Baby Makes Three (Harrisburg Railers Book 10) Read online

  “Mm,” I replied, allowing my head to roll to the side and rest on his shoulder so he could feast on my neck. “You know we don’t have to do this in the morning now that Isobel is pregnant.”

  His fingers were magic, working me up to having a raging hard-on in mere seconds.

  “Maybe I like jerking you off in the morning. We won’t worry about finding a sterile cup.” He bit down on my shoulder. I hissed then rocked into his hand, my fingers slipping back around to find his hips. I tugged him into me, moaning when his cock slid up between my ass cheeks. “How badly do you want to come, Ten? Tell me.”

  A groan bubbled up out of me. He was rough as he pumped me, rolling his palm over the head of my dick, smearing pre-cum over my length as he flicked his hips up and down.

  “Pretty badly,” I confessed, eyelids closing as I gave myself over to him. We’d been married for several years now and still his merest touch set me on fire. “Really badly.”

  “Stupid late flights,” he huffed, his cock gliding between my cheeks while he worked me faster and faster. My fingers bit into his hips. “God I love watching you get close, babe.” A spark lit off at the base of my spine. I rocked back into him, gasping as my orgasm sat just out of reach. “You look incredible, so wanton, so masculine. My beautiful husband.”

  My balls drew up. I turned my head to beg for a kiss. Jared knew what I needed; he always knew. His mouth captured mine in a sloppy kiss. I jerked and covered his hand with spunk. He groaned into my mouth, his tongue knotted with mine, then blew his load all over my lower back.

  “Oh shit,” I panted, my cock pulsing. He gave me a few slow tugs then lifted his fingers to my face. Watching him in the mirror as he smeared my warm spunk over my lips was intense. Then he twisted my head toward him and cleaned it off with long, hungry swipes of his tongue. Then he dipped inside, licking at my teeth and tongue as if starved.

  “Okay, I am not going to be worth shit at morning skate,” I sighed after the kiss ended. His smile was pure ego. “Yeah, yeah, you the man.”

  “Keep that in mind the next time you start on about all the gray whiskers.” He patted my backside then led me to the shower. It was a tight fit. Most hotel showers weren’t made for two burly hockey players. I loved the gray coming into his hair and beard. Those silver hairs turned me on. Everything about Jared got me hot. It had always been that way.

  When we turned off the water I stole one final kiss. As Jared reached for the towels someone pounded on the door.

  “I swear if that’s Adler with another stupid plunger,” Jared huffed.

  I snorted in amusement. Adler had been really into this whole “Plunge Pittsburgh” media campaign that he swore Layton had come up with but we all knew it was him. He’d been the first to use the hashtag. Now every store in Harrisburg was sold out of plungers. Fans tried to bring them to the games back home. It was plunger chaos. And we still had to beat Pittsburgh now, in their own dojo. We’d arrived in the Burgh tied at one game apiece in the eastern conference semifinals.

  “Chill out, gramps. I’ll get it. You find your Metamucil and take a big gulp. It’ll help put a smile on your face.”

  He slapped my ass playfully as I darted out to the room, found a pair of shorts, and yanked them up over my wet ass. Grinning widely because life was fucking great, I yanked the door open to find Stan waiting. He’d just come up from the hotel swimming pool. His wet hair and the smell of chlorine was a surefire clue.

  “Ah, I think to give up for knocking and suppose that you and Jared are making wild bison sex. I get ready to go back to my room and see if Erik is waking up yet. But you are not fucking like ferrets, so I come in and talk!”

  The big man pushed past me, waved at a still naked Jared, who slammed the door in Stan’s face, and then flopped down in a padded chair by the desk.

  “Won’t you come in?” I tossed out.

  “I have already come in. Is your brain not working fast yet today?” His gray eyes narrowed.

  “Nah, buddy, I’m fine. I was being sarcastic.” I sat on the end of our king-sized bed. “What did you need to talk about?”

