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Berry's Second Chances Ch. 01

By: PacoFear



Author's Note: This two-part story was motivated by a surprising number of nice people asking me variations of the following question: "So whatever happened to 'Berry' from 'Strawberries & Bubblegum'?"

Don't worry, you don't have to be one of these people, or even understand the question they posed, to find "Berry's Second Chances" entertaining. You just have to like hearing a story from a down-on-her-luck teenage girl who mistakenly let the first love of her life get away, only to be offered a much-deserved second chance.

Actually, as the title implies, Berry's going to get two second chances. But after what she's been through, she's deserved them both.

A special thank you to the sassy and clever Darcy Sweet, whose knack for writing like me (but better) when I need help closing a plot gap still has me scratching my head sometimes. Darce, Aussie girls rock. Epically.

To all, enjoy. :)

~*~ Chapter 01: One Girl, Two Loves, Same Family ~*~

"Hey Stace."

My heart near stopped at the sound. Was it her? Could it really be her? My mouth wouldn't work. I couldn't answer.

After a pause, her voice continued uncertainly over the phone, "Ummm, it's Heather. From school?"

Good god, as if she needed to explain. I knew who it was; I recognized her voice. I just didn't believe it was really her. I'd wanted to hear from her for so long that part of me was wondering if I'd conjured her up.

"Bub--," I stopped myself before I called her Bubblegum but just barely, "Heather. Hi. Good to hear your voice."

"I'm in town this weekend. I was hoping we could, like, get together maybe?"

Get together. My stomach leapt, butterflies whirling in an excited swarm. Their ecstatic chorus sang from my middle: "Bubble! Go. See her. Apologize. Fix. Mend. Reunite. Be brave. Be happy again. Be...

...whole." The last word came with so much force that I nearly whispered it out loud.

I'd been brave once, brave enough to start things with Heather, flirting carefully at first then building up to the teasing and toying and tempting needed to lure a heterosexual girl across what, for her, was a strange and scary same-sex line.

Her lips may have moved first in the movie theater, pressing themselves softly, tentatively against mine in the flickering dark that reeked of stale popcorn butter, but in every way but literal, I'd led her to it, taken her hand and guided her down the rose petal-strewn path of young girl-girl love.

So much had happened since then. Was she? Would she?

My little fantasy deflated with her next cheerful words, "For coffee. Catch up and chat?"

"Sure...ummm that sounds..." The words, 'awful,' 'terrifying,' 'heartbreaking' ran through my head but what came out was better, "...great. That sounds great."

"Okay then, coffee at the usual place. I'll see you Saturday. Around seven?"

"Yep. Around seven."

She hung up first. I stayed on the line, listening to the silence as I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened.

Bubble and Berry. Together. For coffee and chitchat and what else?

On Saturday, I watched as she trotted in the coffee shop's door right on time. Her lip quivered a little when she spotted me and smiled. I was kind of nervous too. It didn't help that she was even prettier than I remembered.

Her brassy gold hair was woven into a long, tight braid that fell past her shoulders. She used to wear it that way when we played field hockey together. It showed off her face more. And her neck. Oh, her neck. I'd spent hours with my nose buried in her smooth neck, kissing, licking, nibbling.

I choked down a little groan when she stepped into me smoothly and hugged me tightly enough to convince me she really was happy to see me.

We got our coffees and sat together on the café's loveseat to make some small talk: school, dorm life, drinking stories. As we chatted, her leg touched mine a few times and it made my heart ache.

In the first lull, I ventured a careful compliment. "You look... good... you look good, Heather."

"Thanks." She smiled gently. "You look skinny, Stace. Dieting?"

"Running, actually. Tons."

Exercise was a new and safe topic and we traded work-out tips and stories, getting more comfortable. Our conversation drifted a little more easily into random topics.

As we talked, I waited for her to mention Hero, the large, quiet, older guy with the kind eyes she'd started seeing last year. Or Samantha, the petite and intense looking brunette that completed their storybook love triangle.

When I couldn't wait anymore, I took the breath to ask after them, but it was like Heather read my mind. "So... Sam and Hero say hi," she said quickly, eyes down in her coffee cup.

Crud, they were still together. The sick weight that sank in my stomach was the once-hopeful butterflies clutching their little hearts and falling over dead.

I plastered on my best happy face. "Awww... that's nice. How are they?"

She shrugged in a thoughtful attempt at looking casual, but her quick half-smile told me what I needed to know. It was the look of someone knee-deep in love and sinking deeper.

"They're good. The same. Sam's her own flavor of crazy. Hero tries to play the grown up, but we usually drag him down to our level. They came up to school to visit me last month and took my entire dorm floor out drinking. It was a ridiculous night. I only remember parts of it. Now my floormates want to know when my 'cool, older friends' are coming back again."

Her smile turned lopsided, rueful with the memory.

"Awww... that's nice," I said again, even more awkwardly now that she'd shared her happiness.

Super, everybody's having fun. Except me. "Ummm, so while you're away at school, Hero and Samantha—"

"Play house," she explained a little too quickly.

My follow up question was faster and deeper than our carefully casual conversation was supposed to get. "Lonely?" I regretted it the moment it flew from my lips.

Heather's beautiful blue eyes widened then blinked a few times.

"Sometimes. It gets tough when... when I wake up at school... in the, uh, middle of the night and its just me." One of her hands wandered up to the end of her tidy golden braid and she fiddled with it, anxiously. If her hair hadn't been braided, she'd have twisted a stray lock around her finger in a nervous habit I'd once teased her about. "You? Met anybody nice?"

I smirked and shook my head, mostly to shake off the pain of my dashed hopes for rekindling our romance. "Nope."

She stopped fiddling with her braid and now her eyes glittered cryptically. "Want to?"

I counted to three in my head to keep from screaming out loud. Please, for the love of god, don't toy with me, girlie. I'm barely holding my shit together over here. I swallowed instead. "But you just... wait... what do you mean?"

"Bobbie's been asking about you," she murmured over her coffee cup that she'd just brought to her lips. "A lot."

Ahhh, Bobbie. Presto, the magic box opened and out came the white rabbit. Or in this case, the adorable kid brother. That's why we were here. Bobbie. He'd been nearly as cute as he was shy way back when and he'd kind of had a thing for me.

"Oh yeah? What's your hunky kid brother up to these days? I haven't seen him in ages."

Heather started filling me in on Bobbie and I listened, already seeing where this was headed. I didn't need Heather's genius brain to figure out that I'd be going on a date with her brother sometime soon.

The foregone conclusion on the date meant I was free to split my attention while she talked. My eyes kept returning to a small table in the corner behind her. It was where we sat almost two years ago on the night we admitted out loud for the first time, so very carefully, that we wanted to be more than just friends. It had been a dangerous conversation. Coming out as gay in high school was like playing hopscotch in a minefield.

As Heather sold me on Bobbie's seemingly endless good qualities, I sank back into that night.

She was wearing a pale pink v-neck sweater, one of my favorites, soft and girly and picking up her rosy cheeks. She was clutching a jumbo latte cup with both hands for its warmth. Her gold hair was free and wavy, pulled to the side and draped forward over one shoulder.

When two emo guys came into the coffee shop and I'd nodded at them and asked her if she thought they were cute.

"Uh uh," she'd shaken her head quickly, "definitely not my kind of boys."

I'd smiled and slid into my next question, the one I really wanted to ask, "And what kind of girls do you like?"

I'd asked it in a jokey way then held my breath and looked away, afraid she'd see right through me if our eyes met. But Heather waited so long to answer that I finally looked back at her, wondering if she'd heard me.

She'd heard me. More importantly, she'd understood me. She was blushing and looking at me shyly over her latte when she gave me her soft answer, "I think... I think I like the you kind, Stace."

Hallelujah. I'd nibbled my lip and smiled wider. "Huh, what a coincidence." My muttered answer was a little lame but it was all I could think to say. Besides, it didn't really matter because we knew how we felt about each other now.

From there it had been the kind of girlie romance that people write stories about. Right up until I fucked it all up anyway.

The current Heather snapped me out of my tender memory.

"...so take it easy on my little brother, okay? He's got it pretty bad for you, Berry... errr... Stace." She winced, almost like she'd been slapped, because she'd used her old pet name for me. I watched the blood drain from her face.

"Sorry, Stace, I didn't mean—" she started to apologize.

"It's okay," I stopped her with a gentle nudge at her knee with mine. "I don't mind if you call me Berry. It's nice. If it helps, I've been calling you Bubble in my head all damn night."

She cracked a smile and some tension drained out of her as she nodded, "It does help."

"And, yes, I'll be nice to your brother."

We talked awhile longer before Heather's phone buzzed with a text message. She checked it, whispered "Sam" then apologized and said she had to go. She pecked me on the cheek when we said goodbye. I snuck a slow, quiet sniff of her when she leaned in for the peck. She smelled the same, a little like a piece of fresh Dubble Bubble gum right when the wrapper comes off. There was a good reason I'd given her such odd nickname; she honestly smelled a little like bubblegum to me.

Of course, with my sneaky sniff came more memories, ones of long and sweet and sweaty high school sleepovers in her bedroom with the door locked. There hadn't been much sleeping.

When we did finally fall asleep it was usually spooned and naked in her little twin bed after making love until we were both too tired and too satisfied to move. My guest sleeping bag would lay empty and unused on the floor. Sunday mornings were my favorite, we'd wake up to the smell of coffee and her Dad's chocolate chip waffles.

I blinked back tears. How had I let all of that go?

"Fuck you, Glenn," I muttered bitterly. My step-brother had taken more than my dignity the day he'd been about to rape me and Heather had thrown herself at him selflessly. Glenn had taken Heather from me. I'd hate him for that until my last breath. I'd hate my own family.

I touched my cheek where she'd kissed me goodbye. Had her lips lingered? I couldn't tell. I wished they would have just once, to relive what we'd shared not that long ago. I watched Heather's little, cute bubblebutt sway slightly as she trotted across the parking lot to her small white car.

I sighed and reminded myself she wasn't mine to ogle. Reuniting with Heather would take a miracle, and I didn't believe in them anymore.

~*~*~ Part II ~*~*~

The good news is that miracles don't need you to believe in them. Two weeks later, things were already looking much better.

"How's your ice cream sandwich, Stace?"

"Really frickin' good thanks, hehehe."

At nineteen, I was an adult by most people's standards, but there was something about eating ice cream sandwiches with Bobbie Miller that made me giggle like a little girl. I was too busy staring at my date to notice the melting corner of my sandwich and I giggled again as I hastily lapped off a few creamy, vanilla drips that slid down my wrist.

Bobbie Miller was very cute in a clean-cut, slim, trim, blonde hair kind of way. His eyes were a deep, deep blue, darker than his sister's and just as pretty.

Maybe even prettier.

More importantly, Bobbie was the kind of boy I'd heard about but never actually dated -- an honest-to-god "good guy." I didn't think they existed outside of Leave It to Beaver. This first date was turning out so perfect I found myself wondering if I'd somehow fallen into the archives at Nick-at--Nite.

He'd taken me for cheeseburgers on a Friday night. Chatting and laughing, our conversation felt easy, natural. I've never been good at talking about myself, but there was something about his sincere, undivided attention that made me want to open up. We had the same oddball sense of humor and he seemed really interested in me as a person—not just as a potential gropee. He asked all the right questions about my family, about what kind of stuff I liked, and how my sophomore classes were going.

When I leaned across the table and confided that I'd started training for a marathon and that I hoped to someday run the big one in Boston, he listened, really listened. He didn't tell me a marathon was crazy like my schoolmates and my Dad did; he just nodded and told me it was cool. Better still, he looked in my eyes as he did, not at the t-shirt stretched across my chest. He earned double bonus points for that since I fill out a top pretty well.

After dinner, he took me to a local lookout spot to watch the sunset. When we parked and he got out of the car, I followed him around to his trunk and he popped it open.

"Cool." I nodded and smiled even as my heart sank at the sight of the styrofoam cooler in his trunk. Crud, I thought, beer. For the hundredth time I wondered why guys were so convinced that beer made a sorority girl's clothes fall off.

Still, even as my disappointment brewed, I figured Bobbie was way ahead on points just based on dinner. If he wanted to get me a little tipsy while we hung out, I wasn't going to hold it against him. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping that he'd packed something other than beer for me. I'd never liked beer that much and some of the slightly more civilized guys I'd dated had actually thought to pack a few girl-friendlier wine coolers.

The funny thing was, until Bobbie, I really believed that those boys were as good as it got. Wow, was I wrong. So wrong.

When Bobbie popped open his cooler there was no beer. No wine coolers either. And no cheap rum for mixing with off-brand cola. In fact, there was alcohol at all.

Just ice cream sandwiches. And fudgesicles. On a little pile of dry ice.

"What would you like for dessert?" Bobbie waved his hand at the chilled stash and looked up at me with the sweetest smile.

I laughed and gasped at the same time. It tumbled out as an embarrassing snorty sound -- the same one I used to make when I was little and I came downstairs on Christmas morning. It had been so long since a guy had surprised me in such a sweet way.

"What?" His deep blue eyes shone with an honest and open innocence that reminded me of his sister. Heather had the same expression too.

"Nothing," I chuckled, "one ice cream sandwich please, sir."

He grabbed two and passed me one. Then he had me laughing again because next he handed me -- and I'm not kidding here -- a napkin.

"Here, in case you get sticky."

I took it, amazed, and teased him a little, "Huh, I didn't think teenage boys knew about napkins."

"Hmmm, well, some of us do." He easily shrugged off my needling and I liked that too. Bobbie was comfortable in his own skin.

He shut his trunk and waved me to a little downhill path. "Come on, I'll show you where there's a little stone wall we can sit on and watch the sunset."

So that's how we ended up sitting side-by-side on the little wall, nibbling ice cream sandwiches on a clear summer evening and chatting as we watched the sun go down.

Ice cream finished, the night air set in and Bobbie loosely draped his arm around my shoulders. "I'm not being fresh, Stace, you just look cold. I guess I didn't think through that part of the ice cream thing."

"Or maybe you did think it through?" I teased him again.

The side of his mouth hitched up in a cute smirk and he started to pull away.

"No, wait," I said stopping him and wriggling myself a little closer. I put my head on his shoulder and, feeling some nice muscle under his long-sleeved t-shirt, I gave a little sigh. Bobbie was a varsity shortstop; I should've guessed there'd be muscles under there. "This is kinda nice. Can I ask you something Bobbie?"

He nodded.

"How come you never asked me out before?"

I felt him tense. He cleared his throat before answering, "Well, you're a little intimidating, Stace. Not a lot of girls look like you."

Not a lot of girls look like me. It was his gentle way of saying I was pretty. Guys blurting things like "Goddamn baby, what I'd do to you..." had gotten old back in junior high school. I liked Bobbie's shy honesty. I hadn't heard anything so sweet and genuine in such a long time. Not since my simple little girl body had bloomed and things suddenly got a lot less simple.

I'd been the first one in my class to get boobs and hips. They'd come on so fast that seven years later, it still felt sometimes like I was a girl trapped in a woman's body. Sure, I'd learned to tone it down with the right clothes, but there was no hiding it completely. Besides, dark red hair and pale skin meant I'd never really be able to blend into the background no matter what I wore.

"C'mon, Heather's gorgeous," I said, trying to shift the conversation away from me.

"Maybe," he admitted, "but she's my big sister so she doesn't count. Heck, I remember when she had no front teeth."

"Really?"

"Yep, they both came out at the same time. I called her 'Gummers' for a whole summer." He chuckled at his own memory. "I'd forgotten about that. I'll have to remind her next time I see her."

"Do you talk to Heather often?" I asked, hoping it sounded like an offhanded question. We were easing onto dangerous ground.

"Meh, she doesn't come home much. Her school is a few hours away and when she does come back it's usually to see her boyfriend." Bobbie's expression melted into a sad faraway look. He missed his sister a lot, I realized. They'd always been close.   

My relationship with my step-brother was epically fucked up. Glenn and I made Greek tragedies look like primetime sitcoms.

Bobbie's new vulnerability caused me to hesitate before asking my next question, but I just had to know what I was getting into with him. "Does Heather ever, you know, mention me?"

I watched his face for a tell, my nervous hands blindly fiddling with the hem of my denim skirt. What did Bobbie know?

I kept my eyes on him, watching him like we were playing poker. His face was smooth and relaxed after my question. His eyes didn't widen or dart. I was sure those were good signs, but he didn't answer either. Worse, he flipped the question back to me, "You and Heather don't talk that much anymore do you, Stace? You used to be really close."

Close?

I almost choked. Yeah, you could say Heather and I had been close. If by close you meant in love. Those days were over though. And now I was on a date with her brother, one she'd arranged. There's a word for that and it's spelled "a-w-k-w-a-r-d." Preferably in all caps.


Berry's Second Chances Ch. 01



"No, Heather and I don't really talk anymore," I sighed.

"You guys had a pretty big fight, huh?"

"Kinda."

It was a shitty, evasive answer that Bobbie didn't deserve but it was way simpler than, "Heather interrupted my step-brother about to rape me and she had sex with him so I didn't have to and when it was all over I was so ashamed that I told her I didn't want to see her ever again and I didn't have the guts to face her after that."

Yes, sadly the best thing I could do for Bobbie was give him my simple, shitty, evasive "kinda" answer.

His reaction surprised me. He didn't poke or prod or pry. He went the other way, the right way. He apologized "Sorry Stace, that was rude. It's not really my business. That's between you and my sis." He squeezed me gently around my shoulders.

I scooted closer until my hip pressed against his and leaned my head on his shoulder, grateful for the comfort he offered without question.

"Who are you?" I asked softly. "You're not nearly as..."

"Immature as you'd figured?" he blurted.

"I was going to say 'disappointy,' but I was pretty sure it wasn't a word."

"Thanks for the compliment. And tonight I think disappointy is a word." He squeezed me again and rubbed my shoulder.

How did he know what to say? I brushed my cheek against his shoulder. He was a guy, a man for sure, but even this close he wasn't scary. He was listening... and caring.

I turned my face a little more until my nose was pressed into his shoulder, testing. My lips puckered all on their own and squished into the solid muscle shifting beneath his t-shirt.

"Uh, Stace? Did you just kiss my shoulder?" he asked when I rested my cheek on him again.

"No." I lied quietly.

"Must've been my imagination, then. It's getting chillier. Want to head back to your dorm?"

I wasn't ready. "Not yet. I'm good. My hands are a little chilly though," I hinted, successfully too because he quickly pressed his larger, warmer, rougher hands around mine.

We sat like that quietly for a long time. It was a comfortable quiet. It felt right somehow, being there with him.

When we did finally stir and climb back into his car, we talked about getting together again the next weekend.

I thanked him as he pulled his mom's car into my sorority's driveway, "I had a great time. This was the best study break ever. Thanks again, Bobbie."

