Something New

by Cameron Dane

  Trembling against Braden’s back, Abby breathlessly whispered, “Let me feel.” She ran her fingers through the ejaculate coating Rodrigo’s stomach and then down to the semen Rodrigo had dumped on Braden’s leg. Her fingers traveling in reverse, Abby wrapped her smaller hand around both Braden’s and Rodrigo’s cocks and stroked both shafts with her cum-slick hand. She extracted a final jerking response out of both men, and as she did, the shiver against Braden’s back accelerated into a full-on shudder, and Braden knew Abby released herself to the pleasure of orgasm just as deeply as Braden and Rodrigo had.

  They all hung wrapped up together for an extended moment, suspended in time. Rodrigo eventually pulled away first. His fathomless dark gaze darted between Braden and Abby; he fell against the pillows lining the headboard and shoved his hands through his silky black hair. Braden could almost see Rodrigo mentally shaking his head when Abby stirred behind him and pulled his attention to her. She very gently withdrew the dildo from his worked-over ass and even rubbed three fingers over his pucker to help settle the muscle back into place.

  Still on her knees, she moved around Braden toward the headboard, and Braden couldn’t help his attention falling to the residual sheen of cum on her hand. Abby dropped her focus to where Braden looked, swung her head, and saw Rodrigo staring too.

  “What?” Her voice rose with the lift of her shoulders. “I like cock. I don’t have penis envy, but I like what the male body is and does. Everything about it excites me. That includes when you come.” She wiggled her shiny fingers in front of her. “Apparently it can get me there too.”

  Braden chuckled, feeling as light as he almost ever had in his life. “Apparently in a big way from all the shaking I felt go through you against my back.”

  A deeper flush crept over every inch of Abby’s already rosy flesh. “A lot of that was my reaction to watching myself fuck you.” She blushed like a virgin but at the same time stroked her dildo like a well-satisfied man. “I like your ass, Braden. It was fun making it mine for a little while.”

  “Thank you.” Braden pecked a kiss to her cheek and swatted her tush, pleased when she yelped. “When I eventually get you to roll onto your stomach, I’m sure I’ll like yours as much as I like the parts of you I’ve already tested.”

  Rodrigo muttered, “Shit,” and tugged at his hair again.

  “Aww.” Abby kissed her way up Rodrigo’s leg, ending with a peck to the tip of his sated cock. “Don’t feel left out.” She shifted to sit next to him and linked her arm through his. “You moaned so much last night when Braden fucked you that I definitely want a piece of your sweet ass one day too.”

  If the color red could make a head explode, Rodrigo’s would be splattered all over Abby’s walls. “Shit.”

  “Rodrigo doesn’t feel slighted, Abby,” Braden shared, studying this sexy traditional man sitting next to a woman with a strap-on cock, after having just finished moaning for more himself while another man sucked his dick. “He just can’t quite believe he’s in the middle of something like this. Not only participating, but also loving it, and he really can’t wrap his brain around the fact that you like it so much too.”

  Abby’s eyes darkened and turned somber in a flash. “I know.” The way she rubbed her cheek into Rodrigo’s shoulder made Braden wonder if they’d talked about this subject before. “It’s a unique situation, and not one many can offer practical advice for, that’s for sure.”

  Rolling his head against the padded board, Rodrigo lifted his focus to the ceiling. “It’s a mind fuck is what it is. I’m not gonna lie.” Just as fast as he said that, he brought his gaze back to Braden and Abby. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want more or that I regret a second of what we’ve done since the first night we all shared a bed, but that doesn’t mean I have any fucking clue what we’re doing or how it’s supposed to proceed. Makes me feel like I’m twisting out there in the wind sometimes, and I don’t fucking like that feeling. I never have.”

  Abby perched her chin on Rodrigo’s shoulder. “I was just teasing, Rodrigo.” She grazed her fingers down from his elbow and took his hand in hers. “I’m sorry if it was in bad taste or too much too fast.”

