Charming: The Coast Book 9

by Hart, Eve R.

  I watched as his hips worked back and forth in tiny bursts until he was fully buried inside of her.

  “Oh, my…” she breathed out.

  His body curled over hers, his weight held up by his straightened arms.

  We’d never done it like this. There was something about it that felt different. I mean, it was because of Abigail, but it was as if this moment was even more special because of that.

  She was moaning and reaching for both of us at the same time. Blade attacked her mouth while I leaned over and sucked on her neck. The combination of everything she did was incredibly sexy. Blade might have been the one inside of her but that didn’t mean I wasn’t getting something out of this. I mean everything was hot. From the way her back bowed away from my body but her fingers tightened in my hair like she was desperate to hold onto me, to the way her tiny nipples danced with each thrust. And yeah, I looked down and watched the way Blade’s cock stretched her as he fucked her hard. The sight had my balls feeling like they were going to explode.

  It didn’t take long before she was begging him to go harder. Her nails dug into my thigh as she came. Blade dragged her orgasm out a little longer, pumping into her with a rocking motion. Then he grunted and came too.

  I had to admit, I was close to blowing my load.

  Blade pulled away to deal with the condom.

  Then Abigail shocked the fuck out of me when she rolled over and took me into her mouth. Her hand gripped the base tight and with only a few strokes, I exploded into her mouth. She swallowed it down, then smiled up at me as she pulled away.

  “Was that okay?” she asked and I couldn’t speak.

  So I did the next best thing and pulled her up so I could kiss the hell out of her.

  “I’m hungry,” she declared.

  Blade shook his head at her but I could tell he was smiling.

  “I’ll go down and grab some leftovers,” he said and was already dragging his pants back up his legs.

  Blade came back with cold mac and cheese. We all ate out of the container and none of us seemed to care about sharing the same fork. Hell, half the time Abigail was the one shoving it in our faces. Was it strange that I liked her feeding me? I didn’t want to think about it too much.

  Blade used the excuse to take the empty container back down to the kitchen to get away. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to stay or not. I wouldn’t have minded and by the slight downturn of Abigail’s lips, she wouldn’t have either.

  But I knew what was going on in his head. He thought we needed to sit down and talk about this. All three of us. He was afraid of it getting messy and fucking up the friendship we all had. I had to admit, I was afraid of that too. Abigail was young. Fuck, I tried not to think about how young most of the time. She could easily be swept up in this thing and not even realize what was going on or how it could affect the future.

  Yeah, I knew I’d fucked up. It all seemed right in the moment.

  I was too fucking tired right now to figure it out. I knew what had to be done and I wasn’t going to put it off for too long. I had a feeling Blade wouldn’t join us again until it was settled, anyway. Sometimes, he was the smarter one out of the two of us. He seemed to know how to handle situations better than I did. Which kind of didn’t make sense, in a way. I was cool under pressure. At my job, I could handle anything I came across. Or I had so far. I was sure there would come a day where I’d roll up on a call and get knocked sideways. But my point was that I knew how to see the whole picture and look for things that might not be outright visible. I knew how to go in and figure out what needed to be done.

  Maybe that was the thing, though. That was my job and this was my personal life. I had more of an attachment. I was in it more.

  It looked like I had a lot of thinking to do.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Abigail

  So, okay. Where did I even start?

  I guess I should tell you that a week had gone by since that night where Blade came into the picture. And that hadn’t been the only time. I was currently caught up in some sort of… love triangle? No, that didn’t feel right. I wasn’t really sure what it was, but I did know it was amazing. Like, wow!

  Sure, I knew there could be complications and things might get a little messy. But somewhere in my heart, I didn’t think this would go sideways in a bad way. There were clear lines that I could see in this thing, though we hadn’t really talked about it. And while I would never want any of us to get hurt or caught up in this, I was almost worried by the fact that I didn’t think any of us would.

  Was that confusing?

  It was to me too.

  Let me see if I could break it down.

  Charming cared about me, yes.

  So did Blade.

  Did they care about me on the same level?

  No, and I wouldn’t even pretend on that one. Charming held a light in his eyes when he was with me. It didn’t matter if we were having sex— I really needed a better word to call it— or having a conversation. He held them all the same in his mind. He liked all the parts. Well, more than liked but I wasn’t ready to say the other L-word just yet.

  Blade cared about me too, I knew that much. And while I wasn’t really sure how to explain it without making it sound bad, he wasn’t as intense about it, I guess. Sometimes I still felt like I was more of a… sister in his eyes. Yes, that thought made me cringe. Because, ew. But the amount of care or love or whatever you wanted to call it that I felt from him, it was on that level. Maybe I should’ve said best friend. Yeah, that was it. He was still guarded around me, he let me see enough to where I knew he wanted a part of it too. But I didn’t think he wanted the whole thing, at least not in the long run.

  Did Charming know this or see it? I didn’t know. Because, again, we hadn’t really talked about it. At least not about this kind of stuff.

  And what about me?

  I knew exactly how I felt.

