Chapter 24

I woke up first for once. Mel usually had to pee before the urge woke me, but I’d had a little extra to drink last night, so I slid out of bed carefully and padded to the bathroom to answer nature’s call, not bothering with the door since Mel had been fascinated by the sight of me peeing in the morning.

I was just about done when hands snaked around my waist to hold my cock and a pair of very soft breasts pressed against my back. I pushed back against her carefully and relinquished control of my cock to her. She shook it off when I was done and then I wiped the last drop from the tip before turning to kiss her. Terri grinned at me and pressed her lips to mine before she lowered the seat and dropped onto the toilet to pee while I washed my hands.

“How you feeling?” she asked uncertainly.

“Loved,” I told her with a smile.

Terri’s smile beamed at me with relief that I wasn’t freaking out about last night.

“So, this is the new normal?” I asked curiously.

She bit her lip and nodded.

“If you’re okay with it. Mel and I talked a lot since she got back. We text almost constantly. Are you okay with it?” she asked sheepishly.

“I think ‘thrilled’ is a better word for it. We need to talk about it and figure out all the details, but I’m more than okay with it,” I assured her with a grin, and she relaxed visibly.

“Good,” Mel said as she wandered in to join us. “I might have asked May to send me her skillet if you’d gotten weird about it.”

She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss me before she took Terri’s place and zoned out, still mostly asleep while she peed. I kissed them both again and then wandered back to bed and practically fell into it. Terri joined me and snuggled into my side, putting her head down on my chest and going back to sleep. Melody joined us a moment later and curled up to my other side, kissing me sweetly before settling down so the three of us could drift off for a few more hours.

When I woke again, it was light out and I lay there, relaxed and listening to the two beauties breathing slow, deep breaths in their sleep. Sometimes life was pretty good. I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the feeling of contentment.

Just a few weeks ago, my life had been in a shamble; Mel was missing, my job was on life-support, I felt adrift, and life had lost all meaning. Now, I was surrounded by people who loved me, my job didn’t matter to me in the slightest, I was looking forward to marrying Mel, I had a better relationship with May and Glen than I’d ever had before and so was my relationship with Beth, for that matter. That brought a smile to my face, thinking that my relationship with Beth was better now than it was through all the time we dated and were married. I had it all. If there was any hint of a black mark on my life, it was the threat of Mel’s family.

I pondered what to do about them. We were starting foreclosure on the land he’d financed with Stan and we were investigating him for anything damaging, criminal, embarrassing or just unnerving for him to know that we’d uncovered. Luther was going back through his life in high school and college, in addition to his business dealings since then. I made a note to add Allison to the investigation. Her declaration that she had a place she could go to be alone was suspicious. At 17, and still in high school, she shouldn’t have that kind of freedom.

I let that thought drift to the background for now since Terri was starting to stir in her sleep. She ran her hand over my chest and then she woke, completely in a panic, her eyes wide as she bolted upright, staring at me in stark terror. I gave her a little smile.

“My breath’s not that bad,” I said dryly.

She breathed a sigh of relief and settled back down.

“Sorry. I just ... I’m used to waking up alone, you know?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. I hear you. You’ve got some time to get used to the feeling. I get the feeling like you and Mel are going to be designing the master bedroom for the three of us after last night.”

She buried her face in my chest, embarrassed all of a sudden.

“Are you disappointed?”

“What?!!?” I blurted. “NO! Of course not. Why would you worry about that?”

She shrugged.

“Tyrone decided that my little sister was better than me,” she pointed out.

“Does Tyrone do a lot of drugs, or is he mentally handicapped all on his own merits?” I asked seriously. “Terri, honey, that’s on him. He gave up someone who’s sweet, loyal, devoted and hot as hell for the sake of a girl that’s willing to knife anyone, even her sister, if a better deal comes up. She stabbed you in the back. He has to know that if someone comes along with a bigger dick and more money that she’ll leave him with a stack of bills and no clue what happened. Why would he let you go for the sake of that?”

She shrugged.

“She’s got way bigger tits than me and he’s been trying to get into the music business forever. I can’t sing, but she can. They spent a lot of time working on that together.”

I shrugged and made a scoffing sound.

