Beast Brothers

Megan

The best thing Jason ever did was cheat on me.

Not that I’m grateful to my skunk of an ex-fiancé at the moment. I’m crawling down the freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic, heading into my hometown. There’s a big game this weekend and the Leopards are the team to beat in the NFL, so everybody and his brother has come to see them take on the Stallions.

Reaching my exit at last, I take the off-ramp to Central Avenue. It’s as crowded as the freeway, crammed with cars trying to get home or to a hotel before the dark clouds overhead unleash their fury. I inch along, wishing the traffic would vanish so I could gun the puny engine on my compact car and vent some of my emotions.

Every time the scene from this morning intrudes on my mind, anger and pain flare up anew. I’m sick of driving, sick of grieving, of wasting my tears on a man who doesn’t deserve them. If I hadn’t come home early and found Jason balls-deep in another woman, I’d still be planning our wedding.

I need a drink and a hot bath and some mindless entertainment.

I need to be numb.

My cell phone rings. I glance down and see that it’s Jason. It’s all I can do not to pick up the phone and hurl it straight through the windshield.

It’s only an instant that my eyes are off the road, but when I look up there’s a truck stopped right in front of me. With no time to brake, I wrench the steering wheel, jerking my car sideways into the next lane — just as a bright blue sports car whips into the same spot from the other side.

Its front bumper hits the passenger side of my car with a sickening crunch, bouncing my head off the window next to me, then snapping me back the other way. The impact spins my car around. I end up facing the wrong way, the oncoming traffic dividing frantically around me like water going past the prow of a ship.

I’m too stunned to move; for long moments, I just sit there staring. I’m finally numb, but not the way I wanted.

Maybe I messed up in another life, and today is some kind of karmic revenge. My lower lip trembles, and I bite down on it. Self-pity sucks, and no matter what, I will not start crying again.

A tap on my side window makes me jump. I turn my head to see a man peering in at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, shoulders as broad as a house. The kind of sexy that starts a slow burn between my legs, even in my current state. Why does he seem so familiar?

When I don’t respond, he opens my door. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m sorry,” I say, straightening in my seat. “Was that your car?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about that.” I hear a snort behind him, but I can’t see who it is because the huge man in front of me is blocking my view.

Undoing my seat belt, I turn to get out of the car. The man takes my hand to help me up. Electric heat surges up my arm and through my body, flooding me with sensation. A detached corner of my mind notices my entirely inappropriate response, and wonders if it’s because I’m in shock.

He backs away to give me room. Now I can see the other man, standing by the flashy blue car with his arms folded. Same hair, same eyes, same massive build. Same sinfully-high sex appeal oozing from every gorgeous pore.

At first I wonder if I’m seeing double; then it hits me. No wonder they seem familiar! Brock and Cody Easton are twins, first-year draft picks, and star players for the Leopards. In the NFL world, they’re better known as the Beast Brothers.

As I stand up, the man by the car — is he Cody or Brock? — looks me over. There’s something other than concern in his gaze and he’s not even trying to be subtle about it. His eyes travel down my body and up again, taking in my curves, and his expression changes from annoyance to speculation.

My skin feels too tight all of a sudden, as if my nerve endings were trying to push through, leap across the space between us, and wrap themselves around him. What the hell is wrong with me? It’s only been a few hours since I packed my car and left my asshole of an ex, I was just in a car accident, and here I am salivating over two men I haven’t even properly met.

Granted, they are the hottest men I’ve ever laid eyes on. But still.

“Don’t worry about the car,” the one nearest me says again. “I’m Cody, by the way.” He’d let go of me when I stood up, and now he’s holding out his hand again to shake.

It’s an enormous hand — it engulfs mine, and I am not a petite woman. But I only have an instant to process that, because at the contact with his rough, warm skin, heat flows through me once more. This time, my nipples go hard.

I tell myself it’s the stress. That’s why I’m getting more turned on than I ever did from Jason’s touch, right here in the mi

ddle of the street, with honking cars all around us. I want to believe it, but I know it’s not true.

The other thing I know is that I need to stop feeling this way. Now. I pull my hand free and look at his brother. “So you must be Brock. My dad’s told me about you both.”

A slow smile quirks one side of his mouth. He’s devastatingly sexy, just like his twin — and he knows it. “Your dad’s a fan?”

“You could say that,” I tell him. “He’s your coach.”

The Filling in a Twin Sandwich

Megan

The guys exchange a quick glance, eyebrows raised. Traffic is still going by us, but very slowly because people keep stopping to take photos of the twins through their car windows, even though night has fallen.

“You’re Coach Turner’s daughter?” Brock says. NFL teams have a lot of different coaches, so it’s a valid question. But there’s only one head coach, and that’s my dad.

“Yeah, I’m Megan. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but I’d really prefer we hadn’t met this way.”

Cody grins at that, but Brock’s frowning, his mind on something else. “Don’t you live in Omaha?”

“I did,” I say. And I am so not having that conversation with either of these guys. “We should call the police and our insurance and all that.”