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  While they both showered and dressed, I turned my attention back to the ground venison stroganoff I'd made for dinner, turning the burner beneath the pan to the very lowest heat setting, just to keep it warm. Having thought I'd hate it, I'd come to discover that I actually liked venison, and Nick and Blaine loved it, as did many other people in the community. In order to bring in a fresh supply for everyone to share, Blaine went hunting the day before, killing two deer.

  He hadn't killed them while in his tiger form, though. He always insisted on hunting game with a bow-and-arrow, like he'd learned to do before the apocalypse. When I'd asked him exactly why he didn't hunt while in his tiger form, since it would be quicker, he'd given me a three-word answer. "Wouldn't be fair."

  He ended up being the first of my husbands to come downstairs from showering, and he entered the kitchen bare-chested, wearing jeans that hung low on his slim hips. Around his neck, he'd hung a plain black t-shirt, and when I first looked up and saw him, he was reaching up to grab it, presumably to put it on.

  However, not wanting him to put it on quite so fast, I set down a knife I'd been using to chop vegetables for a salad, dashed over to him, and grabbed the t-shirt right out of his hand.

  "No. Not yet. Just let me look at your chest for a second. I haven't seen it in almost twenty hours or something."

  I'd been sleeping when he and Nick had left the house that morning, so I hadn't gotten to study their nearly-nude forms in the first light of dawn as I often liked to.

  "Just let me look at you and touch your chest for a second."

  With his gray eyes glinting and his mouth curving just slightly, Blaine moved a little closer to me. "Only if I get to do the same to you."

  Feasting my eyes on his sculpted pecs and washboard abs, I agreed, soon beginning to run my hands over his bare skin, reveling in the feel of so much hardness beneath my fingertips.

  Now my day was getting a little better.

  However, Blaine didn't give me too awfully long to explore his chest before he peeled off my shirt, flung it to the side, and then undid my bra clasp with his breathing accelerating. Growling a bit, he actually removed my bra with his teeth, one strap after the other. He flung it to the side using his teeth as well, actions that if done by another man might have been clumsy or come off as rehearsed,

  This wasn't the case at all with Blaine. He always acted as if removing a bra with one's teeth was the normal way to remove a bra, like other ways were for more refined men whose hands weren't perpetually stained with motor oil.

  After raking his gaze over my chest like I'd done to him, he cupped my breasts in his hands and began gently, slowly circling my nipples with his thumbs, stiffening them. This was what always surprised me about Blaine. Not his definite animalistic tendencies, and his tendency to be a little rough during times when I clearly liked it. It was how gentle his touch could be sometimes that always surprised me.

  Soon he was kissing me, mouth firm and warm, thumbs still slowly circling my nipples with just the right balance of gentleness and firmness. After a little while, his strong hands began wandering lower, with one going to grip my rear, pulling me closer to him, and the other going down the front of my yoga pants, fingers roaming. When one of them connected with my most sensitive spot, I moaned into Blaine's mouth without breaking our kiss.

  However, a short while later, when he slid two curved fingers into my slickness and began pulling them in and out, I pulled my lips from his with an even louder moan, then told him not to stop. "Just keep doing that. Please."

  With his fingers curved how they were, he was hitting some indefinable spot deep inside of me, some spot that when stroked, made me feel such intense pleasure that I could hardly keep my eyes from rolling back in my head. Blaine's fresh-from-the-shower scent, woodsy, clean, and masculine, which I was inhaling through my nose, was intensifying my pleasure, as was the sight of his face, which I was taking a few peeks at. He had a way of studying my face during passionate times, a way of looking at me intently, that always turned me on even further than I already was.

  He'd been working his fingers in and out of my slickness for a short time when Nick entered the kitchen, eyes widening slightly when he saw Blaine and me, both shirtless, and with Blaine's hand down the front of my pants. Clearly wanting to quickly make our twosome a threesome, Nick came around behind me, put his hands on my shoulders, and began kissing the side of my neck, which never failed to make me curl my toes, and this time was no exception.

  It wasn't long before I felt his hardness pressing against my hip, near the small of my back, and this gave me an idea. I wanted him to make love to me from behind, while we were standing, if possible, while Blaine continued touching me around my front, stroking my most sensitive spot. I just didn't know if this was possible.

  With me being shorter-to-average height-wise, and with Nick and Blaine both being tall, I wasn't sure if what I was thinking of could actually work. Only the tiniest bit bashful, however, I spoke right up and told my two incredibly handsome husbands what I wanted, and they acted like my request was completely doable.

  Over my shoulder, glassy-eyed, Blaine looked at Nick and spoke in a husky voice. "Her cookbook."

  The cookbook he was speaking of was an exceptionally large, thick one, and the only one I owned. The title of it was The Only Budget Cookbook You'll Ever Need, and it featured a lot of recipes requiring few ingredients, which was very helpful, since I usually didn't have a ton of ingredients to work with.

