Page 2 of The Auction: Bonus Epilogue

My breathing is fast and hard and I shudder and blow out a breath. That should tide me over until I can get my wife alone later.

Showered and dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, I follow the smell of pancakes and bacon and find Eliza, Eric, and Lottie in the kitchen. Her ass is swaying as she and Eliza sing Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid.

Eric is shaking his head. At fourteen he finds this hugely embarrassing. Yet when it comes to Eliza, he’s putty in her hands as much as I am.

“Why do they hate me, Linc?”

I pat his shoulder and shake my head as Lottie passes me my coffee just the way I like it. “They don’t hate you, buddy. They just like to torture us a little. It’s like a sport for them.”

“I can hear you, ya know.”

Lottie places a plate of pancakes on the table and before she can walk away I pull her to my lap and she giggles. God, I love that sound. “I haven’t had a kiss this morning.”

Her eyes go soft and she dips her head to mine. “I’d better remedy that then.”

Her lips are soft as I slide my tongue along the seam, loving the way she opens for me with so much trust. Kissing Lottie is like a slice of heaven. I could kiss her for hours and for the first few weeks after Eliza graced us with her presence, we’d do just that.

“Gross.”

I pull away and glance at Eric who’s covering Eliza’s giggling face with his hand.

“You wait, buddy. Soon this will be you.” Lottie gets up and I run my palm along the almost imperceptible swell of her belly.

“Not too soon, right.”

As we eat breakfast the chatter around me calms me in a way I never thought this kind of scene would. Eric is heading off to school and my mom is coming over to watch Eliza. Today is our first scan at the hospital to check and make sure the pregnancy is going as it should.

Lottie has been worried by the lack of symptoms. She was so sick with Eliza and while she hated it, she now says she preferred it because she at least knew all was well. I personally think she’s just done that magic trick women do of forgetting all the trauma of pregnancy and birth.

I’m not sure I feel the same way. Eliza being in this world is the best thing to ever happen to us. How she went about it not so much. The pain my love went through still haunts me. The screams and the blood from where they’d cut Lottie to help Eliza out was still etched in my mind like a war victim.

Beck had even said I looked shell-shocked and that I wasn’t the first father to wear that stunned expression for a few days in his experience.

We’rein the waiting room and Lottie’s knee is jiggling with nerves. “You excited?”

“Yes, are you?”

Her lips roll between her teeth, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders and hold her hand across my lap. “I am but I’m nervous. What if we get in there and they say there is no baby? Or that I imagined it all. I have zero symptoms.”

“Just seventy-five thousand positive tests in our bathroom drawers at home.”

“Hey, don’t mock me. You were just as bad.”

“Fine, I was as bad. Need me to distract you?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Her voice is low and suggestive, and I want to take her up on the silent invitation but fucking her in the closet of the hospital will have to wait for another time. Lottie is voracious in her appetite for sex, and I’m only too happy to satisfy it.

“Cut that out, you sex fiend.”

Her laugh is musical and light to my ears. “You love it.”

“I do love it and I love you.”

“Linc.” Her fingers pull my head close, and she lays a light kiss on my mouth. I close my eyes and savor it. I’ll never take this for granted. “So, distract me.”

“Want me to tell you what I’m going to do as payback for leaving me with an aching cock this morning?”