The Braddock Boys: Brent Read online

  Waiting.

  The notion sent a rush of excitement through her and she slid a finger inside her drenched heat. Her body clenched and she moved her hips, riding the sensation, drawing it deeper until her breath quickened and a cry worked its way up her throat. The room seemed to explode in a burst of color as she arched, holding on to the feeling for a long, brilliant moment. “Beautiful.”

  The deep, familiar voice slid into her ears and jerked her back to reality. Her eyes snapped open, and that’s when she realized that it wasn’t just her erotic imagination at work.

  Brent Braddock stood, live and in color, at the foot of her bed.

  She blinked, but he didn’t disappear. Shock ripped through her and she bolted to a sitting position. Scrambling for the sheet, she stuffed it under each arm. “What are you doing here?” she blurted, her heart pounding out of her chest.

  “Enjoying the view.” The deep, seductive voice whispered through her head so clear and distinct that she could have sworn he spoke the words.

  He didn’t. The only movement of his mouth was the faintest crook of a grin. Slow. Subtle. Sexy.

  Her heart skipped its next beat.

  “I heard a scream,” he finally murmured. “I thought you might need help.”

  “I stubbed my toe.” It wasn’t the most original lie, but it was the best she could do with him standing so close and staring so intently. “It hurt, so I yelped.”

  His brows drew together. “It didn’t sound like a yelp. It sounded like a full-fledged—”

  “How did you get in here?” she cut in, eager to distract herself from the heat creeping up her spine. “I locked the door.”

  “You must have made a mistake.” He shrugged. “It opened right up.”

  Her mind did a quick rewind. She felt the metal against her fingers. Heard the click of the deadbolt. “I don’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

  “There’s a first for everything.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How else would I be here?”

  He had a point. He couldn’t very well have slipped through the keyhole. He was six foot plus of solid, hunky muscle. Half-naked and devastatingly handsome.

  Half-naked and devastatingly sexy.

  He wore only a pair of faded jeans. Muscle sculpted his chest and arms. Slave band tattoos, the pattern dark and intricate, circled each bicep. Hair sprinkled his chest from nipple to nipple before funneling into a silky swirl that followed a decadent path that bisected a very impressive six pack before disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. A frayed rip in the denim gave her a sneak peak of one muscular thigh dusted with hair.

  She had the sudden image of that thigh flush against hers, his body pressing her down into the mattress, his lips eating at hers, and her mouth went dry.

  “Let me take a look at your toe.” His deep voice pushed into her head and snatched her back to reality and the all important fact that she was naked beneath the sheet and he was still standing there. His pale green eyes darkened to an impenetrable jade and her stomach hollowed out. “To see how badly you’re hurt.”

  She pulled her knees up to her chest beneath the sheet and tucked the cotton more securely under each arm. “It’s fine. Really. No permanent damage.” She summoned a smile and tried to ignore the urge to jump up and pull him down onto the bed with her. “Thanks for checking on me.”

  “Anytime.”

  The word held a wealth of meaning and lingered in her head long after the door closed behind him.

  As if he really and truly wanted her as badly as she wanted him. He didn’t.

  She knew that.

  She’d always known that when it came to men.

  She was a plain cookie in a bakery full of chunky decadence. And no man in his right mind would sink his teeth into the ho-hum sugar variety when he could have quarter-size pieces of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate or M & Ms or peanut butter. It just didn’t happen that way. Men didn’t lust after her. Or flirt. Or send suggestive signals.

  Especially men like Brent Braddock. He was way out of her league with his smoking body and his raw sensuality. No way was she reading his signals correctly.

  At the same time, that’s what she did. She read people for a living and assessed every situation. It was her job and she was good at it. Even more, she didn’t make careless mistakes.

  He wanted her. He really and truly wanted her.

  And she wanted him.

  A truth that had her powering on the TV again, desperate for a distraction.

  “It’s all about dressing for success, Ladies.” Winona stared back at her from the television screen.

  It was the last thing she needed to watch, but she found herself tuning in anyway for lack of anything better.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  “If you want your man to notice you, you have to go the extra mile,” Winona went on. “And if you want him to really notice you, you need to do it with the minimum amount of clothing because men like to see skin. Lots and lots of skin. And a slutty pair of high heels don’t hurt none either. We’ve got several shops right here in Skull Creek where you can buy a decent pair of tramp shoes…”

  Winona droned on about the need for high heels and how they made the legs look longer and the boobs look bigger. It was nothing Abby hadn’t heard before in the girls’ locker room back in high school. Of course, she’d never had such an interesting visual to go with the gossip (namely Winona parading around in a pair of silver sandals with blinking red lights on the toes). Yes, she’d heard it over and over, but she’d never tried it.

  Not then and certainly not now. She was fine with her life. Fulfilled. She didn’t need sexy clothes. Or sexy men. Or another orgasm.

  She needed to find Rayne. End of story.

  That’s why she’d come here in the first place. To find her man.

  Her man. Not just any man. And certainly not one as hot and sexy as Brent Braddock. She didn’t need that kind of distraction right now.

  Even if she suddenly wanted one.

