Archive of Our Own ^beta

Iced Matcha Latte with cherry blossom syrup; coconut and lavender cookie

Edwina almost chokes on her latte when Penelope asks her.

Not a latte, Kate would have told her, pinching Edwina’s nose like she did when they were kids. Doesn’t count if it’s not real coffee.

Penelope doesn’t say that though. Penelope is drinking a peaches-and-cream tea and eating a salted-chocolate-and-pistachio cookie. Penelope’s hair is in the claw clip in the shape of cherries that Edwina bought her. Penelope is wearing a fuzzy lilac cardi with little roses embroidered on the front.

Edwina looks around nervously, concerned someone in the café might have heard.

Penelope giggles. “Your eyes have gone so big. I didn’t think that it was possible for them to get any bigger.”

Edwina blinks at her, her cheeks heating, and Penelope gets the giggles. “See – you’re like a cartoon deer, Ed, it’s –” and she snorts, inhaling crumbs from her cookie and giving herself a coughing fit.

Edwina pats her on the back until she has coughed up her cookie crumbs. But once the coughs have subsided, she doesn’t remove her hand. She leaves it there, hesitantly smoothing her fingers over Penelope’s fuzzy-cardiganed back. She thinks she can feel the band of Penelope’s bra through the lilac cashmere and her heart skitters a bit in her chest.

Probably she should take her hand away, but after what Penelope just asked her, she thinks it’s okay to leave it there. Maybe.

The laughter and the coughing fit are both gone now. Penelope blinks her large blue eyes at her and Edwina watches a pink flush creep slowly over Penelope’s round cheeks.

“This was maybe not the best way to do this,” Penelope says softly. Edwina sees her throat move as she swallows.

“Is there a good way to do this?” Edwina croaks, and she realises her fingers are still moving over Penelope’s back. Just little movements, her forefinger rubbing at the enclosure of her bra through her cardigan. She wonders if that is why Penelope is blushing. Edwina feels suddenly awkward, as though she has been … predatory somehow, her finger crossing some invisible line (even though, she reminds herself, Pen is the one who had propositioned her - being a sapphic woman is a minefield sometimes).

She removes her hand and folds it in her lap. She wishes that her and Pen were sitting across from each other instead of cuddled up side-by-side on this loveseat – even though they always do that these days. They’re both big cuddlers, but neither of them have loads of people to do that with. Penelope has Colin, of course, but Edwina guesses it’s different cuddling your boyfriend than it is a girlfriend. Girl friend.

She shifts away and takes a bite of her cookie. It’s good, though she’s not sure the coconut and lavender go so well together. She likes coconut enough that it makes up for it — makes up for the slightly dry texture, too.

“Maybe an email?” Penelope asks, with a wonky smile.

That gets a smile out of Edwina. She thinks, maybe, the shock is passing a little. “What would it say?”

Penelope’s eyes flash with an unfamiliar wickedness that gives Edwina that fluttery, skipping feeling in her chest. “Dear Miss Sharma,” she begins, “I hope this email finds you well. As per our last conversation, I am writing to invite you to engage in a BDSM threeway with me and my boyfriend. Please respond with your latest STD check-up results and a list of hard limits. Kind regards, Penelope.”

It is Edwina’s turn to snort then. She sucks on the straw of her iced latte in an attempt to distract herself from the way her heart races, but then she realises there is no need for distraction. It’s Pen. So she blushes, and lets the giggle that has been bubbling in her throat swell and burst — the kind of giggle she might have guarded or swallowed around someone else, but she doesn’t have to do that around Penelope.

Penelope is one of the few people Edwina gets to be soft with, with whom she doesn’t have to wear the hard armour she had developed in the past year.

She wears it awkwardly and it is a relief to set it down, honestly. With Penelope, Edwina gets to be silly and sweet and soft. Edwina loves their weekly coffee dates and movie nights and staying up so late watching shitty TV that it makes more sense for Penelope just to fall asleep on her sofa, actually. They talk about the sort of things Edwina has always been slightly ashamed of liking - clothes and makeup and gossip. Things that have always felt like evidence that she is still a child, stuck in a permanent state of arrested development. Surely adult women should not care about these sorts of things.

Kate does not care about them (and Edwina knows Eloise, Penelope’s closest female friend, certainly does not either).

Edwina loves her sister with all her heart, but sometimes Kate forgets she isn’t actually Edwina’s mother, plus the whole Anthony debacle taught Edwina that it isn’t fair on either of them for her to rely on her sister in the way that she had. She needs to build herself up outside of Kate, and she thinks Penelope is helping her do that. In all honesty she hasn’t ever really had any close female friends like this before – Kate always felt like enough. But that’s not true anymore.

Edwina hopes it has been as freeing and as comforting for Penelope to finally have someone she can be herself around. Not just the perfect golden child upon which her entire family’s hopes were pinned, which is how Kate and her mum Mary often treated her – and also not the hardened mask of “grown-up” she has been forced to wear since everything had happened with Anthony and Edwina had realised she could not let her older sister continue to shield her from the hardships of the world, clothe her in bubble wrap and stamp FRAGILE upon her forehead.

With Penelope, Edwina gets to be a secret third thing: herself.

And it doesn’t hurt that Pen is pretty in a way that sometimes makes her heart pound and her tongue catch in her throat. So pretty that Edwina has started helplessly buying her little trinkets (like the hair-clip), just to earn herself a blush or a giggle, just to get a pleased hug or a kiss on the cheek, enveloping Edwina in the cloud of her rose-petal perfume. Sometimes Edwina feels like a crow, dropping shiny treasures at the door of the human she has imprinted on. It is maybe a little pathetic but she doesn’t know how else to say thank you for all Penelope has given her these past months.

“I can tell you’re a writer,” Edwina says with a smile and a little flutter of her lashes, because she can't help flirting, just a little. It’s another reason her relationship with Penelope is so important to her – they get to flirt. Batting lashes and touching each other’s waists and little comments like these. Kisses on the cheek that last a moment too long; a thumb rubbed over the lipstick mark left in the kiss’s wake. It is sweet and silly and mostly harmless (or so Edwina had thought until this conversation) – but it is nice to be able to stretch her flirting muscles when her heart still feels so gun-shy after what happened with Anthony last year. “It would have been hard to say no to an email like that.”

Penelope gives her another one of those sparkly, sparky smiles, the ones that snag in Edwina’s lungs, make her breath hitch. “Shit. Have I ruined my chances, then?” She waves her fingers over Edwina’s face as if she is performing some sort of spell. “Forget this conversation ever happened and I’ll write the email, OK?”

Edwina grins and catches Pen’s wildly gesturing hand in hers instinctively. “Chill out, babe.” Babe – they call each other pet names like babe and cutie and doll, and now Edwina thinks about it, the whole thing is so deeply homoerotic that she shouldn’t really be so surprised by this conversation they are having, should she? The lines are so fuzzy with them, everything blurry and glossy and smeared, like lipstick on her cheek.

Though, to be fair, she hadn’t known that Pen was into women until last week. And she has a boyfriend, so…

Edwina runs her fingers experimentally over Penelope’s palm and watches her friend turn a little pinker. Total fucking minefield.

“It’s just…” Edwina swallows, looking for the words. “Your friendship means a lot to me, Pen.” She watches Penelope’s expression sour, and she squeezes the soft little fingers she was still holding. “I know that sounds like one of the things people say when they’re trying to blow someone off, but I swear I mean it,” she adds quickly

“You mean a lot to me, too,” Penelope says, her wide eyes sincere. She twists in the seat, inching herself closer so her knees knock against Edwina’s. “That’s why I’m asking you. What Colin and I do together…” She blushes, and puts the back of her free hand to her red cheek, as if too cool it. “It involves a lot of trust. And I trust you.” Edwina feels her heart melt a little at that. “And you know this is all new to me, Ed.” Pen’s cheeks turn even redder – Edwina has the urge to press her fingers against them to see how warm they would feel, to check if her touch made them warmer still. “I want it to be with someone I… really like. Someone who is pretty and kind and who I -” she stutters the last words - “who I w-want.”

There it is, the snag in her lungs, the catch in her throat. Her body feels too warm and she wants to take her jumper off but she doesn’t want to break the moment. Everything feels warm and sparkling and sort of pink around the edges. Her thighs feel too hot in her tights, and she definitely can’t take those off, but she lets go of Penelope’s fingers because hers are starting to get clammy. Butterflies charge through her belly - though really it feels more like a baby elephant is knocking around in her ribcage.

“After our conversation last week, I thought maybe… maybe you would be into it too?” Penelope adds hesitantly. She starts doing the thing she does when she is nervous - running her curls through her fingers, combing and fiddling repetitively, twisting the ends of the strands.

Edwina nods. As she watched Penelope’s fingers tugging on her red curls, she remembers how nice it had felt last week on her sofa to have those little hands running over her scalp. She wishes she could return the favour, drag Penelope’s head into her lap and let her bliss out, but she supposes it would be a pretty weird thing to do in the middle of this café.

She swallows, and tries to bring her wandering mind to heel, tries to think around all the pink feelings inside of her and the baby elephant dancing a jig over her organs.

“And…” She struggles for words, to find her tongue amongst all the soft pink that’s in her mouth and eyes. Pink like Penelope’s cheeks. “Colin’s OK with this?” she finally asks. “He’s… he’s into it, too?”

Pen shrugs, but she gets a little misty eyed in the way she always does when Colin’s name is brought up. “He just wants me to be happy. He doesn’t really care how.”

Edwina feels a bit of an ache. She can’t imagine being loved like that.

“Plus,” Penelope adds, her eyes sparkling again. “What man would say no to having sex with the two of us?”

Edwina laughs. “Yeah, I guess it’s not exactly a hardship,” she admits – though she knows there are plenty of men who would be insecure about letting their newly bisexual girlfriend have sex with another woman, even if they are there too.

Penelope takes a deep breath. She twists the fingers still in Edwina’s hand so she is the one holding onto Edwina now. “The bigger question is whether you’d be into it. With… with both of us.” She looks down at how their fingers are entwined, her expression shy.

“Yes,” Edwina says, more quickly than is perhaps cool or sexy or mysterious. It comes out in a flushed gasp. “Yes, I’d be into it.”

Because – duh. Penelope is about as pretty as any girl Edwina has ever seen, with her lovely round face and the soft plumpness of her body. Supremely kissable all over (she wants to sink her teeth in, too, though she tries to breathe around this fact). It is something Edwina tries hard not to think about too much for the sake of their friendship, but the thought of getting to touch all of that makes her feel kind of dizzy. She sucks back a little more of her latte, but the sugar only makes the rushing feelings worse.

And Colin… he is hot. Hot enough that when Edwina had first started dating Anthony and he’d introduced her to Colin she had felt a twinge of regret that she had not met his younger brother first (though it soon became clear how crazy he was about his best friend and so she forgot the idea pretty quickly).

But still. Hot.

