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As his hand smoothed the lotion across the wide, pale expanse of Elias’s belly, Jon asked, “Shouldn’t the sire be doing this?”
“Unfortunately, he’s currently out of the country,” Elias replied.
“And he’ll be back…when, exactly?” Jon looked up from where he was kneeling between his legs, laying irritation plainly across his face. Given the angle, he could barely even see Elias’s face over the gravid swell of him; it wasn’t helped by the fact Elias wasn’t even looking at him, attention bent to the expense reports he was currently looking over.
“I’m afraid even I don’t know that,” he said, marking something with a pen. “The nature of his work is…unpredictable.”
Jon warmed another palmful of lotion between his hands. It was heavy, rich, smelled of coconut, giving Elias’s office a faint tropical air that was very much at odds with the overabundance of dark wood and antique books.
“Does he know?” Jon asked, and that got a look thrown his way, albeit a sharp one.
“Of course he knows, Jon, I saw to that. Honestly, what do you take me for?”
Jon chose to answer that only with a soft snort, and saw Elias’s eyes roll behind his glasses before he went back to work. He reached out, starting at the peak of the stomach that so noticeably strained the buttons of Elias’s suits and sat heavily between his spread thighs now, working his way down to a navel in serious danger of everting. He rubbed a thumb over the red mark that a seam had left in the surprisingly-soft flesh. Elias really ought to invest in some maternity wear. Jon suspected he’d already had his tailor let what he did out as much as he could.
“Just so long as he gets back before your water breaks in the library,” he muttered, then paused, glancing up again. “How far along are you?”
He didn’t need to use his so-called powers to be sure of Elias’s answer even before it came. “This would be an excellent opportunity for you to try and Know, Jon.”
It probably was. Low-stakes information seemed to come so much more easily than things that were actually useful. Sure enough, after only a moment or two of concentrated effort, Jon burst out with an incredulous, “Ten weeks?!”
Elias drew in a long, slow, measured breath, and let it back out again.
“Good lord, Elias.” Jon hadn’t exactly been around many pregnant people. He’d assumed that Elias was approaching full-term, based on size alone. Perhaps it might have caught him as odd that he’d gotten so big so fast, but he assumed he’d “popped,” then there was the fact anything would look enormous on his small frame…
“Infants in the sire’s family tend to run large,” Elias said somewhat stiffly, as Jon ran a hand back to moisturize what was unmistakably a love handle. “And of course there’s the potential for multiples.”
“Even still!”
“I am eating for two.” Elias shifted in his chair. It creaked beneath an ass that had grown nearly proportionally with his middle. Jon knew, having hefted it in both hands quite recently, assuming it a simple perk of pregnancy and the hormones that were making Elias - ordinarily a buttoned-down, slicked-back collection of angles sharp and delicate as blown glass - so soft and round. “And it certainly doesn’t help that since I started showing, everyone in this Institute seems to have taken it upon themselves to shower us with care. Usually of the edible variety.”
“Like bees tending to their queen,” Jon said scornfully. Elias’s smile was small, smug, and very pointed as the pale eyes Jon could barely see flicked to the lotion sitting on the edge of the desk, then down to Jon’s hands, still working it into every inch of him with a diligence he applied usually to research alone. “Oh, shut up.”
“Incidentally, Martin is a wonderful baker.” Elias nodded down at himself. “A good few of those pounds are his doing. I think it especially enjoys his scones.”
“I’ll have a talk with him,” Jon muttered, and did not ask whether “it” referred to the fetus (or fetuses, as the case may be) or Elias’s gut. Although he was very tempted.
“You don’t like it, Jon?” Elias put a hand on top of his own belly, caressing, fingers digging into it. His skin was like satin, the smooth expanse of it almost shimmering, unbroken except for the faint line of sparse hair that began below his navel and disappeared into his unbuttoned trousers. Not a stretch mark to be seen, courtesy of Jon’s exhaustive efforts. “Worshiping at the altar of my gravid belly? Witnessing my ample growth? Tending to every need of both myself and the evidence of my fertility?”
“As if more than ten percent of that’s a baby right now,” Jon muttered, and it was a coincidence, how close his mouth currently was to the curve of Elias’s stomach. “And no, I don’t.”
“No?” Elias raised an eyebrow.
“No. Believe it or not, Elias, I have better things to do with my time at work than take stock of how - increasingly pampered you are during what is barely a pregnancy yet.”
“I suppose you come in here a dozen times a day for your health, then.”
The noise Jon made was not a growl, and he was not nuzzled into the hot, bloated weight of Elias’s full belly when he made it. Elias’s chuckle thrummed through him, and his long fingers carded through Jon’s hair.
“Rosie’s on her way back. You’d better get down to the archives.” There was a smile in his voice. “Wouldn’t want anyone to catch you in here doing this, would you?”
Jon pulled back, stood up, wiped his hands and his mouth on the paper towels that Elias provided. He grabbed one arm, rubbing it aggressively, forcing blood into the skin and muscle there and away from…other areas.
“Wouldn’t want to stick around and watch you gorge yourself,” he muttered, Knowing Elias had sent Rosie out for lunch. “Is the sire even going to recognize you when he gets back, Elias?”
He did not like the smile that prompted from Elias.
“Everyone thinks it’s yours, you know,” he murmured, and Jon straightened, affronted.
“You’re joking.”
“I know. I’ll admit I was offended at first, too.” Jon glared. “But can you blame them?”
Thinking about it - thinking about it honestly - Jon supposed that no, well, he couldn’t. All the trips to Elias’s office, ostensibly so he wouldn’t have to come down the stairs or even get up off his swiftly-growing ass. The hands pressed to the small of his back to steady him as his center of balance rapidly shifted. The time Tim had caught them leaving together. The time Sasha had caught a glimpse of the search for pregnancy pillows he’d left up on his laptop. The time Martin had asked him to bring a cup of tea to Elias and Jon had dressed him down upon realizing it wasn’t decaf.
He’d apologized for the last one at the time and explained he was simply under a lot of stress, to which Martin had given an understanding nod and said he could imagine. Jon regretted telling him he was sorry now.
It went far against his policy regarding how much of his personal life seeped into work, but maybe Jon ought to rethink letting his preferences slip. He had obviously been far too rigid if the entire goddamned Institute thought he was capable of and willing to make a baby with anyone, least of all Elias…
Elias read his thoughts, as was his obnoxious wont. “I know, I know. As if the thought’s ever even crossed your mind outside of awkward first-date explanations. But…you’re certainly not without your avenues for pleasure, are you, Jon?” He smiled up at him, and there was a definite seductive quality to the way that he pulled his reluctant buttons together over his bump. Jon sucked in an involuntary breath. “You can go now; I’ll see you tonight. And do bring dinner. We’re craving Indian and…Greek, I think.”
“Which one?” Jon asked at the doorway, and Elias looked at him, head cocked, hand resting possessively on his stomach.
“Both. Obviously.”