Chapter 2: Daddy and His Peach

January 2040

The little brown dust particles in the room danced in the light of morning, never really reaching me, just floating almost mockingly above my head. Mark was still sleeping, his deep even breathing the only sound in our room now that Hazel had scurried out of bed to meet her brother in the living room. It was a weekend ritual. The kids would watch cartoons together in the morning until they were too overcome with hunger to ignore their growling stomachs any longer, which was usually around the time Mark could finally be roused from his slumber.

Mark stirred, but I didn't move, scared to force him awake after a long week of working in the office. Mark's job for the council kept him busy 60 hours a week, paperwork for a new casino, contractor agreements for the expansion of the school, complaints against so-and-so, the agenda seemed endless. So on the weekends, his only days to sleep in, I couldn't bring myself to wake him early, even though I craved his presence even more intensely by the end of the week.

"Jordan, kiss me, Babe," he whispered, his voice was husky with the last vestiges of sleep and it cracked on the very last syllable. I smiled the lip-cracking kind of smile only Mark could really induce in me. He rolled closer resting his head on the pillow I had previously shared with Hazel, it still smelled like her: sweet peach cobbler, my very own piece of Southern comfort in the middle of the Olympic Peninsula.

I leaned in, moving to take claim of his addicting lips when his hands snaked under my t-shirt lightly grazing my flesh and making me instantly hard and alert.

"She'll be coming back in here with Eli as soon as they're hungry," I reasoned, but I found myself inching closer, craving even just a few more moments of this closeness. Mark Uley, son of the famed Sam Uley, my husband or "life partner" was impossible to resist in any given situation. The enticing soft curve of his bottom lip was like a magnet to me, but couple that with his adorable bed-head and the deep reddish pillow creases on the side of his face and I was done for.

We hadn't had any or I should say many close encounters since Hazel had arrived more than six months ago. The first few days she slept in her room, not comfortable enough with us to convey the message that sleeping alone scared her, but once she opened up, she was in our bed every night.

Mark joked it was because of the big flower bed now taking center position in her room, that it was cursed, but it was beyond comforting that she had reached a point where she was so at ease with us. She knew we loved her and would protect her, and as happy as that made me, it did stop pretty much any of our opportunities to be intimate, physically at least. Spiritually, Mark and I were intimate to our very core and in every simple movement. When we made breakfast together and when we walked or laughed together, we were united, but it didn't completely quench the want for physical intimacy as well.

I leapt on him, straddling his leg as I went in for a kiss. His tongue peaked past my lips seeking mine, the pointed tip drawing a slow circle across my taste buds. Nothing in the world tasted better than my husband, years together and nothing had changed that.

"What can we do in under ten minutes?" He asked rolling us onto our sides and pulling at the band of my shorts to stuff his cool hand down the front, grabbing onto my now pulsing hard member. I hissed from the almost forgotten sensation of his touch. I couldn't say we hadn't found creative ways to be together, though they usually involved bathroom quickies and stolen touches at pack parties, but they were few and far between and I found myself wanting him on a much more constant level.

"I won't last ten minutes, it's been so long," I panted as he brought his hand down to the base flicking his wrist in a fluid motion. He smirked, kissing along the side of my face while his thumb worked across my head which was now slick with desire.

"Let's have a countdown then shall we?" He chuckled increasing the speed of his strokes. "One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three Mississippi," he breathed in my ear, his warm breath sweeping over my neck in a sweet caress. I trembled, my body quaking under the skill of his hand.

"Mark," I moaned, struggling to keep my voice down. Eli would not be able to hear us even if we screamed out in pleasure, but Hazel's pristine toddler ears would pick up anything that outstripped her Saturday morning cartoons.

"You made me lose count," he purred, starting again from eight where my heart had started its crazed increase. When he reached eleven I stiffened trying to control my breathing, but it was too late. I exploded against his hand and he sighed, lying on top of me to reach for the tissues on the nightstand.

I buried my face in his chest, my cheeks now heated in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"Don't be. God, I miss this," he moaned as I moved to remove his pants under the thick blue comforter. He reached into our cabinet beside the bed, going for an easily recognizable bottle of lubrication, the sight of which made my stomach clench in anticipation.

