by Marla Monroe
Jane’s scream had Jared cursing as he dug his fingers into her scalp with his own orgasm. She swallowed what she could but nearly choked on it as she slowly came down from her own climax. This was what she loved. Having both men around her, coming because of her. It gave her satisfaction and made her feel loved all at the same time. No, Jared might not have those words for her yet, but she was sure he felt that way, whether he thought he did or not.
“I’ll clean you up, baby girl.” Rusty slowly pulled from her pussy.
“I need to run to the bathroom anyway. I’ll take care of it this time.”
She made short work of cleaning up and brushing her teeth. She wanted back under the covers between her two men as soon as possible. Nothing felt better than right there encased in their warmth. She’d fall asleep that way and wake up that way most mornings. Occasionally, one of them would have already left to see about the cow and chickens, but most mornings she got a little morning nookie from one or both of her men.
“What are you thinking about so hard over there?” Jared asked a few minutes later.
She sighed. “Just thinking how much I love this.”
“What?” he asked as Rusty snored on the other side of her.
“Being between the two of you, snuggling up to stay warm.” She shrugged though she doubted he could see her. “It makes me happy.”
“I’m glad you’re happy, hon. I know I’m an asshole a lot of the time, but I really want you to be happy.”
“I am. I want you to be, too, Jared.”
“I’m getting there. I’m not upset with you or even unhappy because of you, I’m just”—he hesitated—“me, right now.”
“I get it. Get some sleep, Jared. It’s your time to milk the cow and take care of the chickens tomorrow.”
“See, that’s why I’m grumpy sometimes. You remind me of something like that when I was just getting a warm and fuzzy feeling,” he teased.
“Night, Jared.”
“Night, hon.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Let me just sit out there for a few minutes. I can sit in a chair while you guys shovel snow, and then, before you get too far off, you can help back inside. I’m going stir crazy in this house, Rusty.”
“Even if he agrees, I’m not,” Jared said. “You don’t need to catch a cold, and that’s what will happen if you sit out there and freeze your ass off. No amount of coats, scarves, or blankets will keep you warm enough.”
“It’s not fair. You guys get to go outside every day. I’m going insane,” she fussed.
“Got talk to Randi and see how she and the baby are doing. If she’s busy, talk to Felicity. I’m sure she’s just as tired of being in the house as you are,” Rusty said.
“Felicity gets to go outside with her men, and Randi isn’t answering. I’ve already tried. She’s resting or feeding the baby or just watching him sleep. Wish we could go see them,” she groused.
“As soon as the ground clears up enough that it’s safe to go in the transport. You’re not going to walk all that way, and we aren’t going to pull you on the sleigh. It’s too dangerous,” Jared told her.
They’d had this conversation a thousand times, but Jane kept on them in hopes she could wear them down. She really was sick of being stuck in the house. It made her snappy when they were around her. She knew she was being bitchy, but she couldn’t help it.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so. Stay on the couch until we get back, Jane,” Rusty demanded. “I don’t want you standing outside with the snow having thawed some and refrozen. It’s icy out there. Here me?”
“I won’t. I don’t like the idea of falling on my ass any more than you do.” She sighed.
They’d had a quick thaw the day before, but now the temperatures had fallen below freezing once again, and the snow had turned hard and slippery.
“You guys be extra careful and don’t fall either,” she said.
“We won’t. We’re going to scoop up the ice part and get down to the regular frozen snow layer so we won’t fall.”
“Can you imagine slipping while carrying milk and eggs? You’d be able to make pancakes out of us, if that happened,” Rusty teased.
“Yuck. Can you imagine cleaning up after that? I don’t even want to think about it,” Jared said, shaking his head. “Come on, man. Let’s get this over with.”
At nearly six months, Jane was getting close to being her biggest. Her legs were swelling some, and her abdomen was protruding out ahead of her. She had no intentions of standing outside while they shoveled snow. She’d enjoyed it before she’d gotten as big as a hippo. Now she enjoyed lying on the couch and reading or sitting with her feet propped up, doing her puzzles. The only problem was that she couldn’t do that for long. She couldn’t get comfortable for long periods of time. The guys said she was in her nesting phase and needed supplies to do the nursery. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get the hovercraft in snow. It didn’t work well on the icy surface since it blew air under it to keep it off the ground. Blowing snow around kept it off level so they couldn’t use it to make trips to and from the station.
Instead, they’d rigged up a sleigh and brought back small things like baby clothes and bottles and such to give her something to mess around with when she was feeling extra needy. They’d carried it all up to the room they were using as the nursery. She’d told them that they’d keep the baby in the bedroom with them for the first few weeks or so. She’d be breast-feeding, so it would be more convenient to have the baby in the bedroom when she’d need to feed it every two to three hours at first.
She moved back and forth on the couch trying to get comfortable. Nothing worked. Then she needed to pee again. Since she was going to the bathroom anyway, she decided to change clothes so that maybe she’d get comfortable. That meant going upstairs. She would have to be extra careful. The guys would be furious, but she wanted something else to wear, and they weren’t around.
