Something New (5 page)

Silence reigned for a number of seconds, wherein the only thing heard was the tick of a grandfather clock tucked into the corner of the room. What color Abby had regained a few moments ago slipped out of her cheeks with each second that ticked by, until only the disoriented woman who had answered the door for them remained.

With his beer resting on his knee, Braden broke the quiet first. “Talk to us, Abby.” He looked only at her. “Whatever is bothering you, it’s unlikely to get better if you keep it all locked up inside.”

Abby lifted her stare from the floor. “I feel stupid that I bothered both of you now,” she started, her smile wan. “I’d feel even more so if I weren’t still shaking.” She held out a hand, showing the tremor that kept it unsteady. “I don’t know why it bothered me so much tonight when I’ve been able to keep it together since it started happening again.”

“What bothered you?” Braden asked. He put his beer on the coffee table and leaned forward, dangling his clasped hands between his spread knees. “Since what started happening again?”

Rodrigo thought he knew.
The dreams
. He, Abby, Christian, and Jonah had shared the same foster mother, the late Marisol Ramirez, whose house Christian and Jonah now owned and lived in. While Rodrigo was older and had not lived in the home at the same time as the others, he’d stayed in contact with Marisol, who’d introduced him to Christian a number of years ago. Christian, through Marisol, knew some of Abby’s history and he had shared it with Rodrigo. Her parents’ brutal murders. Her inability to speak for nearly two years afterward.

Better to let Braden guide this
. Maybe the man’s police training played a part, but Braden had a calm, confident way about him that drew stories out of people. Folks trusted him and believed him from the moment he introduced himself. Nothing ever rattled Braden Crenshaw, maybe due to the job too, but Rodrigo suspected Braden would be just as unflappable if he were an accountant.
Bet he’s insanely focused and intense in bed.

Stop it
! Rodrigo growled at himself under his breath.
Get your mind out of the gutter with these two, Santiago. Especially right now.

Rodrigo jerked himself back into the moment just in time to hear Abby say, “I imagine you both already know that I witnessed my parents being murdered.” Both men nodded, and Abby added, “Sort of, anyway. I was crouched in their closet. I didn’t see the man’s face or witness him actually shooting them. I saw the lower half of his legs and his boots, and I heard the screaming and the gunshots and the silence afterward.”

Abby touched her fingers to her lips, and it hurt Rodrigo’s heart to see the continued tremors. “I had horrible nightmares about it for a long time, and then…” She moved those fingers through the air, grasping at nothing. “I don’t know. They suddenly stopped, and I was sort of okay. In all the years since, I’ve never really dreamed about that night again. Until now. They’ve started up again recently, and I can’t seem to make them stop.” Lifting the bottle to her lips, Abby drained a good third of the beer in one shot. “When I couldn’t shake the nightmare tonight, I realized I didn’t want to sit up the rest of the night alone.” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”

Rodrigo watched the cop inside Braden sit up like a pointer dog.

“Did something happen right before you had the first nightmare again?” Braden asked. “Can you think of anything that might have triggered them?”

“I don’t think so.” Her elbow on the armrest, Abby rubbed at the lines bisecting her brow. “Well, then again, my security alarm for the store did go off in the middle of the night, probably right around that time.”

Rodrigo suddenly shot up as straight as Braden next to him. “You didn’t say anything about that.” He took a fast swig of his beer, wishing it were a shot of vodka. Anything stronger that might burn away the flash of cold that had swept through him at her words. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t anything,” Abby answered. “Probably a kid thinking they could get away with some jewelry or cash. The alarm went off, probably scared the shit out of them, and they were long gone before I even got downstairs, let alone talked to the security company and told them not to worry about sending out the cops. It’s not the first time my alarm has gone off, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

“Still spooks you some when it happens, though,” Braden said. “Right?”

“Yeah, of course.” Abby leaned forward and touched Braden’s hand, as if grabbing on to him would miraculously solve her mystery. “Do you think that could be why the dreams started again? Because the attempted break-in scared me?”

Braden covered her hand on his. “You tell me. What do you think?”

Abby fell back into the chair. “I don’t know. It seems unlikely, considering the alarm has never set off any nightmares before.” She rolled her head on the back of the chair and made eye contact with Rodrigo and Braden. “But I’m so tired these days I’d happily believe anything that would make the dreams stop and let me get some decent sleep.”