  With a kiss to Abby’s forehead, Rodrigo said, “Don’t worry. It wasn’t. I was just saying shit mostly for him.” He jerked his head toward Braden, a wicked, masculine grin showing briefly. “I know how much it turns him on.”

  “It definitely does.” Braden leaned in fast and stole a quick kiss from Rodrigo’s lips. “If I had one bit of energy left after the last few days, I’d happily go down on you again and spend the next half hour trying to get you hard and coming.”

  Hardly moving, Rodrigo shifted his head just enough to find Braden’s gaze. “If I had one drop of spunk left to spend, I’d let you do it.” His legs fell open as he sank deeper into the pillows tucked behind him. “But I don’t.”

  Letting out a sigh, Braden dropped back against the pillows next to Abby, squishing her in between him and Rodrigo. “I don’t think I do either.”

  Still wearing the strap-on, Abby had a similar butterfly stance to Braden and Rodrigo. “So is this what happens after sex between men?” She glanced down at her cock, then to Rodrigo’s, and finally Braden’s. “You just sit around with your dicks hanging out and shoot the breeze?”

  Braden had to laugh at the sight the three of them made. “Kind of. We normally turn on the TV and find something to watch.” He wished she had a TV in her bedroom he could click on. “Then I’d hold yours while you hold mine”—he wrapped her fingers around his cock and then took hold of her dildo—“and we’d just keep each other pleasantly aroused until we’re ready to go at it again.” Rodrigo immediately did the same on Abby’s other side, arranging her with one hand on each man’s limp dick and two big hands wrapped around her modest pink cock. “See?” He and Rodrigo thumbed the silicone toy. “All kinds of secret fun.”

  Abby rolled her eyes at Braden. “Jeez, Detective. I had no idea you had a second job as a comedian. Seriously, though.” She looked at him, no teasing twinkle in her gaze. “What do you really do? I’m curious.”

  Braden shrugged. “Either go home or go to sleep,” he shared. “Depends on the person you’re with.”

  “You don’t have to stay awake for me,” Abby replied. “I promise. Either one of you.” She turned to included Rodrigo. “If you want to crash, that’s cool. I don’t need entertaining. And I’m not just talking about tonight. I mean any time we’re together.”

  Rodrigo drew Abby’s hand from his cock to his lips and kissed the back. “Bit, right now I’m good with just sitting here listening to the two of you breathe.”

  Braden’s heart constricted with an incredible, pleasant pain. Sometimes, overbearing Rodrigo said just the right thing.

  Linking Abby’s hand to his in a mirror of Rodrigo’s hold on her, Braden added, “Me too.”

  As all of them fell to silence, Braden watched Abby study and finger the big, masculine hands tangled with both of hers. One darker than the other but both with long fingers and chewed-to-the-nub nails. Rodrigo definitely had more nicks in his skin than Braden did, but Braden knew he had some rough spots too. His hands definitely weren’t dainty or pristine in any way.

  Braden suddenly bit back a smile as he realized he was comparing his hands to Rodrigo’s and hoping Abby found his as masculine as the other man’s. Fucking ridiculous. He guessed a little bit of competition always existed when there were two or more men side by side.

  Right then, Abby brought Braden’s hand close to her face and then a second later did the same to Rodrigo’s. She glanced between them both and said, “Neither one of you have tattoos.”

  A buzzing started in Braden’s brain. “What do you mean?”

  “Your hands.” Abby untwined their fingers and held each man’s hand up in the air by the wrist. “Neither one of you have tattoos on your hands.”

  The tingling sensation crept down Braden’s neck, into his arms and fingers, and he had to force himself
to maintain a calm tone and not shake Abby. He did keep his hand right in Abby’s line of sight, though, and exchanged a look with Rodrigo that told the man to do the same. “We don’t have tattoos,” he said carefully. “Tell me why that matters, Abby.”

