Submission

Chapter Twelve

“I need to talk to you.” Of the five friends Ella had kept over the years, Terrie was perhaps the freest; the one Ella felt would be the most likely to understand her present predicament.

Silence met her request for long minutes. “Charlie called this morning, too,” Terrie finally said softly. “Are you okay?”

Ella closed her eyes. Of course Charlie had called. Terrie, and Marey and most likely Pamela as well. Just what she needed, everyone to know who and what she was doing. Her parents would know, too, if they were still alive. Poor Charlie, she couldn’t keep anything from their small group of friends, no matter how hard she tried.

“I’m fine,” she finally whispered. “I just need to talk.”

“I’ll be right over then.” She could almost hear Terrie’s sharp nod.

Ella hung up the phone, sighing deeply. Terrie would know James the best. She had been married to one of his two brothers, the bastard. Ella, for one, was glad to see his final demise. Thomas Wyman had been a stone cold prick.

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.”