Three Made in Heaven [Made in Heaven] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

Before long, they had her squealing with glee as they took turns pushing her on the swings. The boys then took to performing death-defying stunts on the swings and the bar on top. Maddie giggled when Cole was upside down hanging from the bar. She half expected Baloo to come along and do a song and dance with him.

They laughed and played in the park until the scenery swirled around them, signifying the end of their dream. They stood in a circle, smiling at one another and holding hands until the dream had faded.

Maddie didn’t dream about them every night. Sometimes days, weeks, and even months, though that was rare, passed by in between, but she no longer worried that she would never see them again. As the years went by, her diaries and sketchbooks became filled with adventures she experienced with them. Every time they saw each other, it was at a different location. Sometimes they were places that one of them had actually been to, while others were just fusions of their collective imagination.

Progressively, they discovered more and more details about each other. For instance, Charlie lived in Florida but would soon be moving to San Francisco with his parents. Maddie let them know she was from upstate New York. Cole had three dogs and couldn’t wait to one day become a veterinarian. And all three of them were only children.

* * * *

“So what was it like for you?” Charlie asked, snapping Maddie out of her reverie. His voice sounded tight and controlled. “The kiss, I mean.”

“Oh, you know, it was okay,” she replied in a tone that suggested she was already bored discussing it. “He was kind of slobbery. I thought it would be better.”

Charlie and Cole, being seventeen and eighteen respectively, had already had their share of kisses and so much more. Though they never boasted about their conquests, they shared them openly with each other, perhaps just leaving out the finer details. There were no secrets between the three of them. No dream or fantasy that they could not share with one another if they wanted to. But suddenly Cole and Charlie were wrapped in their own private conversation as they sat in the Tacoma Dome watching a concert.

“Wow, Cole! I can’t believe you saw U2 in concert yesterday,” Maddie said. She glanced behind her and noticed that Charlie and Cole were whispering, but decided to ignore them. She was too busy jumping up and down, singing and swaying to the music, as her favorite band played just for them. She had the front row all to herself while Charlie and Cole sat directly behind her. “They’re amazing. Just wow!”

The stadium was empty of course, except for them and the band. And though the music was loud, it wasn’t as loud as an actual concert would have been. No earplugs required. Charlie and Cole each had a beer in hand, though they wouldn’t let Maddie drink. They laughed heartily when she pouted and said, “You guys are like the big brothers I never wanted. Oh, and you two aren’t old enough to drink either by the way. And, this”—she gestured wildly—“is a freakin’ dream. It’s not like I can actually get freakin’ drunk. Oh, and you two are not the bosses of me.”

“And a surly teenager is born!” Maddie ignored Cole’s comment and didn’t bother with a reply. She was fully aware of losing that battle, though at first she thought that Charlie would have eventually given in. Cole was usually the responsible diplomatic one, while Charlie just wanted them to let loose and run rampant.

“What’s eating her?”

“A bit of bad kissing, I would say,” Cole replied without humor.

Maddie never shied away from voicing her opinion. She was smart, strong willed, and very spunky. Her boys loved that about her. But she was also somewhat shy and reserved when it came to the opposite sex. Charlie and Cole, being her best friends, were the exception. She had once told them that she wished she had friends in the waking world who she could talk to and be herself with as freely and easily as she was with the two of them and how she hated feeling completely awkward around boys. So while Charlie and Cole had discussed their various dates or girlfriends, even though neither of them had ever been serious with anyone, Maddie just listened or chimed in whenever she could offer any advice. Now that it was her turn to “kiss and tell,” she had a hard time classifying the feelings that Charlie and Cole were emitting. There was a hint of possessiveness in their tone of voice. Or were they just being overprotective? Or could they possibly be jealous? It certainly seemed that they did not like the idea of their Maddie kissing boys.

