her raised by a shifter, since both her parents were shifters. And, frankly, the mother told the Alpha she can’t stand her brother or his wife and didn’t want them to get custody of her. Hence why they wrote their will the way they did. That also means—”

“Yes,” Sean said.

“What?”

He looked to Joseph, then back to Emery. “I said yes. Can we go get her right now? We can be in Orlando before dark. And it’s Christmas Day, for fuck’s sake.”

The ghost of a smile curved Emery’s mouth. He reached out and palmed Sean’s cheek. “You sure? I can say no.”

Sean laid his hand over Emery’s and kissed his palm. “No, you can’t tell them no. Because I don’t want you to.”

ADULT EXCERPT

Emery and Sean finally headed home from the hospital. Sean’s dad had volunteered to take Isla home overnight, giving the men an evening of well-needed, child-free privacy.

They undressed and grabbed a shower, not speaking, taking their time and letting all their tension wash away. Once they were dried off and in bed, Sean rolled onto his side. “We’re uncles,” Sean said as he grabbed Emery and kissed him, deeply and fiercely.

“Yep.”

“We almost have enough kids in the family for our own water polo team,” he joked.

“Almost.”

“We have the entire house to ourselves.”

Emery nibbled along the line of Sean’s jaw, to his earlobe. “Yep.”

“Please tell me you’re going to fuck my brains out tonight.”

Emery rolled on top of him. He grabbed Sean’s hands and held them pinned against the mattress over his head. “Oooh, yeah. I was thinking Alpha bull style.”

Sean let out a soft moan. “Oh, dude, what are you waiting for?”

Emery crushed Sean’s mouth with his, a bruising, passionate kiss that stole their breaths away. “I’m not waiting. I’m savoring the moment.” He nipped the side of Sean’s neck. “I’ve been fantasizing about bending you over our bed with my fat Alpha bull cock stuffed inside your sweet, tight ass.

He’d only fucked Sean a couple of times using the partial shift. Sean knew Emery had to be in the right mental place to do it without risking slipping and ending up a fully shifted dolphin in their bed.

And it’d been a while since the last time. Since before Isla joined their family.

Emery’s lips feathered across Sean’s flesh, tasting and teasing his mate, nipping and sucking, wanting to make it last. Sean flexed his hips and arched his back, trying to get friction against his cock, which was pinned between their bodies.

Emery let his full weight pin Sean to the bed. “Slow down, baby,” he hoarsely whispered. “We’ve got all night.”

“Maybe you have all night, but I’m about to bust a nut. I need your cock, man. It’s been too long since you’ve fucked me like that.”

“I know.” Emery finally sat up and retrieved a towel from the bathroom, and a tube of lube and the large butt plug from their child-proof hiding places. He returned to the bed. “Roll over. Ass in the air.”

Sean complied. Emery lightly slapped Sean’s tight ass cheeks before kneeling between his legs. “Reach back and hold yourself open for me.”

Sean did, his face buried in the pillow.

Emery reached between his lover’s legs to find Sean’s cock rigid and already dripping pre-cum from the slit. “Wow, you are horny.”

“Yes, goddammit,” came Sean’s muffled reply. “I thought that was obvious.”

Emery drizzled lube down the seam of Sean’s ass and began working it into his puckered rim. One, then two fingers, and finally a third. Once he knew Sean was loosened enough, he squirted lube all over the butt plug and began working that inside his lover’s ass.

A long, low moan rolled from Sean.

“Don’t you dare fucking come yet,” Emery said. Not until my cock is deep inside you.

Sean’s moan turned to a plaintive whine. But Sean knew he would no more be able to refuse that order than he could refuse to come on command when Emery was in full-on Alpha bull mode.

A very horny, deliciously handsome Alpha bull ready to fuck his mate.

After the butt plug slid inside his ass past the widest part, Sean’s body eagerly sucked it the rest of the way in, the flared base seating between Sean’s ass cheeks. Emery teased him, pressing on the base and alternating that with gently tugging on it, enjoying the passionate, primal noises Sean made when he did.

“You like that, don’t you?”

“I’ll like it better when it’s your cock, dude.”

Emery slapped Sean’s ass again. “Patience.” He reached between Sean’s legs and palmed his sac. It felt tight, heavy, hot, full and ready to explode at Emery’s command. He gently rolled Sean’s balls in his hand. Sean propped himself up on his elbows, turning his head so he could watch while Emery grabbed his own cock and took a couple of strokes. Not that he needed fluffing, because his cock was already hard and throbbing.

Emery changed position, moving to the head of the bed, where Sean could reach his cock with his mouth. He buried his hands in Sean’s hair and pulled his head up. “Open wide, baby.”

Sean did, softly moaning again as the engorged head of Emery’s cock passed through his lips and over his tongue. He lapped at the slit, where drops of pre-cum had already pearled there.

Emery slowly fucked his mouth, taking complete charge and holding Sean’s head right where he wanted it. “That’s it, baby,” he said, his voice sounding hoarse, strained with the effort of holding back. “Make sure I’m nice and hard before I fuck your ass with it.”

The sound of Emery’s voice, even more than his words, turned Sean’s insides into a gooey mush. They were so good together in bed like this, everything feeling so right, way more intense than it had ever felt with anyone he’d known before Emery.

After a few minutes, Emery pulled his cock from Sean’s mouth and moved behind him again. “I need my cock in your ass,” he hoarsely said.

“Who’s stopping you?”

Emery played with the butt plug again, fucking Sean with it and making him moan even louder. Finally, he carefully withdrew it from him and then slathered his cock with lube.

Emery knelt between Sean’s legs, and Sean thought he might just sob with relief. Then Emery positioned his knob against Sean’s ass and pressed forward.

When Sean tried to rock back and impale himself, Emery anticipated it. He grabbed Sean’s hips and held him in place. “No you don’t,” he said. “I’m driving.”

Even in this Emery took his time, almost deriving sadistic pleasure in how Sean begged for Emery to fuck him faster, harder, deeper, and not the achingly slow progress he was currently making.

Only when he was fully buried inside his lover did Emery let out a breath. “Okay.” He reached around Sean and grabbed his cock. “Hold still.” He slicked Sean’s own juices up and down his shaft a few times, Sean trying his best not to rock his hips in time with Emery’s hand.

That was when he felt Emery’s cock swell inside his ass.

“Fuck, yeah!” he gasped.

Emery’s hand moved harder, faster. “Come!” he barked as he squeezed Sean’s cock.