“It doesn’t feel right to not have her in it that way.”
He nodded. “Exactly. Look, I know this is crazy, but I swear it’s like she’s that piece that’s been missing all this time.”
I stared at him for a moment. Then my vision blurred because my eyes were suddenly welling up, and I reached for his hand. “I didn’t think you’d understand.”
Shahid released his breath. “I didn’t either. But today…” He brought my hand up and kissed it softly. “Today, I do. And I don’t know what this means for my identity, and to be honest, I really don’t care at the moment. The only thing I’m sure about right now is that I want you in my life, and I want her in ours.”
I nodded. “Me too. I didn’t know how to explain it. I’m still not quite sure how. I love you, Shahid. I would never dream of leaving you, and I know I’d still be happy if it was only the two of us. But the thought of the three of us together, it’s just…”
“Perfect?”
“Perfect.”
He smiled and drew me in. “I probably wouldn’t have understood a few months ago. But now…” He paused. “Now it just makes sense.”
I nodded and closed the last little sliver of distance between us. As I pressed my lips to his, I very nearly choked up with this flood of emotion. Finally, we were back on the same page. Kissing him now was a bigger relief than it had been after he’d been away for nearly a month the year before last, or after those rare fights that had sent one of us to sleep on a friend’s couch for a night.
But last night’s argument still echoed in my ears. Not just his insecurities or the accusation that had driven me out the door, but the reason we’d been fighting in the first place.
I broke the kiss. “I need to know something.”
“Okay.” He drew back and met my gaze.
Heart thumping, I fought the urge to look anywhere but right at him. “When I slept with her after her appointment…” I pulled in a deep breath. “Did I cheat on you?”
The beat of hesitation made my stomach flip, but slowly, he shook his head. “No. I don’t even know how to classify it. This whole three-way thing we’ve been doing, it’s all foreign territory for me.”
“Me too,” I whispered.
“So I don’t know what I should have expected, or what you should have done.” He sighed. “I don’t know. But I do trust you. And I know you didn’t go into it that night with the intent of going behind my back or anything like that. So, no. I wouldn’t call it cheating.” He stroked my hair and kissed my temple. “In fact, now I think I get why you slept with her after she heard from the doctor.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “I really do understand. And I guess we never did lay down rules for what would happen if things played out this way.” He held me tighter. “I don’t think any of us thought it would play out this way.”
I squeezed my stinging eyes shut. “No, I definitely didn’t think it would.”
“And she needed you that night.” His voice was calm but held an undercurrent of resignation that made my spine prickle. He hesitated and released me enough to meet my gaze. “It would’ve been cruel to her if you’d—”
“But what about you?” I touched his face. “I should’ve thought of you, and I—”
He silenced me with a kiss. “I understand. You love her. So do I.”
Relief threatened to bring me to the edge of tears again, and I choked them back. “What do we do now?”
He shrugged. “We talk to Kendra, I guess.”
“What do you think she’ll say?”
He shook his head. “I have no idea. We’ll have to talk to her and find out.”
“That’s about all we can do.”
“It is. We’ll talk to her tonight.” He touched my face. “For now, though?”
I kissed the tip of his nose. “For now, I already feel a lot better about all this.”
“Me too.”
I chuckled. “You know our families will lose their shit over it, right?”
He laughed. “Do you really think it’ll be any worse than anything else we’ve thrown at them?”
“You’ve got a point.”
“And hey.” He cupped my cheek. “You’ll have someone to commiserate with over all those holidays I miss.”
I laughed too, and wiped my eyes. “Maybe we’ll stay home. Have our own holidays as a family.” My own words hit me square in the gut. I was right, wasn’t I? We had our extended families, my church and his mosque, but the three of us made sense as a family. As our little immediate family who could figure out our own holiday traditions like the modified Lent we’d come up with, or me volunteering with Shahid during Ramadan.
He nodded. “I like that idea.”
“Me too.” I smiled and lifted my chin to kiss him softly. “I’ll text her later on and see if she wants to meet up and talk.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “For tonight, I really need to be with you.”
“Yeah. Same here.” Shahid wrapped his arms around me, and his kiss said the conversation was definitely over. As he pushed my lips apart and deepened the kiss, I just held on and let relief wash over me right alongside this delicious arousal.
Eventually, we’d move to the bedroom. Or maybe we wouldn’t. We’d made love on this couch before, and it might just happen tonight, but I didn’t care where we were—we could be lying on the cold kitchen floor for all I cared—as long as we didn’t stop.
I had no idea how Kendra would respond. If she’d be on board. If we had a prayer of making this thing work. I just had no idea.
But at least for right now, I had Shahid, and I wasn’t about to let him go.
* * * * *
I texted Kendra just before school let out, and we agreed to meet at her place at five. That would give her time to come home, change clothes and wind down a little, and I was fine with that.
At exactly five o’clock, we walked up to her front door and rang the doorbell.
The click of the dead bolt reverberated through me like a gunshot. Shahid squeezed my hand, and we looked at each other for a split second before the door opened.