He pulled up next to the house's door and started to scoot out of the car to open my car door for the hundredth time that night. I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Easy champ, I'll open my own door just this once. You've been doing it all night. I'm a girl, not a cripple."

I leaned across the armrest of his front seat to kiss him good night and he offered me his cheek.

God, he was sweet.

"Uh uh, for ice cream sandwiches, you're getting it on the lips, buster."

I turned his cute face towards me and planted my mouth on his, no tongue, just a nice long, soft smooch. It was the kind of steamy but proper kiss that Beaver Cleaver would have gotten at the door on a date. It seemed appropriate.

Bobbie's eyes were still closed and his lips were still puckered out into thin air when I finally pulled away and opened my car door to leave. Not to brag, but I'm a decent smoocher. Then again, so was he. What was it with the damn Miller kids anyway? Were they genetically gifted in the nookie department or something?

"E-mail me about next weekend?" I reminded him, already looking forward to mountain biking together.

Bobbie was still shaking off our smooch as I slid my way out of his car. "Whoa, Stace, you, uh, you smell like strawberries," he whispered after I shut his door.

"I know," I said simply, flicking him a passable wink I'd been practicing in the mirror since I was twelve.

I could have added something edgy like, 'Your sister used to like the way I smelled too.' I figured that'd be bad. I settled for a nice, safe, "Good night, Bobbie Miller."

"Yes, it was Stacey Jenkins. Yes, it was." He waved and pulled away.

I watched him go.

Honestly, I'd been ready to take that boy to bed right then. And my body was screaming for it. Not for actual, 'appendage A' into 'slot B' sex, mind you. For some reason I'd never crossed that line with a guy. But there were plenty of other things I'd gladly do for him. One look at Bobbie's boyish smile and lean, hard body and my roommate would have understood if I nudged her out of our room for an hour or two of sweaty play time with him.

But I'd promised Heather that I would be careful with Bobbie. Besides, the slow, old-fashioned thing he had going on was really working for me. Bobbie Miller was a major keeper. Of course, his sister had been one too. I'd fucked that up something major.

I muttered a quick prayer as I stepped into the house, "Please dear God in heaven, don't let me fuck this up too."

~*~*~Part II~*~*~

Two months after our first date, I surrendered to my own carnal needs and dragged Bobbie into my room after kicking out my roomie. I discovered another one of Bobbie's strong points, one that his sister had neglected to mention. Not that I expected her to know.

Robert Miller was the proud owner of the largest penis I've ever seen outside of internet porn.

Seriously, dude was packing.

We had kissed awhile, standing in the middle of my little room and his hands had cupped, stroked and teased me through my clothes to the point that he'd made me light-headed.

I needed less clothes in the way. His and mine. Still smooching, I'd tugged him backwards with me towards my bed, sat him down, and together we'd eagerly wriggled his pants down off his hips. His boxer briefs moved with them.

"Oh. My. God," I whispered when his already-thickening thingie sprang free. I watched it lift itself slowly from his thigh, widening and lengthening as it rose until it pointed nearly straight up to the ceiling. It swayed heavily as Bobbie wrestled out of his shirt.

I just stood there, crouched and staring between his legs, hypnotized by my new boyfriend's gorgeous cock.

Bobbie's voice snapped me out of my daze as he finished peeling his pants down. "Wait, I'm not going to be the only one naked am I?"

"Uh? What? No. Hell no. Scoot in, stud."

Bobbie spun onto his back and moved over. I joined him after my fleece top and shorts came off as fast as friction and my self-respect allowed. If I'd been thinking more clearly when I dressed for our date, I'd have pulled on some girlier underwear. He'd have to suffer with gray cotton tonight and a ponytail tonight. I'd slut it up for him next time.

Bobbie wasn't complaining. He turned onto his side and eyed me with a look that was equal parts hunger and amusement, "Leaving your undies on eh?"

"Yep. Now back to the gropey-gropey please." I drew his hand up to cradle my breast, his large palm was warmer without my fleece top in the way, nearly covering my entire oversized mound. He squeezed me gently and I moaned just as our lips met again.

He tasted like buttered popcorn and cola. The sneaky bastard had taken me to see not one, but two romantic chick flicks in a row that night. A mushy double feature. Now it was late, I was drunk on romance and even hornier than usual.

As we kissed, I snuck a hand down his flat stomach and touched... it. I mean, him. Whoa.

The last time I'd seen one of these things nearly two years ago, it had been poised to rape me. I had to get over this fear. Thankfully, Bobbie's lips distracted me, moving from my mouth to my neck, suckling gently at the skin he found there.

"Strawberries," he whispered.

Now I was thinking of his sister. Better. But still not good. I squeezed his cock more firmly to remind myself who I was with. Boy. I'm with a boy. A sweet and funny and handsome boy. No reason to be scared.

I stroked him gently, my wrapped fingers working up and down his impressive length. I knew how to touch him, I was a virgin not a prude. I'd had plenty of boyfriends in high school before... Bubble.

Dammit, back to his sister again.

Frustrated with myself, I tugged his hand down off my bra-covered breast and slid it over my stomach. I wriggled the tips of his fingers under the waistband of my panties to make clear what I wanted.

He took the hint. Bobbie missed his calling. He should have been a musician. His fingers were insanely talented. He played briefly with my little tuft of fur then slid deeper into my gray cotton briefs, down into my cleft, toying, then parting. I snorted and twitched when he found my ready button.

"Piano lessons?" I whimpered my question. He was driving me insane already.

"Guitar. Classical."

"It shows." I shivered as he tinkered expertly in my growing wetness. I realized I'd forgotten him and went back to stroking him up and down.

"Bobbie? Is it okay if we just... play? I'm not ready to... I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm ready, I'm beyond ready. I'm just not, you know... ready."

"No rush," he murmured into my neck, "I'm enjoying this too." He slid his hand out of my undies and stroked my stomach, backpeddling for more foreplay.

I giggled as I stuffed his fingers back into my panties, "But play faster. I'm horny."

He snickered, his chest rumbling against mine. "Gotcha. Think I can talk you into slipping these bottoms off? I could use some more room to maneuver down there."

I didn't answer, I just lifted my hips and let him drag my underwear off me one-handed. With them off, I could spread my legs easier. The downside was that all that wetness meeting open air made for an unsexy chill. He let me cup his hand over my mound for a minute to rewarm things then went back to jillying me perfectly until a hot flush tingled across my cheeks.

Holy smokes he had the touch, my butt was fidgeting on the bed as my excitement grew. This was just what I needed.

"Mind if I cum?" I asked quickly.

"I'll race you," he gritted out through clenched teeth. Precum was pouring down his shaft by then and my hand had become a slick blur, flying up and down.

I squeezed my eyes closed and enjoyed the little sparkles going off behind my eyelids. It was going to be a nice cum. I heaved into his hand eagerly, chasing the last morsel of pleasure I needed. He dipped a fingertip inside me and zipped back to my clit.

That did it. "Fuuuuuuuh," I grunted and shuddered with the sweet relief of my climax. It was interrupted briefly by Bobbie's strangled groan announcing his orgasm. His cum jetted across my stomach, painting my belly and chest. I came with him, grinding into his hand as I milked his shaft.

We lay panting when it was over and staring into each other's eyes.

"Fuck. Me," I breathed weakly.

His eyebrow cocked up. "I thought you... oh." He chuckled, realizing my comment was more compliment than invitation. "We're all messy."

"S'ok with me, I like messy." I dizzily reached down for a blanket I kept folded at the foot of my bed and pulled it up over us. He threw his arm around me and pulled me tight when I twisted onto my side and pressed my rump into his lap. He was wet and sticky there but so was I; I didn't care. I wriggled until his half firm rod was caught between my cheeks.

"Is this an invitation to spend the night, Red?"

I kissed the back of his hand and chuckled. "If you get up from this bed, I'll break your legs."

"Not a chance," he pulled me tighter, "Everything I want is right here."

"Smart boy."

I didn't remember falling asleep. I'd been so drowsy and warm and happy and I woke up that way too. But something a little extra had dragged me up from my sleepy fog. I realized what it was when I shifted and it made me panic and freeze.

It was Bobbie, specifically his erection, its warm tip was just nudging at my technically virgin entrance, poised to push inside.

"Bobbie?" I hissed.

I heard him breathing deeply and evenly. He didn't answer. Was he asleep?

"Bobbie?" I hissed again, louder. I shifted my hips again.

Again, no answer. We must have moved together naturally in our sleep. I pulled away from him just enough to let his tip slip back and away from my drooling vagina. The feel of his smooth, hard head slowly slipping upwards made me snort softly into my pillow. He caught at my smaller, less virginal opening and a thrill ran up my spine. I froze again.

"Bobbie?" I whispered.

I reached down to touch myself, rolling my backside gently, feeling his tip kiss my backdoor. Our warm and sleepy cuddling and now this -- I was horny again. I could cum this way.

I circled myself quickly and teased my own rear entrance with his tip. I felt the opening slowly begin to soften and relax. If I wanted him inside I had only to press back firmly, he'd pop through. The taboo image of waking him up with anal shot through me like wildfire. I bit my own lip, rubbed at my clit, and came, shaking.

Wow. I was still twitching when I pulled away from him to let his shaft nestle between my buns again. I was still amazed too. I had actually moved myself in my sleep to fuck Bobbie and nearly gone through with it.

So, the dashing Robert Miller had my head and my heart. Evidently my privates had just cast their yes vote too.

~*~*~Part III~*~*~

Bobbie and I took things slow but it was really just a matter of time before I let him know it was okay to go a bit further. I took the direct approach this time.

"Stace?" Bobbie whispered uncertainly when I pulled him off a riverside path and nudged him back against a tree.

"Shhhh," I hushed as I knelt down in front of him in some soft leaves.

He was nervous. "We're in a public park, babe. You know... public?" He wasn't nervous enough to stop me from unbuttoning his jeans though. I had to shake off my little red knit mittens to do it. Handjobs and mittens don't mix.

"I know, but we haven't seen anyone for over half an hour. Now pipe down. If you keep talking, you might attract some of that public you're so worried about."

I wriggled my hand into his boxer briefs to fish for his hefty tool. When his girl-pleaser came free it was hot, warming my hands in the cool autumn air when I circled both around him. I paused to lick my hands to wet them then started tugging up and down gently. Bobbie was thick enough to fill my hands and long enough that there was some extra left over even in my double grip. Yep, my hunky snuggle buddy was damn well-equipped.

In fact, Bobbie's size was partly responsible for my hesitation on the whole actual sex thing. Sweet irony there, I would really, really appreciate his gift someday.

"Is it too cold for this, stud? Think you can still cum?" I looked up, smiling as I tugged up and down on him smoothly.

"Maybe. Not sure."

"Want me to put him someplace warmer?" I licked my lips.

Bobbie's eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, why not? We can't risk frostbite on something this perfect."

I focused on his thick cock, admiring it. It really was perfect. Circumcised. No gnarly veins. No odd kinks or weird freckles. Bobbie's tool was like a piece of art, long and thick and smooth and straight and warm and... I lapped at its purply-pink mushroom head... yep, delicious too.

He groaned appreciatively as I licked back and forth at the sensitive spot just underneath his head. Between his taste and his sounds of appreciation, I regretted not getting around to this earlier.

I looked up into Bobbie's handsome face, pulling his big, deep blues into my gray-greens as my lips spread slowly, extra slowly, over his hot, wet tip. This was going to be fun.

"Jesus," he croaked when my mouth closed over his thick knob. I sucked lightly on it while snapping my tongue tip up and down at his tiny slit with a flicky snik-snik. I kept pumping him gently with my hands.

I may have had reservations about the whole intercourse thing but I'd never had that many doubts about this. I'd forgotten how much I liked having a guy in my mouth. And I was seriously falling for this particular guy. He deserved this; he'd been incredibly patient.

I was enjoying myself so much that a warmth in my belly stirred at the thought of him pushing inside me for the first time.

Someday, I promised myself, it'll be him. In fact, even if we broke up, I'd probably track his ass down and get him to fuck me when I was ready. I couldn't imagine anyone better to make love to the first time.

I panted through my nose and slid my mouth down further over Bobbie. I had to drop one of my hands from his pole to make room for my downward progress. He hit the back of my mouth only halfway down his length and I gagged a little.

"Stace?" he moaned with a mixture of excitement and worry. He tried to back away but couldn't because the tree was behind him. I'd planned it that way because I'd been worried too, worried that Bobbie's good-guy instincts might be too gentle for what I had planned. He needed help for this.

Hence the tree.

"Mmmhmmm," I assured him around a mouth chockfull of teenage boymeat. I gripped his jeans, still on his hips, and pulled him into me, rubbing his hot, throbbing tip at the back of my mouth, introducing it to my throat for what was coming next. I breathed slowly and deeply a few times, willing myself to relax. To open. To receive. The beginning was always the hardest part.

I steadily pulled Bobbie's hips closer and pushed my mouth down at the same time. My eyes watered as I felt him probing once then twice at the back of my throat. On the third try, I fought down the urge to gag and swallowed instead like I was supposed to. And suddenly Bobbie slid into my throat.

I froze, amazed. Probably even more amazed than he was. I'd never tried this with anyone his size.

I blinked tears away and, with my jaw stretching to accommodate two-thirds of his shaft, I looked up at him to see how he was doing.

His eyes were shut tight and his head was shaking back and forth. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod," Bobbie babbled.

Yep, he liked it.

I inhaled carefully through my nose to see if there was any room to breathe around him. Yeah, but only barely. I swallowed again, or tried to. I couldn't really swallow with him in the way. The rippling muscles along my throat probably felt pretty good for him though.

I reached around blindly for his hands and found them. I had to pry them off the tree bark he was clutching. He opened his eyes and looked down at me in amazement as I steered his hands to my head. I groaned approval around his cock again when he laced his fingers through my hair just above each of my ears.

I pressed his hands to the sides of my head firmly and looked up, willing him to understand: be in charge, it's okay.

He nodded and started pushing into my mouth further. One inch. Two. Three. Jesus, he was a big boy. I could feel my throat opening up around him as he worked deeper and deeper.

The intimacy of his hot, thick invasion made me picture having sex with him for the hundredth time. I didn't have a cherry; I'd been using a vibrator for years, just nothing his size. My poor little cookie would have to seriously open up for this monster. I'd probably be on crutches for a couple of days afterwards.

My mind raced. Would it be easier for me to be on top? To work myself down on his long, thick pole at my own pace? Or to lay down on my back so I could concentrate on breathing and relaxing while he drove himself deep into my belly?

Distracted by my fantasy, I lost focus and sputtered before he bottomed out. We struggled to go in different directions, but not the ones you'd think. Bobbie fought to get out of my mouth. I wanted him in further.

I won, but mostly because of the tree. They're perfect for hesitant boyfriends.

Basically, I pinned Bobbie Miller's butt to a medium-sized oak and sank my lips down onto him with one long, determined push until my nose hit his soft blonde pubes. He smelled like soap and sweat with a woodsy, musky scent I'd liked from the first time I'd peeled his pants off.




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 01



He shuddered as I started bobbing on him with his cock buried deep in my throat. I was getting a little dizzier with each plunge. I could feel his smooth shaft with my lips, the weight of him on my tongue, and his thickness in my throat. I kept bobbing and prayed he'd cum soon. I was out of practice and I couldn't go too long.

As it turns out, neither could Bobbie. The only warning I got was a strangled, "Gaaah" and his fingers twisting in my hair. He jerked into me automatically with his first spurt, smacking his smooth, muscled stomach into my nose hard enough to make me see stars as his cum began jetting down my gullet.

Stunned by the nose bump, I didn't start swallowing until after his second spurt. By then it was too late, I'd never catch up. His cum just kept pouring down my throat. I couldn't swallow fast enough which meant I couldn't breathe.

Now I seriously needed to get off him if I didn't want to choke to death. I pictured a coroner explaining to my Mom that I'd drowned in cum. At least she'd be there at the morgue when she pitched over dead of a heart attack. That'd be convenient.   

The trouble with bailing out of my blundered blowjob was that now Bobbie wanted in while he was cumming. I didn't blame him, it's a guy's natural instinct to bury his seed deep and all.

I may not have blamed him, but I still needed air.

I felt bad about it, but I sank my nails into his hands to get his attention while I pulled away. His shaft kept pulsing while I dragged my mouth off him, choking and gagging like an inexperienced high school girl. During those three or four seconds of my hasty retreat, Bobbie kept cumming and I gulped frantically for dear life. I lost track of how many times.

Oh yeah, he'd liked it.

I got my mouth off him just after he pumped his last spurt. I fell back onto my butt with a soft plunk, gasping for sweet, cool autumn air and looking up at Bobbie.

He was gaping down at me, his shiny, still-hard cock bobbing out there in the open.

"Heh, I think I'm a little rusty," I piped bravely, swallowing the last bit of his thick saltiness that had ended up painting my tongue, still gasping while I grinned. "I'll do better next time."

"Better?" he chuckled, tucking himself away then falling to his knees in front of me.

"Yeah, I just need a little more practice," I panted.

He rummaged in his coat and handed me a tissue.

I took it and it made me think of how he'd handed me a napkin on our first date, "How come you always have what I need to clean myself up?"

"I dunno, maybe you look like the kind of girl who gets sticky." He squeezed my knees tenderly. "Or snotty." He smirked as I wiped my nose.

"Not to gross you out, but the stuff coming out of my nose isn't snot, Goo Boy. We might need to have one of your balls removed so you don't end up drowning me someday."

He chuckled as he came to sit down next to me. We laid back and stared up at the naked treetops together.

"I love you, Stacey Jenkins," he said to the trees.

It wasn't the first time he'd said it. Or the second or the third. But for whatever reason, I don't know, oxygen-deprivation maybe, it really hit home extra hard and I sniffled when I answered him, "I love you too, Bobbie Miller."

He handed me another tissue and I wiped my nose again.

"So was that one snot?" he chuckled.

"Yeah, it was snot," I admitted. Honesty was the best policy. "But don't ruin the romantic moment, dummy."

I kissed him and he kissed me back and we rolled in the leaves.

Yep, I loved him.

~*~*~Part V~*~*~

I was thinking of that day in the park and it made my heart swell as I stepped inside the suite of a romantic little bed and breakfast, nudged gently forward over the threshold by Bobbie's hand on my rump.

"Go on," he urged me, "get in there, you're going to like this."

He was right. Who wouldn't? I padded inside, marveling. It was part of a converted barn, with ancient wide beamed floors polished to a bright shine and an enormous stone fireplace already lit with what looked like half a tree. Up a bent staircase, in an open loft was a huge canopy bed.

That's all I remember because when I spun to hug Bobbie for finding such a beautiful place he was down on one knee. He was holding up a small, black velvet box that he'd just cracked it open. There was a ring in it, a little one, but it was the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen.

Because it was for me.

