HONOR
3 YEARS LATER
“So how’s this going to work?” I ask, perching on the edge of the bed in our mega-sized master suite. We decided to knock through three bedrooms to make a space large enough for us all to feel comfortable about six months into my living at Montgomery House. It accommodates absolutely everything we need, including a huge bed that fits us all.
“You tell us,” Nate says. Dressed only in black boxers and sitting with his legs spread and his head resting on his hand, he reminds me of the sculpture entitled The Thinker.
“Well, I guess there are a few options.” I put up my hand to begin counting as I brainstorm all the different ways they can approach impregnating me. This isn’t quite the sexy start I was hoping for, but I’ve learned to be patient and accept that four people in a relationship just takes a softer approach. “You could all get involved so that no one knows who the daddy is or, as I’ve always wanted more than three children, I guess you can all take turns to make a baby with me.”
Kylian’s standing with his butt resting on his walnut desk and rubs his hand over his face as though the conversation is wearing on his last nerve.
“If that’s the option you choose,” I continue, “you could work in age order, either ascending or descending. Or you can throw dice, or draw straws, or toss a coin.”
“This is exactly how I pictured putting a baby in my wife,” Kylian groans.
“Nah.” Lyle tosses a pillow at Kylian, but it misses and drops to the hardwood floor. “You probably imagined something with a lot more rope.”
The wolfish grin Kylian shoots me tells me Lyle’s hit the nail on the head. These days Kylian has forgotten his desire to punish me for the past, but that hasn’t stopped him from being his dominant self. Lucky me.
“Honor’s right to ask us what we want,” Nate says.
Kylian pushes away from the desk and stalks across the room, looking like a panther in his black joggers. The tattoo that runs from his right hip across to the left side of his chest always makes my heart ache. Four birds fly free, inked onto his skin in a permanent reminder of our journey. Nate and Lyle have similar tattoos, Nate’s across his back and Lyle’s up his right arm.
And me? I chose to have them inked across my heart.
To my surprise, Kylian drops to his knee in front of me, lifting my hand and pressing it against the warm skin of his chest. “What do you want to do, Honor? This is your body we’re talking about. We get to have a whole load of fun at the start of this process, but it’s you who has to do the hard part.”
“Kylian,” I whisper, touched by his thoughtfulness. “I just want to know that you’re all happy. This is a decision that lasts a lifetime. We need to do it right.”
Kylian looks first to Nate and then to Lyle. “My brothers are my flesh and my heart. Their child would feel like my child, and I know they’d feel the same.”
Nate moves to sit on my right and Lyle on my left, both resting their hands on my thighs. I glance at Lyle, seeking reassurance. He nods his head subtly, his soft smile crinkling the corners of his soulful dark eyes. “We do,” they say in unison.
Kylian continues. “So, it doesn’t matter about drawing straws or rolling dice. It doesn’t matter about picking who goes first and who goes last. It just matters that we’re making a family with you.”
I blink as tears burn behind my eyes, and I feel a pang of guilt for thinking that Kylian would be as possessive about this decision as he can be about other things in life.
“I feel the same as Ky,” Lyle says.
“Me too,” Nate agrees. “I can’t imagine doing this without my brothers involved. It wouldn’t feel right.”
Letting out a tense breath that’s been trapped in my chest, I turn to kiss Nate first, then Kylian, and finally Lyle.
“Is it what you wanted?” Kylian asks, “because if not, we can think again.”
“It’s what I want,” I say firmly. And then, with a smile, I start to shimmy backward on the bed. “You guys better get ready, though. The time for talking is over. I’m ovulating right now.”
LYLE
My brothers and I share an unusual moment of hesitation before we descend on Honor. It’s clear they’re feeling the gravity of the situation as much as I am.
Together, we’re going to create a new life. We’re going to bring someone new into the family we’ve formed.
The memory of Honor as a young girl running through the garden flashes in my mind, the long golden waves of her hair bouncing behind her. I hope we have a little girl who looks just like her, but there’ll be plenty of time for speculation. Nine months starting today, if things go well.
After a brief glance at each of us, Nate twists to follow Honor toward the middle of our massive bed. I join the two of them, and Kylian is close behind, the three of us taking up our favorite spots, though there’s no part of her body that isn’t worthy of daily worship.
After slipping off her silky shorts, Nate wastes no time burying his head between her legs, his tongue parting her folds, her back arching at his first contact.
I stretch out along the length of her, my leg tangling with hers, my palm finding her breast, and my mouth seeking her lips. She smiles at me as I move in, and I see the weight of the moment reflected in her eyes.
We’re not just having fun today. We’re not just making love. We’re forming another bond between the four of us.
