Red Hot Steamy Romance Boxed Set: A Steamy Military Romance Series Collection

by Penelope Wylde

  “Thanks for moving on this fast, Sam. Listen, I’ve gotta go. We’re wheels up in less than five and I have to get off here. Reece and I are heading to Mexico on a job. When you get something back, let us know. We’ll do the same. And if you need to get a hold of Ms. Torres, she’ll be with us at this number or Reece’s.” He pressed end on the call and placed the phone on the table.

  “Son of a bitch!” Caden rubbed a hand across the scruff on his jaw and sat forward. His one expletive mirrored the hardened expression on his once relaxed face.

  She frowned. “Something you can share?” Abigail drew out.

  “Abigail, it’s not good news, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

  They’d left her house on fire and hightailed it out of there without a backward glance. Really. What else could he tell her that would make this night any worse at this point?

  She knew there was no way anything could be saved or that good news was coming her way. Not anytime soon.

  As true as all that was, her hand still trembled as she combed her fingers through her hair, hitting several knots along the way. She gave up and crossed her arms across her chest instead. She might know what was coming, but her nerves were still on pins and needles. “No need to sugarcoat it, Caden. Give it to me straight.”

  A look of respect settled on his expression as he pushed up from his chair to kneel on the floor in front of her.

  “It’s bad, baby.”

  Chapter Six

  He eyed her cautiously before continuing. “Everything’s gone. The fire department wasn’t able to get there in time, Abigail. The police captain who works alongside us on special cases from time to time has already dispatched forensics to comb over the place for anything that might help in nailing the assholes that did this to you. The fire spread to consume the woods beside your house and the tiny shed.”

  A stab of pain shot through her, but she swallowed past the sharp intrusion. She’d hoped the little shed she’d built the previous summer would survive. It housed nothing special, but it had been a project built from determination and sweat. Just to prove to herself she could.

  Pain wound around her heart and squeezed.

  She had nothing but the clothes on her back. And they were borrowed at that. Acid burned the back of her throat. Knots tightened deep in her stomach and she bit down on her lip to force herself to focus.

  Reece walked toward them and his presence helped calm her rebellious stomach. Out of the corner of her eye she caught how his otherwise strong cadence broke slightly by the damage to his leg. He favored his right a little more than normal. The running must have irritated his injury. She offered a small smile and received one in return.

  He joined them in a chair opposite her and Caden’s and stretched his legs in the aisle. One of the perks of a private plane. Plenty of legroom for all that man. Instead of focusing on the bad and ugly, her mind took a detour for the easy. Reece Sterling in tight jeans and a black fitted T-shirt made a woman’s mouth water. When had he changed?

  “When should they have something for us?” Reece reached over and plucked the laptop off the table for a closer look at the information Caden had pulled up on her and all the interactions she’d logged in at work over the past month. Several emails between Tech, a couple of other secretaries on data reports and two new clients that wanted a security upgrade. All routine.

  It was fascinating to watch Reece’s mind shift into work mode. She ducked her head and hid her smile.

  He must have sensed her attention on him. His gaze shifted to her while Caden filled him in on his conversation with the sheriff. His gaze caressed her face then moved down to her breasts and settled on the apex of her thighs before returning to hers. A burst of excitement rushed up her body to pebble her nipples against the confines of her bra and shirt.

  “Sam said he’d be in contact within a day. From what he can tell so far, not much was left behind except a set of tire tracks from the one vehicle and a couple of boot prints along the bank of the lake, which confirmed what we thought about the ambush coming from that direction. Whoever was in the vehicle must have been there as backup. A second getaway car, I guess. Hell, none of this makes any sense.”

  “It’s a miracle they didn’t run into Dane.”

  “For them. That man is like a one-man assault team on two legs.” Caden rubbed a hand down his face.

  He looked tired.

  She felt tired.

  Reece looked anything but tired.

  Abigail swiveled her chair to face away from the men toward the back of the plane and let their voices drop into the background. The plane taxied for takeoff and within a few short moments the city below became nothing more than twinkling lights in a blanket of darkness.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed her sister’s number from memory. The airplane leveled out just as the voicemail on her sister’s phone picked up. “Mí Amor Flowers. Leave a message and I’ll call you back shortly.”

  Her heart shed a pound of worry just by the sound of her sister’s voice. The play on her father’s nickname for both of his girls when they were young always made her smile. Now the pet name hung over her sister’s flower shop.

  Her sister’s voicemail beeped. “¡Hola, chica! I’ll be out of town for a day or two. I’m heading to Puerto Vallarta on business. Nothing big, just a meeting with clients. My bosses mentioned we’ll be staying at a place in the Mismaloya area a mile or so south of Vallarta. I lost my phone so you’ll have to call me on this borrowed number. I’ll call again when we land with more details. ¡Te amo! Chao.”

  She pressed the red button to end the call. God, what was she thinking? She’d just lied to her sister. But what good would it do to worry her? She pulled a lock of hair between her fingers and tucked her other hand around her waist. She would call her back when there was more information.

