Chapter 16: Lake Tahoe IV

Momentarily exhausted after everything we'd done, I left Brooke to slurp my jism out from Kenzie's unconscious body and sat back on my heels. DJ started pawing at my deflating prick, and popped her eyebrows at me with a smile that made me think she was about to start sucking me hard again. But I was thirsty and got up to find something to drink. My brain still buzzed from the evening's alcohol, and I practically floated across the floor into the kitchen. I got a tall glass, filled it with water, and chugged the entire thing in one go. Then I filled the glass up again and sauntered back to the living room, taking small sips and surveying the orgy before me.

Nick had bent both Dayna and Deedee over the couch's backrest, doing exactly what I would have done in his situation: taking turns fucking each of them for a minute or two before switching back and forth.

Dawn now sat in the armchair, her ass at the edge of the seat cushion with her legs flung over the armrests. Andrew loomed over her, happily pumping her pussy with an expression of absolute joy over completing his personal trifecta of Evans sisters.

Brooke had apparently finished hoovering out my cum, and she lay side-by-side with DJ on the shag rug snowballing my load between them. Kenzie was still out cold, sleeping off her orgasm on the rug right beside them.

Presently, Andrew groaned, stood back from the chair, and held Dawn's head in his hands as she dropped to her knees in front of him and swallowed every drop of sperm he shot into her mouth.

At least, I thought she'd swallowed it all. Instead, she tilted her head back and gaped her mouth open to show him the pool of cum she'd held inside. DJ noticed, urgently said something to Brooke, and my little sister hurried over to grab Dawn's head and hoover her boyfriend's jizz out from my best friend's mouth.

After that, Dawn laughed, stood up, and wiped her face. She saw me standing there with a glass of water and immediately bounced to her feet, skipping over to me with a fun-loving, happy expression on her face. I proffered the glass to her. She took it gratefully and chugged its remaining contents in one go. When I turned back to face the room, I was just in time to see Nick pull out of Dayna's snatch, have the girls spin around and start making out in front of him, and he pumped out quite a large load all over four mashed-together 36DD breasts. The busty blondes finished things off by licking each other's chest clean.

Andrew wound up slumped in the armchair, wiped out for the time being. He'd ejaculated twice, once into Dayna's pussy and once into Dawn's mouth, and that didn't even count Deedee sucking him hard and going for a ride in-between. Any man would consider this one of the highlight evenings of his very existence.

Nick similarly looked out of commission. He'd also cum twice, once into Brooke's box and once all over Dayna's and Deedee's four tits. Plus, Dawn had sucked him hard and fucked him in the middle of that as well.

But I'd only gotten off the one time, and when Dawn reached down to tickle my package with her fingertips, I started getting hard once more. Setting the empty glass down on a nearby table, my best friend sank to her knees and sucked my semi-hard schlong into her mouth, caving her cheeks in and bobbing her head back and forth for only a minute or two. But it only took a minute or two before I was rock hard and ready to go. So I pulled out of her mouth, took her by the hand, and led her back into the living room.

Actually, Dawn wound up leading me. Once we reached the couches, Dawn let go of my hand and took hold of my erection. Circling her thumb and forefinger around my shaft just behind the mushroom cap, she guided me forward to the one busty blonde I'd never been with and announced, "I know you've met, but you've never been formally introduced in quite this manner. Deedee, this impressive piece of manhood is Big Ben. Big Ben ... Deedee."

Nick's girlfriend smiled and reached out to grasp my penis. "Very pleased to meet you," she said to my prick, stroking it a couple of times in lieu of a handshake. Glancing back at her boyfriend, she asked, "You okay with this, baby?"

Nick shrugged and gestured for her to go ahead.

Letting go of my penis, Deedee stretched her arms out to the sides, posed for me prettily, and asked in a sultry voice, "How do you want me?"

I already knew my answer and pointed. "On the floor in front of that armchair, bent over on all fours, with your face in Dawn's pussy."

Deedee grinned. "I like the way you think."

Immediately, Dawn darted over to the other armchair next to Andrew's, flopped into it, scooted her ass to the edge of the seat cushion, and threw her legs over the armrests. She laughed and urgently beckoned for Deedee to join her, but rather than immediately sink to her knees, Deedee molded her naked body right on top of my best friend's, rubbing her pelvic bone over Dawn's clit and kissing the other blonde quite passionately. The visual perked up Andrew quite noticeably, as he sat up straighter and peered over at the pair from his front row seat. Brooke currently sat sideways in his lap, and she giggled while rubbing his chest, perhaps feeling something grow beneath her butt.

Meanwhile, Nick was all alone on the couch, or at least he WAS alone until DJ went and sat beside him. He looked tired and down for the count, but he still smiled an I-can't-believe-I'm-this-lucky smile when she slid her hand up his inner thigh and began playing with his spent cock.

I let Dawn and Deedee rub against each other while making out for a couple of minutes, happy to let them warm each other up. But when their passion started to level off, I approached Deedee from behind and slid my hands down her back in rubbing/massage motions from her shoulders down to let her know I was there. Then, I knelt on the floor, tugging on her thighs while pressing down on her lower back. Eventually, I got her standing with her legs locked straight and spread apart in an A-frame position while she bent over at the waist, giving me a good angle to lick her pussy from behind.

Deedee tasted sweet, her flavor more fruity than musky. Her butt wasn't quite as round and a little less pronounced than Dayna's; but it was a good bit firmer, most likely the result of additional exercise and gym time. I still had to pry her bubbly buttcheeks apart to give me enough room to stick my nose in her crack and lick her moist slit from behind. She responded quite happily with guttural moans when I introduced first one finger and then another into her snatch, lubricating the tips enough to reach around and start rubbing her clit while I continued to lick her sweet peach.

"Fuckin' déjà vu," Deedee muttered, hanging her head down and thrusting her ass back at my face. "Enough of that. Get up here and get inside me!"

