Chapter Fourteen
Ella stripped the cream-colored bamboo sheets off the massage table, carried them into the back of the spa, and deposited them in the washer. She started the machine and pulled out the warm sheets from the dryer into a basket. The more she tried to focus on the simple, closing routine, the more she agonized over the choices she’d made that day.
I need the security guards to come around more often. If she weren’t behind on her lease payments, she would demand the owner follow through with the contract’s clause providing security patrols during the day. There hadn’t been any patrols in more than a year.
Unnerved from a few clients she’d worked on earlier in the day, Ella’s hands trembled as she folded a flat sheet. Felicity had been nice during the session, but afterward she strutted to the display in the waiting room, picked up a ginger soap, and sniffed it. Out of nowhere she went berserk, flailing her arms, trying to destroy the new display… Crazy bitch threw one of my ginger soap bars at me.
If my next client hadn’t come in, I would have had to call the police. I should have called the police.
One strange occurrence after another. Thank God she had a full day with people coming and going one right after the other. Repairing the display made her run late, but it was the client who wouldn’t take no for an answer around noon that really frightened her. If she hadn’t gotten a surprise lunch delivery, she might have been in trouble.
She shivered as if she were trapped in an ice bath. I need to hire another therapist. I need some safety procedures. I need that damn street light fixed in the back of the building. I need the security guards to patrol the area like they used to.
She shook her head, banishing all thoughts of the strange clients. She racked her brain for a massage therapist to hire, someone she could trust to increase her profit margin and add a little security. Clients like the ones today made her work harder to get her skin product business profitable. She loved massage, but it was demanding and exhausting work. When the rare uncomfortable moments came, they seemed to come with a vengeance. Unstable women. Men who tried to stretch or break down her rigid boundaries.
She inhaled deeply. Think of the good, not the bad. Power is on at the house. The boys are graduating and turning eighteen soon. Colleen is coming home. Everyone is healthy. My leg doesn’t hurt as much today. Thank you, acetaminophen.
The chime from the front door, indicating a visitor, pulled her away from her thoughts. She put up the clean sheets and headed to the entrance to the waiting room.
Ella’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of Garrett in black cargo pants and an army-green athletic tee looking more like himself and less like Greg. Why did her body automatically react so strongly to him? She was over him, wasn’t she?
“Hey, babe. All done?” He swiftly and stealthily strode to her.
“I’m—”
He cupped her cheeks and tenderly kissed her like she was his to protect and love. He leisurely dragged his lips and chin, lightly scratching her cheek with the stubble in the form of a rough goatee, over to her ear. “Do you need help? I can set up your rooms or do laundry.”
“I, uh.” Her hands automatically glided up his muscular chest to his strong neck. She wrapped him up in a lover’s embrace.
He licked her earlobe as his hands slid around her back. “We could make love in the back. I bet Greg never did that when you worked at that spa before the kids were born. I bet you always wished he had.” He pulled her against him. “I’m not like Greg. I’m adventurous. Some might say I’m a little alternative.” He guided her back a step toward her office. “I locked the door. Let’s make love. Let’s get married tonight.”
“No, Garrett. We’re not having sex or getting married. I’m not eighteen, illegally bartending in my father’s pub. I have responsibilities that do not include running away with you.”
She had a life and business rooted to this city. Colleen was technically an adult, and her boys were less than a week away from turning eighteen, but they still needed her.
She leaned against his familiar body. She should have stepped back, put distance between them, but her body disagreed.
“Marry me. I never stopped loving you, and I know you still love me.”
She couldn’t help but rest her head against his athletic chest. He hadn’t listened to anything she said. He never had. Greg rarely had either, but Greg loved her in a way that made up for it.
“There was a time I would have jumped at the chance to marry you, but you cut all ties with us. When Greg needed you, when the kids needed you, when I needed you… You vanished. I couldn’t find you, and I tried.” She inhaled and steeled her nerves for his excuses. She wasn’t upset anymore. Dealing with work and clients put life in perspective.
