Read Sweetest Taste of Sin (Southern Sin) Online
Authors: Danica Avet
Sweetest Taste of Sin (Southern Sin)
Danica Avet
Text Copyright 2013
Dancia Avet
Cover Photography by Jennifer Tanner
Modeling by Jeremy Mooney
Cover created by Lea Barrymire
All rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Dedication
As with any book an author puts out, there are always people who should be thanked. Because writers are neurotic and a little paranoid when they’re working on a story. At least I am. First thanks has to go to Lea Barrymire for talking me off the ledge many times over the course of several weeks. You’ve been a great friend and really, it was the best case of mistaken identity ever.
Second thanks has to go to A.M. Griffin. Despite computer problems and internet problems and other drama, was able to read through this story for me and give me her thoughts.
I have to also give thanks to Anya Richards for being the most amazing editor I could have. I’m sure I nearly put her into a comma coma and she didn’t mock me once. Anya, let Moe know anytime he wants to put his two paws in, he’s welcome.
I have to thank Jeremy Mooney for being such amazing inspiration for this story. It started off as a regular boy meets girl tale but turned into two boys meets girl and gets her naked story and it’s so much better for it.
Finally, thank you to my readers who stick with me no matter what I write. Y’all keep me going and also push me to take risks with my stories. Y’all are right there with me when I’m sharing pictures of sexy men who inspire hot heroes and I couldn’t ask for more than that.
Chapter One
Logan Guillory sighed and snuggled deeper into the
warm body nestled next to her. Just being near him, his woodsy scent filling her nostrils, made her blood heat. Sleep gave way to arousal as she blinked open her eyes, and pressed a lazy, open-mouthed kiss to his chest. He didn’t move, probably because he was wedged too tightly into the sofa, but she didn’t mind. Waking up before him was always fun, especially when it was just the two of them in the house he shared with his brother, Anthony, or Ant as he liked to be called. As the story went, when Ant and J.B. were six and realized their names were boring, they chose their own nicknames and refused to answer to anything else.
The memory of Ant’s smoky-blue eyes, identical to J.B.’s
threatened to throw her into another internal struggle, but she shook it off. She and J.B. had an amazing relationship. It was still new, only six months old, and yet she had a feeling it was the real thing. That this man was meant for her. She placed another soft kiss on his pectoral muscle, and felt his skin pebbling from the wash of her breath.
She leaned up on an elbow to look at him, studying the dark shadow along his jaw, the thick, stubby
, black lashes resting against his cheeks, the long nose that crooked slightly to the left. He was a gorgeous man, and all hers. Finally. Well, almost all hers. He was still dealing with his ex-wife, who’d been his high school sweetheart. Logan hated that he’d spent any time with Emily, especially since Emily was a massive bitch, but she especially hated that his ex had the power to wound him even now. Oh, he tried not to let it show, but she’d known J.B. most of her life and could read him reasonably well.
And while he understood it wasn’t his fault Emily was a bitch, the shadows that lurked behind his beautiful eyes suggested he blamed himself for not being able to give her everything she
’d wanted. Which was impossible, because Emily was a woman who wanted the world but didn’t want to do anything to get it. She’d never worked a day in her life, had grown up a daddy’s girl and went on to become J.B.’s wife, wanting everything she thought that entailed. Since J.B. was a Calhoun, and would inherit the multimillion-dollar Sugar Downs Plantation, Emily had expected a lot. And Logan knew, better than anyone, J.B. had given it to her to the best of his ability.
But what Emily hated about the Calhouns
, and made Logan respect them so much more, was that J.B. and Ant’s parents expected them to actually work for a living. They were given a salary, but it wasn’t enough to keep Emily in diamonds and designer clothes. Except that hadn’t stopped J.B.’s ex from shopping as though she had unlimited funds. And when that well had run dry, she’d started charging everything, digging them deeper and deeper into debt, all so she could strut around Grand Terre like a queen.
Lo
gan rested her chin on J.B’s chest, her fingers drawing lazy patterns on his skin. She loved him, had loved him for years, but he’d never been available. She was five years younger than him, which meant by the time she had been old enough to date he’d already been married to Emily. Their marriage lasted fifteen years before he got shot of her. It’d drained all of his savings—he’d had to sell his house and move in with Ant—but he’d divorced Emily and moved on.
