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"Ah, Duke..." I said when I hit the top and there was no opening.
"Just push it up," he said, right below me.
"I am so not taking a hand off this ladder," I objected, shaking my head.
"Alright. Hold up," he said, sounding amused.
And then I saw his hands grab the outside of the rungs I was holding as his feet took the rung right below the one my feet were on, making his entire back close me in.
Damn if I didn't immediately feel safer too.
"Here we go," he said, releasing one arm and shoving at the ceiling, opening the attic door. He took that opportunity, too, to lean down and plant a kiss on my neck. "Up you go."
So up I went, sliding against Duke as I went and woefully aware that at some point, my butt was all up in his face.
I stepped up onto the roof. Sort of.
It was the roof, but it wasn't the open roof that it used to be. It was a glass enclosure with metal beams holding it together.
"DARPA-created glass."
"DARPA?" I parroted.
"Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. They create all the fun shit for the DoD."
"DoD?" I asked, feeling like he was suddenly speaking a foreign language.
Duke chuckled, moving toward me and taking my hips and pulling me against him, kissing my forehead. "Department of Defense."
"Oh," I said, feeling stupid. That one was sort-of self-explanatory. I just wasn't used to hearing things like that outside of TV shows.
"Hailstorm has a lot of connections. They hooked us up. The clubhouse is all but impenetrable now. That cement wall?" he started. "It's all but unscalable, but if someone did so happen to get over, there is an eight foot drop at the bottom that they would have to scale again. And then we still have our chainlink fence. Only now its barbed at the top and electrified. There are motion detecters and motion detecter lights. So it's hard as fuck to get in. But lets say they did. In which case, we shuffle everyone down into the basement where they could survive a good, long time if need be. Meanwhile, the men can go up the shoot and come into here to get an eye on things. These," he said, going over to the steel beams and unlocking a small circle that slid open, "are to shoot out of. This glass," he went on, "is blast and bullet proof. Not resistant. Proof. It's rare and expensive as hell, but worth every penny."
"Wow," I said, shaking my head, genuinely impressed. "Wait," I said, moving toward the glass to look out on the yard. "What's that?" I asked, pointing to a square addition off the existing living quarters that hadn't been there before.
"That is a big empty space. We're going to need it."
"Need it for..." I started to ask when, up the ladder Maze's voice called up to us.
"This is so fucking unfair. You didn't have any of this cool shit when I was here. I can't even get my fat, pregnant butt up there."
"Fuck no you can't," Repo agreed, making me smile.
Lo was right; they were all over-protective alpha cavemen.
I never thought I would like that in a man, but I did.
"What?" Duke asked, smiling because I was.
I shrugged a little. "I don't know. It's hard to explain. I just... I know the situation is crazy and nothing like anything I have ever known before, but I really feel like I fit in here. I love each and every one of them," I said, waving my hand to where other voices joined Maze and Repo's down the ladder.
And I did.
Over time, I got to spend a lot of time around Repo and Reign, watching them with their women where they were, in turns, alpha cavemen, but also sweet and soft and loving. I felt my belly flutter the first time I saw Reign crawl into bed where Summer was laying with her feet up, kiss her forehead, then scoot down and rest his head on her round belly.
And when I heard Repo respond to one of Ferryn's very dramatic fits over some thing or another- his brow raised in pure masculine confusion. "Are you bleeding?" he asked her, to which she sighed and said no. "Then quit the shrieking, would you?" To my utter shock, she did. She, I found, responded best to a firm masculine energy. I figured because her father was like that. "Now, tell me what's up," he said, grabbing his son as he flew past, turning him upside down, and tickling his stomach while somehow seeming to give Ferryn his undivided attention as she rambled on for ten minutes to explain the situation.
Yeah, I loved him then too.
It went without saying that I was in complete friend-love with Maze, Summer, and Lo and that the kids tugged at my heartstrings as well.
