Chapter 10

ten

DEE

Introducing Boomer to his new home has been a challenge, but Robbie has quickly made himself invaluable.

“I love dogs,” he explains. “I always had one growing up, but now, I don’t want to leave one at home while I’m at work all day.” He grins. “So maybe I can just, you know, borrow yours sometimes.”

He gives me tips to stop Boomer from pulling on walks, and helps me install a bell on the door so eventually, the dog can tell me when he wants to go to the bathroom. I’m not sure how a dog could figure that out, but Robbie assures me that dogs are quick to learn.

Boomer, on the other hand, does not have much interest in learning. He simply stands at the door and gives a little whine when he wants to pee, so after a while we take the bell down. Then he takes his time sniffing the same spot he always loves to sniff, and I stand there enjoying the morning air until he’s finally sniffed every last inch of it.

One Saturday afternoon, Robbie invites Boomer and I over to enjoy some sunshine on the back patio. Robbie owns a townhome fairly close to my apartment, with a tiny backyard perfect for lounging and watching Boomer play with his new toy. He thrashes his head back and forth as it squeaks in his jaws, and it’s possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

I do miss beer on days like today.

“You know, I never asked what you do for work,” I say to fill the silence.

Robbie shrugs. “It’s boring. I’m an account manager, and I handle some of our more high-priority clients and teach them how to use our software.”

“Yeah, sounds boring,” I agree. Robbie quirks his eyebrow at me, then turns back to Boomer.

“You’ve never explained what your job is,” he says after a time. So we both know that I’ve been cagey about it. I’ve tried to avoid the question as long as I can, but now he’s asking me point-blank.

“Well, uh...” Shit. I didn’t want to have to tell him this soon. Maybe the sex wasn’t mind-blowing, but he’s an all right guy. Not the sort of person I see myself settling down with, but maybe that’s because there’s only one creature in the world with whom I could have ever seen that future.

Bill.

Which is insane, now that I think about it. All we did was fuck—twice. I don’t even know what his face looks like. And I have to explain that to this guy I’ve just met?

“Is it something illegal?” Robbie asks at my silence. “Are you a criminal?”

I snort-laugh at this. “No, no. It’s all above-board.”

“‘Above-board’?” he asks, bewildered. “Is there a chance that it could be below-board? ”

I shrug helplessly. I guess I have to fess up now if I don’t want him to think I’m a mobster.

“I’m, um...” I want to say, A wolfman with a great dick bred me full of his cub . Instead, the words that come out are: “I’m a surrogate.”

Robbie blinks. “A surrogate? Like you bid for people at auctions?”

Now it’s my turn to stare. “What? No. Like, uh, you know.” I gesture downwards at my abdomen. “Like, babies?”

I can see the moment it clicks because his mouth falls open. He gapes at me as his eyes travel down to my flat stomach, then back up again.

“You’re pregnant?” he asks. I think the best description for his face is flabbergasted . “Seriously? With... some random person’s kid?”

I nod slowly. “Yep. That’s my job. Incubating for the next... eight months now, I guess.”

There’s a quick flash of disgust on his face, but he quickly hides it. I suppose I should’ve expected that—and maybe I should have told him before he slept with me—but I can’t take it back.

“Huh.” He thinks it over for a long moment, and then his lips quirk up. “I didn’t know that was a job.”

I offer him a shrug. “Yep. People who can’t have kids on their own hire me. It’s through an agency, though, so it’s all anonymous.”

I thought that would make it better, but his eyes go wide. “So you don’t even know the parents?”

I’m one of the parents , I want to say. But at the end of the day, I won’t be. I’m more of an egg donor, if I’m being honest with myself.

“Nope,” I finally tell him. “Really, it’s just a job. It definitely pays better than my last one. ”

I can already tell Robbie looks at me differently now, which I expected. I guess if he asks me to leave, I know how better to go about the next relationship, if there is one. I’ll just be up-front at the start.

After a few moments of thought, though, Robbie’s eyebrows lower and his mouth curls on one side. “So, basically,” he says, “you can’t get pregnant again.”

It catches me off-guard. “Well, uh, no. Generally that’s how biology works.”

“And you’re going to carry it for the whole nine months?”

I’m about to correct him by saying actually, it’s ten , but stop myself. The last thing I need is to add fuel to the fire and reveal that the father of my baby is a wolfman.

“That’s the plan,” I say cheerfully.

Robbie’s rather wicked smile spreads further. “You know, it’s always been kind of a... hm, fantasy of mine.” He sets down his glass of orange juice and gets out of his chair. “To have sex with a pregnant woman.”

My eyes must get as big as saucers when he says this, because Robbie’s mouth closes and he stops moving towards me.

“Is that weird?” he asks. “I feel like that was weird.”

“Hey, man,” I say, raising both hands. “I’m not going to kink-shame you.”

With an even bigger, almost ominous grin, he reaches the other side of the table and holds out his hand.

“Good. Then I have some things I’d like to do with you.”

“All right.” I accept it, because maybe it will ease my need for just another night. Robbie leads me to the back door of the house, and we go inside.

But as he gets on top of me and slips in his human cock, I can’t keep my mind from wandering. He thrusts in and out, and I make the appropriate sounds, but I know that something is missing.

I wonder where Bill is tonight.

