Braden Crenshaw, with his intense eyes, slightly crooked nose, and stubble-covered jaw, often had Abby thinking about what his already harsh face would look like in the throes of a mind-shattering release. The winter months had taken away some of Braden’s tan, but he still had her pale coloring beat by a mile. He owned an inch or two on Rodrigo’s height, which was no small feat. Standing somewhere around six-feet-three or four, Braden had lanky cowboy legs, right now encased in dark jeans; a lightweight, snug sweater covered a long torso, sinewy shoulders, and swimmer’s arms. A chill hung in the January Florida air but Abby didn’t have to rub herself against Braden to know he would be toasty warm.
Holy Mother.
She squeezed her hand around the screen door’s handle as both Rodrigo and Braden made it to the porch. Together, they crackled the air around her, and Abby instinctually leaned in to breathe the combined scents of almonds and juniper. She caught herself just seconds before sticking her nose into each man’s nape, and she jerked back, fixing her gaze on her car parked on the side of the road beyond them.
Yeah. I don’t have my game face on firmly enough to handle these guys tonight.
Taking a figurative deep breath, Abby pushed past both men. “Later, boys.” She employed her lightest, brightest tone. “Can’t stay. Have a good night.” She traipsed down the first step.
“Hey.” Rodrigo grabbed her arm but went down with her a couple of steps rather than jerking her back to him. “Where are you running off to, Bit? Scared to sit across from me?” His fingers burned through her sleeve worse than a brand, and Abby felt naked against his onyx gaze. She always did when he looked at her.
“You still haven’t let me finish telling you why you need me to renovate that hellhole of a building of yours,” he added.
Verbal sparring was part of Rodrigo’s MO with her. On most days, it charged Abby up, and she relished getting in his face and giving it back just as good as he gave. Tonight, she thought one good jab from him might take her down in a total knockout.
Can’t let that happen in front of him.
Abby planted her free hand on her hip and glared up at the stubborn man. “My place passes every inspection and has never had a code violation, Rodrigo.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s the best it can be.” Rodrigo shot that statement back to her before she finished speaking his name. “Or its most appealing to your customers.”
“My business does just fine.” Abby tugged against Rodrigo’s hold and heard herself growl. She didn’t tell him how to refurbish and flip houses; he damned well better not think he knew how to sell vintage clothes or design jewelry better than she did. “Thank you very much.”
Rodrigo bared his teeth right back at her. “I wasn’t implying you don’t, Bit, and you fucking well know it.”
“Don’t call me that.” She pulled against his hold again.
Braden stepped closer. With his additional height, plus the fact that he remained on the landing, he towered over Abby and Rodrigo. “Let her go, Santiago.”
Rodrigo flashed those dark eyes up at Braden. “You back off, Crenshaw. You know nothing about this subject.”
This time, Braden wrapped his hand around Rodrigo’s arm. His jade gaze could not have been icier. “Not tonight.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “Let. Her. Go.”
A battle of wills seemed to war between the two men for a half dozen heartbeats, and something new instantaneously ramped up the electrical charge already in the air. The zap of it sent a tremble through Abby. She darted her gaze between Rodrigo and Braden and felt singed by the invisible fire licking between the space of their bodies.
They could kill each other or fuck each other right now. Might not matter which.
Abby gasped as the truth hit her. Whether these men knew it or not—and she suspected they didn’t—they wanted each other. Except she’d been with enough men before her dry spell to know about chemistry and could sense when a man had some sexual interest in a woman. She’d gotten that vibe off Rodrigo and Braden both—toward her. Only now the sparks flying through the air were definitely between these two men.
The image of each of them tangled with her and then wound all around each other, with cries of completion and raw words of encouragement sounding in her ears, took Abby over completely, making her whimper and terrifying her to her core.
I can’t know this about them. Or me. Not right now.
Rodrigo suddenly ripped his hand away from her as if someone had burned him. “I apologize.” He reached out, looking as if he wanted to touch her arm where he’d held it, but then snapped his hand back to his side. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Hearing the slight gruffness in Rodrigo’s tone forced a small smile out of Abby. “You didn’t. I promise. But I have to go.” She touched his arm, hardly daring to brush more than her fingers over the hard muscles, let alone give him a reassuring squeeze. It would have to be enough. “Good night.”