  “Well, I am having Mama and then all children go through attic. We have much baby things. Hundreds of tons! Clothes, cribs, little baby walker things with wheels that baby races around in.” He made his fingers walk to show me how the baby walker thing worked. I chuckled. “We also have cranky baby swing thing, and clothes. Toys! Many boxes of toys! I tell Mama to pack up all the things for little newborn and send to you. When we are home you will find boxes up to ceiling in garage. You are welcome. I can see you are happy beyond making words. This I do for you as your best friend. Also, we need attic space.”

  “I uhm… wow!” I said, stunned at the mental image of what our garage must now look like. “Thanks!” I held up my knuckles and he rapped them soundly. “You didn’t have to do that. We were more than happy to go buy new for him or her.”

  “Pah, for yes I did. You are my best friend on team. Stuff is good, like new, only a few bite marks where Noah chew on crib rail.” He chomped his teeth. “Other than bite marks, like new for the coming little one!”

  “Well, thanks. Oh, hey, are you up for a Pokémon team meeting during lunch? Rumor has it the new Pokémon Go! is about to launch.”

  “Ah! Yes, I am so big for going in the Pokémon!” He pushed to his feet. Jared exited the bathroom, his cheeks pink from being caught with his ass showing. “Hello. You are looking red in face. Did you take bad hot shower?”

  “No, it’s from shaving.” Jared padded over to the dresser, his towel tightly knotted around his waist.

  “But face is full of whiskers. I bring you new razor! Sharp like Ginsu TV knife!”

  And off Stan went in search of a Ginsu razor for Jared.

  “How can he be so chipper so early in the morning?” Jared asked.

  “He’s just one of those kind of guys. Oh, and we have a garage filled with baby stuff. Not sure where we’re going to put all the crap Brady and Jamie and my mother are sending. Maybe we can open a used baby goods store.”

  He chuckled softly. I rolled to my side to enjoy the view as he dropped his towel and rummaged in his bag for underwear. For a man creeping up on forty his body was fucking stunning. Tight, firm, still thick with muscles. Nice hockey bubble butt and meaty thighs.

  My dick was perking up as I looked at him. His phone began to buzz on the desk. Figuring it was Ryker calling from Arizona, I flopped to my back and began thinking of breakfast, and the game tonight. I felt that I needed to do better for our team. It had been a few years since we’d last clinched the Cup, and some of our players were getting older. We had a window this season that we might not have again for a few years. I’d only gotten one assist in the last game and that wasn’t good enough. The Railers were depending on me to—

  “Yes, no, stay there with her.”

  I sat up on the bed, all musing of hockey fleeing as Jared’s tone was troubled. Had something happened to Ryker? His ex?

  “Isobel is bleeding,” he whispered and my whole world sort of skewed off-center.

  “Bleeding? Like…you mean womanly bleeding?” Ugh, I was stupid. How could I possibly be a father if I couldn’t even use proper medical terms for female anatomy. What if we had a daughter? Jared nodded. I shot up off the bed. “We’re going home. Now.”

  “Tennant, hold on, please. We can’t just fly home during a playoff round unless it’s a verifiable medical emergency,” Jared said then resumed talking to Eddie. I raced around the room, whipping clothes I’d dropped on the floor back into my suitcase. “Yes, please, let us know what’s happening. Give her our love and best wishes. Thanks, Eddie. We’ll be praying for her.” He moved to me, stilling my mad packing with a hand on my arm. My gaze flew from my suitcase to my husband. “Ten, stop. There is nothing we can do right now. Eddie is with her in the ER. They’re going to check her out thoroughly to see if they can find the cause.”

  “Is she going to lose the baby?” It was all
I could think of. I’d spent so many nights lying next to Jared, my cheek on his chest, as we planned and dreamed of our child. If we lost him or her now I just…I didn’t know what I would do.

  “No.” He sounded sure but his sad eyes betrayed him. “I hope not. Ten, there are lots of reasons women spot during early pregnancy.”

  “Like what?” I refused to stop packing; he could eat my shorts. I had them right in my hand.

  “Well, I’m not sure but there are. When Ryker’s mom was carrying Ryker she had a small scare.”

  “Yeah?” I stalled, the panic subsiding.

  He nodded. “Let’s give the doctors time to check Isobel out. We’d only be in the way, adding to her stress, if we were there.”