"I love you," I whispered my proclamation to the silent room, thrusting into him with relative ease and with a beautiful familiarity. We moved in an orchestrated dance, having joined together so many times, yet it never grew old. I wanted him as powerfully and with as much passion as I had the first night we made love.

"We need time away," he practically begged as I reached between us, grabbing onto his stiff erection, which felt like warm skin pulled over unforgiving steel. The erotic feel of him as he twitched and throbbed beneath my palm brought me closer to the brink.

"We can ask your mom." The sentence came out fragmented, disjointed through frantic thrusts and rapid pumps of my arm, trying to bring him to speed with my now over sensitized state of being. Every molecule of me was now humming, vibrating faster as they attempted to break free.

"She—takes Trisha's girls—o-on the weekends. Ugh! How about—Kim?" He sputtered, squeaking Kim's name as I switched positions, flipping him over in one brisk movement. He held the headboard as my thrusts got wilder, my primal need for him increasing as his smell became more prominent, the small beads of sweat that formed on the small of his back being the culprit.

I leaned in, tracing the thick black outline of his marriage tattoo with my tongue. His skin was ever so slightly briny, with hints of his natural flavor, which permeated his being. Releasing a puff of warm air over his damp skin caused goose bumps to rise across his shoulder blades and down his arms while his back bowed and his body became taut with his approaching release.

"I'll call Kiiim!" He joined me in a simpering cry before he fell flat on the bed below me.

"Da!" Eli's scream on the other side of the door was accompanied by the swift knocks of little fists. Our morning was over, but hearing Hazel's adorable giggles made it hard to be disappointed.

I rolled off of him, adjusting my clothes and making my way towards our little angels. "What do you want for breakfast Marcus?" I called back to him, but he was already at my side, grabbing my hands and opening the door to face the mob together.

We found a babysitter on Sunday, a very willing one at that: Rachel Black-Lahote. Rachel having had only one child of her own, was always willing to give a helping hand. Sowe took Hazel, all bundled against the chill in her fashionable pink coat, to the Lahote house.

Rachel met us in the driveway, pulling Hazel up quickly in her arms and promising her safety before we left, each of us kissing one of her adorable, chubby round cheeks first. I watched in the rearview mirror as she stared after our departing car while we drove away and only the prospect of spending some much needed quality time with Mark prevented me from turning around and going back for her.

Mark and I had not left her for more than an hour at a time in the months since we had adopted her and in a weird way it was as if we didn't know what to do. Since Eli had arrived we hadn't actually done much recreationally. Our time was spent as a unit, a trio of dudes just doing our thing. We had forgotten how to be on our own, as a couple, and it took us quite a while to figure out where we could go.

The zoo was the final decision. We had both not gone in years and never in the winter, when most of the displays would be closed, but the lush greenery and the clear paths made it a nice place to just enjoy ourselves for the afternoon.

The idea actually came from Levi. He and Krista had taken Eli and Ava to the zoo last month for the annual Christmas light show as he had each year since Eli became a part of our family. They'd tried to coax Hazel into going with them, but she'd refused, not wanting to leave without me and Mark. It would have been a perfect opportunity to spend alone time with Mark as I know Levi intended it to be.

As much as I constantly craved Mark and longed for more chances to be physically intimate, I honestly hadn't minded missing out when Hazel stayed behind. We probably would have been too worried about her being away for a whole day to properly enjoy the time anyways since Levi didn't have very much experience with a child as young as Hazel or even with her since he had been occupied with other things in the past few months.

We ate junk food, nachos covered in the kind of cheese that could barely be called cheese, fried chicken, burgers with pepper jack, cheesecakes bites dipped in chocolate and covered with chopped nuts and crazy smoothies topped with whipped cream.

"God, I haven't eaten like this since—shit, forever," Mark moaned, rubbing his now distended belly and falling back against the fluffy white fleece blanket we'd laid in the grass, so that it looked as though he was laying on a cloud.