Without waiting for another word, Abby tore down the stairs to her car. As she started the finicky engine, praying that the car would run, she didn’t dare look back at the two men she could feel still watching her from the porch.
Between the nightmares plaguing her again and the fantasies she continued to conjure about herself, Rodrigo, and Braden becoming rapidly more explicit by the day, Abby didn’t know what was real or just her imagination anymore.
What is happening to me?
Rodrigo watched Abby drive away from Christian and Jonah’s house, and he could barely contain the storm brewing inside him. He glared down at the hand wrapped firmly around his forearm and just now couldn’t care enough to freak out that the fingers Braden Crenshaw dug into his flesh seared right through Rodrigo’s clothing and marked him with fire.
The twist in my belly doesn’t matter either.
Rodrigo lifted his stare from Braden’s crushing hold and met a pale gaze that too often made him sweat. “Take your fucking hand off me, Crenshaw.”
Instead of releasing Rodrigo, Braden glanced toward the door at his back and then pulled Rodrigo down the porch steps to the front yard. He spun Rodrigo around until they faced each other before finally letting him go.
Braden leaned in, narrowing the already small distance between them. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He kept his voice hissing low. “Couldn’t you see Abby wasn’t up for your brand of charm tonight?”
“I’m not a complete jackass.”
Christ, forget the butterflies in my stomach. Now I just want to slug him one in the mouth
. “Of course I could see it. The problem is, she hasn’t been up for it in weeks, which is exactly why she needs it.” Rodrigo let his line of sight shift down the street, but Abby was already long gone. His chest tugged at the memory of the too-bright light that hadn’t quite covered the clouds in the woman’s deep blue eyes. “Something is eating at her, Braden.” Rodrigo’s voice lost some of its edge as Abby slipped front and center into his thoughts. “She’s starting to hide. Whatever is bothering her, it won’t help to keep isolating herself from her friends.”
“And your constant poking while she’s dealing with some personal issue is going to get her to open up?” Braden leaned back on the heels of his dark boots and settled his arms against his chest. “Is that what you think?”
His jaw clenched, Rodrigo stepped in and eliminated half the distance between them. “I don’t actually expect her to open up to
me
.” He gave Braden a once-over and, for the moment, ignored the fact that his gaze lingered on strong arms and long, work-roughened fingers for just a hair too long. “Or even to
you
. However, there are two guys in this house”—he stabbed a finger toward the front door—“she might confide in if forced to be in their company for more than five minutes.”
“So that’s why you were trying to get her to stay,” Braden said, fully focused on Rodrigo.
Rodrigo rubbed the back of his neck to settle the raised hairs. “Yes.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you get half-hard every time she rises to your bait?” Braden glanced down, and Rodrigo followed him to the unmistakable start of a bulge pushing against Rodrigo’s jeans. “It’s purely altruistic,” Braden said as he blinked and met Rodrigo’s gaze with knowledge shining in his own. “Right?”
Heat surged through Rodrigo; he had his hand twisted in Braden’s sweater and the man hauled up against the base of the porch in two moves. “How hard anyone makes me for whatever reason is none of your goddamn business.” Rodrigo gritted his teeth and shoved even closer into the bastard. “You hear me?”
Each breath Braden took rolled his chest in a wave under Rodrigo’s hand and brushed warm air over Rodrigo’s lips. Their bodies touched in other places too, and Rodrigo prayed the half wood he sported for Abby covered the unwanted twitching he could not control right now, something he feared was happening entirely due to Braden.
Adrenaline is still pumping and has me getting harder because of Abby. That’s all.
“You’re right. It’s not my business,” Braden finally said. A small catch in his voice had Rodrigo narrowing his gaze. “And I know you genuinely care about Abby. It was a cheap shot to bring in the fact that you are so obviously attracted to her just to make my point.”
What the fuck?
Rodrigo suddenly felt like Abby on the other side of one of his taunts. “Are you baiting me now, Crenshaw?” His blood sped up more than a little at the thought.
Braden searched Rodrigo’s face for the longest time, each flick of his gaze instilling the sensation of a roller-coaster ride in Rodrigo’s stomach.