She carefully made her way upstairs and, when she’d finished her business, changed into something more comfortable. She decided to look over the baby things while she was up there and spent an hour going through all the outfits once again. She grabbed a piece of paper and pen to make a list of things she would need as soon as it cleared up enough that they could go to the station.
The list turned out to be fairly long. There weren’t any disposable diapers, so she’d need extra cloth ones so there were plenty when she needed to wash the others. The diapers had Velcro closures so there was no need for safety pins. Thank God for small pleasures. No sticking herself or the baby by accident.
She also added a chest of drawers as well as the changing station. She’d keep all the things like diapers in the changing station and the baby’s clothes in the other. The list had grown considerably as she thought about needing the baby bed, a bassinet for downstairs, and a highchair for later. Oh, and they’d need the recipe book to make baby food in the blender.
There was so much she hadn’t thought about. They’d have to make baby food. Why hadn’t she thought about that before? That was going to be a big deal once she started weening the baby from her breast. Maybe she should keep nursing until the baby was about sixteen or eighteen months old. By then, he or she could eat more finger foods.
Pureeing veggies wasn’t going to be hard, but the meats would be another story. The baby would need to get most of his protein from her to begin with. The idea of making baby food had her worrying even more that they could raise a healthy child out there. She needed to talk to some of the other families who had four- and five-year-old children to see how they managed it.
She gathered the list and one of the baby books that talked about feeding and walked over to the landing. She looked down and realized how much she’d come to depend on the guys to keep her safe when they walked up and down the stairs. Now they looked daunting over her protruding belly. She decided to try walking down sideways while holding on to the railing. She made it down halfway before her feet tangled, and she p
itched forward. All she could think about was protecting her stomach. Then she hit her head, and everything went black.
* * * *
“I swear she gets more and more hardheaded every day,” Rusty complained.
“That’s how they get when they don’t get their way, man. You should know that. I’m sure you had a girlfriend back home at some point.”
“Yeah. She was sterile and didn’t get into the programs. I didn’t care, but they moved her off where I was working, and I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye. We weren’t engaged or anything, but we were pretty serious,” Rusty told him.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you had to get through something like that. How have you been able to deal with being thrust into a family unit so easily?” he asked.
“Can you imagine if we’d still been together and I had to allow another man into our lives? It would have driven me crazy. This way I wasn’t already in a relationship with the woman when we’re sharing. I’m not sure I could have handled sharing her with someone if we’d been that close.”
Jared nodded. “That’s true. If my wife had lived and we’d been pulled to go to one of the planets because she’d been pregnant, and we had a son, I would have probably killed anyone who touched her no matter what the reasoning.”
“Yep. That’s what I thought,” Rusty said. “Looks like we’ve made it all the way to the barn. Want to check and see if they’ve already milked the cow?”
“Yeah. If they haven’t, we can do it and leave their portions for them to get later.”
Inside they found that Mason or Bryson had already been there. Sitting in two stainless steel buckets was their and the other family’s milk. With the electric heater on in the barn, it was just shy of freezing. It kept the animals from getting too cold since they weren’t moving around much now that they were kept inside but didn’t spoil the milk that was kept close to the door.
“Luck was with us,” Jared said with one of his rare smiles. “No milking for us.”
Rusty carried the milk pail while Jared led the way. The other man had gotten better with Jane being pregnant over the last few weeks but was still holding a piece of himself back. Rusty knew Jared might never fall in love with Jane, but he did care about her and worried about her as much as Rusty did. That had to be enough for now. Things might change after she had the baby.
As they neared the house, he wondered for the hundredth time if it would be a girl or a little boy like Randi and her men had. They’d named him Carson. He’d laughed at them for making it nearly rhyme with their names. They’d told him if it had been a girl they’d been going to name her Candy. He and Jared had gotten a kick out of that. For a minute he’d worried they’d say Sandy and strike a nerve with the other man, but they hadn’t.
“I’ll put away the milk and fix some soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. You can check on Jane,” Rusty said as they walked through the kitchen door.
They pulled off their coats and scarves then kicked off their boots to slip into the warm slippers they kept there for that purpose.
“Hey, Jane. We’re back,” Rusty called into the other room as he hung up his coat.
She didn’t answer back. He frowned then shrugged. She was probably napping. She needed all the sleep she could get since she didn’t sleep more than two or three hours at a time now. They all tended to nap during the day because of that.
He walked over to the cabinet and pulled down a pitcher to pour up the milk. Jared walked through to the living room as Rusty set the milk in the fridge.
“Rusty! Come here. She’s fallen!”
Jared’s frantic voice spurred him into a dead run so that he slid to a stop where the other man was kneeling next to their woman.
“Fuck, why was she on the stairs? She had the bathroom downstairs. Can you wake her?” Rusty asked.
He didn’t know what to do. He knelt on the other side of her as Jared smoothed back her hair and cursed. “She hit her head and is bleeding. It doesn’t look bad, but it’s already black and blue around the cut and she’s bleeding.”