Maybe it is weird to think about him like that. He’s her brother-in-law now, though not in the way she used to think he would be.

One of the things she loved about being with Anthony was his family. They were so warm, embraced her so completely in ways that made up for the fact that deep down she knew she didn’t care about Anthony in the way she was supposed to.

But now it is Kate who is like a sister to them. Kate who is embraced and loved and cared for, whilst Edwina is… what? Their sister’s sister. One foot in, one foot out. She doesn’t begrudge her sister their love, but still, it hurts being on the outside, watching her sister bask in the love Edwina had thought she herself would receive.

Colin and Penelope are always kind to her though. Especially at big family events in those first few months after the break-up, when Edwina felt as if she had been invited out of obligation, her obvious and ongoing pain like a black rain cloud hanging heavy and threatening over everyone else’s joy. But Colin and Pen always looked out for her, Pen gripping her hand silently and Colin offering a joke or some gossip to distract her from all the pain and blame and self-reprobation (because seeing her sister and Anthony so happy, so in love, she could not help but curse herself for all her blindness).

Kate should have told her how she felt about Anthony. She should have, of course, and if Edwina thinks about it too long, about the humiliation she felt at her engagement party when she found them arguing and realised fuck, they’re in love, she still feels furious at her sister for lying to her, for being so focused on Edwina’s happiness that she would be willing to sacrifice her own.

But she also knows that she is partly at fault. She had been so wedded to the fantasy of what her life was supposed to be – the pretty wife of a rich, handsome man, with a gorgeous flat and a good job – that she had rushed on blindly with the relationship even though she had not loved him, not really. She was naive; she had only seen what she had wanted to see, in the end.

Since that day, Edwina has felt… different. She has always been romantic, a lovergirl at heart (Penelope is the same way, she thinks, years spent hopelessly pining after her best friend’s big brother), but now it feels impossible to reconcile her fantasy of love with the destruction it had wrought upon her and her sister (and even Anthony, though it is hard to feel too bad about him. He got everything he wanted, in the end). Love is supposed to be pink and sweet and healing, isn’t it? And yet it was love - Kate for Edwina, and Anthony and Kate for each other - that had made such an ugly, apocalyptic mess of things.

And so Edwina regards love warily now. She circles it like a snapping, snarling street dog, wanting its comfort yet terrified of being kicked again.

It is why she had started to think about being a third. This is not the first time she’s considered it - having sex with a couple has always been a fantasy for her – but lately it has started to feel almost necessary. To stop her heart from atrophying altogether. Because she still wants to feel love on her skin, wants to be scratched behind the ears by it, but she cannot let it own her, collar her, like it had before. This seems like the perfect solution – exposure therapy, kind of.

Edwina hates the term unicorn. It makes her feel ashamed of wanting it. Like she’s just another “greedy bisexual”, or as if she’s being taken advantage of by bored straight couples trying to mix things up and she can’t possibly really want this in her heart. As though it is so wrong to want to be shared and loved and needed by people who also love each other.

And the way Colin and Penelope love each other is… special. Anyone can see that. Edwina thinks it might do her bruised, fragile heart some good to be in its presence, even if deep down she fears a love like theirs will maybe never be hers.

“So…” Penelope says shyly, that sweet pink blush upon her cheeks. Fingers aren’t enough, actually – Edwina wants to press her lips there, feel her heat.

“So…” Edwina repeats faintly, and then they both start laughing again, laughing until they are clutching each other, tears rolling down their faces, and Edwina isn’t quite sure what is so funny, really, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest.

Later, once she is home, her chest still glowing and excitement skipping through her, Edwina gets a notification on her phone. An email, from Penelope, just as she had dictated in the cafe.

Edwina grins and pressed her phone to her chest, and the baby elephant starts dancing again.

1.5 bottles of cheap rose; Edwina’s home-made caccio e pepe; seven Lindor truffles leftover from Christmas

Penelope comes over every week to watch Love Island. Well, at the moment it is Love Island. Sometimes it’s Bake-Off and for a while they watched the Great British Sewing Bee – but Edwina thinks that was an excuse to spend time together, because neither of them give a fuck about sewing, really.

Penelope comes over and Edwina cooks for her and they drink rosé in quantities that are disgusting for a weeknight. After a bottle and a half, things start to… slip. The harmless flirting feels slightly less harmless with Edwina’s head in Penelope’s lap, her fingers winding through Edwina’s dark waves, Penelope whispering secrets into the cosy warmth of Edwina’s living room.

The episode is long over, the TV muted, no sound beyond Penelope’s soft voice and the contented sighs Edwina lets out as Penelope pets her.

“So I think I’m… bisexual,” Penelope announces haltingly.

Edwina lifts her head, her heart stammering. She thinks the rosé is making her dizzy. “Really? Since when?”

Pen’s pretty pink lips curve into a shy smile. “Since forever. But I only really realised a few months ago.” She looks down, pulling at a loose thread on the blanket that covers her lap. It is a Kalamkari quilt in pink and red and cream. It’s beautiful, actually, and so Edwina; Kate got it for her when she and Anthony went to Goa a few months ago. Edwina has never actually been to India even though her parents were born there, and it makes her heart pinch sometimes when she looks at the blanket. She will press her face to it and inhale, imagining she can still smell the heat and the fabric dye, the market where Kate bought it.

Edwina pauses for a moment, the shock of this news settling in – and then she throws her arms around her friend’s neck and plants a sloppy kiss on her cheek. Pen giggles and lets herself be kissed, her soft arms winding around Edwina’s waist.

“Welcome to the team!” Edwina says when she pulls back, and squeezes Pen’s upper arm (plump and soft and biteable, now that Edwina thinks of it). “Thank you for telling me. It must have been a confusing few months.”

Penelope bites her cheek, which makes her dimples appear. “Actually… no? With Colin… you know, we explore a lot of crazy stuff already.” Edwina nods – Pen had already told her all about her and Colin’s kinky sex life. It had surprised her a bit at first – Colin is such a nice dude that the idea of him tying up Penelope and spanking her is almost laughable – but the more she thinks about it, the more she has been able to reconcile it with her image of him. She supposes it’s always the nice ones who are into that shit. “So I didn’t really feel scared. Nothing ever feels scary with him.”

Penelope takes another gulp of her wine, though they are both already pretty drunk. Her nails are painted in a pink and white checkerboard pattern – she taps them against the wine-glass absently.

“What’s hard is that I found this out now,” she goes on. “When I’m in a committed relationship with the love of my life, who is, unfortunately, a man.” Pen turns to Edwina, with a genuinely mournful expression. “What if I die without ever getting to eat pussy, Ed?”

Edwina bursts into giggles and pushes Penelope playfully. “You are such a nerd,” she says, but she doesn’t mean it. She takes Penelope’s glass and takes a sip. They do this a lot – sharing glasses and forks and even chairs, sometimes, Edwina perching on Penelope’s lap, Penelope’s chin on her shoulder. “Have you guys thought about… opening the relationship up at all?”

Penelope shakes her head. “I mean, we talked about it, but the thought of it makes me want to cry for a million years. I don’t want to ever have sex without Colin there, you know?” She bites her lip. “We did discuss maybe… maybe bringing in a third person, but it’s kind of impossible to navigate.” She shakes her head, her pretty red curls spilling over her shoulder, and lets out a very dramatic sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m destined to die without ever getting to properly lez out.”

“It’s something I’ve thought about, you know.” It falls out of Edwina’s mouth before she can stop it. She blames the wine. “Joining a couple, I mean.”

A hushed, brimming sort of silence falls. Edwina realises how close her face is to Penelope’s, how she still has her hand on her arm. How pink Penelope’s lips are, how pretty her blue eyes. Edwina’s breathing starts to feel hot and thick in her chest, catching in her throat on every inhale and exhale.

“Yeah?” Pen says, barely more than a whisper. Her eyes drop to Edwina’s mouth, and Edwina’s tongue darts out to wet her lips.

“Yeah,” Edwina nods in return, and for a long moment they both just look at each other, something warm and sweet brewing in Edwina’s chest.

After a while, Edwina lays her head back in Penelope’s lap and they turn their attention back to the TV, Penelope’s fingers trailing through Edwina’s hair.

Two gin and tonics; no food

And so Edwina finds herself on Colin and Penelope’s sofa — it is, she supposes, technically Colin’s, as it is his flat and all, but it is so covered in pretty colourful cushions that it feels entirely and uniquely Penelope. The whole flat is like that — the sleek, slightly impersonal lines of this professionally finished apartment plastered all over with art and plants and other beautiful things. Penelope draped all over the Bridgerton-ness until it is hardly recognisable. Edwina wonders if she would ever have felt comfortable enough with Anthony to do that. His flat always felt so untouchable, its rich-person aura too pristine to fuck with.

Anyway it seems fitting, seeing as Penelope is currently draped over the third Bridgerton brother, her bare feet in his lap and his hands stroking her calves. They are both staring at Edwina intently, wearing identical expressions of barely-concealed, slightly hapless excitement. For two people who are so gorgeous they are, she thinks, huge fucking nerds. Endearing, really.

Edwina bites her lip and swishes the gin and tonic in her glass. It has grapefruit in it, and a little sprig of rosemary and it is making her feel a little light-headed, because she was too nervous to eat anything before she came over. She wonders if they bought the garnishes for tonight, to make things special for her, or if Colin is the kind of guy who keeps grapefruits and fresh herbs around all the time. She decides to believe the former.

“This is weird. Why is this so weird?”

Edwina’s shoulders sag and she giggles nervously, shooting Penelope a grateful look.

“I don’t know,” she admits, and takes another sip of her drink. “This is helping.” She holds up the glass to Colin. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, with a warm smile. His arm slips around Penelope’s waist, dragging her a little closer to him, and he twists to kiss the side of her head. Edwina watches them from beneath her lashes, how their bodies shift and entwine so naturally, thoughtlessly leaning into one another. It makes her feel warm and kind of sad all at once, like she wants simultaneously to turn her head away and burrow herself between them, let them touch her like that, too.

“Was this a bad idea?” Penelope asks, a frown on her face as she looks between Edwina and Colin, blue eyes wide. “I just really want to kiss her, Colin – Ed, I really want to kiss you.” She sounds really needy, which makes Edwina feel hot all over. Kind of pushes out the sad, actually. Edwina hasn’t been needed by anyone in so long.

“But if it’s going to be too weird, or change things – we don’t have to –”

“No, no,” Edwina says quickly, draining her glass and putting it on the coffee table. “No. I - I really want to kiss you too, Pen.”

Penelope beams, dimpling. She turns her face and buries it into Colin’s arm – he laughs and pats her leg. Edwina wishes she had a way to cover her own blush, but it feels too dramatic to put her head in her hands.

