Chassie’s jaw dropped. “You…and…Trevor…did it?”
“Yep. And me and Trevor and Colby. And me and Trevor and Edgard. And me and Trevor alone. And me and Colby alone. Obviously I clicked with Colby from the start.”
She smiled. “No regrets because it was about experiencing all the sexual situations I’d fantasized about.”
Chassie reached for her coffee cup on the table and took a big drink to wet her dry mouth.
“Shocked?”
“Uh. Yeah.” The true jolt of it would probably sink in later. Or would it be absorbed by the first, more brutal shock she’d had earlier?
“You are aware of Trevor’s past sexcapades?”
“Yes. I honestly didn’t care about who he was with before me.” Chassie paused.
“I’m not upset Trevor was with you, Channing. But I am shocked he wasn’t only with women but also with men.”
“Man,” Channing gently chided. “Trevor hasn’t been with any other man besides Edgard.”
“You’re sure?” Chassie gently chided right back. “Been damn near four years. How do you know Trevor hasn’t been with another guy?”
“I looked in his eyes when he told me about falling for Edgard and I’ve never seen such confusion and raw anguish. What he felt for Edgard went against everything he’d ever known. Trevor couldn’t give Edgard what Edgard needed, even when Edgard filled something in Trevor that Trevor needed. And Edgard couldn’t stomach not being enough for Trevor, so Edgard returned to Brazil. Trevor wandered for a year or so. Made some tough decisions that’d been weighing on him for years.”
“The situation with his family,” Chassie said.
“Yes. Then he met you.” Channing leaned forward but Chassie didn’t have the guts to look her in the eye. “Trevor loves you, Chassie, don’t doubt that.”
“How can’t I?” Chassie wiped her tears. “God. This is so f**ked up.”
“Yeah, sweetie, it is.” Channing stood and returned to the kitchen.
Grateful that Channing had given her time to collect her thoughts, Chassie straightened her slumped shoulders, letting her head fall back onto the puffy couch cushion. She heard Channing return and settle across from her.
“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.”
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?”
“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 g*y, 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 g*y 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 g*ys out there. I believe you fall in love with the person, not their sexual organs. And sometimes it’s not what is expected.”