When it was their turn to step up, the clerk looked through their paperwork and started to type it into her terminal.
“Will you need change of name forms?” she asked.
“I will,” Ron said before Ivan could even think to answer. He smiled down at him. “I can’t wait to be Mr. Dr. Mercado. My parents threw me out. I don’t owe that name anything. Besides, you’re a doctor. It’d be hard for you to change everything. I’m going to hyphenate it to the end of mine for my certifications and stuff, but I’m yours.”
“I thought I was yours?” Ivan barely remembered not to call him Sir in front of the clerk.
Ron smiled. “You are. But this is to show the world it works both ways, baby.”
Three days later, it was the two of them with Kimbra and Eve, Meri, and Wynn back at the clerk’s office. It was actually Kimbra who married them in the small room off to the side.
And, in a surprise to Ivan, Ron produced not just wedding bands, but a lightweight stainless steel necklace with a clasp on it. Ron’s steady gaze pierced through him. “So you have something to put your wedding ring on when you need to take it off for work. Less chance of it getting lost.”
Fortunately, Meri and Wynn were taking pictures and video for them, because all Ivan could focus on was Ron.
Kimbra kept it short and simple, and when Ron slipped the wedding band onto Ivan’s finger, Ron then brought Ivan’s palm up to his lips and kissed it.
This happened fast, but all doubts about it had fled Ivan’s soul.
Nothing had ever felt right until Ron entered his life.
Everything about Ron and this and them felt right. Yeah, it scared him, but it scared him in good ways now.
* * * *
Ron barely knew what the hell he was saying. He just repeated what Kimbra told him to say.
All he cared about was that little band of metal now residing on his boy’s finger.
The man belonged to him, officially, legally. That was all Ron cared about.
He didn’t owe his parents jack shit, not the way they’d tossed him out. Of course he’d change his name to Mercado. Not like he needed to match Meri, anyway. Once she married Wynn, she’d be changing her name, too.
The Dutton kids finally finding the true love they’d sought.
“Can we take you out to dinner?” Kimbra asked when they all exited the county clerk’s office later.
“Another night, maybe.” Ron had been holding Ivan’s hand, and he gently squeezed, smiling at him. “We’re going to go home and play doctor.”
Everyone except Ivan groaned at the joke.
Ivan winked at him.
They were no sooner through the front door and had closed it behind them than Ron had Ivan pushed up against it, pulling at his clothes, hungrily devouring his mouth in a possessive kiss. Ivan was trying to help get Ron naked, too, and they left a trail of clothes behind them on their way to the bedroom.
Ron rolled on top of Ivan and reached for the tube of lube he’d left on the nightstand. “Want you inside me, baby,” Ron said as he slicked Ivan’s cock.
Wasn’t the first time his boy had fucked him, but he especially wanted it tonight. To show Ivan he meant it—that they belonged to each other.
This week had been a slew of good days on top of each other—fortunately—and it was only fitting to do this today.
Ron loved the way Ivan’s expression grew soft, needy, his lower lip clenched under his teeth as Ron slowly impaled himself a little at a time on Ivan’s cock. Bare tonight, and he was enjoying the sweet burn as his ass stretched and adjusted to Ivan’s cock.
Ron’s cock twitched with every bit of Ivan’s cock that sank deeper inside him. He leaned forward and pinned Ivan’s hands to the bed when he tried to reach for Ron’s cock and help him out.
“I’ll explode if you do that, baby. I’m in charge. You just lie back and enjoy it.”
The restraint only made Ivan needier, trying to flex his hips in time with Ron’s motions. Ivan had wanted Ron to start experimenting with bondage on him, but other than using leather cuffs sometimes, Ron was hesitant to do that with him. He worried about making him sore, especially his arms and hands. Ron worked with his hands, but Ivan’s hands were his work. He couldn’t be stiff or sore like that when he sometimes had to be in surgery for hours at a time and performing the most delicate of procedures.