"As you wish," I replied impulsively, the phrase reminding me of Kenzie. I immediately glanced over to the side and found that the redhead had awoken. She was still lying down across the shag rug, but had propped her head up on one elbow. She waved and blew me a kiss, apparently content to remain where she was. So I reached up to Deedee's hips, pulled her off Dawn and guided her into position on all fours. And then I slotted Big Ben at Deedee's gateway to heaven and slowly pushed myself inside.

"Oooh, yeah..." the busty blonde crooned as she felt my thick prod separating her folds inch by inch, all the way down until I was balls deep in a brand new pussy. But a moment later, her voice was cut off as Dawn grabbed Deedee's head and shoved it down into her crotch. I chuckled, a motion that made my dick jump inside Deedee's snatch, a motion that made her squirm and wiggle her butt against my pelvis.

Instinctively, I understood that after the initial coupling, Deedee liked to pause and get used to the feeling of being so full. So I stayed where I was, as deep as I could go, to let her savor these first few moments filled with cock. But eventually, she started to rock herself back and forth, encouraging me to similarly pump in and out of her, and so our fucking began.

I started out slow, with long, languid strokes that took me from full depth out to where only my mushroom cap kept me inside, and back again. She let me set the tempo, moaning into Dawn's pussy and absorbing each slow, thudding impact of my thighs against her padded butt. Her acquiescence gave me the freedom to lean over her and wrap my arms around her body, to get my hands on her swaying tits and squeeze them to my heart's content while continuing to pump my prick in and out of her tight pussy. But as time went on, Deedee began to push her butt back at me, meeting each forward thrust, and as she started to speed up, so did I.

"Ngh ... ngh ... ngh..." the blonde bombshell groaned, muttering into Dawn's pussy. Eventually, Deedee got distracted enough by my increasingly forceful thrusts that I realized she wasn't doing a very good job at that end, too focused on feeling the sensations of me pounding her from behind.

Dawn figured this out too, and after a while she dismounted the chair and flipped onto her back. It took a little maneuvering, but Dawn managed to slide herself backward and underneath Deedee's swaying body, putting the two of them into a sixty-nine so that Deedee could still occasionally give Dawn's pussy some attention, but more importantly Dawn could give Deedee a LOT of focused attention. Deedee's Big Ben and Dawn Experience had just begun.

At first, the three of us were the only act in town. Brooke's hand was busy in Andrew's crotch and he was fondling his girlfriend, but otherwise the pair just sat in the next armchair watching us. Things had progressed for DJ to start reviving Nick's dick with her mouth while he stared in rapt attention at me and Dawn fucking his girlfriend. And Dayna was just now returning to the living room from the kitchen with a couple of full water glasses.

But Dawn, Deedee, and I went through a few more positions. We rolled Deedee over flat on her back where I mounted her missionary-style while Dawn sat on her face, oriented back toward me so we could play with Deedee's breasts together and exchange playful kisses with each other. I moved up to stick my cock into Deedee's cleavage, mashing her melons around my rod while Dawn circled around to stick her tongue up Deedee's twat. And I rolled onto my back, letting Deedee bounce up and down on my pogo stick while Dawn molded herself behind her ex-girlfriend, kissing, nibbling, pawing, and rubbing Deedee's clit.

Nick's girlfriend must've orgasmed half a dozen times, to the point where she toppled off me after number 6 and sprawled out face-down across the rug. I don't know where she got it from, but Dawn produced a bottle of Astroglide and sat up in front of me with a smirk as she chirped merrily, "It's that time. She'll never be more relaxed than she is right now."

My eyes popped open wide as Dawn popped open the bottle. I watched her push the nozzle against Deedee's anus and give the bottle a squeeze before squirting out a dollop into her own palm and rubbing the lube all over my cock.

"Hey, gimme that next," Brooke groaned from behind me. I glanced back to find her riding her boyfriend's dick reverse-cowgirl in the armchair.

"Me, too," Dayna added from her spot on top of Nick's face. The big guy wasn't watching us anymore, lying flat on his back across the couch, which still wasn't long enough to accommodate his entire frame. But even though his legs draped over the far armrest, his head and torso were level across the cushions, enough for Dayna to get her pussy eaten while DJ humped up and down his renewed erection.

"Are you kidding me?" DJ exclaimed to her sister in disbelief, pausing with Nick's dong completely inside her pussy. Grimacing, she remarked, "This thing is thick. It'll tear your ass apart!"

"It's not THAT much thicker than Ben's," Dayna insisted.

"Your funeral," DJ drawled. "Big Ben is my maximum butthole limit."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it."

DJ simply shook her head and resumed humping.

By then, I was already easing my cock into Deedee's poop chute. The blonde girl panted softly, still face-down across the rug with her arms and legs extended outward, and her eyes fluttered rapidly as my dick continued its descent into her bowels. Her fingertips were crooked against the rug, as if attempting to bunch up bedsheets, and she groaned from the bottom of her gut as she felt the last couple inches of her anal chute get stretched open wide. And finally, I was all the way in.

"Ohhh ... fucccckkkk..." Deedee moaned when I stopped, closing her eyes and soaking in the sensations, much like after I'd first penetrated her pussy.

Dawn glanced up at her big sister. "You sure you wanna try that? I'll be honest: both Deedee and I have done it with Nick ... exactly once each. You think your body can handle anything, but as much as I love having a dick up my ass, size DOES matter."

"Anything you can do, I can do better," Dayna announced confidently as she leaned back into the corner of the couch, her ass at the edge of the seat cushion while she raised both knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her thighs to hold them there. Meanwhile, DJ finished adding lube to her pussy juices already on Nick's big dick, and she cleaned her hands with a damp washcloth Dawn had provided while Dawn closed up the Astroglide bottle's cap.

"Ohhh ... fucccckkkk..." Brooke moaned behind me, copying Deedee's phrase as she sat her asshole down on her boyfriend's dick.

Copying my playbook from first fucking Deedee's pussy, I started out slow, with long, languid strokes that took me from full depth in her bowels out to where only my mushroom cap kept me inside her tight sphincter, and back again. She let me set the tempo, moaning and drooling a bit into the rug, absorbing each slow, thudding impact of my thighs against her padded butt. At first, I locked my arms and planted my hands on the floor to either side of her prone body beneath me, making it so that my dick drilling down into her depths was our only point of physical contact. But as time went on, she gradually began to rock her body back to meet me, and finally she got her knees beneath her to thrust her butt up into the air, allowing me to plant my feet on the ground and REALLY start rapidly reaming her out.