  With each recipe, it also provided substitution and swap-out ideas, which were also very helpful for a cook living in a post-apocalyptic world where sometimes certain ingredients just weren't available. I didn't use this cookbook just for cooking, though.

  I'd discovered that with it being several inches thick, it served as a perfect handy little step-stool for when I needed to reach something on a high shelf just beyond my fingertips. And now it seemed that Blaine thought the cookbook could give me the little height boost I needed to make something else possible, too.

  Within seconds, Nick had grabbed the cookbook, helped me step up onto it, and had lost his jeans and underwear. Then, tipping me forward just a bit, into Blaine's arms, he positioned the head of his already-rock-hard manhood at my entrance from the back, making me whimper with desire. Right as Nick began sliding into my depths, Blaine, around my front, began stroking my now-throbbing sensitive spot, turning my whimper into something much more like a cry.

  The sensation of being stroked and filled at once was almost more than I could take, though in the best possible sort of way. I only lasted a minute or two before a powerful orgasm made me bury my face in Blaine's shoulder, moaning, while he continued touching me, and while Nick began growling with his own release behind me.

  Having grown accustomed to two releases per lovemaking session, at the least, I soon told Blaine that I was ready for more, and he and Nick switched positions, with Blaine making love to me from behind, gripping my hips, and Nick giving me some very intimate attention around my front.

  A while later, Blaine wrapped my long hair around his fist, tugging it a little, before groaning with a powerful release, filling me with his masculine essence. This sensation was all I needed to tumble right over the edge along with him, moaning with my face buried in Nick's strong shoulder.

  After, the two of them just held me, kind of sandwiching me, while our breathing returned to normal. With their arms feeling so good around me, I might have been perfectly content to let them hold me for several minutes, but before long, the smell of something burning made me lift my face from Blaine's chest.

  "Oh, God. The rice flour rolls. I forgot to set a timer for them."

  Underscoring this fact, the acrid scent wafting through the kitchen quickly intensified. And by the time I'd whipped my clothes on and had pulled the tray of rolls from the smoky oven, the tops of them were nearly black.

  Feeling more than a bit guilty about all the food I'd wasted that day, between my failed cooki
es and the rolls, I set the tray on the range with a sigh. "Well...I guess we'll just have to make do with salad for a side."

  Getting dressed, Nick said that was just fine, and Blaine grunted in agreement.

  Once the three of us had washed our hands, we brought the venison stroganoff, a bowl of cooked egg noodles, and the salad to the table, and upon having a seat, Blaine pulled me into his arms.

  "Come here. You're eating on my lap tonight."

  What ensued was a boisterous sort of dinner, with Blaine and Nick teasing me about different things, including burning food, me laughing, and the two of them taking turns pulling me onto their laps.

  It was only when the three of us had finished eating that the table briefly fell quiet, with the sound of the rain still pouring down outside being the only noise, and I recalled that they'd been wanting to talk to me about something. Unbelievably, or maybe not, their making love to me, and then our shared laughter, had driven away all thoughts of their serious expressions when they'd walked in the front door.

  However, now that I remembered, I had to know right then what had caused those serious expressions, even though I was pretty sure I already knew. I had to know exactly what Wesley Archer had threatened.

  CHAPTER 17

  Turning the mood at the table into a more somber one than while the three of us were eating, I asked Blaine and Nick to tell me why they looked so serious earlier, when they first arrived home. Before either of them could answer, loud knocking sounded, coming from the front door.

  Heaving a sigh, Nick stood, lifting me from his lap and placing me on my feet. "I'll bet that's Carlos. I told him to check back in with us later."

  Carlos, who was a wolf shifter, was also one of the fourteen or fifteen new arrivals in Helena, all people who'd come after seeing the signs that Nick and Blaine had their men post.

  I waited at the table while the two of them went to the door, expecting them to return to the table eventually so we could talk, but they never did. The only "talk" I got was Nick calling out an apology to me, saying that he and Blaine had to leave.

  "We'll be back as soon as we can, but don't wait up for us."

  I didn't, feeling somehow guilty or sheepish for allowing lovemaking to get in the way of us getting right down to business and having a talk about whatever was going on. I really couldn't blame myself too much, though. Even after a few weeks, I still found Nick and Blaine's bodies to be just as irresistible to me as they'd been on our wedding night, to the point that I wasn't sure if I could have even focused on any kind of a talk without making love to them first.

  Not to mention that the three of us were supposed to be staying very busy trying to create a baby. Repopulating the world was of course one of the main points of Helena, in addition to being a community where people could live in relative safety, at least compared to the world beyond its walls.

  In the weeks since getting married, I'd had some brief moments of doubt as to whether re-population should even be a goal for any community anywhere. These brief doubts had kind of surprised me, since normally, defeatism wasn't like me at all.

  Throughout my life, I'd always wanted to move forward, and keep fighting, no matter what. And despite the fact that I'd learned that Ebony and Jessica were dead, my new love for Nick had Blaine had somehow renewed my courage and strengthened my resolve to keep going.