Those sweet, soft hands closed around his. “I won’t last long, Sir.”
“I don’t need you to last long, baby. I just need you to put a load inside me.” When his ass met Ivan’s thighs, Ron held still for a moment, nearly giggling at the pitiful sounds Ivan made while Ron flexed and clenched his ass around the other man’s cock.
Except he was close, too.
He leaned in for a kiss, then nibbled his way down the side of Ivan’s neck, over his left pec, where he bit down hard.
His boy came unglued, the orgasm catching him by surprise and Ron mentally giggling as he milked it from him with his ass even as he bit and sucked on Ivan’s flesh.
Finally, he sat up. “Hands stay over your head.” Ivan still squirmed under him, though. Ron fisted his cock and started stroking. Pre-cum already leaked out, smeared between them. He reached down with his free hand and ran his thumb through it, then up to Ivan’s mouth.
He sucked Ron’s thumb like it was the man’s cock.
“Mine,” Ron gasped as his cock exploded. Cum splashed all over Ivan, over his abs and chest, over the old teeth marks and the fresh one.
As he caught his breath, he used both hands to fingerpaint it all over his boy, ending by drawing a heart over Ivan’s with it.
Ivan clasped his hand over Ron’s and sat up, hooking his other behind Ron’s neck and kissing him. “Yours, Sir,” he whispered. “Only yours. And you’re mine.”
Ron laid him back down on the bed, kissing him. “Only yours,” Ron whispered against his mouth. “Forever.”
* * * *
Ivan expected their move from Ron’s into Eve and Kimbra’s would take a while.
Except Lara was a realtor and managed to find them a buyer the day Ron listed his house.
Which kicked off a frantic frenzy of packing and moving.
Including one last fuck the night before they were making the big move over to Eve and Kimbra’s in what would soon not be their bedroom anymore.
“I know I haven’t lived here long,” Ivan said, “but I’m going to miss it. It’s the first place we made love.”
“Me, too,” Ron said. “But think of it this way—we’re going to have a big house pretty soon. New rooms to break in and make our own. The first place that’s ours. We’ll be the first ones living there.”
“I’ve never lived somewhere like that before.”
The thought of having a family of his own, a new house—these were things Ivan still struggled to pound through his brain, that they were really happening.
The struggle grew easier every day, though. Especially once they were living with Kimbra and Eve.
And every doctor appointment, he breathed a sigh of relief at the ultrasounds of their babies, who were growing right on schedule in perfect ways.
Their babies.
All of them had fallen into the pattern of referring to the babies as “theirs.” There was no biological distinction now between them as far as the four of them were concerned.
Ivan also understood now exactly how and why Leo and his pack could live together and co-parent the way they did.
Eve was having trouble deciding names, but Kimbra already knew what she wanted. “I want a mix,” she told Ivan. “Maybe Momma’s name and either your mom’s, or your grandmother’s maybe. Amaleeza Rosa?”
“Amalee Rose,” he said without thinking, then turned to Ron. “What do you think, Sir?”
“I love it,” Ron said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Me, too,” Eve said.
Kimbra smiled and pulled Ivan’s hand onto her tummy. “I think we have a winner,” she said. “Now if so
meone will get off her keister and make up her mind.” She arched an eyebrow at Eve, who blushed.
“I don’t make decisions fast. You know that.”
The other three of them burst into laughter.
“We know, baby girl,” Kimbra said. “We know.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was early on a Sunday morning, and Ivan had, as usual, slipped out of bed earlier than anyone else and went to make himself a cup of coffee. Outside it was storming, pouring rain and gusty winds from a frontal system blowing in off the Gulf and set to bring them rain and nasty weather all day. They were supposed to go over to the new house today to look around and check the progress, but that couldn’t happen with this weather.
He’d pulled on a pair of PJ bottoms when he got up, too. Maybe Eve and Kimbra were cool with him running around naked, but he wasn’t. Not in front of them.
