“James?” Terrie’s eyes widened in surprise.
“No, not James,” she bit out. “Jesse. I know you’re not sleeping with James, you would have killed him by now.”
Terrie poured the glasses of tea and slid one closer to Ella. “Jesse isn’t like James, Ella.”
Ella lifted her brows at that surprising statement. “Have you lost your mind, Terrie?” she asked her carefully. “I caught him with Cole and Tessa. You are aware of this, right?”
“Well, Ella, you were so drunk that night when you called us over that you couldn’t keep it to yourself,” Terrie sighed regretfully. “I am aware that he likes to play. But he’s not all dominant and fierce like Cole and James are. Jesse’s softer.”
Ella snorted. Terrie hadn’t seen Jesse, her beloved brother-in-law, that day as he lay beneath Tess, obviously spurting his release inside her. The man was just as dominant as his brother. He just hid it from Terrie. The reasons he would do so worried Ella. Terrie didn’t need more heartbreak, or more pain.
“I’m not here to talk about Jesse anyway,” Terrie reminded her. “We’re here to talk about you and James.”
Ella was smart enough to recognize the same denial tactics she had used herself with James. She sighed wearily. Maybe Terrie was the wrong friend to call.
* * * * *
Maybe Jesse was the wrong brother to call. Unfortunately, James thought, he was his only brother. Even when Thomas had been alive, Jesse was still the only brother he had to talk to. The only other person he trusted.
“I love her, Jesse. What if she won’t accept it?” James couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.
His sexuality was a part of him, a part he didn’t want to change, and saw no reason to change. Could he have been so wrong about Ella? Was he mistaking the excitement, the unspoken challenge she tempted him with? Could he do without watching another man f**k her? He could, it wasn’t about sharing her. Besides, it wouldn’t be a common thing. He wasn’t that depraved. He wanted his woman to himself. And only one man. He had already discussed it with the one he had chosen to introduce her into the pleasures of a threesome. But could she accept it?
James was well aware that Charlie had, in depth, given Ella all the gossip she thought she had on the Trojans. He snorted silently. The ninny who had pinned that name on them didn’t have the sense God gave a goose. Unfortunately, one of the leading members of the unofficial group had married her. He sighed wearily.
Whatever name you put to it, they were a group, of sorts. Nearly a dozen men who had met in college, and over the course of several years had gravitated together based on their sexual practices and their need to discuss and learn from each other’s mistakes. There had been many. Often due to a member’s unlucky choice of a lover who refused or even reviled their dominance. At present, there were eight of them, all in their thirties, all still looking for that one woman who could accept them.
Jesse leaned back in his chair, tipping his beer back and taking a healthy drink as James watched him. Finally, he shrugged. “She most likely knows what’s coming, James. Ella can be a pure witch when she’s riled. If she hasn’t cut your balls off yet, then most likely she’s not going to.”
James winced. That didn’t do much to reassure him. He tipped his own beer back, staring up at the ceiling of Jesse’s home as he contemplated the coming evening. He had called Saxen earlier to set the time to meet him at Ella’s home, and as that time rapidly approached, he found he was becoming more nervous than he had thought he would be.
“Saxen was my choice for tonight,” he informed his brother quietly.
Jesse nodded slowly. “He’s a good choice.”
The tall, dark-skinned engineer worked with them at Delacourte Electronics as well, and was one of the most dependable men James knew.
He had spent over an hour talking to Jesse and getting nowhere. He wasn’t any closer to stilling the nerves running riot inside him than he was to begin with.
“You have been of absolutely no help whatsoever,” he finally sighed as he set the empty bottle on the glass coffee table and rose to his feet to leave. “Remind me of this when you finally decide to get off your ass and make your move on Terrie.”
Jesse grunted as he rose to his feet to his feet. “Damned women. What did we do to deserve them?”
James shook his head. “I would say we were just lucky, but I’m starting to wonder about that one.”
Chapter Thirteen
His bags weren’t sitting on the porch. James pulled in behind Saxen’s Mustang and breathed out a hard sigh of relief. He’d be damned, but he had never been this nervous in his life. His entire future, his relationship with Ella and his own needs were riding on this final day. If she turned him away, would he have the strength to stay in control and to walk away from one of the most important aspects of his sexuality?
He would if he had to. He admitted that to himself. Ella was more important than his desire, more important than his life. But he knew if he allowed it to happen, then neither of them would ever know complete fulfillment. That was his main concern. He knew Ella, better sometimes than she knew herself, and he knew she needed the extreme boundaries of sex just as intensely as he needed it for her. Pulling the keys from the ignition, he opened the door and stepped out of the car as Sax unfolded his tall frame from the other car.
“You need a bigger car, Sax.” James repeated the comment he made every time he watched the other man slide from the low-slung car.
“James, that’s my baby,” Sax grinned, his teeth flashing white against his dark skin as he ran his hand over his slick, shaved head.
The sleek, little blue car was indeed one of his prized possessions, though he could have afforded better. That and the Harley. Sax had a set number of priorities. He had achieved all but one. Poor man, Sax had his eye set on a woman that wasn’t about to let him anywhere near her. She would make his life hell, James knew.
“She might throw us out of the house.” James paused at the bottom of the steps as he glanced at Sax. “She might shoot us.”
Sax chuckled. “If you’re brave enough to go after this one, James, then she should be brave enough to accept you. You’ve gotten this far without frostbite. I bet you last through the night.”
Ella’s nickname, The Ice Queen, had followed her even after her divorce to Jase.