  It was just that a baby was such a tiny, helpless creature. And the world had become such a violent, ugly place.

  Helena wasn't ugly, though, and any violence usually took place far beyond its walls. It was this that made me think that a child could be safe. Also, knowing that my child was going to have two incredibly strong fathers made me think our child would be safe.

  Further smothering my tiny doubts, I felt compelled to have a child to honor Jessica and Ebony's legacies in some way. I wanted to have a child because they'd been denied the chance to become mothers. And besides, I'd always wanted to become a mother myself. I’d always imagined that it would happen a few years after my third Olympics, not two years into a vampire zombie apocalypse.

  Figuring that Nick and Blaine were surely out tracking or fighting Borderliners, and feeling terrible that they had to do so in such miserable wet weather, I fell asleep that night curled up with a thick blanket that held traces of their respective scents. Even though I hadn't known my two husbands long, I loved them both deeply already. I was even beginning to feel like I was addicted to them both, though not in any unpleasant sort of way, just in a way that I felt like I needed them beside me during the night, and I felt empty when they weren't.

  The next morning dawned bright and sunny, but the cheery weather didn't match my mood. Shortly after awakening, I discovered that my period had arrived, and I unexpectedly found myself greatly disappointed. Considering the fact that my feelings about bringing a baby into the world had been just slightly conflicted, I'd expected that I might feel relieved if and when my period came.

  I wasn’t, though, and I realized that I was indeed ready to keep trying and fighting. I wanted to help repopulate the world, and hopefully have a daughter who could do the same. But even more than that, I was just developing some deep, primal urge to give my husbands a child, a baby that would be ours. I was even starting to feel like I might want several babies.

  Adding to my glum, disappointed mood, Nick and Blaine still weren't home yet, and I began to worry that maybe all hadn't gone okay the night before. One of the things I hated most about living in the new, post-apocalyptic world was complete lack of any kind of instant communication, like cell phones. Really, there wasn't much I didn't hate about the new world.

  It wasn't completely lost on me, though, that I never would have found happiness with Blaine and Nick had the world not gone to hell, and if I hadn't traveled down to Kentucky in search of Jessica and Ebony. For that I was profoundly grateful.

  I'd also come to realize that there were some other positives about a post-apocalyptic world, such as being part of a very tight-knit community like Helena. People in the village looked out for each other like family, making it an ideal place to raise a child, or several.

  In addition to the threat of Wesley Archer and the Borderliners, though, there was also the ever-present threat of Huskers. Because of the village walls, small groups of them weren't a problem. As long as only residents who were shifters ventured beyond the walls, everyone would be safe. Non-shifter residents even occasionally ventured beyond the walls, too, to go out on supply runs and also to search for more survivors, particularly females. But only those with lots of experience fighting Huskers went on these trips. Usually Kathy went, along with Elisa and their husbands.

  It was the threat of hordes that worried everyone most. Part-steel and part-wood, the walls around the village were strong, but they definitely weren't impenetrable. Not if a horde of several hundred Huskers was to catch the scent of humans and press the walls all in one large group. Hopefully, they’d never do this. Blaine, Nick, and the other men would kill them first before they could.

  When Blaine and Nick still weren't back home by ten in the morning, I left the house, intending to go visit with Chris or Tracy and ask if they'd heard anything. However, the first person I came across was Kathy.

  Strolling down the lane heading toward me, she seemed to kind of startle a bit when she saw me, and then I could have sworn I saw her narrow her round blue eyes. Just for a split-second, though, and she was still a good enough distance away from me that I really couldn't be sure.

  If she had glared at me, it would be the first time in quite a while that she had. Since the wedding, she'd been generally nice to me, not that we'd been spending a ton of time together. Sometimes I got the feeling that she was specifically avoiding me, even though I had no clue why this might be the case. And really, sometimes I wondered if I was just imagining this.

  When we reached each other, we said good morning, and then I right away asked her if she'd heard anything about Nick, Blaine, and the rest of the men who
'd went out the night before.

  However, to my disappointment, she shook her head. "Mike and Sam still aren't back yet, either...none of them are. Don't worry, though. I heard they went out just to track a group of Borderline fighters spotted heading east, to a little community called Pine Bluff. I think Nick probably just wants to see what the Borderliners are up to, if they're trying to get the Pine Bluff shifters to form an alliance with them or what."

  "So, Wesley Archer hasn't given up on trying to fight us, then? Not that I really thought he would."

  Kathy shook her head again, biting back a snort. "No...he definitely hasn't given up. Men like him rarely do when they want something. In fact, yesterday, he sent a messenger to deliver Nick an ultimatum."

  "Which was what?"

  "In short, hand over command of Helena to him, Wesley, or suffer the consequences, meaning another full-scale attack. Giving him half the village's women, goods, and assets, and continuing to do so indefinitely, is completely off the table now, not that it was ever really on, because I knew Nick was never going to do that. But now, Wesley wants everything. So, it seems another attack is inevitable. It's just a matter of time now. Just a matter of waiting for it to happen."