She raised her chin and gazed into his eyes. “I survived without your help, and I’m better because of it.” She stepped back and gently pushed him away. “Last night was a mistake, Garrett. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Obviously, I was drunk. I’m not angry about it.”
“It wasn’t a mistake. We would have ended up in bed regardless of your sobriety. Don’t kid yourself.” His arms encircled her waist.
She curled her arms around him again and pressed her breasts against his chest. They fit together so perfectly. “You’re right. We probably would have, but it’s not happening again.” Her nipples beaded. She gave into the need to rub against him.
“I want to be inside you.” He pushed his leg between hers. “I want to play with you, explore you, and expand your horizons. I want to give you everything my brother wouldn’t.”
His hand squeezed her bottom as moisture slid from her folds onto her jeans.
She had always wanted to explore with Garrett. She used to fantasize about Garrett joining her and Greg in bed, both of them taking her, focusing totally on her pleasure. She never put words to her desires, afraid of the consequences of Greg’s jealousy. Those erotic cravings played out in her dreams over the years and shifted to Garrett and Derek. The dreams faded as her heart closed when she stopped believing Garrett would come back for her.
Last year, fantasies of Cade took over in the midnight hours and strengthened every week. Suddenly a new fantasy formed—Garrett and Cade. She shuddered. Yes. My talkative Cade would call out orders while quiet Garrett joined in, giving his own silent commands. If Derek joined them, her fantasies would be complete.
“Please forgive me for leaving,” he whispered. “I loved my brother. I love you, have always loved you. I couldn’t stay, or I would have killed him for what he did to you. As jealous as he was of our connection, I was twice as jealous of him in your bed. Protecting you became… If you hadn’t stepped between—”
“Stop.” She remembered that night like it was yesterday. Colleen had been away visiting her grandparents. Garrett had been helping her put away laundry in the boys’ room. Greg walked in on the edge of a manic episode. He looked back and forth between the two of them and then at Jason’s unmade bed. He’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions.
God, he’d lost it. He had screamed so many accusations. So many she’d never forget. He grabbed her, flung her like a rag doll on the bed, ripping her shirt. Greg had never laid an angry finger on her before then. And she’d never seen Garrett truly fight until that day. He rushed toward Greg, screaming right back at him.
Greg had his hands around her throat, choking her. Garrett threw Greg off her then picked her up like she weighed little more than a baby bird, and shoved her behind him.
It had all happened so quickly. One minute they had been laughing in the boys’ room, the next Greg flew into the first violent rage of their married life. Garrett protected her and forced Greg back into the hallway. Garrett screamed at her to get the boys, and get in the limo with Derek, but she couldn’t leave.
She wouldn’t abandon Greg when the tumor was driving his rage. The cancer was to blame, not him. The doctors warned her of the possibilities of rages. She had planned to explain everything to Garrett, but fate had different plans.
Garrett had turned and pleaded with her to leave with him immediately. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Greg pick up a lamp from the top of the hallway table. She didn’t know how she did it, but she pushed Garrett to the side and took the brunt of Greg’s swung. She remembered the initial impact then falling, tumbling down the beautiful staircase… Garrett’s and the boys’ wails along with the lack of sound from Greg before she lost consciousness still haunted her dreams.
“I went back to the house. I spoke to Greg. He begged me to leave. He promised if I left and never came back, you would be safe. He promised to get help. I got updates. They were all fake. I didn’t know.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I never should have left. Had I known about the tumor causing his strange outbursts all those years, I would have stayed. I would have helped him through it. I would have been there for the kids, for you. I would have retired from the military.”
She melted into his warm embrace, tears she vowed never to shed threatened her eyes. For so many years she’d longed to hear those words from his lips, but now, hearing them hurt. Not knowing whether he would have stayed through the worst of Greg’s illness made her ache. Garrett had always been a trooper with physical pain but not so much with the emotional kind. I want to trust you. “It’s all in the past.”
