Page 194 of Protective Heroes

Caden sat forward too. This close and she could almost kiss them with just a small turn of her head. The air grew warmer around her, their mingled masculine scents working double time to calm her nerves. Was it because she wanted to trust them, have them this close to her, or did they have that effect on all women? Probably a little of both.

Two

“What I think we meant to say was, we’ve given it some thought and we’ve seen the small gestures from you to make us believe you’d be interested in something more than just…how should I word it?” Reece paused a moment.

“Traditional.” Caden threw out the word as if he had a hard time chewing it. He took her other hand. “Today we were going to ask you to stay after work so we could have a talk. Hell, it’s against all our work ethics, but there’s just something about you, Abigail, that makes us want to throw the rule book away.”

Reece ran his free hand through his dark hair and let out a deep, rugged sigh. “Before we go any further maybe we should just focus on this clusterfuck of a mess, then we can sort out what is between us later.”

That had her brows pinching and her thighs pressing together all at once. Talk about mixed signals.

Why was he throwing on the brakes? She cocked a brow and pinned Reece with a curious stare. “Are you not going to ask what I want?”

His voice pitched to a sultry low husk that had her body humming. “What do you want, Abigail?”

The intercom buzzer from the downstairs security team went off beside them and broke the building tension.

Caden growled before he placed my hand in Reece’s and stood to answer the incoming message. Her pulse skipped a beat. The sound pulled something inside her to the surface that made her feel dirty and naughty at the same time. Like she wanted to find out what sex on the conference table pinned between her two bosses would feel like right that second.

Reece picked up on the sudden war of emotions inside her because he took that moment to lift her hand to his lips and press a soft kiss to each knuckle. “Let’s get this figured out and then we’ll have all the time in the world to answer all those questions I see in your eyes, sweet Abigail.”

That seemed like the right thing to do. She nodded once and offered a small smile.

“Will you pull up those images again? Let me see if there’s any information I can find and get the investigation started. While I do that, give me the rundown again on when you received them.”

Abigail did as Reece requested, pulling up the images for the second time. “I was down at the coffee shop about four blocks from here when this hit my company email.” Abigail scrolled past the images of her coming back from the lake after her ritual weekend skinny-dipping and the one with her self-pleasuring then stopped on the one where it showed all three of them grabbing lunch after a long morning with clients last week.

“After the surprise wore off at seeing images of my naked body, I noticed the sender’s email address. Or lack of, anyway.”

Reece nodded.

In the picture Caden was holding the door for them, looking back over the crowded sidewalk while Reece ushered Abigail inside the restaurant with a hand on her lower back. She remembered the day because both men had been so attentive to her over their shared meal. They asked her about family and her goals and even touched on the subject of kids. Abigail worried her lower lip and looked down at the picture again. How could someone intrude on such a private moment? For what reason?

Her breath died in her throat and fire exploded throughout her body, her mind racing with a myriad of worst-case scenarios. Only she didn’t have any worst-case scenarios in her past. No current boyfriends or jealous friends. She had too little of one and not enough of the other to even ping on her radar.

Reece peeled the phone from her fingers and shut it off. “You don’t need to look at these anymore, Abigail. Is this why you were late this morning?”

She took a calming breath before answering. “Yes and no,” her voice came out only half as shaky as she felt.

“The images pissed me off, sure, but what I found when I got to my car after my coffee run scared the crap out of me.” Her foot bounced in place and Reece rested a hand on her knee. “You’re safe, now, Abigail. Take another deep breath and walk me through what happened. Slowly.”

She nodded and her eyes zeroed in on the soft contact of his skin on hers, thankful for the anchor. “Whoever took those images also left a nice little note keyed into the paint of my hood.” This time, there was no stopping the tears that burned her eyes. She dragged in another deep breath to steel her jittery nerves before continuing. Silence settled over the room, and she knew both men patiently waited for her to continue.

“What message, sweetheart?” Caden coaxed her in a strained, worried tone. He returned to where they sat a couple of feet away from the intercom phone.

“Pronto Morirás,” she said in a thin whisper. Abigail pulled her lip between her teeth and forced the tears away. The men were the tough-guy types. No telling how they would react to a woman crying.

Abigail clamped down on her emotions, slipped her hand into her jacket pocket for the other half of the message and held it out for both men to see.

“The words mean, ‘you will die soon’. And if this is any clue to go by, it will be a quick death.” She dropped the silver-tipped bullet in Caden’s palm. “Sorry. I know I should have called or something and not touched it, but at the moment I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry, guys. I think I might have gone a little crazy when I found that bullet on my car and that message.”

Freaking bat-shit-crazy was more like it with the way she’d grabbed the bullet and peeled out of the parking lot so fast onlookers jumped out of her way. She’d had no real idea what to do but come to work, thinking she could figure something out before quitting time.

“Son of a bitch,” Caden drawled out through gritted teeth, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Reece slammed his fist down on the table and stood, sending his chair flying backward. The brute force left a dent in the opposite wall. “What a way to bury the lead, Abigail. You should have told us that little detail first, damn it.” His face flushed an angry red.

Banked anger rippled just beneath the surface. The veins in his neck throbbed. “And stop biting your damn lip, for God’s sake, and look at me.” He kneeled next to her and encompassed her face with both of his hands. His thumb grazing the place on her lower lip where she had a tendency to bite. A stupid habit she picked up from her older sister as kids because she wanted to be cool. Years later and the habit still stuck around.

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