by Marla Monroe
“Dee, there has to be a reason she wanted to break us up,” Andy said. “But that isn’t as important right now. The three of us and how we feel about each other is what’s important.”
“It doesn’t matter why or what led up to our screwup, baby. What matters is that you understand how sorry we are and how much we still love you. We will never cheat on you again,” Amos told her.
He poured every ounce of conviction he had inside of him into those words. He meant them and nothing would ever get between them again. Nothing and no one had the power to lead him or drag him away from Dee.
“There were so many misunderstandings and secrets between us that we never had a chance, baby. Instead of trying to protect you and ease you into being ours, we should have been open and honest with you from the beginning. We should have let you set the pace and encouraged you to feel comfortable talking to us about anything. It could have prevented so much pain and misery. I’m so sorry, Dee.” Amos started to reach out and take her trembling hands into his but hesitated. What was she thinking now? Had he said too much?
“But how do I believe that you won’t get upset and do it again?” she asked them.
Chapter Eight
Dee’s chest burned with the need to draw in a deep breath, yet she couldn’t. A year’s worth of pain and betrayal tightened around her like a wide belt, squeezing her lungs to the point she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to breathe freely again. She loved them so much, but how could she trust them? How could she trust anyone again? Hazel was the only other person she’d ever let past the outer walls that protected her and even she didn’t have the ability to hurt her like Andy and Amos.
She couldn’t deny the pain and anguish she could see reflected in their eyes. Nor could she explain away the gut feeling that they were being honest from the soul, but trust was hard for her anyway.
Dee had grown up the only child of an older academic couple who loved her in their own way but rarely said it or showed it. They forgot birthdays and school activities. By the time she was ten, Dee was on her own for the most part. Yet it had never bothered her until she’d had questions about boys and dating and life facts that didn’t come from books and documentaries.
Though her parents tried to nurture those areas in her life, they fell far short and didn’t even realize it. She knew they loved her in their own way, but sometimes, like when she lay awake in bed at night, afraid of what might be lurking beneath her bed, she’d wished for real parents who would chase away the monsters and hold her hand until she fell asleep. Dee had the intelligence to know there were not such things as monsters hiding in closets and shadows, but she also had the mind of a child who needed to be reassured and protected.
At sixteen, she decided to graduate early and get on with her life. She figured she could create her own world and family where no one forgot anything, especially that she was important to them. She’d thought she’d finally found that when the twins had moved home and started calling on her.
I convinced myself it was only a schoolgirl crush and tried to get on with my life. When they moved home, I knew that it hadn’t been.
Everything she’d felt before crashed over her but with the desires and emotions of an adult this time. It had thrown her for a loop having never experienced lust or need like that before. They appealed to her as men and potential lovers just as much as they settled the childlike need to be protected and reassured at times. And Andy and Amos did that without belittling her own strengths and abilities.
That was why their betrayal had devastated her and why she wasn’t sure she could trust them and set herself up to go through that hell again.
She looked up into Andy’s face and that fear grew in direct proportion to her soul’s insistence that they were telling the truth and would stay true to her no matter what. She could see her future in his eyes and when she looked over to where Amos perched on the edge of the couch, reaching for her hand, she saw forever in his.
“I believe that you’re truly sorry and that you never planned to hurt me, but it happened and I did get hurt,” she told them.
“So did we, baby, so did we. Believe me when I say it’s something we never want to experience again,” Amos said.
“The pain of you shaking your head and telling us no was rough enough,” Andy began. “But adding to that the sight of you standing in the bedroom doorway with shock and devastation on your face took it to an even deeper level.”
“It’s obvious we—I wasn’t thinking straight in the first place, but I believed that you’d rejected us. We thought it was over between the three of us and that you were dropping us from your life. I wanted to jump off a cliff or smash my truck into a brick wall. Then looking up to see you standing there staring at our fuckup gave a whole new meaning to being gut punched. I nearly threw up right there,” Amos told her.
The honesty she heard in his voice and the conviction in Andy’s expression settled her mind that they had hurt just like she had. They’d made a mistake, but mistakes could be repeated, right?
“I’m so scared that it won’t last,” she said. “You’re asking me to trust you when you’ve already hurt me.”
“I know baby girl. I know,” Amos said, taking her hand into his.
“We don’t have the right to ask, but we love you so much that we can’t just walk away without a fight. You are our everything, Dee.” Andy gently caressed her cheek with the palm of his hand.
“This is so hard. I want to believe you. I want to give us a try, but all I can think about is Carol in your bed.” Dee pulled her hand from Amos’s. “I need up. I need to think.”
Both men pulled back and stood up to give her some room. Dee had always appreciated that about them. They didn’t argue with her about the simple things. They just stepped back and let her do what she needed to do. They knew her and trusted that she was intelligent enough not to do anything crazy.
Trust. They had given her the compliment of believing in her ability to make decisions on her own and only gave her their thoughts when she asked them. It was something that no other man she’d ever dated had offered. They had always tried to steer her where they thought she should go and do what they thought was best.