Sometimes she wondered if she was just a rebound lover for him. He’d only been separated from his ex for three months before he asked Logan out at her family store. God, how awkward had that been? Her sisters had been working with her that day
, and the minute J.B. walked into Guillory’s they’d left whatever they were doing to watch him. Devon, her middle sister, was married to a jealous asshole so didn’t spend much time admiring men, but J.B. was the kind of man who was hard to ignore. Even their youngest sister Taylor, who was more tomboyish than anything, couldn’t take her eyes off him.
But that day, he’d ignored the other customers
and sauntered up to the counter with that loose-limbed walk that spoke of a man comfortable in his skin, smoky eyes trained on her. He’d been wearing a battered baseball cap that shaded his blue eyes, and had a day’s growth of whiskers on his jaw, but he’d never looked sexier. And he’d walked right up to her and asked her to have dinner with him.
Logan grinned at the memory, a tingle racing down her spine. She’d been so stunned and breathless she wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak
, but a slap on the back from Devon had her stuttering out an acceptance. In front of some of the town’s biggest gossips. Which meant, by the time J.B. picked her up that evening, all of Grand Terre knew Logan Guillory was going on a date with James Benedict Calhoun.
Six months later, they spent more nights at her apartment over the store than they did at J.B. and Ant’s place, had dinner at her parents’ house every Sunday with the rest of the family and had grown comfortable with each other. He was fun to be around, but he wasn’t a clown. He was starting over at thirty-seven
and his credit was shit because of his ex-wife but he didn’t let it keep him down, except when Emily called to whine. Or stopped by to bitch and scream at him. Seemed she didn’t like not being Emily Calhoun much and she
really
didn’t like that Grand Terre’s residents hated her guts.
The night before had
been one of those unfortunate times when Emily let her bitterness outrun her good sense. She’d shown up at Ant and J.B.’s place to scream about a creditor who was planning to sue her. Logan had stayed inside to avoid bringing more of Emily’s ire on J.B.’s head, but it’d been difficult when all she’d wanted to do was slap some manners into the woman. The only good thing about the entire evening was that Ant, J.B.’s twin brother, had been out with one of his many women.
The thought made Logan’s mouth twist with jealousy, but she shoved it away. An emotion she couldn’t allow herself to indulge in. She was with J.B., not his brother. But
Ant hated Emily more than Logan did, and if he’d been there he would’ve had no problem giving her hell. Instead, Ant had gone out with… She didn’t even know and didn’t want to know, because it hurt. Which was stupid of her. Sure, Ant was almost a carbon copy of J.B., but he wasn’t J.B. and she had no business thinking about him so possessively. Except that was almost as impossible as not thinking about J.B.
Logan closed her eyes and
rested her head against J.B.’s chest, the steady thump of his heart easing some of her tension. She should be wildly happy to be in J.B.’s arms. They were good together. Great actually. The sex was beyond fabulous. Her family liked him and he liked them back. He fit in well with her life, didn’t expect her to drop everything just to be with him, the way Devon’s husband did, and he understood how much her family’s business meant to her. He listened to her dreams of the future for the store and gave her sound advice, but didn’t force his opinions on her.
In other words, J.B. was perfect for her. Perfect
, and she loved him.
“Isn’t this cozy,” a deep voice called from the doorway leading to the kitchen
, and Logan jumped, darting a look over her shoulder.
Anthony Arlington Calhoun leaned against the doorfram
e, ankles and arms crossed, the battered Stetson he always wore shading his amused gaze as he stared at Logan and J.B. Instant heat flooded her cheeks and she had to fight the urge to cover herself, even though she was fully dressed. She and J.B. had fallen asleep on the sofa watching a movie, hadn’t even fooled around because the mood was lost with Emily’s visit, but she still felt exposed.
And it was all Ant’s fault. The familiar attraction and disgust with herself rose as she stared at him. He hadn’t come home last night, had no doubt stayed with whatever floozy he’d taken out, but that still didn’
t stop Logan’s body from responding to him. And it was so wrong. God, so damn wrong she’d nearly gone to confession. She’d gladly suffer through a million Hail Marys if it helped get rid of the feelings Ant evoked in her.
But her shame held her back
from admitting to anyone how she felt about Ant. She was in love with J.B., had been in love with him for years, if she was honest with herself, and finally had him in her life. Even thought he was on the verge of telling her he loved her back. Except there was Ant. Always around. Coming to the store more often than he ever had before, bringing his brand of bad-boy appeal with him, teasing her, antagonizing her and flirting with her until she was a quivering mess.