“I wanted you to know,” he whispered. “I didn’t leave without giving him ways to get in touch with me in an emergency. He never told you, and I’m sorry.”
Greg’s mind had already been too far gone by then. She’d never know how he interpreted the conversation or what he did with it. He had relied more and more on technology as his illness progressed. The way Greg’s mind worked, he could have set up fake updates for Garrett within the time it would take for him to forget the information or remember doing it. From the look in Garrett’s eyes and the truth of his words, she believed him. He would have come home for Greg’s funeral at the very least.
“I forgive you.” She had. It was such a difficult time. Surviving remained the top priority back then. She still searched for ways to survive and keep her children protected and healthy. “I really need you to wait another day or two before you see the boys. You look more like yourself but not enough.”
“They’ll be fine. They know what I look like. You’re worrying about nothing.”
No, she wasn’t worrying about nothing. Garrett didn’t know what she and the boys went through. He didn’t know how they suffered. He didn’t know how the last seven years had forced her boys to grow up.
How the boys stayed in their rooms most of the time to avoid any kind of outburst from their father. How they’d all shielded Colleen from the ugly side of the cancer. How they made deals with Greg’s parents to keep her for the summers because Greg hadn’t wanted his baby girl to see him go through the worst of the treatments to extend his life.
Ella had been naïve to think his parents’ motives to help out were from genuine love. She found out how wrong she’d been when she took over paying the medical bills and the money was gone. His parents had convinced Greg to transfer almost all the money out of his business and personal accounts to theirs. Greg’s will had changed too. He’d fired his attorney and hired his father’s lawyer.
At the end of Greg’s life, his parents had stripped them of everything that was solely in Greg’s name and most of what was in both hers and his. She had no clue how much nastiness Greg had shielded her from with his parents until the perfect grandparent smiles turned to sneers, the comforting hugs changed to handshakes, the gifts of beautiful flowers switched to bills for babysitting Colleen.
Maybe paying all that money to them had been worth her daughter missing the worse of the rages doled out to Ella and, on rare occasions, the boys. Maybe they all would have been better had Colleen stayed with them. Maybe Greg wouldn’t have been so paranoid.
She stiffened in his arms.
“What?” He loosened his hold.
She dropped her hands from him and stepped backward. “Please, don’t do this tonight.” She loved him, but she backed up a few more steps toward the door, ready to usher him out of it. She didn’t need the painful reminders and neither did her boys. Not today.
Top on her things-to-do list was to get the house ready for the realtor and Colleen’s return home. Talking to Cade and apologizing had top billing too. It didn’t matter whether the big man had planned to give her the “friend” talk or not. They had known each other for more than a year. He deserved an explanation from her.
The door chimed behind them.
“Ella, are you ready?” Cade’s deep voice filled the room.
She looked toward the door. Cade strode into the waiting room wearing a dark-brown business suit and stopped two feet away from her.
What are you doing here? How did you get in? Her mouth gaped as she checked him out more thoroughly from head to toe.
Drop-dead gorgeous Mr. Cade Jackson stood in her waiting area like he owned the place. A rush of desire hit her like a tidal wave. Every inch of flesh heated as she met his sexy gaze. Dang. Why couldn’t he be ugly? She had to tell him about Garrett and didn’t want to be drooling, ready to combust, while she did.
“You must be Garrett.” Cade switched on his easy southern charm and made Ella’s pussy quiver for attention. “Nice to meet you.”
Garrett pivoted around, pulling and twirling Ella in his arms, to face Cade head-on.
“You must be Cade Daniel Jackson.” Garrett extended his hand, and Cade shook it. “Dropping off her keys?”
Cade held his open palm out to Ella.
She focused on all his hunky-sexuality filling his suit. Damn.
“Did you get the lunch I sent over?” Cade asked.