  So far, that seemed to be what it was all about, just feeling.

  What we had talked about, was how I wanted this thing to go. They asked me to tell them what I wanted to do and what I wanted to try. How much did I want? Since I didn’t really know what all the options were, I said everything. That couldn’t have been the wrong answer, right? I ended up telling them that I didn’t want to think about it. I just wanted to feel, like Charming had said before. I told them that if I became unsure and wanted to stop, I’d let them know. Really, I figured that was the best because I had a feeling that if we hashed it out and made a bunch of rules, it wouldn’t feel as natural. I was pretty sure I said something along those lines and that seemed to do the trick.

  Maybe now I was regretting not sitting down with both of them and really going over everything. But I also kind of wasn’t. I felt it in my heart that things were the way they were supposed to be for now.

  “You look a little distracted this morning,” Bridget said as she came up behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin and she laughed at me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” I said with my hand on my chest like it would somehow stop my heart from jumping out of my body.

  “The garage is all set and I feel like getting out. Do you want to go do something?” she asked me with a look in her eyes that told me there would be questions coming soon.

  “Sure,” I said with a playful sigh as I put the last dish aside to dry.

  “Cool. We’ll start with coffee. Laurel brought me one of their new cheesecake muffins. Let me just say, I need another one.”

  I giggled as we started to walk to the front of the compound.

  “What, you have a craving?” I raised a brow at her.

  “God, no.” She shook her head like I was being ridiculous. “Maybe one day but not any day soon.”

  “You think about babies? I think you and Lake would have super cute kids.”

  “Think about them, maybe. But only because there are so many around me right now and my ovaries can go a little crazy. Like them?
Yes, when they are someone else’s and I can give them back and then go ravage my man without interruptions.” She winked at me. “Besides, Lake and I haven’t talked about having kids.”

  I plopped down into the passenger side of her car as she fired it up.

  “Isn’t that something you should talk about though?” I asked. “You two have been together a while and I get the feeling that neither one of you is going anywhere. Don’t you guys, like, talk about the future and stuff.”

  “Ehhh…” she said with a quick lift of her shoulder. “Probably, but so far we’ve been on the same page. We’re both happy and we have a lifetime ahead of us to figure things out.”

  “Hmmm,” I said as I thought about her words closely.

  She parked and we walked into the cute coffee shop. After we got our coffees and muffins, we settled down at a quiet table in the back corner.

  “Wow, this is good,” I said after I took a huge bite of the cheesecake muffin.

  “Yep. See why I had to have another one?”

  There was nothing but silence while we finished them.

  “Go ahead and ask, I can see it in your eyes,” I said with a roll of my eyes. She was studying me a little too closely and I knew what it meant.

  She didn’t open her mouth right away and I tried to coolly take a sip of my coffee like her penetrating, wise eyes didn’t bother me.

  “You and Charming,” she started and I raised a brow but said nothing. “I saw that coming. Blade, well, he’s a bit of a wild card. And I figured, you know, with all your curiosity it might happen once.” She chuckled at me and I knew my face was bright red. “But it’s more than once, right?”

  “Yes,” I said in a whisper as my eyes darted around the room. I wasn’t really looking to see if anyone was listening, at least I didn’t think I was. It was more like I seemed to be having a hard time keeping my eyes locked on hers.

  But why? It wasn’t something I should have been embarrassed about. And out of everyone, Bridget was the easiest to talk to when it came to this stuff.

  “I’m going to assume you no longer need my gifts anymore.”

  I busted out laughing at her comment. I hadn’t touched her gifts in a while. I hadn’t even thought about them.

  “Okay, so, fine. I have been spending time with both of them, you know, together.” Now that it was out there I had to admit that it actually didn’t feel so bad. Sure, I was red but I wasn’t ashamed of it.

  “What’s that like?”

  “Fun. Sexy. Hot,” I said and fanned myself. “They are… like two sides to the same coin, if that makes sense. Like, so different but there are things about them that are the same.”

  I let out a little sigh. Comparing them in my head and comparing them out loud to someone felt different. Maybe even a little wrong. It wasn’t that I compared them to see which one was better or which one I liked more or whatever. I guess I liked their differences more than trying to find faults that the other one made up for.

  “You know what you’re doing?” she asked. Her tone was less judgy and more worried.

  “Mmhmmm,” I said and took another sip of my coffee. “I know what’s going on and I’m pretty sure I understand it.”

  “He loves you,” she said causing me to swallow hard. She didn’t have to say which one she was talking about. “Well, they both do, but one more than the other.”

  “I think everyone has a different connection. And I’m not only talking about Charming, Blade, and myself. Laurel and Blade. Sketch and Claire. Brand and Chris. Lake and Brand. Lake and Chris, yeah, they all have some kind of deep bro love there. You and Cable. And even Charming and Blade before I came into the equation.”

  “Right, but I’ve never slept with Cable. Laurel’s never slept with Blade. You see where I’m going with this. It’s just a little hard to compare it to all of those.”

