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“This is turning out to besomecontract,” I said, as I finished my eggs. “I’m gonna need to hear more about it.”

The guys glanced at each other, then back at me.

“Sorry, no can do.”

I chuckled. “Really?”

“Seriously,” Maverick confirmed. “You already know more than anyone else. If we told you any more, we’d have to—”

“Kill me and bury me in the desert?”

I smiled at my own joke, while pointing outside with my fork. Through the window, past the outer wall of their apparently militarized compound, the desert stretched endlessly to the distant horizon.

“I was going to say get you drunk enough to forget everything we told you,” said Maverick. “Much less messy, plus we don’t have to dig.”

“Oh you boys candig,” I said, and I wasn’t exactly talking about shovels. “Believe me.”

“Have youtrieddigging out there?” Gage griped. “It’s not pure sand like in the movies, it’s solid calcium carbonite. You’ll break your wrists.”

He pushed his plate away and leaned back, folding his long arms behind his blond head. They were the same powerful arms that had held me weightless, while his friend drilled me to a life-changing climax. The same arms that had wrapped around me in the wee hours of the morning, as I woke sleepily to the feel of him nudging his way between my legs, right before his rock-hard thickness glided inside me again.

“Anyway, we’re often required to be on different bases for various things,” said Maverick. “So… attack helicopter.”

“Plus that thing gets into town in twenty-four minutes, flat,” added Gage. “Very useful for when we run out of milk.”

“Sure,” I chuckled. “If you want to spend eight-hundred dollars in fuel just to pick up milk.”

Maverick nodded approvingly. “Actually you’re not that far off.”

I shifted sideways and crossed my legs. The pleasant soreness between them reminded me of a night well-spent.

“No, burying your cute little ass in the desert is completely off the table,” said Gage, sliding out from his seat. Circling behind me, he leaned down and kissed my neck, just below my ear. My entire body erupted in instant goosebumps.

“Besides,” he whispered. “We can think ofmuchbetter things to do with your body…”

Eighteen

JULIANA

“And I’m telling you, I’ve got it all under control. I’m ordering you to stay where you are and enjoy.”

Aric’s voice was stern and authoritative, even if it wasn’t one-hundred percent convincing. Not that he could order me around, anyway. But it was amusing to hear him try.

“And what am I enjoying, exactly?” I asked.

I could envision Aric’s smirk in my mind, even if I couldn’t see it. “You know. Whatever his name happens to be.”

Part of me wanted to growl into the phone. An even larger part, surprisingly enough, wanted to totally blow his mind by giving him two names instead of one.

With my silence, I did neither.

“When’s the last time you took an actual vacation?” he demanded for the third time.

“Thisisn’ta vacation,” I protested again.

“I’m pretty sure it was that time you went to Vale,” my assistant pressed. “You fought with what’s-his-name and left after just two days. If I remember the expense logs correctly, you booked a three-thousand dollar flight home.”

I frowned bitterly, remembering how angry I’d been. Brandon — the man-child I’d been dating at the time — had been a complete and total jealous asshole. Our trip to Colorado, which I’d been looking forward to for months, had been over before it even began.