“I wondered who that was from.” No note accompanied the lunch. Assumptions were Garrett’s modus operandi, not Cade’s. Her giant didn’t seem the sneaky type. No, not hers. Why would he send her anything? Had Garrett lied about talking to him? No. They each seemed to know about the other.
She placed her hand in his only to be swallowed up within, but kept her head lowered to avoid his eyes. “Eggplant parmesan is my favorite.”
“I know,” Cade said. “Did you get my note?”
“Um. No.” She crumbled a little in Garrett’s arms. The gift had to be the “it’s-me-not-you” note placing her in the friend category. He was bold and upfront about his intentions like he had been as her client. “Was it supposed to come with lunch?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he grumbled. “Did you get the flowers?”
Garrett snickered. She elbowed him in the side, but the solid man didn’t seem to notice.
“You sent me flowers?” She raised her gaze to Cade’s. Are you still interested in me? The sadness in his eyes propelled her forward into the warmth and safety of his arms.
“I did.” He held her hand in his as he pinned her wrist to the small of her back. A soft rumble filled her ear as he brushed his lips over her cheek in a soft kiss. “Did you get any of the presents I sent, besides lunch?”
She wanted to please him, wanted to tell him she had, but she hadn’t. She wouldn’t lie to the man who gave her one of the best weekends of her life. She’d never lie to him.
“I’m sorry, but no, sir.” She had no idea why she added ‘sir’ to the end of her sentence, but he seemed to like it.
Another low rumble moved through him, but this one wasn’t the sexy kind. The undertone managed a jagged edge. Could he be angry? Why? Why send her presents? Surely his interest in dating her ended with Garrett’s return. But he had her in his arms in a compromising position, the same position he’d held her in against the tree outside the lake house when he dropped to his knees and…
“I’m sorry. I wanted to call this week, but I didn’t want to interfere with your work. I hated being away from you.” He nibbled the very edge of her earlobe. “We’ll talk at dinner.”
“Ella, come on,” Garrett interrupted her melting session with Cade. “We need to close up and get the boys.” He walked with an easy stride toward her and stopped at her side. His gaze drifted up and down her body.
Cade skimmed his lips up and over her forehead. “Do you need my help closing up?”
Her tongue nearly fell out of her mouth at his sensual tone. He knew when to ask, when to demand, and when to rip her panties off and fuck her.
“Enough of this, Cade,” Garrett said. “You want her. I want her. We’ll both date her and see who she chooses.”
“No,” Cade said. “She’s mine.” He held her hands behind her as he pressed his pelvis forward and pushed his hard bulge against her belly.
She bit her bottom lip to stop from whimpering. I’m yours.
Garrett maneuvered around her back, removed Cade’s grip on her wrist, and introduced his own. “I’ll endure you in her life for six weeks. You’ll realize she’s mine and always has been. Then you’ll walk away.”
Cade bellowed with laughter. “You’re funny, Garrett.” He stared into her eyes and stopped laughing. “Three weeks or less. She’ll have you out of her system by then. Won’t you, sweetie?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but Garrett’s voice filled the space around her. “It won’t take her long to experience your business schedule, and you’ll be reminded why you’ve never had more than a dozen dates with the same girl. Ella will have no regrets kicking you to the curb.”
“Stop. This is stupid,” she said, confused. They’re fighting over me?
“I get her three weekends out of every month, along with Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights,” Cade said.
“Wait. Are you serious?” They both want dates and sleepovers? Sleepovers. Sex. Really?
“Yes, we’re serious,” Garrett said.
Her mouth gaped. “You can’t decide my dating schedule.”
“We’re negotiating,” Cade said. “You can change the dates and times or cancel. You have choices, but Garrett and I will work out our demands with each other.”
Garrett countered and counter-offered as they negotiated her evening schedule between the two of them without asking her opinion. They decided times for pick up and drop off, and where they would be sleeping, her house or Cade’s house or Garrett’s condo.
When did Garrett get a condo?
