Sweetest Taste of Sin (Southern Sin) (3 page)

But it didn’t matter if he didn’t look down anymore because she suddenly sat up on the bench.
Good. If she sat on the other side of the truck, he wouldn’t be tempted to do something that’d ruin his relationship with his brother. Like whip out his dick and feed it to Logan inch by inch before he fucked her raw.

Except she didn’t stay on her side of the truck. No, she scooted over until she sat right next to him, her flowery scent wafting to his nose, the heat of her body pressed along his right side as though she belonged there.
She does,
a little voice whispered, but he shook it off.

“You should get on the other side and put your seatbelt on,” he muttered, staring at the road as though it was lined with mines.

Her hand touched his thigh as she twisted on the seat, leaning into him. “Do you hate me?”

That was enough to bring his attention around to her and he blinked. “What? Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”

She nibbled on her lip, the shadows of the truck making it difficult to see her expression. “Because I love you and your brother and I want both of you and that makes me a slut, doesn’t it? You hate me now, don’t you?”

An image, sinful and impossible, eased into his mind and wouldn’t let go. Of having Logan pinned between him and J.B., her body available to him, to his brother, her cries of ecstasy ringing in his ears. Ant had indulged in a lot of wild shit when he was younger, but never shared a woman with another man. The thought should have disgusted him
, because he so didn’t want to see another man naked, especially his brother, but with the thought of having Logan there, her body accepting everything he had to give, everything J.B. had to give… It was an intriguing picture and made his balls draw up tight with the need to come.

But that wouldn’t happen. He’d never be able to ask that of his brother. J.B. worshipped the ground Logan walked on and he was a possessive man, just like Ant. They’d never shared their toys as kids, getting in unholy fights over what they each perceived as theirs. Those fights had torn
them up, both physically and emotionally. And that was over material things that could be easily replaced or replicated. It would be a million times more devastating to fight his brother over Logan.

“You think I’m a whore,” she whispered
, in a broken tone that jerked him back to cold reality. She shifted away from him, moving to the other side of the truck where’d asked her to go in the first place. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t hate you,” he bit out, hands strangling the steering wheel. Thank fuck the house came into view. He couldn’t get her out of his truck fast enough and raced up the drive. “And I don’t think you’re a whore. You just had a little too much to drink tonight, that’s all.”

She didn’t say anything, just kept her face turned away as she opened the door.

“Logan,” he tried again, but she slid off the bench, wobbling when she landed
, and he hurriedly unbuckled his seatbelt and leapt out of the truck.

He raced around the hood, catching her just as her knees seemed to buckle, nearly spilling her to the gravel. Without thought, he swept her into his arms, pulling her tight against his chest. She sucked in a shaky breath at the contact and his goddamn heart expanded
, only to clench into the size of a golf ball when she struggled to get away from him.

“Calm down,” he ordered as he carried her up the steps of the house. “You’re drunk, sweetcheeks. I’m just gonna
—”

“Put me down,” she said
, in a tight voice. “Put me the fuck down now, Ant.”

Since they were on the solid porch and she was tense, her body stiff against him, completely unlike the Logan who’d hugged him in the bar, he gently eased her to the ground. He didn’t want to let her go
. Even knowing it couldn’t go anywhere, he wanted to keep her glued to him, but she gave him her shoulder, hunching down on herself while he got out his keys to unlock the door.
Goddamit.
He could never do the right thing around her, fucking everything up when it came to her.

The second the door was open she darted inside, swaying alarmingly on her heels. “Logan,” he shouted
, throwing the door closed behind him and hurrying after her.

She went straight to J.B.’s room, closing the door on him a split second before he heard the rough sound of a sob. His heart rending in two, Ant didn’t bother trying to stop himself. He’d hurt her in some way and it just about killed him. He entered the room to see she’d stopped just inside the door, arms wrapped around her waist, shoulders heaving as she cried
, and he stopped fighting it, stopped trying to tell himself he could walk away from her.

He opened his mouth to say something but snapped his jaw
s shut again because every time he spoke he fucked things up. Instead he gripped her shoulder, spun her around on those fucking heels and jerked her against his chest. Her makeup was ruined from her tears, her lips swollen, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care that this was wrong, that she belonged to his brother, loved his brother. She was fucking
his
.

She was straining against him, but the instant he lowered his head and kissed her, fusing their lips together
, her hands clutched his shirt. Ant groaned at the contact, his arms wrapping around her to keep her in place as he finally—fucking finally—tasted Logan. Sweet and tart with a hint of the alcohol she’d consumed, she was an addictive flavor he knew he’d remember the rest of his life. At first she didn’t kiss him back, her fists pushing into his chest to put space between them, but Ant didn’t give up. It was wrong, so wrong, but he loved her and if this was all he’d ever have, he’d take it.

