“Channing, can I ask you something that might sound a little stupid and paranoid?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think Trevor married me because he felt sorry for me after my family died?
Or do you think he married me because I inherited the ranch?”
“Neither. Did back-to-back funerals spur Trevor to pop the question faster?
Probably. Not out of pity, but because he loved you, he wanted to be with you and he didn’t want you to be alone.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Don’t you?”
Chassie lifted her head and looked at Channing for the first time since they’d begun this conversation. “I don’t know what to believe.”
82
Lorelei James
Channing didn’t offer an opinion, she just waited.
“I love him. He’s everything to me. So how can I go home knowin’ he’s always been pining for someone he can’t have? Someone he didn’t even have the balls to tell me he wanted? Now that he’s broken with his family, there is a much better chance he’d consider it, right?”
“No. I’ll repeat it. Trevor loves you. He’s chosen to make a life and a home with you.”
Doubts plagued her—was it really a choice he’d freely made? Even now as a do-the-right-thing cowboy, Trevor would stick with her out of guilt or out of loyalty.
Did Chassie want that? Would she take Trevor any way she could get him? Even if it meant Trevor was miserable?
She blurted, “What did you do when you walked in on Trevor and Edgard havin’
sex?”
“With both those glorious men naked? As I was gorging myself on all sorts of sexual experiences I watched them finish what they’d started. It was beautiful. Powerful. The hard bodies. The harder kisses. Strong and fast and a little mean.” She frowned. “It surprised me that Edgard was dominant.”
“No,” Chassie breathed. “But Trevor is so…forceful.”
Channing rubbed circles on her baby bump. “I’m not gonna lie. Seeing them together, lost in passion, was hot as hell. But it broke my damn heart to see how much affection they had for each other afterward. How they only dared express it when they were alone. I couldn’t imagine not being able to touch or kiss or tease Colby whenever I wanted. I realized not everyone gets a happily ever after and it made me more determined to get one for myself.”
Quiet pervaded as each woman was lost in her own thoughts.
Chassie drained her cold coffee. “I was half-afraid to leave them alone together today. Even after Trevor promised me he wouldn’t touch Edgard while I was gone.”
“Do you believe him?”
83
Rough, Raw, and Ready
“Strangely enough, yes. But I have a sneakin’ suspicion Edgard can be pretty damn persuasive.”
“True, but I don’t think Trevor will cheat on you.”
She shot Channing a dark look. “He cheated on Edgard all the time.”
Channing wagged a finger at her. “Ah-ah. Not true. Trevor was always up front with Edgard about wanting to be with women.”
“Was Edgard with women too?”
“Yes. Not like Trevor and Colby, but Edgard played his share of bedroom games with the women who took all three of them on.”
Maybe she hadn’t imagined Edgard flirting with her. Or was his attention just a ploy to make Trevor jealous?
“One time he told me…” Channing shook her head. “Never mind.”
“We’re beyond never mind.”
Channing’s eyes were clouded with thought. “Once Edgard told me he wasn’t bisexual. Insisted on it, actually. But I think if he was truly one hundred percent gay, he never would’ve been with women, no matter what Trevor wanted.”
“But don’t men think about sex differently than women? A hole is a hole and any old hole to put their dicks in will do at the time?”
A snorting laugh. “I suppose. I’ve known a few gay men who get all pissy when talk turns to bi men. It’s the norm for them to diss ‘switch hitters’ wanting to have it both ways. But I’m more inclined to believe there are few pure gays out there. I believe you fall in love with the person, not their sexual organs. And sometimes it’s not what is expected.”
Channing’s pause burned through Chassie’s patience. “What?”
“What do you think about Edgard?”
“The first thing that pops into my mind?” Chassie paused and admitted, “I’m jealous.”
“Of their past?”
84
Lorelei James
“Sort of. Mostly it’s because Edgard has a part of Trevor I’ll never have. A part that was so special to Trevor he couldn’t even tell me about it. And the flipside of that paranoid feeling is smugness, because I know if I demand Trevor send Edgard away, Trevor would do it. He probably wouldn’t be happy. He’d secretly resent the hell out of me, but Trevor would do it.” Frustrated, Chassie smacked the pillow. “Dammit. I wish I could just hate Edgard. It’d be easier.”