“You two are pretty fucking adorable,” Colin says, grinning, and Edwina shifts in her seat, something flittering in her torso. It’s embarrassing, really, how a little bit of praise can make her feel so…

Colin squeezes Penelope’s ankle. “Maybe we should just talk a bit longer, discuss some of the practical stuff, and then just… see what happens?” He twists a bit so that he’s facing Edwina. “Pen says you know what kind of stuff we get into, and that you’re happy to play in that space with us?”

Play in that space. Edwina’s lips twitch. Funny words to use for what Colin and Penelope do but sure, yes, she’s up for trying whatever kinky stuff they’re into. And her belly feels all melty with Colin’s attention on her like this, his words of praise and those lovely dark eyes of his searching her face.

“Yeah.” She nods, wishing she still had her glass to play with – she has no idea what to do with her hands. “You guys know my limits. I’m happy to - to play.” She cannot keep the amusement from her voice, which makes Penelope giggle.

Colin glances at Penelope. “Usually we go kind of hard on the dom-sub stuff, but we thought we’d kind of just vibe it out a bit, if that’s okay with you? This is all our first time doing this, so I guess we don’t know how we’re going to feel and we thought we should…” He squeezes Penelope tighter. “Let it flow, I guess.”

Edwina nods, feeling sort of tingly. “Flow sounds good.”

Colin smiles warmly. “Okay. So we should discuss a safe word, then.”

“What do you guys use?” she asks, intrigued.

Colin rolls his eyes, but he is smiling indulgently.

“Pall Mall,” Pen says with another giggle.

Edwina grimaces. She hates that game, hated that Anthony made her play it when they went to Aubrey Hall. Unlike her sister and the rest of the Bridgertons, Edwina does not have a competitive bone in her body. “That’ll work for me, too. Instant boner killer.”

Colin laughs and rubs his chin. “You know, it’s kind of uncanny how similar you two are sometimes.”

That makes Edwina glow for some reason.

“Is there anything you want to bring up? Anything you’re worried about?” Colin asks, his lovely face open. He is an incredibly earnest man, Edwina thinks, as she looks at his smooth brow, the little creases at the corners of his eyes. His sensitive mouth.

“Um,” she says, swallowing around the glowy pink feelings, the nerves. “Actually. I just wanted to check that you’re both – that you’re sure. That it won’t feel weird seeing the person you love…” Her voice breaks on that last word, like she crunched up the fancy glass her gin and tonic was in and swallowed that down, too. Love. She grits her teeth to stop her chin wobbling.

A large, warm hand touches her forearm and she finds herself staring into Colin Bridgerton’s navy-blue eyes. They are so different from his brother’s.

“You’re sweet, Ed,” he says softly. Penelope nods, and Colin squeezes Edwina’s arm before taking away his hand. He glances at Penelope. “But we’ve talked about it. A lot. And we’re good.”

Penelope looks at Edwina. “Honestly, I spent so long watching him date other people before we got together that it doesn’t feel that weird,” she says. Colin winces, his eyes shading, and his hand finds Penelope’s automatically; searching for comfort so instinctively, without reservation. Penelope’s little fingers tangle in his; comfort given back just as freely. “But this time it’s you, and I trust you and love you and I… I don’t know.” I love you. Penelope says it so easily that it makes Edwina want to cry. “The more I think about it, the more I feel… I dunno. Excited?”

What had Penelope said on Edwina’s sofa? Nothing feels scary with him.

“Okay,” she says, nodding, her teeth digging into her lower lip. Her belly feels melty and nervy and her heart is already aching, but she wants this fiercely. Needs it. “I’m excited too.”

Penelope smiles. “Good. So if we’re all good, does that mean we can kiss now?” she asks, her voice tinged with desperation. Her eyes slide to Colin, who laughs and strokes her hair.

“Don’t look at me, baby. Ask her.”

“Please,” Edwina says in a gasp, before Penelope can speak, and then Penelope is sort of half-launching herself, half-crawling over Colin’s lap to get to her. She is adorably clumsy in her eagerness, her leg catching on Colin’s knee, and she practically falls into Edwina’s arms. Edwina laughs, her hands sliding to Penelope’s waist, feeling its softness over the crepey cotton of the very cute blue babydoll dress she is wearing. And with Penelope’s slightly bashful, beautiful face tipped up to hers, Edwina’s nerves fizzle away. Instead she gets the hungry, single-minded focus that her desire for women manifests itself as (it’s different with men. Still real, just; different). Because Edwina knows what to do with a soft, needy body in her arms, doesn’t she? She’s not been with a lot of women – she’s not been with a lot of any gender – but enough. Enough to recognise the thrum, the rumble. Enough to know what to do with the hunger in Penelope’s eyes. Now there is no uncertainty what this is, if they are just friends or something more; now she knows she is wanted, and wants in return; it all feels very clear.

“Hi, pretty girl,” Edwina murmurs, smiling down at Penelope. “Come here.” She twists her body fully onto the sofa and opens her legs so she can drag Penelope between them, line her body up to hers. She is so soft and weighty, her heavy tits crushing against Edwina’s. Edwina’s head starts to rush at the thought that she might at some point this evening get to put them in her mouth, but she tries to focus on the task at hand: the beautiful girl in her arms who is practically begging for a kiss.

“Hi,” Penelope says breathlessly, and before Edwina can do anything else — stroke her hair or cup her cheeks or let her fingers bite just a little harder into Penelope’ waist — the girl has her lips on hers.

The kiss tastes like cherry lip balm and grapefruit and it is so, so sweet, Penelope greedy and shy all at once. Her little fingers flutter on Edwina’s shoulders and she makes these breathy little sighs as they kiss and part, kiss and part. It is a nice little dance, breaking and touching, Edwina’s chest filling with bubbles and heat building between her legs — but then it seems Penelope can’t wait anymore and with a groan she pushes her tongue into Edwina’s mouth.

And maybe it should feel weird that she’s kissing her best friend (because Penelope is her best friend, even if she is maybe not Penelope’s) and it does a little bit — but the strangeness makes it all the more exciting. Makes Edwina pull Penelope closer so she can feel every part of her; makes her meet Penelope’s tongue just as needily.

And then somehow Penelope is shifting, her hand sliding down to Edwina’s waist and now, somehow, somehow, she is flat on her back on the sofa with Penelope pressed between her legs, the girl’s eyes dark and molten and Edwina wasn’t sure what she expected (shy, giggling kisses, maybe; soft and hesitant) but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t Penelope’s hand sliding under her dress to palm her thigh, her buttcheek. It wasn’t her teeth digging into her lower lip, biting down hard enough that Edwina hisses. It wasn’t this hunger.

The hiss makes Penelope stop. She pulls away, sitting up, her brow furrowed. She is flushed and beautiful, her nipples poking hard through the thin material of her dress. “Sorry, was that —“

“No,” Edwina says faintly, dragging her eyes from her friend’s pretty little nipples (she needs to suck them, actually. Soon). “You’re fine, I just…” She uses her now rather shaky arms to prop herself up. “Have you kissed a girl before, Pen?”

Penelope bites her lip and shakes her head, making her wild curls bounce and tumble. “Oh, wait — Eloise, when we were like fourteen.” A tense sort of hmph noise comes from where Colin is sitting, but Edwina is not about to tear her eyes away from the apple-cheeked angel with the hard nipples kneeling over her. “Did I do it wrong?”

“Not even slightly, babe.” Edwina remembers her first kiss with a girl, how desperate and clumsy it had been, how each time their lips touched it had felt like she was breathing for the first time. Edwina winds her fists into the gauzy cotton of Penelope’s dress. “Now come here,” she says, and drags her back down on top of her.

They kiss like that for a while. Bodies pressed hard and hot, both their little dresses rucked up as they roll against each other, tongues dancing. Penelope keeps playing with the side of Edwina’s knickers under her dress, and Edwina’s hands roam to Penelope’s arse-cheeks, grabbing lush handfuls and pulling her close, closer. She loves how Penelope feels – plush and spilling and pliable, so different to Edwina’s own lithe neatness. She wants to dig her fingers in and in and in, find all the places she can kiss and bite.

It is… really, really nice. Edwina hasn’t kissed anyone since Anthony, she realises, and this could not be more different. Anthony always kissed her very nicely – touched her very nicely, too – but it was always so… pristine. He kissed her like he was supposed to and fucked her like he was supposed to (in the beginning at least – that fizzled out after a few months) but it always felt like duty. Too clean by half, and Edwina never dared to make the mess she wanted to. Just like his flat, in the end – too afraid to muck things up.

But this is delightfully messy. There are strings of spit connecting their lips when they come up for air, and Penelope makes these quiet, animal grunts when Edwina squeezes her arse. Edwina is almost uncomfortably wet already, the pale pink lace of her underwear sticking to her pussy lips as Penelope grinds against her. Everything feels exciting and sloppy and she can smell it – her or Penelope, she can’t really tell. She breathes deep, sucking Penelope’s tongue as though she might be able to taste it that way, too.

And the mess feels good. It feels like being wanted, needed.

“Can I,” Penelope breathes into her mouth between kisses, her fingers tugging at the elastic of Edwina’s underwear, “eat your pussy, Ed?”

“Yeah, I think that would be fine,” Edwina says – and then she starts giggling. She doesn’t mean to, but kissing Penelope has made her dreamy and bubbly all at once, and the feelings burst out of her in a giggle.

Penelope starts laughing too. She sits up so she’s kneeling between Edwina’s legs, and then she twists to look at Colin. Edwina lets her eyes drift to him too; he is leaning back on the sofa, one leg tucked in, the other stretched out in front of him. He’s got his arms draped over the back of the sofa and he is wearing an expression of absolute smitten fondness as he gazes at Penelope.

“Fucking adorable,” Colin says, and when his eyes settle on Edwina she knows he means her, too.

“Is that okay?” Penelope asks him. She’s got her hands on Edwina’s bent knees, her fingers tracing light, mindless patterns, like she can’t bring herself to stop touching her.

“Very okay, baby,” Colin says with an indulgent smile. Edwina is impressed with his self control – a lot of men would have their hands down their trousers by now.

Penelope beams and turns back to Edwina. “I’ve never done it before, so you have to tell me if I’m doing a bad job or anything,” she warns, her voice a little shaky.

“I don’t think you could, babe.”

Penelope blushes and slides to the floor. They adjust themselves so Edwina’s arse is on the edge of the sofa, her legs parted and Penelope kneeling between them. Penelope is about to push the hem of Edwina’s dress up when Edwina stops her. “Wait,” she mutters, then leans forward and starts to tug at Penelope’s dress. “Want this off, please.”

Penelope looks pleased by that, and together they help pull her dress over her head. She is wearing a very cute yellow floral bra and knickers, but Edwina can’t really pay attention to them because she’s staring at the perfect tops of Penelope’s perfect breasts, smooth white skin, soft rolls and plush curves. She will have to ask where Penelope got the set from later, she tells herself as her fingers twitch with the urge to grab.

“God, you’re so fucking pretty,” Edwina says, feeling sort of breathless. Because it’s true, she’s gorgeous – and she’s kneeling for God’s sake, and her hair is all wild from where they’ve been kissing and Edwina feels like she’s just stepped off the teacups at the fairground. Twirling and twirling and she can’t catch her breath.

