10 March 2015

Eternal Brand (Wild Crush #3) by Sami Lee

 His present love. His old flame. Can they slay his demons—and build a future?Wild Crush, Book 3Emily Irving has enjoyed two years of blissful happiness with Brandon Walker, a manas mysterious as he is compelling. She knows Brand has secrets, but she’s never pushedhim to reveal anything. All that changes when an old friend of his shows up and turns herassumptions about the man she loves upside down.Jet Durante hopes to reconnect with the man he has loved since they were teens. Insteadhe finds the beautiful and guileless Emily. Yet even as his hopes are dashed, a new andsurprising attraction emerges—and so do Jet’s suspicions that Brand hasn’t been completely honest about his past.Brand’s post-military relationship with Emily has brought his soul close to peace, butwhen he returns home to find his new love and his old flame in one room, explosive doesn’tbegin to describe the atmosphere.The truth shatters Emily’s world, but if they can all survive the flash flood of emotions,there’s a chance they can pick up the pieces—and build something lasting.Warning: Features one tortured soul, two sexy guys and a whole lot of horses. Alsocontains scenes of two- and three-way love in any and every conceivable combination
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24374480-eternal-brand?ac=1
I absolutely loved this book. Not only does Eternal Brand feature my favorite type of ménage – MFM in which the men are bisexual – but it included just the right amount of the ABCs of romance (angst, brokenness, and conflict). Add to that some of the hottest ménage sex I’ve read in a while in every combination (MF, MM, MMF, MFM) and it being set in Australia, well it’s no wonder this one went straight to my reread shelf.

Brand is the primary male hero in this book and by that I mean that he is the reason that Jet meets Emily. Brand did not have a good childhood and while there are allusions made to it throughout the book, we don’t learn until near the end of the book what it was that happened that broke his spirit and made him feel unworthy of love, much less the love of two people. And while Brand’s past is heartbreaking, it’s made worse by the PTSD he suffers from serving in the military. All of this makes for a man who does his best to avoid relationships, but he never expected to encounter the likes of Emily. Although we meet Emily and Brand two years into their relationship, her love for the man is apparent even though she knows almost nothing about his past. Emily is happy with Brand and avoids broaching subjects that she fears will send him running, which is quite insightful on her part considering she doesn’t actually know that it’s Brand’s MO to run when faced with too much emotion. When Jet arrives, Emily not only learns more about Brand’s past, she also learns that he has been keeping a big secret from her and when she walks in on Brand and Jet kissing, she’s not sure which emotion to focus on – betrayal, anger, or arousal. Thank goodness arousal won out in the long run and the three embark on an obstacle and pitfall rich journey to forming a long-term triad relationship.

One of the (many) things I liked about this book was that each character learned more about themselves as the learned about each other. As expected, Brand’s journey to self-realization was the most complex and pivotal to the relationship. While Emily and Jet’s love for him helped immensely, it didn’t prevent things from falling apart and was actually the catalyst for Brand running… again. Fortunately fate intervened and Brand ended up getting the advice and sense of purpose he needed from an unlikely but influential front – a Vietnam vet. Jet’s self-realization was a bit more subtle as he came to understand that he too was running from Brand as he used his job to run from the devastation Brand’s rejections caused in him. It took Jet falling for Emily and the home and family the ménage relationship offered that led to his awareness. As for Emily, the woman found the backbone she had put away during her two years with Brand and she made Brand and Jet prove to her that they were serious about a future together before she was willing to consider giving them another chance. One loving woman + two sexy-as-sin men + tons of hot sex = one stellar novel that I am already looking forward to reading again.

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