  “I am not stressed!” He crossed his arms and gave me that patented Jared Madsen arched eyebrow. “Okay, yeah, I might be stressed.” I flung my shorts into my open suitcase then flipped the lid shut. “What if she loses the baby?”

  He sat on the bed then tugged me down beside him. “If that happens, which we will pray it doesn’t, but if it does then we’ll try again in a few months.” He draped an arm around my shoulder then kissed my damp hair. “We need to send good vibes to her though, so let’s try our best to think positive thoughts, okay?”

  “Sure, yeah, of course. I’ll think good thoughts.”

  We sat there for a few minutes, soaking up each other’s strength. I did my best to send out healing vibes but fear made it hard to keep the good thoughts at the fore.

  I ate something during our team breakfast. What kind of food I had no clue. It filled me up. Jared sat beside me, talking to Dieter about some ice skating forum that Trent was attending in Amsterdam. They thought they might spend the summer there if he could talk Trent into leaving his rink in Philly for that long of a time.

  Morning skate was a mess. I was unable to concentrate and I gave up pretending I was fine. I made up some lame excuse about having a stomach ache from the late night run we’d made to Primanti Brothers as soon as we’d gotten to the hotel. One did not spend time in Pittsburgh and not hit up Primanti Brothers. There was a law, I think.

  I showered alone, which was a blessing, as my mood was dark and dour. I couldn’t stop thinking about Isobel and the baby. We had a garage full of stuff. Hopes and dreams. I’d never felt this connected to one tiny person in my life. I’d thought my love for Jared was mind-boggling, and it was, but this was something different. Just as strong, but different. I scrubbed at my sickly beard, using my fingernails to rake out the sweat from my time on the ice.

  “Tennant,” I heard Jared calling over the rushing water. I closed my eyes, rinsed the soap from my face and body, and then shook like a dog. “Ten, Eddie’s on the phone.” I blinked the water from my eyelashes, cranked off the taps, and then grabbed a towel from the mound by the door. I studied my husband’s face intently as I closed the distance. “She has a yeast infection which caused the spotting.”

  “Oh.” I had no clue what that even was. Like, was that sort of something similar to athlete’s foot for a vagina? God I was stupid. “The baby?”

  “Is fine. Come here, they want us to listen to something.” He led me from the massive shower room to the dressing room. My wet feet were making squeaky noises in my Crocs. “Okay, here.”

  He handed me his phone and I placed it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Tennant,” Isobel said. She sounded okay. Not in pain or anything. “I’m sorry to have scared you. Everything is fine with the peanut. Just some spotting from the infection.”

  “Yeah? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, the doctors are positive. They’re listening to the heartbeat now during an ultrasound. Would you like to hear?”

  Jared smiled and leaned in close, kissed my cheek, then rested his head next to mine. “Yeah, we’d love to hear the heartbeat!”

  I tipped the phone so Jared could hear clearly. At first I couldn’t really figure out what I was hearing. I was expecting that thump-thump-thump of an adult heartbeat. But this wasn’t at all like that. It was a swishy, rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that made my eyes get teary. Jared coughed lightly then we both sort of fell into each other’s arms in relief.

  “Thank you, Isobel! Thank you so much,” I gushed, hanging on to Jared for dear life.

  “You’re welcome. I am so sorry for scaring you. Jared told Eddie that you were going to fly home to be here. That’s just… well, it’s really sweet. We have pictures from the ultrasound. Would you like them?”

  “Yes! Please, thank you again!”

  Then the image from the ultrasound arrived on Jared’s phone with the ping of an incoming message. We studied the black and white picture for a moment. I turned the phone this way and that but couldn’t see a baby.

  “Here, this is the baby. See this little person with tiny limb buds and a super-strong heart. He gets that from you,” Jared teased, but the worry of the heart condition was one of the reasons we’d used my baby batter.

  “Oh wow, it’s like the most beautiful little person with limb buds that I’ve ever seen. Do you see a dick?”

  He laughed out loud as I squinted and brought the phone close to my nose.