“Hey, maybe I don’t want to date two men.” The heat in her cheeks had to tell them volumes. She couldn’t deny her attraction to both men, but dating them might not be a good idea. In fact, it would be a horrible idea.
When Garrett acted like the take-control-and-make-all-the-decisions Garrett she loved, she couldn’t resist him. She definitely couldn’t resist Cade. There was no way, no matter what kind of naughty fantasies she had with both of them, she could handle the kind of sexual activity they would expect while dating.
Garrett had few sexual boundaries from what he’d told her, but she had plenty. She suspected Garrett and Derek had something going on. What if Derek showed up for some action while they were in bed? Sweet shudders washed over her.
Derek’s knowledge of her body rivaled Greg’s. Fantasies of him fingering her, licking her pussy while she sucked Garrett’s cock heated her belly. She’d swallow all of Garrett’s cum. Derek would push Garrett away as he crawled up her body. He’d shove his big cock into her pussy. He’d order her to come, and she would obey him, the way she obeyed him as his patient. He’d spurt his cum inside her and smile with satisfaction.
She exhaled as her pussy clenched. The attraction she had for Derek could make things weird. She was pretty sure it was one-sided. Being a third in a relationship didn’t work for her. She needed to be loved the way Greg had loved her. Sharing was for fun, not long-term. Anyway, she liked monogamy. Being with one man gave her stability, someone to count on.
She didn’t want one-man vanilla sex, but Cade rocked her world the previous weekend, and maybe his just-off-the-beaten-path kind of adventure would be plenty. She didn’t necessarily want Garrett’s kind of kink all the time. Although it would be worth trying if Derek became attracted to her. But she’d only fantasized about making love to two men.
As she found out with other aspects of her life, the fantasy proved wonderful, but reality? Similar to massage, everything would go smoothly and the world of healing she imagined would be as lovely as ever until a client started acting weird. Then they’d ask for sex or try to touch her inappropriately.
Ugh. Exhaustion would take over, and—overrun with bills—financially, the spa became a loser. I’m an injury away from bankruptcy, clients are bouncing checks, and days like today happen. Asking the lunch delivery guy to escort a client out when “no” wasn’t enough to make him leave. Thank you, Joey, for showing up at the perfect time.
“You want to date both of us. Admit it,” Garrett said.
“I’m not sure I do. Maybe?” I can’t believe I’m considering going along with this.
“You like it when I take care of you,” Garrett whispered. He pressed his body flush to her back, his erection hard and ready.
I do. Sandwiched securely between the two formidable men, the day’s events disappeared. A deeper heat pummeled her insides. She couldn’t move, and all the reasons she shouldn’t give into the fantasy of surrendering to two men seemed to vanish.
“I bet I could give you the ultimate ménage fantasy. We could have Derek join us, but only after you choose me as your husband.”
“She’s mine,” Cade said. “You had her yesterday—”
“I sure did,” Garrett said. “I had her this morning too. Her sweet pussy sucked every last drop of cum from my balls before we got out of her bed.”
All heat drained from her and ice filled her veins.
“Garrett Winthrop, you are the biggest damn jerk in the world.” She wiggled out from between them. “Get out of my office. Now.” She poked his chest, but he didn’t move.
He stood unaffected like a brick wall.
“Let’s go, Ella.” Garrett winked at her as he held out his hand. “Family business awaits.”
“No. You are not going to see my boys tonight. We are not dating, having sex, or anything else which requires you to touch me. Got it?”
She slapped his hand away. His grin widened as he took a step forward toward her. I’m going to slap that grin off your face. How could you say something so… “I hate you right now.”
“You love me, but I love you more,” Garrett said like he’d said a thousand times when he and Greg did something to upset her.
“Ella.” Cade pulled her behind him and obstructed her line of sight. He was so big…everywhere. “Go finish closing up. Garrett and I need to have a private conversation.”
She didn’t think about it. She followed his order and walked into the laundry room.