"I"m impressed. I didn"t think you were paying attention that night."
"I"m a cop. I pay more attention than you think I do. Are we in agreement?"
"Yeah. How do we decide who legally marries her? Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock?" He smiled.
Ben rolled his eyes. "Libbie gets to decide that." A brief frown crossed his lips. "Well, we need to propose to her and make sure she actually says yes." He thought about it. "Then again, which of us has the better health plan?"
"Are you serious?"
"d.a.m.n serious. The first thing I want to happen once the ink is dry on the marriage certificate is for her to get put on someone"s health insurance so we can make her get taken care of properly."
"You don"t think making decisions for her like that will p.i.s.s her off?"
Ben was through arguing and justifying. "She"s going to learn to stop fighting us and let us take care of her so she can focus all of her energies on taking care of herself. And the baby."
His throat grew tight, a lump swelling in it at that thought. "Our baby." He stared at Allan. "If I tell you something, you have to promise not to make fun of me."
One eyebrow arched. "That"s not an easy promise to make."
"I"m serious."
"Fine."
He gathered his thoughts. "Back in college, I used to think it"d be nice if the two of us could find a woman we could settle down with together. And now we have."
His brother"s expression softened, and he wasn"t prepared when Allan pulled him in for a brotherly bear hug. "You rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d, why didn"t you tell me before? I used to think that, too. I didn"t think back then that you"d want to share someone all the time."
"So we"re agreed? Our wife, our baby, no matter what the paperwork says?"
Allan let him go, a grin on his face. "Yep. As long as she"ll have us two losers."
He let Allan out of the room and locked the door behind him. Then he found the TV remote, kicked off his shoes, and curled up next to Libbie to watch TV.
He wanted to giggle, but didn"t want to disturb her.
I"m going to be a dad. We"re going to be dads.
He wouldn"t let thoughts of Bianco spoil this for him.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
"How f.u.c.king hard can it be to find a cop and an attorney for chrissake?"
Bianco stared at the three men standing before him in the Cracker Barrel men"s room. He had Feds on his tail every minute of the day, and suspected they were using wiretaps and other electronic surveillance to track his every word. Even Enrique couldn"t go anywhere without an unmarked car pulling out behind him.
"It"s not easy," Florio said. "They"re not staying in one place. I can"t even find a permanent address for Ben Donohue, even with my sources in the department. And Allan Donohue is never at his home anymore. We can"t keep it staked out because it would look suspicious. That cop, though, he"s f.u.c.king cagy."
"You know where his f.u.c.king office is. Find someone in there to get you information. And keep trying his home. He can"t stay away permanently."
Florio nervously looked at Steve and Carlo, who kept glancing at the floor every time Bianco looked at them. "Is that clear?" Bianco ordered.
"Yes, boss," Florio said. The other two nodded.
"You know which car is his. Find it, have someone on it all the time until you figure out where the f.u.c.k their cave is and smoke them the h.e.l.l out. I"m running out of time here. I can"t believe no one has wanted to pick up the f.u.c.king bounty I"ve got on their heads. Can"t we put one of those f.u.c.king GPS trackers on his car or something?"
Florio shook his head. "It"s not like on TV, it"s-"
"I don"t f.u.c.king care if it"s like on TV or not, track his G.o.dd.a.m.ned a.s.s even if it means duct-taping a guy under his f.u.c.king car with a d.a.m.n cell phone in his hand, you got me?"
All three men nodded. He dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Then he turned to the mirror. If he wasn"t under constant surveillance himself, he"d be happy to personally wait for Allan Donohue to get off work and have a little talk with him about his brother"s whereabouts before putting a bullet through his brainpan.
He washed his hands. I need them out of the picture now.
Libbie thought she was dreaming when she awoke to see two Allans standing, softly talking, on the far side of the room with their backs to the bed.
"Is double vision a pregnancy or fibro thing, do you think?"
Both men immediately turned at the sound of her voice, identical concerned frowns on their faces.
She burst out laughing. "I"m sorry, but my fibro fog isn"t bad enough, now you"re trying to confuse me?"
"Sorry, babe," both men said at the same time.
That only served to make her laugh harder. "How long was I asleep, anyway, that they perfected cloning?" she asked.
"Smart-a.s.s," the Allan on the right said, his smirk betraying him.
She pointed. "Aaand there"s my Benjamin."
"How"d you know?"
"Your voice. And that little smirk you do."
They both walked over. "We"ve come to a few decisions while you were out," Ben said. He laid out their plan for Ben to accompany her back to Brooksville. Then he helped her stand, while both of them knelt in front of her, each holding a hand.
Allan spoke. "We love you, and we"re sorry we had to be away from you. The next few months won"t be perfect, but..." He looked at Ben.
They spoke at the same time. "Will you marry us?"