“Well, we still have a few hours to take care of that tonight.” Braden stood. “Come on.” He took Abby’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “Let’s get to bed.” He twined his fingers in hers and led her to the bedroom.

“Wait.” Abby tried to pry at Braden’s hand latched around hers. “What?”

With fire igniting in his belly, Rodrigo shot up and chased after them. He wrapped his hand around Braden’s forearm and yanked him back a step. This guy had some fucking nerve lecturing Rodrigo about not pushing a woman.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Crenshaw?” Rodrigo snapped. The bed loomed a couple of feet ahead of them, arousingly tousled from Abby having already been in it, but Rodrigo kept his focus completely on Braden. “You’re goddamn fucking not making some kind of move on this woman tonight. I’ll fucking drag your ass out of here and do something you can arrest me for if you try it, you fucking bastard.”

Without missing a beat, Braden toed off his shoes and started in on his jeans. “Nobody is making any moves tonight. We’re all going to get some sleep. Just sleep. In this bed. Together. It’s plenty big enough.” He undid the button and zipper, revealing white underwear from the V, but left his jeans on. “Get those lights, Rodrigo,” Braden said as he beckoned Abby into the bed. “Will you?”

His brain spinning in overdrive, Rodrigo automatically reached back into the living area to flip the switches. The second darkness loomed behind him, he couldn’t believe he had fallen so easily under Braden’s command.

Rodrigo paused at the foot of the bed, his eyes on Abby, where she seemed poised to obey Braden’s orders. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. His gut twisted with his desire to protect her from all harm. Including from Braden. And himself.

With one knee on the mattress, Abby lifted her gaze to his. “I’m so tired, Rodrigo. I’ll try just about anything to get some sleep. If everybody here says it’s okay, then it’s okay. I trust you both.” Her focus shifted to Braden for a moment and then came back to Rodrigo. The way she looked at him made it feel like they were the only two people in the room. “Are
you
okay with it?”

Even in the shadows, Rodrigo could clearly see the smudges under her eyes. “Yeah.” He stripped out of his jacket and tossed it aside. “I just want you to feel better too.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, a small one, but it grabbed Rodrigo’s heart and put a clamp on it tighter than he’d ever experienced in his life.

As Braden stripped out of his sweatshirt and let it fall to the floor, Rodrigo slipped off his shoes and socks while doing his best not to stare at Braden’s taut chest or the thin line of dark hair that bisected his torso and disappeared into that triangle of white underwear peeking out from his open jeans. Rodrigo tore his gaze away, only to land it on Abby crawling into bed. The robe now draped at the foot of the bed, Rodrigo admired the coltish lines of Abby’s arms and legs, the latter of which had captured his attention from pretty much the second he laid eyes on her. Many of his wet dreams involved those legs wrapped around his waist while he slammed her into a wall repeatedly with a rough fucking. Right now, with the way the gauzy fabric settled against the rounded hills of her buttocks, Rodrigo got an enticing picture of the shape of her derriere, and he could tell she wasn’t wearing any panties. He’d had more than one fantasy that involved owning her ass too.

Shit
. Rodrigo lowered his gaze, silently demanding his cock remain dormant as he rounded the bed and slipped in on the left, letting Braden flank Abby on the other side.
This is going to be a long night.

Abby settled in the center of the bed, her eyelids already drooping. Then they abruptly fluttered as though she was trying to fight it.

Braden shifted onto his side, leaving only scant inches between his body and Abby’s. “Shh…shh… Close your eyes.” He brushed his knuckles against her hair and grazed his lips across the translucent skin at her temple. “We’re not going anywhere.” As her eyes drifted closed, Braden laid his arm across her stomach and curled his hand around her hip. “It’s okay to need us for one night.”

Abby’s need, her visible struggle, as well as this other man’s gentleness, stirred a place inside Rodrigo he rarely examined and never let himself visit.

His voice gruff, Rodrigo said, “I’ll never let anything bad happen to you, Bit.” He crossed his arm over her belly too, lining it up with Braden’s, and sank into the warmth of Braden as much as he tried to give his own to Abby. Dipping down, he pressed a kiss against the smooth skin on her shoulder. “I promise.”