I stroke her cheek and cup her chin, holding her face steady even as my brothers already have her body starting to writhe in pleasure. “I love you, Honor. I always have, and I always will.”
“I know,” she says, her soft voice filled with emotion. “I love you, too. All of you.” Her gaze flickers to my brothers and then returns to me as I claim another kiss.
My hand again finds her breast, my fingers toying with her nipple in the way I know she loves, as Kylian sucks and bites at her other one. Between the three of us, she’s soon moaning into my mouth, growing impatient for more.
Nate reads her signs too and pushes his boxers down as he takes one last taste of her before moving into position, lining his cock up at her entrance. He looks at Kylian and me again, wanting to share this moment with us, then his eyes find Honor’s, and he pushes into her in one long, smooth thrust.
The look of pleasure on Honor’s face makes my cock harder than it already was. She watches Nate for a few moments, but eventually, her eyes squeeze shut, and her head tips back in ecstasy as her body responds to him.
The three of us usually go at her hard because that’s how Honor likes it, but today Nate is fucking her slow and steady, each movement deep and purposeful. He doesn’t last as long as usual, either. Just after making Honor come, he empties himself and stays inside her a long time afterward. With a kiss on her forehead and her lips, and declarations of his love, he finally moves away, making room for me.
Honor’s smile as I enter her is possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The way her eyes lock on mine as I start to move in her makes me feel like a superhero and reminds me that I’m the luckiest man in the world. Well, one of the three luckiest.
I don’t last long either. The idea of filling Honor, of turning this into something more, makes it too hard for me to hold back. I get her off with a finger pressed against her clit, and as her pussy pulses around my cock, I let go, pumping everything I’ve got deep inside her.
When Kylian goes last, he often gets impatient, and I wait for him to say “my turn” as I linger inside Honor, but he doesn’t rush me. When I finally pull out, with hopes that my guys are Olympian-style swimmers, I brush my lips against Honor’s and am rewarded with another incomparable smile.
As my oldest brother moves between Honor’s legs, he grins. “Guess we’ve got better odds here than most.”
“Three times the chance,” Nate agrees.
“I don’t know…” Honor says, her cheeks flushed with pink. “Just to be safe, I think we’d better keep trying all night long.”
NATE
“Don’t forget to breathe,” I say, feeling ridiculous in the green gown and cap the hospital made us wear.
“Yeah, Lyle, you look like you’re about to pass out,” Kylian says with a smirk. Truth be told, Lyle’s face has lost all its color. But he’s not my focus right now.
“I was talking to Honor.” Despite the strain on her face, she looks beautiful. Her eyes are fierce, like a warrior woman. Good—she’ll need that. No matter how much we love and support her, this is something she has to do herself.
A new obstetrics nurse comes in, and we have to go through the routine again when she asks why all three of us are in the room.
“Family tradition,” I explain. “For the firstborn in each generation, members of the prior generation attend the birth.” It was lame, but we wanted the medical staff to focus on Honor and the baby, not our unconventional relationship.
Besides, the four of us are very clear on the matter, and that’s all that matters. Kylian, Lyle, and I consider Honor to be our wife. And she thinks of us as her husbands.
“Squeeze my hand if you need to,” Kylian says. We’ve told people that he’s the father, but in actuality, none of us knows for sure. And none of us care. All my brothers and I care about is that the baby and Honor are healthy.
Honor gasps and the OBGYN tells her to push. Kylian’s face turns white while Lyle’s is well on its way to green. But this is what we trained for. “Get on her other side,” I snap at Lyle. After a moment, he does. He pushes her hair back from her face and gives her a kiss on the forehead. Luckily, the medical staff is preoccupied because they think he’s her brother-in-law.
“Hold her legs,” I say. Ky and Lyle should know this. We spent countless hours preparing for this moment. Despite the gravity of the situation, Kylian smirks. Hold her legs is something we tell each other quite often in a different context.
A doctor tells her to push, and Honor cries out as she bears down. She’s squeezing my brothers’ hands for all she’s worth, and I see them try not to wince. I always thought that was a cliché when it happened in movies, but apparently, it’s a real thing.
Thirty minutes later, Honor is exhausted. She’s slumped against the pillow, her alabaster skin covered in sweat. The tension is showing on Ky and Lyle’s faces, too. All three of us would take this pain on if we could—but this is something she has to do on her own.
When it’s time to push again, it’s clear she doesn’t have much left. I meet Kylian’s eyes, and he nods. “We’re going to take the best care of this baby,” he tells her in a low and steady voice. “We’re going to make sure the baby has a happy, healthy, and safe life. Nothing is going to keep us from giving this child everything we lacked when we were kids. I promise you. We’ll do our very best.”
