She passed him the hammer because she was done trying for the day. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I wouldn’t turn down some iced tea. Give me ten minutes and I can have this fixed.” He got down to one knee and allowed her to step up and into the trailer.
She practically ran to the fridge. Her mom was still asleep, and that was a good thing. Sleep was healing, and it also meant she hadn’t witnessed that terrible scene with the deputy.
She stopped at the sink. What the hell would have happened if Jack Barnes hadn’t gotten out of his truck and intervened? Would she have been forced to use that damn hammer on the deputy?
She took a deep breath. It had been a very long time since she’d been that intimidated, worried that something very ugly was about to happen to her.
One breath and then another and another, and then she turned and got some ice and poured his tea. All the while she could hear Jack hammering. How was that such a soothing sound?
He was an overwhelmingly large man. He could do anything he wanted to her. It was only her and her momma here, and no one would hear her yelling at this time of day. Yet she felt not an ounce of hesitation as she poured a second glass and walked back out.
He was putting the last of the nails in. “This place is falling apart.”
“You’re telling me.” She handed him the glass and sank down on the steps.
They were barely wide enough that he could sit beside her.
She tried not to think about how nice it felt to have his hips brush hers.
“I don’t think I like that deputy,” he said, his eyes staring ahead.
“Well, there’s something we have in common,” she replied.
He drank down his tea and then stood, passing her the glass again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, handing that to her, too. “Thank you, Abigail. And you remember what I said. You find yourself in this position again and you call me. My cell phone is the second number. I don’t care what time it is. Day or night, you call me. You tell them you’re calling me. You understand? You tell them Jack Barnes is going to want to have a long talk with any man who tries to hurt you.”
She nodded slowly, looking down so he wouldn’t see how affected she was by his words.
His hand came out, gently lifting up her chin, and he shook his head.
He sighed and stepped back. “Like I said, you’re going to kill me, Abigail. I’ll have someone out tomorrow to look at that lock on the door.”
She started to argue, but his eyes went dark. “Yes, Jack. Thank you.”
He turned and got in his truck and drove off.
And she watched the truck until he turned on to the highway, wishing all the while he would have stayed.
Chapter Four
“Right through there,” Christa said, waving a hand toward her garage.
Sam stood in the kitchen while a cheer went up in the living room, letting him know the Longhorns had scored. Christa and Mike’s house was full of football fans, and apparently low on indoor fridge space since the hostess was sending him out to the garage.
“I just want a beer. Should I be worried that I’m about to be viciously murdered?” He couldn’t tell if Christa was trying to get him to move some stuff around her garage or maybe introduce him to a serial killer who lived in there.
The way he’d been going hard after Abby, it really might be the latter.
Two weeks had passed since the day he’d met Abby and he was fairly certain he was crazy about that woman. She was the one, but he couldn’t get Jack to understand that sometimes a woman required proof that two men were better than one.
Jack was maintaining his distance. He was insistent that Abby would be utterly horrified if she realized what they wanted. So he’d allowed Sam to hang out with her alone.
“Yes, through there, and no you will not be murdered, though you might think about murdering me for wasting so much of your time,” Christa said, biting her bottom lip. “You have to understand. She’s my best friend. I had to make sure she was ready. When I opened that box…well, she’s ready. At least in a fictional sense. Check the box marked books.”
Now he was interested. He moved into the garage and found the box Christa was talking about. It was obvious this was one of the boxes Abby had been into. The tape had been removed, making it easy to pull it open and get to the goodness on the inside.
What the hell?
He stared at the box of books, and everything inside him stilled.
Not everything. His cock suddenly wasn’t still. That sucker grew to what felt like an impossible length, but once it had reached its limitation, even that stilled in shocked awe at the bounty sitting before him. Sam knew that if his dick had a face, it would probably have the same shocked expression on it as the one attached to his head.
Books. Lots and lots of dirty books. That was not what he’d expected to find. Well, except for the fact that the box had been marked books. But he’d thought she would have like Oprah books.
He was fairly certain Her Twin Doms by one Ms. Cherry Sparks didn’t have the Oprah seal of approval. Nor did Their Virgin Fuck Buddy by one Dakota Cheyenne.
There were numerous books by a woman named Amber Rose that also seemed a bit on the salacious side.
Were they all written by strippers, because he knew a couple of strippers who had those names.
After a moment of looking at the books on the top, he managed to find the strength to see what was beneath.
It just got worse—or in his opinion, better.
“Holy shit,” he breathed quietly, since he didn’t particularly want anyone to know he was out in the garage pawing through Abby Moore’s belongings. He was supposed to be out here grabbing a couple of beers from the fridge. That’s what Jack thought he was doing.
But damn, he’d wasted weeks of his time.
If it had all been lust, he would likely have shown up on her doorstep and seduced the lady, but he felt something for her. If this was more than mere lust, then he had to think about Jack. He might be able to screw a woman on his own, but if it became serious with Abby, he would never be able to do that without Jack. He’d made the decision to keep his hands off Abigail Moore until he could bring Jack into the picture.