“Maybe,” Braden said, making the word feel like as much a caress as his scrutiny did. “Maybe I’m just envious.”
Rodrigo reared. “What?”
Of me, or her
? He untangled his hand from Braden’s sweater, horrified at his thoughts. He wasn’t gay, for God’s sake. Neither was Braden, for that matter. Rodrigo took a half dozen more steps back, searching for air that didn’t have this man’s scent mixed in it. “Why would you say that?”
“Because Abby obviously likes you back.” Braden smoothed his hands down the front of his sweater. He didn’t move, and Rodrigo was grateful for it. “She gets all flushed when you guys go at it. Something lights up in her when she’s close to you. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t care about you and like you for who you really are beneath this macho guy who thinks he knows what’s right for everyone.”
Rodrigo bit down the sharp retort building inside him, boiling to explode. He fucking owned his own business; of course he was used to telling people what to do and being the boss. This man wouldn’t get under his skin twice in ten minutes.
“I don’t know about that,” Rodrigo said. Images of a tall, creamy body, fiery long hair, and ocean blue eyes filled Rodrigo’s mind and once again got his balls swelling in the snug confines of his jeans. “About Abby, I mean.”
“I do,” Braden answered. “Just like I know you’re right when you say something is troubling her. Just because I don’t spar with her the way you do doesn’t mean I can’t sense the distraction in her too.”
Son of a mother.
Rodrigo went back to wanting to strangle this man. “Then why the fuck did you let her go?”
“Goddamn it, man.” Braden ran his fingers through his dark hair, exposing the strands of silver mixed in, most prominently at the temples. “Because she wasn’t ready to talk about what is plaguing her, that’s why. If you could have stopped yourself for one minute and stepped back from your certainty that you were right, you would have seen that.” The guy scratched at his neck, silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone had lost most of its edge. “Give Abby time, Rodrigo. When she’s ready for help, she’ll ask.”
A snort escaped Rodrigo. “You don’t know Abby so well after all.”
Braden linked his hands behind his back and didn’t so much as blink. “I think I do.”
The quiet certainty in Braden’s tone and the intensity in his stare ignited a flame of jealousy in Rodrigo. It also delivered the shock of a phantom hand—coarse and big, like another man’s—down his spine.
Why does this keep happening to me around him?
Rodrigo tore his focus off Braden and wiped his hand over his mouth. “Listen, I need to get out of here. Tell Chris and Jonah sorry for me, will you?” He turned and started jogging to his truck. “Let Chris know I’ll give him a call about our next job in a few days.”
“I know you too, Santiago.” Braden’s voice—so fucking even and smooth—carried across the front yard and stopped Rodrigo dead in his tracks.
Fucking A. No way did you figure me out. Please.
“Don’t follow her home,” Braden added, and Rodrigo started breathing again. “She won’t thank you for it.”
With one twist of his lower half, Rodrigo did an about-face and cleared the distance between them once more. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Crenshaw.” He couldn’t resist wiping that slash of a secret grin off Braden’s face. “I’m not going to Abby’s.”
The man’s pupils barely flared. “Convince me.”
Once again, Rodrigo tamped down the rise of heat inside him and kept his hands unclenched. “You have no right to my personal business. I don’t have to say a word. But since it’s the only thing that will take
your
arrogance down a notch, I will tell you.” Discomfort that reached further inside Rodrigo, a hundred times deeper and a thousand times different than what Abby or this man brewed in him, had Rodrigo shifting his gaze to the streetlight highlighting his truck. “While on my way here, I talked to my”—he still stumbled spitting out the word—“
father
on the phone, and we made loose plans to meet for a late dinner.” Rodrigo rubbed at the tension lines forming over his brow. “I’m not really up for that either, though, so I’m gonna cancel it and go home. I have plenty of work I still need to do before I start my next house.”
“Hey,” Braden said, his voice suddenly soft. He tugged on Rodrigo’s jacket and drew Rodrigo back to him. “How’s it going with your dad?”
Six months ago, out of the blue, a man had contacted Rodrigo, claiming to be his father. The guy seemed certain and definitely knew things about Rodrigo’s late mother that would have been tough to research. Rodrigo had still needed proof. One DNA test later and Rodrigo suddenly had a new parent.