“Oh God, these twins look like duplicates of the big twins.”
“The big twins.” Keela snorted. “Is that what we’re labellin’ them as, big twins and little twins?”
“Nico and Damien can be Thing One and Thing Two,” I said. “These precious boys can be called angels instead.”
“Typical,” Damien muttered.
I ignored him.
“I can’t wait until I can babysit these two.” I looked up at their parents. “When will that be?”
Ryder looked at Branna. “She wants to take them, so we should let her.”
Alec laughed as his eagerness.
Branna hesitated. “What if I cry?”
“I’ll hold you,” Ryder answered. “I’ll make it all better.”
“I’m sure you will,” I mumbled.
He grinned but kept his eyes on his wife.
“Okay.” Branna nodded. “But we should start with them just being gone for a few hours. Not overnight yet.”
“Sweetness, a few hours alone with you is all I need for us to experience heaven.”
I blushed on Branna’s behalf, and it amused Keela, who was watching me.
“I can take them for a few hours on Saturday,” I suggested. “I have a free day from work, and Damien is home that day, too. He’ll be drafted in if I need any help.”
Damien agreed with a bob of his head.
“Sounds good to me,” Ryder said and looked at his wife.
“Me too,” Branna said. “Be warned, I bet I’ll cry.”
I chuckled, then turned to Alec. He had his arms around Keela with his hands on her baby bump.
“Since you mentioned readin’, I just remember that I read somethin’ on Twitter last night that will mind fuck ye’.”
Alec locked eyes on me. “Hit me with it.”
“The alphabet song is really just ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.”
I watched as Alec mumbled the two songs, and when the realisation dawned on him that they had the exact same melody, it cracked me up.
“How the hell have I not known this before now?” he asked Keela.
She shrugged. “I didn’t know it until now either.”
I watched as he tried to disprove my fact, and he couldn’t.
“Ah!” He grunted. “Fuck you, Alannah.”
I beamed.
“You enjoy your bickering so much it’s actually scary.”
I looked at Ryder. “It keeps me young.”
Alec then announced he was making pancakes, and both Damien and Ryder were happy with the news.
“He is obsessed with makin’ pancakes,” Keela said to me. “It’s his thing as of late.”
“Not just any pancakes,” Alec corrected. “The perfect pancakes.”
“What is the perfect pancake?” I quizzed.
“I’m glad you asked.”
Keela’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not.”
Alec ignored her and focused on me.
“The perfect pancake requires skill. Any moron can make a basic pancake, but it takes a true master to use his talent to execute the perfect circle of roundness, the right consistency of fluffiness, and of course, the correct ratio of golden brown.”
I blinked. “I just pour the batter in the pan, wait till it bubbles, then I flip it.”
Alec curled his lip up in disgust. “I expect nothing less from a rookie.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, pancake master. Make me one of these perfect pancakes.”
“Your wish is my command.”
He then proceeded to make a bunch of pancakes, and when he put one on a plate in front of me and handed me a fork, I cut off a piece and tasted it.
“Well, Lana, is it the perfect pancake?”
Alec leaned closer after Keela spoke and asked, “Is it?”
“I already regret sayin’ this … but yeah, it is.”
“Aha!” Alec shouted and spun to his fiancée. “I told you!”
“That was the hardest thing I have ever had to admit in me entire life.”
Keela snorted. “It looked like it physically hurt ye’ to say it.”
“It did.” I bobbed my head. “Like I swallowed acid.”
Everyone chuckled but then quietly ate the pancakes Alec made. After we had all eaten, our conversation resumed.
“Do you think you’ll become a dad today?” Ryder quizzed.
“No,” Alec answered with a grunt. “The kid is too snug in there. I’m worried the baby will come when I’m not around. I’ve been thinking about how Keela can reach me if she can’t find a phone, and I’ve come up with an idea.”
I gave him my full attention.
“I can’t wait to hear this.”
He ignored me.
“Storm is untrainable,” he began, “but Tyson isn’t, so maybe I can train him to find me when Keela’s water breaks.”
“And how are you going to pull that off, Mystic Meg?”
“I’m talented,” Alec stated, narrowing his eyes at me. “I can impart wisdom easily enough.”
Bull. Shit.
“If you manage to train Tyson to find you when Keela’s water breaks, I’ll give you a hundred euros and call you Lord Alec for a whole month.”
“Deal!”
We shook on it, and it amused everyone. The twins became restless then, so I handed Jules back to his parents, and the four of them returned home, leaving just me, Damien, Alec, and Keela in the kitchen. Alec and Keela were cuddling and being cute, whereas I wouldn’t look at Damien even though I felt him staring at me. Alec noticed this and, of course, called us on it.
“Trouble in paradise?”
I snorted but said nothing.
“We’re just fine,” Damien said, his tone sarcastic. “Aren’t we, baby?”
“Fuckin’ dandy.”
Keela blinked. “I love when you curse. I think it’s sexy.”
I grinned. “Fuck a duck.”
“Stop it.” She giggled.
“What can you two possibly argue about?” Alec asked. “You’re still in the honeymoon stage.”
“Oh, I think we jumped that ship a while ago.” I snickered. “Right around the time Damien became a walkin’ arsehole when he doesn’t get his way. Isn’t that right, Jack Frost?”
Keela widened her eyes at me, then flicked them to Damien behind me.
“Oh,” she whispered. “This will end in angry sex.”
“I can assure that it most definitely will n—Damien!”
“Yup.” Alec snorted as I was twirled around, picked up, and tossed over Damien’s shoulder before he stalked out of the room. “It most definitely will end in angry sex.”
I smacked my fists on Damien’s behind and shouted obscenities at him as he climbed the stairs of Alec and Keela’s house. He brought us to the first guest bedroom, slammed the door behind us, and quite literally threw me onto the bed. I smacked my hands against the mattress in outrage, but before I could push myself into an upright position, Damien leaned over me and crushed his mouth against mine. He bit down on my lower lip, and when I opened my mouth to yelp, he plunged his tongue inside.
I was furious with him, but by God, I was so turned on by his forcefulness that I kissed him back with a raw hunger. He’d behaved this way only a handful of times, and it was always when we were fighting. This was what I liked to call Damien fucking me into submission. As he kissed me, he pushed my dress up, pulled my underwear from my body, and then busied himself with yanking down his own clothes.
“What did I tell you I was going to do to you whenever you caught an attitude with me?”
I licked my lips. “You said you’d fuck me.”
“Yeah.” Damien glared down at me. “I said I’d fuck you.”
He moved down my body, and I cried out when his tongue lapped against my clit, before it slid lower and plunged into my pussy. He tongue fucked me until my eyes crossed and my hands fisted the bed sheets under me. When he removed his tongue from me, he replaced it with his cock. I opened my eyes and locked them on his as he pushed into me. We both moaned in unison. He wasn’t gentle as his fingers bit painfully into the flesh of my thighs, and I didn’t want him to be.