The Sweetest Dish [Sweet Serenity 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Mia Ashlinn

  Well fuck a damn duck. Something was going to be cooking all right, but it wasn’t going to be the sweetest dish. It was going to be Shannon, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be cold.

  Chapter 6

  Flipped over Drew’s shoulder, Shannon did something exceedingly rare. She remained absolutely still and perfectly silent, merely going along for the turbulent ride. She made no sudden movements as Drew barged through the upstairs hallway and down the back steps. She uttered no peeps as he carried her out of the house and into the cool Kansas day. She didn’t even look at Adam, who she heard cursing on the back porch when Drew stomped down the steps then continued directly through the yard. Nor did she check on her other two husbands, who she knew would be following close behind them.

  Drew sighed, but she heard the anger he was clearly trying to keep on a leash. She couldn’t miss the storm brewing below the surface of his voice that he was unmistakably attempting to hide from her. Not that he could. She felt too much heat, too much fury rolling off him. He was pissed, and she was about to get the brunt of it.

  Her stupid body responded to the fire burning inside her husband. She felt the sizzle building between her legs, an uncontrollable need to burn alongside him. I’m hopeless.

  Despite the severity of the moment, her hormones surged to life, and she clenched her thighs together to keep from revealing the sudden, pounding lust pouring through her veins and ravaging her body like wildfire.

  A disturbing uprising of carnal excitement coursed between her, Jared, Drew, and Randy while they made their way to the guesthouse she affectionately called the Play Palace. The closer they got to their destination, the more her arousal mounted. By the time Drew stepped onto the front porch with her, she was squirming in his beefy arms.

  “Stop it,” Drew barked. His huge hand connected roughly with her ass, and she squealed as the heat spread through her rounded cheek, adding gasoline to the fire burning in her cunt. “You’re in so much trouble, munchkin. I have a feeling you’re going to be sore after our talk.”

  Rather than scaring her, his stern statement of intent aroused her, pushing all the right buttons at once. Her thundering pulse went rabid, flying so quickly she found breathing difficult. Gulping in one lungful of air after the next, she tried to focus on anything but the need to feel their cocks pumping into her quivering pussy, fucking her with a fierceness and driving her to an orgasm of epic proportions—an explosive release only they could give her.

  That lasted all of a second.

  When Drew stormed into the only bedroom and deposited her on the mattress brutishly, her humanity fled her, leaving her a wanton mess of hormones. Biting her bottom lip painfully to keep from begging them to take her right then and there, she breathed in slowly through her nose then out through her mouth. She forced herself to not utter the beseeching words that would in all likelihood convince them to fill her pussy, ass, and mouth with their mammoth cocks after they spanked her until her bottom blushed. Sliding her too-heavy eyelids closed, she held back her pleas for them to mark her flesh with their teeth and feed her with their thick, creamy cum.

  Jared must’ve realized how far under her desperate lust had taken her, because he growled. “No fucking. Just talking, Shannon.”

  Snapping her eyes open, Shannon frowned. “Bite me,” she snarled. “I wasn’t planning on fucking you.” Liar. “I was going to come down here and discuss this rationally, like adults. But you three went all He-Man on me.” Hot, horny He-Men.

  Randy snorted, showing the first signs of life she’d seen from him since he’d confronted her earlier. But when he didn’t make a subsequent smart-ass remark, she knew he wasn’t feeling that much better.

  Sighing, Shannon sat up so she could see her husbands better. They astounded her when they didn’t stop her. Instead, they held their current positions in a half circle around the front of her spot on the king-sized bed—Randy on the left, Jared on the right, and Drew in the middle.

  Crossing his arms over his wide chest, Drew asked with a tinge of arrogance and a heap of aggression, “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  Jared cut his middle brother a look but said nothing. Not that he needed to. Shannon read him loud and clear. However, Drew didn’t back down an iota. Either he didn’t get his older brother’s message or he chose to ignore him. Shannon wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t about to ask. The situation was volatile enough already.