She can’t help it then. She reaches forward and runs her hands over Penelope’s shoulders, her arms. Her (and her fingers shake, just a little) breasts, cupping lightly just to test how Penelope will react. The girl lets out a shaky breath and arches her back, pushes her tits into Edwina’s palms.

“Oh,” Penelope sighs, her lashes fluttering, and Edwina moves her thumbs over her nipples, brushing them through the lace. They feel so good in her hands, so full and heavy, that she feels sort of like a teenage boy. She wants to plunge her face between them and knock them about, wants to grab handfuls and shake just to watch them jiggle.

“You can be a bit… firmer. If you want,” Penelope says and Edwina stares at her, her mouth running dry.

“She likes to be manhandled a bit.” Colin is sitting next to Edwina on the sofa – she hadn’t noticed him move, too entranced by Penelope’s tits. He leans over and strokes Penelope’s cheek, which makes her eyes go a bit hazy, her pink, kiss-swollen lips parting. “Don’t you, baby?”

Baby. Edwina almost mouths the word; stops herself. Kate calls her bon, and Penelope calls her babe, which is close, but… Edwina wants baby, wants to say it to someone and watch them melt like Penelope is melting, preening into Colin’s touch. She imagines getting to be baby would be relaxing too, as she watches Penelope shiver and giggle and press her tits deeper into Edwina’s hold. It would be nice to turn her brain off like that – except Edwina thinks she might have spent her whole life like that already, actually. Baby of the family. Brain off, doing what she’s told. Going to the right university and finding the right boyfriend. Getting coddled and petted and taken care of – which was nice for a time until it wasn’t anymore. Until she was at her engagement party watching her sister and fiancé fight, her stomach dropping as she realised that you don’t yell like that at someone you don’t care about, do you?

So she doesn’t actually want to be baby.

But god, she’d like to say it.

“She can take a lot,” Colin is saying, and there is a pleasing heat in his voice. “Maybe later she can show us just how much.” And then he sits back on the sofa and watches as Edwina exhales slowly and lets her fingers dig into the soft, pillowy flesh of Penelope’s tits.

“Fuck,” she mutters, losing herself in the delightful spill. She is a little hesitant at first – she has never been rough with any of her partners before – but the harder she touches her, the more Penelope moans and so Edwina lets herself go. Grabs and jiggles, watches the white flesh pink under her fingers. Finds her nipples through the yellow floral lace and tugs, twists, just to hear Pen cry out.

“Can I suck them?” She doesn’t really recognise her voice. Edwina’s voice is sweet and sugary. Perhaps a little too high. This isn’t any of those things. It’s rough and thick, crackling like television static.

“Later,” Penelope says back, and her voice is just as raw, her blue eyes practically black. “I need to lick your pussy, Ed. Please.”

And she sounds so desperate that Edwina whimpers a little, nodding and settling back on the sofa. Colin shuffles a little closer as Penelope pushes up her dress, bunching it at her waist, and Edwina feels breathless, crowded, her heart swollen and hammering in her throat. Penelope kneads her thighs, spreading them further, and Edwina thinks she would like to drown in the way that Penelope is gazing at her pink-lace covered pussy – but she is dragged out of it by Colin’s hand brushing her hair from her face.

She flinches. She doesn’t mean to, but she is used to Penelope touching her. She isn’t used to Colin. No man has touched her like that since Anthony, and Colin’s hands aren’t so different to his brother’s. Edwina breathes hard, her fingers twisting into her rucked up dress, and she feels torn in half.

“This okay?” Colin asks softly, and Edwina makes herself look at him. Properly. Makes herself catalogue all the ways he is not his brother. Blue eyes, not brown, and they are so much softer than Anthony’s ever were. Full, sensitive mouth; long, tender throat; dark chest hair peeking out from under his green linen shirt. Anthony would never let his hair grow so unruly, curling around his ears like that. And Anthony was a lot of things – clever, kind, generous – but he was not sweet. At least not with Edwina, anyhow. Maybe he is with Kate.

Colin is sweet. Edwina swallows and nods. “It’s okay.”

She wants to say something else – thank you or kiss me – but she can’t because Penelope has buried her face into Edwina’s pussy, her tongue dragging a line over the pink lace. And that is sweet; tooth-aching, actually, so sweet that Edwina shivers and moans as Penelope tongues her over her underwear, as if she is too greedy to wait the thirty seconds it would take to pull them off. She rubs her nose over Edwina’s clit and inhales deeply, a thick shuddering breath that makes Edwina’s belly rise and fall fast as she gasps. Then more hot tongue and hot breath and nuzzling.

“God, you smell so good,” Penelope says breathily, before pressing her tongue back in. Then she uses her teeth to drag aside her knickers and when her tongue touches Edwina’s clit she cries out. It feels so nice, so nice that Edwina’s hand reaches out and tangles into Colin’s shirt so she has something to hold on to. Little kitten licks, delicate and devastating in equal measure, Edwina’s thighs shaking under Penelope’s fingers. Penelope moans against her pussy and Edwina feels like she might die, actually.

“You’re so wet,” Pen whispers and Edwina wants to tell her she can’t exactly take credit for it all herself, not when Penelope’s tongue is so wet and good, but she finds most words have escaped her.

“Fuck,” is all she can gasp and Colin’s hand cups her cheek, his thumb sliding over her lips.

“It’s okay, Ed. I’ve got you.”

And that makes her feel shaky and safe all at once, as though she’s going to vibrate so hard her bones might rattle out of her body — but she thinks that Colin might hold all the pieces of her afterwards.

And then he kisses her.

Firmly, purposefully. Different from how Pen kissed her — that was hungry and desperate, but this is more like he is trying to let his presence be known, hold her on his tongue so she can let the rest of herself float away. A kiss like a tether, a guide rope. And she’s grateful for it because at that moment Penelope starts swirling her tongue carefully around Edwina’s clit whilst her small finger slowly pushes inside.

Edwina feels trapped between their kisses, no direction to turn where pleasure won’t find her. She whimpers, her hips squirming, and Colin pulls away, still cradling her face.

“You’re doing so well,” he says, the words dropping into her like stones in a lake, rippling through her. “You look so good with her face between your legs. She’s good with her tongue, isn’t she?”

“Y-yes,” she manages. Her free hand winds into Penelope’s curls, petting mindlessly, which makes her groan against her. “Don’t stop — please don’t stop —“

And she doesn’t. She shifts her grip on Edwina’s thighs and keeps up her steady swirls and licks. Edwina feels like she’s going to sink into the sofa, let its softness swallow her, and she worries vaguely that she might be dripping all over it, actually, ruining the nice orange and white throw she’s sitting on. She’s sinking, sinking and shaking and —

“Fuck, baby—“ it slips out, and it’s not hers to say but she says it anyway, says it as she comes hard on Penelope’s mouth, her thighs clenching around her friend’s face. Neither of them seem to mind, Colin stroking her face and telling her how good she is whilst she unravels with a low whimper.

Penelope emerges from between her legs with her face glistening and a sloppy, pleased smile.

“C’mere, beautiful,” Colin murmurs, leaning down whilst Pen sits up on her knees, her cheeks flushed. “You did so good,” he tells her and Edwina watches her glow and melt happily as Colin takes her cheeks in his hands and kisses her thoroughly somewhere over Edwina’s belly. Kisses Edwina off her, actually, his tongue darting out to lick Penelope’s lips. Edwina still has stars in her eyes from her orgasm but the sight makes her feel like she might pass out.

“Can I suck them now?” Edwina blurts out. She doesn’t mean to ruin their moment but she thinks it might calm her down a bit, settle the racing in her blood. Maybe.

They both look at her and they’ve got the matching expression on their faces again — surprised and hazy and pleased all at once. Their similarities are striking and endearing, and Edwina wonders if this is a cause or a product of their compatibility, their love. Were they born like this? Were they made for each other, the universe moulding them especially to love each other? Or has their love grafted them together, fused their personalities and expressions and bodies into one? Or perhaps it is this – they have simply known each other so long that they cannot help but act like mirrors.

Penelope climbs back onto the sofa and promptly drapes herself over Edwina’s lap, her thick thighs straddling Edwina’s hips. Then she tugs at Edwina’s dress and pulls it over her head greedily, her eyes widening as she takes in Edwina’s body. She feels her skin heat under Penelope’s hungry gaze, shivering when Penelope runs a finger over the pink lace of her bra.

“You’re so pretty, Ed,” she says softly, which makes Edwina feel shy for some reason. “I love this set on you. It’s so cute.”

“I like yours, too,” Edwina says, her cheeks feeling warm. She likes the weight of Penelope on top of her, likes the heat she can feel rolling from her pussy. Her hands slide up Penelope’s back and she finds the clasp of her bra, running her finger under the band. “Think I’ll like it better off, though,” she murmurs, and whilst Penelope is giggling at that cheesy line, Edwina tugs her bra off completely.

“Oh my god.” Edwina swallows and it is audible – cartoonish, even. Her mouth feels incredibly dry and her hands twitch on Penelope’s smooth back, mindlessly grabbing at the soft rolls there. Penelope flushes, a warm pink stain that slowly blossoms over her chest and the tops of her perfect tits. It is the same pink as her little ripe nipples, the ones standing hard and suckable just inches from Edwina’s face.

“Good, right?” Colin chuckles, with a level of pride in his voice that Edwina might have laughed except Colin is cupping one of Penelope’s breasts, drawing her forward, pressing the nipple to Edwina’s lips. “They’re perfect, actually,” he says, and his voice is softer now. So soft Edwina barely hears him, because her mouth has closed around Penelope’s sweet pink nipple and all other thoughts fall away.

Edwina feels her heartbeat slow and her breathing slow – even time seems to slow as she sucks. Colin is right – they are perfect, warm skin with pretty blue veins silvering beneath it. They are weighty in her hands, and there are these little faded blue marks – bruises – that Edwina can’t help but push her fingers into. She feels impossibly greedy, grabby, as if she wants to stuff all of Penelope in her mouth at once; wants to see whether, if she keeps sucking and sucking, she might swallow her whole. And she feels as if she never wants to stop doing this, wants to lose herself entirely in Penelope’s warm body and silky skin and delicate little sighs.

Her teeth graze Pen’s nipple lightly and Penelope’s breathing hitches. She squirms in Edwina’s lap which is delightful, actually. It makes Edwina feel oddly… powerful. She isn’t used to feeling that way and she finds that she likes it, so she does it again, teethes at her friend’s nipple until Penelope is whining and humping at her, her fingers digging into Edwina’s shoulder.