Overcome with her emotions, she couldn"t speak. She tightly squeezed their hands and nodded.
They stood and held her. "We"ll work out the details later," Ben said. "Have Mandaline marry us, if you"d like. We want you to legally marry one of us for the health insurance." They exchanged a glance. "We agreed it"s your decision, but maybe once we have a chance to look into our health insurance policies and see who"s got the better plan, it might be better to go that way."
She shook her head. "I can"t decide between you. That"s not fair to even ask me."
Allan caressed her cheek. "Seriously, we don"t care which one. You"re our wife." He grinned at his brother. "And regardless, you"ll still have our last name. If you want to," he added. "All we care about is making sure you and our baby are well cared for." Both men pressed their palms to her stomach. "And we don"t care which one of us is the father, either," he said.
"Seriously," Ben added.
She looked from one to the other. "Honestly? I don"t know if I can handle a car ride today."
"We"ll leave early in the morning," Ben said. "Allan"s going to go get my stuff from the other hotel. And I need to make some calls and hand off cases I"m working on."
"I, unfortunately, do need to get going," Allan said. He leaned in and kissed her. "I"ll be back later tonight. It"s going to take me a while. I have to be very careful."
She nodded. "I understand." She touched his hair. "I never did like you as a blond."
He snorted. "See?" he said to Ben. "I told you that looked like c.r.a.p."
Alone with Ben, there was something she wanted no matter how bad her pain. She draped her arms around him and wiggled her hips against his.
Immediately, his c.o.c.k stiffened in his slacks. "You sure you"re up for this?"
She nodded. "I can see you are, too."
He edged her over to the bed, where he carefully laid her down. "You have nooo idea. I"ve had to rub one out every day missing you." He nibbled her neck. "How busy have you been, my dirty girl?"
"None," she meekly said.
He sat up. "What?"
"I missed you guys too much." She didn"t want to start crying again.
He looked shocked and saddened. "Oh, baby. I"m so sorry." He lay down with her and held her in his arms. "Christ, I"m sorry."
"I just couldn"t," she whispered. "I"d think about you guys and start crying. It...it just wasn"t worth trying."
"Shh, it"s okay."
Ben hated himself. He knew she"d been lonely and in pain, but never dreamed this would also be a side effect of trying to keep her safe. Worse, now he felt like a selfish s.h.i.t for masturbating while she was alone.
He got up, undressed, and quickly rejoined her. Slowly, he removed her clothes and kissed her flesh, wanting to take all her pain away, mentally and physically. He knew today couldn"t be one of their rough-and-tumble romps. She needed tender and sweet, mind and body.
After going down on her and making her come, he started to enter her when he stopped. "c.r.a.p."
Her eyes flew open. "What?"
"I don"t have any rubbers."
She looked up at him. "What?"
He sat up. "Dammit. I"ll have Allan stop on his way-"
"Seriously?"
"I"m sorry, but I don"t have any. It"s not like we"ve needed them."
She propped herself up on her elbows. "You know, for a cop, you"re being amazingly stupid."
He didn"t understand her aggravated tone. "What?"
"Think about it for a moment. It"ll come to you."
Puzzled, he stared at her. Her eyebrows arched skyward.
When it hit him, he felt like the most stupid idiot in the world. "Oh."
She let out a snort. "Yeah, oh. You seriously kept you and Allan hid for months, and yet can"t remember I"m pregnant?"
He laughed. "All right, so I"m an idiot. Hey, it"s pretty new to me." He kissed her, sliding his c.o.c.k home as he did. Her chuckles turned into soft moans. It felt heavenly to finally be able to feel his flesh joined with hers like that without a barrier between them.
He found her hands and gently pinned them over her head. "I think you"re too mouthy. Let"s take care of that," he whispered, kissing her again.
She whimpered, her hips rocking with his. It didn"t take but a moment for him to feel her come. While she"d come for him like this before, never had it felt this good. He kept his pace slow and even until he felt her come again a few minutes later. Only then did he pick up the pace, thrusting quickly until his b.a.l.l.s drew up tight and for the first time able to bury himself deep inside as his c.u.m flowed into her.
He rolled to his side, still inside her, arms wrapped around her.
"How do you think it happened?" she softly asked a while later.
"How what happened?"
"The baby."
He laughed. "You don"t know how babies are made?"
"Smart-a.s.s. We f.u.c.ked like bunnies for months. I"ve only been feeling queasy for a few weeks."
He shrugged, letting his fingers drift up and down her spine. "How late do you think you are?"
"I don"t know for sure. I didn"t really keep track of it."
"It likely happened that last night. Maybe a condom ripped, or maybe one of us stayed inside a little too long after we came. Maybe one of us had some on our hands and it happened that way, I don"t know." He kissed her. "I don"t care how it happened."