Lora_Leigh_Bound_Hearts_2_Submission[1].pdf (9 page)

won’t beg you, and I won’t let you deny either of our needs. Now think about that.”

Shock exploded through her body as he turned and left the room. She could feel her

face paling, her body weakening at a knowledge he had possessed, and yet she hadn’t.

It made sense now. James wasn’t a man to chase after any woman, to care one way

or the other if his desires weren’t returned. Yet, he had chased her for ten years. Not in

an obvious, lovesick manner, but in his own controlled, brooding way. He had made

her aware of her own body, her own desires, even as she tried to hide from them, and

made her more than aware of him.

She bit her lip, staring at the door, remembering his driving demands, his loss of

control the night before. No other woman had managed that. Had it happened, she

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would have known about it. And his need for her wasn’t diminishing. Like hers, it

seemed to be growing stronger.

Even after the excesses of the past days, the fiery heat and lust that flared between

them. He was right, she had kept reaching for more. Something, some unknown dark

desire kept pushing her.

She shook her head, fighting the awakening realization. For years she had fought

Jase, not because she secretly wanted what he offered, but because he didn’t satisfy her.

He didn’t bring her to the mindless orgasms James could bring her to. He didn’t make

her pussy drench with a look. His needs hadn’t filled her with this strange excitement

and nervousness. She had never wanted to break the control he thought he had.

She eased from the bed and walked slowly to the shower. A cool shower. She

needed to think, she needed to make sense of the past and of the present. But more than

anything, she had to decide if the desires that filled James were truly a part of her own

needs, or just a part of her desperation to keep him now that she had held him. She had

to know, before she took the chance of losing him forever.

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“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.

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“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

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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

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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.”

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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.”

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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