My knees went rubbery and I blinked back tears.

"Stace, I know what I want. And it's you. Marry me?"

I'd be Mrs. Miller! Mrs. Robert S. Miller!

I wasn't even sure how the hell it happened. I mean, we hadn't even had full-on sex yet. I'd been chickening out and Bobbie-the-gentleman had been letting me. He'd been unbelievably patient and gentle and honest and...

Honest. My heart twisted. Crud, I had to tell him about what happened between me and his sister. I had no choice. Loving someone, really loving them, meant being honest. I couldn't keep it from anymore.

Knees knocking, I bit my lip and tucked my loose red hair behind my ears for battle. This could very well be the end of our storybook romance. "Bobbie, honey, put down the ring. We need to talk."

He was just as confused as he should have been. "About what? Yeah yeah, we're a bit young but we talked about that already. I love you. You love me. We make each other happy." His head cocked uncertainly, "Wait, you are, uh, still happy right?"

"Yes honey, very happy. I just... there are things... things you need to know before you sign up for a life with me."

"Mmmm, you used to be a man?" he ventured with a lopsided grin.

"Ewww, no!" I yelped. But I laughed too, amazed for the hundredth time how he could keep his sense of humor under stress.

While we were still laughing, I just lit my stick of dynamite and threw it, "Sweetie, I slept with your sister."

I didn't get the reaction I expected. Bobbie kept laughing.

I tried again, more clearly, "Honey by 'slept' I mean sex. A lot of it. We weren't just friends when we were in high school. We were lovers."

Now he only laughed harder, so hard his face was creeping up on, well, fuchsia.

"Yeah, I know!" he wheezed, still laughing.

Okay, now I felt stupid. "Wait, what? How long have you..."

"It's okay, Stace," he managed finally, wiping tears from his eyes. "Heather only told me last week when we went shopping for your engagement ring. C'mon, I'm her baby brother. Of course she's going to look out for me."

"Oh. Well. So... so you're okay? I mean, with the fact that I was in love with your sister?"

"Was? Don't love her anymore?"

That was the magic question that I'd been wrestling with for months. "Well, yeah, but in a different way now I think. I mean, if I say 'yes,' Heather will be my sister right?"

"Yep. And take my word on it, she's very lovable as a sister too." His eyes were bright and shiny with a joke I wasn't in on but I let it pass.

"So we're cool?" I asked finally.

He nodded and I felt better, like a weight had been lifted. "Good, I don't want secrets between us, Bobbie. A marriage needs a clean start."

I reached for the engagement ring box he was holding but it drifted further away. Bobbie had lowered his arm.

"Uh, so, no secrets?" he asked, looking up at me with his eyebrows knitted together.

"Nope, no secrets. Now gimme the ring, studmuffin. I'm going to say yes then you're going to carry me upstairs and we're finally going to fuck me stupid."

He smiled but set the ring box carefully on the floor and exhaled carefully. "No secrets at all, Stace?"

I smirked. "Oh please, let me guess, you cheated on a math test in fifth grade?"

"No, no... I've never been a cheater..." he trailed off.

The trailing off part was what made me worry. "Then what, Bobbie?"

"Stace, I... uh... I slept with my sister too."

I snorted and smiled. It was a joke. A sick one, but still a joke. Right? I searched his face, waiting for him to smile too. When his big, deep blue eyes looked up at me finally, tense and anxious, the room spun. My heart thudded in my chest.

I felt my mouth open and close a few times, but no sound would come out. I tried again. "Whe... whe... whe..." I couldn't even form the one lousy word I wanted.

"When?" he asked softly.

I managed a nod.

"After you and Heather broke up. Before you and I started dating. It was just once."

He waited patiently for me to digest it.

"Your idea or hers?" I whispered hoarsely.

"Hers. Samantha and I had kinda finished and my sister got all sentimental and..."

"Wait, Samantha? As in Heather's Samantha?!" Alarm made my voice high-pitched and it cracked at the end of Samantha's name.

"Well, yeah."

"You had sex with Samantha too?!"

One of his eyes twitched. "Mmmm, mostly," he dodged.

"What do you mean by 'mostly'?!"

When his mouth opened to explain, I held up my hand. "Stop," I sighed, "on second thought, please don't answer that."

"Oh God, thank you," he exhaled again with visible relief.

"Just please tell me that their boyfriend knows? Seriously, we're going to fucking drive over there and tell Hero tonight if you say no."

"Yeah," Bobbie winced again, "Hero knows because he was uh... there. At the time."

I let my head fall into my hands. "Right, of course. An orgy. Super."

"Sorry. Look, it was just the one time and, if it helps, the whole idea was to give me a crash course in sex so I'd have a clue if and when you and I ever got together. I was terrified I'd do something clumsy and stupid with you if I got the chance. I was a..." -- even now he danced around the word 'virgin', what was it with guys? -- "I'd never had... sex before," he said finally.

This was all too much. My heart was pounding in my chest so loudly it felt like I couldn't hear anything else. Bobbie was my sweet, innocent boy. I couldn't picture him, didn't want to picture him, twisted up in some depraved four-way sex pile.

I could feel my palms getting sweaty where they pressed against my cheeks as lurid images popped into my head one by one. I fought to push them away.

My salvation was in the middle of what he said -- a little ray of hope that was going to get me through this whole thing. Bobbie did it for me.

"Seriously?" I finally asked through my fingers. "You... you did it for me?"

"Well, yeah. I didn't want to make an ass out of myself, or worse, hurt you if we ever hooked up." When he said it his voice was steady. I peeked and his face was open and honest in the way I'd come to take for granted - the sweet Miller way.

For the love of god, this family was going to be the death of me.

Eh fuck it, I sighed. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I sniffled and wiped my face. "Take me upstairs right this minute, Robert Miller. Get me out of this stupid flowery dress and do me. I'm marrying your ass."

"Wahoo!" Bobbie cheered.

"Wait! Don't forget my ring!" I giggled as he slung me over this shoulder. He snatched it off the floor and bounded up the stairs to the room's loft with its big canopy bed.

He gently set me down sitting on the bed and helped me out of my dress, lifting it carefully over my head. As exciting as all of this was, I was still a little worried about my first time.

"Bobbie? Careful honey? We've talked about this. You're kind of big," I said over my shoulder.

He nodded. "We'll take our time. We'll take all weekend if we have to, okay?"

I turned to face him.

"Oh wow," he murmured, eyes roving over my half-naked body in miniature black, lacey underwear. It stood out against my pale skin. His big blues leapt inevitably on my chest. The bra was a push-up demi and my jumbo, porcelain boobs were practically up at my chin.

Bobbie was definitely a boob guy. It made me smile.

We'd been together for several months and he still looked at me with the same little-boy glee that he did when I first stripped down for him. Still, I wasn't taking any chances that day, so I'd gone a little over the top with the push-up bra. Glee insurance.

I watched him undress as I scooted to the middle of the big bed. He followed me, wriggling out of his pants and shirt as fast as he could. His familiar warmth pressing against me somehow calmed me and excited me at the same time. We were really going to do this.

"Feel like losing those cute little undies?" he asked softly. His tender voice didn't match his eager grin.

"Yeah." I nibbled my lip and nodded.

He hooked his thumb into the slim waistband of my panties at one of my hips and slowly started tugging them down. I helped with the other side and lifted my butt up as he dragged them down further. I turned to watch his face. His eyes widened when my little red-furred mound was free to ogle.

"Never get tired of that," he whispered.

"Better n-n-not," I stammered already because his warm fingers replaced my underwear, cupping me and stroking softly. God bless his guitar tutor. Heat prickled at my chest and neck and cheeks and I knew I was turning my tell tale red.

He'd left my undies around my knees. For whatever reason, Bobbie had always liked it when my panties were still on. He'd eaten me into a shivering puddle last week that way, bending me over my dorm room desk after spreading my legs with my underwear stretched between my ankles.

It had been the perfect morning with one small flaw. I'm fair-skinned and when my boyfriend makes me cum so hard, twice, that I'm squeezing dents in the edge of my desk it's really, really obvious what I've been up to when I show up for morning lecture. My face was raspberry red all morning.

Bobbie explained his plan to take my overdue virginity as his fingers pressed between my outer lips and started stroking up and down my slit gently, just barely brushing my clit at the top of each stroke, "I'm going to tease you a little, Red. Excite you. Think that'll help your first time?"

"Yeah," I whimpered, his fingers already driving me a little crazy.

Extra lubrication couldn't possibly hurt. Bobbie's cock was well-above average. At least I wasn't too nervous for things to work properly down there - I was sailing past moist and well on my way to seriously soggy.

He circled my opening with a thick fingertip several times then pressed it inside.

I tensed. I don't know why I tensed. Bobbie's fingers had been inside me plenty of times before. This felt different though. Knowing that his fingers were just paving the way for his giant thingie heightened everything.

His fingertip stopped its teasing and slipped out to wander back up through my slickening folds and swirl over my clit.

"Bra. Off," I pleaded as he kept toying with me.

Together, we peeled it off me. I could breathe better without it. My ivory tits with their damned inverted nipples lazed on my chest, free of their black lacy prison. Much better.

"Bobbie, would you?" I didn't have to say what I wanted. Bobbie knew.

He leaned down and nuzzled the curved side of my breast, pausing to blow a warm breath across my nipple.

"Don't tease me," I whined.

He chuckled into my boob, "Uh, that's exactly what I said I'm doing."

"Okay, but not too..."

I didn't finish my complaint because Bobbie pressed his outstretched tongue down into my nipple, gently drilling it down into my breast. My absolute favorite. It sent tingles up my spine.

"Huh huh huh," I moaned and panted. His fingers in me. His mouth on my breast. I felt myself swelling and slickening even more. I could cum like this. He'd done it to me hundreds of times before.

It was like the cute bastard read my mind, "Sorry, can't let you cum, Love. Not yet." He went back to teasing my boob, swirling licks around my puckered aerola.

The rising heat made me sassy, "Don't make me change my mind about marrying you."

His finger found my opening again and I lifted my hips to meet him.

"What's the biggest thing you've ever had inside you?" he wondered.

"Two of your fingers," I admitted breathlessly. Then, for fun, I decided to mess with him a little, "Or maybe three of your sister's, it's pretty close."

His eyes widened. I'd guessed correctly that he'd like hearing about sex with his sister. Typical boy.

Well, I certainly had plenty of material. "She would make me cum a few times with her mouth, Honey. Then she'd fuck me with her fingers afterwards to finish me off."

"Is that right?" he murmured. He sank his thick finger deep inside me, twisting it gently. I bore down on him and his eyes glittered at my inner squeezing.

"Mmmmhmmm, when she really got me going she'd wriggle her thumb up my butt at the same time. Your sister was amazing in bed."

"No toys though? No dildos? No strap-ons?" he wondered out loud.

"We weren't that... kind of..." I was panting openly now as he toyed with me expertly, "...of lesbians. Kissing. And licking. Fingers too. No toys."

Bobbie slid his finger out of me and traced it up to my now insanely sensitive clit for several good twirls. I could feel my toes begin to tingle.

"Ah ah ah, no cumming," he chuckled between laps at my breast. He eased off to just barely brush my clit, teasing me.

"Bastard," I whimpered, bringing a hand up to cradle my free boob. I was so turned on even my own touch felt good as I thumbed my pebbled nipple.

He lifted my closer leg with a hand under my knee and curled himself into me tighter. I felt the hot, giant tip of his cock slide up the inside of my thigh, leaving a wet trail of his juices as it went. His hand centered it gently between my lips and I my breath locked in my chest.

"Easy," I blurted nervously.

"It doesn't get any more careful than this, Stace. Want me to scoot down between your legs and nibble you a little? Think it'd be better if you cum first?"

I was torn. "Yes. No. Fuck it, keep going. I want you."

He left himself nudging softly against my lips and went back to touching me, rubbing gently back and forth across my clit. When my butt wriggled a little all on its own, he pushed with his hips carefully. His push was just hard enough to split my lips and tease my opening with his mushroom head.

He felt hot and hard. And big. Ready to push inside. I froze, fighting down panic.

"Relax, Love. Breathe," he murmured. He kept touching me and went back to drilling his tongue into my boob.

I could feel wetness dribbling down from where we met between my legs. The little droplets tickled as they slid through my butt crack before wicking into the sheet beneath me. Whether it was his wetness or mine I couldn't tell. Probably both.

He continued touching me slowly, just enough to keep me insanely excited, but not enough to cum. He had me dancing on the head of a pin. I was light headed and dizzy and horny enough to overcome my fear. I wanted more of what he offered.

"Maybe... maybe push a little harder?" I pleaded softly.

He nodded into my tit and gingerly, so gingerly, pressed with his hips more firmly. I could feel my little hole straining. Owie owie owie. I grimaced as the pressure mounted. I should have picked a guy with a smaller dick for my first go. This wasn't easy.

My free hand flew to his hip and I squeezed him. My fingernails sank into his skin as I felt myself spreading slowly. Each time he pressed harder, I clawed him harder.

"Dammit Stace, you're tight," he groaned.

"Tighter than your sister?" I gritted out through clenched teeth.

He snickered into my boob,"Wow, you're sick."

"You're the one that fucked your own sister," I sassed back, gasping as he drilled himself a little harder at my reluctant hole.

For a brief, terrifying moment I pictured him tearing me. Me screaming. Blood everywhere. Not romantic. I pushed those thoughts out of my head and kept talking.

"Bobbie? You didn't answer my question."




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 01



"Yes, you're tighter than my sister. Happy?" he pushed a little harder again while he rubbed my clit a bit rougher too. If this kept up, he'd make me cum before we even got his fat thingie in me. Or I'd pass out from the dizzy mix of pleasure and fear.

That's when Bobbie did the best possible thing he could -- he distracted me, but in a wicked way, "But you're not as tight as Samantha's ass."

"What?!" I yelped.

That's when he drove his cock into me. My first one. With a pop that raced up my spine, his mushroom head was inside me. Holy hell, he felt huge.

"Aaaah," I gasped. And I came. I came because he'd teased and toyed with me perfectly. I came because it was ecstasy and agony at the same time. I came picturing my fiancée spearing his oversized tool in and out of Samantha's miniature dancer-ass.

Sneaky bastard. Brilliant bastard.

Bobbie held perfectly still as my insides heaved out their first cock-delivered orgasm. I could feel myself squeezing spastically, either trying to draw him in further or push him out, I didn't know and I didn't care. I was too busy cumming my ivory white rump off.

"That was dirty pool," I whispered when it was over and I'd come back down, only then remembering to release my death grip on his hip, rubbing the dents I'd left. His tip was still wedged inside me.

"Sorry," he offered. It was a thin apology though, when I looked over at him, his smile said he was proud of himself.

I didn't want him dreaming of Samantha's perfect little keister too long. "I'll let you do that too, you know." I licked my dry lips and twitched my nose naughtily. "Anal, I mean."

"Yeah?"

"Mmmmhmmm, believe it or not, I've actually done that a couple of times before." I saw his mouth open but stopped him. "Don't ask. Bad stories. They'll spoil the mood."

I stroked his hip gently again where I'd clawed it. "Make love to me now, Bobbie? I think the worst part's over."

With some very careful maneuvering, he was on top of me without us separating -- missionary -- and I felt a man above me for the first time. I think I might have been scared if the man wasn't Bobbie. It was a new and vulnerable feeling, being pinned to the bed like this by a guy. He outweighed me. Outmuscled me too. He could hurt me and I wouldn't be able to stop him. I'd never felt so helpless before.

And because Bobbie knew me, he read the thoughts whipping through my head. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah. Just spooked for a sec." I smiled up at him and ran my hands along his arms to feel the ridges of his toned triceps that supported him over me.

"C'mon," I hunched my hips up gingerly, pushing myself onto him a little more. "What're you waiting for? More please, sir," I said playfully.

He snorted. "Alright, you asked for it."

We didn't talk for the next couple of minutes as we both carefully worked Bobbie's cock deeper into me. He pushed up, I wriggled down. There was lots of backing up, wetting his long shaft for easier entry. Really long shaft.

I concentrated on relaxing, opening up. Whenever I tensed, things got worse. He was soon crazy-deep inside me, spreading me and stretching me in places I didn't know I had. I could feel his tip prying apart my insides somewhere up near my bellybutton

I was just starting to worry that he was going to poke a hole in some vital internal organ when his warm, furry nuts nudged my butt. After a moment's pause, he started to draw himself out carefully. I could feel myself suctioned onto him so tight I felt glued to him.

"Wait," I squeezed his arm. "Stay. I like this, a lot. I like you inside me just like this. Come on down here and kiss me a little?"

He smiled and his big, deep blue eyes sparkled. He leaned down and kissed me. I kissed him back, our tongues slipping from his mouth to mine and back again.

The kissing helped. It took the focus off his gigantic rod wedged in my belly. I wrapped my legs around him as we smooched and that helped too.

After we'd kissed awhile, I tried wriggling my hips a little. Ooh, that was nice. He was rubbing lovely, sensitive places deep, deep inside me. I hunched into him a little more. His pubic bone was in the perfect place too. Right above my button. I ground myself into him and felt tingles in my hips.

"Fuck yeah," I groaned.

"You like?" he chuckled.

I looked up at him and half-smiled. "Let me put it this way -- let me make myself cum again like this and my body's all yours for the night."

When his eyes took on a wicked gleam I backpeddled a little,

"Within reason, fella. I'm new at this, remember?"

He nodded. I humped myself up into him, rubbing his spongy head deep in the nice, new places and mashing my clit against him at the same time. I was awkward and uncoordinated at first, trying to master the strange new motions my body craved. I reached around and grabbed his toned buns for leverage, pulling myself up. Much better.

For the next couple of minutes, I used Bobbie's beautiful body and he let me. I humped and ground and rolled to my heart's content. I was on fire soon.

"You're getting red, Red," he teased me.

I nodded, already way past giddy. "Going to cum."

"On me? Like this?"

"Yeah," I gasped, now driving myself up into him more desperately. The orgasm, a really good one from the feel of it, was just starting to gather in my belly.

"Want some help?"

"No." So close now. On the homestretch, I was exhausted from head to toe from my barely coordinated flailing, but high as a kite on endorphins and adrenaline. It was like the last few hundred yards of a marathon. The finish line was in sight.

"No help at all? You're doing all the work," he whispered.

"Shhh... almost there," I whimpered, fighting to keep my eyes open, to look into his dark beautiful blues and share the moment as my ridiculous climax loomed. I couldn't control my own hips anymore, I was just floundering under him. I shuddered as my insides started contracting involuntarily, trying to close with Bobbie's thick dick buried inside me.

I humped on haphazardly. Holy crud, I could feel what was coming down in my toes.

"You're going to make me cum too," he warned.

"Better. Fucking. Hurry." I hissed then pulled him down on top of me completely and sank my teeth into his neck to keep from shrieking in his ear.