If it was just him and Ron, sure.
The new house probably wouldn’t be ready until shortly after the babies were due, that much Ivan knew. But it would be nice having a private space of their own, their own coffeepot and small breakfast bar right there by their bedroom.
A little sitting room just off their bedroom where they could play without being heard from the kids’ bedrooms.
Once the kids were older and moving around on their own, they’d lose that privacy unless they locked the door.
Except Ivan wouldn’t mind that at all.
He was surprised to hear a bedroom door open while he was waiting for the pot to finish brewing. He stuck his head around the end of the kitchen counter to see a very exhausted-looking Kimbra waddling her way down the hall.
“You’re up early, ma’am.” He kissed her on the cheek, his hand automatically stroking her tummy through her T-shirt before she climbed onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.
“I didn’t sleep good.” She winced. “I don’t feel good, either.”
Every vestige of sleep evaporated from his system. “Don’t feel good how?”
“My back, for starters, but that’s to be expected.”
“What else?”
“Headachy. Just…don’t feel good.” She wiggled her feet and hands. “And I’m blowing up like a damn balloon today.” Her hands and feet looked slightly swollen from yesterday, more so than what had been normal for her.
Her face looked puffy, too, which he didn’t like at all.
As if he was at work, Ivan departed and Dr. Mercado arrived. He grabbed his phone to use the timer to take her pulse, then retrieved the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope from the first-aid kit he’d put together for them.
He didn’t like what he found, taking it twice more before noting it on his phone.
“What?”
This man could take charge and stand up to Kimbra without trouble. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Like what?”
“We need to wake everyone up and get you to the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because your BP’s up.”
“What does that mean?”
“It could mean nothing, or it could mean pre-eclampsia. We need to get you checked in and put under observation, just in case. I want them to run some labs to see for sure.”
“I just need coffee, Ivan. I’m going through caffeine withdrawals. And some breakfast.”
“No, that’ll raise your blood pressure even more. And you can have some sips of water, but I don’t want you eating anything yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because if they need to do something, it’s better if you haven’t had anything to eat. Like for the labs,” he fibbed. “They’ll want fasting numbers.”
He didn’t want to scare her yet with the possibility of a C-section.
She tried to give him “the look,” but he propped his hands on his hips and gave her his “doctor stare.”
Check and mate.
Kimbra blinked first, bursting into tears. “I’m scared. I haven’t felt good since late yesterday. I’m only thirty-one weeks!”
He stepped in to hug her. “Even more reason for us to go in and have you checked out. Everything might be fine. You might be egging Ron on tonight caning my ass for putting you through a scare over a false alarm. And I’ll gladly take every stroke you tell him to give me. But we can’t risk her or you.”
With an arm around her, he coaxed her off the stool and back down the hall. He rapped twice, hard, on their door as he passed, on his way to the master bedroom with Kimbra.
They’d reached Kimbra’s door when Ron opened their bedroom door and stuck his head out. “What’s going on?”
“Get dressed,” Ivan said. “We need to have Kimbra checked out.”
Twenty minutes later, they were piled into Ron’s car with the women in the back seat. Eve and Ivan both tried to comfort and calm Kimbra. Ron had already called the doctor, who’d meet them at the hospital.
“You are sooo lucky you don’t share a bed with me, Ivan!” Kimbra snarled. “I would have neutered you twenty times by now, if you did!”
Ivan glanced over at Ron, who was desperately trying to hide his smirk.
Unfortunately, Ivan’s own chill was quickly waning without anything for him to actually do at that moment. “Do you want me to call Momma and Papi for you?”
“Don’t you dare! I don’t need them freaking out just to find out I need coffee.” Kimbra shot him nearly lethal stink-eye.
