The Complete Series Boxed Set (24 page)

As if reading her mind, he whis
p
ered “Marjoram” in her ear, and she giggled.

“It’s true, Dylan. Mike was playing Anthony Bourdain while we were just having more orgasms.”

“‘An
thony
Bourdain’ and ‘orgasm’ don’t go in the same sentence,” Dylan declared, checking under the sheet again. “And…gone. Bye bye, refractory period,” he whi
sp
ered to his own penis with a little wave.

“You wave at your body parts?” Mike teased.

“Only the ones I name.”

Mike had been walking to the doorway, but came to a dead halt. Laura loved how the muscles down his back, ass, and thighs all stopped with pinpoint p
re
cis
i
on, a long assembly line of kinetic perfection.

“You named your—your
penis
?”

“Yep. Every guys does.”

“Uh, no,” Mike announced. “
No, we don’t. Quit claiming to speak for all men.
How did I not know this about you? We’ve known each other forever.”

“You know damn well I named it. You’ve heard me call it by its name a million times.”

Laura’s turn to get confused. “We’ve been together now for long enough that I’d know you named it. What’s its name?”

“‘My appetite.’”

Laura and Mike shared a WTF?
l
ook. “My appetite?” they asked in unison.

Dylan nodded. “That’s right.”

“Why?” they asked.

“Because it’s my appetite!” Dylan said the words as if they were self-explanatory, hands outstretched in a gesture of emphasis.

“What do you mean?” Laura asked slowly.

Dylan sighed, looking at the ceiling. “A long time ago some friends and I were joking around about w
h
at to call our cocks.”

Mike placed a hand on Laura’s arm and squeezed. The look on his face was priceless. Wide ocean eyes looking at her with
incredulity
. “Men don’t really do that. Don’t believe a word he says. I think he binge watched too many bromance movies and this is the result.”

“Not! Not!” Dylan barked. “
I knew loads of guys in college who named their dicks.”
 

“And they tended to be assholes,” Mike drawled.

“Sure, that’s true, but—hey, wait a minute!” Dylan muttered, still not getting up from his position in bed with Laura, furry legs rubbing against hers, her fingertips massaging the soft skin at the nape of his neck. She could stay like this all day, but a quick glance at the clock told her they had exactly on
e
hour and six minutes before they needed to be in the
J
eep and driving back to the main house to take over with
J
illian.

“Assholes. All of them. Frat boy weirdos,” Mike cont
i
nue
d
, clearly enjoying working Dylan into a tizzy.

“
Y
ou’re just goading me,” Dylan said with an eye roll.

“Like shooting fish in a bar
r
el.”

“Who does that? I hate that saying. It’s so strange, because would you seriously dump a bunch of fish in a bar
r
el of water and start shooting
a
t them? Wouldn’t that be the epitome of stupid?” Dylan groused. Mike waved a dismissive hand his way as he left. Laura saw him in front of the grill on the deck, turning steaks over.

“You two sound like a couple of teen boys having an argument,”
L
aura said with a grin.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to go
ba
ck to being a teen boy,” Dylan
said
. “Even with a better refractory period.” He looked under the sheet again with a concerned expression. “Up, boy, up!”

“Your appetite isn’t very big
right now
, is it?”

H
e groaned. “Foiled by my own joke.”

“You make it so easy, honey. Like shooting fish in a—”

“Don’
t
say it!” He
gr
abbed a pillow from under her head, making her thump onto the mattress, and began beating her chest with it, the pounding fun at first, until he started tickling her.

“Stop!” she screamed, the sound coiling out of the bedroom and up over the mountains. At least, that
wa
s how loud it seemed. To her.

“Quit tickling her,” Mike called out. “You know she hates it.”

Dylan pelted her with the pillow a few times, making Laura roll over onto her stomach and bury her head under an un
us
ed white puff.
Mike came to her rescue by laughing and throwing pillows from
the couch at Dylan, until the distinct scent of charred steak wafted into the room.
 

Laura sat up and said, “Something’s burning!”