"Fuuuuck ... fuuuuck ... fuuuuck..." Deedee grunted with each thrust, her voice filled with pleasure.

"Unghhh ... unghhh ... unghhh..." Brooke groaned with almost the same rhythm, as if she were matching her own strokes to mine. She also sounded like she was very much enjoying herself.

"Owwwwww!!! Fucking FUCK!" Dayna spat in obvious pain, digging the back of her head into the backrest of the couch, her eyes clenched tight with several tears rolling down her cheeks as Nick leaned a little further against her crotch.

"You want me to stop?" he asked in obvious concern.

"Not on your life!" Dayna yelled back at him, but she immediately grimaced in anguish. "It's already fucking in."

"We each did it exactly once," Dawn reminded her sister with a knowing grin. "We wised up after that. Kinda why I wanted to let Deedee try Ben on for size."

Speaking of Deedee, she was howling "Fuck! Fuuuuuuck!" as I started pounding her ass harder and harder, and she started pounding the floor with her right fist. The size seemed to fit.

"Unghh! Unghh! Unghh!" Brooke groaned before suddenly yelping, "Kenzie? Ohhh!"

Still trying to maintain my oil derrick pace, I glanced back to find my smokin' hot redhead had gotten up and stuck her face into my little sister's crotch, perhaps returning the favor from earlier as she licked Brooke's clit like crazy while Andrew continued pumping his cock up my sister's butt.

"Holy ... fucking... shit!" Dayna shouted, still trying to absorb Nick's slow, inevitable, inexorable lunges. DJ had re-opened the bottle of Astroglide, drizzling more onto Nick's dick each time he pulled out in an attempt to help relieve the friction. I made a mental note to avoid Dayna's ass for a couple of weeks after this. The big guy seemed to be literally tearing up that ass.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Deedee exclaimed, drawing my attention back down. I was hammering her harder and harder now, really going to town as I sodomized the shit out of her. Dawn slipped in beside us and slipped her hand beneath Deedee's body, finding and rubbing her friend's clit. My anal paramour moaned and whimpered beneath me, her ecstasy spiked by Dawn's attentions. A sudden thought came into my head, and after wrapping both arms around Deedee's midsection, I pinned her against my crotch and rolled onto my back, taking her with me without dislodging my dick from her rectum.

"Whaaaa--?!?" Deedee squealed at the unexpected movement. She flopped against my chest and accidentally bonked the back of her head against my chin. But I ignored the pain, flattened my feet on the rug with my knees up in the air, and started hammering my dick upwards to continue skewering the busty blonde's butthole while spreading her knees open to the sides.

Dawn needed no verbal instructions to know she should get between Deedee's open thighs. She quickly bent over and wrapped her lips around our mutual lover's budding clit. She slammed two fingers into the poor girl's cunt, pumping them in and out in such a way that it almost felt like she was massaging MY dick through the thin wall separating Deedee's vagina from her anal tract.

From beneath her, I reached up to grab onto Deedee's big breasts, squeezing and fondling and tweaking her nipples to my heart's content. I kept pounding away at her butt while Dawn ate her out with a fury, and suddenly she tightened up atop me to scream her seventh orgasm of this one round alone.

"No more ... no more..." Deedee whimpered after that, her body wilting atop mine while she sweated profusely. Her head lolled off my shoulder and dropped onto the rug, and I had to tighten my grip on her tits just to keep her from sliding off my chest.

I exchanged a look with Dawn, who shrugged in seeming acquiescence to Deedee's request. She sat back on her heels and withdrew her fingers from Deedee's cunt. But an impish thought came into my head, and with my best approximation of Brooke's Evil Grin™, I caught Dawn's eye again and muttered, "One more. Just ONE more. DJ come help us."

Mostly idle ever since Nick had started butt-fucking Dayna, the youngest Evans sister immediately dropped down next to us. DJ grabbed Deedee's limp head and held it in place while shoving her tongue into the poor girl's mouth. And she took over mauling Deedee's breasts while I relocated mine down to Deedee's waist, using my grip as leverage to fuck her ass even harder than before, not holding back a thing.

Dawn resumed licking and fingerbanging, and within a minute or two we had Deedee sobbing and whimpering and lolling her head around at the absolute limits of exhaustion. With a roar, I suddenly rolled us over again, with Dawn and DJ backing out of the way so that I could pin Deedee face-down and flat on the rug, completely helpless to resist as I cornholed the shit out of her.

Exhausted or not, the busty blonde bombshell found enough energy to scream in anguish at my unrelenting assault. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Nick looming over us, probably worried about what the hell I was doing to his girlfriend. But Deedee's scream abruptly cut off as my left hand abruptly covered her nose and mouth. The poor girl shuddered beneath me before stiffening up from the instinctive panic anyone gets when their air supply is suddenly cut off, and I could feel her entire body tense up as she struggled to breathe.

Over and over again I hammered her poor asshole with my cock, slamming it down to full depth before pulling it out entirely from her lewdly-stretched sphincter and slamming it right back in. Once, I missed, and I had to re-aim and fire, but apart from that one hiccup I did exactly what I wanted to do to her.

Anal sensations pounded Deedee's overworked brain, mingling with the adrenaline rush of asphyxiation panic, and her entire body twitched and shuddered epileptically. Just then, I slammed myself down as far as I could go and let the floodgates open, pouring out a river of jism down into the deepest depths of her bowels. And at the same time, I managed to squeeze my right hand between her pelvis and the shag rug, enough to bracket her clit and give it a good strum.

Deedee came for an eighth time, an orgasm so powerful that it snapped her head back and she nearly bonked into my chin again. I let go of her mouth, letting her gasp for air, and she continued twitching and spasming in the final throes of ecstasy while I fired wad after wad of spunk into her clenching anal cavity.