My body went haywire. It was one of those magic cums, external and internal at the same time. Pure pleasure rippled and flowed back and forth between my outsides and my insides.

Everything, I mean everything felt good. His warm weight pressing down on me. My fingers scrabbling weakly across his back. His firm flesh between my teeth. The manly smell of him. The musky, sweet taste of his skin in my mouth. My legs were still wrapped around his waist and I flexed them to pull him into me harder.

He moaned and shuddered and the whole experience got impossibly better because Bobbie came too. His arms shot around under me and squeezed me tightly. I felt his shaft swell, then his tip bloom even bigger, and then he was filling me with cum, long heavy spurts of it deep inside me, bouncing off my walls. It tickled a little, like getting shot with a supersoaker filled with warm water.

The new sensation of a man, my man, cumming inside me stretched out my orgasm even longer, made it sweeter. I loved Bobbie and now I had yet another reason to love him -- the amazing things his big and now not-so-scary dick could do for me.

I unlocked my teeth from his neck and kissed the deep lovebite I'd given him. We hugged like that, panting, both amazed at how well that had worked out. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest. His answered through our merged skin.

He lifted off me enough to look me in the eyes again. "How was your first time?"

"Awesome."

"Ready for another round?" I felt his thickness, still completely hard, twitch inside me. He looked happy and eager, like a puppy with a new toy.

"Uh uh. I need a little break, stud. Certain parts of me need to recuperate." I unlocked my legs from around his waist.

He nodded and started to pull out of me.

"Gaaah," I winced, "wait."

"What?"

"Slower, honey, or you're going to drag my insides out with you."

"Sorry."

He inched himself out of me while I took deep breaths. It felt nearly as raw as when he went in.

What felt like a tidal wave of wetness drained out after him. I wrinkled my nose up at the nasty sensation of it running down my butt and Bobbie saw my weird expression.

"You alright?"

"Yep." I nodded. "This is just way messier than girlie-sex. Takes a little getting used to."

"But good?"

"Really good. Really, really good."

"Glad to hear it." He rolled off the bed. "Be right back."

He returned from the bathroom with a couple of towels and slid into bed next to me again. He'd dampened one of the towels with warm water and pressed it between my legs gingerly.

I groaned happily at the relief of the warm towel against my burning outsides. "Honestly, that feels almost as good as the sex."

He smirked as I took over the towel and did some careful dabbing and wiping. Bobbie kept his eyes discretely on my face. He smiled tenderly as I winced a few times. We traded towels. The second one was dry.

I tossed both towels onto the floor and snuggled into him. He was on his back and I rested my head on his sweat-slickened chest. "We're definitely doing that again tonight but I'm going to be limping tomorrow," I promised. "I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Okay, I'm a little proud of myself. Still want to marry me?" he asked as he reached over to lower the light next to the bed.

"Yeah, but maybe we should talk about penis reduction."

"Not a chance, girlie," he snorted.

"Damn," I giggled.

"Guess that means you're not ready for more yet?" His question was a mix of humor and hope.

"Gimme another five minutes, loverboy." I kissed his neck and slid a hand down his stomach to start fiddling with his still half-hard cock.

As I fondled Bobbie's fiancée-pleaser -- heh, I was a fiancée now -- it occurred to me that his meaty goodness was kind of mine now. I'd be getting it for the rest of my life.

It would be a wonderful life -- a better one than I could have ever hoped for. I'd been given a second chance at real love and real happiness.

~*~*~Part VI~*~*~

Heather cried and hugged me when I showed up unannounced at her college apartment the next day and I asked her to be my maid of honor.

I was a nervous wreck the morning of my wedding. My mom was great as always, reminding me how wonderful Bobbie was and how well he treated me and how perfect we were for each other. Still, I was a giant twitchy mess all morning and when someone knocked on my bedroom door I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Heather's smiling face peeked in through the crack. "Need some moral support? I brought the troops."

"Absolutely!" I nodded eagerly and waved her in. My mom slipped out to leave us alone.

Behind Heather was Samantha. Behind Samantha was Hero. The trio crowded in to pull me into a happy four-way hug. It felt warm and comfy and safe in the middle of their huddle.

Hero's hug was longest, his big body, even larger than Bobbie's and more solid somehow, felt like it wrapped around me completely. "You're stunning, Stace. If you want to ditch Bobbie, you and I could hop a plane to a Mediterranean island. I could spend a few afternoons licking limoncello out of your navel," he offered playfully.

"Hey!" Heather griefed, poking him in the ribs and looking to Samantha for support.

But Samantha's eyes were still rolling me up and down, taking in my grandmother's antique and very lacy wedding dress. One of her eyebrows cocked up with perverted interest and she sided with their shared boyfriend, "I dunno girlie, I think I'd like to help him lick the limoncello."

"That's it. Out you two," Heather huffed with mock exasperation, "I want to talk to Berry alone for a little bit."

When we were alone, Heather shut the door behind them and locked it. She turned to me and didn't say anything. We just looked at each other from across my little bedroom. Memories of the nights we'd spent together on my childhood bed rushed up and I felt my skin prickle with a tell tale blush.

I watched Heather's eyes fill up slowly. Mine did too. When she finally spoke, her lips quivered a little. "You're really, really pretty Berry. I like the extra curls in your hair."

"Thanks," I sniffled. "The bridesmaid dress looks great on you. I've always liked you in pink. And your hair looks nice up. You've always had the neck for it."

"Thanks."

An awkward silence stretched out and I needed to fill it or my sniffles would spiral down into a full-on cry, "Who'd have thought we'd end up like this, huh, Bubble? Me marrying your brother?" I said gamely.

"He's a good guy." She nodded, dabbing carefully at the corner of her eyes with a thumb, trying not to smear her makeup. "And he loves you to pieces."

"Bubble? Could I get another hug? I think I'm more scared than I realized, my legs are going all shaky over here."

"You sure it's not the high heels, Stace?" she teased as she came and pulled me tight. "You've never been too steady on them."

Our chests met first like they always had, then our arms found their old spots, hers around my hips, mine above hers and around her waist. The same height, we rested our chins on each other's shoulders.

For a moment I realized that we were probably messing up our makeup but I didn't care. It was a long hug, and we let the body heat build between us. I squeezed her extra tight a few times until she grunted and giggled into my neck.

"Need a... need a smooch too, Berry?" she said quietly.

"Maybe. Yeah."

When she pulled back I saw all the things that made me love Heather back in high school and never stop: an true tenderness in her clear, sky blue eyes; a deep and beautiful and thoughtful soul; a giant heart bigger than the room we stood in.

I closed my eyes and turned my head. Then our lips met and two and half years melted away like snow in the spring. The sweet warmth filled my chest and, from Heather's little sigh, it was clear she felt it too. My own sigh answered. She was wearing perfume and it's soapy, wildflower smell filled my nose. I breathed deeper. Yes, under it, still there, the trademark sweetness that opened an ache in my chest -- bubblegum.

Heather worked her fuller lips gently against mine and their softness swallowed me up. I little, hungry mewling sound slipped out of me when I felt her lips nearly open. Nearly. They began to part then closed again, as if she barely remembered where we were now, who we were now.

I'd have followed her; I knew it somewhere deep and basic inside myself. I'd have pulled Heather's tongue into my mouth, pressed mine into hers. I wouldn't have stopped myself. It made me happy and sad at the same time to know she was struggling too.

When we finally pulled apart, she saw the mix of emotions on my face and I watched some little conflict play itself out on hers.

"We're not done, Berry. Not yet," she murmured.

"What do you--?"

She stopped me with a sweet peck on the tip of my nose. "Now's not the time. You're getting married, Stace. Let's get you cleaned up for my hunky brother and the two hundred people waiting."

She stepped back and looked me over. "Where's your kit? You could use some powder, you're all shiny now. And your boobs squished up when we hugged. Better stuff 'em back down. My brother and my boyfriend would enjoy this look, but you'll give the old folks heart failure."

I smiled and rearranged my front while she rifled through my things for a compact. I held still while she dusted my cheeks and nose with a soft brush; its slow, feathery strokes were comforting too.

"Promise me, Bubble? Promise you'll always be there for me? Just like this? I need you, you know."

She kept dusting and nibbled at her lower lip gently. "Me too, Berry. Me too."

Bubble had a plan. I knew it then. And she knew I knew. She just wasn't ready to share it.

~*~*~*~*~

Chapter 2 on the way. Don't forget to do the vote thingie. :)

-PF



Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02



Author's Note: This two-chaptered story was motivated by a sufficient number of nice folks asking me variations of the following question: "So whatever happened to Berry from 'Strawberries & Bubblegum'?" 

Don't worry, you don't have to be one of these people, or even understand the question they posed, to find "Berry's Second Chances" entertaining. You just have to like hearing a story from a girl who mistakenly let the first love of her life get away, only to be offered a much-deserved second chance. 

As it turns out, Berry gets two second chances. The first chapter described her first and this second chapter describes her second. Apologies, but you'll need to read the first chapter for this to fall together.

Fair warning: this story is long and romantic and 95% lesbian. With any luck you'll be sniffling and swooning in equal parts. Those tissues work on noses too you know. 

As always, everyone is over eighteen. Enjoy.

~*~ Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02~*~

Heather just about keeled over when I showed up unannounced at her med school apartment and asked her to be my maid of honor. 

Thank God I worked up the guts to ask. I never would have made it through the wedding without her. Heather was my rock, steering me through bridal hell, waging the little wars I didn't have the heart or time to fight with friends and family. 

Everyone had opinions about how a wedding should go and they seemed eager to share them with the bride. Beyond stressful.

Heather, flanked by Hero and Samantha when summoned, fended off my crazier family with the sort of polite cunning I've only seen on daytime soap operas. With their help, I actually got to pick out my own flowers. And my cake.

The one thing Heather did not tend to was my bachelorette party. She turned over that bit of business to Samantha and I eventually learned why. 

Sweet mother of all creation. I remember only bits and pieces of that night. Shots of liquor that tasted suspiciously like gasoline. Music so loud it made my teeth hurt. Where Sam found a team of knife-juggling Welsh midgets I try not to think about. 

Naturally, there were also a dozen overly-endowed male dancers with bulges barely contained by garments skimpier than anything I owned. They took turns swaying their dangling equipment a few inches from my face—not something I'd be into usually, but the drunker I got, the more fun it got.

I paid for the fun the next morning. I woke up wearing a thong bikini two sizes too small for me and face down in a lounge chair next to the pool of a hotel I don't even remember checking into. 

Best of all, a burning sensation on my left butt cheek had me craning my neck to look back the moment I came to. 

"I wuv Bobbie" tattooed onto my ass. Lovely.

At least the funny bitches stuffed some cab fare in my thong. Though, dressed the way I was, jumbo ivory boobs and lily-white ass pretty much swinging out in the breeze, the cab driver probably would've given me a ride for free. 

On the way home, perched on my one good ass cheek and picking glitter out of my tangled red hair, I plotted my revenge, muttering under my breath about bitches getting their just desserts. 

I forgave it all when Heather rescued the wedding toast. Bobbie's tipsy college roommate had delivered a horrible off-colored stand up bit that included commentary on what he considered my two chief assets—my left one and my right one. I wanted to crawl under the head table and wait for everyone to leave.

Heather zipped to the front and pried the best man's microphone off him, bowling over a waiter on the away. She proceeded to pour out her heart in front of everyone—about her brother, about me, and about what we all meant to each other. She managed it in the space of two minutes and had the entire room laughing, crying, then laughing again. 

When she was done and the entire room stood to clap, Bobbie rushed her. He picked her up and spun her around. I had to pull her off him to get my hug in.

Other than that, the wedding was a wedding. We'd dressed up pretty, we'd gotten hitched, then danced and drank. Usual stuff. 

It's the honeymoon that wasn't so usual.

It started the normal way. The morning after our wedding, Bobbie and I flew to Nassau. The second-floor room was beautiful—soft, plushy furniture and huge floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over white sand beaches. 

It was a great view that I didn't get to see much of in the beginning because I was almost immediately facedown in some very nice Egyptian cotton sheets. Bobbie had bent me over the footboard. 

The bellboy hadn't even shut the door behind him before my new hubbie hiked up my skirt, dragged my panties to my ankles, and eased his cock into me. 

Slow and easy. Wicked boy. He knew I'd want it hard after dozing on his broad shoulder for the flight down. He knows quite well that napping makes me frisky. 

My sweet, terrible man toyed with me without mercy. I pushed back against him, trying to urge him on but it was now use. He kept to his own rhythm, his large hand pushing me down at the small of my back to keep me still, teasing me with his long measured thrusts. Deep deep ones.

Good. So good. 

Oh how I loved him and the way he often sensed what I needed better than I did. One step ahead as usual. I was a drippy, moaning, happy mess by the end.

After that first long, slow session and a brief rest, we did it again on the bathroom sink, humping more frantically like the newlywed bunnies we were. We stopped just long enough for a room service refuel before starting up again.

On day two, we actually made it out of the room for a long day of sightseeing and then collapsed afterwards. 

*~*Part 2*~*

That night, now two nights after our wedding, I had one of my running dreams. It wasn't that strange all by itself, I'd been dreaming about running a lot because I'd been racking up a ton of miles training for my third marathon the following month. The extra mileage had the added perk of slimming me down to the thinnest I'd ever been, and just in time for my wedding dress. 

The running dream I had that night was an odd one though. I was jogging along on a trail that wound through a flowered meadow, the trail's dirt so dark and springy-soft, the air thick and sweet. 

Flowers? No, something even sweeter. Like candy or... dammit, I know that smell.

"...reee...?" I heard a voice but I couldn't quite make it out. I looked around and didn't see anyone. I kept running.

"Berry?" Clearer now. Dammit, I know that voice too.

It came again, louder this time."Berry?" 

I stopped and looked down. A little chipmunk was standing up on a rock. It was the cutest chipmunk I'd ever seen and it smiled up at me. 

Wait a minute, chipmunks don't smile. And they don't have big sky blue eyes. And they sure has hell don't talk. "C'mon, wake up, Berry."

I listened to the pretty chipmunk and woke up. And gasped. 

In the dark, Heather, my ex-girlfriend and newly-minted sister was crouched on the floor next to my side of the bed.

"Bu-bubble?" I stuttered, knuckling sleep from my eyes. "How did you—how come you're here?"

She pouted. "I flew on a plane like you, silly. And I came because I didn't get you a wedding present. No money. I feel like such a jerk. I'm getting tired of being a poor student."

"Oh honey." I tugged one arm out from under the blankets to rub her bare neck. "Being my maid-of-honor was all I wanted. Besides," I nodded back towards the other side of the bed where I could hear Bobbie still sleeping, "you're the one that gave me him, my husband, remember? That's the best wedding present possible."

Her smile was half-hearted. She chewed her lower lip as she put her hand on mine and squeezed it. "That doesn't count, Stace. He was giving himself. I didn't get you a thing." 

She tugged my hand up to her face and rubbed it absently across her cheek. It made me remember how much she used to like being petted. "I guess I was thinking that there might be something, something else, I could give you as a wedding present."

Her eyes were doing their big, shiny blue that had always made my heart melt. And her skin was so smooth, even against the back of my hand. Like satin. I'd almost forgotten how soft she was. 

I was still shaking off sleep and none of it seemed real. Heather in my bedroom? And she was asking me if—

"Sweetie," I blinked and fought to keep my voice steady, "are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Depends," she turned her face slowly to kiss each of my knuckles, "what do you think I'm saying?" She didn't let me answer her question. "It's a little chilly out here, Berry. Probably much warmer under those nice toasty covers," she hinted. 

I peeked down and only then noticed she was wearing just a small white crop top and panties, rounded cleavage high and shifting with each breath. 

No wonder she was cold. Hold on a sec, how did she get here and in that outfit? 

It was a good question, but one that melted away when she tired of waiting for me to make the first move. I felt her lift the bedspread.

"Mind?" she asked politely as she scooted in.

"Not really." I slid over to make room for her, rolling onto my back.

Thrill and guilt and anxiety rushed in as she pressed herself into my side and rested her head on my shoulder. Her skin was cool against mine and her oversized breasts, the only ones I'd ever touched larger than my own, smooshed into my ribs. 

My high school sweetheart was in my bed. My honeymoon bed. My marital bed. And my husband was snoozing right next to us. 

The skin of her bare belly was warming against my side and I could feel goose bumps on the arm she threw across my stomach. I rubbed her forearm a few times and told myself it was to warm her up. 

Yes, that's why. See? I'm being good.

Heather's nose found the crook of my neck. "Mmmm, you're warm as ever. Are you're also," her hand skimmed down my side to my bare hip then stopped, "naked?" she whispered.

Oops, I'd forgotten. "Bobbie put me to sleep in a very nice way."

It piqued her interest enough to make her stop tracing circles on my neck with the tip of her nose. "How nice?" she asked a little too loud.

I shushed her. "Very nice. Orally nice."

"My baby brother any good at that?" she asked, her breath warm on my skin.

Her directness made me chuckle. "Actually, he's very talented."

"You mean for a boy."

"Actually I mean for anybody."

She pulled back, one of her golden eyebrows already arched. "He as good as me?"

I rolled my eyes. "How would I know? You've probably been getting your share of practice too."

"I mean from before," she murmured, smirking. "Or don't you remember?"

"Think about it. Is that really what you want me to do? Compare the two of you?"

She slid away a bit and sighed. "No. Maybe. I don't know."

I'd upset her and now I felt bad. 

I found her hand and squeezed it beneath the blankets. "Bubble? Was this what you meant when you told me that you and I weren't done yet? Was this your grand plan? Sneak into my bed on my honeymoon to make me remember you and me?"

She looked up at the ceiling and let out a long slow breath. "Well, not exactly."

Another voice, huskier, chimed in from the long shadows on the far side of the hotel room. "She's right, Red. Not exactly."

My skin nearly peeled off my bones. If Heather's arm hadn't been holding me down, I'd have jumped clear to the ceiling. How I didn't wake Bobbie I still don't know.

Heather giggled quietly at my wide-eyed fright. "Easy, Berry. It's just Sam."

Samantha sauntered forward into better light and smiled. "Yeppers, just me."

She was as pretty as ever in a charcoal gray silk dress that swirled with black-stitched Asian designs. It was beautiful and tailored perfectly to her little dancer's figure. The muted, dark pattern made her almost invisible in the nighttime hotel room—a perfect outfit for sneakery. Even her long dark hair helped, its curls shielding her face. 

I blinked a few times, still trying to get my heart re-started. 

"Crap. I think I jumped the gun there," Sam sighed.

Heather was still looking at me. "Yeah, maybe a little."

Samantha frowned. "Maybe I should wait down by the elevators."

Heather nodded and Sam sank back into the dark, her whispered footsteps moving towards the door. She paused just long enough to dish a very motherly reminder. "Blondie? Remember your dress is here on the chair."

