“We should take the walls apart first. Get the wood in there so it’ll stand upright.”
Nat buried his face in the leaves; he was so mortified.
“What’s wrong with Mr. Nat?” Teddy asked.
“I think he’s overwhelmed by wood,” Duke said solemnly.
“I’m going to perish,” Nat said, scooping the leaves onto his head to try and bury himself.
“Just the little deaths, Nat,” Duke replied. “No big ones.”
“What little d—Oh. Oh,gods.” Nat whimpered, rolling around in the leaves. Why was Duke using so many euphemisms? Especially when Nat couldn’t hide his face?
“What’s Duke talking about?” Mallie asked, brushing the leaves off Nat’s face to peer at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Me neither,” Nat lied.
Duke smirked and snapped off some thin branches from the ravaged bushes. He wove them into a low wall, presenting it to Nat.
Duke’s wall wasn’t elegant. But it held, and Nat’s instincts appreciated Duke’s efforts alot.
“This is amazing,” he gushed. Especially when Duke managed to extend the wall with more branches and leaves.
Thrice more, Duke, Teddy, and the shopping cart went back to the trees. They returned with even more twigs and leaves. By the end of it, Teddy and Mallie’s eyelids were drooping, and Nat felt as though he could fall asleep right there.
But they finished their leaf wall. It went a full circle around all five of them, wide enough for Nat to stretch his legs and still have plenty of room.
“I can’t believe you made this,” Nat said happily, snuggling into his leaf wall.
“Is this what you were going for?” Duke asked quietly, intently.
Nat’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. How did you guess?”
Someone coughed lightly. Duke shuffled closer, sliding his arm around Nat’s waist and burying his nose in Nat’s hair.
“I’ll tell you later,” Duke whispered, slipping his fingers under Nat’s shirt to touch his belly.
“Oh!” Nat mumbled when he remembered. “Tell Mallie and Teddy that you’re not going to adopt me and Wanda. Tell them you’re adopting them instead.”
Duke froze. Then he tightened his arm around Nat, and whispered in his ear, “How are you so sure that you and Wanda won’t be adopted, too?”
At that, Nat’s eyes snapped open. “You’re—You can’t be— Adopt?! Me?”
Duke sighed patiently, watching him. “Nat, you just built a nest tonight. For no reason.”
“A nest?!” Nat squeaked.
He sat upright, breathing hard enough that he could think again.
The low wall around them was woven with twigs and leaves. It smelled good. Itwaswhat he’d subconsciously been trying to make.
“Why would I—”
He remembered Duke touching his belly a few times over the course of today. Duke coming inside him without any condom, more than once. Nat had been feeling Duke’s cum leaking out of him for hours.
“I didn’t have a heat,” he said.
Duke pressed his mouth against Nat’s ear and whispered, “Your womb took so much cum last night, Nat, that I don’t think it matters. It’s been filled for hours, my cum trying to impregnate you. The fact that you began building a nest... I think it means something took inside you.”