  “I—” Shannon started but didn’t finish. Her brain blanked out, and she cursed under her breath in irritation. Clamping her jaw shut, she ground her teeth together harshly. “I—”

  “You?” Drew asked, acting like the asshole he always became when he was emotionally charged. Shannon wanted to kick him in the balls right about now. If she didn’t understand him as well she did, she would do just that. Unfortunately she got him—better than most—which meant she couldn’t work out her aggression on him with violence. Damn it.

  “Don’t,” Jared barked knowingly, “even think about it.”

  Sheesh, sometimes it gets pretty damn annoying that I’m not the only one who gets my spouses on every fucking level.

  Shannon crossed her arms over her plentiful breasts, drawing attention to her fleshy mounds. Shockingly, her husband didn’t acknowledge her not so subtle but highly sensual action. Son of a bitch.

  Trying to distract them again, she ran one hand up her chest to her neck. As she tipped her head back ever so slightly, she licked her lips. And still nothing. Finally she just gave up and sighed. “I wasn’t going to,” she admitted hoarsely. “But I wanted to.”

  “Wow, she’s being honest,” Drew said sarcastically.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Shannon growled. “I never lied to you. Not once.”

  Drew arched an eyebrow in distinct disbelief. “Oh really?”

  “Yes really,” Shannon countered, adjusting her position on the firm mattress until she sat Indian-style in front of the three statue-like men. “I just…”

  “Left out a few pertinent details,” Drew filled in.

  Shannon nodded. “Yes, I left out a few teeny-tiny things.”

  Again, Randy snorted. This time though, she heard his thinly veiled hurt coupling with his contempt. “A few teeny-tiny things?” he inquired incredulously. The bitter mockery in his tone ate away at her soul, making her regret so many of her recent decisions. “I would hate to hear what you consider a lot of big things.”

  In any other situation, Shannon would make him eat his derision. But like she had with Drew, she let it go. She had made her bed. Now it was time to lie in it.

  “Okay. Fine,” she snarled as she shot to her feet. “I lied. Are you happy?” Going toe-to-toe with the three men circling around her, she fought the tears scalding her eyelids. “I–I couldn’t tell you guys what I suspected. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I couldn’t stand the thought of you consoling me or offering me some silly platitudes that didn’t help in the slightest. I certainly did not want you to see Dr. Maddock with me. All that visit would have done was hurt you, which would’ve hurt me. I wanted to protect all four of us.”

  “What have we told you about protecting us at your own expense?” Drew asked in a disturbingly calm voice. “We don’t need a baby to be happy. We need you, goddamn it—all of you.” Drew scrubbed his pinched face wearily then released a long, hissing breath. “Do you have a fucking clue how we’ve felt for the last few weeks?” Without giving her a chance to respond, he went on. “Like shit. You’re upset all the time, and when we’ve asked you about it, you shut us out completely. If this is how you protect us, I don’t want your goddamn protection.”

  Shannon’s heart throbbed for Drew. She knew how prideful he was. She recognized his stubbornness. In her decision to leave him, Jared, and Randy out of this whole clusterfuck, she’d inadvertently aroused both of those personality traits. Even worse than that, she’d unintentionally shown a lack of faith in him, in all of them. She realized that now—when it was
too damn late.

  “Yeah,” Randy agreed with a frown.

  “The last time you protected us, we almost lost you,” Jared reminded her.

  He had a valid point. A year ago, she’d almost lost her life in a bid to save him, Drew, and Randy. But it been worth it, and she’d never once regretted her decision. However, that wasn’t the case now. This time around she had more regrets than just about anything.

  Powerless to their pain, Shannon sighed. “I know, Jared. I’m not likely to forget any time soon.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Drew pressed as he stood to his full height, towering over her and making her feel tiny against his giant frame. “See, I think you’ve forgotten. If you remembered, I think you would recall the aftermath, how you promised that we were a team and how you agreed that your mama bear would have three papa bears. It seems to me like either you’ve forgotten or you’ve reneged on your side of the agreement. I don’t know which is worse.”