  Her eyes scanned the air in front of her as if she looked at something nobody else could see. Then she crushed Braden’s wrist under her fingers. “The killer didn’t either.” Abby rushed out of bed to her computer in the living area, her strap-on dildo flapping in the breeze. “Why do I think that matters?” The hibernating machine came to life, casting a glow in the shadowed room, and Abby’s fingers instantly flew over the keys as she punched words into a search engine. “Why do I care? I need to see Cormack’s picture.”

  While Braden flipped on the light and went for the photocopied version of the Gaines case file tucked in a side table, Rodrigo moved in behind Abby and braced his hand on the back of her chair. “Damn, Bit,” he said. “Your fingers are fast.”

  “I get most of my weather and news from the Internet,” Abby explained. “You start to get good at speedy searches.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Braden could see Abby moving through screens at a rapid pace.

  “It lets me read when I have time,” she added. “Plus, I’ve searched for information about Cormack before. Ah…” She tapped the monitor with her finger. “Here it is.”

  Braden grabbed the file and raced to Abby’s side.

  “Look at that.” Abby pointed to the mug shot on the computer screen while glancing to Braden. “Look at Cormack’s fingers where he’s holding up his arrest information. He has a snake tattoo that goes all around his fingers on his left hand, and some kind of letters or symbols on the other. Neither one of those is the hand I saw open the closet door as I closed the lid on the attic entrance, Braden. The hand I see in my dreams does not have a tattoo. Cormack does.”

  Wait just a second. Braden held his breath as he flipped through his file and pulled out a copy of Cormack’s original mug shot. “Fuck.” He slapped it on the computer table and pointed at the fingers. “He has them in the original mug shot too. They’re old tats.”

  “He’s definitely not the guy.” Abby’s hand shook as she lifted the paper and handed it back to Braden. “He really didn’t kill my parents.”

  Rodrigo ran a protective hand down Abby’s shoulder to between her breasts, but his dark stare remained trained on Braden. “So what do we do now?”

  “Same as before,” Braden answered. “We keep asking questions.” He slid his hand across Abby’s breastbone and linked it to Rodrigo’s over her heart. “And we don’t stop until we track down a murderer.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Gotcha.”

  Sitting at his desk at work, Braden stole a pen out of Kaufman’s supply and jotted down the address of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Bruno. He had assured Abby it wouldn’t be hard to find them and that they would visit with her old neighbors today. Thank God the Brunos still lived close by. When offering her that promise, Braden had thought no further than his desire to comfort Abby and give her hope that they hadn’t reached a dead end. He had played the odds based on his knowledge and access to a search database, and the gamble had paid off.

  A hand and arm suddenly appeared over his shoulder and snatched the pen out of his fingers. “I’ll take that back, thank you very much.” April plopped down in her chair and dropped her pen back into the overfull cup. “Keep track of your own pens. Between you and Watson, I swear I feel like I’m back in third grade getting my Trapper Keeper raided every day.”

  Braden glanced to the empty desk at his right. “Where is Watson?”

  “Doctor’s appointment. Finally. He’ll be in later. His allergies are acting up, but you’d think he has the swine flu.” April narrowed her stare at the empty desk across from her while knotting her long hair at her nape. “Yet he’ll suffer and bitch and moan rather than just go get checked out so he can get a prescription that will work for his symptoms.”

  Kicking back in his chair, Braden grinned at his pretty colleague’s snarl. “Must be hell sharing a bed with the bastard every night.”

  April knocked his boots off the edge of the desk. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.” She took up one of her pens and aimed it in his direction. “And you ought to be thinking more about how the boss is going to ride your ass and possibly shut down your Gaines investigation than trying to weasel information out of me about Watson sharing my bed.”