“I don’t care if she’s the next Adele,” I told her. “I’ve always been more of a metal fan personally, but that’s not the point. The point is that your singing voice isn’t what makes you special and it’s not your bra size, either. Yours are bigger than Mel’s and both of you put together are smaller than my ex-wife. You’re comparing yourself to her, based on what she has that you don’t. Turn it around.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her brow furrowed.

“Compare her to you, based on what you have that she doesn’t,” I suggested.

She looked off in thought at that and shrugged.

“Not much,” she admitted. “She has a better job, she has our parents, she has Tyrone, she can sing, she probably will make it into the music industry at some point.”

“Maybe. But you have one thing that she doesn’t,” I told her certainly.

“Like what?” she said, looking at me seriously.

“Us,” I told her with a smile. “We might not be able to sing, but we throw an okay party.”

She grinned at me and kissed me lightly before settling down to think.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked softly, not wanting to wake Mel just yet. “I mean, you’re my friends, my best friends. I don’t wanna mess that up.”

“You want last night to be a one-time thing?” I asked her directly.

She shook her head.

“No, but I don’t wanna come between the two of you either,” she pointed out.

“Well, when Mel got back, she started making jokes about how I drink my coffee. She’d say, ‘you still like it black and sweet? Do I have to worry about Terri?’ and then kiss me and walk away. She was worried that she’d come back, and you’d have taken me away.”

“That’s crazy,” she said. “You were still miserable when she came back. No one could have gotten under your skin.”

“But she did leave you an engraved invitation to help me pick up the pieces and she worried that you might have cashed it in, and she’d come back to find you consoling me. The point is that she left me vulnerable and lost and you could have taken advantage, but you didn’t. You didn’t even try. She trusted you with me and you didn’t let her down. That puts you in a category better than even her own family. As much as she loves her mother, she was very disappointed in her, when she declared that she couldn’t cross her husband even to come to dinner with us.”

She nodded and that seemed to settle her some.

“What about you though. You talked a lot about how Mel’s felt. What about you?”

“We both love you, Terri,” I told her honestly. “You got me through the month leading up to Christmas - and I still don’t know how. You’re beautiful and loving and understanding. You’re also the only black girl I’ve ever been with,” I told her with a smirk. “You’ve been my best friend through everything and last night, we just took that to the next level. Are you okay with being our girlfriend?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“I’ve never had sex with a girl before,” she admitted. “I’m worried that I’ll suck at it.”

“She’ll let you know if you could be doing something different,” I promised. “If you don’t like the taste, we’ll get some flavored lube or buy you a strap-on, so you can fuck her that way. I don’t think sex is the biggest reason she wants you, although I think she’s definitely excited to have a woman to play with again. She loves you for you, just the same way I do.”

“I love you both, too,” she told me with a smile, and her anxiety eased some. “You’re sure you want me here like this?” she asked, still a little uncertain.

“I think if you keep talking like this, we may tie you to the bed and take turns spanking you until you promise to stay,” I told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

She twisted around to look at me with a slightly more playful expression.

“I didn’t know you were into that,” she smirked.

“I never used to be, but after my ex told me she started her affair for the excitement, I started to look into expanding my horizons,” I admitted.

“Maybe the two of you can teach me?” she asked in a tentative voice.

“The three of us will learn together,” I promised. “We haven’t gotten very far into the kinky stuff. Mostly we were watching videos online and sending them back and forth when we found something interesting.”

“Now that you two have settled all the relationship stuff, can we go to breakfast?” Mel asked, raising her head and looking at us with a sleepy smile.

She sat up and stretched with a yawn, looking particularly adorable as she scrunched up her face cutely. She shook out her blonde mane and kissed us both, Terri first and then me.

“I think we should probably get a shower before breakfast,” I said wisely.

We still reeked of sex between us and there was no way to pretend otherwise. Mel wrinkled her nose as she caught what I meant and nodded.

“Good point,” she said and the three of us marched off to get cleaned up.

We didn’t play around in the shower since we were all hungry, but there was still a great deal of touching and kissing back and forth between us. Terri had worried that it would be awkward the morning after, but Mel just kissed her and felt her up a little, promising her more when we weren’t eager to eat. We dressed quickly, and it occurred to me that when they went to bed, our friends had us pegged as friends.