And then she collapsed, out cold, her eyes shut but a dreamy expression of ultimate satisfaction on her face.

Gasping for oxygen, I let myself drop down onto Deedee's naked back, lacking any reserve energy to do anything else. I lay there atop her, panting while my eyeballs rolled around in odd directions within their sockets. But when my vision finally came back into focus, I found Nick squatting right beside us, staring at his girlfriend with obvious concern.

"Is she okay? What the hell did you do to her?" the big guy asked in alarm.

"She's fine," Dawn replied immediately, reaching up to soothingly stroke his arm. "She's unconscious, but it's from pleasure overload. See the big smile on her face?"

I laughed. "The Tri-Delts called it the 'Assfuckxiation'."

"The who?"

I waved him off. "Nevermind."

Dawn glanced around the room, triggering me to do the same. Brooke was slumped in Andrew's lap, him hugging her from behind while his spent dick slowly deflated within her butt. Dayna was curled up in a fetal position on the couch, grimacing in pain while Kenzie stroked her forehead and shook her head in disbelief. And the rest surrounded me and Deedee.

Dawn touched Nick's shoulder and told him, "I think we're all done here. Why don't you carry Deedee into the shower and get her cleaned up? She's gonna sleep soooo well tonight."

Kenzie came over to me. "You too, Mr. Sex God. I know you've gotta be done for the night, so let's get you cleaned up and put to bed."

I rolled off of Deedee's back, my cock exiting her gaping asshole with a wet squelching sound. But flat on my back, I laughed to the ceiling and gave Kenzie a look. "Momentarily exhausted, yes. But done for the night? That was only two ejaculations. You really don't know me yet, do you?"

-- MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2007 --

Unlike Saturday night, when one of the Evans sisters joined each of the three established couples, we actually used all four bedrooms last night. Nick and Deedee stayed in the master bedroom by themselves, Deedee sleeping off her Assfuckxiation. Brooke and Andrew were alone in Bedroom #2, perhaps valuing their intimacy after a wild evening swapping partners. And Dawn and Dayna actually stayed in Bedroom #3, Dayna recovering from her own anal adventure and Dawn staying with her for moral support.

DJ had already made it clear that she wanted to join me and Kenzie, mostly because she was still horny after not getting fucked very much during the orgy, and I was the only cock still in working order. Kenzie was likewise still pretty horny, having spent a good chunk of the orgy unconscious and drooling on the floor. So the three of us managed the tight squeeze of fitting into the shower together to clean off, and then we went into my bedroom to continue fucking each other's brains out.

DJ got her first cumload of the evening when I creampied her doggy-style while she ate out Kenzie in front of her. The girls gave me a dual blowjob that started with them trying to top each other's deep-throat capabilities once again, and ended when Kenzie hopped on to go for a ride while DJ sat on my face. And I finished by bending both girls side-by-side over the edge of the bed, banging them from behind one after the other, switching back and forth until Kenzie won the lottery and I busted my fourth nut of the night deep inside her pussy. Then we all fell asleep.

I woke up early again in the morning and snuck out from between my two sleeping beauties. They were quite different from each other, Kenzie the eldest girl in the house and DJ nearly the youngest, only older than Brooke by a matter of weeks. DJ had the sunny blonde hair and face of an angel atop a body of comic book proportions: tall, slender, and yet impossibly busty. Kenzie was of more average height, with striking looks and fiery red hair. I wasn't searching for any special insight, I simply admired the pair of them while they slept, and then I slipped out from the room in search of coffee.

Unlike yesterday, Dawn hadn't beaten me into the kitchen, so I had to start the first batch. I was apparently the only one awake, so after the coffee finished, I filled my travel mug and grabbed my jacket getting ready to head back down to the lake, hoping that perhaps she might join me again.

But I was just leaving the kitchen and heading to the patio doors when DJ emerged from the hallway, wearing long-sleeved button-down pajamas that did a woeful job of trying to contain her braless tits. Her 34DDs strained the fabric of her top, making it impossible to close the top button, and the size of her breasts created a peekaboo gap between the next two buttons as well, offering me tantalizing glimpses of her bare boobs.

She gave me a smile before heading into the kitchen, and I didn't want to leave her, so instead of heading outside, I took my coffee over to the bench seat in front of the east-facing bay window to enjoy the glorious lake view, starting to light up with the sunrise. A minute later, DJ came out with a steaming ceramic mug. I offered her a 'good morning' while she settled down on the opposite end of the bench seat from me, sitting up against the wall and raising her legs onto the bench so that our feet were touching. I recoiled at first; her toes were cold.

"You got up early," she stated between sips of her coffee.

"Incredible deduction, Miss Sherlock," I replied, taking a sip of my own.

DJ shook her head as if I didn't understand. "What I meant was: I'd planned on giving you a wake-up blowjob, but when I opened my eyes, you were already gone."

"For some weird reason, I've been getting up really early these past couple of days. Maybe it's the unfamiliar bed." I chuckled and gestured toward my crotch. "If you still want to, I'm unlikely to say 'no'."

She sighed and shook her head again. "Not the point. Even that little idea didn't end up going according to plan. Story of my life."

"Huh?"

"You know what?" DJ sighed and shook her head. "You're up, I'm up, but nobody else is up. Sounds like a good time for us to have a talk."

"Ooh, that sounds ominous." I meant it as a joke, but DJ sighed wearily and looked out the window. So sitting up a little straighter, I gave her a perplexed look and asked, "Oh, is it actually something bad?"

"Not 'bad' per se," she hedged, but her expression didn't inspire confidence. Taking a deep breath and exhaling wearily, she returned her gaze to me and explained, "I've turned into a broken record."

"Broken record?" I arched an eyebrow, clearly not understanding.

Shaking her head, she gave me a look filled with such abject sorrow that I immediately felt the urge to reach over and give her a hug. In fact, I started to do so, but she held up a hand between us and gave me a wide-eyed, almost frightened look, that stopped me in my tracks. "Don't," she pleaded. "Not yet. Not unless you really mean it."

"Mean what?"

