"Yeah, Tina isn't working anytime soon, so she will be home if Briana needs her. We can work the next gig, I think." Dillon sipped his coffee. "You two planning on working the one over the other side of Fort Worth?" Dillon asked.

"Yeah. Cole said it's a school that got trashed by a tornado.

Sounds like a good one to work." Neal took Mark's empty coffee cup and headed toward the kitchen.

"Think you'll have her out of your system by then?" Dillon asked with a knowing smile.

"She's a great woman, but she's not in our system. We're just hanging together during her vacation. That's all."

"Really, we're just friends. I haven't known them very long at all.

I'll be going home in the next few weeks when my vacation is over." Alexis brushed off their knowing looks. They didn't understand the basics behind their relationship.

"I didn't think I would be sticking around very long, either," Tina told her. "I ended up marrying the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Just wait. You'll see."

"Yeah, they have a way of growing on you," Briana said with a wry grin.

Everyone looked at her rounded belly protruding from beneath her maternity top and laughed.

"Not me. I'm most definitely not in the market for a man right now, much less two. It's a fantasy, ladies. Everyone has them. I'm

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just lucky enough to be living mine for a few weeks." She smiled, though she felt anything but confident right then.

Alexis had realized earlier that day that she was beginning to like the men a little too much. They were getting under her skin with their relaxed demeanor and easygoing att.i.tudes. She wondered how they got anything accomplished as laid-back as they appeared to be. Still, the beautiful house proved they could get down and dirty with the work when they put their minds to it.

When, or if, she ever got ready to settle down with a man, he would need to be just as ambitious and determined to be the best as she was. How else would she be able to get along with one long enough to be married?

"So, you're saying that you can resist their natural charms, should they pour them on?" Brandy asked her.

"Of course. Really, ladies. They are great men, and know how to treat a lady, but they're not my type, and I'm most definitely not theirs. I'm about as much a biker babe as they are businessmen." The other three women began to laugh uncontrollably, and then Briana held her belly and settled down. Tina walked over and held her hand.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, but I woke up the kids. They're rebelling at my laughing while they were trying to sleep."

"What do you mean? Is something wrong?" Alexis's gut tightened that she might have caused a problem with the woman's pregnancy.

"No, nothing is wrong. Here, feel." Briana grabbed Alexis's hand and laid it across her swollen belly. "The kids are kicking me black and blue, is all."

Alexis nearly screamed at the first kick against her hand, but she couldn't pull it back because Briana had her hand over it.

"See, they're really active when they first wake up. You should see the guys when one of them gets kicked first thing in the morning," Briana said with a soft smile.

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Alexis finally managed to extract her hand from Briana's. She found sometime later that she was holding it against her own belly.

She jerked it away and warned herself not to let the women's talk get to her. She wasn't sticking around any longer than her vacation time.

She needed to get back to work before she lost her precious position in the law firm.

"Hey, baby, you ready to head home?" Dillon asked as he and Gavin walked outside the house.

They were followed by all of the other men, as well, and the deck was soon crowded. Alexis found herself pinned between Ranger and Drew with wide smiles on their faces and obvious erections. She bit her lower lip and looked around for either Neal or Mark. She caught Neal's gaze, and the other man made a beeline for her.

"Horning in on our woman?" Neal asked, his voice a little deeper than usual.

"Naw, just waiting to see how long it took you to find her." Ranger grinned and stepped back. "Can't blame a man for looking when there's something as tasty as Alexis standing alone."

"Find your own woman, guys. She's ours."

"Oh, really?" Alexis asked. "Just how did I come to belong to you?"

"You came home with us, so you belong to us until you leave," Neal said with a growl.

Then he glued his mouth to hers, his tongue licking along the seam of her lips until she opened to him. He slid his alongside hers then pulled away to kiss her on the nose. She liked his playfulness.

She liked a lot of things about him, just like she liked a lot of things about Mark, as well.

"Trouble?" Mark asked, walking up to them.

"She's always trouble," Neal said, pulling on her hair.

They walked everyone back through the house and outside as they got on various bikes and in trucks to leave. When they'd waved the last of them off, Alexis began picking up empty coffee cups and

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rinsing them to put in the dishwasher. Mark helped while Neal closed up the house for the night.

"You've got an interesting bunch of friends," she told Mark.

"They're good people. You can always count on them."

"I believe it. I can't believe that each of those women is married to two men. I mean, it's not legal and all."

"No, it's not legal, but they're married legally to one of them, and then they said vows in front of all of us to both of them. So in our eyes, it's legal."

"Why?" she couldn't help but ask.

"It's just our way. We were in the army together and stationed overseas. We started sharing our women then, and it's a way of life for us now. The benefits far outweigh the problems. As long as there's no jealousy, then it works great, and you have to admit, you enjoy the double attention." Mark smiled and nipped at her neck.

"Yeah," she managed to get out before giggling when he blew a raspberry on her neck. "Stop that."

"Hey, let's move it upstairs," Neal said, walking into the kitchen.

"I've got the house locked up."

"Sounds good to me." Mark picked Alexis up and tossed her over his shoulder.

"Put me down!" she squealed.

He popped her on the a.s.s and she squealed again. "Stop that."

"You're full of demands tonight." Mark walked up the stairs with her hanging upside down. She grabbed his waist.

"Let's see if we can't put a stop to her high-handedness," Neal said.

"What did you have in mind?" Mark asked, tossing her on the bed.

"I think she needs a spanking," Neal said.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, no." Alexis scrambled over on the other side of the bed.

The men split up and walked around the bed so that she was cornered. Alexis had nowhere to run. Mark grabbed her around the 66 waist when she attempted to climb over the bed. He carted her around it.

"Help me undress her, Neal."

Neal chuckled when she leveled a look at him. It didn't stop him from grabbing her legs and pulling off her shoes and socks. Then the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had the nerve to tickle her feet. She screamed and kicked out at him, nearly getting him in the b.a.l.l.s. He stopped then.

"She's feisty when she's h.o.r.n.y," Neal said with a grin.

"Finish getting her pants off. She's slipperier than a greased pig," Mark said.

"Did you just call me a pig?" Alexis huffed out a breath and resumed squirming, though not as seriously as before. She was having too much fun now.

Neal redoubled his efforts at unfastening her jeans. He managed to get them down over her a.s.s and stopped there to grin up at her. She narrowed her eyes at him and made a sloppy attempt at kneeing him.

He easily moved back.

"Hmm, looks like she wants more than a couple of licks, Neal," Mark mused.

"Looks like."

"No one is going to spank me." Alexis poked out her chest in an attempt to bow away from Mark's hold on her. It backfired by pressing her a.s.s tightly against his hardened c.o.c.k.

The feel of his d.i.c.k against her panty-clad a.s.s sent chills down her spine. She shivered and Mark took advantage of her temporary loss of focus to haul her over his lap as he sat on the bed. He had her panties down to her knees in seconds flat.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"Spanking your pretty a.s.s, baby," Mark told her.

"Why? What did I do?" she demanded again.

"Issuing orders when you're not the one in charge," Neal said, squatting beside her.

"And you're going to spank me for that?"

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"Actually, we're going to spank you to relax you." Mark rubbed circles around her bare a.s.s cheeks. "Trust me. You'll like it so much you might even come."

"They hurt. I don't see myself coming from getting a whipping."

"That's just it. This isn't a whipping. It's a spanking. There's a difference, baby," Mark told her.

"Prove it," she said, already turned on from his hand rubbing her a.s.s.

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Chapter Eight.