  I hate when he’s right—or at least, partly right. She had agreed to their twisted “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” compromise. At the time, she’d meant every word. And during the past year, she’d continued to live by it. But now, she wasn’t so sure about being able to let them get hurt because of something she did or said. With her protective instincts all skewed and her emotions scattered in a million directions, she wasn’t exactly sure of anything.

  Scrambling to fix this fucked-up scenario, Shannon laid one trembling hand on the strong wall of Drew’s chest and the other on Jared’s powerfully sculpted abdomen. At precisely the same time, she connected her eyes with Randy’s tormented blue ones and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah well, sorry doesn’t cover it this time, Shannon,” Randy murmured as he broke eye contact, finding something incredibly interesting to absorb his attention on the wall. “I want an explanation. I want to understand why you didn’t want us with you, why you didn’t need us by your side. I deserve that much.” He cleared his throat. “We all do.”

  Shannon lost her breath, the agony just sucking the air from her lungs. She felt her knees wobble as the emotions swelling inside her threatened to overcome her. Refusing to let the tears fall, she gulped several times before saying, “I’ve been trying to explain.”

  “Cut the crap,” Drew snapped in a harsh voice. On the most basic level, she felt compelled to follow his directive. However, a larger part was growing tired of this back-and-forth bullshit. They weren’t getting anywhere with this, and she was getting plain pissed off.

  “You are throwing around the word ‘protection,’ but you’re not explaining the important things like why you didn’t tell us you were worried or why you didn’t talk to us about whatever was going on with you—emotionally or physically.” Jared pinched the bridge of his nose until the skin turned white. He flinched then dropped his sizable hand to his side. “God, you’re not sharing what made you go alone or why you felt compelled to hide the test results from us. You can’t say that you’re protecting us when we don’t really know what is going on.”

  Opening her mouth to speak, Drew covered her lips with his hand and stopped her. “None of us want to hear about how it was for our sakes. It wasn’t. It was for yours.”

  Indignant, Shannon abruptly shoved Drew’s hand away from her mouth and burst out, “It was not for my sake, you asshole.”

  Okay, maybe a little, she admitted to herself. But she wasn’t about to admit that truth out loud. They would never let her live it down.

  All three of her husbands pulled out the triplet card, arching one eyebrow identically at the same time. Each man gave her a disbelieving look, a blatant challenge to keep pushing them in their expressive faces.

  Scowling, she repeated stubbornly. “It wasn’t. I was just lost and confused.”

  “All the more reason to come to us,” Jared said reasonably.

  Pointedly pretending not to hear him, she tried to explain. “All I’ve ever wanted was to get married and have a house full of your kids.” Letting her hands fall away from their big bodies, she stepped to the right. Much to her surprise and relief, Jared moved and allowed her to have the space she craved so she could get everything off her heavy heart. “But when I didn’t get pregnant after six months of trying—”

  “It takes time for some women,” Jared interjected.

  Yet again, she ignored his too-rational response. “I’m not most women. For goodness’ sake, I’m married to not one, not two, but three men. Shit, I get laid more than most hookers. Seriously, fucking the three of you is practically a full-time job, yet I couldn’t get pregnant. Something didn’t feel right about that.” She sighed heavily. “When I bumped into Chason at Ella’s party, I asked him about it, and he suggested that I come see him.

  “At first, I refused,” she said as she went to stand in front of the window. Staring outside, she blinked several times to clear the moisture flooding her eyes. But it was useless. She couldn’t see, and the tears weren’t slowing. So she gave up. “Then a month passed, and I thought I’d finally gotten pregnant when I didn’t start my period. So I got all excited and raced out to buy a pregnancy test. Of course, it was negative—again.”

  In one moment, she’d been ripped apart by the devastation. Something inside of her had broken. The frustration had overwhelmed her, and she’d cried her eyes out. After months of trying, she just couldn’t take any more of the disappointment.

