Hercules 500 Read online

  “No sex until the babies are at least six weeks old!” she said flatly when they’d loaded up Anika and the babies into a wagon for the trip back to their place.

  “Mom!” Anika exclaimed. “You didn’t have to announce it to the world!”

  “I didn’t. I just told your partners they should keep the dicks tucked until it’s safe for you to engage in sex.”

  When her mother leaned in for a final hug, Anika squeezed her tightly. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Belinda laughed. “You’re so welcome, Annie. I’ll come by in a few days to check on everybody.”

  Thankfully, she was true to her word because the babies didn’t want to cooperate with the new surroundings.

  It was almost as if they sensed that the one person most qualified to take care of them was missing.

  Belinda laughed when Anika wailed that at her and explained that babies just hated changes and that she was probably making them feel nervous because she was feeling nervous.

  That bolstered Anika’s failing confidence and she discovered that she was getting the ‘hang’ of things after her mom left and the babies were much less cranky.

  If Anika had given a lot of thought to it, she would have believed their house was going to feel as if it was bursting at the seams with so many people in it, particularly when her men were such muscular giants.

  It transpired, though, that she was damned lucky if even one of the guys were around for any length of time. True, they were all in and out throughout the day and, mostly, they all slept under one roof, but between the work of building and maintaining a very large land holding/ranch and patrolling the area as Marshall and Rangers (Cole had deputized Chance and Sebastian) they were like ships passing in the night.

  She discovered quickly enough, though, that Charles and Charlotte prevented any sense of loneliness or a lack of things to keep her occupied. In point of fact, she hardly knew which end was up until they were nearly six months old—old enough to begin to fight and to play with one another.

  It was a milestone and a true turning point in their lives. The twins not only slept all night, they took naps during the day and Anika could finally begin to think of herself as an individual again—not just the twins milk cow and diaper changer.

  Almost as if her mother knew her mind had shifted to her men, she arrived for a visit and offered to take the twins off for an overnight visit.

  Anika was ecstatic, and then uneasy and reluctant. She hadn’t been apart from the twins since conception, really. She didn’t know if she or they could handle it.

  Belinda talked her in to it and made off with them before Anika could change her mind again.

  Shaking her anxiety with an effort, Anika put together a special dinner to finally celebrate their joining as a family. They never actually had. She’d been too wrapped up in the babies since her marriage to Cole and Chance and Sebastian had spent a good bit of the voyage in jail, which had prevented any real celebration of their agreement.

  Well, beyond the first one.

  Which she still recalled with Goosebumps!

  Once she’d gotten the meal on to cook, she set about setting up a seduction.

  Bathed, wreaking of perfume, and dressed as sexy as she could manage, she greeted the guys when they came in with a bright, she hoped, seductive smile.

  They each gave her a peck in passing and headed into the bath to clean up. “Dinner’s almost ready, guys, so make it quick!”

  Vaguely disappointed that she hadn’t gotten more of a reaction than she had, she went to the kitchen to serve up the food.

  Sebastian startled her by sliding up behind her when she was fixing the last plate. Fortunately, he grabbed the ladle and the plate when he did and she didn’t manage to spill the hot food all over her, him, and the stove.

  “I think I would rather nibble on you,” he murmured near her ear as he set the plate and ladle down.

  Anika shivered at the Goosebumps that chased up and down her spine, feeling a surge of internal heat. “Your dinner will get cold.”

  He shrugged, leading her away from the kitchen toward the bedroom she shared with the twins. “I will live with it.”

  Discovering her own appetite had shifted to the carnal, Anika waltzed with him to the bed, shedding clothing along the way.

  He was in no hurry, she discovered, despite the fact that it had been more than a week since they’d managed even a hurried coupling. He nibbled, as promised, all over until she was one huge, twitching nerve ending, so fevered with desire that she could no longer lay still.

  The joining sent her higher still and she clutched at him tightly as he strove over her, stroking the delicate, excruciatingly sensitive tissues of her channel in a way that made fire of heat and took her to the edge of ecstasy. She hovered there for what seemed endless moments and then leapt over the rim into rapture with Sebastian, for he’d timed his climax to rupture in sync with hers.

  They lay entwined in the aftermath while they caught their breath and their skin cooled. And all the while Sebastian nuzzled her with kisses and stroked her skin lightly with his fingers.

  He was her cuddler, she thought dreamily, thinking how very lucky she was that he’d wanted her.

  She had three of the most wonderful men in the galaxy!

  And she’d given up hope of even finding one!

  “I do not know why you chose me as a mate, but I am eternally grateful to whatever powers brought you to me,” he murmured, almost as if he could read her thoughts.

  Anika moved closer. “Oh, you had me the first time you said ‘No! Visits are forbidden!’”

  The End.