Free Woman in Hot Water [Wet and Willing 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) by Berengaria Brown

the button to start the water running through the slide. She waited a minute or two to ensure it was functioning properly, then, sighing once again at the likelihood of having made the wrong decision and needlessly gotten all her clothes soaked through, she sat on her toboggan and began the journey. This late at night, it seemed darker than ever once she turned the first corner, but she knew what to expect now and deftly turned her body in the direction of travel to slide up and down the walls, yet still stay centered on her toboggan.
    “Tell Melly I love her. You must tell Melly I love her.”
    “What? Melly who?”
    “Tell Melly I love her.”
    Kendra tried to turn around to see who was talking to her, but she unbalanced herself, slid off her toboggan, and ended up flat on her back in the water rushing through the slide. The water filled her ears and whipped her hair out behind her, but she could still hear the voice saying, “Tell Melly I love her.”
    Before Kendra managed to think about it anymore, she was ejected from the waterslide into the splashdown pool. Quickly she stood up, although she was so wet it hardly mattered anymore, and shook her hair out of her eyes. She grabbed her toboggan, and one other one that was floating in the pool, and walked out. At the edge she grabbed a handful of her T-shirt and wrung it out, then did the same with each leg of her pants. The she looked around for the rest of the toboggans but couldn’t see them.
    “Most people go down the waterslide in swimwear,” said Jordan. His hands were on his hips, and his face was alight with laughter.
    “Who’s Melly?”
    “Say what?”
    “Someone in the waterslide kept saying, ‘Tell Melly I love her.’”
    “There’s someone in the waterslide? What the hell are they doing there? Why didn’t you tell them to get out?” asked Jordan sounding both angry and confused.
    “I couldn’t see anyone. I fell off my toboggan when I tried to look. But I heard them quite clearly.”
    “You stay here to catch them if they come out this way, and I’ll go back up the ladder,” said Jordan, running around to the ladder.
    “They’re likely long gone,” she sighed, trying to wring more water out of her pants.
    Kendra heard the water shut off, and then it was several minutes later when Jordan’s head appeared at the end of the slide. “No one here now,” he said. He sat there and took off his shoes before climbing out of the slide and walking through the pool.
    “I suppose the other four toboggans weren’t there either?” she asked.
    “Nope. I’d have seen them for sure. I came through quite slowly. Is that why you went down the slide?”
    “Yes. I found one toboggan in this pool, but we’re still short four.”
    “I expect the person who teased you was on the toboggan you found in the pool then. Right now I suggest you go and get dried. That’s what I’m about to do, too.”
    “Good plan. Then I’m going to have to count the damn toboggans all over again to be sure.” She put the thought that someone had been teasing her out of her mind, and forgot all about “Melly.”
     
    * * * *
     
    “We have to make her understand we want her to be with us, full-time,” said Osborne.
    Jordan nodded but tried to make Osborne grasp the significant point he was missing. “But she also wants her own independence.”
    “So how do we get her to commit to being with us for now, and still let her feel she’s independent?”
    “Leave her in her apartment. Let her sleep there a couple of nights a week like she wants to do, but make sure she feels appreciated and needed when she’s with us,” said Jordan.
    “But we already do all that, and it’s not happening.”
    “Do we? Have we ever actually said we love her?” challenged Jordan.
    “Say it? Like, ‘I love you,’ down on one knee and all that stuff?”
    “I don’t think we’re ready for the wedding ring, picket fence, and two-kids-and-a-dog scenario just yet, but I reckon it’s