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I struggled to sit up, clutching the sheets around me. Putting my back against the headboard, I stared at them through glassy eyes. I hadn’t wanted to do this… not now. Not like this.

But it had be done.

“It’s been six months,” I sniffed. “Six months since Bora Bora.”

They stared back at me silently, their expressions confused. They still didn’t get it. Not yet, anyway.

“Six months since our… arrangement.”

Ryan was still baffled, still searching his mind for the answer. But looking at Kyle’s face I could tell he understood.

“Sammara… that doesn’t mean—”

“What if it does!” I cried. “What if—”

“Six months is nothing!” he said, and even I could tell he was lying. “It… it doesn’t mean…”

“You’re worried about getting pregnant.”

The words tumbled out of Ryan’s mouth. They were so blunt, so matter of fact, they really hit home.

“Yes.”

It had been a deal we’d made, the five of us together. An arrangement at the end of the most beautiful ten days of my whole life. We’d spent our time in Bora Bora laughing, playing — enjoying activities and exploring the most incredible places on earth. It was paradise. Beyond paradise really, because I was sharing it with the four most important people in my entire world.

And of course, it had been ten straight days of ceaseless, limitless sex. Ten days of being taken and plundered and cherished. Ten days of being sexually worshiped like some divine goddess; four gorgeous Army Rangers at my beck and call, waiting on their new fiancé hand and foot… and other parts as well.

I’d been so fulfilled — and so filled — we’d joked that my birth control couldn’t possibly keep up with it all. And that conversation had led to the next one: aside from marriage, which we were all happily looking forward to… what about kids as well?

All four of my sexy soldiers wanted children by me. Strong, capable sons. Beautiful, independent daughters. And I wanted more than anything in the world to give them to them! So much so, that I didn’t even want to wait…

“Why wait for the wedding?” I’d quipped. “How about I just go off the pill right now, and we let the chips fall where they may?”

Unbelievably, all four of them had resoundingly said yes. And they weren’t just agreeing to agree, either. They were actually thrilled with the idea! Enthusiastic about starting a family!

It was the culmination of the most relaxing, loving, wonderful time in any of our lives. Reluctantly we left the turquoise blue waters of Bora Bora behind… only to start an exciting new chapter together.

I went off the pill right away. And yes, I have to admit I enjoyed the guys’ competitive sides too. Each one bragged they’d be the first to ‘knock me up’, boasting that they had the strongest seed, the best ‘swimmers’, the deepest technique. It was fun, watching them go at it. And even more fun, watching them go at me.

And if I thought Bora Bora was exhausting? The weeks that followed our return was non-stop sex. Kyle, Dakota, and Jason — taking me at will throughout the day. Doing me anywhere and everywhere around our beautifully-restored home, each trying to outdo the other. Each trying to be ‘the one’.

Ryan’s time came mostly in the wee hours of the morning, after returning home from work. He’d slip into my bed and pull my panties to the side — provided I was even wearing any — and have sleepy, dreamy sex with me until the orange light of dawn finally cracked the sky.

During the first few weeks I was always wet, constantly filled with my lovers’ relentless attempts at impregnating me. On my end, I was just as eager as I was accessible. Just as enthusiastic about carrying their children as I was about getting a never-ending flood of toe-curling, pillow-clenching, orgasmic sex.

A month went by. Two months… then three. They still joked about who’d father a child first, but their jokes became less and less frequent. All four of them were still home. Any of them could be called away or deployed at any time, yet they were still around, still enjoying me every bit as much as I was enjoying them.

Only I wasn’t getting pregnant. And certainly not for lack of trying.

By the fourth and fifth month, I was starting to worry. There was no good reason I could think of why I shouldn’t already be with child. There wasn’t anything wrong in my family history — at least not as far as I could tell. What little I knew of my mother and father didn’t include much in the way of medical knowledge. And since the car crash, at the age of nine…

I cried for the first time a month ago. Mostly because I was nervous, but also because I was missing my mom. I hadn’t cried about her in years, actually. Though my eyes did tear up whenever I pulled out the journal Ryan had lovingly given me. The one he’d had specifically made so I could write down my memories…

“Sammara…”

Kyle’s voice drew me back to the present, back to the matter at hand. I was still crying uncontrollably. Still sitting up in bed, only now I felt cold and lonely despite having them on either side of me.