Page 53 of The Devil's Pair

“Of course both of us.” Drake gave her one of those smiles that wrecked her every single time. “We doeverythingtogether, remember?”

Right away, she blushed, her body pulsing with the memory of all the things they’d done to her together. Some of them several times.

“I think she remembers, man,” Dux said, observing her pink cheeks. “Andhow.”

“You were saying?” Briley attempted dignity, knew she was failing miserably.

“Right, yes. Ahem.” Drake grinned wider as her face turned magenta. “So, we’re fucking crazy about you, darlin’. Like, totally and utterly – and we felt that waybeforeyou told us about our babies.”

“Do you… ummm.” Briley paused, trying to think how to ask this question. She’d thought about nothing else the whole flight over, the whole drive from the airport, and shestillhad no idea how to bring it up. “Do you want to do some advanced testing on the babies after they’re born? To see who – which one of you is the – the father?”

“What?” they said in unison. “No!”

She gave a small sigh, realized that she’d been completely right in what she’d told Cheryl. “I didn’t think you would, to be honest, but I wanted to ask. You know, put the offer on the table, just in case.”

“We’reboththe fathers, babe,” Dux said, echoing her exact words from the day before. “We’rebothtaking full responsibility and we’llbothbe there.”

“Ohhhh.” She exhaled now, a really long breath, and felt light-years better than she had done even one minute before. “Thank God. I didn’t know how to ask that question.”

“Well, you asked, and it’s been answered.” Drake stroked her hair, loving its softness even though it was all travel-wild and -tangled. “What else have you been hesitant to ask us?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. Ummmm.” She thought for a minute. “I guess the big one is how involved you want to be, taking into account the real geographical challenges we’ve got.”

“As involved as you’ll let us,” Dux said simply. “We’ll come every weekend until the birth, we’ll take some time off and stay after the babies get home, we’ll pay for everything, we’ll call every day and visit every weekend… and that’sbeforewe fly in for birthdays and Christmas and Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We’llbethere.”

“I know you will,” she said quietly, realizing that shehad, in fact, known it all along. “I know you’ll do everything that you can within the realm of human possibility.”

“Damn straight,” Drake said. “And you should know that we’re not interested in other women, like at all. It’s our hope that when we come over to you in Pennsylvania, we’ll be with you, likewithyou, darlin’. In your bed, in your heart.Justyours.”

Thispart was a complete surprise to Briley, and she blinked in astonishment. “Really? You don’t want – you won’t – you’ll be with just me, just over in Bellefonte? You don’t want to – I don’t know – carry on with your relationships over here?”

“Nope.” Dux shook his dark head. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve been with anyone since we’ve been back.”

“You haven’t?”

“Nuh-uh,” Dux said. “The guys were actually all over us about that tonight, saying that we’ve been putting off the women, not even looking at them sideways. Cole and Rebel were teasing and up in our faces, saying that we’re hung up on you.”

“And they were right?”

“Jesusfuck, woman,” Drake huffed. “Haven’t you beenlistening? We’re out-of-our heads, head-over-heels, nuts aboutyou.Justyou. We’ll be with you when we can manage it, and the rest of the time, we’ll be looking forward to getting back to you and our babies. That’sit.That’sour life now.”

“That’sit?” she repeated. “Youdoknow that that’s a lot? Like… it never even crossed my mind that you’d commit tomein any way, shape or form. I just hoped that you’d want to be there for the twins. Thenewtwins.”

“Well, we aren't proposing marriage here, babe, we're proposing a – a family.” Dux grinned, loved how she smiled back at him; all the tension had gone from her beautiful face now, he was happy to see. “We’ll do it somehow and it'll be a seriously fuckingweirdfamily… but we’ll figure it out, the three of us, then the five of us. OK?”

“OK,” she said, unable to believe how well this whole conversation had gone. Once again, some more, as always, these two men had shown her their true characters, their real hearts. She hadn’t planned these babies, but she couldn’t have picked better men to be their fathers, not if she’d had a year to think about it and chosen a Daddy (or two) from a list of candidates. “Thank you, for everything you just did and said. I had no idea that you’d want to doanyof this. I’m – I’m so surprised and grateful.”

“No need to be surprisedorgrateful,” Dux said. “We were going to ask you to be in our lives again somehow and no matter what, and frankly, this is better thananythingwe could have come up with.We’resurprised andwe’regrateful.”

“Thank you for coming here and telling us in person,” Drake added. “And for telling us atall, actually. You could have kept this from us, given up the babies, and we’d never have known.”

“There was never a question of telling you,” she said. “But to be scrupulously correct, Cheryl was the one who told me that I had to give you the news in person. I was going to call you, to be honest, just because I really wasn’t sure you’d be happy about this.”

“Then thank you to Cheryl,” Dux said. “Because we’d have been on board no matter how you told us, but having you here is amazing.”

“It really is,” she said happily. “This couldn’tbeany better, could it?”

They looked at her now, and in a split second, their eyes changed, went from warm and gentle, to blazing heat, blazing want.

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