Maddie had fantasized about getting her first kiss ever since she hit puberty. To say that she had been disappointed with Sean’s delivery was an understatement. And if she were being honest with herself, it wasn’t just because Sean’s kiss was slobbery. His lips were simply not the lips that she secretly desired, or rather the two sets of lips she secretly desired. She wasn’t surprised at the amount of girls who chased after both Charlie and Cole at their high schools. She was definitely jealous though.
Ha! Leave it to me to be jealous of girls chasing the boys I most likely made up.

Maddie had witnessed firsthand how both boys had grown into their hunky teenaged selves. Rippling muscles were starting to define arms and chests. She would be hard pressed to find any remainder of Charlie’s baby fat. And she could swear that boy shot up past six feet overnight and he was still growing. He had even surpassed Cole, who had always been quite tall. And Cole, well her jungle boy could give Tarzan a run for his money with his well-defined, lightly bronzed skin and come-hither pools of deep dark chocolate eyes. Not to mention his luscious full lips and thick dark mane. How could any boy possibly ever live up to the standards set by her dream boys?

“So are you going to see him again?” Charlie asked trying to sound casual, but failing miserably.

“Hmm? Oh, you mean Sean. I don’t know, maybe. We’ll see.”

“But you just said he was a bad kisser,” Cole said incredulously.

“Well, you know what they say, practice makes perfect.”

* * * *

Charlie was not happy about the turn of events, and by the look on Cole’s face, neither was he. Soon guys would be lining up, if they weren’t already, now that she had opened up her Pandora’s Box. Their Maddie was becoming more and more beautiful with each passing dream. She had long thick waves of dark brown hair, stunning hazel eyes, a button nose, and a natural pout to her very sexy full lips. Not to mention the fact that her petite frame was developing quite nicely. No, Maddie’s boys were not happy at all.

Three years later

“A mime, Maddie? A fucking mime?” Cole griped. “Charlie, don’t you even dare start with that cheesy joke or so help me, I will dump this froufrou cappuccino on your head if you do.”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” Charlie said holding up his hands, palms facing forward. He gave Maddie a devilish wink, indicating that he had indeed been planning on busting out every cheesy line about mimes he could think of.

“What? They have mimes in Paris, don’t they?” Maddie asked innocently. She burst out laughing at the scowl on Cole’s face as the mime tried to get himself out of his imaginary box.

“Phew, he made it!” Charlie said, deadpan. “I was worried there for a minute.”

This time all three of them burst out laughing. Cole then threw a piece of his chocolate croissant at Charlie, who of course retaliated, and then a food fight ensued between the two of them. The mime dutifully ignored them and proceeded to put himself in more invisible but seemingly precarious situations.

“Sorry, guys,” Maddie began. “I’m just so excited about my trip to Paris next week. I can’t stop thinking about it. Besides, this is payback for the car show Charlie dreamt up last week. Were all those busty blondes really necessary?”

“Ha ha ha! Oh come on, you weren’t jealous were you?” Charlie said with a smirk then he threw another croissant at Cole. “Baby, those girls got nothing on you.”

Thankfully, the guys were too preoccupied to notice the flush on her face. Charlie’s comment and endearment sent a tingling sensation to the crown of her head, traveling down to the tips of her toes.

The setting was picturesque. They sat at a small outdoor café situated on a corner of the street. The awning was bright red with gold lettering. The tables ran along each side of the building, meeting together when they rounded the corner. And not one other person, except for the mime, inhabited their space. The sun was just starting to set, lighting a purple fire in the sky. And the Eiffel Tower was just a short distance away offering up a breathtaking view. Maddie wasn’t sure if this was an actual café in Paris, or a blended version of some of the cafés she had been looking up in her travel guides. At that moment, however, she couldn’t care less about the café, the Eiffel Tower, or the fact that Paris was just a first stop on her summer trip to Europe itinerary. All she noticed were the two gorgeous men in front of her, throwing pieces of pastry and laughing heartily at one another.