Across the threshold, Kendra met my gaze. Then Shahid’s.
Swallowing, she stood aside to let us in. None of us spoke as we moved into her living room. She sat in the armchair, feet tucked up under her, and we took the couch.
Her posture was guarded, her expression offering nothing. I could only imagine what she was expecting this to be about.
“So.” She folded her arms loosely beneath her breasts. “You guys, um, wanted to talk?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at Shahid and then took in a breath.
“You guys are okay, right?” Her eyes darted toward our joined hands. “After last night?”
Shahid and I looked at each other, and both nodded.
“We are,” Shahid said. “And a lot of that is thanks to you.”
She smiled faintly but remained guarded. “So, what’s this about, then?”
I moistened my lips. “There’s no point in beating around the bush,” I whispered. “I’m in love with you, Kendra.”
Her breath hitched.
“And so am I,” Shahid said just as softly.
Kendra’s lips parted. “What?”
“We both love you.” I gulped. “We want to be with you.”
“Be with…” She cocked her head. “Be with you, how?”
“The same way Gabe and I are with each other,” Shahid said. “Except three of us instead of two.”
Eyebrows climbing, she sat back. “You’re serious.”
“We are.” Shahid took her hand and looked her in the eye. “The thing is, Gabe and I decided to adopt because we wanted kids, and we still do.” He paused, glancing at me. Facing her again, he said, “But it was also because we’ve felt like there was a piece missing in
our lives.” He swallowed. “And it took letting you go to realize that the whole time you were with us, nothing was missing.”
Kendra glanced at each of us. “But…I’m not your child.”
“No, no. Of course not. But somehow, when it’s the three of us, it feels like everything’s the way it should be.” He brought her hand up and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “And when you’re gone, it’s…”
“When you’re gone, we miss you,” I said. “And not the same way we missed you back when we were all just friends.”
Shahid nodded. “There’s something else here. If I hadn’t felt it, I wouldn’t have believed it, but…”
“This is crazy,” she said. “All we did was sleep together, and…”
“Is that really all we did?” Shahid asked. “Because it felt an awful lot to me like we were taking things to a level they would’ve made it to eventually anyway.”
“Really?” Her forehead creased. “You guys really think…”
“Very much so,” he said. “You and I won’t ever have the chemistry that we each have with Gabe, but there’s something here.” He swallowed. “Enough for me to know that I love you.”
“Shahid…”
“So do I,” I said.
She glanced at me. “You guys are serious?”
Shahid nodded. “Completely.”
“You guys have the perfect marriage.” She laughed humorlessly. “You don’t need me.”
“We want you, Kendra,” I said. “We love you. Maybe it’s not a traditional arrangement, but it works.”
Her eyes darted back and forth between us.
“This isn’t what we expected either,” Shahid said. “Believe me, it came out of left field for me. Falling for a woman was, uh, not in my plans. Gabe came across some term for it—”
“Biromantic homosexual,” I said. “He’s sexually attracted to men, but he can develop romantic feelings toward men or women.”
She shook her head. “That’s a thing?”
“Apparently.” Shahid chuckled. “He found something online about it, so I guess it is.” Sobering, he touched her face. “And even if there hadn’t been anything about it, it’s still true here. I’m in love with both of you. No woman has ever turned my head, but you…” He touched her face, and I swore there was electricity running between her cheek and his fingertips. Speaking softly, Shahid said, “I love you, Kendra. It doesn’t have to make sense. It just is.”
She watched us for a moment, without saying a word. Then she exhaled, her shoulders sinking slightly. “To be honest, I think I’ve been in love with both of you for a lot longer than any of us realized.”
For the second time today, a profound sense of relief rushed through me.
Shahid smoothed her hair. “I don’t know what this is. All I know is that nothing’s felt right since you left.”
Kendra let out a long breath and let herself be drawn into his arms. “God, I love you guys.” She tensed a little. “But…how would something like this even work?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “We’ll probably make it up as we go.”
Shahid nodded. “We’ll keep doing what we were doing before, and—”
“Except what we were doing before was so I could get pregnant,” she said.
I shook my head. “I don’t think it was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it started out that way.” I slid my hand up Shahid’s back and rested it between his shoulder blades. “But I think what it did was open the door for things to change between us. Between all three of us.”
“Think about it,” Shahid said. “What kind of relationship did we have for you to be willing to carry a baby for us?”
Her eyes flicked down to her wringing hands. “I wanted to help you guys.”
Shahid and I exchanged glances.
“But if you’d made the offer to anyone else,” I said softly, “would the, uh, terms have been the same?”
“Probably not, no.” She paused. “You guys are still planning to adopt, though, right?”
I nodded. “We’re still going to try.”
“So where does that leave me?” Bitterness laced her tone.
“When we say we want you to be a part of this,” Shahid said, “we mean all of it. The three of us can be a family of our own. And if a baby comes along…”
“Then the four of us will be a family,” I said.