Mike bolted outside, and she and Dylan froze, waiting with bated breath to see whether their meal had been ruined by playful fun. Wouldn’t be the first time, but marinated steaks lost to overcooking were a tragedy.

“They’re fine! Just in time!” Mike called out, and Laura took the distraction to jump up and throw on her clothes.

“Why are you getting dressed?” Dylan asked with a pout.

“Because the last time I wandered around the deck naked, I had about
two hundred
mosquito bites the next day. One of them managed to get on my labia! You ever try to scratch
that
?”

He leered. “I have a very scratchy tongue. Next time you get one there—”

She threw a pillow at him and left him to laugh. The scent of spices and charbroil made her mouth water. Mike’s naked body was covered in a red chef’s apron, his hand filled with a plate of half-bloody steaks.

“Salad’s over there,” he said, pointing with the grill tongs, “and the steaks are coming up.”

“Dylan should be coming soon.”

“Again? He is so damn competitive sometimes. Three in four hours should—”

“I meant coming
here
. Not, you know....”

Mike’s ire faded quickly. He looked quite adorable standing tall, the apron covering his happy bits, the strange mixture of culinary convention and nudist subversion making her nose twitch with laughter. She couldn’t stop eating him up with her eyes.

“What?” he finally asked. “Why are you staring?”

“The Nudist Chef. You could star in your own reality cooking show.”

“No way. Can you imagine if someone found a hair in the food? Try explaining that when you cook naked.”

She looked at the steak with a stink eye. “Do we need to get you a little hairnet for down there? I’d be happy to design one and help tweak it.”

“Tweak it? Lots of fittings?” He reached over with his empty arm, steaks now in her hands on the plate, and kissed the top of her head. “Sounds interesting, but I’ll pass. The idea of fitting a hairnet over my balls is one of many reasons not to have a nude cooking show.”

Dylan sauntered out in his jeans, barefoot and inhaling deeply from the fresh air. “Nude cooking show? Where? What channel? I’m in. Let’s binge watch!”

“
I’m
the nude cooking show,” Mike explained as he made sure the food was set and began pouring
red
wine for everyone. Laura held her hand over her
glass
.

“No thanks. I’ll be nursing soon.”

Mike nodded. “Got it.”
He poured glasses for him and Dylan, then winked at her. “I’m a wee bit underdressed for this gathering, so if you’ll excuse me…”
 

She spanked his tight ass as he turned around. “You’re wearing an apron. That’s enough. And it shows off your
finest
assets.”

Dylan snorted, apparently inhaling a noseful of red wine. “Ow ow ow ow ow,” he hollered as Mike howled with laughter. By the time Mike returned, wearing jeans and some old Coldplay t-shirt Laura hated, Dylan had cleared his nose and was eyeing the wine with suspicion.

They dug into their steaks, and wit
h
in minutes had wolfed down the lovely dinner, which was fine with Laura. The sooner she told them, the better, and it was so much nicer to face a full, sated set of guys when she had a minor bomb to drop.

“
So…” she began.
 

Both came to an abrupt halt in their movements.

“Yes?” Mike asked
slowly. She saw his eyes flick toward Dylan and then return, the micro-movement so rehearsed she might never have noticed it if she weren’t so intimately familiar with the two of them.
 

“What the
hell
do you think I’m about to say?” she demanded, the air charged suddenl
y
, leaving her imbalanced and agitated. Like a switch had been flipped, she went from lightness to dark. Why would they look at each other that way?

Neither of them answered her, instead looking at her with such intensity her heart
turned into a cyclone
.

“Guys?” she pleaded. This felt so far out of the range of normal.

“Are you…” Mike began. He stopped and looked at Dylan.

“What?” Laura practically screamed.
What the hell did he think she was about to say?
 

“Are you pregnant?” Dylan asked.

A huge stream of air poured out of her lungs, the relief evident in the way her shoulders relaxed, her body poured the worry out through her sigh. “God, no. N
o
!”

Dylan’s face relaxed with relief.

Mike’s collapsed with disappointment.