At the click of the door closing, I looked finally at Heather. Her face was one giant apology. "I'm sorry, Berry. I didn't mean for this to get weird. I just... just wanted to invite you upstairs for a while. We got a big room."

"We?"

"Sam," she rolled her lips, rubbing them in a way that drew my attention. They parted again with a touch of hesitation. "And Hero."

Nothing had changed. We'd made our choices. "Sounds like you have plenty of company already. You don't need me. Why don't we meet for waffles in the morning," I offered, trying my best to make it sound like fun.

She took my pathetic breakfast invitation with a wince, as if I'd slapped her. "Need you? Of course I need you. Berry, I don't think you're getting it. I came here for you. We all did."

"Yeah, right."

"Just trust me okay? Like you used to? Come upstairs just for a little while. We'll have a few drinks. A few laughs. A few... whatevers. Please?" The big shiny-blue eyes were back.

Heather sensed me wavering and stole my chance to answer by coming in for the thing some part of me had been hoping for the minute she woke me up. 

The kiss. 

It was a real one, one that chased away the lingering doubts I still had that I might be dreaming all of this. I wasn't. It would be impossible to dream all the little things about an old lover at the same time. The softness of Heather's lips, their ripe fullness. Her sweet smell. Her sweeter taste. 

The smell thing did me in¬ as thoroughly as ever, tumbling me into warm high school memories of us snuggling together on school buses. Of trading sneaky smooches on the far side of the girls' locker room. Of going to prom together as friends then sharing a hotel room bed afterwards as lovers. 

The room spun a little with my lips mashed against Heather's. Something enormous in my chest stirred and shifted. I felt it yawn and stretch, shaking off the cobwebs of a too-long slumber. 

See? Not gone. Never gone. Just sleeping. Waiting.

It squeezed a whimper from my throat and into Heather's mouth. She purred back, her kiss growing more eager, lips steadily crushing mine. Her hand found the back of my neck to pull me in tighter. 

I was already parting my lips when her tongue drove in, licking, stroking, teasing. It earned her another whimper. Then two.

Good God, this girl knows how to kiss me.

When we finally came up for air, panting into each other's mouths, I whispered the only answer I could, "Okay okay, you win, girlie. One drink. I'm not so sure about the whatever though, okay?"

"Yay," she cheered, "I knew you'd come to your senses eventually." She shimmied out of the bed and tried to tug me with her. I fended her off. 

"Hand me that robe on the floor?"

She gave me a funny look, but retrieved it, handing over the soft white terry robe. In a fit of shyness, I pulled it on beneath the blankets before getting up. 

Heather raised another eyebrow but kept quiet then led the way out. I followed her swaying bubble butt, wrapped in their little boyshort undies, to the door before coming to my senses. "Wait a sec. Duh, Bobbie? What if he wakes up?"

She nodded then scribbled a quick note with a pad and pen by the room's desk and left it on my pillow. "Okay, ready? Sam's waiting, remember?" 

Heather cracked open the door and stepped out, waving for me to follow. By the hallway lights I could see her little top and underwear weren't actually white. They were a very soft and delicate yellow. More importantly, she stepped out and began tooling down the hall in next to nothing and didn't seem concerned. 

Wait her dress. 

I doubled back for what she'd forgotten just before the door shut. "Don't you want you this, Bubble?"

"Oops! Yeah, bring it. Sam'll flip if I forget it. She and Hero picked it."

I plucked it up. It was a twin for the one Samantha had been wearing, just as tailored. This one was snow white with a pale yellow stitched rising sun across its back, rays spreading from shoulder to shoulder. 

It felt slinky and exotic just gathered up in my hands. I wondered what it would be like to wear something like it even as I returned it to Heather. I'd always been more of a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl. 

Heather didn't bother putting it on, simply flung it over her shoulder as I shut the door behind me with care. 

When we rounded the corner, Sam was leaning against a wall, her arms folded. She shook her head at Heather with a sad smile. "That's your elevator riding outfit?"

Heather twitched her nose in her way that hinted mischief. "Tonight? Yep." She marched straight for the elevators, three-quarters naked.

Samantha's look at me through her dark bangs was a comic plea for help. "Has she always been like this?"

I shrugged my sympathy. "Actually, I think she's matured a whole lot."

"Yeah, I was afraid you were going to say that." Her long suffering sigh was as cheeky as it should have been and it made me giggle. Sam joined in. 

As had happened before when we were together, for a moment, we were silent co-conspirators, the only two female members of the rarified, I-got-into-Heather's panties club. In fact, after way too much wine one night, Sam had promised to have t-shirts made for us. 

Heather stepped into an opening elevator, empty thank God, and waved us in impatiently. The three of us rode upstairs. Further away from my husband. Closer to Heather's carefully vague "whatevers."

What the hell am I doing? Well, one thing is clear. 

"I'm not getting naked in front of Hero." With a good dose of horror, I realized I'd said it out loud. The words had just tumbled out and I immediately felt like a jackass, the dufus who showed up to a quiet suburban swingers' party and loudly announces, without being prompted, that he's "not doing any dudes."

Sam stiffened at my gaff and made a thoughtful show of counting the elevator's ceiling tiles. 

Heather smiled and patted the small of my back like I wasn't a nutcase and I hadn't just blurted out something utterly retarded. "That's good, honey, 'cause he's not getting anywhere near us. I'm thinking no boys tonight."

That drew Samantha's attention off the ceiling tiles. She gave Heather a puzzled look.

"Sorry, I didn't mean you, Sammie. Boink the man's brains out if you want."

Samantha shrugged then nodded, evidently satisfied.

The casual ease of their exchange was unsettling. 

Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to Hell. Hope it's nice there.

We reached the top floor, the elevator chimed, and the doors slid open. 

For the record, Hell has a lovely decorator.

*~*Part 3*~*

Samantha led the way from the elevator towards a set of large double doors at the end of a short hall. I was just behind her, hypnotized by her easy, hip-rolling grace. It wasn't the first time I'd thought that, if she were a foot taller, she'd be at home strutting a cat walk. 

It was the height thought that made me realize something that hadn't registered before. Sam was barefoot. 

It was strange because I'd never seen her without a pair of heels. She was the biggest shoe junky I'd ever met. I'd seen her gigantic collection—some of them barely worn.

More importantly, barefoot, she was a full head shorter than me. I was looking down at her and, whether she did it on purpose or not, it helped. She seemed a lot less intimidating. 




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02



Samantha opened the door with a sweepy, gameshow-hostess wave and even before it was open wide enough to step into, I could see over her head and inside. The view made me stop. 

The room was done up in grand old British plantation estate style. Except it was more than a room. It was a— 

Jesus. "Bubble, sweetie, this is a penthouse."

Heather nudged me inside at my waist. "So, I said it was big."

Sam followed and shut the door behind us. "Bear with her, she doesn't like the word penthouse. She thinks it sounds snooty."

Heather sniffed. "C'mon, you know it does."

I swallowed my frustration when a door opened to the left and Hero stepped into the penthouse's living room. Tall, square and solid in his slacks and perpetual button-shirt, he grinned as he gestured for us to join him while drying his hands on a hand towel draped over his shoulder.

For all his barrel-chestyness and dark-haired good looks, I've always thought Hero's real appeal was his gentle smile. He was soft spoken and funny and quick-witted in a real world way. He balanced Heather's book smarts perfectly. No wonder she'd made the first move. Tonight though, the poor lug had evidently pulled bathroom duty. 

"Hey, Red." He gave me a big hug because it was physically impossible for him to give small ones. "The tub is filled. Finally. It's huge. Insanely huge. I picked the floweriest, girliest bubblebath in the place. I can barely stand it, so I'm guessing you ladies will love it."

The three of us were already scooting closer, the smell luring us in. Jasmine. A lot of it.

"White jasmine," Sam beat me to it.

Heather peered into the palatial bathroom first and her mouth fell open. "Dude!"

I saw the tub next. "Whoa, that sucker needs a diving board."

"Or at least a slide," Sam cheered.

Basically, the tub wasn't a tub in the same way the penthouse wasn't a room. Hero hadn't been kidding. It looked like a match for the kiddie pool down in the hotel's main deck area, an acre of white, foamy bubbles. A separate faucet curved in each of its three enclosed sides.

Hero's voice broke in from behind us, "Sooo... you two have your fun. We'll be in the master suite. Shall we, Sam?"

So there'd clearly been some sort of plan, still, in the pause of three heartbeats that followed, I watched Samantha eyeing the tub wistfully. 

Reluctance. She wanted to stay. 

It made my stomach roll with guilt for intruding. If I'd stayed downstairs where I belonged, she and Heather would be the ones splashing away in there.

I screwed up my courage. "Actually Hero, can we borrow Sam for a little bit?" I asked quickly.

Heather's head whipped around, and she blinked at me. "Really?" 

"Sure, why not?" I didn't mind. Did I? Surely Sam would leave at some point so that Heather and I could be alone. That was the idea right?

Samantha beamed, and returned the favor, proving she'd read me scarily well by the way she smoothed things over with Hero while still looking at me. "I'll catch up to you in a bit, studmuffin. Watch something naughty on pay-per-view for me? I'll come find you to get dirty once I'm clean."

Hero looked at Heather for her vote. "Pleeeeaaase?" she piped up her support.

Hero rolled his eyes but smiled. He'd already explained to me that there were downsides to his love-triangle fantasy life. One was that the girls ganged up on him regularly to get their way. 

"Okay then, ladies, have your fun." He turned to go. "But Sam," he called over his shoulder, "don't let me get too lonely?"

Heather didn't wait for him to leave. She simply stepped into the bathroom and jerked her little top up over her head while heading straight for the tub. She was bare from the waist up.

"Hold it right there, blondie," I threatened from the door. "Where's that drink you promised? I'm way too sober for all of this."

It brought her up short and she turned to answer, but I barely heard what she had to say because when she turned, I was looking at her astounding body in profile. 

Real boobs? They're not supposed to be able to, gravity doesn't, good Lord. I had to look away. 

Heather didn't seem to notice. "Sam? In the fridge, there's two bottles of cava."

Samantha nodded. "Hallelujah, I'm going to need something to get through this too." She padded off on her little bare feet.

It left me facing a semi-nude Heather and picking my chin up off the floor. I swallowed, hard, still alternating between staring and not staring. She hadn't changed a lick since high school, not a single millimeter—twenty-three with a teenager's shape. Some things just weren't fair.

Heather finally caught on to my perving and swept her hands down herself. "Oh, please. You've seen all my stuff before."

"True. I just, I don't know, either I took it for granted back then or maybe I've forgotten. Either way, Jesus, Bubble, you're a little bit past perfect."

"Aww, that was really sweet." She cocked her head, in just the way she used to, and stared at me funny. I watched her change, her superconfident, hot-chick shield melt, the one she'd built up through college and was polishing in med school. The one I admired and hated at the same time. 

"C'mere?" She waved me closer until I was standing right in front of her, next to the marble lip of the giant tub. "Berry, remember our first shower? At the hotel we stayed at for the field hockey semi's?"

"Yeah."

"I still think about it, you know."

"Hehehe, me too."

"We never had a bath together, though did we?"

"That's true."

"I thought maybe we could now. Since things are more... settled, I want you to know—"

POP! 

Samantha's reappearance broke the moment. It was hard to hate her for it since she was grinning ear to ear and waving two foaming green glass bottles, one in each hand. 

"Okay, who wants bubbly?!" she whooped. "I skipped glasses. Fuck 'em, we don't need 'em." She chugged a few gulps from the bottle in her right hand, then snorted cutely when the bubbles got the best of her.

Heather's eyes never left me, but her serious expression melted and she giggled through an apology, "Hehehe, okay, I'm wearing off on her a little. She drinks more now. Good luck keeping up." 

Heather winked at me as she folded at the waist and dragged her little yellow undies down and off. Her compact bubble butt, with its eye-catching thong bikini tan line, swished in the air.

Samantha stepped up next to me, taking in her now naked girlfriend while handing me a bottle. "If it helps, Red, I've been looking at her naked regularly for five years now. I've never get tired of looking at her ass either," she said wryly.

It was wicked timing. I was in the middle of a long drag from the bottle. Her frankness made me mis-gulp and sputter my agreement. "She does have a fine heinie, doesn't she?"

Heather rolled her eyes at the compliments, her attention still on the tub. She winced when her test foot broke the surface of the water. "Holy crud this is frickin' hot. You'll like this Sammie, it's just a few degrees under boiling." 

She dipped in further as we watched, her little gold eyebrows knitting together when neither of us moved. "Aren't you guys coming in?" Then she held her breath and dunked herself in completely.

"Right behind you, Peaches." Sam set her bottle down on the edge of the tub and started tugging her dress up. 

I stopped her. "Sam? Hold on? What are we doing?"

Samantha let her dress fall back into place. Her head tilted and it shifted her long dark hair. "Uh, we're drinking in a giant bubble bath?"

"You know what I mean. Why am I here?"

The look she gave me was long and steady. She wasn't nearly as tipsy as I'd hoped. "Because I know how it feels to have your heart divided. And how it feels to have someone you love snatched away. They both suck."

Ding-aling-aling. Bullshit, she's humoring me.  

Sam knew what happened, knew what my step-brother had done to me, to Heather. 

"Heather wasn't snatched, Sam, and you know it. I pushed her away after... Glenn."

Samantha's eyes narrowed. "Red, what happened that day, with you and her and your brother? It wasn't your fault. She forgave you the minute it happened. Forgive yourself. Let it go, Stace." 

We stared at each other. I was far too sober for this too. 

I had another long pull from the bottle. My nose itched in the way that said a good cry was coming from nowhere. Samantha had a little more insight than I was ready for. Or maybe it was all the stupid cava bubbles. Or both.

I swallowed and tried again. "Sam, what if I can't?" My voice was raw, tight. I had to swallow again to fight back tears I never saw coming.

Samantha's smile was full of sympathy and she gave my arm a squeeze. "Sure you can. That stuff? In the past now. We need to hold onto the good parts and forget the crummy ones. And, that, my curvy, pale friend, is going to start tonight. Ditch the robe. Get in the tub. "

I shrugged, unsure. I'd hesitated at being naked in front of Heather. Stripping down in front of Samantha? Even harder. "I... I don't know."

Sam clucked her disappointment. "Suit yourself, but I plan on getting naked. I've got my weaknesses, but shame isn't one of them. In fact, mind helping me out of this thing? There's a zipper up top." She turned her back to me and pulled her chestnut mane to the side. A zipper was at the back of her neck.

"Oh go on, Red. I won't bite." Sam chuckled. "Well, not unless you ask and three other people say it's okay, anyway."

Her flirty tease actually helped. "Gee, thanks." 

I dragged her zipper downward, peeling open the silk to her waist. The soft fabric fell away to reveal the most beautiful back I'd ever seen. 

I'd been around Samantha plenty, she and Heather were inseparable, but I'd never been this close to her and she'd never been so... bare. Flawless, dew-fresh olive skin stretched over her delicate muscles. From behind Samantha was a perfect canvas of femininity. 

"So pretty," I whispered out loud without meaning to.

Samantha thought I was talking about her dress. "Awww, thanks. Hero had it made special. Clothes are a problem when you're extra little. Hero tracked down a real, old-fashioned dress maker. Our big guy has his moments." 

I watched as Sam shrugged her way out of the dress, looking away hastily when she pushed it down over her hips. I still saw enough to tell me she wasn't wearing underwear. 

The trouble was that the bathroom was heavily mirrored and everywhere I looked, there were was a very pretty and very nude Samantha slinking out of her dress. I locked my eyes onto absolutely nothing in a corner of the floor until I heard the little splash she made on the way in. 

This was starting to feel less and less smart.  What the hell was I thinking exactly?

I was left standing out in the middle of the bathroom with Heather staring at me. 

"C'mon, take it off, Berry!" she cheered from the safety of the thick bubbles covering her up to her chin.

I fiddled with my robe's sash and moved closer to stand by the tub. Samantha sat next to Heather with an intrigued smile, one that was helping things. 

I kept fiddling with my sash. "Okay, you two. Sam? Could you maybe?" I twirled my finger around.

"Fine fine." Sam frowned, but did me one better than spinning, which would have been useless with all the mirrors anyway. Instead, she took a deep breath and dipped down into the water, disappearing beneath the white foam.

I hastily untied my robe and let the safety of its thick warm terry thump to the floor. 

Heather whistled softly. "All that running's made you crazy skinny, Berry. Except for your boobs. How the heck is that possible?"

"Mmmm, good genes?" I flung a leg over the edge and stuck a toe in. "Holy Jesus, this water is hot."

"Told you. Hurry up, Sam can't hold her breath forever."

I grit my teeth and sank into the ridiculous heat then sat next to Heather. The inside perimeter of the tub was a cushiony bench. I figured this out at about the same time that Heather cooed out of the blue.

"Oooh."

"What?"

"Sam's rubbing my foot."

Samantha popped up, wiping bubbles off her face. "Like that, luv?"

Heather nodded eagerly. "Definitely. More please."

Sam looked at me. "Take her other leg. We'll double team her."

I squinted suspicion at Heather as I slid off my seat to kneel in front of her. "You're used to getting double teamed nowadays aren't you?"

Her confession came with a sly half-smile. "Yeah, sometimes." 

"I bet." I searched for her leg under the water, picked it up, and began digging my thumbs into the soft underside of her foot. As Samantha and I worked, Heather sighed dreamily. 

Sam chuckled next to me. "God, you're easy."

"What's not to like?" Heather answered, eyes still closed. Her smile stretched wider. "I have the two prettiest girls I've ever met rubbing me."

"And they're both naked," I added tartly.

"Even better." Heather giggled without shame. 

It made my heart ache. Her bright laugh. The rosy blush on her cheeks from the heat. The sweet little-girl smile filled with grown-up promises. 

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I'm in love with you, girlie. Still.

My desire for her welled up again, here in a hotel room rented by her boyfriend and sharing a tub with her girlfriend. My husband asleep in our honeymoon suite downstairs. I'd lost my mind. This was insane.

The insanity ticked up a notch when Samantha began humming while she worked her hands over Heather's foot with practiced ease, as if they did this sort of thing every day. 

I passed Heather one of the cava bottles and looked over at Sam for guidance but she seemed content with her rubbing. She began to rotate Heather's ankle in gentle circles.

Sam continued humming as she went. Her voice was mismatched to her little body, deeper, richer than it should have been. And yet sweet. 

The sound of her voice filled the room, bouncing off the tile walls in doubling then tripling echoes. Wonderful. Sam could probably sing too. 

How am I supposed to compete for Heather's attention with someone like this? 

The humming stopped and Samantha paused to flick knowing green eyes at me. "Go on Stace, kiss her." She went back to her rubbing, cool as ever.