But in actuality, Andy hadn’t believed she could make a decision concerning when she was ready for the next step in their relationship. He might have supported her independence in all other ways, but when it came to the parts that mattered, her emotional and sexual parts, he’d failed miserably.
“If I could erase that picture from your mind, I’d do it, Dee,” Andy said. “But the only thing I can do is promise to replace it and cover it with better pictures and memories in the future.”
“I’ll work on it every day, Dee Dee. I promise that.” Amos smoothed his hands over his pant legs as if anxious or maybe to dry the sweat from his hands.
Yes, they had screwed up and broken her trust, but had it really been their fault entirely? She’d given them the idea that she didn’t want them. Looking back, Dee realized that she’d thought about that weeks later but dismissed it because she’d still been reeling from so much betrayal. Had she allowed her pain and ego to get in the way of exploring the truth? Could she be just as guilty as the guys? As Amos who claimed to have let his ego call the shots when she’d refused his marriage proposal?
Refused wasn’t really the right word. Dee had barely skirted mocking him with her reaction. It had made her mad that he’d only asked her because it was obvious that he thought something was going on between her and Josh when there wasn’t. She’d seen the looks he’d given the other man at the diner before they’d left but didn’t really think much about it until he’d blurted out his intentions of marrying her.
Then there was the issue of Andy and how she didn’t think he was really as attracted to her as Amos was. Dee knew that they wanted to share their wife. At first it had seemed really weird to her, but the more she was around them, the more she understood how they complimented each other and would be
overwhelming to a woman on their own.
All during their dating, she’d worried that Andy was just going along with Amos and really wasn’t that into her. It had hurt, but she enjoyed their company and though he seemed a little distant, Andy had never treated her as less than important and made sure she was happy and taken care of.
“Andy, what is it that you want from me?” she finally asked.
A stunned expression crossed his face before he controlled his features and gave her a slight nod. She’d surprised him by asking him as an individual.
“The only two things I want from you, honey, are your forgiveness and a chance to prove to you that we…” He stopped and closed his eyes for a brief second. “That I want you as my wife and lover more than anything in the world.”
She felt her stomach drop at the blatant acknowledgement that he wanted her even without his brother in the equation. It was what she needed to hear. He demolished the fear festering in her heart that Andy wanted her because his brother did.
She nodded and looked over at Amos. “You know trust is a two-way street, Amos. Josh was nothing to me other than an acquaintance. Yes, he asked me out, but I told him I was with the two of you. I never went anywhere with him or talked to him other than making polite conversation, yet you immediately jumped to the conclusion that we might have something going on. At the very least, you assumed I would leave you to be with him. How is that fair to me?”
Amos shook his head before speaking. Then he looked over to his brother with a pleading expression. Dee wasn’t sure what he was asking of Andy, but she wouldn’t let the other twin interfere with her question of Amos.
“Amos. This is between you and me. This all started because you doubted my sincerity,” she said.
“No! I never doubted you, but I didn’t want Josh to get a foothold when we planned to ask you to marry us all along. I’d pushed Andy to move faster, but he thought you needed time to adjust to there being two of us and to the intimacy of being with two men. I jumped the gun. I know that now. I’m so sorry, baby. Please forgive me. Forgive us,” Amos pleaded.
“If I agree to try again, then we agree to be totally honest with each other. No more making assumptions or decisions for me or without all of us talking through whatever it is. I’m forty-one years old, a grown-up. I could then and can now make those decisions. Do you agree?” she asked.
Both men stepped forward, nodding their heads with tentative smiles turning up the corners of their mouths. Seeing the hope shining in their eyes sealed it for Dee. They were worth the second chance. She’d never found another man, much less men, who offered her so much acceptance and love as Andy and Amos.
But if they were going to do this, she wanted one more thing. She had no doubt they would try to talk her out of it, but it was something she wanted and had wanted for a long time. The one thing they didn’t share that might have prevented all of the problems in their past was intimacy. It opened up the soul and added a deeper connection where she was sure she wouldn’t have doubted Andy’s feelings if they’d had that before.
“There’s something else that I need before I agree,” she told them.
Andy didn’t say anything, but she could see by the tightening of the lines at his mouth he was worried what she would ask. Amos, on the other hand, had no trouble putting his worry into words.
“Before you agree? What is it?” he asked, his worry reflected in the widening of his eyes.
“I want to make love with you,” she said just above a whisper. “Right now.”
Chapter Nine
The shock on their faces would have been comical if the entire situation hadn’t been so serious. Dee wasn’t sure how to take it. Did they think she’d lost her mind or did they see her differently now that she was pretty much demanding sex from them? She wasn’t a loose woman by any stretch of the imagination but seeing their reaction worried her that they would think that now.
Andy recovered first. “Dee, are you sure about this? I’m not going to complain by any means—making love with you is a dream I’ve had for a long, long time—but I don’t want you to feel that you have to do this for some reason.”