“Oh!” she said, looking at Mike. “That’s not the reaction I expected.” When had this turned into a conversation about having another baby? She thought she was going to spend the next half-hour convincing them to come to Jeddy’s and talk with Darla’s boyfriends.

He shrugged but said nothing. Dylan turned and gave him an arched eyebrow.

“You want another one? Already?
Thirteen months of interrupted sleep, colic, teething, and no time alone with Laura isn’t enough for you? You masochist.
”

Laura felt the hair on her arms and neck begin to prickle. The nasty undertone in Dylan’s voice ma
d
e Mike’s hackles go right up, and she hated when both of them argued. It was rare—most of their sarcastic comments were tossed back and forth in jest—but this one had so many layers to it that Laura felt a dangerous sense of calm pour over her, one of those moments when everything you know can turn on a dime.

“And what about the pure joy of watching our daughter come into the world, of cutting the umbilical cord and watching her settle on Laura’s chest, of smelling her little baby head and being the only one who knows how to rock her the exact right way to get her to sleep? And the sleepy milk burps that always came with a happy smile afterward? Watching her grin at you, her eyes lighting up when you held her? Wh
a
t about snuggling with her on the couch and knowing that you’d helped to make an entire human being, a new life that will go out into the world and make it a better place if you raise her right?” Mike’s word
s
flowed over Laura like a waterfall. He’d never—
ever
—spoken for so long or with such emotion.

Dylan’s jaw hung quite low.

Mike went on. “When she crawled, we all cheered. When she took her first bites of solid food, we were there. When she started saying ‘Mama,’ we were jealous.”

“You were?” Laura interrupted.

Both men looked a bit embarrassed. “We’d read in the baby books that ‘
D
ada’ was more commonly the first word, so…”
Mike explained.
 

“I half expected her first word to be ‘Jeddy’s’ or ‘Madge,’ because we took her there so much,”
Dylan added.
 

Laura squashed a laugh because Mike’s eyes were blazing. He wasn’t done yet.

“And now Jillian is babbling and happy and wandering around on those fat little legs, arms in the air, so curious about the world and open and eager. She’s the best teacher and the most wonderful embodiment of pure love I have ever seen in my entire life.” Mike’s voice was choked with emotion, eyes glistening, and Laura stood, went to him, and gave him a hug.

“So yeah,” he ended with a ragged sound, “I would love another one.” Mike pulled away from the hug and, with soulful eyes, regarded
L
aura tenderly. “
N
ot until you’re ready, of course. But if you did tell me you’re pregnant, I would be thrilled.”

“
Shit!” Dylan shouted. “We’re late!” All three of them turned to look at the clock, and Laura made a squealing sound of alarm. He was right. There was no need to clean the cabin—Mike’s resort crew would handle that—but they did need to tidy and bring their own belongings out of there. The cabin was used, occasionally, by resort guests (
sex items were carefully removed
), so they had to do a quick check of everything and get out.
 

Five minutes later, Laura marveled at how quickly they had all acted, and as the
J
eep rumbled down the rutted dirt road back to their home, she let Mike’s words rattle around in her head. It
wasn’t
that she didn’t want another baby—she was an only child and had always wanted siblings, and was determined to give Jillian at least one. Right now, though, she didn’t feel ready. Maybe in a year? There really wasn’t a timeline.

Mike didn’t demand an answer, and Dylan was in the back seat alone right now, staring out the window, his jaw locked so hard it might as well have been a safe at Gringot’s.

He
clearly wasn’t ready for more. She knew he adored Jillian—loved her to pieces, in fact—but she also understood what he had said. Being bone-weary and at the constant ready to attend to a child’s needs in its first year was an experience she would rather not relive right away. And pregnancy! The joy of swe
l
ling with new life, the feel of a growing baby inside her—that was all amazing.

The ballooned legs, the polyhydramnios she’d experienced, and all the aches and pains, along with morning sickness, made her want to be pregnant again about as much as she wanted to listen to Josie talk about data plans for the office.

“There’s no rush, is there?” she said softly, not quite realizing the words were out of her mouth until they were. The sound of the Jeep’s tires on the rocky road may have covered her voice, because maybe Mike didn’t hear her.