He was almost identical to J.B. and there were still people in Grand Terre who couldn’t tell them apart, but Logan
never had that problem. They weren’t yin and yang, the way fiction would lead the world to believe all twins were. They were a lot alike in temperament, except Ant had more of an edge to him than J.B. did. They were both tall, with broad shoulders, although Ant was a little thicker through the chest. Their eyes were the same shade, but where J.B.’s were warm and friendly and ever-so-serious, Ant’s eyes were sharper, harder. J.B.’s hair was a slightly darker shade of brown than his twin’s, but it was shorter, more disciplined.
Ant’s gaze went from Logan to J.B. and back again, taking in their tangled legs, J.B.’s bare chest and Logan’s braless state beneath her t-shirt. Her nipples tightened, the low hum of sleepy arousal becoming full-blown desire. Her pussy grew slick and her heart picked up the pace, pumping the blood faster and faster through her veins.
Not for the first time, she imagined what it’d be like to have both of them. Greedy, shameful bitch that she was, she wanted both men. Wanted to know what it’d be like to be sandwiched between them, giving her body to them to use as they wanted, giving them both pleasure even as they returned it in kind. Her breath hitched and the movement must’ve dragged J.B. from sleep because the hold around her waist dipped down to her hips, until he gripped her ass in one hand.
A loud yawn broke the tense silence between Ant and Logan, although Ant’s gaze went straight to his brother’s hand, a feral, hungry look flashing across his face.
“What time is it?” J.B. rumbled in his sleep-roughened voice.
“Time for you to get your ass up and get this sweet thing some breakfast,” Ant shot back as he turned away from the living room, but not before Logan
saw the heavy bulge pressing against his fly. “I’m makin’ coffee if you want it.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and the spell was broken
. Logan was finally able to tear her eyes away from the doorway to look at the man she loved with all of her heart. Well, all of the heart that Ant hadn’t laid claim to without even trying.
J.B.’s hand
cupped the side of her face, pulling her down for a kiss. It was a sweet, brief meeting of lips. It was a greeting and an affirmation. They were here. They were together. Nothing else mattered. Not Emily, not Ant and not Logan’s stupid, gluttonous heart.
“Mornin’, babe,” he whispered against her lips, his whiskers gently abrading her chin.
Logan smiled down at him, loving the affection in his eyes, the beauty of J.B. chasing away some of her ugly thoughts. “Morning, handsome.” She kissed his chin, giving it a gentle nip that made the bulge pressing against her leg grow harder. “Wanna take a quick shower together?”
She got her answer when he sat up and swung her into his arms
, all in one motion. Used to J.B.’s habit of picking her up whenever he wanted, she just looped an arm around his neck and held on as he stood to carry her in the direction of the bedrooms. Logan squeezed her thighs together, and pressed gentle, hungry kisses on his throat that made him groan.
“J.B.,” Ant called out from the kitchen
, just as they made it to the door of J.B.’s room. “We gotta talk, so don’t be long.”
Logan’s man stood stock still for a moment, tension tightening his muscles. He glanced in the direction of the kitchen before looking at Logan again. “Fine,” he shouted back, anger evident in his voice. “We’ll be out in fifteen.”
“I’ll wait with bated breath.” Ant’s sardonic reply floated to them and Logan’s cheeks flared with heat.
J.B.’s jaw bunched, but he didn’t reply. He just carried Logan into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him with a loud bang
that ricocheted through the house. A statement he was not happy with his brother, or with having his plans for the morning curtailed.
“It’s okay,” Logan said
, as he lowered her to the floor and she reached for her overnight bag. “I don’t have much time anyway. Devon was supposed to open for me today, but I think she’s taking Edward to the urgent care clinic later this morning, so I have to get to the store.”
She grabbed a change of clothes, bundling them against her stomach as she headed for the bathroom, J.B. right behind her. “He okay?”
Logan couldn’t help but smile as she stripped out of the clothes she’d fallen asleep in. Edward was only two but his hold on the Guillory family was tight. Devon’s son was Logan’s sun and sky, her godson, and she loved him as though she’d given birth to him. He was the best thing to come from Devon’s marriage to Brady Folsom. Something Logan reminded herself of every time she saw her sister, who’d gone from loving and sweet and affectionate with everyone to closed off and quiet, careful not to make Brady angry or jealous.
“He’s fine,” she said
, as she leaned in to turn on the shower. She’d long gotten over her self-consciousness around J.B. The man had no shame and everything he did told her he loved her body and wanted to see it. “She said he fell at home while Brady was watching him. You know how clumsy kids are, but she wants to make sure he’s okay.”