  “You mean to tell me you’ve never been a little curious about Cable. He’s so big and sweet at the same time. You hang out with him when he’s in his room. Don’t give me that look, I know all about how he spends his time behind that door. Though I’ve never seen it. But you’re telling me that you can sit there and have a conversation with him, see his junk, and not think about it sometimes?”

  She laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.

  “Yeah, Cable and I have a different relationship. I accept him for who he is and as weird as it might sound, no, I haven’t actually looked at his dick. I’ve seen it in the peripherals of my vision though, it’s kind of like one big blurry spot. But what I can tell you, is the man either has extreme control of his body, or he doesn’t think of me that way either. I’d bet on the latter.”

  “Oh,” I said like all the wind had been taken out of my sails. Then I giggled because it was kind of funny.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying anything bad about the way the three of you are. It just doesn’t compare. But I guess none of them really do. The Blade and Laurel thing, well, you know how she likes to take care of everyone. And Blade is the hardest person there, so she pushes him when she knows he needs it.”

  “Like with his physical therapy,” I said with a nod as I remembered the days of standing beside her. Dade and Blade often had appointments at the same time, I think they planned it that way. I was there for Dade while Laurel was there taking care of Blade’s baby, Biscuit, and cursing the heck out of Blade to push him to go harder.

  “I know you might not want to talk about this.” She paused, and I could see she was torn.

  Bridget caught onto a lot of things that other people didn’t. She was a lot like Blade in that way. She was excellent in reading people and catching little movements and such that most people wouldn’t notice. Most of the time, she kept all that stuff to herself, never wanting to out anyone or betray the trust she’d gained within the club. What she saw as her family now.

  “I know I wasn’t around when it happened, the accident that Blade and Dade were involved in. I’m not even sure I really know what happened, and I don’t want to know.” She held up her hand before I even made a move. “But I could see that there was a deep bond with those two. They were best friends because they shared a scare of a lifetime, they’d lived through it, and they had the scars from it not only on their bodies, but on their souls as well.”

  I felt the tears springing forth. I tried to hold them back but I knew if she kept going, it would be a losing battle. But maybe this was a conversation I needed to get through. The things that I really needed to hear.

  “But not everyone would say they were best friends only because they couldn’t see it. I mean, it’s the same thing with Charming and Blade. It’s a silent friendship. But Blade let those two as close as he could let anyone, I guess.” She paused and looked like she was struggling on whether or not she should say more. “Then… Dade was gone. I know, I’m sorry. I miss him too. But that drew Charming and Blade closer, though they’d never say it.”

  “I get that,” I said and tried my hardest to dry up the tears and stop the sniffling. “The last thing I would want to do is come in between their friendship. I don’t know. Maybe deep down inside I just want to help them keep that whatever between them. That’s not to say that I’m not enjoying it. Whatever it is, I like it, and I’m not ready to give it up.”

  “Oh, I get it. I do. And I’m not saying you should. I’m only saying that you should keep your eyes open and see what’s going on.”

  “So, you’re saying there’s something I’m missing?” I asked as my head cocked to the side.

  “This might not have anything to do with the three of you together, but I think that understanding it will help you to see things that you don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m no psychologist, keep that in mind. Maybe this is just a guess and I could be wrong… never mind.”

  She gave a shake of her head and closed her mouth tight.

  “Bridget, come on. You can’t do this to me,” I said and tried to keep my
tone playful. “It can’t be that bad?”

  She looked away and took a huge gulp of her coffee.

  “I saw the hurt in Blade’s eyes, after, you know. I saw it when no one else was looking. And I think he felt the need to step in and look after you like your brother would have. I mean, clearly, that’s changed a little. And Charming, he took on the blame. They both closed in on you at that moment. Both of them feeling the need to look out for you.”

  “Yes, but, I think Charming has had feelings for a while. I think, I mean, he makes it seem like he has.” I tried not to let doubt cast a shadow over my feelings.

  It could have been that she wasn’t completely wrong. I’d seen it, even if I didn’t let myself acknowledge it. Somehow, the three of us had ended up in this crazy tornado together and I didn’t want to believe that it had anything to do with my brother’s death. But that would have been stupid and naïve. Because none of this would have happened if Dade were still around. Right?

  How could I hate something so tragic and heartbreaking and feel a little thankful for it at the same time? That thought made me feel absolutely awful. Like the kind of awful that made me want to get sick.

  “Abigail? Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” Bridget said and it sounded like she was so far away.

  My head was dizzy. Was my body swaying or was the world around me?

  “Hey,” her voice called out again. “Hey, Abigail.” Her fingers snapped in front of my face and I blinked my eyes. “Are you going to pass out?”

  “No,” I said then inhaled a shaky breath. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m not trying to make you freak out. I just want you to see the whole picture. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I know,” I whispered softly but I couldn’t look at her.

  It wasn’t her fault, not really. Nothing she’d said should have come as a shock. And I think that deep down, I knew it all. It was there in the back of my mind but I’d pushed it away. I’d refused to think of these things simply because my brother’s death still cut me to the bone.