Ivan had pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, but he’d had the forethought during his rush to leave the house to grab his work bag, in which he kept a change of clothes and his lab coat and employee ID. So when Ron pulled up to the ER entrance, Ivan pulled on the coat and strung his ID around his neck while he ran to grab a wheelchair for Kimbra.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to “treat” Kimbra, but he wasn’t above playing dirty to try to hasten the process of getting her admitted. Fortunately, the triage nurse knew him and waved them through to a bed while Eve stopped at the desk to do paperwork. Ron could join her after he parked the car.
“Make sure they get brought back here as soon as they finish paperwork,” Ivan told the triage nurse.
“Who are they?”
“My husband and Kimbra’s wife.” He turned, unable to contain his smile. “And Kimbra’s having my baby, so I’m going to exert a little physician’s privilege to make sure we all get to stay in here.”
“I’m not having this baby today, Ivan!” Kimbra groused.
He turned back to her while the nurse went to go fetch a fetal monitor. “You might be, honey. We need to get labs on you.”
An hour later, after blood and urine tests, and an ultrasound of the baby, the obstetrician stood at the end of Kimbra’s bed and wore an expression Ivan thought of as doctor-grim.
“I’ve already called and ordered an OR be readied,” he said. “You’re definitely in pre-eclampsia, and we need to deliver that baby now for both your sakes.”
Kimbra burst into tears again. “It’s too soon!”
“She’ll be a little small and need to spend at least a couple of weeks in the hospital, but I cannot risk her life or yours. She’s got really good odds in her favor at this point.”
“Can’t you give me something for it to treat it?”
“Yeah,” Ivan said. “A C-section.”
A nurse stepped in and said something to the obstetrician, and he nodded. “I’m going to go scrub in. They’ll come get you in a few minutes.”
Kimbra focused on Ivan and Ron stepped aside so Ivan could lean in and kiss her forehead. “Honey, this has to happen. Do you think I’d let them do something that wasn’t necessary?”
“But she’s so little!”
“I know.”
“Promise me you’ll stay in there.”
“We’re all going to stay in there with you. You’re in my dungeon now, ma’am.” He smiled. “But we need to call Momma and Papi and everyone and let them know what’s going on.”
Kimbra nodded.
Les
s than an hour later, the waiting room was over half full with people mostly there for them, including Walt and Holly, and Ivan had ducked out to his locker, changed into surgical scrubs, and was scrubbed in and gowned and standing in front of Kimbra, holding her hands as the anesthesiologist administered the epidural. They’d bring in Ron and Eve once Kimbra was on the table and right before they were ready to start.
He hated the fear in Kimbra’s eyes, wished it didn’t match what he felt but had such great experience hiding.
“You’re doing great, sweetie,” he said as her grip painfully tightened on his hands.
She squeezed her eyes closed, tears running down her cheeks as the man did his work. This was one area Ivan wasn’t as experienced in. His patients went to sleep on their backs, or were already out by the time he got to them, depending on the circumstances.
This was the first epidural he’d witnessed since rotations, and his first personally vested one.
Once they had Kimbra on her back, a nurse brought Eve and Ron in, both of them in gowns and masks.
Ivan didn’t want to watch the actual procedure. He stayed at Kimbra’s shoulder, looking down into her eyes and trying to keep her calm and focused on him. That’s why it surprised him just moments later when he heard a baby cry.
He looked up, his vision blurring for a moment as he blinked back tears. One of the nurses held her cradled in a surgical blanket. He knew they’d have to clean her up before he could hold her—if he could hold her yet—and evaluate her.
Still, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
His personal miracle.
The doctor’s gaze met his over his mask.“You want to come cut the cord, Dad?”
“Papa,” Eve, Ron, and Kimbra all said at once before they started laughing. “He’s Papa,” Kimbra added. “Ron’s Daddy.”
Ivan nodded and stepped around to take the scissors from the nurse.
The baby looked so tiny, not even three pounds, he was certain. He cut the cord and couldn’t help staring at her. “Hey, sweetheart. Welcome to the world.”
He started to return to Kimbra, but she shook her head. “Go stay with her. Don’t you dare leave her.”