“I told you – she can take a lot, Ed,” Colin says softly, reaching out to tuck a curl behind Penelope’s ear. Pen’s chest is deep pink now, her cheeks shining and her lashes fluttering against her cheek as she rolls and pushes her tits deeper into Edwina’s face. “She likes being bitten and marked. Don’t you, baby?” Penelope can only whimper and roll, whimper and roll, which Edwina takes as a yes. But still Edwina hesitates, because the need in her chest suddenly feels frighteningly large and she isn’t sure –

“Look –” It’s as if Colin can feel Edwina’s fear radiating off her skin. He presses his fingers over the pale marks Edwina touched earlier. They line up perfectly with his fingertips. “It’s okay. Whatever you wanna give her, she can take it.”

Edwina meets his eyes and she has the feeling he understands the need in her chest. She wonders if he has these same feelings about Penelope, like he wants to eat her up. Is this how men feel, Edwina wonders? Raw and desperate and single-minded? Like her entire existence has narrowed to her lips and hands and cunt, like everything except her desire has been stripped away and all she is is this throbbing, heaving want?

“Please,” Penelope whispers and that kills any hesitation. Edwina sinks in her finger and teeth, and lets herself eat.

Bites and licks and sucks. Fingers dimpling into plump skin. Desperate whines pulled from Penelope’s mouth, muffled when Colin drags her in for a kiss. Edwina has no idea how long they stay like that, Penelope wriggling on her lap and Edwina’s teeth on her nipples. It would almost be meditative if it wasn’t making Edwina’s pussy throb so hard, making her belly clench and melt all at once. Eventually Colin pulls off Pen and studies her carefully.

“Yeah, I think you’re ready,” he says, and Penelope only sighs. Edwina can’t really think what he means except — yeah, Penelope’s pupils are blown and her mouth is slack and she looks hazy, blurry at the edges.

Ready, sure, though Edwina doesn’t really know what for.

“Want her to fuck you?” Colin says.

Oh. Edwina pulls off Penelope’s nipple with a pop noise, wet and slick. “Isn’t —“ It’s hard to find her words, her brain fuzzy with that wanting. She mouths at Penelope’s nipple for a moment longer, as though somehow that might make her think better. It doesn’t. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

Colin grins and it’s partly indulgent but mostly wolfish. Mostly it makes Edwina’s breath stutter in her throat.

“Go get it, baby,” he says to Pen, lightly tapping her arse. Penelope nods and slithers off her lap. Her legs must be shaky because her knees almost buckle — Colin lunges forward and grabs her by the hips, steadying her. Penelope just giggles dizzily and then pushes his hands away and totters out of the room.

“She gets a bit… woozy in subspace,” Colin explains, when they are alone. “It’s really cute, actually.” He runs his fingers over his bottom lip thoughtfully and Edwina’s eyes drift to his mouth. “You know, she doesn’t usually feel safe enough to be this soft with people. People who aren’t me, anyway. It’s really nice getting to see it.” He puts a cool hand on her arm, his thumb rubbing back and forth over her overheated skin. “Thank you.”

Edwina blinks at him. Her mouth still tastes like his girlfriend’s nipples and he’s thanking her.

“You’re a really nice man, Colin.”

Colin starts and blinks at her. Then he laughs and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m so nice. I’m so hard that I’m about to tear through my jeans but yeah.” He runs his hand over his face and laughs again, whilst Edwina uses every drop of her willpower to not look at his crotch. “Nice.”

Then the laugh disappears, and his hand moves up her arm to her collarbone. His thumb strokes the hollow of her throat. “I’m just really glad she has you, Ed.” His brow creases and Edwina swallows, something thick in her throat. “I know — I know this past year has been tough but I’m so glad you’re in our lives. Even if the way you came into them was a little… painful.”

His voice is so soft and when Edwina closes her eyes, like she is now in an attempt to hold back her tears, he almost sounds like his brother. And it hurts really badly but isn’t that why she was doing this? To yank off the armour, let herself get hurt and soothed again, let love rip into her just a little? Let it bite her and let herself bite it back?

But then Penelope is tripping back into the room and Edwina can’t really feel sad at the sight of her. She’s only wearing those cute floral knickers and her tits bounce so nicely, her hair spilling in a wild tangle over her shoulders (Edwina’s fingers itch to tug on it). She looks so beautiful and so supremely fuckable that Edwina lets out a little gasp — at precisely the same moment as Colin, who seems equally as entranced by the sight of his breathless, eager girlfriend running into the room with her tits out.

Colin and Edwina catch each other’s eye and burst into laughter, and she’s giggling so hard that it takes her a minute to realise what Penelope has in her hands: a sparkly pink dildo and what appears to be a harness. Penelope settles herself in Colin’s lap as if it is the obvious seat for her, and his arms wind automatically around her waist. She twists and holds out her prizes bashfully.

“I thought maybe… maybe we could use these? If you want to?” Her eyes are still slightly hazy, clouds across blue sky.

Edwina takes the strap and the dildo and looks at them, her brain short circuiting. She swallows, her fingers running over the leather, the little adjustable buckles. “You want me to…”

Penelope blushes, her fingers tangling in her lap. “If- if you do,” she stutters. Colin’s hands move soothingly over her waist, his lips pressing to her shoulder and she takes a shaky breath. “I guess we could use our mouths and hands but…” she trails off, her eyes landing on Edwina’s fingers.

Edwina follows her gaze. “Oh.” She holds out her hands, looking at the lilac acrylics that tip her fingers. No good for putting inside someone, actually. “Right.”

“Clever girl thinks of everything,” Colin says fondly, kissing Penelope’s shoulder again. She blushes and giggles.

“But…” Edwina looks at the strap and then back up at the two of them, a frown on her face. “Why do you have this?” Suddenly her brain is filled with images of sweet little Penelope forcing Colin onto his knees, fucking him breathless with this pink sparkly cock, and she feels instantly dizzy.

Penelope’s eyes go wide. “Oh, no – we’ve never – I’ve never fucked him or anything –”

“Well, never say never, sweetheart,” Colin says with a grin and Penelope goes slack-jawed for a moment, twisting to look at him with her eyes like blue saucers.

“Really?” she squeaks and Colin shrugs and for a moment Penelope looks utterly dazed. Edwina gets it, her belly tightening strangely at the thought of this giant man bent over for his tiny girlfriend. Then Pen shakes her head as if to clear it. “Stop distracting me,” she tells him, and turns back to Edwina. “I bought it specially,” she explains hesitantly. “I wasn’t sure… well, you know I’ve never had sex with a girl before and I wasn’t sure what was expected…”

Edwina grabs Penelope’s hand and squeezes it. “You’re a sweetie pie, Pen,” she says, her mouth twitching. “And I would really, really like to fuck you.”

Water; a handful of strawberries

Colin lays a thick quilted blanket over his living room rug and then insists that Penelope and Edwina both drink big glasses of water and eat something before they get started. Edwina only manages a few strawberries, because her desire feels so large inside her torso that she has no space for hunger. But Colin insists and so Edwina shoves a few berries in her mouth. The sweet tang of them waters all over her tongue, red and bright and sugary, and the sensation grounds her a little. Enough that when she starts putting on the harness her hands aren’t shaking anymore.

Colin is hand-feeding Penelope the strawberries whilst Edwina straps up. He’s teasing her with them, standing above her while she kneels and begs, giggling, until he relents and pops them in her mouth. It’s weird because this should be insufferable – and it is, a little, but not half as annoying as it should be. Mostly it is endearing.

Then once the dildo is slotted firmly in place, Penelope crawls onto the blanket on her hands and knees: cheek resting on her flattened palms; wide, perfect arse in the air.

“Is this how you want it, babe?” Edwina asks (she is shaking again). She kneels behind Penelope, and her hands trace slow patterns over the satiny, pliant flesh. She likes how the dimples on Penelope’s butt and thighs feel under her hands, her body soft and yielding under Edwina’s touch.

“Mhm,” Penelope murmurs into her hands, then her breathing hitches as Edwina’s fingers slip under the floral mesh of her knickers, just toying with the elastic for a moment. Her heartbeat is giddy again, cantering and tripping as if it's in a race with itself, hurrying her onto the next moment – the next touch or kiss or stroke. She tries to take a deep breath and bridle it, keep herself steady, but there’s butterflies and baby elephants – a whole fucking zoo – thundering around in her belly.

“Your butt is so gorgeous,” Edwina says – but she hates how it comes out. Too girly by half, as if they’re in changing rooms trying on jeans or something. It’s not how she means it. What she means is that she wants to bury her face into Penelope’s pussy from behind and squeeze her arse cheeks around her head. She wants to see how long she could go without breathing, nose and mouth pressed against damp lace and wet cunt, drown herself in Penelope’s slick. She wants to fuck her so hard her butt cheeks shake and jiggle, fingers pressed deep enough to bruise.

“Take them off. Take her knickers off, Ed.”

Colin is behind her, closer than Edwina realised. His voice is not too girly. He speaks in a low growl, words whispering against the nape of her neck. She leans back a little and feels him warm and solid, the brush of his shirt against her back. His hands, rough and large, slide up and down her arms and leave a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

Edwina nods and it is the strangest feeling, like she is both sharp and melting all at once. Like she might lean against Colin and dissolve into him, and yet simultaneously like her mind is a knife, sharp and cutting. She knows, she thinks, just where to touch Penelope, just where to bite. It feels… surgical, almost. Her fingers hook into Penelope’s underwear and drag them across pale skin, shoving them down to her knees so her pretty pussy is bare and glistening under Edwina’s gaze. Penelope wriggles a little, humping the cool air.

“Fuck, you’re pretty,” Edwina murmurs, her fingers sliding of their own accord down to the creases where thigh meets pussy, thumbs kneading into tender flesh, sliding over red curls and opening her pink centre. She watches Penelope clench and pulsate, her pussy shiny with need. There it is, that precise feeling, the one that tells her just how much pressure to put against Penelope’s skin, just enough to make her tremble and whine nicely.

“Wanna spank her?” Colin asks.

“Yeah,” Edwina says before she can think. She clears her throat and takes it again. “Um, yes. Please.”

Penelope moans and Colin chuckles. His arms curl around Edwina and he presses himself close, his clothed front to Edwina’s almost naked back, his large hands spreading over Penelope’s arsecheeks. Edwina feels surrounded by him, the oakmoss of his cologne and the warmth of his body and the way he bends to press his cheek to hers. Like his kiss on the sofa earlier, she feels weirdly safe in his arms, and his largeness makes her feel delicate. Small. As though he might… take care of her.

She hasn’t let anyone do that in a really long time.

“Watch,” he says softly as he rubs Penelope’s arse cheeks, his chin resting on Edwina’s shoulder. Then he brings his hands down sharply, pink blooming under his fingers from the impact. “See how wet she gets?” He spanks her a few more times – and it seems as if Penelope likes it because she moans like she did when Edwina bit her breasts.

And Edwina thinks it should be kind of awkward to hear your best friend’s sex noises, but it’s not. It just makes her hungry. Wants Colin to keep spanking her – harder harder more – so she can hear them again.