  Letting loose a deep sigh, she kicked off the covers, forced her eyes shut and settled in for the longest, most restless night of her life.

  8

  IT WAS THE EARLY hours of the morning and Brent was doing his damnedest to shut out the sounds coming from the next room and forget the woman stretched out on the bed. He wasn’t thinking about her. He was sleeping. Right here. Right now.

  He clamped his eyes shut and punched at his pillow. Sleep. The silent command echoed in his head, quickly drowned out by a soft sigh and the rustle of sheets.

  He turned onto his opposite side, punched at the pillow and tried again.

  Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk…

  The steady beat slid into his ears, a soft, subtle sound that kept time with his own heartbeat.

  Shit.

  He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

  Instead of seeing the white plaster, he saw Abby. Her long, loose hair draped over the pillow. Her knees parted. Her skin covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Her lips parted on a gasp. Her hands working at the ice.

  His groin clenched and he damned himself a thousand times for going over there in the first place.

  He’d tried to resist. He’d turned on the radio to drown out the noise, taken a cold shower, given himself a great big mental kick in the ass and climbed into bed determined to sleep.

  But then he’d heard her sharp intake of breath and the bubble of a gasp as she’d touched the ice to her skin, and he’d stopped thinking altogether. The rule about not being able to enter a dwelling unless invited didn’t apply to motels or other public establishments where people came and went and so, in a flash, he’d been at the foot of her bed. Watching. Wanting.

  Holy shit.

  He knew better. He’d always known better and so he kept his distance whenever he settled in any one place. No getting to know anyone. No making friends.

  It wasn’t a reality he liked, but it was the way things were and he was used to it.
<
br />   Hell, he liked it.

  He’d learned the hard way with Lila. They’d had plans that had all gone to hell in a handbasket because of what he’d become. She’d turned on him and he’d had to run for his life.

  He’d learned at that moment that the less he knew, the less he cared, the easier it was to leave.

  And leaving was inevitable.

  As soon as the thought struck, he thought of Cody and Miranda and the new house his brother had just built.

  A friggin’ idiot. That’s what Cody was, chasing some ridiculous happily ever after. Brent knew firsthand that it wouldn’t work. He’d almost been killed that night Lila had turned on him. While the scars had faded, the memory of each lash was as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. Sure vampires healed rapidly, but they still felt pain. More intensely than most because their senses were so heightened.

  Settling down was a bad idea. Getting attached to one woman was even worse. And building a friggin’ house? Talk about jumping off the deep end.

  He told himself that as he listened to the soft sounds of Abby’s breathing. Winona’s voice played in the background, but it was Abby he heard. The slide of skin across the sheets. The soft in and out of each breath. The occasional gasp when Winona said something particularly shocking.

  The noises vibrated in the air, brushed across his skin and stirred his already aroused body until his fangs tingled and his dick throbbed and he reached his limit. Pushing to his feet, he pulled on a T-shirt, hauled on his boots and grabbed his keys.

  He meant to drive around and clear his head. That was it. Just some blessed distance to regain his perspective. But then he saw the turn off for Farm Road 86 and he couldn’t help himself. He hung a left and drove a few miles until he saw an old cattle guard on his right. He bounced over the metal and headed down the dirt road. Pasture stretched endlessly to his left and his right and he punched the gas harder. Gravel and dirt flew in his rearview mirror and the wind rushed through the open windows.

  By the time he spotted the two-story ranch house, he’d worked off enough tension that he could actually think. Pulling up in front, he killed the engine and climbed out.

  A construction dumpster sat off to the right and a pile of dirt to the left. The driveway had yet to be poured, but otherwise the house was just about finished. The outside was a combination of white hill country rock and tan stucco. A massive porch stretched the full length of the first floor. It was the kind of house made for lots of kids and big Christmases and Sunday barbecues.

  Not that Cody could have any of that. His little brother was pretending. Setting himself up for heartache.

  Brent walked the perimeter of the massive house before he wound up back in front. True to Cody’s word, he’d left a key stashed under a rock to the right of the porch. Sliding the metal into the lock, Brent turned the doorknob and walked into the large entryway. He went from room to room, his boots echoing on the hardwood floor and bouncing off the walls.

  With every modern convenience, vaulted ceilings and granite countertops, it was nothing like the old ranch house where they’d grown up so long ago.

  At the same time, it felt exactly the same. Warmth radiated from the vanilla colored walls and embraced him, and as he walked from room to room, he didn’t feel so cold.

  Cody had been right.

  It was nice.

  It was home.

  The minute the thought struck, he kicked it right back out. He’d lost his home a long time ago. His family. Even though his brothers were still around, things were different. They were different. The relationship, the closeness, the family bond they’d had, had all been shattered. They were all on their own now. Alone.

  Just the way he liked it.

  He flipped off the lights and darkness smothered the strange sense of melancholy that had slipped through him. His vision sharpened and focused and he walked down the main hallway, through the kitchen until he found the door leading to the basement.

  A few seconds later, he collapsed on the cot that had been set up underground for the times when Cody must have pulled an all-nighter to finish the house in time. The quiet settled around him as he closed his eyes and he welcomed a wave of relief.