“I’m sure. You’ve moved so slow with me that I was beginning to wonder if you held back because you weren’t really as interested in me as your brother was. It made me feel very insecure about our relationship. I want us to grow closer, not farther apart, and I want to deepen the relationship. Sex does that if it’s for the right reasons,” she told him.
“Honey, I agree that I slowed things down. Amos was right that we shouldn’t have dragged our feet, but I was worried that you weren’t ready for that deep of a commitment. I’m just as attracted to you as Amos, and we both care about you—all of you, not just your body but your mind and spirit as well. Thinking that you weren’t ready for more wasn’t my call, but at the time I was afraid you weren’t ready for more. I’m sorry,” Andy said.
“Guys, I was thirty-nine, nearly forty years old. Surely you don’t think I’m still a virgin. Do you?” she asked, afraid to hear their answer.
They looked at each other then back at her without reaching her eyes.
Uh-oh. If they believed I was still untouched, this isn’t going to go well. I didn’t sleep around, but I’m not a prude either.
“Guys?”
“We didn’t think you were still a virgin, Dee Dee, but we were kind of pretending there hadn’t been anyone else before us,” Amos said, pink coloring suffusing his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“What he means,” Andy hurried to add, “is that we were sure you’d experimented some but that you were picky and might not have gone into it with the possibilities of marriage. With us, there would be no possibilities. We plan to marry you, honey. We love you.”
“But what if after a few weeks or even months we don’t feel the same way about each other?” she asked.
“Baby, sex is only part of the relationship. Hell, it’s only the physical part of making love. There’s more to it than that.” Amos smiled, the usual twinkle back in his eyes.
“What he’s talking about is that no matter how the sex is, the most important part is the relationship that leads up to it. The physical part between us could fall short of what we might have hoped but it wouldn’t be the end of the three of us. We’d work on it, but we’d already have each other and spending time holding you while you slept or gazing into your eyes under the stars at night is a lot more important to me than the sex,” Andy said.
Amos grinned even wider if possible. “And that has nothing to do with erectile dysfunction. Unlike many men over the age of forty, we don’t suffer from that nasty problem—yet.”
“Hell, Amos. Really?” Andy groaned and pulled at his hair with one hand.
Dee couldn’t hold it together any longer. She burst out laughing then threw herself into Amos’s arms. He chuckled and stumbled back a step before wrapping his arms around her and swinging her around in a circle. When her feet hit the sofa, Amos stopped and set her gently on her feet again.
“See, smart-ass! She understands.” Amos stuck his tongue out at his twin then looked down into Dee’s eyes. “I’m completely and enthusiastically onboard with the sex, baby girl, but you have to be sure because this isn’t just to take us for a test drive. This is for keeps.”
“What?” she asked, taking a step back.
“Amos is right. We’ve told you our intentions where you’re concerned. We want forever, a picket fence, a passel of kids, and three rocking chairs on the front porch. We’ll take it as slow as you need to go to get past the potholes in the road, but in the end, you’re ours,” Andy said.
“And we’re yours,” Amos added. “Baby girl, there’s no turning back. Once we make love together, there’s no turning back. It’s forever as in till death do us part.”
* * * *
The stunned expression on Dee’s face worried Amos. Had he said too much again? Hell, no. She needed to understand that they weren’t going into this lightly.
Some men could call things to a halt if they got tired of the sex, or it wasn’t what they expected, but true love didn’t completely depend on the physical relationship. A man could jerk off if needed, but having a woman to cuddle with in bed or sitting in front of a fire was worth far more than a little physical pleasure.
“Don’t go wimpy on us, Dee, baby. Think about it,” Amos said, reaching out and touching her chest where her heart would be.
“How do you really feel about us? Reach deep down into your heart and think about it. If you honestly care about us—love us, then you’ve already made up your mind that forever is what you want. We don’t have to run out and get married right away. We can wait as long as you need,” Andy said, his mouth shaping into a soft smile.
“That’s not to say that we’ll wait around for years, baby girl. I want our ring on you and our name hooked with yours. You can take ours or link yours to ours, but I want everyone to know that we’re a team,” Amos said with a more serious expression wrinkling his brow.
Serious and Amos didn’t normally go together outside of work. He hoped Dee understood that he really was serious about that. He would tattoo his and Andy’s name on her if she’d let them, but Amos figured he could settle for a ring and a wedding or reception large enough that everyone in town and maybe that part of the state knew she was off the market for good.
“What about jealousy? You both sound so serious about this being final. After how you reacted to Josh, I’m scared you’ll be second-guessing everyone I talk to. And what about me? I’m going to worry any time I don’t know where you are. That’s no way to start a relationship. In fact, it’s one way to destroy one before it’s even off the ground. I’m afraid we’re already starting off with a cloud over our heads,” Dee told them.
“Honey,” Andy said, stepping closer to her. “As far as we’re concerned, once we take this step, you’re ours. The wedding and all is more of a show to let everyone know. If we decide to go forward with this, we’ll be getting you a ring first thing in the morning. That’s good enough for us.”
