Page 191 of Protective Heroes

Her heart swelled and despite all the anxiety eating away her insides, she had to smile. One night over takeout, when Reece, Caden and herself had punched in overtime, Caden relayed the story of how he and Reece had met in boot camp.

In between bites of fried shrimp and noodles, she’d earned an insight to their decade-long friendship and how they’d known since those first grueling weeks of training that they were either going to hate each other or use their combined strengths to do something great.

After that night, Abigail knew she belonged here, a part of their working family. And to not see her men every day made her heart heavy.

They weren’t hers outside of her fantasies, but she’d take whatever her warped imagination could give her.

Abigail wet her lips. “You’re right. It’s nothing, it’s…”

What should she say? She couldn’t mix her job with her personal life by telling them. Plus, what if it was just some prank? She’d only been working for the Re-Con Securities for a little over five months. She couldn’t burden her new employers with whatever the hell she was dealing with. If it came to it, that was what the cops were for anyway.

Besides, she was here to help solve problems, not bring them problems.

From her seated position, her gaze switched between the men. “It won’t happen again, gentlemen.” She caught a flash of something light the men’s eyes. A spark of heat gone so fast she questioned if she saw it at all. What was that about?

She could analyze it later. Much later. Right now she needed to work fast and salvage her job. Abigail pushed back from the large table and gathered all the folders she’d brought for the conference call she’d been summoned to help organize.

She stacked the files neatly, running her fingers over the sides multiple times.

Abigail turned to both men slowly, forcing her eyes not to dip.

They stood with their arms crossed and rock-hard muscles coiled tight beneath their cotton dress shirts. It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to know they were just as solid everywhere else.

She looked between them as the silence grew heavy.

“Are you…am I…” She wavered on how to pose her thoughts into a question she really didn’t want the answer to in the short or long run. What if they did decide to let her go? Could she blame them? Today was a monumental day for their company and she’d dropped the ball.

Abigail squared her shoulders, and despite the butterflies doing the cha cha cha in her stomach, she pushed forward. “Am I fired?” She mentally patted herself on the back. Her voice sounded wobbly but didn’t break. That had to say something for her.

An astonished expression replaced the inquisitive look on their faces simultaneously.

Reece dashed away the surprise her question caused and followed Caden as if they moved as one to settle their big hands over hers, stilling her hurried motions with the paperwork.

This close, God help her, they smelled like gods. Sex gods that could promise and deliver wildly passionate nights of the kind of sex that would leave her profoundly fulfilled.

They stood next to her and looked at her, into her with dark, knowing eyes. Almost like they could read her mind and it made her shiver with uncertainty.

She inhaled again, wanting to etch the memory in her mind.

Pure heaven and pure sin all in one.

“Are we firing you? Look, Abigail,” Caden jumped in first, pulling her out of her jumbled thoughts.

He flicked a thumb toward Reece, who moved to the head of the table. “It’s not nothing and I think you know us better than to believe we’d give you the boot so quickly. Now tell us what has you so wound up and unfocused so we can help.” For a split second he looked hurt.

That smarted.

Her heart rate quickened at the small gesture of comfort from Caden’s touch and the dismissal of her question. Tension across her shoulders eased and the flutter of uncertainty lessened.

“Sorry, I understand your no tolerance policy so I kind of jumped to assumptions.”

Caden only nodded while, from the head of the table, Reece stood listening to her with his arms crossed and his attention on her. His white dress shirt stretched across the wide expanse of his strong, broad shoulders, tightening in all the right places that made a woman’s feminine side sit up and take notice.

“You’re biting your lip, which is a nervous tic and the worried look in your eyes, Abigail, adds to the layering of clues. Another is the way you’ve been looking out that window for the last two hours like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, sweetheart.”

“Tell us, darlin’, so we can help.” Reece lifted his dark eyes from Caden to land on hers. A slow smile glided across his face to offer her comfort, she supposed.

Caden had a point, but all her freaked out mind took away from that was his sweet endearment. Before today they always used her given name when at the office or Miss Torres when accompanied by Re-con clients.

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