AnnaI can’t get settled in this squeaky bed. My belly is filled up with nerves, and I hate that. I hate the fear of losing people, so I’ve learned that the best way of going through life is not to get attached in the first place. It’s lonely but it’s safe. But this time is different. This time I’m already in deep.I pushed them and they didn’t walk away. I made them mad and they don’t hate me for it. At least I hope they don’t.Finding Kennedy was a lucky break I never thought I’d stumble into. Finding Riven too is more than I ever hoped for. Having both of them in my life is a crazy dream beyond anything I’ve ever dared dream before. Losing them? Well, that would be more than I could bear.I toss and turn until I’m sticky and uncomfortable, thinking about what happened, wondering what happens now.What if Kennedy doesn’t come back? What if he’s really had enough of me now?What if Riven is in the room next door regretting ever offering me a place to stay?I know my heart is playing
AnnaRiven tries to act super normal next morning, even though I wake in his arms with my hair all over his pillow. He gives me a smile and disentangles himself and heads off for a shower like this is just any other day.But it isn’t.Now I’ve slept in his bed I don’t want to sleep alone again.It felt too good to feel someone’s body against mine. It felt too good to have someone hold me for the first proper time in my life.Now I know how it feels to be safe and warm in someone’s arms I can’t let it go, and I won’t.But I can’t choose, either.I can’t choose either man over the other, they both mean too much to me.When I was being passed around foster homes like a bad smell, all I ever wanted was one person to give a shit about me. Now there’s the chance I have two. Two men who care enough to give me a chance. And they love me, he said so, and Riven isn’t the kind to lie.I’m eating a bowl of cereal when he joins me in the kitchen. He pours himself one and takes a seat opposite, sme
KennedyI slept a lousy sleep. It’s my phone that wakes me up, bleeping away on my bedside table.I rub my eyes before I reach for it, and realise the daylight is blazing through the crack in the curtains.“Wake up sleepyhead,” Riven says at the end of the line. “It’s almost midday.”I check my alarm clock. He’s right.That’s what a night pacing around your living room does for you.“Guess I overslept.”“Guess you did. You should’ve stayed over.”I sigh. “I hardly think that would’ve been a good idea.”“She loves you,” he says, just like that, and I sit bolt upright.“What?”“She loves you, she told me so. And she loves me, too.”A mix of relief and nausea floods through me. “She said that? Love?”“Uh huh, yeah. She said it. Love.”I can’t fight the zing of nerves. “And were you… when she said it?”“Was I fucking her?” He sighs. “No, Kennedy, I wasn’t fucking fucking her. How much of a cunt do you take me for?”“I’m sorry,” I say, and I am.“She did sleep in my bed though. But not lik
AnnaI’ve been in Gloucester city centre a thousand times, but never with a hundred quid in my pocket. I feel uneasy to have it there, like someone is going to take it from me. Someone like Margaretha or one of his loser mates.That’s why I didn’t want Riven to bring me here. I didn’t want to risk running into any of them. I didn’t want them to see me with someone. Someone they could speak to, someone they could scare off me.Margaretha is the only family who’s ever stuck by me. He ruined my life, but he came through at the other side, tracking me down when I was fourteen and telling me he was still my brother.He’s never even mentioned what happened all those years ago, and I was always too scared to bring it up in case he dropped me again. Sometimes he’s kind and tells me about my old mum and dad, and sister, too. He says they don’t want to see me and never will, but I still care.I still like hearing about them.I guess he knows it and that’s why he’s always used it to take things
Riven“She’ll be here,” I say, “she said she wouldn’t let us down.”Kennedy is pacing. Nervous as fuck.I’d like to say I’m not, but I’m more tightly wound than I’d like, even if I’m hiding it pretty well.“You gave her a hundred quid, Riven. She could be fucking anywhere right now.”“She won’t be,” I tell him, even though I’m not entirely sure. “We’re having movie night, she’ll be here.”“Or be drunk in an alleyway somewhere.”I sigh. “You’ve got to have some faith in her.”He flashes me a horrible stare. “I’ve got faith in her, Riven, it’s us I’ve got the issue with. Last night we slap her ass, today she’s taken off.”“She’s gone shopping, Kennedy.”“You don’t know that,” he insists, and he’s right. I don’t.I hope my gut is making the right call on this one. Not just on Anna being back in time to spend the evening with us, but on this whole crazy situation we’re involved with. I thought teaching her some discipline was the right call, just as holding her tight in my bed felt the ri
AnnaI did good.It feels so good to do good. Buying presents for Riven and Kennedy was everything I hoped it would be. It’s not just in the way they say thanks over and over, and it’s not in the way I feel so proud as Riven places his present up on the cabinet where the other one used to be. It’s not even in the way Kennedy looks so fine as he tries his new tie on over his shirt.It’s in the way they smile, the way they look at me.The way their appreciation makes me feel so loved.I do feel loved here. I feel accepted and wanted and bothered enough about that they work through my shit rather than give up on me. I feel safe when I wake up in the morning, and like I belong right where I am as I walk through the fields behind the house.I never want to let this go, not any of it. Not this house, not this life, not Kennedy, and not Riven, either.I’ve never liked TV, not shows nor films, but after a couple of cold beers in Riven’s kitchen, laughing and joking through a load of old jokes
I follow Riven downstairs and he opens the washing machine for me. I throw the clothes inside without bothering to separate them, but he pulls out the whites and leaves them in their own pile. I squeeze my thighs together at the sight of my dirty knickers in his hands, and I’m damp already without jeans on. I can feel it.He shows me the controls and I make a mental note of them. It’s really not as hard as the settings make it look.“Thanks,” I say and he grins.“My clothes suit you.”I roll my eyes. “Don’t think I’ll be going outside like this somehow.”“No,” he says. “You fucking won’t.” He points back through to the living room. “Movie night. No getting out of it.”I mock groan as I head on back through, and Kennedy startles as I enter, as though he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.I wonder if he’s been thinking about last night, just like I was. I wonder if it makes him feel guilty.Or horny.I hope it makes him feel horny.I slump back down between them and pick up the
KennedyOh fuck, the noises she’s making. Her breath on my neck in little gasps, her fingers frantic inside her knickers. I can hear how wet she is. I can feel how desperate she is.And I’m desperate too.One look at Riven and I realise we both are. His eyes meet mine and stay there, waiting, and I know he’s pinning this all on me.My call.My filthy fucking call.My dick is throbbing like a sonofabitch, and that filthy scene on screen is everything that should turn me off but doesn’t. Far fucking from it.“Touch me…” she whispers, and it’s enough to break me.I give Riven the tiniest nod and he drops his eyes. His hand slides from her knee to her thigh and she spreads her legs for him, hitching one right across my lap as his fingers slide over her wet knickers. He moves his fingers over hers until she pulls hers away, and then his hand dips inside the lacy elastic and rubs her there.She moans into my neck. Right into my fucking neck.I part my thighs and her leg drops perfectly to p