by Cameron Dane
“Maybe I want a piece of it for myself,” she said.
Something flashed deep in the darkness of Rodrigo’s eyes, and the safety of a second ago flooded out of Abby in a rush. Rodrigo curled his hand around her nape and drew her closer, settling her smaller frame into the nooks and crannies of his larger one. “Maybe I want a piece of you, Bit. Maybe I want it all. Maybe I’m not sure if I like knowing that, though. Maybe I don’t like how it makes me feel a little bit sick in the pit of my stomach when I think about how much I want you. When I think about you, period, no matter what.”
She grabbed on to his wrist and rose up on her tiptoes, leaning in, her breathing going shallow. “Maybe we’re on the same page.”
Rodrigo put his forehead to hers, and she could see into the depths of browns and blacks flecking his eyes in a way she never had before.
“Maybe that makes everything feel a little less knotted up inside me, then,” he murmured, brushing warm breath against her lips.
“Yeah.” She nodded, and their noses touched. “I think so.”
That wicked grin of his appeared again. “Finally found something to agree on.”
“Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.” She spoke the words but curled her toes into the carpet and stayed right where she was.
“Nah.” Rodrigo dipped lower, leaving only a sliver of space between their mouths. “I’m not a quitter. But maybe if we shut up for just one minute…” His lips caught on hers and did the job for both of them.
Rodrigo held her head in place and grazed his mouth across hers, giving just a taste of his heat. A rush of warmth filled Abby in response, and she parted her lips, eager and already primed for something deeper. Rodrigo slipped his tongue into her mouth and swept her teeth, then withdrew and tormented her with brushing scrapes of their lips that sent pulling lines of need up from Abby’s core. Rodrigo kept the kiss just on the edge of becoming something wild, delving in for quick tastes but always pulling back, always controlling, always denying Abby the full crush of his will.
A whimper escaped Abby, and she dug into the solid bone in Rodrigo’s wrist. She wound her other hand around his neck, threaded her fingers into the silky thickness of his hair, and pulled him flush to her front. The second her breasts pressed into his chest, Rodrigo trembled and moaned. He circled his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor, putting her face level with his. For a handful of seconds, Rodrigo seemed to forget himself and angled his mouth across Abby’s with an open, claiming kiss. He took her with bites, darting thrusts, and deep licks, and all the while he vibrated these low, incredible noises through his body and into hers. Abby grabbed a fistful of his hair and tried to wind her legs around his waist, desperate for him to put a balm on the nearly painful itch inside her, but Rodrigo abruptly put her back on the floor and took a big step backward.
Rodrigo’s chest expanded and contracted under his clothes in visible waves. Dark color marred his cheeks, and pure black took over his irises. As Abby was quickly discovering, arousal looked a lot like anger on Rodrigo.
“Shit,” Rodrigo muttered, his voice thick. “You know how to make a man forget his good intentions.” He ran a hand through his mussed hair, and his gaze slid to his watch. “I really do have to go, Bit.” That dark look stayed pinpointed on her with each backward step he took toward the hallway. “But I am so fucking coming back tonight.”
Abby found herself lifted on the balls of her feet, almost leaning without moving, reaching in Rodrigo’s direction. “I’ll be here.” Right then, a very different, pale gaze showed itself in Abby’s mind. “Braden will too,” she reminded him.
Rodrigo’s mouth thinned down to a hard line. “I know.” The unforgiving angle of his lips subtly shifted to a sardonic twist. “I’m unlikely to forget about Braden while I still have his cum on my dick.”
Without thinking, Abby dropped her focus to the bulge still pushing against Rodrigo’s sweats. She couldn’t help it; she bit the edge of her lip, and her breathing went a little funny as she remembered Braden succumbing to orgasm, partially on Rodrigo’s still erect cock.
Rodrigo growled another curse in Spanish, and it yanked Abby’s attention back up to his face. “You like the thought of that,” he said. His stare on her didn’t waver. “Me and Braden doing stuff together, to each other, like what we did with you.”
Here’s your chance, girl. You can put everything back into its neat little box and take the first step to getting back to a normal life.