After a few seconds, she softened against him, her body relaxing into him and her lips parting on a sigh. He groaned again, couldn’t hold it
down, as his tongue swept into her mouth to tangle with hers. Fire raced through him, consuming all common sense and morals. She kissed him, her hands clenching into his shirt, bunching the material, her fingernails scoring his skin through the fabric, and each scratch shot straight to his dick.

Ant angled his head to the side for a deeper taste, devouring her, rocking his hips into hers. One of her long legs came up, wrapped around his hip to align his dick with her pussy
and rub it against him. He couldn’t stop himself from sliding his hand down her back to cup her ass, gripping it hard, kneading the soft globe as they humped each other like horny teenagers.

His cock hurt, trapped
as it was in the material of his jeans. He wanted nothing in the way of his hands, mouth and dick, and pulled away from her with the intention of tearing clothing away, of finally diving into the lush body he’d admired for so long. His hands were on the hem of her skirt, their mouths inches apart, sharing breath as they panted for air and—

Ant’s cell buzzed in his pocket and he leapt as though he’d been poked with a cattle prod. Knowing who it was helped dampen some of his lust, but
it was knowing why J.B. would be calling at this hour, to let him know he was coming home—coming home to his woman—that shot Ant full of guilt and self-hatred.

He didn’t know what his face looked like, but imagined it wasn’t good
, because Logan flinched away from him as he reached into his pocket. She lifted a shaky hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears, and spun away from him to run for the bathroom. Ant squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his teeth hard and answered his phone, doing his best not to think what would have happened if J.B. hadn’t called at that moment.

Chapter Three

J.B. braced his elbows on the kitchen table, his coffee mug cradled between his hands, but his eyes were on Ant. His brother moved like an old man, shuffling to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup
and, instead of coming to the table, leaned against the cabinet, keeping a lot of space between them. There was something significant in that, but J.B. was too fucking scared to ponder it for long. Scared that something inexplicable had happened that would ruin everything he’d carefully arranged.

Coming home last night, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected
to see. He knew what he’d hoped for. That Logan’s tipsy state would have pushed the two people he loved most together, that he’d come home to see them cuddled together, the fierce attraction between them having reached its natural conclusion. Did he consciously decide to enter into a threesome with his twin and the woman they both loved? Not really. But having spent the last six months watching them circle each other like adversaries, seeing the love they each tried to hide had led him to a lot of thinking.

He loved Logan. What he thought he’d felt for Emily had been familiarity and habit. What he felt for Logan was a million times more powerful
, and he knew his twin felt the same. He’d known his brother since the womb and, though Ant tried to hide his feelings, J.B. could read him like an open book. The teasing, the almost sharp bite of wit he displayed to Logan was a means to keep his distance from her. But when he thought no one was looking, when he thought he could get away with it, there was no disguising the pained love on his brother’s face.

At first he’d wanted to deck Ant for even looking at Logan.
But his possessive rage had calmed when he realized his brother wasn’t going to attempt to go after her. Then he’d started watching them when they weren’t aware of it, doing so for the last five months, only to see how much it hurt both of them to deny what they felt for each other. And they denied it because they both loved him and didn’t want to hurt him. It was fucked up, and he was aware most men would’ve just taken their woman and gone elsewhere.

But this was Anthony. His brother, his twin, the one person who’d always been with him. The man who’d supported him through Emily’s bullshit
. Even knowing Emily wasn’t right for him, Ant hadn’t said a word against her until she’d made it impossible to hold back anymore. J.B. had been aware of Ant’s attraction to Logan because it’d pissed Emily off. His ex-wife was probably the one who’d originally planted the idea of being in a threesome with his twin in his head, because she’d wanted Ant. Almost desperately. But it hadn’t been love on her side. She’d seen a chance to have both Calhoun men dangling on a string but her attempts to integrate herself in Ant’s life had been met with repulsion.

Logan wasn’t doing that. When she saw Ant, J.B. saw the hunger and need on her face,
the shy affection for Ant that she hid, and he knew it wasn’t about sex for her. Well, not much about sex. There was no denying every time Ant came around, when he and Logan went head to head about something, Logan’s arousal always burned hotter. There had been times he wondered if she was thinking about Ant while fucking him, but no, her love for him burned bright as the sun.