DJ sighed again, and returned her gaze out the window. She took another sip of her coffee, collecting her thoughts. And finally, she looked back at me, saying, "We'll always be friends. We'll always be Family. Our circumstances have most definitely changed, but our love remains the same, right?"

"Riiight," I replied very slowly, though I didn't yet understand.

"I'm twenty-one now, and I'll be twenty-two in a few more months. I'm about to graduate. I'm going to move out and get a job. I'm not a kid anymore, not a little girl with a crush on her big sister's boyfriend. I've opened my eyes, and I'm not blinded by childish fantasies anymore. I've grown up. And I thought I'd..." Her voice trailed off as she took another deep breath and slowly exhaled it. "I thought I'd grown over you."

"Haven't you?" I arched an eyebrow. "We talked about this a few months ago, about enjoying our relationship for what it IS instead of complaining about what our relationship ISN'T."

"We did." DJ nodded. "But that was before."

"Before what?"

She sighed. "Before you and Adrienne broke off your engagement. Before Sasha went with her. Before Dayna stopped being your official girlfriend."

I frowned. "What are you saying?"

Glancing up at the heavens as if something up there could help her, she barked a short laugh and shook her head in disbelief. "I'm saying ... that you're single and I'm a broken record."

"I'm still not following."

Shaking her head, DJ grabbed at the long locks of silky blonde hair hanging over her right shoulder and started absentmindedly braiding it into a pigtail. "I've been here before: waiting in the wings for your current relationship to implode so I can pick you up on the rebound. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I love you, Ben, and I'll always love you, but we keep dancing this dance that goes around and around and around. The results are always the same."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that no matter how many times I step off the hamster wheel and tell myself it's for the very last time, I always get back on one way or another."

"Broken record? Hamster wheel?"

"No matter how many times it happens, and no matter how many times I keep telling myself not to, the instant I find out you're available, I keep falling right back in love with you."

Both my eyebrows rose. "You're in love with me again?"

"I'm in love with you again," she muttered dispiritedly.

"You say that like it's the end of the world."

"Kinda feels that way." Biting her lower lip, she finished braiding the pigtail on her right and wrapped both arms around her upraised knees. Setting her cheek down on top of them, she closed her eyes and tried valiantly not to cry.

"Deej..." The urge to hug her came over me again, and this time she didn't stop me. I set my coffee aside, set one foot down on the floor, and leaned forward to wrap myself around her.

The dam burst and DJ's tears started flowing down her cheeks. She pushed her face into my chest, muffling her sobs with my shirt. I held her tight, squeezed her tighter, and stroked her back as soothingly as I could. She shuddered in my arms, and for a long couple of minutes, nothing further was said.

But eventually, her shuddering stopped and the sobbing quieted. When she finally went still beneath me, I backed up and loosened my grip enough for her to uncoil her body and sit up straight, so that she was staring at me from only inches away.

Her eyes were red and still full of moisture, her face the picture of abject misery. I wanted to help her, wanted to comfort her, so when she darted forward and sealed her lips over mine for a fierce, supervolcanic kiss, I returned it with just as much passion and love. I wanted her to feel better, not worse. So I kissed her back and held her in my arms, willing her to understand that I'd always, always be here for her. Because I really did LOVE her.

But three seconds later, she tore herself away and pivoted in her seat, dropping her legs off the edge of the bench and hunching forward with her face in her hands and her elbows on her knees. "No, don't," she muttered in despair. "Don't do that unless you really mean it."

"I DO mean it," I insisted, reaching out to her shoulder.

But she shrugged my hand off. "You really love me?"

"Of course I really love you. You're my DJ."

She suddenly whirled back to me, eyes wide and a little scary. She bit her lip, her whole body quivering, and suddenly burst out, "Will you marry me?"

Her question rocked my head back. Heck, it rocked my whole body back, and I found myself pressed up against the wall behind me. "Wait, what?"

"Will you marry me?" she repeated, fully turning to face me and bringing her legs up onto the bench, bent at the knees and pointed toward the bay window. She leaned forward, planting both palms on the bench between us. "It's our second chance – or third, or fourth, or whatever – I've lost count. It's MY second chance to regain what I threw away."

I gave her a confused look. "Where is this coming from? We talked about this, about being friends with benefits. About being Family. I thought we were in a good place with each other."

Shaking her head dejectedly, DJ muttered, "You don't want to marry me."

"I want ... I want..." I sighed. "I want to understand what's going through your head."

"What's going through my head is that I'm a fucking broken record."

"Apparently. That's the third time you've said that."

DJ gave me a sullen look and started absentmindedly braiding the hair on her left. "I can't help it. I can't let go of you. I thought I'd come so far. I thought I'd finally broken free. I let go of Dawn's dream, let go of the idea that I had to be your girlfriend, your wife, in order to live the perfect life that I thought she had. I accepted my place in your life as a little sister, and for a while, I was content with that."

"But not anymore?"

Staring off into space away from me, she continued to braid her hair and muttered, "Adrienne and Sasha left you. Then Dayna. I'd been ready to move up; I'd been ready to join the harem. But all of a sudden there WAS no more harem. All of a sudden you were available again. The opportunity to be your Number One was right there again. You even asked me to become your new official girlfriend."

"And you told me to fuck off."

"I overreacted."

"No, you were right. I was being an insensitive ass."

She sighed. "I should have said 'yes'."

"What?"

"Maybe then I would have finally gotten what I always wanted: you." She finally turned to look at me again.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were over me."

"I thought I was, too. But then you became available again. You asked me to become your girlfriend once more, and the same old emotions got stirred up inside me. Even if I'd let go of Dawn's dream, maybe I could still have DJ's dream. I could still hope that someday, when we were both ready, you and I could be ... be together ... be each other's everything ... again."

"You can't be serious. You've always insisted you'd never be my rebound again."

"Every new relationship is a rebound, in some form. Let's face it: you were engaged to Adrienne. The only possible way I could ever be with you again would be if you two broke up and I got there next. 'Rebound'."

"But still, I thought you were done with me."

"Apparently not."

Taking a deep breath, I sighed and shook my head.