Abby turned toward Braden, kissed the side of his head, and then shifted and did the same to Rodrigo. “I used to think I wasn’t lucky, but maybe that’s not true.” She unclenched her hands and covered the ones Rodrigo and Braden had on her waist and hip. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have the two of you.” A little shiver went through her as her eyes slid closed. “I just wish I knew why the hand looked so wrong.”

The fact that Abby had two men in bed with her, curled up against her, and she
still
trembled, rammed home for Rodrigo just how deeply these nightmares had entrenched themselves into her mind.

Rodrigo looked at Braden from over Abby’s head.

“What hand, honey?” Braden asked Abby.

“The murderer’s hand.” Abby’s voice drifted as exhaustion pulled her toward sleep. “I saw it in my dream.”

In the darkness, Braden’s pale irises shrank to almost nothing. He opened his mouth, but the second he looked at Abby, finally asleep, he let it close without a word.

Rodrigo could see it in the other man’s eyes, though, as clear as was likely in his own.

Braden wanted answers. He wanted to protect Abby too. Probably more than he wanted her naked and under him, screaming his name as she came.

The guy might as well get comfortable with three in a bed, then, because Rodrigo wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Chapter Three

Slowly coming out of sleep, Rodrigo slid his hand up a sleek thigh and murmured an appreciative rumble at the bounty of silky smooth skin under his rough palm.

World-class-showgirl legs
. Rodrigo continued moving his hand upward until he reached the curve of Abby’s hip, where he then curled his fingers inward, dipping down into the crease of her thigh.
Fucking never felt softer skin than my Abby’s.

As soon as Rodrigo had that thought, still drowsy, he smiled against the mess of her hair, and his morning wood sent a pleasant buzz through his bloodstream. He spread his fingers, pushed his hand back down Abby’s supple, incredible thigh…and ran the tips of his fingers against a work-callused hand as big as his own.

Rodrigo snapped his eyes open, fully alert, and looked into a jade green gaze, set at half-mast, staring right back at him.

Braden. In the morning. Shit.

Rodrigo’s balls joined in on the twitching in his cock already happening on Abby’s behalf. The man on the other side of Abby sported one hell of a shadow on his jaw. Higher up, thick tufts of hair stuck out all cockeyed, making him look as cute as hell as he was arresting. No longer able to claim grogginess as an excuse, Rodrigo let his attention drift to Braden’s bare shoulders, chest, and arms anyway, each muscle clearly defined and noticeable, but not bulky at all. Rodrigo followed that narrow line of hair down the centerline of Braden’s torso and swallowed hard as he came upon something he’d never seen up close and personal on another man. The deep red head of Braden’s cock poked out from the waistband of his underwear, and Rodrigo could see the sheen of early arousal already gleaming from the slit.

Shit. I want to see the rest of that one day. Touch it. Taste it too.

Amazing as Braden was, Rodrigo could hardly believe something as powerful as waking up in bed with another man for the first time—a fucking sexy, sleepy one at that—could take a backseat to anything else. But then again, Rodrigo had never woken up in bed with a half-naked Abby. Braden’s gaze had already dropped to the sleeping woman, and Rodrigo’s was right behind him.

Sometime during the night, Abby’s nightdress had gotten hiked up and become twisted around her waist, leaving her lower half completely exposed. Curled partially on her side, Abby lay with one hand folded under her cheek and the other tucked between her breasts.
Fucking incredible
. Rodrigo itched to touch her, for the top half of Abby’s nightgown had shifted as well. The V-neck now sat askew, revealing one tight, pert breast to Rodrigo’s and surely Braden’s equally hungry stare.

Just as curious as he had been with Braden, and just as unable to deny himself, Rodrigo let his focus slide down to check out the rest of this lovely woman. Her softly rounded stomach rose up and down with each shallow breath she took, and she had an innie belly button Rodrigo wanted to wiggle his tongue into to see if she was sensitive or ticklish. Lower, though—
sweet mercy
—the thatch of hair between her thighs was as fiery as the tresses spread across her pillow. He didn’t know why guys went so nuts for natural redheads, but his cock pushed hard against his sweats, confirming for him that he was as susceptible to the phenomenon as the next man.