She looked at Rodrigo, and the words “I do like it” slipped out of her mouth in a rush. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“Shit.” Rodrigo tore his gaze from hers, shaking his head as he looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what the hell to do with that right now.” His prick clearly twitched, though, pushing that bulge harder against his sweats. She saw it even though he reached down and adjusted himself. “I have to get out of here.” He threw her one more fast glance. “Try to get some rest. I’ll see you later.”
“Bye.” Abby lifted her hand as he left, and then sank down to the edge of the bed after she heard him traipsing down her squeaky stairs.
Wow.
Abby touched her mouth, fingering the flesh two men had swollen so deliciously with their kisses. Rodrigo’s kiss had been different than Braden’s. Almost completely controlled. But no less intoxicating than Braden’s ravishing of her mouth. The dichotomy, the flip of her expectations for how these men would behave sexually, stirred Abby’s anticipation and nervousness even more.
God only knows how they might surprise me next.
Maybe in a way she wouldn’t like.
Still, Abby’s sex continued to throb, her breasts ached, and the taste of two incredible men remained in her mouth, mingling, making her picture the two of them kissing passionately on their own.
Before she even realized it, Abby had her hand between her thighs, working the slick folds of her cunt while imagining Rodrigo and Braden throwing themselves at each other and then dragging her into bed to join in the lovemaking. Only when Abby rubbed her clit, shocking a sharp jolt of pleasure into her belly, did she realize what she was doing and yank her fingers out of her pussy.
God, you just came a few minutes ago. Get control of yourself. Think about work.
Yes. Abby could make a list of things she needed to do today. A couple of tasks she could focus on and then check off her list—a job completed—was exactly what she needed. Anything to get her mind off Braden and Rodrigo and what might happen when they came back tonight.
* * *
Abby liked her lists. She loved drawing a line through a completed job; she loved looking at a sheet of paper and seeing everything crossed off. It didn’t matter if it was work related, holiday gift-buying season, or a trip to the grocery store, she loved smiling to herself and sighing on the inside when she had everything ticked off her list.
Unfortunately, today, striking out the last necessary item that had needed doing—which had happened a good hour ago—left her with free time in her day. To think. To let her mind wander. Right in the direction of Braden and Rodrigo. She didn’t really want to go in that direction—too many possible outcomes right now for her to accurately assess risk—so Abby literally turned the pages in her little notebook…and came upon a list she’d started building a week ago but hadn’t yet crossed out any name on it.
People who knew Mom and Dad. Some of the ones I can remember, anyway.
Her heart constricted as she stared at the short list of names and recalled time each had spent in her old home. Time she’d spent in some of theirs too.
That’s long over now, girl. Abby automatically wiped at the phantom sensation of a tear on her cheek. Everything turned out okay in the end.
Abby had gone almost all day without obsessing about her nightmares. If one good thing had come of Rodrigo’s and Braden’s presence in her bed this morning, it had been that. The dreams had remained in her mind, but for the first time they hadn’t driven her to
nonsensical note taking about the snippets she could remember or of making lists that she hoped might help sort out her confusion.
Like this one. It had Lorene Jones’s name at the top. Mom’s best friend.
Abby hadn’t seen the woman in nearly seventeen years. Never thought she would ever again.
The nightmares changed everything, though, and forced Abby to look once more in dark places still shadowing her life today.
Her heart racing so fast she thought she might be sick, Abby grabbed her car keys and flew down the stairs anyway.
Time to revisit the past.
Chapter Five
Braden used a speedy hunt-and-peck style of typing as he entered information from past cases into his computer. This aspect of detective work was mindlessly tedious, but he also understood that not correctly dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s sometimes made the difference in a case going bust if it ended up in trial. No detective wanted to be the reason a suspect walked away from a conviction on a technicality.
The suspect in the death of Abby’s parents had walked away from his trial without a guilty verdict. Of course, that wasn’t due to a screwup on the case itself. The guy had gone to trial, the prosecutor hadn’t proven his case, and the jury had set him free.