DJ sighed as well and finished braiding her hair. "I've talked a lot with Brooke about my feelings for you, and about your feelings for me. Her take is that you've only ever truly loved three people in your life, like really-really 'Now and Forever', let's get married True Love with capital letters and all that. And those three are Dawn, Adrienne, and me."

I popped my eyebrows, thinking of my conversation with Dawn last night about this very same topic, and the very same three girls.

"So Brooke said I had a choice," DJ continued. "I could think of myself as always stuck in third place behind the other two, your fallback should things not work out with either of them. Or, I could think of myself as one of only three women in the entire world you'd given your complete soul to. We know you would've married Dawn. And you've been engaged to both me and Adrienne."

"Brooke's right."

"Is she? There are two ways I can look at the situation: Either Adrienne breaking your engagement and Dawn committing herself to the idea of being just best friends is yet another example of your Top 2 options removing themselves from the field, leaving you with nothing left but to 'settle' for me. Or, I can look at your Top 2 removing themselves from the field as an opportunity, one of the few very small windows in which I've been given a chance to make you mine, and quite possibly, finally make it stick."

"Is that what this is about? You taking the opportunity to ... to get me while you can?"

DJ sighed again, closing her eyes and planting her face into her right palm. A moment later, she started rubbing her forehead. "That was the idea at least. I knew I blew the opportunity to be your Holiday Party date on Wednesday. Did you know Brooke talked me into changing my mind about that? I was going to ask Dawn to let me go with you instead, but you called to cancel because Adrienne came back before I got the chance to ask. Then the next day I found out Adrienne had arranged for Dawn to go spend the night with you after the party, and I got left behind again."

"Deej, I didn't know."

"Doesn't matter." Shaking her head, she continued, "Then I came up here on this trip planning to spend some quality time with you, to make time for us to talk, to figure out where you and I stand and find out if there's a chance anymore that we can find that Happily Ever After we've both been dreaming about. But things didn't work out that way."

"Because of Kenzie."

"Because you went grocery shopping with Dawn on Friday night and went straight into your bedroom to fuck each other's brains out instead of joining us in the hot tub," DJ corrected. "I still came to give you a morning blowjob and get something started on Saturday morning. But then you met Kenzie at the ski resort and made it obvious to absolutely everyone that you intended to have a fun winter fling and get yourself into her panties by nightfall. When the group split in half, some to go on the black diamonds and some to stay on the easier courses, I made sure to pick whichever one you did. But then Dawn said she wanted to stay on the intermediates at the last fucking second and asked you to switch with her, and what was I supposed to do? Change my mind at the last second too and make it obvious I was following you?"

"We didn't intend--"

"What you 'intended' doesn't matter," she interrupted bitterly. "What I 'intended' for this entire weekend never happened. Kenzie ended up being the one to roll around in the snow with you, sticking her tongue down your throat and making people up in the chairlifts jealous to see how happy you were with her. Kenzie made it obvious she was spending Saturday night in your room. When she drove off with Brooke to get her bag, I offered to have that shower quickie with you, but you turned me down, and I later found out that Dawn had hopped into the tub with you. THAT wasn't intended, was it? And even AFTER Kenzie came back, Dayna somehow finds her way into bed with you. THAT wasn't intended, either! And then came the disaster that was last night."

"Last night? A disaster? I thought we ALL had fun together last night."

"I know YOU did. Three guys and six girls? I know that's your kind of ratio."

"As if you don't like girls, either."

"But I wasn't any DIFFERENT from the other girls. I was just one of six. That round robin of topless kissing in the hot tub? I was just one of the girls, my kisses no better, no worse, than your kisses with any one of them."

"You're ALL unique."

"You're trying too hard to be politically correct about this."

"But you ARE."

"Well maybe I want to be unique AND special."

"You ARE special."

"Well, more special than anyone else. But it didn't work out that way, did it? I tried to stay close to you when the orgy broke out and everyone started switching partners. I wanted to express my love for you and show you I can fuck you as good if not better than anyone else. But then Kenzie took my blowjobs as a challenge and she had to show off for you. She's got skills – I'll give her that – but then she also went and got you to fuck her first."

"And I fucked you immediately after that."

"But you didn't finish with me. You got me off to a nice orgasm, yes, but then you went back to Kenzie, brought her down onto the rug, and made her pass out. Don't get me wrong, she's a perfectly nice girl with a wicked tongue and a sweet-tasting pussy. I've got nothing against her personally, and I even tried my best to be a good sidekick for you. But that's it: I was never more than your sidekick, and you never even fucked me again until the whole orgy was over and we went back to your room."

I sighed. "I didn't know you were feeling neglected."

DJ shrugged. "I didn't tell you because I figured I shouldn't have to tell you. If you'd had strong feelings for me, if you'd thought of me as a partner, it would be automatic for me to stay by your side. But you don't, and I'm not, and I didn't. Even last night, I made sure I stayed with you and her, trying to stay close by, but it felt like I barely existed."

"I DID think of you as a partner. I asked you to come help me with both Kenzie AND Deedee last night."

"Well maybe I didn't want to be the helper. Maybe I wanted to be the girl getting fucked!"

"MAYBE you shoulda SAID something!" I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Didn't we talk about you not doing this passive-aggressive bullshit anymore? The 'I want him and I need him but I'm gonna get upset if he doesn't notice and come to me on his own'?"

DJ sighed. "We did, and I admit I'm still being passive-aggressive. I admit that I'm being a fucking broken record about this, doing the same shit and dancing the same dance I've been doing with you for years. But that doesn't make my feelings any less true."

I scowled. "You're complaining about the way things turned out, but if you had just said something, maybe things would have turned out differently."

"If I had said something, I could only ever believe you were paying me more attention because I asked for it, not because you really WANTED to do it all on your own."

"If you really WANT something, you have to FIGHT for it. You have to communicate what the hell it is you want! And if you can't even fight for me, if you're gonna hide your feelings all day instead of telling me what you want, what does that say about how much you really want me in the first place?"