Thus had begun the roughest two weeks of Sam Fleetwood’s life, and considering his childhood, that was saying something. He was caught between a rock and a really, really hard place. He managed to arrange several meetings between the two. They’d all had dinner at Christa’s Café on Wednesday night after Abby’s shift ended. It had been a simple thing to invite her over, and once Jack had realized she was hungry and likely eating all by herself, he’d been the one to invite her to stay. Sam had been able to wrangle an invitation to the Wades’ traditional Saturday football watching, and he’d complained until Jack went with him.
Abby Moore was worth fighting Jack’s antisocial tendencies over.
Sam hadn’t figured he’d be fighting so hard. Every single time he managed to manipulate Jack into spending time with her, Jack obviously enjoyed it, and then pulled away the minute she got in her car and drove off. Jack had admitted that she was beautiful and loving and sweet, but he’d been burned too many times before. Despite his best arguments, Jack wasn’t even willing to approach her about the possibility of dating them because he assumed she would be shocked and appalled at the thought of a relationship with two men. Sam knew the argument. He’d heard it himself many times. It was all right for a night or two, but most women weren’t willing to risk community outrage by dating both of them. Jack had been sure Abby wouldn’t even consider a covert sexual relationship with them.
Jack had turned into Eeyore on the subject.
Sam grinned as he looked down at the box of books. Jack was going to have to rethink everything once he saw what Abby considered great literature. Sam shook his head at the ridiculous covers on the books. These were women’s books? Everyone was naked.
What had she done? Had she typed m
énage into the search engine at Amazon and bought everything that came up?
He couldn’t help himself. He read the back cover of one and then another and another. Most were about one woman and two men. It was perfectly reasonable in his mind. Despite the salacious covers, they seemed to be about love, and one woman and two men constituted a romance in his world.
Then he got to the really wild stuff.
“What the hell is she thinking?” This particular one seemed to be about a woman servicing five men. Five? Where did one woman put five cocks? A strange sense of outrage flashed through his system. He was a reasonably tolerant man. Hell, he had shared women with his best friend since they were seventeen and the woman across the street introduced them to sex, but now he felt like a prude. The thought of Abby playing around with five damn men annoyed the hell out of him. He could feel his face setting in a stubborn line as he repacked the box. His honey was going to have to be satisfied with the two cocks she was going to get. He wasn’t getting into anything wild, like sharing his wife with some stranger. It was him and Jack, and that would have to be enough for his dirty little Abby.
Sweet little Abby. Hopefully curious Abby, because he would bet a lot that these books were as far as Abby had gone into ménage world.
He smiled as he got the beers he’d been sent out here for. A light joy overtook him as he realized Abby wasn’t going to be shocked by what they wanted from her. Hell, it was her fantasy. If he was wrong and she’d been in a relationship like it before, then she would know what was coming. He wasn’t sure why it hadn’t worked out before, but he knew one thing for sure. He and Jack wouldn’t screw this up. He popped the cap off his beer, took a long, satisfying swig, and headed back in to start the seduction of a lifetime.
* * * *
Jack tried his hardest to concentrate on the big screen. He shifted on the sofa, aware that his eyes kept moving to the woman curled up on the recliner across the living room. He was sitting in the Wade house surrounded by their friends. When he and Sam had shown up, they’d been introduced to the five or six other guests the Wades had invited, but Jack couldn’t remember their names to save his damn life. All he could think about was Abigail Moore.
Everywhere he turned these days, the gorgeous redhead seemed to be there, looking at him with her big, wounded, love-me, protect-me eyes. Lately, when he tried to go to sleep, those eyes haunted him.
The truth was, it was getting harder and harder to resist her, though he wasn’t about to tell Sam that.
He sure as hell wasn’t about to tell Sam that he’d talked to Barry Houseman, who lived in the trailer across the street from Abigail’s mother. Barry lived there with his wife and three kids and every one of them now had Jack’s number in case they saw anything that seemed wrong happening across the street.
“Find what you needed?” Christa asked Sam as he walked back into the living room.
Jack and the rest of the group sat watching the Longhorns play. There were chairs and barstools huddled around the big screen. Jack and Sam had staked out the couch early. Mike and Christa cuddled on a love seat. There was a secretive smile on Christa Wade’s face. Jack took in the sight of his best friend. Sam practically skipped back in the room, and that set off a warning bell. Sam had been in a shit mood for weeks over Abigail. Now he looked like a kid given the toy he’d wanted for Christmas. He really hoped Abigail hadn’t done something to give Sam hope. The last thing he needed was Sam with a broken heart. He’d wander around the ranch like a kicked puppy for months.
“I found everything I could ask for, Chris.” Sam’s grin told Jack he was in trouble. “I really appreciate the heads-up.”
From across the room, Abigail smiled curiously. His insides clenched. Damn, but that was one fine-looking woman. Maybe he could handle it if she was simply gorgeous and had a banging body, but her smile was so warm he wanted to bask in it. She was soft and sweet and everything feminine.
She was exactly the kind of woman he needed to stay away from.
“Heads-up?” Abigail gave the group a laugh.