To be fair, she could also be moaning because Edwina’s fingers accidentally (sort of) slipped to her pussy and she is mindlessly petting her whilst Colin works. Weird how just a few days ago she felt predatory about touching the band of Penelope’s bra through her jumper, and now here she is with her fingers sliding over the mess between Penelope’s thighs.

Penelope is really wet in a way that makes Edwina’s hips stutter a bit, makes her want to drop to her knees and lick her up. It’s as if she’s ping-ponging between the feelings – Colin behind her, making her want to melt and soften and curl up in his arms and Penelope in front of her, making her want to devour and tear and fuck. The back and forth is dizzying, beautiful, and it only gets worse because suddenly Colin has something shiny and clear in his cupped palm – lube – she didn’t even notice – and he is reaching around Edwina to slowly slide it up and down her pink glittery cock.

Edwina thinks her brain is going to start leaking from her ears, her eyes transfixed on his big, veined hand lubing up her cock. There is something careful, almost loving about the motion and it makes Edwina weirdly feel like she wants to cry, except then he shuffles her forward, takes her in hand and slowly presses her against Penelope’s pussy.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, his other hand anchoring her hip and pushing forward, down, so Penelope’s pussy swallows her inch by pink inch. “You’re doing so well, Ed.”

Fuck. The praise makes her body sing, her skin thrumming and sensitive. His shirt feels almost unbearable against the tender skin of her back, too rough and yet not harsh enough all at once. She wants to rub herself against him, let him scrape and graze until she can slough off all the dead, hard skin she has developed over the past year. Until she is tender and soft and sweet again, like she used to be.

She is all the way inside Penelope now – Penelope, who is moaning and gasping at the fullness, bucking her hips and trying to fuck back onto the dildo.

“You can spank her a little,” Colin suggests, sliding his lube-wet hand up her body, skating over her stomach and up, up, until he gently, hesitantly, cups her tit over her bra.

Fuck. Extra fuck, actually.

Blood pounding in her head, Edwina does what he says, bringing her hands down on Penelope’s arse. The noise of it sharpens her, focusing her on the way her hands are palming red marks into Penelope’s skin whilst her hips begin to thrust. She spanks as she finds her rhythm, Colin’s hands on her hip and breast holding her together as she pumps into his girlfriend’s wet pussy.

“Nice and steady,” Colin says softly, his broad hand holding her tit a bit more firmly, groping her a little through the lace. “Slow, even thrusts – just like that.”

“Mm.” Edwina doesn’t have words, dragged between the two feelings – melting and devouring, touching and being touched – tossed about on the waves. The only thing she can really do is grip Penelope’s arse, skin spanked warm, and desperately thrust her hips.

“You’ve done this before.” It is not a question; his teeth graze the soft spot behind her ear. It’s true – just a couple of times.

“But I still want you to show me how,” she manages to gasp and Colin hums. It is a bitten back noise, a little choked, and he crowds closer to her. Close enough that through the scrape of his rough jeans she can feel something hard against her arse. Edwina bucks into Penelope harder, and when she drags her hips backwards and thrusts back inside, Colin’s body moves with hers, rolling together to fuck Penelope deep and slow.

The way Pen shivers and moans makes Edwina wish for an instant that this pink cock was real, attached to her, that she could feel Penelope clench and gush around her – but that feeling dissipates when Colin’s hand moves to her belly. To the top of her underwear, his fingers fiddling with the bow on the front. Then she is really fucking grateful for her pussy, actually.

“Can I?” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Edwina pants, and Colin’s lovely hand slips under the pink lace, under the bands of the straps and through her pubic hair. He doesn’t do much, just cups her wet pussy as though he is still a little tentative about how he touches her, but it is enough that when she thrusts hard against Penelope his fingers brush her clit just a little.

“Ohmygod,” she gasps all at once, the words running into the feelings; starts to fuck Penelope harder, harder, wants more pressure on her clit and wants Penelope wrecked on her cock, all of it swirling higher and higher. And as she fucks Penelope and Colin holds her, she feels the two sides of her – the soft and the hard, the biter and the bitten – start to merge and blend. And she realises this dichotomy she has created in her mind – the Edwina Before and After, the naive golden child and the hardened adult – is totally false. She is both, and neither. They both live inside of her and they are both here, present in how her body connects to these two: Colin cradling her pussy and tit so carefully, as if she is precious, whilst Penelope moans and pushes back on her cock with a raw, animal hunger, so wet Edwina can feel it on her thighs.

It really fucking hurts, hurts and feels amazing all at once, her heart yawning open whilst her body sings with pleasure.

“You’re so fucking good at this,” Colin murmurs in her ear. Then, a little louder so Penelope can hear: “Does she feel good inside you, baby?”

“S-so good,” Penelope manages to hiccup, her fingers clawing into the quilted blanket. Edwina can’t help how she whimpers at that, how her breath catches and gulps in her chest, her skin humming with pleasure.

“Show her how well you take it, sweetheart,” Colin says, affection and desire burning through his words. The hardness pressed to Edwina’s arse is maddening. “Show her how well you ride cock, baby.”

A snuffling sound emerges from Penelope, wet breaths gasped against the cradle of her hands, and then she starts pushing back. Her arse looks incredible, rippling and rolling as she fucks herself onto Edwina’s cock, and with both of them moving together – Edwina fucking into her whilst Penelope throws it back – it must hit some sweet spot in Pen, because she starts to sob. Actual, desperate sobs that sound like pleasure being squeezed out of her like juice from a fruit.

“Touch your clit,” Edwina chokes out, her fingers digging into Penelope’s hips hard enough that she hopes she leaves bruises. Colin growls his approval in her ear and then his fingers begin to move over Edwina’s clit, soft little circles, as if she was ordering him around, too. Penelope adjusts and shoves a hand between her legs, her shoulder moving as she touches herself. And it’s all so much, too much, grinding her pleasure into Penelope’s arse and Colin’s fingers and she’s coming, she’s coming –

Edwina cries out, hips stuttering and pressing deeper, harder, as her orgasm bursts through her. Sweet rough pleasure that feels torn out of her, almost harsh in how it wrecks her. She tries to keep going, keep moving her hips because Penelope is gasping there, there, please, don’t stop, there and Edwina doesn’t want to let her down. But she’s shaking, weak, can’t keep the pace or the momentum, hot tears stinging her eyes. Colin seems to realise this and his hands move to her hips, holding her steady and thrusting their bodies together so they move as one. Edwina whimpers and lets herself go limp in his arms as the end of the pleasure trickles through her, letting him use her wrung-out body to fuck Penelope, his pelvis guiding hers.

It doesn’t take long for Penelope to come after that; she moans and lurches off Edwina’s cock, her hand cupping her pussy as she trembles through her orgasm. Edwina leans further into Colin’s arms, her chest heaving. The dildo is drenched, glistening with lube and Penelope’s pussy. The sight of it makes Edwina feel blurry and hot; she presses her eyes closed and lets Colin hold her.

“Come here, baby. You’ve got to clean up this mess you made, hm?” Colin says, and the words rumble through his chest and into Edwina’s torso. She doesn’t really understand them until she feels something, hears a soft slurping noise, and her eyes flutter open. Penelope is on her belly with the pink glittery cock in her mouth, licking it clean.

“Fuck,” Edwina hisses and Colin laughs.

“She’s a good girl, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. God. The best.”

That makes Penelope smile around her mouthful of cock.

Once Colin has deemed the dildo clean enough, Penelope rolls onto the quilt on her back, tugging a pillow from the sofa to put under her head. Colin helps pull the dildo out of the harness and unbuckles Edwina.

“Will you come here, Ed? I need cuddles,” she says softly and Edwina slithers out of Colin’s hold to join her, feeling totally boneless and shaken, like her mind and her body bear no relation to each other. She crawls into her friend’s arms, resting her head on her chest and winding her arm around her waist. If not for the fact that Penelope is naked and Edwina in underwear; if not for the fact that Edwina has just watched Penelope come on her cock, it could be like any other sleepover, Edwina curled up with her friend whilst they watch a rom-com in bed. Penelope’s fingers trace lazy patterns over Edwina’s arm and she gives a deep, contented sigh.

“I feel amazing,” Penelope says. “Like I’m floating.”

“Sufficiently lezzed out?” Edwina asks and she feels Penelope’s giggle against her cheek.

“Yes,” Penelope says, nodding. “I can die happy now.” She runs her free hand over Edwina’s cheek, pushing back a strand of dark hair that has escaped her bun. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Okay doesn’t really feel like the right word, because trapped between their bodies, Edwina had found herself weaving past and present together, accepting the hard and soft, the teeth and the flesh, and she feels like her chest might burst open with the feelings swirling around her. Is she okay? No. No.

She takes a deep breath around the raw wobble in her lungs, tries to swallow down the urge to cry.

“You okay, Colin?” Penelope calls out, twisting a little to where he’s sitting on the sofa.

“Never better, baby,” he says a little breathlessly. “You both did so well.”

Edwina wants to say something. She wants to roll on her belly and ask them to both hold her. She wants to ask them if they think she’ll be okay, in the end. She wants them to promise her she won’t feel like this forever, that someday someone will love her like they love each other.

And the strangest, most overwhelming want: she wants to call her sister.

But she can’t do any of that because her stomach rumbles. Loudly.

She is, suddenly, ravenous.

Colin and Penelope hear it, of course, and Penelope squeezes Edwina more tightly to her chest with an easiness that only makes the heartache worse.

“I’ll go get you something,” Colin says, but Edwina pushes herself up.

“No, no. I’ll go.”

“You sure?”

She manages to get to her feet with only a little wobble. She isn’t sure, actually, but she thinks it will be good to stretch a little, remember what her legs are for.

“Yeah. What can I –”

“Help yourself to whatever you want,” he says, but he’s distracted because Penelope is dragging herself onto the sofa and curling up in his arms. “Oh – there’s a rice salad I made yesterday.”

Her stomach rumbles again, and she heads to the kitchen

Icy water; Ottolenghi red rice salad with pistachios, orange and apricot; six Nocellara olives; two slices of prosciutto; another handful of strawberries

Edwina pressed her back against the cold silver of the fridge. It’s one of the fancy ones with the double doors and an in-built ice machine and it feels amazing against her burning skin. She grabs a fork and the big bowl of rice salad and starts to eat. It’s really good (Colin is an excellent cook), the salty pistachios and the little sweet dots of dried apricot mixing perfectly. Edwina feels her nervous system begin to calm as she eats, and she shifts herself against the pleasant coolness of the stainless steel behind her.

She makes it a good two-thirds of the way through the bowl before she takes a real breath and feels a sting of guilt for being so greedy. But then she realises where she is and takes another bite before putting the bowl back in the fridge. It’s a lesson she learned with Anthony – she’d feel bad about finishing things, using too much of his fancy lotion and expensive olive oil, get embarrassed about him paying for every meal, until it hit her that with the Bridgertons, there is always more. More money, more food, more Aesop mandarin and rosemary leaf hand cream. They live lives of abundance.