  “It’s too soon to tell, but I agree, it’s a beautiful little person.”

  “Ah man, that’s our kid!” I kissed him on the mouth and ran out of the dressing room in only my Crocs and a towel. I had to show the rest of the team our baby. I bumped into a female reporter, blushed hotly, and then ran back into the dressing room for clothes and my husband. Together we waited, hand in hand, for the Railers to leave the ice and fawn over our baby. Our. Baby.

  Chapter Three

  Jared

  June

  The desolation was real. Game seven and we’d been outplayed by a determined Carolina team who now advanced to the final. The series had been so close, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better team out there, but the silence in the locker rooms was heavy. There had been shining moments in my journey as coach when I’d said exactly the right thing to motivate, and sometimes it meant I had to lie. Coach could tell the men that we had a chance against a team on a hot streak, or that injuries didn’t matter, or that we were destined for great things. I could stand there and give a rousing defensive player speech about chance and fate, but as I glanced at Ten, at the way he was hunched in on himself, I knew no one could face the men in this room and not tell the truth.

  “Well, shit,” Coach Benning said.

  Adler slipped off the bench and sprawled on the floor, exhausted, gripping Stan’s leg to hold himself steady, and Erik was red-eyed. That was just the guys close to me, but it was Ten I focused on as he glanced up at me with exhaustion lining his face. My husband had played his heart out on that ice, the same as everyone, but we had to accept that this year wasn’t our year.

  “You did nothing wrong,” Coach began.

  “I let two goals to net,” Stan said.

  “I fucked up in that last check,” Erik sighed.

  “I’m too slow,” Adler moaned.

  “It was chaos in the third,” Arvy added.

  Only it was Ten who summed up how they probably all felt. “I wasn’t good enough.”

  Oh fuck. That last bit broke my heart, and I had no idea what to do to make it better. We knew the taste of success, we’d lifted the cup, we knew we could win, but we had to face one very important thing, that tonight we tasted loss and it was bitter, but it wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Teams didn’t win every freaking year, they were lucky if they got two in a row, but that was hockey.

  Coach widened his stance. “They were the better team, and they got the luck tonight.”

  It was very simple really, one lucky bounce, a defender who got too close to Stan, and that second puck had hung suspended in the air with a life of its own, before slipping through the tiniest space. With only twelve-seconds on the clock, even with a time out, I knew at that moment we’d lost. We challenged but it was eventually called a good goal, and even
pulling Stan there was no way we’d get a second try to score in those remaining seconds. The heart never left the team, they tried for every second, Ten on a rush, Erik right by him, but it wasn’t enough.

  I was just as destroyed, but for now I needed to be strong for them all, and I wished I had the words.

  “Next year, boys,” Connor stated simply, the reason he was captain on display. He stood, and paced around the room, still on skates, sweat dripping from him, his hair flat to his head, tapping the shin of each player. He had mentions for all of them, things they’d done in the game, and when he got to Ten he paused the longest, waiting for Ten to look up at him. When he did, Connor went to an awkward crouch. “You are good enough, Tennant Madsen-Rowe. We all are. We’re the best freaking expansion team they’ve ever seen, and I tell you something for nothing, next year it will be us hoisting the cup. You hear me?”

  I waited for Ten to argue, to lose himself in self-flagellation, but instead he gave Connor a half smile. “You know that for sure, Cap?”

  Connor nodded, and then stood awkwardly, before appearing next to me. “We rocked that ice, we just didn’t have the luck.” He began a slow clap, and at first everyone stared at him as if he were losing his head, but he didn’t stop until each of the rest of the team began to join in. Then the clapping became determined and each man rose to his skates, and the weight of loss shifted a little. It wouldn’t disappear for a long time, for some of the guys on the team, including Connor, it might well have been the last chance before retirement, but every man in this room had fought for a championship ring and fought hard, and we needed to remember that.

  The media interviews were rough. Connor didn’t demand anyone accompany him, as captain he would be expected out there, but Ten followed him automatically, along with Stan. Questions flew about the makeup of the team, about the coaching choices, about that final goal, but Connor handled it all with quiet, responsible answers.