  Abigail closed her eyes and sank back in the leather seat. The adventures of the day washed over her. She rolled her eyes at her own sardonic thoughts.

  Reece and Caden’s deep voices carried on in the background and she let the warm sound caress along her frayed nerves.

  Someone’s phone pinged with an incoming message. Abigail shoved away the pull of sleep lulling her and slowly turned back around to face them.

  Caden looked between the two of them. “IT has checked over your phone. They pulled nothing on the hang-up calls you received last night, but they did track down the server the pictures were sent from. They’re digging deeper to verify if it’s legit or a decoy server. They’ll get back to us on it.”

  Abigail dragged her attention away from Caden when her phone vibrated in her hands. Her sister must have gotten her message. She flicked it on and caught an image loading on the small screen.

  Her heart sank to her feet and she had to wrangle her stomach back into place.

  Not again. She stared at herself sandwiched between Reece and Caden boarding their corporate plane. She quickly scrolled to the end and read the large bold words at the bottom of the message.

  NO ONE CAN PROTECT YOU

  She bit into her lip, her mind racing a mile a minute. She turned to Caden then Reece, holding up the phone for them.

  Their mouths set in grim, flat lines. The creases around their eyes deepened and anger rolled off them in violent waves that sucked the air out of the cabin in mere seconds.

  Their emotions jacked up her tension and she struggled to calm down and take a couple of deep breaths. Her chest rose and fell sharply but nothing she did to slow her breathing helped. Her head began to spin and silver spots danced in her vision.

  A firm hand grasped the back of her neck and shoved her head between her knees.

  “Breathe, Abigail. Once through your nose, then out your mouth.”

  She tied herself to the sound of Reece’s voice and did as he commanded.

  “Again. Nose, mouth.” She did it five more times before her panic attack released its tight grip. Reece helped her up and Caden handed her a glass filled ha
lfway with amber-colored liquid.

  “Drink this. It’ll take the edge off.” He winked at her and she knew it was to make her shift focus. Reece slipped her phone from her fingers and handed it to Caden. God, would the surprises ever end?

  “Gracias.” She tipped the glass in salute, then downed half the contents in one swallow. She raised the glass again and finished off the last of the liquid and welcomed the burn with every swallow.

  “Easy, darling.”

  “Or you could give me another.” She cocked her head to the side and shook her now empty glass between them.

  “Maybe or you could talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that pretty mind of yours.”

  “Do you think they’ll have any luck finding the van we saw by my house? OR catching these guys? It’s obvious they have no problem finding us.”

  “It always looks bleak at first. Especially when you’re working in the dark, so to speak. It will take some time, but not too long.” Reece pulled her hand into his and turned it over to trace the lines in her palm. The small touch created a wonderful sensation of calm to settle over her and ground her chaotic, rambling thoughts. “We’ll find whoever is behind this, Abigail. We’ll protect you. Trust us.”

  There were those two words again.

  He raised his eyes and immediately she felt the clash of his dark stormy gaze with her own. Conflicting emotions ran across his face before he settled on one—sincerity.

  Abigail frowned. Trust. Both men had put their lives on the line for her tonight and they had damn near taken a bullet for it in the process.

  She could afford them their request.

  Tiny droplets of poison from her past dripped into her mind and tainted her resolve. Like a snake set to strike, her subconscious coiled, ready to flood her veins with the venom from her screwed up past.

  An alcoholic mother who’d abandoned her for the bottle and a father who’d died when a girl needed her dad the most taught her people rarely stuck around. No matter how much they told you they would never leave.

  With only her sister to care for her, between school and work to support them, Abigail was left on her own more often than not. And bless her sister, she didn’t blame her. She did the best she could, but what could a seventeen-year-old do with a twelve-year-old kid sister? There were times when neither of them thought they’d make it past the day.

  And tonight brought it all back front and center, the chaos she worked so hard to rid her life of and the unstable home she had shed years ago. She loved her sister and would do anything for her. She knew her sister would do the same for her, but this was her life now. Her job, her own little world and someone was trying to tear it all away from her. She’d be damned if she let anyone take the little piece of happiness she’d claimed for herself. But she couldn’t do that from a thousand miles away.

  A heavy weight of uncertainty pressed on her shoulders. “Since the cops are already in on this, maybe we should let them handle all this mess? They can put me in some kind of protection services until this mess gets sorted out.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them.

  Reece gave her a hard glare that glued her where she sat. “Don’t go there, Abigail. You know as well as I do that the cops can do very little about situations like yours. And any protection you need is right here. We haven’t let them harm a hair on your head, and that’s not about to change.”

  Caden cleared his throat from beside her. “Besides, they wouldn’t give you protection. Not until a real threat against your life was proven beyond a doubt. By then you’d be dead. And like Reece said, that’s not happening. Right now, as far as the cops are concerned, all they have is a burned house that could have been set by any number of things and a vandalized car.”

  “And that’s not enough to go on,” Reece threw in like she needed the reminder. He stood and backed off a pace from where she sat next to Caden. He braced his feet apart and crossed his arms.

