* * * *
It hadn’t been as hard to open up to Jason and Phillip as she’d thought it would be. There were still some walls within her she knew she wasn’t ready to pull down for them yet. The only bit of her history she figured she should tell them about right away, she would, before they headed down the path marked “intimacy.”
This, just sitting here and talking, this feels good. It feels right.
“I never used to believe in fate,” she told them. “But I find that I do now, because I’ve seen things and experienced things in my life that seem to point in that direction. That’s why I came here, today. Because I’d felt that pull, toward the both of you, the night we met.”
“We were sitting here before you knocked on our door, trying to decide when and where we’d make a move toward getting to know you better,” Jason said. “Thank you for being brave enough to knock on our door.”
“I was scared silly.” At the last moment she substituted the word “silly” for the one that had rolled so easily off her tongue in the army, “shitless.”
“But you came, anyway.”
“I didn’t like feeling like I was a coward. As you may have guessed, I don’t have a lot of experience in social situations. I’ve always felt like I was just a step off the rhythm.”
“I sure know that feeling,” Jason said.
“Believe it or not, I’ve had those moments, too,” Phillip said. “I just seem to have a reserve of glib that comes available when I need it. So.” He looked over at Jason, and then he focused on her. “What’s next?”
“I need to tell you both first that I was married.” She closed her eyes in defense of the concussion she felt for having just dropped that bomb. Then she opened them and pressed forward. “I married Bryce Jordan when I’d been in the service for about eight years. A few months later, we were sent over to Afghanistan for a tour together. I…” She ran her hand through her hair. “Sitting here with you, I can’t even say why I married him. I hadn’t ever dated much, mostly because I’d never felt any attraction to anyone. But Bryce was a smooth talker, and he acted like I was something special. In turn, I felt a bit of an attraction, too, so when he asked, I said yes.”
“You look sad, thinking of him. You don’t have to tell us, if you don’t want to.” Phillip’s hand on hers sent a wave of longing through her. Not a longing for sex, though that was there, too. No, she felt a desire to be held. She felt a need to be comforted.
Leesa had never experienced that kind of a longing before.
When she read their expressions, she understood they thought she’d been widowed. “I’m only sad because it didn’t take me long to know I’d made a huge mistake. He isn’t dead—at least I don’t think he is.” She huffed out a breath. “It turned out there was a raging misogynistic narcissist asshole beneath that suave exterior he’d worn before we wed. I began to hear rumors that he was cheating. When I asked him about it? His response was to backhand me. It was the one and only time he ever hit me, and he was stupid enough to do it in front of my C.O.”
“I hope you divorced the son of a bitch and took him for everything he had,” Jason said. Passion practically seethed from Jason’s pores, and it gave her a thrill to know that, somehow, she’d inspired that flash of loyalty.
Leesa shook her head. “I just wanted it over and done with. He didn’t have much, anyway. He was court-martialed for the assault and made the dumb mistake of lipping off during his trial in a crude and sexist way to the JAG prosecutor, who was also a woman. So they added a charge of insubordination. The last I saw of him was when he was carted off to prison.”
“Did that experience sour you on relationships?” Phillip asked.
“It sure made me decide to just keep my head down and do my job for the rest of the time I was in the army. And I guess, at the base of it, I just figured I wasn’t cut out for relationships.” She felt her cheeks warm, but there was no help for it. She huffed out a breath and then finished it. “And I felt that way right up until that moment I met you,” she said to Jason, “and then you.” She looked at Phillip and then turned to face Jason again. “So, yeah, you tested the water here. I presume that came back normal?”
“It did. But that just leaves us with a huge truth we have to acknowledge. Because you see, Leesa, I haven’t ever felt that tug in the belly either, until I met you.”
Funny he would call it that, because that was how she’d thought of it, too.
“And the reason I was so happy to accept Grandma Kate’s invitation to stay here for a while?” Phillip looked at Jason then her. “That reason was because, when I heard about Chance and Logan marrying Bailey, and I asked my dad about our family history? Everything I learned about Lusty just slid right into place for me, and I knew why it was I hadn’t ever found anyone, either.” He looked over at Jason. “You’re the only man I would ever consider sharing a woman with, and I think that was something I knew subconsciously from the time we were kids.”
“I guess that means that none of us have any experience in building a ménage relationship. It isn’t something I ever thought I’d want. But sitting here, with you both, I know that this is something I need to explore. You also