  All joking fled, and Braden sat up straight. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  April kept hold of her pen and twirled it between her fingers. “All I know is Zanger came out here yesterday afternoon wanting to know if you’d said anything to me or Derek about what leads you’re pursuing in this case. I also know I had passed on a message from a Father Jim just before Zanger came out here asking questions, and I know he’s out talking to this priest right now.” Glancing around the half-full squad room, April rolled her swivel chair closer and lowered her voice. “The boss was not happy and was bitching something about this case stirring too many people up for too little chance of finding a new suspect.” She scrunched up her face and looked at him through one squinted eye. “Eighteen years is a long time, man. You have to wonder if he’s right.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “He’s not. You’re not.” Braden locked his desk, tucked his scrap of paper into his pocket, and got to his feet. “I have a lead to track down right now,” he said as he shrugged into his blazer. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  Braden booked it the hell out of the station. He had to get Abby and Rodrigo and go talk to Mrs. Bruno right now. The interviews Braden had managed so far with some of Richard’s old coworkers had not produced anything useful, making the church seem more and more the place where he would find an answer. Braden figured he needed to slip in one more interview with Father Jim and some of the church’s employees while he could still claim ignorance about his right to pursue this case. Once he talked to Zanger, even with Abby’s new memory that eliminated Cormack as the killer, all bets could be off.

  * * *

  An hour later, Martha Bruno plunked her coffee cup down on her kitchen table with resounding force. “I don’t buy it, little missy,” she said, looking right at Abby. “Not one bit.”

  Martha Bruno sat next to her husband at their kitchen table. Abby had taken the seat across from her. Braden was situated next to Abby, and upon entering the kitchen to a table with only four chairs, Rodrigo had assured the Brunos that he was fine leaning against the counter.

  The sharp tone of Martha’s voice caught Abby off guard. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know why. I just don’t. Call it my gut.” Martha’s dyed black hair moved in one big hair-sprayed wave. “Your mama was too devout a Christian to cheat on her husband. Even if she’d fallen out of love with your daddy, she was too close to Jesus to forget that adultery is a sin.”

  Abby bit down the bitchy retort that wanted to spew out of her mouth. “What about the word baby I heard her say to the killer?”

  “I do not know.” Martha waved her work-roughened hand in a dismissive flip. “You were eight years old, and you were probably already scared because you knew you were gonna get in trouble for running away from my house without telling anybody. On top of that, you hear someone attacking your mama and daddy. You probably did not hear what you think you did. I do not think Elaine would have used an endearment with someone about to kill her.”

  “But I clearly remember your message on the answering machine, which you confirm was right.”

  “A message is a lot more words strung together than one word slipping out during a terrifying moment,” Martha responded. “It’s a lot easier for your ears to mistake hearing one word than a whole message. I simply will not believe Elaine was unfaithful to her husband. It would be like being unfaithful to her child, and she would never do that to you.”

  Abby clamped her teeth together so hard her jaw h
urt. “People find ways to justify acting on something they desperately want all the time. My mom was human.” Spreading her hands on the table, Abby mentally told herself to focus rather than argue. “Let’s narrow it down to the last year of her life, and please think hard before you answer.” She held Martha’s stubborn gaze with an unblinking one of her own. “My mother never said an-y-thing or acted in a way that ever gave you pause and made you think something was going on? Even if you didn’t suspect an affair, was there anything in just her behavior in general that now might make you think something was off? Did you ever come over to the house and find a man there she had trouble explaining or that you simply didn’t recognize? Did she ever mention a man’s name more than once when you guys talked? A male friend or someone from the congregation spoken of one too many times? Anything like that?”

  With her chin propped in her hand, Martha drummed her fingers against her plump cheek. “I don’t recall Elaine mentioning one person’s name more than another, although she did speak of male members of the church as friends. But she talked about just as many women, and often these people were spouses to each other. I suppose I can’t say anything one hundred percent, but the truth is”—her dark eyebrows went up—“I’d be more likely to think your daddy was having an affair than your mama.”

  That jerked Abby upright, but Braden put his hand on her leg under the table before she could utter a word.

  “Do you have some evidence of that, Mrs. Bruno?” Braden asked.

  Martha looked at Braden in the same way she used to look at her sons when they would try to spin a tall tale for her. “No, Detective. I said to think not that I knew.”

  Braden’s lips turned up just the slightest bit at the edge. “Fair enough.” He scribbled some kind of shorthand note in his pad without breaking eye contract from Martha. “Then what would make you think it enough to say what you just did?”