For weeks J.B. had sat back, passively waiting for that tension between them to snap, to bring that attraction to its natural peak
, part of him concerned they’d fulfill it and leave him out in the cold. But time passed and nothing happened, so he’d taken matters into his own hands and left Ant with Logan when her inhibitions were low and her arousal high. Only to come home to a Logan who’d cried herself to sleep and a brother whose face looked as though he’d aged twenty years overnight.

“I can’t stay here anymore,” Ant said
, bringing him back to now, and his gaze snapped up from his mug to his brother. Eyes solemn and face tight, Ant didn’t shy away from a direct stare. “Last night…” He paused and shook his head, sorrow and pain and love tearing at his expression. “I was…I kissed Logan last night.”

J.B. sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, fingers tightening around the mug in a reflexive grab. “Did you hurt her?” Anger flashed in Ant’s eyes, but J.B. shook his head. “Her face is streaked with tears, man. I have to ask.” Because brother or not, planned time together or not, if Ant hurt Logan…

Ant raked a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands hard enough to make J.B. grimace, before he blew out a breath. “She said some stuff. She was drunk and I was just tryin’ to get her home because I didn’t want her to regret talkin’ to me and—Fuck, man. I kissed her and I would’ve fucked her in your bed if you hadn’t called.” He said the last words on a rush, his words harsh and his breathing ragged with self-disgust. “I didn’t say anything to her after that, but she must have thought…I don’t know…that I blamed her for me losing control, but I don’t. I don’t.”

J.B. lounged back in his chair. “So you can’t stay here anymore because you kissed Logan
?”

His brother barked out a laugh. “That isn’t enough? You can’t kid me, Jimmy,” he rasped
, using J.B.’s childhood nickname from before they both decided it was too nerdy. “I know how much you love Logan, how much she loves you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he soldiered on. “What I did was unforgivable. You’re my brother and I love you and you fuckin’ deserve somethin’ good after all the bad you’ve had with Emily. I’m not gonna fuck that up.”

He had to be careful with this
, because Ant on a tear was a wild man. His brother tended not to listen if he was feeling passionate about something, and his love for Logan, a woman he thought he couldn’t have, would make him pretty goddamn wild. J.B. lowered his gaze to stare at the table, carefully mulling over everything and searching for the right angle to take. The one that would get Ant to agree to sharing Logan. Even if it was wrong, against everything society said a successful relationship should be, it was right for them. For him and Ant, and especially for Logan.

“Yeah,” Ant said on a sigh, incorrectly reading J.B. “That’s why I have to go. I love you and I won’t
—I’d never do anything to jeopardize what you have with Logan. It’s just better for everyone, you know? She’s scared to death of me, man. Watches me the way you would a rabid dog, as though she expects me to snap at her.”

“Because she loves you,” J.B. said quietly, his words falling into the tension of the kitchen like a boulder hitting a shallow puddle. He looked up at his brother
, whose face had paled. “She loves you, man. Rabid dog or not, Logan watches you the way she watches me, and if you gave her the slightest indication, she’d take that bitter you’ve got injected in your veins and turn it sweet.”

Ant’s throat worked
. His eyes were wide. “J.B., swear to fuckin’ God I didn’t do more than kiss her. She’s your woman and—”

“And I want her to be our woman.”

“What?” The whispered question came out half-strangled. Then anger gave Ant strength and he proved just how much he loved Logan by stepping closer to the table, his body heaving with the passion of his next words. “You motherfucker, you…you sick fuck! You want to what? Treat her like a whore or somethin’, pass her back and forth between us like a blanket? A pair of shoes? What the fuck, man? She’s a good woman. The best of women. And you’re all set to treat her like a timeshare or some sick shit? Logan?” He planted his fisted hands on the table, leaning over it with menace and dire retribution lighting his eyes. “I’ll take her away from you before I ever let you do somethin’ like that to her. She deserves everything you have to give her and more. Unlike that cunt you married, Logan actually should get everything she wants.”

J.B. nodded solemnly, not wanting to laugh. This wasn’t funny, but relief was bubbling up inside him because
, yeah, Ant loved her as much as he did. “She does deserve everything she wants. And she wants you.”

Ant blanched and stumbled to the chair, falling into it as though his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore. And he was shaking his head. “No, she’s scared of me. I wasn’t…She said some shit last night that
—But she was drunk and then she wouldn’t listen to me. And then that kiss.” He gave his head a hard shake. “No. I’m not takin’ her from you.”

“And I’m not giving her to you,” J.B. shot back. “I love her with all of my heart, bro. I haven’t…
The only person I can think of who I might love as much would be you, just not in the same way, of course.” He sat forward, elbows on the table, and caught Ant’s almost frantic gaze. “I want her to belong to us.”