Sam’s grins could be infectious. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever smiled before he met Sam. Sometimes it felt like they were two halves of a whole person—Jack the serious half, while Sam was all about the light. It put Jack in the position of older brother, though the two were only three months apart in age.
“I was looking for some beer, sweetheart.” Sam winked.
“You’re always looking for some beer.” Her lips curled up, and she shook her head with an affectionate giggle as she turned her attention back to the game.
Damn but he liked seeing her smile. Seeing her scared and lonely had sent a hole into him that he hadn’t quite managed to fill up yet.
Sam sank onto the couch next to him and a cold beer was pressed into his hand. Abigail started talking to the town’s high school football coach. Jack knocked back a long drink as he gave his partner a pitying look. He wasn’t going to let himself fall for Abigail. It would be an easy thing to do, but he was in control of his emotions. He wasn’t falling for a woman after two dinners, a couple of football games, and that one time Sam convinced him to see a movie then picked her up along the way.
Jack’s eyes went straight to the redhead like a moth to the flame. There weren’t many women like Abigail. She was smart and funny. Her take on the world challenged him. He’d learned more about politics from her in the few weeks he’d known her than he had in years of browsing through the papers. In addition to working at a hospital, she volunteered at a homeless shelter and had raised a daughter. She’d also been married for ten years, and just two years ago had lost her husband to cancer.
Jack sighed. He didn’t care what the town gossips said. She was a lovely, respectable woman. She would be shocked by what he and Sam wanted to do to her. She would run screaming the other way if she had a hint of how badly he wanted her trapped between him and the man he loved like a brother. Jack felt his eyes glaze over as he thought about it. She would be small in between their big bodies. Sam would immediately go for that sweet pussy of hers. He couldn’t help it. Sam loved to eat pussy. Jack would be free to tease her lips with the hard head of his dick. He would tell her exactly what he wanted and how deep he wanted her to take him. He would explain, and she would comply. She would do everything he asked her because she would learn to trust him. He would take damn good care of her in and out of their bed.
She would never have to change a tire again or deal with a crooked plumber the way she had last week. The trailer she was staying in was falling apart around her. Jack wanted nothing more than to get her the hell out of there. She deserved a beautiful house with lots of space. One where she didn’t have to worry about asshole deputies intimidating her.
That was the kind of relationship Jack wanted deep down. He wanted a woman he and Sam could take care of. He was bigger and stronger, so he should be the one to take care of the heavy lifting. He should make life easy for her because she would make it worth living for him. In exchange, she would take care of them. She would tell them when they weren’t properly dressed for an event and force them into suits and ties occasionally. She would watch their beer intake.
She would fuss over them.
She would also suck his cock. That was a given. Sex was a big part of what he wanted from Abigail. He wanted nothing more than to come in from a hard day’s work and sink his dick into some warm, wet place on her body. If there was a spanking involved, then that made the day better. Jack liked to be in charge. The thought of dominating Abigail made his cock strain against the fly of his jeans.
Yes, Sir.
He could still see her standing there in her front yard. She’d looked up at him like he was some kind of damn hero for intervening between her and the deputy. She’d called him Sir and couldn’t have any idea what that meant to him.
He came out of his daydream and shifted, hoping no one noticed his raging hard-on. No such luck. Sam was obviously trying hard not to laugh out loud at him.
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Jack took a long, cold swig of beer and stared mulishly at the TV screen. He didn’t even know the score. That woman had ruined the football season for him. All he could think about was sex when she was around.
“Your turn.” Sam pointed to his empty beer.
“That was fast.” Maybe he should start watching Sam’s beer intake.
“I was thirsty,” Sam drawled. “Still am. Beer’s in the garage.”
Jack sighed and stood up. Hell, he was almost empty, too. “I’ll be right back.”
Sam pulled on his shirtsleeve as he walked by. Jack leaned over. Sam whispered low enough that Jack strained to hear him, but the message was clear. “Check out the box marked books.”
Why the hell would he be interested in a box of books? Still, there was something in Sam’s eyes that made him pick up the pace.
He opened the door to the garage and quickly found the box Sam had talked about. Abby had left a good number of her boxes in Christa’s garage since her mom’s single-wide left no space for storage. Jack’s jaw dropped when he opened the box.
He picked up book after book. All romances. Most of them ménage, but there was also a bunch of books about Doms and their submissives. He sat down in the middle of the garage and thumbed through a couple, trying to figure out what Abigail saw in these books. They were a window into her soul. Was she interested in sex, curious about the pleasures ménage could bring her? Or was it something more.
He picked up a book by a woman named Amber Rose and read the ending.
Jackie looked down at the twin rings on her finger and her heart was full. She had no idea why she needed Heath and Cass the way she did, but only those two men could truly fill her soul. Her Doms. Her husbands. Her men.
Jack closed the book.
Abigail Moore had sealed her fate. She might not know it, but she was staying in Willow Fork on a permanent basis. She would be staying with him and Sam. Jack took a long moment to think. He wasn’t a man to act immediately. He was a man who appreciated a plan. Sam might not like it, but he was taking over this courtship.