  She’d ended up calling in sick and spending the entire day baking like a madwoman. By that afternoon, she’d made enough cookies to feed a small army. But that hadn’t helped and, in the end, her friends had to calm her down.

  Rubbing the back of her stiff neck, she returned to her explanation. “Later that evening, Jaycee, Katie-Anne, and Ella dropped by for an impromptu porn night. Only it wasn’t really about two men banging each other’s brains out. I needed a distraction, and they gave me one.”

  Three harsh hisses filled the room, and she groaned inwardly. She’d just admitted that she’d talked to her friends rather than her husbands. It didn’t take a genius to know that she’d hurt their feelings and probably insulted their pride. Damn it.

  Furious with herself for bungling this conversation so badly, she cried out then jerked her entire body back around to face them. “I didn’t tell them—not exactly. I mean, not on purpose. It’s just they confronted me after big-mouth Brooklyn blabbered to Katie-Anne all about it.” Begging for their understanding with her eyes, she pleaded aloud. “What was I supposed to do? Those bitches are fucking scary when they want to know something. I’m pretty partial to my head, you know. I think you are, too.”

  “Fine,” Jared replied. “I can get on board with that. The three of you share everything with each other. You always have. I can’t change that, and I wouldn’t want to. I completely understand. However, I can’t figure out why you didn’t come to us after they left. We’re your husbands. We want you to share everything with us, too.”

  Jared’s weary tone struck a chord with her, causing an ache to blossom in her chest. Attempting to alleviate the pain, she sucked in a much-needed breath of air then released it regretfully. “I know. God, I know. I want to share everything with you guys, too. But I just…I just…I don’t fucking know. I guess old habits die hard.”

  “Shannon—”

  “No,” she said. Throwing up a hand, she cut Drew off. “I want you to listen. I want you to understand. I need you to.” She grimaced, the aching throb in the center of her chest increasing with each passing second, building until she could barely think, let alone breathe. “Up until a year ago, I always took care of the people who mattered to me. Then the three of you swept me away with your love and protection. It was wonderful and perfect, and I adored it. But it was just a novelty. I need more from our relationship. I need to feel like I’m a part of something bigger.”

  Jared plopped down on the bed with a groan. The bed squeaked, causing her to cringe as the horrendous noise assaulted her eardrums. “How does hiding
the truth from us make you a part of something bigger?”

  “I didn’t say that did. I said that was how I felt.” Frustrated, she blew out a giant gust of air. “You’re missing the point. It was novel to me that I could allow someone else to take care of me. I’ve never done that before.”

  “We know that,” Jared murmured then dropped his head into his hands.

  Changing tactics, she opened herself up and delivered the brutal honesty that hurt her to even utter. “But that’s not who I am. That’s not who I want to be.”

  Randy frowned. “So what exactly are you saying?” he asked. “Are you unhappy? What can we do to fix this?” His tortured voice and bleak face were nearly too much to bear, and she had to look away. It was obvious that he believed she wanted to walk away. That she would. When hell freezes over.

  “I’m saying that I need to protect you,” she confessed, her face flushing. “Even though you don’t want me to and even though I’ve tried not to, I have to do it.”

  “What about the past year?” Jared asked without lifting his head. “You were happy. We all were. Why didn’t you say something? It wasn’t like you told us or even showed us that you were bothered by our protection.”

  “I’m not,” she rushed to say. “I just want to protect you, too.”

  “Well that’s not how it works,” Drew informed her. “Your version of protection is going to destroy us—all of us.”

  Dashing across the room, she threw herself at Drew. As though he’d known what was coming, his arms went around her waist, and he held on tight. “Drew—”

  Drew nuzzled her hair, disturbing her train of thought. He sniffed slowly and some of the tension seeped away. Some of his stiffness abated. “No. We’ve listened to your side. It’s time you listened to ours.”

  Realizing that he was right, she nodded her head then physically pulled away from Drew. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to stand up for this particular conversation, so she slowly sauntered over to the bed and sat down beside Jared, knee to knee, side to side, and shoulder to shoulder.