  She inwardly rolled her eyes at his alpha positioning. “So I’m stuck here. Unable to do anything for myself?” She tried to swallow back the panic but her voice cracked and hitched on the last word.

  “Is that how you feel, Abigail?” Reece’s expression closed off in the second it would take to snap her fingers. He rocked back on his heels and steadied his dark gaze on her.

  “Stuck?” Caden’s broad, muscled chest heaved with a heavy, deep breath as he spit the word out and it hung between them like a live grenade.

  Crap. She had stepped in it now. She was pretty sure if she could see her reflection she’d be a pasty white.

  She didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. They’d done so much for her already, but to have all control ripped from her grasp—it was like returning to her childhood where control had been a fantasy.

  Shame lowered her eyes to her knotted fingers. Her blood thundered in her ears and she inhaled to calm herself jittery nerves before speaking.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that, running off to Mexico seems a little extreme.” How would they understand? They had no clue about her struggles or messed-up life and she didn’t think now was the time for a session of couch therapy.

  Reece closed his eyes a moment and a calm settled over his features. He worked the muscles in his massive shoulder in a slow roll, and everything in her reacted with a jolt of unexpected need.

  Need to feel his touch on her body.

  Need to have his lips on hers.

  Need to feel his warmth.

  It was pure, torturous pleasure to watch the cotton of his T-shirt outline the body she wanted to get her hands on.

  “Abigail,” he drew her name out with a calm drawl, the quiet command pulling her eyes from his mouthwatering broad shoulders and well-formed pecs to meet his gaze. She bit her lower lip to hold back the smile that shined on her lips.

  Chapter Seven

  “Where we’re going Caden and I won’t have to worry about anyone finding you.” He sank to one knee in front of her and pinned her with a serious look, and all her humor dissipated.

  “I’m more worried about why you’re trying to ditch us. Let us help you, Abigail. How many times do we have to say it? We’re not going anywhere and we’re sure as hell not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Reece and Caden locked their gazes on her in a combination of hellfire and molten lava with ribbons of worry tying them together.

  A small gasp escaped her lips and she sat back in her chair. “My knights in shining armor. You’re serious?” Both men rose to their full height, towering over her like two possessive warriors charged with protecting their queen.

  The voice in her head roared for her to be serious, but for a fleeting moment she let that fantasy play through her mind and she liked it.

  Reece bent, flicked the seatbelt she’d knotted in her hands to the side, palmed a wrist and hauled her to her feet.

  “Serious? Baby, we could not be more serious.”

  He tucked her into his embrace and slid his hands into her hair.

  Abigail looked to him to find the heat burning in the golden specks of his eyes.

  “I think it’s about time we show you how serious we are. Don’t you think Caden?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  Her lips parted and heat coiled low in her belly at their words.

  Could she give herself over to two men?

  Hell yeah, she could. She was doing this, but when this was all over, would she just as easily walk away?

  Abigail took a deep breath. Either way, after today—tonight—nothing would ever be the same again, just like Caden had said.

  Her blood thundered in her ears and the butterflies switched up their cha cha cha to a rowdy cheerleader number full of flips and cartwheels.

  Reece anchored his fingers deep in her hair and tightened his grip as she gasped.

  Her eyes closed and she groaned from the slight tug against her scalp. Her back bowed slightly, pushing her butt into Caden’s awaiting palms and her b
reasts into Reece’s solid, muscled chest.

  Caden hissed. “God, I told you she had the perfect ass under all that garb she covers herself with.”

  Reece’s rocked against her gently and his thick, hard dick pressed into her midriff as Caden’s nudged against her ass.

  She groaned.

  “I bet her breasts are just as perfect with tiny pink nipples.”

  “Wait!” She breathed out the word half hoping they didn’t hear her.

  “What’s wrong, sweetheart. Do you really want us to stop?”

  “Probably not. Maybe. Definitely.” She whimpered.

  Reece chuckled and the friction against her hardened nipples sent an electric pulse through her body and straight to her core, lighting the path straight to her clit.

  “You need to let us know. We’re not going to force this, so tell us now.”

  The only thing she knew was that she felt good in the arms of both men. From there it was all about winging it the whole thing.

  Reece released her hair and she immediately felt the loss of his touch. The heat she was quickly becoming familiar with retreated and her heart fell. She opened her eyes to find him looking down at her. His rich dark golden gaze intense with need, but she also saw a level of weariness in his expression.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Caden. He stroked an exposed area of skin right above the band of her sweatpants in small, lazy strokes. He settled his warm gaze on hers and a small sensual tilt to his lips worked like a balm to her nerves.

  “Let us take care of you, sweetheart.”

  She wanted to.

  Wanted to give herself over to all the pleasure she could handle from both sexy-as-sin Marines, but how did she do that without letting them close to her heart? Her head told her to take what they offered in skin and nothing more, but she knew deep down past the lust and desire she’d already fallen for them a long time ago.

  “Let us love you just a little. We’ll take it slow and you can tell us to stop at any time.”