I looked helplessly at Heather, but her eyes were closed and she was still wearing her little-girl smile. "Yeah, kiss me, Berry."

"Sooo... what? Just like...?" I stammered.

"Yeah, just like," Samantha teased, parroting me awfully.

But it was too awkward. 

"What? Can't do it just because I'm here?" Sam needled.

Duh. I kept quiet.

"The two of you." Samantha chuckled and slid her hands up to Heather's knee. "So secretive in high school. Sneaking around behind everyone's backs. You're grown-ups now, you know. It doesn't have to be like that anymore." Sam's green gaze flitted up again to drill into me. "Stace? Seriously, this thing you share? Set it free, honey. It's safe now."

Set it free. It echoed in my head, though my knees remained rooted to the bottom of the tub.

Samantha's nose twitched shrewdly. "Need me to show you, Stace? Remind you how to kiss her? Have you really forgotten already?"

Heat bloomed in my chest, equal parts jealousy and arousal. I tugged the half-empty bottle back from Heather and tipped it up for another gulp of courage.

Samantha inched closer to Heather, whispering as she went, "I like the way she smells too, you know. So sweet. Like candy. Did anyone ever tell you why Hero and I call her Peaches? She used to have this shampoo that—"

"I still have the shampoo," Heather interrupted, eyeing Sam tenderly.

"Fine, she has this shampoo," Samantha corrected, "that drove everyone at our accounting firm crazy. Dear God, Red, I watched three dozen accountants, two janitors, and an entire mail room, sniff after this girl for a summer. Made me want her more."

They giggled together. Heather's was a brighter version of Samantha's, but they shared the same rolling lyric. "You're crazy, Sam."

"Crazy for you."

The gap between them closed and I watched as their lips met finally. A peck at first. Then Samantha's chin turned a little and their passion mounted, mouths working together. 

This wasn't helping. I wanted to leave. Slink away. Get out of the tub and put on my robe. What was I doing here? I didn't belong. Not anymore. And my husband, my brand new husband, was right downstairs. They'd invited me here to rub this in my face.

Cue the confetti, it's official, I'm the world's biggest idiot.

I would have left if Heather's hand hadn't found my arm under the water. She closed around my wrist and, though she continued kissing Samantha, she tugged me closer, dragging me nearer to them both. 

I was repulsed and attracted at the same time, watching their lips play together. I'd kissed my share of girls, but I'd never watched two before. Silly but true.

Still, interesting as it was, I was close to pulling away when another hand, Samantha's, circled the back of my neck and drew me nearer too. Only inches separating the three of us, Samantha backed away from Heather. They both looked at me with sleepy, bedroom eyes.

"Your turn, Berry," Sam whispered—a wicked challenge that plucked at my heartstrings. She'd used Heather's pet name for me, the one that was Heather's and Heather's alone. 

Heather didn't flinch at Sam's intrusion. Her eyes were locked on my mouth. "Yeah, your turn, Berry."

Sam's hand behind my neck steered me towards Heather's face and she backed herself away to make room.

Heather and I stared at each other. I was dizzy from the water's heat and her closeness. Plus, a healthy dash of jealousy for good measure. And about half a bottle of cava that was just beginning to work its way to my head, everything going blurry and soft focused.

I still knew this was wrong on so many levels. Heather wasn't mine. Not anymore. And I wasn't hers. And Samantha was here. And my husband was—

But she'd been in and out of my dreams for so long. And her cheeks were flushed the way they used to be after we'd made love in her childhood bedroom. I watched a bead of sweat gather at her hairline then wick its way along a lock of cornsilk hair plastered to her cheek and drip from her rounded chin down into the bubblebath. Her eyes, sky blue and heavy-lidded, glittered up at me.

"What're you waiting for Berry?" she whispered.

You know what? Fuck it. We'll sort out the bodies later.

I lifted her chin with two fingers. "Nothing. Not anymore."

I kissed her the way I'd wanted to almost five years ago, the very moment after I told her I never wanted to see her again. Slow. Tender. I poured my soul into it, every inch of the desperate, fucked-up needing and wanting I'd felt over the years I'd kept my careful distance. If she didn't already, I wanted Bubble to know now. I needed her to. 

It must have showed. My effort drew a pleased groan from my old lover. I took it as a good sign and threw a leg over her lap to straddle her thighs. Her hands found my hips, then circled me at the base of my spine, pulling me closer. 

Her nose twitched a millimeter from mine and she licked her lips. "Guess this means I can have more?"

This whole thing, this whole, screwy, I still need her and she still wants me, but we also love other people, one of whom was barely two feet away—I just didn't fucking care anymore.

"Yeah."

The unbelievable part was that Samantha didn't seem to mind, because a minute after Bubble's lips mashed into mine again, a second pair of hands came up to rest on my shoulders. 

I stiffened at Samantha's touch, but her voice purred into my ear. "It's okay, Red. Keep going." 

I could feel her breath on my neck. Her strong little fingers began sinking deep into my shoulders, stroking, soothing. Calming. "Relax, Red. Relax." 




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02



Her fingers rubbed deeper, and my shoulders began drooping all on their own. 

Sweet Mary, she has magic hands. 

"Don't stop, Red. Everybody's having fun. We're all okay." Her velvety voice sank into my head together with her fingers in my loosening flesh. 

I got lost, lost in the ridiculousness of it all. The thing that had slept somewhere inside me for too long, the deep and profound love for Heather that had waited patiently, biding its time, rose up again. It filled my chest and squeezed everything else out. My common sense retreated into a corner and raised a battered white flag. 

I was Heather's again, completely.

She felt me melt, felt my body go slack. Her kisses deepened. Her hands slid up. Sam's down. I lost track of whose hands were where on my hips and back. Twenty fingers caressed, fondled, and played across my slick, superheated skin. 

Someone cupped my breasts, rolling thumbs in teasing circles over my nipples. I mewled into Heather's mouth and shuddered. Her tongue went wild, twirling between my lips then twisting against mine.

I felt Samantha's hot breath against the back of my neck again. She inched herself closer and the hardened points of her breasts grazed between my shoulders. 

"May I?" she whispered politely, lips millimeters from my skin.

I don't know which one of us she was asking, but it didn't matter by that point because Heather and I answered together. "Yes." 

Sam's lips melted into the back of my neck. When I twitched in response, she snorted a chuckle and turned her head and mouthed the top of my spine. Heather snuck downward too until she was doing the same thing at my throat, lapping and sucking.

Devoured. That's what I was. The two of them licking and lapping. Sucking and gnawing. I rolled my head every which way to let them. 

The thumbs at my breasts sank inwards with agonizing slowness, drilling into my puckered nipples the way that had always been my weakness. It was either Heather doing it or she'd had some very detailed conversations with Samantha. Right then, I didn't care.

I don't know how long they toyed with me. I was on a sensual ride. No control. No say. Trapped between two women who'd apparently flown a few thousand miles with the intention of doing, well, this. 

Everything jerked to a stop at the sound of the bathroom door swinging open behind us.

"Hey Sammie, are you coming to—oh. Wow..." Hero's voice trailed off when he saw us.

I jerked my face away from Heather's and would have fled from her lap if Samantha hadn't held me down. For a few heartbeats, my legs fought her arms. 

A full couple of seconds ticked by as our silent struggle played out underwater and none of us acknowledged Hero. Absurdly, my first thought was that it was getting rude.

"I'm sorry ladies, I guess I probably should have knocked?" he ventured, as gracious as always.

"You two, stay," Sam murmured, coming around beside us. "I'll go with the boy. Have fun okay?"

Then Samantha did something, something perfect, in what could have been a delicate moment crowded with four sets of egos, affections, and insecurities. Sam nuzzled Heather's cheek, a few gentle sweeps of her delicate nose. 

Then she nuzzled mine too, in just the same way, grazing me with a tenderness that was completely unexpected and made me look at her with wonder. 

How do you know just what to do?

Samantha turned finally to Hero. "Okay studmuffin, I'm coming. Sorry to keep you waiting. Guess we kind of... lost track of time there," she said tactfully as she stepped out and trotted to him without bothering to even reach for a towel. 

Bubble bath dribbled down her slender olive back and exquisite dancer's rump in milky white streams.

Heather and I turned to watch, our faces squished cozily cheek-to-cheek, as Sam tugged a still wide-eyed Hero through the door. Her hand appeared for a last little wave for our benefit just before it shut. 

From outside there was a soft thump, a giggle, and the sound of a flirty chase. 

Riiiight. Sorry you caught us headed straight into a girlie three-way. Let's go have sex. But first? Chase me.

What kind of life did these three live? It appalled and amazed me at the same time.

The thing, whatever it might have been, that had nearly happened between the three of us had evaporated and it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. I had no idea what to do next.

Heather filled the strange pause by pulling my earlobe between her teeth and worrying at it tenderly.

"You know you lead a strange life now, right Bubble?" 

"Maybe. But it has its moments."

"And you really do share—" 

"Mmmhmm," she cut me off, "everything." Her fingers slipped up to explore along a few of my ribs, then drifted over to trace up and down my stomach. I groaned and she let go of my ear to rest her head on my shoulder. 

I blindly smoothed a strand of wet, brassy hair behind her ear. "Okay, I think maybe I'm ready for some that 'whatever' stuff you were talking about before."

She shifted into my lap. "Sure about that?"

I scratched gentle fingernails down her side. "Don't make me say it twice. It'll sound like begging."

She twisted away and grinned. "Okay. Tub or bed?"

"Bed. Please God, bed."

"There's a big heart-shaped one in the back bedroom. Want to go there?"

"I don't care what shape it is, as long as you're in it and you're naked."

"Deal."

We crawled out of the tub, wisps of steam pouring from our bare skin, and skidded carefully across the completely soaked and now death-slick marble floor. Still nude, we paraded through the penthouse's main room, confident that Hero and Samantha were occupied.

*~*Part 4*~*

We were right—Hero and Samantha were entirely occupied. When we passed one of the bedroom doors there were the unmistakable bed-shaking creaks and wild moans of vigorous sex. In fact, the level of their vigor was enough to make me pause in the hall. 

"Hold up Bubble?" I whispered. "Is Sam going to be okay in there? She's so small and, I mean, after what Hero saw in the bathroom, he's not going to get too, you know, enthusiastic is he?"

Heather covered her mouth to muffle her laugh. "Oh honey, you've got the whole thing backwards. Sam's the one who'll be wound up. She's going to fuck that big lug stupid, then order a hot fudge sundae from room service while he takes a nap to recover. Then she's going to wake him up and fuck him again."

"Seriously?"

"I've seen it before. It's what she does in hotels."

I eyed her doubtfully. Sure, Samantha had badass written all over her, but it sounded like a demolition crew was at work in there and she was less than half Hero's size. "Yeah, but she's beyond little and he's huge. Wait, is, uh, is everything on Hero, you know, big?"

"You mean proportional?" Heather's lips pursed at my prying question then broke into a wide wicked grin. "Between you and me, well, you know those really thick tubes of chocolate chip cookie dough they sell at the supermarket?"

Too late, my hand flew up to stop her. "Whoa! I don't think I needed to know that." 

She shrugged, still grinning. "Haha. Good luck not picturing it now."

The thumping behind the door got louder at that moment and some of my delicate parts hurt out of sympathy for the miniature brunette. "It sounds like he's pounding her into the frickin' box spring."

"Meh, that's how she likes it. Look, are we going to spy on other people having sex or go find a room of our own?"

"Good point. Keep moving."

Heather led me past two more doors and pushed a third open. The sight had us both laughing immediately. It looked like Liberace and Prince had built a demented love nest inside. 

Velours and velvets in reds, pinks and deep purples. Mirrored ceiling. Giant smoked crystal chandelier. The highlight though, as Heather promised, was smack in the middle of the room: an enormous heart-shaped bed wrapped in black satin.

I slid an arm around Heather's waist as we admired the perverse gusto of the room's décor from the doorway. I eyed the bed. "Please tell me that sucker vibrates."

She giggled and squeezed me. "If it doesn't, I'll shake it for you." She looked around. "Sure it's not too silly in here? There's normal rooms too."

"Uh uh." I stepped inside and pulled her with me towards the bed. "This is perfect. It's just as ridiculous as tonight."

"You mean ridiculous in a good way, right?" Heather spun us and pushed me back onto the sea of cool black satin. 

"Very good way, and you know it."

She was hovering above me now, her body dripping down on me, her eyes a blend of affection and desire. "For the record, you look pretty on black satin, Berry. Your pale skin against the darkness. Red hair against black. Might be worth a picture," she mused.

I caught her wrists and pulled her down on top of me. Our slick, warm bodies slid against each other, her larger breasts drilling into mine. "You don't have a camera."

"I could go find my cell," she countered, faking a dip down for a smooch before pulling back.

"Tease. That would mean you'd have to leave the room. And me."

She nodded, her eyes raking down my body. "You're right, fuck the pictures." She came down at me for real.

"Heheh, smart girl," I cooed, steering her face to one side enough to expose her collarbone. I followed it with my tongue, down to the inside swell of her breast where I traced slow circles with the tip of my nose. 

Jesus, her smell, the bubblegum sweetness, still lingering beneath the cloying jasmine bubblebath.

Heather, bless her, knew what I was after. She scooted upwards, cupped her own breast and dipped its thick pink nipple into my mouth. I opened my jaw wide to accept what she offered, straining to pull in as much of her impossible tit as I could and sucked greedily.

She stroked my head as I suckled. "Guess you missed hooters a little, huh, Berry?"

"Mfmph," I gurgled an embarrassed confession around her boob. 

She smirked and slowly tugged her first breast free. It was spit-soaked, areola puckered, nipple a tight knot.

She pinched it, smiling down at me. "Good girl. Very thorough." Before I asked, she stuffed the other one into my mouth, shaking her head as she indulged me.

My eyes said what my mouth couldn't: I love being naked with you.

She swapped me back to her other breast, then back again, letting me have a good long boob fix before rolling off me to one side. "My turn. Want to feel something cool, Berry?" 

"Always." 

She wiggled her eyebrows. "I've been wanting to try this on someone for a while. You were a willing good test subject." 

I nodded and watched as she lapped at her thumb. She brought it up to brush back and forth across one of my flat nipples.

"More sex-genius games, Bubble? So far so good." It was nice to feel her touch again.

"Good. Hold still, Berry." Her mouth came down and she trailed her tongue, lapping kitten licks as she went, across my breast. She lifted my arm and her meandering tongue slid slowly into my armpit. Huh? She began to lick the insanely sensitive flesh there and I had trouble holding still. 

Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush.

What the hell was she up to? "Good thing I shaved," I tittered.

"Yes, thanks for that," she giggled into my tender underarm. "Now, hush. Feel." 

She went back to licking with longer swipes. All the while, her thumb passed back and forth over my nipple with agonizing slowness. 

Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush.

Weird, and yet nice. "Tickles," I snorted, "but I like it too."

"Hold on. Should get better." She turned my arm and inched her mouth outwards, still lapping, towards the crook of my elbow. She began to lick the delicate skin there. It stretched a thin line of pleasure from my breast to her mouth on my arm. 

Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush.

The pleasure line pulsed beneath my skin. Whoa, there was definitely something to this. "Oh honey." I was under the spell of her happy little thread across my chest, connecting two unrelated body parts, joined solely by her touch. 

Light-headed, I looked up at my gold-haired lover. She had a gift for this sort of thing.

She winked up at me. "Feel it? The funny connection?"

I nodded mutely.

She kissed my arm again. "Hold on, girlie, I think it'll get better."

Her mouth traced further out to the inside of my wrist. She licked there too while continuing to fondle my breast. 

Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush. Lap. Brush.

The pleasure line she had already drawn stretched tighter, like adjusting a guitar string, tuning it. Each combined lap and fondle was a pluck at her tautly stretched string. It was insane. 

"Ooh," I cooed, shoulders lifting off the bed.

"Working, huh?" She slid her mouth further down the same arm until, finally, she began licking and suckling the tip of my middle finger, still tweaking my nipple. 

It sent warm tingles through me along the thread she'd drawn. That thread was longer, tighter now, and she played it until it vibrated.

"Guuuuh," I groaned. 

"Cool, huh?"

"Still a sex-genius," I sighed.

"Me?" she beamed. Now nuzzling my hand. 

"Hooyeah."

"Want me to do the other side too?"

"Yes please."

She did, and soon my hips were wriggling on their own as if we'd never been apart, Heather teaching me something new about my body the way she did when we were in high school even though I'd been her first real lover. 

She could still read me too. "Ready for some relief, Berry? There's such a thing as too much teasing, I guess." 

"Maybe... kinda..."

"Hehe, that was a total yes. Mind if I...?" Her small, pink tongue flicked out and played along the top of her lip, finishing her question. As she intended, I felt her offer between my legs.

"Kiss me first, Bubble, then you can have me." I pulled her down on top of me again. 

I stroked her back as we smooched and wriggled together, finally daring to skim my hands downwards to stroke her curvy hips. I filled my hands with each of her rounded buns. They were still slick from the bubble bath.

"Mmmhmm, give it a good squeeze," she murmured. 

I did, sinking my fingers into the tight muscles of the spectacular rump, I'd once watched sprint up and down a hockey field beneath a small pleated skirt.

She scooted downwards again, pausing to cup my breasts and give them two gentle squeezes. "Meep meep." She chuckled.

"Weirdo." I patted her head as her chin grazed smoothly down over my stomach. She moved lower and rested her head on the inside of my thigh then gently spread my legs a little wider. 

"Oooh, love the landing strip. Bobbie's idea or yours?" 

Ow, please don't make me think about my husband with you right there. "Mine."

"It suits the skinny you. Very slim and sporty." She exhaled a warm breath across my mound that made me shudder with anticipation. "You haven't changed a bit, Berry. So fair. So pink. So pretty." She leaned in and planted a few teasing pecks then pulled back again. "Just as wet. Just as sweet too."

Her hands found the hollows of my hips and started tracing lazy circles. She sighed. "You know what? This is going to sound a little disturbed, but I think I've missed your cooter."

I patted her head again. "You're right, it's a little twisted. I'm not complaining though."

Heather leaned in again to press her mouth against my slit, her nimble little tongue slipping between. She began a slow search in my folds as her hands kept stroking my hips. 

She found my clit and when she swabbed at it a few times, I shuddered again and eked out a warning, "Bubble? I'm really turned on. I'm not going to last long."

"So? Why don't we just get your first one out of the way?" she offered sweetly, then returned to her gentle laps. Her tongue began spinning around and around my clit. 

It was a good thing she didn't mind. I was getting dizzy again, even closer to cumming than I realized. 

I tugged her hands up from my hips to my chest again. She understood and her thumbs sought out my tight discs, circling them to match her magic tongue revolving around my clit.

The combination was like hitting my fast forward button. "Oh crap," I squeaked. My climax picked up speed, hurtling closer. I clawed at the sheets, panting and rocking my head on the pillow.