"Since Eli came and you stopped phasing, when we decided to live healthier lives. Do you miss it?" I asked lying curled to his side. It was a layered question, his feelings on no longer being a wolf, about how our lives had changed since we'd become a family.

"Not for a second… I—sometimes miss the possibility, but what we have is… great."

"The possibility of what, Marcus?" I asked rolling him over till his face was level with mine. He kissed my chin, a soft perfect kiss which he moved to my mouth just as quickly.

"The possibility of forever, of eternity with you… I don't think one lifetime is enough." The wind picked up, cooling his bare skin under my hands as I held him, and I brought him in tighter, trying to transfer my heat to him. I had not stopped phasing until two years after him and the side effects of being a wolf, the heat, the healing, the permanent youth, had not left me yet.

"I… then it shouldn't be," I whispered boldly. We had made the decision to age for Eli, but as time went on, the realization that I would one day lose him stayed glued in the far recesses of my mind.

"Suggesting we go vamp? It's all the rage now," he joked poking me in my overly stuffed belly, which made me grunt.

"Yes, becoming a blood thirty mosquito… sounds very glamorous," I laughed darkly.

"Then… do you want to start phasing again?"

"Do you?" I deflected the question wisely and he cocked his head to the side, chewing on his pink bottom lip and my eyes followed the movement. He looked young still, though part of that was the filter I saw him through, in which he never aged and never looked anything but gorgeous.

"I've… thought about it," he answered honestly, sitting up to watch me closely.

"And?" I prodded, sitting up to meet his eyes. His phone rang, cutting our conversation short with the melodic tune that denoted one of the wolf girls. It was Rachel.

"Is she okay?" Those words with his concern made my heart plummet to the soles of my feet. As a father, I worried probably more than I should.

"What happened?" I asked him uneasily, watching him carefully as he listened to the voice on the other end.

"We'll be there as soon as possible," Mark promised looking at me with dark, angry eyes and it was easy to see the tempest brewing in them as a shadow crossed his face spurring me to life.

"Is she hurt?" I was already packing the litter from our picnic in a bag, my heart beating hard against my chest, knocking a frantic, erratic tempo.

"She's fine, just upset. Rachel thought this was a good time to force Trisha's girls on Hazel," he hissed as the last bits of rubbish and the blanket were cleared away. "Sammy did something, Rachel didn't say what, but she's howling like a banshee." We were in the car by the time he finished explaining.

I speedily wove through the city traffic; cutting people off without a care, too anxious to reach the open roads leading back home where I could easily race towards our waiting daughter. When I reached them, I drove so fast the roads looked pure black and the trees were a permanent blob of green.

His phone rang again when we were minutes from town, it was Hazel. He tried to soothe her, speaking slowly and lovingly to our little girl, but she wanted me. I wouldn't say Mark and I picked favorites, both of our children were precious, made more precious by the fact that we could not have them ourselves, but they chose favorites in us; I was Hazel's.

"Daddy!" She howled into the phone as soon as I placed it to my ear. The pain of hearing her so upset was unimaginable, locking my chest in a vice grip and shattering my heart.

"Oh, Peach, I'll be there so soon. Please don't cry," I reasoned with the tiniest Uley-Varn. She sniffled, and I could almost see her, fists balled trying to regain her composure before she burst into heartbreaking tears again.

"Daddy, fasta." Her thick baby accent had taken time to get used to, and truthfully only I had mastered it, so hearing my daughter's desperate cries for me to hurry was like a shot in the ass. I hit the gas, stomping down until it wouldn't go anymore and with a desperate, jarring screech I halted in Rachel's driveway, not bothering to close the door as I rushed to my angel.

"Daddy! Daddy!" Hazel broke away from Rachel, her chubby little legs working back and forth rapidly till she reached me.

I pulled her to my chest, not listening or interfering as Mark and Rachel argued behind me. Hazel was a lot more sensitive than Eli and she took careful introduction. Her cousins, David's daughters, were a few years older and a lot more rambunctious.

I turned away from them, cradling my most precious jewel in my arms protectively.

"Daddy, home."

And her wish was my command.