Kendra’s eyes started welling up, and she swiped at them. “You guys…”
Shahid wrapped his arms around her, and my chest ached just from watching them. How in the hell had it taken us this long to see how perfect all three of us were together? There wasn’t a woman alive who could turn Shahid’s head in a sexual way, but there was no denying the bond he had with Kendra. The tenderness, the affection—it was as real as the bond he and I shared.
She opened her eyes, and turned to meet my gaze. “We should probably let Gabe get in on this too.”
“I agree,” he said with a grin as he turned toward me.
Kendra came around the coffee table and took the empty cushion beside me.
I cupped her face, and she smiled.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too.” She drew me in for a kiss and damn near shook the foundation right out from under me. As I gathered her in my arms and returned her kiss, I was dizzy with deepening relief and building arousal—as if everything in my world had been off-kilter and now it was all back the way it needed to be, and all I needed now was to be as close as possible to the two people I loved beyond words.
Soft lips brushed the back of my neck, and I shivered between Kendra and Shahid. I sucked in a breath, my spine straightening, and someone’s hand slid over my thigh. Apparently the conversation was over, because holy fuck.
Kendra tugged Shahid’s arm and reached for mine. “I’m pretty sure my bed can accommodate three.”
Shahid grinned. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kendra
As soon as we were upstairs, the clothes were off. It was like we’d walked into the bedroom, and everything magically teleported straight to the floor.
We hadn’t even made it into bed before Gabe and Shahid pulled each other close and claimed each other’s mouths, and the sight of them may as well have been hard-wired right to my clit. When we’d started out, I’d been right about one thing—watching those two kiss would never get old—and it was beyond hot now. They were both frantic, feverish, as if they’d been wound up and holding back because they weren’t sure how things would go, and now that the air was cleared, apprehension gave way to hunger and need.
Shahid broke away first and looked right at me. Grinning, he reached for me, and suddenly he was kissing me the way he’d been kissing Gabe, and my knees wobbled beneath me.
Gabe gathered my hair and laid it over my shoulder. When his lips met the bare side of my neck, I gasped but refused to break the kiss with Shahid. This was… I couldn’t… I held on to Shahid’s arms to keep from melting at my two lovers’ feet. Hot skin pressed against mine from all sides. Hands drifting all over me. Gentle lips kissing my mouth and my neck. The reality that we were here, and despite everything that had happened, we’d come back to this—to being three people with nothing in mind but the others’ happiness.
Emotion threatened to overwhelm me, but another sensation entirely was even harder to ignore.
“I don’t care who,” I murmured, “but I need somebody to fuck me right now.”
“That can be arranged,” Gabe breathed. He met Shahid’s eyes, and then said to me, “Get on top of him.”
“Get on—” I looked at Shahid, and he nodded. What telepathy had those two exchanged while I wasn’t looking? I had no idea, but I did what I was told and climbed on top of Shahid. Gabe moved around behind m
e, but before I could figure out what he had in mind, Shahid pulled me down into a kiss. Before I could get my mind around that, Gabe’s cock slid inside me, and for a few seconds, I completely forgot what I was doing. Where I was. Anything that wasn’t Shahid’s soft lips or Gabe’s hard dick.
Shahid’s hand drifted down between us, and when his fingertips brushed my clit, I almost collapsed on top of him.
“Th-thought you weren’t into this part,” I said.
He grinned. “But you are.” And he pressed his lips to mine, and he was obviously enjoying this too. He gripped my hair in one hand, gently teased my clit with the other, and kissed me while his husband fucked me hard from behind. So I didn’t object, and Shahid kissed me and Gabe fucked me and I felt amazing.
“Oh God,” Gabe moaned. “You are so tight.” He pounded me, every thrust jolting me just right to rub my pierced clit against Shahid’s fingers. Shahid’s kiss muffled my moans and cries, and my whole body felt like it was unraveling between these two amazing men. This was perfect, and too much, and not enough, and…and…
Perfect.
Despite Shahid’s grip on my hair, I threw my head back, breaking the kiss and crying out, “Oh fuck! Fuck, you guys, I’m…” I was coming, and they weren’t stopping, and I couldn’t even speak because I couldn’t breathe. Shahid’s fingers… Gabe’s cock… Holy…
Gabe slammed himself all the way inside me and pulled my hips back against him. “Fuck! Oh my… God!”
We were both still for a second, trembling, taking sharp, uneven breaths as we slowly came back down to earth.
Shahid was almost as out of breath as we were. “That was insanely hot.”
“You’re telling me.” Gabe pulled out, and as we both eased ourselves down on either side of Shahid, he said, “You still haven’t come, though.”
“No, he hasn’t.” We met each other’s gazes, and both grinned.
He kissed beneath Shahid’s jaw, and then we both started down his smooth torso. Shahid’s fingers trailed down my arm. He whispered something that must’ve been in his native tongue, and when Gabe ran his tongue along the underside of Shahid’s dick, that native murmuring suddenly took on a much more profane sound. My spine tingled—Shahid being turned on enough to curse? Hot. Insanely hot.
The Best Laid Plans Page 24