It happened sometimes. Braden could only imagine how it haunted the families of victims who could not get justice for their loved ones. It followed those families in their nightmares, Braden decided. Such as the ones that had come for Abby so recently.
Christ, I want to help her.
If Braden couldn’t give Abby closure then helping her find peace was his next best option. Braden eased his rolling chair back and withdrew a key to unlock the middle drawer of his desk. He had the key turned and the drawer halfway open when a sharp rap of knuckles hit the top of his desk.
“Knock. Knock.” A smoky, whiskey-rich voice accompanied the tap.
Braden looked up, up into a hazel stare shot with flecks of amber, belonging to the only man he’d ever met that he literally had to look up to see into his eyes. Ben Evans was a big man and solid as a rock. One of the most rugged, uniquely beautiful men Braden had ever known too.
“Son of a bitch. Ben Evans, look at you.” Braden jumped out of his chair and thumped the man on his thick shoulders. It had been two years since Ben ended things between them, and Braden’s heart still hurt some when he looked into the man’s eyes and remembered them filled with tears as Ben pulled the plug on their relationship. “When did you show up in town?”
Ben slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back on the heels of his heavy boots. “Just got here, and I can’t stay long. I finished up that case I was working on when you contacted me, and I’ve since had a chance to look into the name you wanted checked out.” He glanced at the man and woman occupying the two desks butted up against Braden’s, both of whom were doing a piss-poor job of not eavesdropping. When Ben came back to Braden, he asked, “Can you break for a bit?”
Braden grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and stood. “Sure. I have time for a coffee.”
“Damn, Crenshaw.” A male voice mocked Braden from one desk away. “First you’re late this morning, and now you’re ducking out early.” Detective Derek Watson glanced across the span of his desk to the final detective in their trio, April Kaufman. “Did we get new shorter shifts I didn’t hear about?”
“Nope.” April shook her head, the action swinging the ponytail holding back her blonde hair. “Not me, anyway.”
Derek shifted back to Braden, his dark eyes flashing with glee. “Me either.” His chocolate skin glowed with the joy of some good-natured ammunition. “Something a little more golden about you, Crenshaw? Just tell me who I have to fuck, and I’ll do it.” He grabbed a pen and clicked out the ballpoint.
Braden glared at Derek while making a jerk-off gesture with his fist in front of his crotch. “Eat me, Watson.”
The guy flashed a smile that could charm a junkie out of his last hit. “Not to my tastes, man, but thanks for the offer.”
In his mind’s eye, Braden could see the folder he had locked in his desk. His voice lost its edge as Abby opening her door to him and Rodrigo at three a.m. took over his thoughts. “Ben’s here on a matter related to an old case,” he shared. “He’s a private investigator out of Tampa, and I asked him to do me a favor.”
“Oh yeah?” Derek leaned up and shook Ben’s hand. “Good to meet you, Ben.” As April came out of her chair and exchanged handshakes with Ben, Derek looked back to Braden, fully sober now. “The one…” With a quick glance around the busy station, Derek asked, “The case we talked about a while back?”
Braden felt his mouth tighten. “Yeah.”
“Understood.” Derek slid a peek April’s way, and an almost imperceptible nod happened between them. “We have your back if the captain comes looking for you.”
“Thanks.” Braden didn’t bother to suppress a chuckle. He’d actively worked to hide huge chunks of who he was for far too long, and could read it like a book in others. “And I’ll keep pretending I don’t know the two of you are fucking like rabbits”—he paused, letting the wait-for-it moment swell—“even if the captain asks me directly. Again.”
“We aren’t doing shit” and “nothing’s going on between us” burst out of Derek and April one right on top of the other.
“And I agree with you both,” Braden said, his face stone-cold straight. “I’ll be back soon. Bye.”
As he stepped in line beside Ben, the bigger man nudged Braden’s arm with his. “I see you haven’t lost your way with the ladies.” He looked over his shoulder in April and Derek’s direction. “Or the fellas.”
Braden glared. “You can eat me too, Evans.”
Ben smiled, shooting Braden a quick heartbeat of eye contact before sliding on a pair of sunglasses. “I already have.”