"It says I don't think love is supposed to be this hard! I think if two people truly want to be together, they make it happen together. I've spent my whole life trying to get you to notice me, trying to get you to love me, biding my time with stupid boys I never cared about just to keep me occupied until the next chance I got to be with you, and I'm TIRED of it. It's just not meant to be, alright? Sure, maybe I was supposed to FIGHT for you. But I feel like I've ALWAYS been fighting for you, and you're NEVER fighting for ME. And when I lined myself up in front of you right next to a hot redhead stranger you basically just met, you picked HER instead of ME."

"Deej, you didn't say anything! I didn't know you wanted--"

"I didn't want to be the girl that marks her territory and pushes Kenzie out. I didn't want to be the drunk girl dressed in a disheveled Tinkerbell costume cockblocking you and stomping her foot on the ground to get you to pay attention to her. I didn't want to threaten to sleep with some random guy or tell you about my wonderful boyfriend only to see the utter lack of jealousy in your eyes. I'm DONE with all that."

"I'm not saying you have to do all that just to get me to--"

"Don't I?" she cut me off. "Why is it that you never notice me unless I work to get you to notice me? Why can't I expect you to treat me differently from Kenzie just because I'm me? But no, it was just Ben with two interchangeable playthings last night. I wasn't anything special, not even over a girl you just met and barely know."

"That's not fair."

"It doesn't have to be. It is what it is." Shaking her head, DJ started crying again. "I had such high hopes for this trip, my head filled with these stupid fantasies about making you fall in love with me all over again. But now it's Monday morning, we're going to drive home in a few more hours, and I'm still stuck at square one."

"Deej..."

"Here I am again, still in love with you despite everything, still getting back on the damn hamster wheel even though I know it does nothing but go in circles. I can't let go of you. I wish I could, but I can't."

I sighed. "Then maybe it's ME that has to let go of YOU."

DJ brought her head up, tears still running down her face.

I shook my head. "I can't keep hurting you like this. I don't WANT to hurt you like this. You're right: it shouldn't be this hard. You shouldn't have to keep fighting to build something together with me when I'm not fighting right beside you. It's not fair. It's not right. I don't deserve you. And you deserve better than me."

"That's just it: there's NO ONE better than you."

"You don't know that. Have you even really looked? Take Doug – I get that he turned out to be a cheating asshole, but did you ever give him a fair chance? When have you ever not strung a guy along? Have you ever given the smallest piece of your heart to one of your boyfriends? Or have you been so laser-focused on me, so hung up on 'Dawn's boyfriend' that you've never given ANY other guys a real shot? C'mon, Deej, you once turned down a guy for the petty crime of staring at your boobs too much. Honey, I guarantee that the only men on this planet who won't stare at your boobs too much are 100% gay."

DJ snorted, an explosive sound that caught even her by surprise, and she started coughing a bit. The tears were still streaming down her face, and she abruptly got off the bench to grab some tissues from the box on the nearest sofa table. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and then blew it again. Taking a few deep breaths, she seemed to calm down, and when she returned to me her eyes were still red and moist, but she wasn't crying anymore.

"You've ruined me for all other men," she complained.

"You say that, but until you try, you'll never really know."

Shaking her head, DJ gave me a sad, doe-eyed look and whimpered, "Don't you want me anymore? I'm right here, begging you to love me, begging you to take me back. Okay, this weekend didn't quite go according to plan. We didn't get to spend a whole lot of quality time together, and I didn't get to spend the last three days and nights making you fall in love with me. But why can't it be as simple as me asking you, please? Adrienne's gone. Dawn's dropped out. I don't want to think of it as you just settling for me, but if I finally get to keep you, then I really don't give a fuck how. Please? Be with me again? You know I'll love you forever. You KNOW I can make you happy. I'll do anything for you. I'll be everything for you. Reno is just down the road. We could be married an hour from now, with plenty of time to go there and come back before we all have to drive home. We could be HAPPY together, for all eternity. Please?"

I wanted to say 'yes'. Oh, how I wanted to say 'yes'. DJ could give me everything I'd ever asked for, everything I'd ever wanted. She was beautiful, sexy, intelligent, and devoted. She understood who I was, the way I was, and would always be happy to share. Heck, she was even an awesome basketball player! She was an Evans sister, and marrying her would finally unite our two families the way everyone had always dreamed. DJ ticked off all the checkboxes for my perfect wife, for my perfect life. But even if I didn't think of the situation in such cold, calculating terms, I really did love DJ. Our circumstances had changed from little sister, to girlfriend, to the pregnant mother of my child, to fiancée, and back to little sister. There was no reason why our circumstances couldn't once again change to fiancée and eventually to wife. I had no doubt that if we DID get married, DJ and I could be quite happy for the rest of our lives. And on top of that, getting back together, getting married, and ultimately raising a family might even erase the pain of our past relationship, maybe make up for the abortion, and overwrite our failures with future success.

She wanted to marry me.

SHE had asked ME to marry her.

But of course I couldn't say 'yes'. Not like this, and not just because these last three days hadn't gone according to DJ's plan. I loved her, and I would always love her, but I couldn't say 'yes'. It didn't feel right. From the bottom of my heart, it didn't feel right.

"I'm sorry," I apologized wearily. "The broken record ... the hamster wheel ... it has to stop."

"It WILL stop," she pleaded, the tears returning to her cheeks, "when you say you'll marry me. The cycle will end. The waiting for your other relationships to fall apart so that you can finally be with me will end. No more broken record of falling in love with you, accepting that I'll never be more than your friend and little sister, and falling in love with you again. Let it stop HERE. Let it stop at this place where I'm in love with you. And let it never again fall back to anything less."

"I'm sorry, but I can't."

"Why NOT? Adrienne's gone. Dawn's dropped out. I'm all you've got LEFT, unless you think Kenzie is somehow gonna turn out to be The One."

I shook my head. "No, it's not that."

"Then why the fuck are you saying 'NO'?!?"

"Because you deserve better than me."

"I already said there ISN'T anyone better than you."

"And I already said you don't really KNOW that, not for real. You haven't even tried." I sighed and spread my hands to the sides. "You said yourself that I didn't make you feel any more special or unique than the other five girls in the hot tub last night. Don't you deserve better than that? Don't you deserve a husband that will automatically make you his priority?"