Heather seemed as eager to see me cum as I was. Her licks quickened, her tongue flying back and forth over my tingling love button.

I snorted and pawed and trembled and quaked. And came.

"Mu huh huh huh," I wailed, twisting as all the tension she'd built up ignited, boiling my insides. 

She stayed with me, keeping perfect pace, feathering licks at my button and toying gently at my nipples to stretch out my cum. She knew how to work me in these moments like no one else and the orgasm kept stretching further and further until I was gritting my teeth. 

"No more! Please!" I dragged her head from between my legs, reduced to a pile of jangled nerve endings. "Get back up here would you?" I waved her up weakly.

Heather scooched higher and stretched out on the bed next to me again with a self-satisfied grin. Her chin was shiny with my juices. When I wiped at it with a few fingers she caught them and pulled them to her lips. She nursed on them, pulling my honey away with a steady suckling.

We were still catching our breath when someone rapped on the door.

*~*Part 5*~*

It was Sam. She peeked inside for a moment then pulled her head back. "Hiya. Everybody decent?"

Heather and I slunk beneath the sheets before she answered. "Covered, girlie. Never decent."

Sam chuckled as she slunk in the door and shut it behind her. It was as casual as I'd ever seen her—just a black t-shirt that fell not much past her hips, hair pulled up into a sloppy dark ponytail. "Mind if I hang out with you guys a little? Hero's in snore mode and I can't sleep."

Heather looked at me and when I nodded, she patted the bed next to her. "Sure, chickie. C'mere."

Sam scooted onto the bed next to Heather while looking around, taking in the room. "So what the hell is the deal with place? It's like Paul Lynde threw up in here."

Heather and I both blinked blankly at her. 

Sam rolled her eyes. "C'mon, I'm not that much older than the two of you."

Heather gave her a consolation smooch on the cheek. "S'ok, old lady. I still like you." She leaned in for an exaggerated sniff. "And you reek of sex."

"Yeah, well, so do you. And twenty-eight is not old. I'll show you old." Sam whirled and straddled Heather's middle, trapping her arms at her sides beneath the slick black sheets. 

Heather didn't even bother struggling. Instead, she looked up at her lover shrewdly. "You smell like sex, but you don't smell like hot fudge. Room service is closed for the night isn't it?"

Sam shrugged. "So? It's almost three in the morning."

"So you wore Hero out and then got bored."

Sam nodded slowly, still straddling but beginning to inch herself up Heather's chest. "Yep. Poor fella. Fucked to sleep by his favorite sex kitten."

Heather smirked. "You're his second favorite," she sassed, eying the bottom edge of Samantha's t-shirt. 

This was a strange game. I cleared my throat to remind them I was there.

Sam didn't look over but Heather did. "Berry, mind if I, you know, help Sam a little bit? From the way she's wiggling this'll take two minutes tops."

"Hey," Sam groused.

"Oh please, I know that wiggle. You've been masturbating and you snuck over here hoping I'd finish the job," Heather shot back.

Okay, now I am definitely a third wheel. 

"Guys, why don't I go find us something else to drink? Which way to that fridge with the booze?"

"There's three fridges," Sam answered, "but, um, stay Red?" She reinforced her soft plea with a hand on my bare shoulder.




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02



Heather snorted into Samantha's slowly approaching groin. "Hoping for an audience, huh?"

"Maybe." Sam nibbled her lip. "That a problem?"

"If you let my hands go, I don't mind so much."

Sam lifted herself up long enough for Heather to pull her arms free.

"So what exactly did you have in mind, Sammie?" Heather wondered with thinly feigned innocence. Sam's groin was still inching towards her face. 

Sam leaned down over her, loose strands of dark hair covering her face. "Your mouth. My pussy. Whenever you're ready," Sam murmured.

Heather's blues narrowed at the bluntness. "I think I can do that."

Samantha lifted the edge of her t-shirt and I caught a quick glimpse of jet-black fur before she hunched into Heather and let the shirt go, obscuring Heather's mouth again.

A few moist, snuffling sounds followed and Sam's face twisted up in pleasure. She clutched the top of the upholstered headboard then looked over at me and smiled weakly. "So, how's it going?"

I snorted out a giggle. Was she serious? "Meh, not bad. You?"

"Good. And, um, getting bu-better," Sam stuttered. I watched one of Heather's hands slip beneath the front of her t-shirt and caress her stomach. One of Sam's eyes twitch at its edge. 

Sam's hips humped forward, chasing. She steadied herself by letting out a long slow breath and resting her head on top of the headboard before falling silent, apparently lost in Heather's attention.

It was strange watching them, a grittier, real life version of the girlie porn videos I sometimes indulged Bobbie with. And it raised the same swirl of emotions as watching them kiss in the tub. 

Unfair as it was, a selfish part of me was upset seeing them together. Another part, curious. Still, there was one last part, a tiny part, that was aroused. I snuck a hand down beneath the sheet for an experimental brush between my legs. It was a important tiny part—the one between my legs. A telltale buzz zipped up my spine. 

My other hand had joined my first. Before I realized what I was doing, I had spread myself open and begun twirling while watching my high school sweetheart ate another woman.

How did I get here?

I was so absorbed in watching what little I could see with Samantha's t-shirt in the way that I failed to notice Sam had looked over at me again. 

She caught me staring. When our eyes met, hers were hooded and glassy, their green had dipped three shades darker. She licked her lips, dry from panting, and raised an eyebrow. And, slowly, she lifted the hem of the screening t-shirt. It rose like a curtain.

I could see everything now. Samantha's mink-like little patch, her slender cinnamon lips splayed wide. Heather's eyes, closed, her skilled tongue zipping in complex patterns from Sam's clit, down lower, then back. It was rude, raunchy, and intoxicating to see something so intimate.

Samantha's eyes fluttered as Heather worked on her, but Sam still managed to look meaningfully from my face, down my body, then back again.

Tit for tat. And a challenge. She wanted to see me too.

This was insane. Utterly mental. Well, why not? She'd shared. There was no real harm in letting her look was there?

With both of my hands still working away between my legs, I caught the satiny sheet in my toes and drew it downwards. Sam's eyes widened as the black fabric magically slid down from my throat. They widened even more when it slunk down further, revealing my breasts to the cool room air and the heat of her gaze. 

I left the sheet there and let Sam stare. Her nostrils flared with a hunger that spoke volumes. Sam was into boobs. Whether she'd started that way or Heather had turned her onto them one I had no idea, but she was most certainly a boob chick. 

Samantha's eyes narrowed and she licked her lips, attention riveted to my chest. Was she thinking about licking me? Her rapt attention made my pulse quicken. She was making me feel desirable too. Attractive. Wanted.

Sam's eyelids grew heavy and slid closed. It was obvious she was lost in Heather's ceaseless tonguing. 

I'd liked the way she looked at me. I sucked in a quick breath, screwed up my courage, and kicked off the sheet completely. 

Samantha's eyes flew open again and zipped directly between my legs. Her mouth fell open.

I'd wondered if she'd ever seen a redhead naked. The way she drank me in, I guessed not. Caught up in the moment I spread my legs wider, lifted and bent a knee, and even cocked my hips up. It put me on wet, wide display and Samantha's eyes nearly bugged out of her head as I molested myself, spreading my swollen lips open and circling my pebble hard clit. 

I heard the scrape of Sam's fingernails clawing at the headboard and it made me smile. I was getting to her. 

Muhahaha, take that badass.

To Sam's credit, she managed to tear her eyes away from my show long enough to look up at me and mouth a silent request, Cum for me?

It was one of the hottest things anyone had ever asked me. I was most of the way there already, this was all so insane, and her request shot a heated thrill through me. 

I nodded and my fingers quickened, becoming a blur over my nub. For good measure, I slipped a fingertip down to play at my drooling opening. 

As Sam's eyes raced up and down my body trying to take in everything at once, I felt the first tingles of a climax gathering in my hips. The tingles spread upwards into my stomach and downwards into my knees. The room was spinning and Samantha's blurring, lust-filled face was all I could see. 

I dangled on the edge of something epic, fingers flying back and forth across my clit so quickly I knew my arm would ache later. I stared at Sam and she stared at me, both of us rushing towards our own release.

I won. "Gaaaaah," I moaned, my butt heaving up and off the bed all on its own. The orgasm was sharp and brutal. I wheezed and shuddered, riding it out. On instinct, I sank the toying finger deep inside myself just to feel my own frantic contractions gnaw and squeeze. I fucked myself over and over, making raunchy squishing noises I could barely hear over the thumping in my ears.

Sam was just a moment behind me, whispering babbling her appreciation before Heather was even finished, "thankyouthankyouthankyou." 

Through my own haze, I watched Sam shuddering and grinding herself down into Heather's still working mouth. 

I may have won the race to cum first but my sharp little orgasm was no match for what Heather heaped on Sam. Just as she'd done for me, Heather toyed and teased to stretch out her lover's climax until the brunette's lip curled up in a grimace of half-pleasure, half-pain. 

Sam finally gave out and collapsed on the other side of Heather, gasping for air face down in the bed and twitching limply.

Heather rolled towards Samantha to pet the back of her head then batted playfully at Sam's sloppy ponytail a few times. "Good one huh?"

"Mawsome," Sam groaned into the mattress.

"Hehe, glad to hear it. You'll sleep better now I bet."

"M'yep."

Heather turned back to me and noticed I was panting and naked too. "Were you just—while she was—?"

"Hooyeah, and it was fabulous."

She grinned with what looked like curious pride. "Wow, what happened to my shy little Berry?"

"Not sure," I said, sheepish now that the orgasm's heat was waning. I drew the sheet back up over me. "But I'm pretty sure you two are a bad influence."

"Probably," Heather mused, nudging me onto my side then spooning in behind me. Her lap curled into me from behind, a welcome warmth. Her breasts pressed into my back like overstuffed pillows. 

"Tongue tired yet, Bubble?" I sassed.

"Little bit. Why? Need more lovin' already?" She pressed her nose in close and kissed my neck through my hair as her hand came up to rest on my hip. 

How many times had she held me like this when we were together? I'd lost count.

"Not right now, honey." I stifled a yawn. "I'm good. Nice being in your arms again though." 

I reached back and pulled my hair up out of the way for her. It was an old hint. I'd always loved her lips on my neck when we spooned.

Heather hadn't forgotten. She smooched and nuzzled me to my heart's content as we cuddled. She was just as good at the after part as the during.

Samantha's stirring shook the bed. On hands and knees, she crawled over to join us. 

She didn't press herself in behind Heather. Instead, she clambored over us both, apologizing as she went. "Mind being the monkey, Red?" she asked over her shoulder as she began backing into me.

I had no idea what that meant. 

"She means in the middle, Berry," Heather explained. "Remember monkey in the middle?"

Samantha's miniature rump settled deep into my lap. She wriggled it gently, getting situated, and I felt every inch of its muscled firmness 

For lack of anywhere better to put it, I rested my hand on Sam's hip too. She found it and tugged it up over her t-shirt to press it to her chest. I could feel her heart beating.

I counted out Sam's heartbeats as Heather went back to kissing my neck. Squeezed between them, I was getting heated wonderfully front and back. Samantha's smell, sweet and spicy in a woody way, and musky with an assortment of recent sex, filled my nose like an illicit perfume. 

Heather shut off the lights then reached over me to lift Samantha's hair up, as I had done for her just a minute before. "You know, turns out Sam really likes it too, Berry," Heather hinted. 

I stared at the delicate curve of Samantha's neck. Everything about her was so darn tiny and feminine. For a registered bad-girl, she was so dainty. "Is that right, Sam?"

Her mute answer was a gentle squeeze of my hand.

I exhaled onto her neck and she wriggled back into me. Barely, just barely, I brushed my lips against her skin. "This what you want, girlie?"

She squeezed my hand twice this time. Heather began smooching my neck. I touched my lips to Samantha's neck and began kissing her insanely soft skin. It seemed fair in a way, like Heather was the one doing it and I was just a relay, an extension.

Sam liked it, I could tell from the sleepy purr that vibrated in her chest. "You're going to give me nice dreams, Stace," she murmured.

"I think you've earned it," I answered between smooches.

Samantha's purring became deep and even. I think she fell asleep first. I must have been next because I felt Heather nuzzling at my neck until everything melted away.

*~*Part 6*~*

I woke up, sweating from head to toe. Heather was still at my back, squished in close. Samantha was still in front. 

Sam had she spun in her sleep and slunk lower until her face was pressed into my throat. She was also on top of my arm. I shifted to free it as carefully as I could but still disturbed her. 

Half asleep, Sam kissed my neck and sighed, then kissed it again. She lapped at my sweaty skin. Her mouth started moving lower, trailing kisses and licks as she went. Her tongue teased up and down my breastbone.

I froze. 

Crap, she's gotten me mixed up with Heather.  

"Salty," Sam murmured. Her hand skidded up from somewhere, grazing my belly before finding my breast. She cupped me with her tiny hand and her fingers sank into me. 

Heather and I were nearly the same size and we were precisely the same round shape. It wouldn't tip her off. So I did the only thing I could think of, played possum.

Samantha's face skidded down and moved sideways. Her lips blindly searched for my nipple. When she found one, she stopped. She had to know now. My flat disks were nothing like Heather's gumdrops.

Neither of us moved for what felt like forever.

"Red, I can tell you're awake, honey. Your heart's going to pound its way out of your chest."

So much for my cowardly ruse. "Well, maybe that's because your face is in my tits?"

"Good point," she conceded into my cleavage, though she didn't move away. "I have to admit, it's kind of fun listening to your chest thump away all crazy-like." She brushed her cheek against me. "Does it get crazier the more excited you get?" And she brushed her cheek against me again.

My conscience made a long overdue appearance. Yes, Sam's hands may have felt nice back in the tub. And the mutual perving we'd shared in bed had been thrilling. But this was different. 

Exciting though it was, we were on dangerous ground. Heather was asleep. More importantly, any thin historical excuses I might be able to muster for wrecking wedding vows with Heather I couldn't really apply to Samantha.

Basically, there was unfair to Bobbie and then there was really unfair to Bobbie. I wouldn't want him doing things like this to me.

I looked down at Samantha in the thin light and brushed tangled dark bangs out of her eyes. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not so sure you and I—"

Her eyes fell, her hands flew off me, and she jerked away. "I'm sorry." 

Dammit, she'd taken it the wrong way. 

I saw the hurt feelings splash across her face, the horrible mix of injured pride and embarrassment. She wasn't used to rejection. Why would she be? 

"Now hold on a sec will you? It's not that I don't like you. Or that I don't think about you that way, it's just that—"

Sam backed out of bed and stood, smoothing her t-shirt and shoring up her ponytail brusquely. Her face was a featureless mask. "It's fine, I get it. I'm in the way. I'll go. You two have your fun."

I lunged at her awkwardly from the bed and caught her forearm. "Jesus, hold on, you're being thick."

She whirled and her jaw reset, her eyes hardening, not just around the edges—in the middle too—a sort of crystallizing that unsettled me enough to make everything in my head just come tumbling out. 

"Sam, I'm scared witless right now, okay? Look at me, I'm in bed with my husband's sister two days after my wedding. Honestly, I have no idea how the hell this isn't going to end up in a divorce. I'm going to have the shortest marriage in history. I'm screwing everything up and the worst part is I can't seem to fucking stop myself."

Samantha's eyebrows knitted and her jaw dropped. "She didn't? Why wouldn't she?" she babbled, twisting herself free and marching to Heather's side of the bed where she was still sleeping soundly. "I swear to god she is the dumbest smart girl I've ever met." 

Sam shook Heather by the shoulders. "Peaches!" she hissed. She had to shake her again before Heather woke up blinking. 

"Wha?"

"Did you forget to mention something to Stacey about tonight?"

Heather rubbed her eyes cutely. "Like what?"

"Like the agreement?" Sam's pitch rose. 

"Oh. Right." Heather rolled over to look at me and nibbled her lip. "Bobbie said this is all okay. Hero too."

The room rotated. It was like someone vacuumed the air out of my lungs, my chest collapsed.

Heather rubbed her eyes and sighed. "Think about it, Berry. How did I got in your hotel room? Bobbie left a key for me at the front desk when you guys got here."

"He... you... planned," I sputtered.

"Uh huh," Heather prompted, cocking her head, waiting patiently.

My mental wheels weren't getting traction and it must have showed. Sam squinted at me. "I can't tell, are you better or worse now?" 

Heather studied my face. "Mmmm, better. She just needs a second to catch up. Don't you Berry?"

I waved them both closer with my arms wide.

"She wants a hug." Heather guessed correctly. "You want a hug don't you, Berry?"

I managed a nod but just barely.

Heather scooted closer and pressed herself in. Sam scrambled onto the bed and over her girlfriend to squish into me too. 

And the tears came. They were strange ones, chock full of fear, anxiety, guilt and dread. They rolled out of me, taking the mishmash of horrible feelings with them as Heather and Sam squeezed me tight and convinced me that I hadn't flushed my two-day marriage down the toilet.

When I'd settled, Heather dabbed at my wet nose with the end of the sheet. "You didn't honestly think I was going to let you tank your marriage to my baby bro did you?"

I sniffled and shrugged.

Samantha nudged me down onto my back and stuffed a pillow under my head. She shook her head sympathetically. "Give us some credit, Red. We're a little smarter than that. "

Heather stretched out next to me. She tugged my arm around her and cuddled in, exhaling into the side of my boob. "This wasn't supposed to be stressful. I'm sorry."

Samantha tucked into my other side. "She's right. This was supposed to be the opposite of stressful. I wanted this to be something nice for you. If it weren't for you, Heather and Hero and I wouldn't be possible. Heather learned to love women from you in a tender and sweet way that I don't think I could have managed." 

Sam glanced at Heather before continuing. "Red, what I'm trying to say is, I'm not mad or jealous or scared that you're in Heather's life." She kissed my shoulder. "Honey, I'm grateful. Incredibly, incredibly grateful."

My heart was going to swell out of my chest. "Really?" 

"Promise." She nodded into my shoulder.

"Grateful?"

"Yeah."

We laid in the quiet for a while until Sam broke the silence again. "And Peaches? You're right. She's even hotter, naked." 

Heather picked her head up. "Told you. She'd have turned you gay in high school too."

"What it take her, a couple of months?" Samantha smirked. "I might have lasted a day. Maybe two. I was way sluttier than you were."

I ran fingers through both of their hair. Sam's smooth and straight. Heather's wavy and thick. "How about we all agree that Heather has spectacular taste in women?"

"Agreed," they cheered.

"As long as we're talking history," Samantha's fingers traced up my side again, pausing at an elongated bump, "How on earth did you get this?"

Heather answered for me. "That's where she took a whack from a hockey stick. Cracked ribs. I was twenty feet away when it happened. You should have heard the thump. I think everybody on the field winced." 

