"The Courage to Love" by Samantha Kane

My dear romance blogging buddy Lea was just asking me yesterday if I was getting tired of reading all these menage books for "March Menage Month" and I gotta say, after a while they are all sort of blend together...until I picked up "The Courage to Love" by Samantha Kane (book #1 in her Brothers in Arms series) after Barbara highly recommended it as a good erotica- she wasn't kidding! Oy vey! :::takes a moment to wipe brow:::

**This will have spoilers and will probably be X-rated** Read at your own risk! :o)

This historical erotic menage book is about Kate Collier, Jason Randal and Anthony "Tony" Richards. While Jason and Anthony are off at war, they develop a bond with each other and begin sharing women to help them deal with the horrors of war. These men told other soldiers how they shared women to cope with the war and other men soon partnered up and found women to have threesomes with too (setting up the series for many more menages to come- pun intended this time!). :o)

While they are away Kate becomes a widow, then mistress to several different men- the last guy was vindictive and had her tied down while his friends raped her repeatedly over night. After that, her reputation was shot and so was her trust in men. When Jason and Tony return, they find a very different Kate than the one they knew before, but they are determined to marry her as both men have loved her for years. But Kate is not alone now, she is raising a 16 yr old niece named Veronica, so she has to think about Veronica's future too, and if Kate were known to be with 2 men, society would shun Veronica and she would have no hopes of a decent marriage.

So Kate agrees to sex much faster than she agrees to marriage. Jason and Tony don't waste any time getting their threesome started. The only thing that bothered me here was the authors attempt to make Kate somehow innocent and wide-eyed about sex which was ridiculous considering she'd been married, a mistress to several men for years, then raped by a group of men. She was no innocent to be shy about sex one minute then yelling "F**k me harder! Faster!" two seconds later. I was rolling my eyes at those scenes.

But I liked these characters very much. Jason was the more dominate male, who liked to push things further and tell the others what they were going to do and when and how. Tony liked taking instruction and everything got him hot had bothered- he was a great male submissive most of the time, but also a terrible tease who likes getting everyone so turned on they lose control in a frenzy of sexual pleasure where anything goes so long as everyone gets off- and they do, oh boy, oh boy do they ever.

What we see very early on, is that while Jason and Tony are not gay (by the end of the book its clear they are bisexual), they get very turned on by each other and being naked near each other. One accidental touch and they are moaning in ecstasy, though neither one will voice their building desire for each other. Now my only exposure to m/m romance was in a short story book "Sins of Summer" (4 short menage stories) that I read this month and they were very brief stories. This was my first full length story of two men falling in love and having sex. I didn't think I'd care for it as 1) I'm not a man, 2) I'm not gay and 3) it wasn't something I was ever interested in reading before. Now that has changed- *wink*. I loved the romance between these two men, it was sweet and sexy as hell!

They held back for a while, teased with words and lusty glances, a few times rubbing against each other, then in a moment of frustration Tony jacks Jason against the wall in his study ignoring the room full of people and gives him a hot passionate open mouthed kiss that sets off fireworks. It was wonderful!

After that kiss the men shared their first man on man sexual acts with Kate encouraging them- she got turned on watching them and participating. While they had already been in love with Kate and loved each other as dear friends, now they were falling completely in love with each other and couldn't imagine life without the three of them together forever.

While these three are going at it smokin' hot and heavy 24/7, young Veronica gets her first taste of pleasure when Lord Michael Kensington is asked to keep an eye on her and finds her heading out in the middle of night to pay off a debt with her virginity. Instead of paying off the grocery debt they owed, she gets Michael's hand in her crotch and gets off in an alleyway while he spurts in his pants as the overwhelming sexuality of her in his arms...er hands gets the best of him and he can't stop himself (of course rubbing his throbbing member up and down her thigh certainly played a part in the end results). He feels terrible guilt at taking advantage of her when he's supposed to be watching out for her that he insists on telling Jason and Tony what he's done - not caring apparently that the front of his pants are sporting a huge telling wet spot- much to his friend Wolfgang Tarrant horror.

Finally near the end of the book, Jason and Tony have actual sex with each other while Kate watches, encourages and partially participates in heating their desire to near combustion levels. This book is steamy hot with m/f/m and m/f and m/m sex. If you like graphic erotica with those combinations this is a book you're going to want to read - but read it with a fan near by and a tall glass of ice water- you're going to need it! I give it 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.