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Parts that while they slumbered, were only for me.

In the end it was only Gage and myself, screwing like bunnies. Kissing and fucking and grinding our hips into one another, until he flipped me over and lay his entire body over mine, from behind.

“Jules…”

He murmured the word dreamily into my sweat-soaked hair. The desert beyond the canvas was wind-swept and freezing, but inside the tent must’ve been close to eighty degrees.

“Iloveyou.”

At first I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. But somewhere deep in my heart, I knew that I had.

“I love you too.”

The words came naturally, without hesitation. There was no questioning them. No second-guessing they were the absolute truth.

I love him.

With that I bucked back against him one last time, driving my soft cheeks against his hard, shredded abs. It was all he needed. The final trigger.

I loveallof them.

Gage shuddered as he exploded into me, his cock twitching and jumping as it throbbed deep in my swollen channel. His grunts were primal. The feel of him splashing against my pregnant womb sent me into a magnificent climax, howling against the wind outside.

Hooooooly FUCK!

Over and over he surged into me, draining himself to completion. His strong arms held me tightly, firmly. His hot mouth whispered breathlessly into my ear.

“MyGod,I love you…”

I smiled, reaching back to pull him close. Leaving him inside me as we collapsed sideways, back into the warmth of the sleeping bag.

Physically I was in heaven. Emotionally though, I should’ve been frightened. Such an admission would’ve scared the hell out of me in the past. My own realization that I loved all three of these men, even more so.

Instead I was merely content to turn my head and kiss Gage goodnight, as one big hand slid down over my lower stomach. I closed my hand over his. It was comforting. Even beautiful.

Cradling the baby together, sharing the feel of the silky, satin fabric against our naked skin, we finally drifted off into sleep.

Forty-Two

MAVERICK

Juliana’s weekend away turned into a week, and then that week turned into ten days. I wasn’t sure when she’d go back, or if she’d go back, or what would ultimately happen between us.

All I knew was that we absolutely loved having her here.

It was obvious she was burnt out, and desperately needed this time away. Whatever was happening in New York had stressed her completely. She still hadn’t opened up about it, but she spent a good amount of time on the phone with her assistant, who was apparently taking care of things while she was gone.

As each day went by however, her smile widened a little more. With each night that she spent cuddled between us or taking turns in our beds, we could feel her body releasing more of that coiled up tension.

We took her out into the desert often, and this seemed to clear her head more than anything. We knew this because it had worked for us. Juliana loved driving the dune buggies out into the middle of nowhere, and soaking up the solitude. She drove fearlessly, even recklessly at times, worrying us so much that we had to sometimes take the wheel from her hands.

One day we surprised her with a trip to Phoenix, where we’d set up an appointment for a sonogram. We did this because we knew she’d missed an appointment back home, but there were ulterior motives as well. Reasons that were entirely selfish on our part:

We all wanted to hear the baby’s heartbeat.

It was thrilling, listening to the machine’s speaker crackle with that strange, rhythmic sound. But even more amazing was staring into the monitor together, catching tiny glimpses of the human growing inside her. We could see hands, fingers, feet. The shape of the tiny arms and legs, attached to a body the size of a lemon, or lime.

Until then it hadn’t seemed real, at least not all the way. But yes, we were bringing a baby into this world. One of us, anyway. Or all of us. It didn’t matter really, who the father might’ve been. We’d done it together, as always. And in that respect, it was absolutely perfect.