They made her heart and body ache with need. She had loved them both since she was nine years old and fell in love with them somewhere along the way. They each possessed qualities she both admired and desired in a man. Cole was good to the core, generous, responsible, and fiercely overprotective. After his father’s passing, he had taken on the man-of-the-house role. He looked after his mom when the grief almost overpowered her. Some of that protectiveness and take-charge attitude spilled over into his relationship with Maddie and Charlie. Cole also managed to turn Maddie into a mindless puddle whenever he opened up his mouth to sing. He had that kind of soulful sexy voice that would make women want to throw their panties at him.

Cole was often serious, whereas Charlie liked to keep things light and laid back. Despite some of the hardships Charlie endured as a kid, bouncing from one parent to the other, while caught in the crossfire of their bitter divorce, he still managed to provide levity in tense situations. He was funny and witty and so incredibly smart. In fact, he managed to skip two grades and graduated high school at the age of sixteen. What endeared him to Maddie even more was the way he tried to always turn a negative situation into a positive one. Charlie was like a bright beam of light for both Maddie and Cole.

Maddie never thought it possible to be so passionately and irrevocably in love with two people at the same time. She tried to rationalize that she felt that way about them only because Charlie and Cole did not exist outside of her own mind. In this one instance she was glad for it. She would never be able to choose between them if they both wanted her. And she would not allow herself to imagine the devastation she would feel if one or both of them didn’t.

On the other hand, if this was just her dream, what was stopping her from reaching across the table and then kissing Charlie, who sat closest to her, until they were both breathless? She could then jump over to Cole before he had time to react and do the same to him. Would they stop her or would they allow her to take this further, maybe even all the way? She held onto her virginity for eighteen years because there was no one she felt close enough to give it to. But she would gladly give it to the two men she loved most in the world. They had, after all, been the stars of every single one of her erotic fantasies. In the shower, she would imagine Cole’s lips trailing kisses along her neck, down and across her collarbone and back up along her jaw line. All the while his hands would expertly massage her breasts. Charlie would step up behind her and kiss the back of her neck before softly kissing and licking down her spine. His hands would travel from the sides of her waist around to her taut belly and further down to her—

“Maddie, are you with us?”

“Huh?” she squeaked.

“You were kind of staring off into space,” Charlie said. “What were you thinking so hard about?”

“Oh, sorry. Just my trip, I guess.” She wondered at how it was possible to feel damp between her legs in a dream.

“You and Angela better be careful over there,” Cole warned. “Damn it, Maddie! Don’t look at me like that. Two girls traipsing around Europe by themselves is dangerous. I am surprised your parents are even letting you go. I think I may need to have a talk with Dan.”

“Oh, you and my dad are on a first-name basis, are you?” she asked, sarcastically. “I happen to be an adult, Cole. And I am not an idiot,” she continued petulantly. She was, however, secretly glad that he was being so overprotective. He and Charlie both were actually. Charlie may have been silent at that moment, but Maddie did not miss the dark look he exchanged with Cole.

“Did you just use the word ‘traipsing’?” Maddie said jokingly to lighten the mood. “Jeez, Cole, you’re twenty-one, not fifty. You both could use a bit of traipsing!”

This time, the pastry pieces were directed solely at her.

She would have loved nothing more than for Charlie and Cole to accompany her and Angela on this trip. As long as Angela didn’t set any designs on either of her men, of course. She loved Angela, but in no way was she willing to share them with anyone.

Maddie and Angela had known each other since elementary school, but it wasn’t until their junior year of high school that they became close. Now Angela was her best girlfriend. Angela had been clueless about the existence of Charlie and Cole until she accidentally stumbled upon a few sketches of them during a sleepover at Maddie’s house. Maddie simply brushed them off as acquaintances, and Angela was gracious enough not to push her for an explanation.

“I promise I’ll be careful,” Maddie finally said to appease her men.

“What’s that damn buzzing sound?” Charlie asked.

“Alarm clock,” Maddie said. “Gotta go! It’s graduation day.”

“Good luck, baby girl.”

“We’re so proud of you.”

Maddie was usually the first one to leave the dream, but she figured it was because she had to get up the earliest. She was on the East Coast, while both Charlie and Cole were on the West. They had also learned to manage the dreams better over time. The created scene no longer dissipated when one of them had to leave.