“We will,” Lyle says, and I say it too.
“But right now, you’re the only one who can help the baby get its start in the world. Once the baby’s here, we’ll shower it with love, but right now, it’s all on you, Honor.”
“We know you can do it,” I add. “You’re going to be the most amazing mom ever—and that starts right now. You need to push with all your strength so that we can meet our child.” I’m beyond caring what the doctors and nurses think about our relationship. I stroke Honor’s bare calf. “You’ve got this, Mama.”
Tears pool in her lashes as she nods. She visibly gathers her strength, and then she bears down, her entire body tensing.
“Good,” one of the nurses says. “Do it again, just like that.”
I grasp her ankle as she gives the biggest push yet. I want to touch her as she brings our child into the world. My brothers and I shower her with words of encouragement that I doubt she even hears—but she doesn’t need to. She’s completely focused.
She’s got this.
Then there’s one more push—and one more scream—and then there’s a baby in the doctor’s arms. I’m completely in awe of the new life we’ve created. I’m in awe of the strength of my wife.
And I’m totally in love with this new tiny person. “It’s a boy,” I say.
Tears flow freely down Honor’s cheeks as Ky and Lyle give her a kiss. “You’re amazing,” I hear Lyle tell her.
When the baby is placed on Honor’s chest, I know the cycle is broken. This beautiful little boy won’t know neglect and torment. He won’t know the devastation of parental cruelty. All he’ll know is love.
I can see the love in the room—it’s almost visible, vibrating around us like sonar. The doctors and nurses don’t matter. All that matters is our exhausted little group—Honor, Kylian, Lyle, the baby, and me.
We’re a family, and we always will be.
That’s the only thing that matters.
KYLIAN
ANOTHER 4 YEARS LATER
“No, Oliver.” Honor’s patience is wearing thin at our son’s bossing around the other kids at his three-year birthday party.
I know there’s no good way to tell, but there are days when I wonder if I might’ve been the lucky one to knock up our sexy wife the first time. He’s so willful and determined to be in charge in a way that feels eerily familiar. I can only hope that I can be the kind of father that ours never was.
No, not hope. I will be.
And that means teaching my–our–son that he can’t always be in charge, and even if he’s the oldest of hopefully several, it’s not his job to always run the show. Or to take the brunt of the kind of abuse that he’ll hopefully never encounter. Not if I have any say in it.
While Nate and Lyle are herding the other kids into a game of tag out in the yard, I pick up Oliver to bring him into the quiet sitting room for a little one-on-one. Man to man, if you will. Honor’s look is thankful before she’s distracted by one of his friends wanting another hot dog. Fancy estates and rich families don’t matter. Kids still love the basics.
Our little talk is short. If nothing else, the attention span of a fresh three-year-old can only handle so much when there’s tag, cake, and hot dogs on the line. I do get a solemn promise to behave out of him before I let him go. Not without paying the hug-tax first, though.
I never thought I would suit this whole fathering thing. Fuck, the complete opposite, honestly. With the kind of upbringing we had, I wanted to make sure I never came in danger of taking that pain and propagating it to another generation. But here I am, and I’m even enjoying it. We all love Oliver, and he loves us, but I always felt like he and I have a special connection, something a little extra. Maybe every father feels that way. Maybe I’ll ask the others someday, but for now, I’m just enjoying it.
“I can’t believe he’ll listen to you,” comes Honor’s voice as she hugs me from behind. I put my hands on hers and feel their warmth on my skin. She presses her head against my back.
“We have better and worse days.” I let out a little chuckle. “I distinctly recall the battle of peas and carrots hill the other night, and I still think I lost that one.”
She laughs with me, vibrating pleasantly. Maybe once Oliver is in bed—
“You’re good with him,” she interrupts my train of thought.
“Maybe I was destined to be a father after all. Who’d have fucking thought?”
“I sure hope so. With another one on the way and all.”
“Yeah, exactl—wait, what?” I whirl and grab her giggling form by the upper arms. “What did you just say?”
“I probably should’ve waited until after the party to tell all of you together, but I couldn’t hold it in. So I hope you meant what you said.”
I squeeze her close. “Fuck yeah. You keep having kids, and I’ll keep taking care of them. We’ll take care of them.”
After squeezing me back, she slips out of my hold. “I have to go spring it on the others too,” she says with a mischievous grin.
Holy shit. My mind spins but in a good way. “I’ll deal with the kids while you lure Nate and Lyle away, then.”
“Good boy.”
Now, if I’d only heard more of that growing up, but it’s never too late to make up for lost time.
I’m not my father, and thanks to Honor, I never will be.
(C) Stephanie Brother 2022