“So how are we going to tell everyone?” I asked and they both looked at me like I was simple.

“We don’t need to announce it just yet,” Mel told me with a pat on the cheek.

I shook my head.

“You’re really going to try to fool Claire?” I asked, pulling on socks as I stood beside the bed. “That’s destined to fail.”

The two beautiful women exchanged a look.

“I guess we’ll tell them when they ask about it,” Mel said lightly.

We each finished dressing while wrapped in our own thoughts on the subject before we went down to eat. We were the last ones to the table and breakfast was already in progress as the rest of our guests talked among themselves. Angela had been accepted by them, having been given a glowing endorsement from me for her work in the divorce. She was in a roomful of people that wished she’d been there to represent them in their divorces. If there was a person that they’d accept as their own, it was a lawyer that made it her mission to punish cheating spouses. They all looked up at the three of us and there was a round of smirks from several of them.

“Oh good!” Bella said. “I went to wake Theresa earlier and her room was empty. I was worried she’d decided to leave early or got lost in the castle somewhere.”

I sat down, and Mel took the seat on my left while Terri went to get coffee to start. Eliza had breakfast going and took our orders while Terri poured coffee. She came back to the table with three mugs and set one down in front of me.

“Just how you like it,” she assured me. “Hot, black and sweet.”

That made Mary choke on hers briefly. Terri smirked at her and then then set Mel’s down in front of her.

“Yours is just the same, except with a splash of cream in the middle,” she told her and then kissed her cheek and took the seat on my other side.

Well, there was no way that was going to be the end of that.

“And how are you drinking YOURS this morning?” Bella wanted to know playfully.

“Hot, strong, creamy and smooth,” she said with a smile, lifting the cup to her lips and tasting it with a deliberate smack of her lips and a grin across the table.

Claire looked back and forth between us and looked like she was making mental notes.

“So, the three of you?” she asked directly.

Mel nodded.

“I like girls, but with everything that’s happened, I don’t think I could trust anyone except you,” she looked around the room. “When I left, Terri was pretty much set. If she wanted Rand, I couldn’t have cleared a path for her any better, but she didn’t go for it. When I got back, and she finished reaming me out for leaving like that, we got to talking. It wasn’t because she didn’t love him, but she couldn’t poach him from me. I’ve missed having a girlfriend and I knew I could trust her with Rand, no matter what. We both love Rand, we both love Terri, they both love me. We’ll make it work.”

They nodded about that and we all enjoyed our breakfast. Eliza took it upon herself to make sure that the three of us had a little extra on our plate to start the day. She left us to talk, but I was sure we’d talk to her about it later. They asked a lot of questions, including when we decided this and were amused that I hadn’t known ahead of time.

I let them take the lead, since they were both involved in planning last night, so they both had a clearer picture of us than I did. Not that I minded. We just hadn’t had a chance to talk it all out except for the brief conversation that we’d had this morning. That conversation had decided that last night wasn’t a one-time thing and that Terri wasn’t going to mess up things with us, but it was far from the last word we’d have on the subject.

They answered a lot of questions for everyone and they accepted it easily enough. We were doing presents after breakfast for the group and Angela felt a little embarrassed that she didn’t have something for us at least.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “We didn’t get super-extravagant with anyone. Mel and I have enough money to get everyone something they’d like personally or could use.”

She nodded and let us draw her along. We had the presents wrapped and waiting in the den and there were some presents from them to us as well, but we’d asked them to not spend a lot on us.

We passed out ours and collected our gifts while we all sat around and waited to see who was first. We let Angela open hers first. We’d gotten her a very nice pen set for her desk for important signings that she wanted to commemorate. She smiled appreciatively and held the box lovingly, looking over the contents and probably thinking ahead to the lives that pen would change over the course of her career.

After that, Claire got a look at her first offering from the Wine of the Month club and looked very appreciative.

“You’ve obviously been taking notes on me,” she said with a smile. “You’ll have to do better though, if you want me to change your character, Rand,” she teased, letting me know that she was still planning on ignoring my suggestions to make her book about us more exciting.