Christ. Braden rolled his eyes. In so many ways, I will always love this man.
He led the way outside. “Let’s go get that coffee.”
* * *
Ben swirled the plastic stirrer in his small cup, mixing the foam into his shot of Cuban coffee. “I don’t think he did it,” he said, his stare steady on Braden.
Braden’s paper cup hit the table before he took his first sip of caffeine. They sat at a deserted picnic table in an empty park across the street from a local coffee shop. “No shit?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ben added. “The guy is nothing to take home to mom; he’s in holding in Lakeland sitting on a new possession charge as we speak, but I don’t think he murdered Elaine and Richard Gaines.”
“Tell me why.” Braden would not add his own summation to Ben’s assessment until he heard everything.
“He’s a lifetime petty criminal junkie who does the minimal necessary to get his next fix,” Ben replied. “From what I can gather, he’s been using his whole life. His brain is toast. He can’t think two steps ahead to his next meal let alone murder two people and get away with it.”
“He walked away with a not guilty verdict at his trial; it’s not like he actually outsmarted the cops.” Braden played devil’s advocate. It usually worked the best when fleshing out new ideas in any case, old or new. “It was the DA who didn’t do his job.” A biting breeze whipped across the open park, and Braden grabbed his cup so it didn’t blow away. “Aside from that, you saw Cormack as he is today, not as the nineteen-year-old kid he was eighteen years ago. He has had almost two decades more of drug use under his belt now than he did then.”
Ben shook his head. “It’s not relevant to this case. Cormack is just not smart enough to have done this crime and leave so little evidence. I read the file just like you did. I don’t buy the church as his connection to the Gaineses and his reason for choosing to target their house. Why would he?” Ben looked Braden in the eyes, the fire of debate sparking the amber flecks in the hazel. “That house was practically in the fucking godforsaken middle of nowhere. The cops and prosecutor never could prove how Cormack got ou
t to the Gaines place when he didn’t own a car nor have a friend who could lend him one. If he could afford to rent one, then he wouldn’t have needed to steal from the Gaineses in the first place, which takes away your motive for the murders.”
“He stole it.” Braden made a face at Ben. “Come on, even you know that one.”
“Who did he steal it from? Someone who didn’t think it necessary to report a missing vehicle in a town as small as Coleman was back then? No neighboring counties reported a stolen car within that time frame either. But let’s say he did get ahold of one. Where did Cormack dump it?” Ben pointed emphatically with his tiny paper cup, sloshing some of the coffee over the edge. “You know what?” He set the cup down, got to his feet, and began to create a path in the grass behind his side of the picnic table. “Forget the car. Let’s talk about Cormack’s method of gutting the wife before shooting her and then cutting open the husband’s throat before taking a shotgun to him. For a simple B and E gone bad?” Ben’s voice rose as high as his deep tones could. “No way. Knife wounds indicate passion, rage, fear, and almost always point to a personal—or a perceived or projected personal—connection to the victim.”
Braden opened his mouth, but Ben held up his hand, shutting Braden down before he could get a word out. “But for argument’s sake, let’s say Cormack did somehow get himself a vehicle, and he did read more than what was proper into the charity shown to him by Mrs. Gaines. You have Cormack deciding to steal a car so he can take a drive out and see Mrs. Gaines. Maybe he’s going to ask her for some cash because he’s seen her Christian charity in full swing at the church. Or let’s say he sees her handing out food at the church shelter, notices she has some nice jewelry on, and decides her house would be a good target for some quick stuff to sell for cash. Either way, he shows up at the house. So Cormack is either breaking in, doesn’t realize the family’s home, gets caught, and he kills them in a panic. On the other side, Cormack goes to the Gaineses and openly asks them for some money. Maybe he sells a hard-luck story, but the Gaineses rebuff his request for cash.” Ben laid out the two theories the cops had settled on for Cormack’s presence in the Gaineses’ home that day. “So you either have a guy who is caught in the act and frightened or you have a guy who gets angry at this couple’s unwillingness to help a man in need.”