But Ant looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. And then he said it. “You’re crazy. She’s…
No, man. I love her. I shouldn’t, but I love her and I’d never do anything to hurt her. Nothing. Something like this, it could start off good and all, but after awhile she’d be the one who’d have to deal with people treatin’ her bad, thinkin’ badly of her, and any love she has for you…for-for me would die.”

That was something J.B. had given a lot of thought to as well. “She already spends time here, a house with two men. No one has to know what happens in here.”

“And a few years down the road when you want to marry her? Have kids?” Ant sucked in a breath. “You can’t do that shit to kids, man. Have them wonderin’ who’s their dad, why their mama has two men and other women only have one.” He shook his head again. “Maybe in a big city where people don’t know each other somethin’ like this could work, but here? These people know us, we know them. Logan has a standing in this community, a family tradition to carry on, just like we do, and the people love her. But if they think for one minute she’s fuckin’ two men, brothers at that, they’d turn on her in a heartbeat. And I won’t have that.”

J.B.’s jaw clenched at the thought
, and he had to just about sit on his hands to keep from leaping up to beat the shit out of someone. That was more Ant’s reaction to everything than his, but it just showed how much how much alike they were. He breathed deep to calm himself before he said anything else.

“Do you think I just decided this
, Ant? That I woke up this morning thinkin’ “Today I think I’ll offer my brother a threesome with the woman I love.”? You think this is easy for me? No, it isn’t. But I love both of you enough to want to do somethin’ about it instead of losing one or both of you because y’all keep circling each other like cats in heat. No, it ain’t happenin’.”

He stopped because this next part was hard, harder than offering to share his sweet Logan with another man, but he did it because he didn’t want Ant to think this was casual for him.
“You know Emily wanted this.” He waved his hand between them. “One of the few things that pissed me off about her before I found out about the spending. She wanted you. I don’t know if it was just because she thought if she had power over both of us, she’d get what she wanted most, or she thought if she had you…”

He shook his head because he still didn’t get it.
His sexual experience had started with Emily, which meant when they married he didn’t know shit. To his shame, it’d taken him a few years of learning and watching her carefully before he was able to find out what she liked and give to her, to make sure she wasn’t left behind. But even though she got off, Emily still didn’t like sex. He didn’t get it and he’d stopped trying, but for Emily to want Ant when she hated sex… He shook his head again. Which just about summed up his whole relationship with the woman. Emily had been about power. Him wanting sex and her being the supplier, the one he had to go to when he wanted it, meant she could hold it over his head. J.B. suspected she would’ve done the same with Ant. But his twin had been a wild one and wasn’t about to let anyone have power over him.

Until now.

“I knew, because Emily did, that you wanted Logan long before I asked her out.” And that made him sound like an asshole, which he supposed he was. “I knew you wanted her and I still asked her out, and I’d do it again. She’s everything I thought Emily was when I married her, and I took Logan from you with no intentions of giving her back, unless it’s with me.” He drummed his fingers on the table and bounced his leg, trying to explain his reasoning. “Maybe Emily fucked with my head more than I realized, but the idea of having you around, with Logan and me, means that together we can give her everything.”

He held up his hand when Ant opened his mouth. “Wait, just wait, okay? I’ve given this a lot of thought.
I know Logan doesn’t need material things like Emily. I know that, but what can I give her, man? A shitty credit score, some cheap ass apartment I can barely afford because everything else I have goes to Emily? What if we do have kids? How the fuck am I supposed to support a family after the divorce? And it isn’t all about money either. I want to make her happy. I want her to have everything. And I’m not fuckin’ lying. She loves you, man. Loves you. And I want her to have that because you’re a good man. I want all of us to be happy. Together. I’m not sayin’ it’ll be perfect. It’ll take some adjusting on all our parts, but I think it’d be worth it in the end because we’d have each other.”

J.B. sat back, his heart pounding. He wasn’t a man who talked emotions, especially with his brother, but this wasn’t some bullshit conversation. This was his life, his and Logan’s and Ant’s
, and it was worth talking about. He watched Ant, doing his best to read his brother, but for once he couldn’t. His hands began to sweat and his bouncing leg picked up speed as he waited for Ant’s response.

And then his heart fell
, because Ant was shaking his head as he stood. “No. I love her too much to put her through that, and if you love her as much you wouldn’t ask it of her either.” He pushed his chair in, adjusting it so it was perfectly aligned with the table. “I’ll come back later for my shit. You can have the house. I’ll stay at Mom and Dad’s until I know what to do with this.”