Is he fucking some lady wolf? Or even another human, like me? But I get the sense that if that were an option for him, he’d never have come to DreamTogether in the first place.

Perhaps it’s cruel of me, but believing that he’s alone lets me hope that maybe, just maybe, he’s thinking about me, too. I don’t want to imagine him with anyone else, or what his life might be like beyond our two brief dalliances.

I want him to be trapped in that moment in time so that he’s still there someday, if I can find him again.

RUSS

When I get off work the next morning, I’m nearly dead on my feet. I desperately need some sleep—but first, I need to go by Dee’s house and see if she’s home yet.

I’m not going to go throw a rock at her window and ask her to come out on the balcony or anything. I just need to breathe in her fresh smell, and see that she got back safely from wherever she went today.

But when I pull up in front of the duplex, her car still isn’t there, and when I get out and sniff the air, her scent is even fainter than before.

It unsettles my stomach. Where could she be that she was out all day and all night? My hackles raise, imagining what could have happened to her out there in the world. But I’m much too tired to try to track down her car, so I drive home and stumble my way up the stairs and into my bed, simply hoping that she’s all right. I’ve never thought thirty-six was “old,” but right now I certainly don’t feel like a young cub anymore. My legs ache and my paws are almost raw on the bottom, but it was all worth it now that I know where to find Dee next time.

I’m up after only five hours of sleep, because my body knows that today is a day for action. We’ll be reunited with her, and then finally, I can sleep soundly with my mate in my arms.

I make sure to clean up first, taking a long shower where I soap up all my fur, working my claws through it, and then I even spring for conditioner. When I’m silky soft from head to toe, including my tail, I rinse it all off and hop out of the shower. Then I shake, flinging droplets of water everywhere. There’s a good reason my whole bathroom is tile with a drain in the middle.

I usually let myself air dry, but I need to get going, so I pull out the dryer and stand in front of it. But when I’m finished and peer at myself in the mirror, I’m horrified to find that my thick, brown fur is completely fluffy all over.

I can’t deal with this right now. Grabbing a brush, I put some kind of hair product in it and run it through my fur, trying to push it back into place. Becoming presentable takes a good half hour, and even then, I look like a bow slapped on a pig.

This is not how I wanted our first meeting as our real selves to go.

I manage to brush my teeth and then I head out the door, just as it’s starting to become late afternoon. When I finally make it to her place on the other side of Aston, it’s almost sunset.

Her car is here this time, thankfully. Like before, I park around the corner. I want to be as unassuming as possible. I don’t think she’ll find me threatening—she did sign up to let me fuck her and then carry my cub—but I don’t want to come on too strong, either.

Shit. I should’ve gotten flowers.

No, no. This is better. That would be coming on too strong. I’m dressed in a basic t-shirt and jeans, hoping to keep it casual. She seemed like the kind of woman who lives casually.

I feel like I know so much about her, and then also nothing at all. What if in real life, she’s not like she was on the breeding bench? Will she be horrified to see my face, rather than just feeling me behind her?

This was such a bad idea.

But I’m too far in it now. If I have even a ghost of a chance at being with Dee, putting myself out there is completely worthwhile. Maybe she turns me down, but at least I’ll get to see her up close, and know that she and my cub are safe here.

I’m about to step out into the street opposite her duplex when a car pulls up to the curb. A human man gets out, with brown hair that’s been a little too manicured, and a scrawny build. Well, I guess any human has a scrawny build compared to me.

I retreat back onto the sidewalk as he heads to the duplex, goes up the stairs, and knocks. Then the door opens, and I see her.

Amanda . It’s Dee, with long, dark hair pulled into a thick braid over her shoulder, and a face I’ll never, ever forget.

She has wide blue eyes, so big it feels like they could swallow me. Her forehead curves into an adorable nose, above a mouth with pouty lips. I couldn’t imagine any creature more beautiful. Not even my fantasies compare to what she looks like in flesh and blood.

Dee doesn’t spot me down on the sidewalk, so I scurry to the edge of the nearest house and step into the long, afternoon shadow. There, I watch as she leans forward, and the man standing at her door meets her halfway to kiss her on the lips.

The growl pours out of me before I can stop it. Both of them jerk, eyes darting around at the noise. I quickly duck around the corner toward my car, then climb in. I don’t realize I’m panting until the windshield starts to fog up.

She has someone. Someone who isn’t me.

My mind is ablaze with angry questions. Did she already have a partner when she let me fuck her full of my cub? Did I not have a chance to begin with? Or has she found this pathetic human man since her time with me?

Damn it. I squeeze the steering wheel tight. I fucked up by coming here. I should never have gone looking for her. I just didn’t imagine that...

What? That she had an entire life that existed before me, and she would have another one after? That’s an impossible ask. Her world doesn’t revolve around me, a total stranger. It was meant to be anonymous.

And yet, every last one of my instincts is rioting, demanding that I go back to that house and tear that man apart, limb from limb. She is mine , and surely she knows it.

I shake my head rapidly and plop my forehead onto the steering wheel. I can’t behave like that. I can’t even have thoughts like that. But it would be impossibly cruel of the world to match me up with the perfect woman if I can’t have her .

But that’s not why I’m here. I curl my hand into a fist and breathe deeply. I’m here to keep anything from happening to her. I’m here to make sure no danger comes near her or my cub.

I don’t have to be in her life to do it.