"You would, if we'd actually been together. You DID, when we WERE together. And you would again, if we got back together."

"I'd like to think I would, I really do. But would it really be enough for you? You said you didn't like the feeling of being just one of six girls last night, but the fact remains that I will ALWAYS be surrounded by other women in my life. I will ALWAYS have Dawn and Adrienne and Brooke and Brandi and Dayna and Eden and Emma in my life, and they will ALWAYS demand a part of my attention. I've got Kim and BJ in my life now, a little family unit that will likewise be pulling me away from you. Is that what you really want? Competing for prioritization with everyone else?"

"For you, I would. I know full well that WE have a very large family, and I harbor no illusions about shutting the rest of them out of our life just because I want to be Number One."

"With a husband from outside 'The Family', you wouldn't have to."

"A husband from outside 'The Family' wouldn't be YOU." DJ shook her head. "You're trying to come up with rational reasons for why I deserve better than you, but it's not going to work. There's nothing you can say that'll make me believe you're not the best man, the best husband, I could ever have."

I sighed and said, "I'd choose Dawn over you in a heartbeat."

That rocked DJ's head back. It rocked her entire body back, actually, and she found herself pressed up against the wall behind her, a look of abject horror on her face.

There. It was out there. Words now spoken that could never be taken back. A statement now made that meant my relationship with DJ would never again be the same.

Her eyes were wild and stormy, clicking left and right as she tried to process my words while her jaw flapped open and shut erratically. "You're just..." she stuttered. "You're just saying that to be mean."

I felt bad. I'd hurt her. I'd robbed her of her dream. And in a way, I'd robbed myself of mine. No Dawn, no Adrienne, and now no DJ. I'd taken my third and final chance at Happily Ever After and thrown it away with both hands. But it was the right thing to do. She needed to hear me say those words.

Because they were the truth.

"I'm not just saying it to be mean," I stated evenly. "I'm saying it because it's true."

"Not true ... not true..." she whimpered pitifully.

Taking a deep breath, I added, "I'd also choose Adrienne over you in a heartbeat. If either one of them came back to me and said they'd marry me tomorrow, I'd choose them over you without a second thought."

"Stop it!" she shouted, squeezing her eyes shut and hugging herself tightly.

Moving forward, I reached out and touched her knee. "I love you, DJ. I have no doubt that you and I could be very happy together, forever, as husband and wife. But it's the truth: if given a choice between you and either of them, I'd choose them. And only if I couldn't have either of them would I ... settle ... for you."

DJ couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd actually slapped her. Her jaw was practically on the floor, and she jerked her legs away from my hand.

Still, I came closer, so that I was only a foot away from her on the bench. "I loved you, Dorothy Jean. I did make you my priority when we were together, when I asked you to marry me and you said 'yes'. But the fact is: you were pregnant. I knew it was the right thing to do, and I wanted to make an honest woman of you. We would have been happy together, and I would have continued to make you my priority, but we both know that you being pregnant had a lot to do with that. And deep down, I'd have always wondered if I only married you because of the baby."

DJ had started hugging herself, sobbing and shaking her head. Refusing to look at me anymore, she repeated, "Stop it ... stop it..."

I sighed and reached out to her but stopped my hand halfway. "You deserve better than me. You deserve a husband that would always hold you up as Number One in his heart, and not just the best option remaining because his top two choices said 'no'. It's not your fault. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Dawn, I grew up with. She's still my best friend, and I've come around to the idea that she'll always be my best friend. Maybe we really are better that way, much like you and Brooke. As friends, we are eternal, and yet she'll also always be my soulmate. And if she ever wanted to put herself head-to-head with you, I'd immediately choose her."

"Stop it," DJ whimpered again.

I wished I could stop, but I wasn't done yet. "And Adrienne is ... Adrienne. She's my partner, my equal, my rock. She has her own demons to face, and she's as hard to tame as the wild tigress I keep calling her, but if it came down to a choice between you and her, I'd always choose her."

"Just stop it, please," DJ softly cried. She hugged herself even tighter.

"I never wanted to lose you simply BECAUSE you were my fallback option. You were everything I could want in a wife, and the other two had so many issues that it seemed not only possible, but probable that they'd take themselves out of the running. I'm scared, DJ. I'm scared of being alone. I've loved so strongly, so powerfully with all three of you, that I'm terrified that there's no one else left who could possibly make me happy. Even now, I'm scared that neither Dawn nor Adrienne is ever coming back to me, at least not romantically. If I push you away too, then I truly won't have anyone left. So there's a huge, huge part of me that wants to forget everything else and say 'yes' to you, to say 'Yes, Dorothy Jean, I WILL marry you.' And yet--"

"Fuck you, asshole," DJ spat, finally looking up at me with hate-filled eyes.

"The hamster wheel has to stop," I repeated with a grim look. "Time to take you out of the cage."

"By breaking my heart?" Her voice cracked as she said it.

I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "Do you still want me to say 'yes'?"

The hate melted away from DJ's eyes, replaced by honest-to-goodness confusion. She bit her lower lip, her eyes clicking back and forth from one side of my head to the other while she seemingly tried to figure out whether or not I'd been telling the truth about my feelings, or if it was all bullshit designed to make her go away.

So I spelled it out for her. "It's true. It's all true. And deep down, you always knew it was true. Those fears that always left you feeling crazy? They were justified. You were right all along. The truth is: You deserve better than me. You deserve better than being my backup plan. I love you. I still very much love you, and I always will."

"As a sister. As part of 'The Family'." Her face soured on that last word as if she'd bitten into something extremely bitter. "But you'll never love me the way I've always dreamed of. You'll never love me the way ... the way you love them."

"I'm sorry."

Shaking her head, DJ got off the bench and stood up.

A lump of coal settled into my stomach. "Deej..." I reached my hand out to her.

But she batted my hand away. "I'm done, Ben."

"I'm sorry," I offered again.

Shaking her head, she repeated, "I'm done." And then she walked away.