Edwina’s dad was an architect and her mum is an RN, so it’s not like her and Kate grew up poor; but there’s comfortably middle class and then there’s the Bridgertons. Edwina felt a little lost in Anthony’s world sometimes, muddled and forlorn by the class rules that everyone seemed to know but her. She would go to dinner parties with his lawyer friends and their wives and feel so clumsy, as if she had her clothes on inside out and her shoes on the wrong feet. The age gap didn’t help, of course, and when the men would huddle and drink whiskey, Edwina would be left amongst a group of white women with too much hair and teeth and feel like a lost little girl.

Anthony never made her feel bad about it, though. For an extremely wealthy person, he was always really generous with her.

So she doesn’t feel too bad about putting her hands in the big tub of giant green olives she finds in the fridge and scarfing them down. Doesn’t let the little twinge of guilt stop her wrapping a couple of pieces of fancy prosciutto around the olive and sucking that down too, so salty and fatty that she has to chase it with more strawberries. Colin won’t mind, she figures; there is always more.

Once she’s washed the salt from her fingers and drunk another glass of water (luxuriously full of fridge-door ice) she heads back into the living room.

Colin is sprawled on the sofa, his knees parted wide. Penelope is on the floor between them, sucking his cock.

His chin is pressed to his chest, eyes hazy yet focused on Penelope. One of his hands is tangled in her hair, the other clutching the couch cushion, tendons flexing as ragged breaths get pushed out of his throat. Penelope moves like she is made for this, bobbing and sucking with the well-practiced ease of someone who knows precisely how to get her partner off. The room is quiet save Colin’s hard breathing and Penelope’s wet sucking noises, and the intimate silence feels thick, settled like a blanket over the scene in front of her.

For the first time all night, Edwina feels like she is intruding.

Neither of them seem to notice she’s in the room. She considers escaping back to the kitchen but that feels weirder, so she sits herself cross-legged on the blanket and wraps her arms around herself. She doesn’t know where to put her eyes – it feels wrong to stare at them (even though it’s definitely hot and she would, actually, like to look, even though she feels strange), but equally bizarre to pretend she cannot see. She settles on crossing her eyes a little, keeping her gaze forward and curling herself up, shrinking herself so she does not feel quite as much of an interloper. She shivers; wishes she was wearing more clothes.

Is this her lot in life? To be on the outside of love, her face pressed against the glass?

She was stupid to think this would heal her, that tonight would do anything other than show her the precise outline of something that might never be hers. To show her the exact shape and size of the hole in her chest that she must learn to live with.

“Ed.”

She blinks, her eyes shuttering back into focus. Penelope has stopped sucking and is twisted towards her, one hand outstretched.

“Come here.”

Edwina bites her lip. “It’s okay,” she says, and she hates how much she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “You don’t need to –”

“Don’t be silly,” Penelope says, firm but sweet. “Come here.”

Swallowing, Edwina nods and crawls over. Colin shifts down lower on the couch so he can spread his legs wide enough for both of them to nestle between, and he gives Edwina a blissed out smile as she kneels next to Penelope, before his head tips back onto the sofa.

His cock is right there – but Edwina doesn’t have much time to process this because Penelope takes her face between her hands, her little thumbs smoothing over her cheeks. She doesn’t say anything, just leans in and kisses her sweetly, softly, with so much attentive care that for the hundredth time this evening Edwina thinks she might actually cry. The kiss is really delicate, the kind of kiss Edwina imagined every time she thought about kissing Penelope these past few months. Plump lips moving gently, her little tongue darting out to shyly touch Edwina’s. Cradled between Penelope’s hands, Edwina feels everything hush and slow, her body sticky and drippy and precious all at once. She winds her arms around Penelope’s plush waist and holds her carefully as they kiss and kiss.

When Penelope pulls away Edwina’s lips chase after hers desperately, plucking another soft little kiss from the corner of her mouth and another from her cheek. Penelope giggles and strokes Edwina’s hair away from her face, and there is no mistaking the tender affection there.

“I really like kissing you, Ed,” Penelope says with a blush, one hand slipping tentatively lower. She pauses at Edwina’s collar-bone, then with a little sigh slides it lower, so she’s cupping Edwina’s tit.

“I like kissing you too, Pen.” She feels hazy and glowy, as though Penelope has kissed away those sad bad feelings. They’re still there, but they don’t feel as important when Penelope touches her like this.

Penelope’s eyes flicker to Colin. “Would you – do you want to kiss me on his cock?” she asks, her lashes fluttering bashfully.

Edwina takes a giant, shuddering breath. She can’t speak – just lunges in for another kiss which she hopes Penelope understands for the yes it is. Penelope hums into her mouth and slowly pulls Edwina forward, down, until she feels something hot and hard and wet against her cheek, the satiny glide of it nudging where their lips meet. Edwina moans to feel the weight of it against her cheek, her lips, her eyes still squeezed closed because she feels weirdly shy to look directly at it, at him. But she turns her face just a little because she can’t help herself, her tongue darting out to taste his tip before pushing back into Penelope’s mouth.

Colin groans and Edwina feels a large, gentle hand on the back of her head. And then it all starts to blur, everything so wet and soft that Edwina isn’t sure what is lips or tongue or cock. She kisses and sucks and licks, keeping an arm around Penelope’s waist and her eyes pressed shut. Her underwear is ruined two orgasms in and she’s getting so wet now that it is actually uncomfortable. Her pussy clenches around nothing, aching. She wants to pull her knickers off, stuff her fingers inside, but this is too nice: kissing Pen’s mouth and Colin’s tip all at once, hearing Pen sigh and Colin groan. She doesn’t feel like an intruder now – they are, she thinks, in this together.

“Do you want to…” Penelope murmurs in between kisses and licks, her arm around Edwina and dragging her closer, so her bare tits are pressed into Edwina’s chest. She licks into Edwina’s mouth, and then tries again. “Do you want him to fuck you, Ed? I wanna watch him fuck your pretty pussy so badly.”

“I think,” Edwina says, her entire body suddenly shaking, her lips on Penelope’s, “I think that yes, I do want that.”

“Fuck,” Edwina hears Colin moan, and Penelope gasps, her fingers clawing into Edwina’s waist.

“Okay,” Pen says, and Edwina can practically hear her swallow. “Yeah, okay.” Penelope drags her in for another kiss – harder this time, hungrier, Colin’s dick catching at the corner of their mouths.

“If we’re gonna do that then you two need to stop,” Colin rasps. “Or I’m gonna come.”

Penelope huffs a laugh into Edwina’s mouth and drags her head back to look at Colin. Edwina forces herself to do the same, fighting her shyness. He looks utterly wrecked, his eyes darting between Penelope and Edwina, his fist tight around the base of his cock. Now Edwina looks at it properly, it’s pretty nice. Big and thick, shiny with the girls’ shared spit. She gulps, imagining it inside of her empty, aching pussy and everything starts to feel a little hazy and dreamy.

He looks down at the two of them for a moment – both of them on their knees looking up at him – then lets out another groan and covers his face with his hand. “Jesus. I might be the luckiest bastard alive.” The girls giggle which only makes Colin look more pained, as if their sweetness is making him harder. He takes a deep breath and leans forward to pet Penelope’s hair. “How do you want to do it, baby?”

Penelope bites her lip as if she’s trying to hold in her excitement. It’s the same expression she wears when she’s showing Edwina something cute she’s just bought or telling her about her latest writing project, and it makes Edwina’s chest glow with fondness.

“Um, I thought maybe I could lie on my back and Edwina could get on top of me?” she suggests. “And then – then I’ll feel it when you fuck her,” she adds, her voice whispery as though she is a little afraid of what she has just said.

“Does that work for you, Ed?” Colin asks.

Edwina nods dizzily, her pussy throbbing almost painfully at the prospect.

So as Colin gets undressed, Penelope helps Edwina out of her bra and knickers, her soft little hands stroking over Edwina’s belly and thighs, cupping her tits and kissing them gently. She settles back onto the blanket and pulls Edwina on top of her so they’re tit-to-tit, Edwina’s thighs straddling Penelope’s hips and Penelope’s arms around her waist. Penelope feels amazing underneath her, like sinking into endless soft warmth, the hard brush of her nipples against Edwina’s own and their pussies pressed together. Edwina’s mouth finds Penelope’s and they kiss like that, all squashed so close that Edwina stops knowing where she ends and Penelope begins. It’s all deliciously warm and a little sticky with sweat and spit and each others’ cum. Faintly Edwina hears the sound of a condom wrapper being opened and her belly swoops in anticipation.

A finger is pressed to her pulsing pussy and she gasps into Penelope’s mouth.

“Keep kissing her, baby,” Colin says. “She’s fucking drenched. God, Ed, you feel amazing.”

He fingers her open while Edwina moans and clutches Penelope tight. His fingers are a lot thicker than Penelope’s, and when he pushes in a second, Edwina really fucking feels it.

“It’s okay,” Penelope murmurs, when Edwina whines at the intrusion. “You’re doing so well. He just needs to get you ready to take him.”

“Such a good girl,” Colin croons in agreement, and Edwina feels herself melt. She feels like a puddle, flesh pooling and pouring over the cradle of Penelope’s body, her pussy so wet that she hears the squelch of Colin’s fingers inside of her.

“I feel you dripping on me,” Penelope whispers, pulling Edwina somehow closer.

And then the fingers are gone and she feels the blunt tip of Colin’s cock at her entrance. It’s much larger than his fingers but she’s really, really wet and he presses in, feeding it to her slowly, working himself inside. Edwina claws at Penelope’s shoulders, moaning desperately into her mouth as Colin sheaths himself fully and starts to shallowly thrust inside of her.

“Fuck, you feel nice,” Colin breathes roughly, his hands bracketing Edwina’s hips. His fingers dig into her flesh, spread wide over her, and she feels so tiny in his hands, delicate and breakable. It’s an oddly pleasant feeling, especially as his thrusts grow harder, deeper, and with each snap of his hips she finds herself pushed into the plush pillow of Penelope’s body.

“Harder, Colin,” Penelope pants, his thrusts pushing the air out of all three of them. “I want to feel you wreck her.” She finds Edwina’s face. “You can take it, can’t you? You’re doing so well – God, Ed, you’re so amazing, so pretty and sweet and –” The words catch on Penelope’s tongue as Colin starts fucking Edwina harder, so hard she feels him in her lungs, her throat, sharp bursts of pleasure driven into her body. Penelope gives up on trying to talk and just kisses Edwina hungrily, desperately, her hands scrabbling at Edwina’s waist.

“You’re both so fucking gorgeous,” Colin grunts, as though he knows Penelope is too overwhelmed, knows he needs to take up the mantle. They are so in tune Edwina would have thought they rehearsed this if she wasn’t the first person they had done this with. “You’re taking it so well, Ed. You feel me fucking her, baby? You feel how wet she is for us?”