“We need to move her to the couch so we can see what else is wrong. What about the baby?” Rusty asked.
“I don’t see any blood between her legs. I’m afraid to move her in case she has a spinal injury,” Jared said.
“We can’t leave her like this. We’ve got to move her. We’ll just have to be careful. The doc can’t get out here with the snow still on the ground, plus she needs to be covered up. She’s cold already. Help me lift her up, and we’ll keep her as still as we can. What about her neck?” Rusty asked.
“I’ll get a towel and we’ll roll it up and tie it around her neck to keep it immobile,” Jared said. He rushed up the stairs and was back in an instant.
Once they had her as stable as they could make her, the two men lifted her and carefully carried her to the couch where they laid her down. Rusty covered her with two thick blankets then rushed to the office to see if he could raise the doctor on Space Station One. The nurse answered and said he’d get the doctor right away. When he came on, Rusty explained what they’d found and what they’d done so far.
“There wasn’t anything you could have done differently. Get a pin or something sharp and prick her fingers and toes to see if she moves them. That will let you know if she’s injured her spine. Are you sure she isn’t bleeding vaginally?” he asked.
“It didn’t look like it, but Jared is checking her over. I’ll be right back and let you know what he’s found.” Rusty dropped the radio and hurried back to where Jared had pulled Jane’s pants off.
“Is she bleeding there?” Rusty asked.
“Doesn’t look like it, but that head wound is still oozing, and she’s getting black eyes.”
“The doc said we’d done the right thing moving her to the couch. Does she look like she’s broken anything?”
“Not that I can tell.”
Rusty told him about pricking her hands and feet and watched as Jared used the tip of his knife to check. She moved all of them in response to the pain. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Have you tried to wake her up again?”
“Yeah, she’s not making a noise or even moving around when I talk to her.”
“Let me talk to the doc again, and I’ll be right back.” Rusty rushed back to the office and called up the doc once again.
He filled him in on everything he’d found out from Jared and waited for what he said to do next. The other man said all they could do was keep her warm and check her every hour or so to see if they could wake her up.
“There isn’t much more you can do. She’s obviously got a head injury. The fact that she’s not bleeding vaginally is a miracle. She must not have fallen all the way down the stairs. Keep me informed. I’m going to try to stay near the radio, or I’ll have someone else close by in case you need me. Out.”
“Thanks, Doc. Out.”
Rusty returned to find Jared stitching up the cut on her forehead.
“I figured now was the best time while she’s unconscious. I don’t want to hurt her. I put the deadening stuff on it anyway in case she can feel and just isn’t waking up yet.”
“Doc said to keep her warm and try waking her up every hour or so. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“What do you think about putting some ice on her forehead to keep the swelling down?” Jared asked.
“We can try that and see how it does. Need to keep the stitches dry when you finish. I’ll get a warm wet cloth to clean her up some, as well.” Rusty walked into the kitchen, cursing that one of them hadn’t stayed with her. From then on, they weren’t leaving her alone. It shouldn’t have happened.
He filled a plastic bag with ice, grabbed a cloth, and warmed it with hot water then returned to bathe her face and neck then set the ice over the lump forming under the cut with a small towel to keep the ice from freezing her skin. He changed it several times then left it off entirely. The small bandage Jared had put over the stitches
seeped blood and had to be changed twice before it stopped bleeding.
“Jane. Wake up, baby girl. You’re scaring the crap out of us. Please, baby. Wake up.” Rusty gently caressed her cheek before kissing it.
“We need to take turns sitting up with her. Why don’t you fix us something to eat, and then we’ll sleep in shifts,” Jared said.
“How the fuck can you think about eating right now?” Rusty demanded. “Don’t you care the least bit about her?”
Jared’s eyes narrowed with anger so fierce it was almost palatable. “I care a lot for her. She’s important to me, but I’ve been through this before. You have to keep up your strength because we don’t know how long it will be before she wakes up again. You don’t have to eat, and when you can’t keep your fucking eyes open to watch out for her, I’ll do it for you, asshole.”
Rusty rubbed at his face. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking worried.”
“I know. I am, too. Go on. I’m not leaving her side.”
“Okay. I’ll be back with yours in a few minutes.” Rusty shuffled into the kitchen. He’d been an ass toward Jared.
I don’t know where he stands with Jane though. I can never tell when he’s putting on a show for her and when he’s really serious about caring for her.
He knew he cared about her, but that was different than caring for her like a man does a woman. He’d just about given up on Jared falling in love with her. She was having their baby for God sakes. That should have sealed the deal if nothing else. More than likely it was Jared’s child since he was in her sweet pussy more often than Rusty had been. Didn’t matter to him, though. The baby would be all three of theirs.
He warmed up soup then grilled four sandwiches. He carried the soup and sandwiches into the other room for Jared then returned with his. They ate in silence, only broken when one of them tried to rouse Jane.
“How long can she stay like this?” Rusty finally asked.