Page 69 of Eternally Devoted

“Remember when I came over to your place with blueberry jam and it was my first try so I had, like, ten different recipes?And we tasted so many batches that we got a sugar high and couldn’t stop laughing?”

Juniper sitting cross-legged on my kitchen floor, purple staining her lips, tears in her eyes from incessant laughter passes through my memories. I smile, remembering how we laughed so hard we cried, and she peed her pants. That was the first time I saw her in my sweats.

Jerked off that night.

“Yeah, I do. That was a good night.”

She clings to my arm, nodding against the pillow as she peers up at me. “It was. But that’s how they all are when I’m with you and Dash.” Her face grows serious, her eyes searching mine. “When the three of us are together, the world just seems right, you know?”

I do know. I know exactly, so I nod.

Now seems like the right time to mention last night. “Juniper, we didn’t use protection with you last night.”

She chews the corner of her mouth. “I remember.”

Through a groggy yawn, Dash wakes and greets us. “Good morning.” He rolls over, exposing his knotted belly and defined chest. “What are you guys whispering about?”

Juniper only holds my gaze a second longer before turning toward Dash. “We gotta get under the oak. It’s evening. Hudson and the crew are long done for the day.” She looks at the clock on the wall. “I know it feels like we didn’t get much sleep, but we should get out there. This is the only surefire time the guys won’t be out. Hudson never misses his late afternoon, pre-dinner snack.”

“Pre-dinner snack?” Dash asks through a yawn. “I thought farmers eat, like, steak and eggs for breakfast and, like, a big hearty stew for supper.”

“My sister is the snack,” Juni says, sliding over me, ignoring my waking wood. My cock doesn’t know it isn’t morning. I blink up at her in all her beauty.

She didn’t want to talk about the unprotected sex. Despite the fact that I’m lying, I feel a little woozy when I recall her telling us we were her first. Juniper Sky Ellington was a virgin. And she let me—the garbage man—be part of her first time.

I know she wants a family. She’s told us. She’s told us she wanted us, too. Only it was me that clammed up and couldn’t handle all the planning and feelings.

Dash is awake now, so I could float the idea of us taking her to a drug store for an after-the-fact birth control. I know it’s out there. I’ve seen commercials.

But as she pulls on clothes wearing the most beautiful smile on her face that I've ever seen her wear, I decide to get up and get dressed, too.

I don’t mention Plan B.

Because I think, just maybe, this is her Plan A.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

WE COULD USE A SLICE OF PIE AND NORMALCY.

Dash

Juniper makes us each a thermos of coffee but as soon as we’re standing at the oak tree with shovels in our hands, I have no appetite. Not even for liquid energy.

“Rememberin’ the smell in the well?” Sterling asks, bumping his shoulder into mine. “This won’t be like that.” Still, he passes me a balaclava which gets my nerves jumping.

Tugging it down over my face, I get to work next to Sterling, with Juniper behind us, readying the bag that will ultimately hold all the other bags. Sterling works twice as fast as I do, and the deeper we dig, the more nervous I get.

The top of a black bag peeks through the dark earth, and I nearly freeze in my tracks. Juniper’s hand slides up the back of my shirt, along my lower back. “You okay?”

I swallow thickly, embarrassed that I’m the one in the group struggling. I’m a police officer, for Christ’s sake. I should be all cool and scientific, calm and collected. Instead, bile is clawing up my throat, my heart is racing and beneath my mask, my lips are pulled down in angsty disgust.

“All good,” I reply, making my voice almost laughably husky.

Sterl turns, swiping his wrist along his forehead. His reddish hair is damp with sweat, a dark strip down his back marking his hard work and fatigue. He nods at me but wears the tiniest, most subtly sexy satin smiles I’ve ever seen. “I got it, D.”

Our eyes lock, and without a word, he tells me to step back and let him take over. And I’ve never been more grateful.

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