Penelope can only whine into Edwina’s mouth, clutching her tighter. Colin shifts something – his angle, his hold, something – and his cock hits something in Edwina that makes her feel like she’s going to die, but in a good way. Like she is being split in half and put back together again here on the blue quilted blanket, pressed between their sweaty, beautiful bodies.

And now she is not outside of love. She feels it in their hands and their bodies and their words. As if their love for each other has ballooned so big, swollen up so large that Edwina is sucked inside of it too. And so for a moment she is not outside but within – their love for each other and even, maybe, for her. They touch her like they want to draw her inside of themselves, Penelope’s little hands clawing at her for more, closer, whilst Colin is holding her like he wants to press his fingers through her skin and gobble up handfuls of her. He fucks her like he is trying to literally push her inside of Penelope’s body, as if he might fuck her so hard they fuse together, and Penelope accepts every brutal thrust and desperate wail from Edwina’s lips.

Tears stream from her eyes and into her mouth – and apparently Penelope’s too, because she cradles Edwina’s face, brow creasing.

“Hey,” she murmurs, softly. “Do you need to stop? Are you okay? Colin — wait —”

Colin’s hips slow as Penelope strokes her face, sweeping the tears away with her thumbs.

“D-don’t stop. Please,” she hiccoughs, and buries her face into Penelope’s neck, into the soft cloud of her hair, and lets the tears fall. Penelope’s fingers run up and down her spine gently, soothing.

“Are you sure?” Colin’s voice this time, his hand spreading large and comforting upon the small of her back.

“It’s — they’re good tears,” she says into the sweet-smelling curls by Penelope’s ear. They are a little damp with sweat and excitement and Edwina likes the musk, the little tang beneath her rose perfume.

“Ed, we can stop, take a break, or –” Penelope suggests.

“No,” Edwina pleads. She thinks it would sound more convincing if she wasn’t crying so hard. “It’s… helping.”

God, that’s not what she wants to say. She wants to say thank you – and in the pit of her stomach and the tip of her tongue all at once, she wants to say I love you. Which is ridiculous, of course, and maybe it’s not like that, maybe it’s not the love that Colin and Penelope share or even (her chest hurts) Anthony and Kate but it is love. It is true and real and it’s something. She loves them, loves the love they have poured into her open mouth, their cups running so full they can afford to let Edwina take sips of it too.

“Okay,” Penelope says gently. “We won’t stop.”

There is a pause and then with a low groan Colin starts moving his hips again, his hands palming Edwina’s butt-cheeks as he fucks her.

“I’m gonna come, baby,” Colin grunts, his hips juddering against Edwina’s butt. “It’s too fucking hot, I can’t –”

And then his cock is gone and Edwina sobs at the loss. She feels utterly disoriented, upside down, because even though his cock isn’t in her, her pussy clenching on nothing, she still feels as if she is being fucked. Her body is still moving as if Colin is rocking into her, his hands still on her, and she is so fucked out that it takes her a long moment to realise that Colin has ripped off the condom and plunged his dick into Penelope, fucking her fast and hard as his orgasm overtakes him. He’s curled himself over both of them to get the right angle and in that moment Edwina feels totally caged, held so safe between Colin and Penelope that she cannot imagine anything bad ever happening to her again.

Colin comes deep into his girlfriend’s pussy, so deep that Edwina feels it in her body, feels Penelope quiver and shake beneath her, hears Colin’s desperate moan. It is insane and intense and all Edwina can do is kiss Penelope through it. Colin rolls off and somehow Edwina finds herself on her back on the quilt, side by side with Penelope. Penelope has one hand on her cum-filled pussy and the other reaches for Edwina’s face, dragging her in for another kiss. Edwina thinks touching herself actually seems like a really good idea — she feels close to something big and sweet and important — so she starts doing it too.

It’s a feedback loop of pleasure: the more Penelope moans into her mouth the more turned on Edwina gets, which only seems to spur Penelope on more. They lie together on the blanket fingering themselves until Penelope comes. Her wet, stuttering moan triggers Edwina’s orgasm and they both moan and kiss and shake, desperate lips eating up the others’ cries. It is messy and beautiful and tears keep streaming from Edwina’s eyes as she trembles with pleasure, her legs spasming with the force of it.

“Thank you,” she gasps into Penelope’s mouth as her orgasm tears through her. “Thank you.”

Water; orange juice with fridge-door ice; four slices of pizza alla Nonna and three slices of quattro staggione; two ragu arancini; four slices of prosciutto and two slices of honeydew melon

Colin orders food about forty seconds after everyone comes. Well – not quite, but Edwina sort of loses track of linear time after her orgasm and it feels like one moment she is sobbing thank yous into Penelope’s mouth and the next she is taking a slice of pizza out of the box Penelope has balanced on her naked stomach.

After she comes, Edwina lies flat on her back staring up at the pretty vintage silk lampshade, panting and attempting to drag the shattered pieces of herself back together. Beside her she can hear the soft sounds Colin and Penelope kissing, Colin murmuring quietly.

“You’re so amazing, baby. You did so well. Never seen anything so beautiful. I love you so, so much.”

“I love you too.”

The tears slide hot out of Edwina’s eyes, into her hair and ears. She tries to scrub them away with the back of her wrist but they keep coming and eventually she gives up. She cried loads after she broke off her engagement with Anthony. She has done everything she can to avoid tears since, and it occurs to her that maybe she needs to cry. At least a little.

Then Penelope’s face appears in her vision. “You okay, babe?” she asks, leaning over her.

Edwina wonders how many times Penelope has had to ask her that this evening and she feels embarrassed. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

Penelope shakes her head, gives her a crooked smile. “I cried for like two hours after Colin dommed me for the first time.”

“So did I,” Colin offers and Edwina manages a little laugh.

“Let’s get comfy,” Penelope suggests. “Help me get her up, Colin.”

Edwina wants to protest – she’s not a baby – but before she can Colin is scooping her up and plopping her onto the soft sofa into the pile of colourful cushions Penelope must have bought. She feels herself melt and sink into the squish of the couch, her limbs relaxing. Maybe, she thinks, it is okay to be baby just this once.

Penelope curls up next to her, winding her arms around Edwina’s waist and resting her head on her shoulder. Colin is cradled around Penelope’s other side. He’s put his boxers back on (which Edwina is grateful for – it’s one thing to see his cock in the heat of the moment, but it feels altogether another to see it soft. She doesn’t know how she would look him in the eye next time she is invited to Bridgerton Sunday lunch after seeing him naked and flaccid. Far too vulnerable). And he’s got his phone out, ordering them food whilst Penelope holds Edwina close, her slow breaths against Edwina’s collar bone.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to not, like… kissing you all the time,” Penelope says softly, hesitantly, her fingers tracing patterns on Edwina’s waist. “Now I know how nice it is.” She presses her lips to Edwina’s jaw – just the ghost of a kiss, but it makes Edwina’s chest ache.

This is love, isn’t it? Maybe not romantic – maybe something else, other – but it is still love.

“Well, maybe we could… do this again?” Edwina manages, her voice shaking. It feels frightening to want this, to ask for it, but she feels proud of herself for being brave. For doing it anyway.

Penelope raises her head, her sweet little face lighting up. “Yeah,” she says, her lips curving into a shy smile. “I’d like that.” She turns to Colin, who is still focused on his phone. “Right, Colin?”

He doesn’t look up. “Yeah,” he agrees, deadpan. “Maybe next time you can show Pen how to fuck me.”

That makes Edwina laugh properly; Penelope squeals and shoves him with her foot. He flashes them a gorgeous, wicked smile and tosses his phone onto the sofa.

“I’d really like that, too,” he says warmly, sincerely. “You’re kind of a miracle, Ed.”

That makes Edwina’s cheeks hot. “Just please don’t tell Kate?” she asks, biting her lip.

Colin snorts and raises his eyebrows. “If you don’t tell Ant.”

Edwina laughs, and they shake on it over Penelope’s head.

Yes, she thinks. This is love.

Colin orders way too much food but Edwina manages to finish it all, suddenly ravenous, so Colin gets them more snacks from the kitchen. She eats slice after slice, then little stuffed arancini balls and finally more of the prosciutto wrapped around drooling, fridge-cold melon. They balance the pizza boxes on Penelope’s belly and practically eat it off her, laughing when Colin gets tomato sauce on her tit and has to lick it off. Edwina feels giggly and wobbly, as if she could cry or laugh at any minute.

When she suggests she should get a taxi home, Colin tells her she’s being ridiculous – they have a perfectly good spare room. So she agrees, borrows one of Penelope’s sleep T-shirts and curls herself up in the big spare bed. The sheets are crisp and expensive, and Penelope brings her one of her fluffy cushions to cuddle up with. She sleeps more deeply than she has in weeks.

The next morning Colin makes them all breakfast, and when it is time for Edwina to leave they both kiss her cheek sweetly, Colin giving her a really nice, long hug that makes her want to cry. She is about to walk out the door when Penelope runs over and kisses her on the mouth as if she cannot help herself, and when she pulls away they are both blushing.

The morning is bright blue, the sky somewhere in between the blue of Penelope and Colin’s eyes. It’s early enough that it is still a little chilly and Edwina tugs on the bottom of yesterday’s dress, wishing she’d borrowed some tights from Penelope.

She could get a taxi but she decides against it, decides to walk through the park and let the sun and the cold battle it out over her skin. Her limbs ache from last night but it’s a good burn, the kind that makes her want to stretch, lean into the pain. After a while she realises she is crying again, tears dribbling down her neck. She lets them fall.

Then she pulls out her phone.

“Hi, didi.”

“Bon? Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” Edwina sniffles and smiles. “I’m really good.”

“Are you sure? Your voice sounds –”

“I’m okay,” she says, the concern in her sister’s words making her chest ache. In a good way, she thinks. “I’m really okay.”

“Okay, bon.” Kate sounds doubtful but she doesn’t push. That’s new, Edwina thinks. In the past she would have pushed. “So why did you call? Not that I’m not happy to hear from you, it’s just been a while, so –”

“What are you doing today?” Edwina asks, shutting off her sister’s anxious roll.

“Not much. I was going to try to show Anthony how to make kheer.”

Edwina laughs. It is a little wet. “You hate kheer.”

“Yeah, but he loves rice pudding and I wanted to show him how superior the Indian version is.”

Edwina takes a deep breath. “Do you need any help?”

There is a pause. Edwina can practically hear her sister’s mind whirring. Edwina has not spent any time with just the three of them – Kate, Anthony, Edwina – since everything happened.

“I’d love that, bon.”

The gratitude in Kate’s voice makes Edwina’s throat feel thick, more tears flooding silently from her eyes. She shifts her hold on her phone, her hand sweating a little.

“Okay. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

By the time she hangs up, the sun has warmed the air in Hyde Park. Edwina pauses and tips her face to the sunshine, letting it warm her skin even though her legs are still a bit chilly. She sweeps her tears away, and keeps walking.