"Owie." Samantha bent to press her lips to it. "And this one?" She found the little jagged circle on my hip.

Heather moved closer. "Mmm, that one was before me. Tennis I think, right Berry? When you were little?" Heather looked up at me in earnest, her eyes open and honest and sweet in the irresistible Miller family way. 

Sam's lips went to my hip and lingered there. I scratched beneath her hair at the back of her head while marveling at Bubble's memory. "Do you ever forget anything?"

Heather's hand patted my stomach. "Only unimportant things. Everything about you's important."

Sam was still skeptical. "Hold up, how exactly does someone get a scar playing tennis?" 

I'd been twelve and wearing a short tennis skirt when I dove across a hard court to chase down a corner ball. It was dumb. I should have just let it go. 

Heather's version was much kinder. "Stacey's an all-in kinda girl. She doesn't do stuff halfway. Do you Berry?" Her eyes held mine for a long and tender moment and she scratched affectionately at my stomach.

"No, no I guess not." 

She looked down at Sam and something passed between them. "Turn towards me, Berry? On your side?"

I didn't argue, just did as she asked, putting my back to Samantha whose fingers began stroking up and down my spine in a slow, deliberate way that made me groan. "Ooooh, that's nice."

"Mmmhmm," Sam murmured simply. Her fingers kept working, even while she got in a little dig, "Hey, nice 'I wuv Bobbie' tattoo. Where'd you get it? It's super sexy," she snickered.

I reached back and slapped her thigh. It made a satisfying crack and she snickered again. "Spoiled sport."

"Play nice, you two?" Heather distracted me by pressing her face to my stomach and beginning a long series of delicate pecks. Just as I started getting more turned on in a lazy, relaxed kind of way she raspberried low on my belly. "Don't be so touchy. Your ink is cute. Bobbie told me he likes it. Says it marks his property." 




Berry's Second Chances Ch. 02



That had the three of us laughing. It was a good tension breaker for what I could sense was coming, sandwiched between them for what felt like the millionth time that night. We were headed way past cuddling. As proof, Sam's mouth replaced her hands, her lips brushing up and down my back.

Heather gave me my last out. "Sam could step out for a little bit if you want, Berry. Maybe go make us some drinks." She went back to kissing lower and lower.

I thought on it as their lips continued pressing into me front and back. I loved Bubble, deeply. Was there something more than love? Heather Miller was in my bones, my marrow, there was no denying it anymore. 

Sam's teeth nipping at my back drew my attention to her. And, yes, I liked her too. Very much. More than I would have expected to like the girl who'd replaced me. A petite stylish femme fatale with a guarded heart. If she'd come into my life, opened up to me, she'd have had me too. 

I sighed, their mouths still working. We'd already come this far. When would I get another chance at something like this?

"Stay Sam," I whispered, though my voice sounded a little less sure than I'd hoped.

Samantha hesitated at my back. "Say it again for me? Say it again so I'll know it's true?"

It made me smile. To me, it would sound a bit like begging. But this night seemed to be devoted to exceptions. "Stay Sam. I think I'd like you here too."

As though it were a cue, Heather and Sam started moving. Slowly. Carefully. Easing us through the first parts something they seemed to have choreographed just for me. 

Heather slid lower on the bed and kissed each of my knees before her hands wedged between and eased them open until one pointed to the ceiling. Her cheek grazed my thigh as she moved inwards and settled herself there, close enough that I could feel her breath on me.

Samantha reached from behind to steady my raised knee with a firm hand. She was nibbling now at the base of my spine, alternating between kisses, licks, and nips.

I tugged Heather closer with both hands threaded through her hair, trying urge her on. It was no use. She continued her nuzzling.

One of Samantha's tiny hands squeezed one of my buns. She followed the groping with a confession. "As long as we're all being honest, I've had some thoughts about this porcelain rump of yours, Stace." She sank her fingertips deep into the muscles she found there and began more of her nice rubbing.

I cleared my throat. "And what sort of thoughts, exactly? I had you figured for a boob junkie."

That drew Heather's attention. "Silly Berry. First and foremost, Sammie's an booty girl."

I reached backwards to pet the top of Sam's head. "That right, Sam?"

She chuckled, then patted the rounded underside of my cheek. "I think it's your pale skin. The thought of leaving handprints on it. Does Bobbie ever..." She gave my cheek a firm swat that finished her question. 

It made me jump forward directly into Heather's mouth, who rewarded me with a long and very nice lick up the middle that made me shiver.

The spank had confirmed something I'd always suspected. Sam leaned a bit dirty. Something about her reeked of it from the day we met, maybe because it took one to know one. When it came right down to it, I was no blushing schoolgirl either and if she didn't know already, it was time to clarify a few things.

"Actually, Sam, Bobbie's interest back there is a little more, well, invasive. Give me your hand a sec?" 

I circled two of her fingers and steered them between my cheeks, running them up and down my crack before tapping them meaningfully against my crinkled star. "My hubby's goes crazy for that."

Her fingertips swirled slow circles around my delicate ring. "And you?"

"Actually, I don't mind indulging him now and then."

"Oh please," Heather chimed in, "Berry's a total butt junky too, Sam. She made me poke her in the ass with a shampoo bottle our very first night together."

"Hey! Secrets?!" I mussed Heather's hair.

Heather's apology was late and half-hearted. "Sorry. Kinda." 

"Forgiven. Less talking, more licking."

Heather's small, warm tongue did begin tracing my lips, though it avoided the place I needed her most. 

Samantha continued toying at my backdoor. "I never would have guessed, Red. What is it you like?" 

"I dunno. Depends on what you're good at. Show me?"

"Silly Berry, Sam's good at everything," Heather murmured, then finally swiped over my clit. It sent a warm wet joy through me that made me buck again. "Hehe, liked that?"

"More. Please. Quit toying with me," I pleaded.

She must have felt pity because she rolled her tongue over my clit again, then centered her mouth over it and suckled delicately for a moment before pulling away.

"You're evil," I whimpered.

I'd lost track of Sam. She'd scooted lower and begun planting kisses back and forth on each of my ass cheeks. The kisses became licks, her tongue roaming wildly over my backside. I jumped again when she sank her little teeth into bottom edge of my ass cheek.

It dawned on me that this was going to be a repeat of the tub. Sam behind. Heather in front. They'd devour me. Chew me up. Spit me out. 

Heather began small licks at my clit in her agonizing, slow rhythm, one my body would never forget. Samantha pressed her nose deep into my crease and exhaled a warm breath there, then went still. 

It was sweet, wicked torture. If only one of them would take it further. Heart pounding in my chest, I humped, chasing Heather's tongue as it rolled patient curls up and down, barely brushing me. 

My free hand clawed the sheets and I moaned in desperation. 

Jesus, somebody, do something! 

Samantha moved first, snorting into my backside again. Her hand found the sweep of my hip and began to stroke up and down. I felt her mouth slowly opening, her chin, buried between my buns, sliding down. 

Her hot breath washed over her lewd target. Her first lap was so gentle I wasn't sure it happened—the barest whisper of contact against my little rose. 

I jerked all the same.

They both stopped. Sam giggled and Heather giggled with her. They really were out to drive me insane. 

"C'mon guys, this is killing me," I whimpered. 

Sam gave me their joint reply—a short, decisive swat to my ass that surprised as much as it thrilled. The heat that rippled across my skin from her blow told me she'd probably left a handprint, marked me in the same way Bobbie sometimes did when he got carried away.

The message was clear, I wasn't in control here. Not right now anyway. They were. 

Fucking hell this is hot.

Heather's hand joined Sam's at my hip. One set of fingers, I couldn't tell whose, started tapping out a rhythm. Another joined.

A moment later, their mouths matched, Heather's tongue swabbing at my clit, Samantha's spiraling at my backdoor. Communicating with their fingers, they did it in perfectly joined time. Pure, lewd genius.

Now I loved and hated them both.

Their pace quickened by slow degrees, nowhere nearly as much as I would have liked, but it did. Heather pulled my clit into her mouth and suckled with each of their joint finger taps. By then, Sam's steady lapping had loosened me up and her tongue was dipping inside me, twisting within my pucker before retreating. Only to repeat.

I hunched forward and back, desperate, crazed. Heather's free hand slithered up the bed to my mouth. She pressed a few fingers to my lips. I licked them automatically. 

The hand retreated downward and stopped at my breasts, one lazing against the other with the way I was stretched out on my side. 

Her thumb found one of my nipples, her middle finger went to the other. She began to brush them in time with her mouth. Sam's mouth too.

Presto. Every single one of my buttons in impossible concert.

I shuddered at this last wicked trick and Heather snickered her approval into my mound but never stopped licking.

Now it was just a matter of time. 

What followed would not have been a ridiculous thing to watch. I wriggled like a deep sea fish that swallowed a hook, my hips and back arching and bowing each way. Retreating, then chasing. 

Everywhere, everywhere, pleasure. 

Samantha patience continued to win out. I felt her tongue twist inside me, deeper and deeper, drilling and twisting in my loosened star. 

Heather rolled her mouth up and down, her tongue whipping everywhere, pausing to swallow the excitement that dribbled from me. It was either that or drown.

For what felt like forever, the only sound in the insanely decorated little room was licking. I added a mewling from somewhere deep in my chest. It grew to a low and steady moan. It only encouraged the girls, who redoubled their efforts until I was bucking haphazardly. Moaning became wailing and then a tightening squeak as my lungs ran out.

When it struck, it was an orgasm like nothing I'd ever experienced. I'd seen it coming. I'd watched, powerless, as two industrial cranes carefully lifted the very immense and obviously heavy thing directly over my head. It didn't mean I was ready for it when it came down.

Basically, I got squished. 

Herking, jerking, drooling, and gasping, I came my lily-white buns off. Heather and Sam chased my mindless gyrations, giving me no rest from their pursuing mouths and fingers. I was reduced to a favorite plaything, batted back and forth between them for their sport.

When it was over, when they'd decided I'd had enough, I was left shuddering and quivering, somehow both sad and grateful that it was over. 

I rediscovered breathing while watching Heather slide quietly from the bed and scoot out the bedroom door. She came back a minute later with three bottles of water and a smaller, fourth opaque one. 

In the meantime, Sam had scooted up to spoon in behind me and hold me tight. She did her best to quell the post-cum shakes that periodically rolled up and down my spine. I was beginning to feel pathetic.

Heather didn't seem surprised. She propped herself up on a few pillows next to me and offered me a sip of her water. I waved it off, somewhere between unwilling and unable to move. 

She wrinkled her nose. "That good? Or that bad?"

I blinked a few times, trying to focus clearly on her face. "That... everything. Holy crap."

Sam snorted and nuzzled the back of my neck. "Wuss." The arm that she had wrapped around me snuck upwards and her hand opened to cup one of my boobs. 

I snatched it down and held her still. "I need you to just, hold on. Don't touch anything for another minute or two. Just wait."

Sam chuckled into my neck and, bless her, let me be.

Heather had another gulp from her bottle and passed it to Sam, then she scooted down in front of me, her big sky blues an curious mix of worry and pride. "Does the no-touchy thing include kissing?"

I looked down at Heather's lips. "No." And her mouth found mine. I couldn't move. She did most of the work, reaching behind to cradle my neck and pulling me into her kiss. It actually did help. Everything started feeling real again.

After a minute or two, she pulled away and nudged her nose with mine. "Better?"

I smiled weakly. "Yeah."

"Ready for more nooky?"

I choked out a fear-filled giggle. "Fuck no."

She didn't seem surprised by my reaction to this either. "Good. That means we did our work properly." She pecked my nose and settled back. "How about you, Sam? You done?" 

Samantha finished a long pull on her water bottle then took my side. "You've worn us both out, Peaches." She nudged me. "I think it's Heather's turn."

"Funny you should mention that." Heather brightened, eyeing us both. "I was kind of hoping to save me for last."

I had a decent idea where this was headed. "Had something in mind did you?"

"Yes please," she nodded, eager, "you know... the thing. Your thing. The do-me-until-somebody-falls-asleep thing?"

"Ahhh, holding out for that were you?"

"'Fraid so."

"Fine, on your back then, Bubble."

"Wait, I need more water. And you'll need this." She tossed me the little opaque bottle she'd brought back with the water." It was a hotel-sized moisturizer.

We both knew what that was for. "So the whole treatment huh?"

She nodded again and blushed a little. "Yep, no skimping."

I scooted down to the bottom of the bed and tugged Samantha down with me.

"She's done this for me, you know," Sam explained. "It is a lovely thing to do for someone."

When Heather settled, I scooted up between her legs and rest a hand on the flat plane of her stomach. "Ready, Bubble?"

She looked down at me over the twin peaks of her impossible boobs and tucked her brassy blonde hair behind her ears and grinned her readiness, looking a bit like she was getting ready for battle.

I paused to take in the sight of her like this, sprawled in the middle of a black, heart-shaped bed, then skimmed my hand up into the tiny space between her breasts and left it there. The beat I could feel beneath my palm was clear and strong. I began tapping it back to her on her breastbone.

"I've missed us, Berry," she whispered. "Missed you. This."

"Shhh. Me too. Now be quiet and let me try to settle up for the billion nice things you've done for me all week."

I continued tip-tapping softly along with the throb in her chest, setting its rhythm into both of us. I stilled myself and matched my breathing with hers. Sam went quiet too.

It took some time, so many distractions, but I managed to shut everything else out. The room. The bed. Even the studious, dark-haired pixie next to me watching every move I made. 

For now, it needed to be just my Bubblegum and me. And the feelings we now knew we both still shared.

I stopped tapping on her chest and eased moved closer to nuzzle her perfect, smooth little pussy, with its adorable puffy lips. Heather still looked like a doll to me -- bare and smooth and neat. 

I let her bubblegum musk fill my nose and traced her tiny lips with my tongue, then slid between them. She tasted just like she smelled, like sex candy. Her clit was just beneath and well-past ready, hard as a little pebble and pushing out, eager. 

I test-licked, once, at her sensitive button just when her heart thudded against my palm and she let out a slow breath. We had started tonight slowly. We'd end it that way too. 

Bebump. Lick.

Here, now, like this, it felt like we were back in a different hotel room—the one where Heather and I made love for the very first time. We'd swung a giant circle and come back to the beginning, adding Bobbie and Hero and Samantha along the way.

Bebump. Lick.

Heather shifted and reached down. She twisted a few fingers into my hair and spread it out across one of her thighs. 

I smiled into her growing wetness. My memory wasn't as good as hers. I'd forgotten how much she'd loved my hair. How she'd buried her face in it every chance she got.

Bebump. Lick.

Time stretched and slowed. No rush. No worries. Just pleasure.

As much as I tried to hold her off, Heather's body couldn't be denied forever. Her first little orgasm crept up on her. I fended it off as long as I could, but eventually had to let her cum. There was no sense fighting it, really. There'd be more. That was the whole idea of this thing.

"Ohhhh... Berry" she cooed, twisting, climaxing under my mouth. When it was over, I could feel the tension ebb from her thighs on either side of me. 

I let her recover for a while. When her heartbeat had slowed again, I returned to my patient licking.

Bebump. Lick.

It was a little longer before her next cum. When it rolled over her, she rocked her curvy hips into my mouth and shuddered. "So good... God..."

I nodded into her now dripping pussy. "Want the other thing too, Bubble?" I offered.

"Yeah," she agreed dreamily.

Sam, an attentive assistant, was ready with the bottle of lotion. She'd even been warming it in her hands. She grinned as she dabbed a bit of it on my first finger, rubbed it in, then applied more. 

Sam knew what Heather's other thing was too—a finger teased ever-so-carefully through her backdoor. I'd been the one to talk a more hesitant teenage Heather into this years ago. Not so much now. 

I went back to my patient licking and began to massage the pad of my finger at Heather's pale little knot just beneath my chin, pressing her there with each sweep of my tongue over her clit.

Bebump. Lick-tap. 

With patience, it was just a matter of time until my fingertip won out. She exhaled slowly as I finally inched inside her. 

At each thump in her chest, I licked and I toyed in her backdoor at the same time. 

Bebump. Lick-wriggle.

She came again, harder, knees shaking, hips dancing. I let her recover, and then we did it all over again. And again. And again. 

Heather had more stamina than she used to. For a while, her orgasms grew larger from one to the next. 

It may have been Sam encouraging her from beside me— 

"You're beautiful like this, honey. Keep going. I know you can. 

"I love watching you like this. I'm dripping into the bed just seeing her touch you."

"That's it, show us how many times you can cum. Show us how much you love what she's doing. One more, baby. Please? For me?"

Sam's cheered at Heather's largest climax, her entire body heaving off the bed into a gorgeous arch. The muscles of her stomach and thighs twitched and her enormous breasts rocked on her chest. She mewled and giggled and whimpered, all at the same time, until her back gave out and she collapsed back, casting ripples across the pool of black satin. 

Heather's climaxes grew steadily smaller though Sam slithered up the bed to whisper more sweet encouragements in her ear. We worked together, dragging Heather, more and more slowly, from one orgasm to another. 

I lost track of how many times she came.

Then I lost track of everything

~*~Part 7~*~

I woke up for the billionth time that night when Heather shifted in her sleep. My face was firmly planted in her smooth and now sticky goodies. 

Samantha was already awake and sitting up, sheet tugged up over her chest. She smiled as I stretched the crick in my neck. I sat up and stole a glance at the window.

"Sun'll be up soon," she read my mind. She did it again when I tried to scan the room casually. "You left your robe in the bathroom. I put it on the back of the chair on your right."

"Thanks, Sam." I stretched for it and pulled it on with as much haste as taste permitted. 

She winked and nodded towards Heather. "You did a number on her. She's sleeping even heavier than usual." She tapped Heather's nose and grinned when Heather didn't move a millimeter.

"Loved into a coma," I chuckled, "not a bad way to go." I scooted up next to Sam and snagged the last unopened water bottle from the nightstand. "You're awake though, huh?"

She shrugged. "Don't sleep much."

I downplayed the parts of her story I knew. "Heather's told me a little. Still get nightmares, I guess?"

"Yeah." She smirked. "But less and less. Can I ask you something personal? You don't have any bad dreams... I mean... you know... the Glenn thing?"

"Not really. He pops in my head sometimes when I'm awake. Not so much when I'm sleeping."

She nodded. "You're lucky." She nibbled her lip and looked at me. "Stace, mind if I lay my head down on you?" She tipped her cheek onto my shoulder. "Can't sleep for crap, but I am incredibly tired."

"Be my guest." I slid my arm behind her and smoothed her hair then tugged her in tighter. "Cards on the table, Sam? You're like the cooler, sexier big sister I always wished for."

She patted my thigh. "Thanks. I like you too, Red. Want the other half of this orange?"

She peeled it and gave me half. We sat chewing for a long stretch in the quiet room, the only other sound Heather's deep, contented breathing.