As she waited for the other woman to arrive, Ella made sweet iced tea, moved about the kitchen preparing glasses and fought to ignore the heat in her rear. The plug was driving her crazy. Her panties were damned near drenched from the moist heat of her pussy and no matter what she did her nipples wouldn’t soften and just go the hell away. The scrape of the light cotton fabric of her sundress over them was about to drive her to distraction.

It wasn’t long before she heard the front door open then close, and Terrie’s voice calling out her name from the hall.

“I’m in the kitchen.” For as long as Ella could remember, the kitchen was the favored spot for her and her friends to talk, to argue, to visit. Either over coffee or sweet tea, it was there they seemed to find the most comfort.

She set the glasses of ice and the pitcher of tea on the table as Terrie swept into the room. She stopped inside the doorway, looking around curiously. “Is the boy toy in residence today?”

Ella winced at the question, though it could have been the tight, erotic tugging of the plug in her rear as she sat down, she thought.

“James went somewhere,” she sighed. “He didn’t say where.”

“He’s meeting Jesse for lunch.” Terrie shrugged as she sat down across from her. “Jesse was supposed to come over to the house and fix the faucet for me but James had some kind of emergency.”

Ella watched her friend suspiciously. “Are you sleeping with him?”

“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 fuck 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.

“Frostbite?” James murmured as he shook his head. “That’s the least of our worries, Sax.”

He opened the door and stepped inside. He had left explicit instructions for her in the letter he had left in the living room before he went to Jesse’s. He had been careful not to voice those instructions for fear of her outright rejection. If she didn’t want this, then the luggage on the porch would have been a more humane way to cut his heart from his chest. Of course, a bullet would be more permanent.

“She should be in her room,” he murmured. “Either restrained to the bed or waiting with the gun.”

Sax chuckled behind him, and in the sound James could feel the other man’s excitement. Sax was one of the few men who hadn’t known Ella during her marriage to Jase. He had wanted his partner in this next experience with Ella to be free of any preconceived notions or ideas of loyalty. Ella was his. Sax would continue to join in periodic threesomes with him and Ella if this first session went as James hoped.

Just as Jesse would continue with Cole and Tess until he took that final step in securing his own woman. After marriage, there was no need, no desire to touch another woman. The commitment was strong, the need so extreme that other women held no attraction. It was often a confusing, hotly debated issue among the men who shared in this lifestyle. The need to see their women experiencing that pleasure of an added element to their sexuality. The periodic addition of another man, and in one case he knew of, another woman.

He stopped at Ella’s bedroom door, took a deep breath and opened it slowly as Sax leaned against the doorframe. God help him. He nearly came in his slacks. She had buckled the straps to her ankles as he ordered, and her arm into one of the wrist restraints. She was staring at the ceiling, her breathing hard and rough as he walked slowly into the room.

He moved to the free wrist restraint and bent over to buckle it slowly. He caressed her wrist, feeling the hard throb of blood in the vein beneath her skin. She gazed up at him, a shade of fear mixing with the excitement in her gaze.

“Are you sure, Ella?” He sat on the side of the bed, cupping her cheek gently as he stared down at her.

She was trembling. He could feel the fear and excitement traveling through her. It would heighten the sensations, he knew; make the arousal, the coming orgasm more intense, hotter and brighter. He could barely hold back his own anticipation. He had waited, longed for this more years than he could count.

“No.” She breathed out roughly. “I’m not sure of anything right now, James. Don’t ask me questions like that.”

His lips quirked into a soft, gentle smile. Despite her words, he could see that she was more than ready. Her breasts were swollen, her nipples hard little points atop the firm mounds.

“You’ll only be restrained until we think you’re ready to be released,” he promised her softly as he stood by the bed and began to undress.

The word “we” had a small, strangled whimper escaping her throat. He watched the shiver that worked over her body, the way her nipples tightened, hardened further.

“Is the plug still inside you?” he asked her gently as he dropped his shirt to the floor, aware that Sax was slowly undressing behind him.

“No.” Her voice was low, breathless. “You told me to take it out.”

“You followed my directions exactly?” He kept his voice firm, stern.

Her eyes were wide, dark as she watched him, careful not to look toward his hips. Nervousness and excitement had her body quivering on a finely balanced edge of desire and lust.

“Exactly.” Her voice trembled.

He stripped off his pants and boxers, his hand going to the near-to-bursting erection that stood out from his body. He was so damned hard he knew he wouldn’t make it five minutes if he didn’t find relief soon. A relief he knew her sweet, suckling mouth would provide him.

“Sax, loosen the chains on the footboard. I need her sweet mouth first, or I won’t make it.”