  Better. Much better.

  He didn’t have to hear her every sigh or smell the sweet scent of her shampoo or imagine what she looked like stretched out on the bed, or how easy it would be to barge into her room and take what he so desperately wanted.

  He’d come close. Dangerously close.

  Never again.

  From this moment on, he was thinking with his head, not his cock, and keeping his distance the way he always did.

  He could get by on blood alone. He didn’t need to have sex with Abby. The damned trouble of it all was that it was the one thing he wanted. The only thing.

  And he knew deep down that his lust would eventually win out. And all hell would break loose when it did.

  THE LAST THING Abby needed was a pair of high heels.

  She told herself that the next morning as she stood outside of The Sweet Stuff. It was one of the clothing stores Winona had mentioned in her infomercial about dressing for sexcess. Not that Abby needed sexcess.

  The only thing she really needed was to buy a decent outfit that made her look like the jilted girlfriend rather than—to quote Dolly—a Unibomber. With combat boots and dog tags, no one would buy that she could even attract a man, much less that she’d had a bonafide relationship with one. Particularly Rayne Montana. He’d been definite man candy.

  To other women, of course. She’d always been so focused on work that she hadn’t spared him much attention. There’d been no chemistry. No instant wow like she felt with Brent.

  Her memory stirred and she saw him standing at the foot of the bed. Definite wow.

  Not that it mattered. She was on a mission and priority number one was finding Rayne.

  He was hot which meant he would have settled down with an equally hot woman. Hence the outfit change.

  Still, she wasn’t buying a pair of high heels or strappy sandals or stiletto boots with studs. A pair of flip flops or ballet flats would work just fine.

  There was no reason to go overboard even if she did sort of like the silver lace up high heel sandals in the front window. If she’d been in the market for slut shoes, they would have made the top of her list. But slutty and feminine were two different things. One attracted a man and the other screamed trust me, I’m a poor jilted female.

  Since she was, in fact, playing the jilted female, she wasn’t trying to attract anyone. She didn’t have time to play dress up for some man, even if she’d liked the way a certain man had looked at her last night when he’d stood at the foot of her bed.

  As if he’d wanted to lay her down and love her within an inch of her life.

  The heat of the moment.

  That’s what she’d decided.

  Any man would have been turned on by a nearly naked female masturbating with ice. It wasn’t because Brent actually liked her.

  It didn’t matter. That’s what she’d realized last night. It had felt good to feel desired. To feel beautiful. She’d felt both for those few moments when he’d looked at her. She’d felt like a woman and she’d liked it. A lot.

  Not enough to think that Hockey Guy was a fluke. She knew she wasn’t cut out to prance around in high heels and dresses in the real world. It wasn’t who she really was. It never would be.

  But for a little while?

  Her gaze went to the silver sandals and the red dress on display just above it. Both definitely screamed I have a vagina and I know how to use it. She couldn’t help but wonder how Brent would look at her if she wore something like that. The same way he’d looked at her last night? Would he be turned on enough to actually touch her this time? Kiss her?

  She entertained the possibility all of five seconds before drop-kicking it back out. She had work to do. She had two weeks to find Rayne or her butt was going in the frying pan. Her future was at stake, and
she’d always put her career over her own needs.

  Her mind made up, she drew a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  9

  AN HOUR LATER, Abby walked out of the clothing shop wearing a brand new outfit with two extra bags on her arms. Plenty to tide her over for the next few days while she tracked down Rayne. A pair of silver ballet flats clung to her feet and a pink sundress the sales clerk had insisted complimented her complexion swirled around her knees.

  While she’d never been much for pink, she had to admit that it did give her cheeks some color. And the cut wasn’t so bad either. The bodice hugged her chest and actually made her look a cup size larger. The skirt itself flowed over her hips, disguising their fullness and making her look as if she had a waist. She had the fleeting thought that she’d been missing out all these years in her combat boots and baggy fatigues.

  But then a strap crept down her shoulder, reminding her that her body just wasn’t made for all this girl stuff. She hiked the cotton back up, tightened her grip on her bags and headed for the rental car that sat parked at a nearby curb.

  It was a typical Saturday morning on Main Street and people walked to and fro. Two old men sat outside of the diner working on a crossword puzzle. A girl scout stood on the corner selling cookies. Tossing her bags into the trunk, she locked up the car and headed for the pharmacy that stood next to the clothing shop. It was time to get to work.

  Pushing through the glass double doors, she scoped out the interior. An old-fashioned soda fountain sat off to the right. Red stools lined the counter that spanned the length of the wall. Straight ahead, a tall man with a shiny bald head and a white lab coat worked behind a clear plastic partition. A fifty-something brunette with a ten-gallon hairdo worked the small counter in front of him. She wore a similar white lab coat, a pair of rhinestone-studded cat’s eye glasses and a pen tucked behind one ear.

  Abby walked up as she keyed in a prescription for the customer in front of her.

  “I’m tellin’ you, Charmaine, we don’t sell nothin’ like that. This here’s a pharmacy. We got your usual sundries, but you’ll need to go on-line to one of them sex shops if you want a vibrator.”