Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) (17 page)

“I never meant . . .”

But did he
have someone sharing his quarters?
If
so, this would’ve killed her without due cause or actual weapon in hand.

“Like hell you did not,” he ground out. “You meant to
insinuate I can’t have another woman in my bed.” His jaw clenched. “Yet you can
have as many men in yours’ whenever the urge comes over you.”

“I don’t have
anyone
in my bed, other than me.”

The tone of her voice must have convinced him of this
being the truth because he checked it with, “Dido to that, sweetheart.”

Jake then stepped forward, forcing her to move in the
direction of Roundabout Road. But Liddy quickly stalled for time. She wasn’t
ready to see Jake’s shower, or his small bed. Nor was she ready to get
bombarded with a million questions from Julia Hillard.

“Come on, Liddy. Stop dragging your feet. It isn’t
helping you any.”

“I’m not dragging my feet.”

He looked as though he thought otherwise.

“I’m not!”

He raised another gorgeous brow as answer to this.

“Okay. So maybe I am dragging her feet. But it is only
because I don’t want to stay with Julia in her boarding house. I want to stay
with you. I’m scared, Jake. About this. About us. About . . .”

She had to put a lot of thought to why her courage had
dissipated the moment she’d crossed the town border. “—Well, I won’t be able to
think with Julia trying to tell me the life history of Preacher’s Bend. I won’t
be able to deal with what we did back in that holding cell. And, with the fact
I no longer have a job, a place to live, or any money at this point in my life.
I have to be with you. You’re my husband. You have to take me in.”

“And that matters to you
now
?” he asked. “After
ten long years, my being your husband actually has valued points?”

“Yes, Jake. It does matter . . . now.”

In fact, it had always mattered. But she sure as hell
wasn’t going to tell him. His head would’ve exploded.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, flaring
his nostrils for the thousandth time. “Fine, you can stay with me in the shack.
But don’t you dare blame me for being uncomfortable while there. Or . . .
bothered. My place is small.”

Liddy’s joy was overwhelming. “I won’t complain one bit.
You won’t hear a single peep out of me. Nothing will ever bother me. And even
if only eight feet by ten feet wide, I’ll be fine.”

“Good. `Cause if you say another word about my not
being able to love something, I’ll rip out your vocal chords with my bare hands
and eat them for breakfast.”

Lord Have Mercy! She suddenly feared he meant this.

Liddy ran her fingers over her lips, sealing them
tightly. After all, she figured he was still contemplating suicide over having
her, of all people, as a temporary roommate he thought never to see again.

“And another thing . . . ,” he started, while Liddy
was once again being pulled in the direction of Roundabout Road by Jake’s
steely grip on her arm. He would have probably dragged her there, had she
fallen down.

“Yes?”

“You will be sleeping on the floor.”

“But . . .”

“Not another word, Liddy. So help me God! Not . . .
another . . . word.”

Chapter Eighteen

There was always a downside to doing a particularly
foolish deed; an even bigger downside to having made too quick a decision in one’s
life. It generally backfired right in the face.

Jake was getting his face blown to bits.

Liddy had come home with him with no further argument
on her part. No further brain activity, on his. Not that this wasn’t what he
wanted. Julia Hillard simply did not have room for another boarder, and for the
moment, Jake already aware of this fact he wasn’t going to tell Liddy. Let her
think coming here was of her own doing.

Yet it was bothering him to no end; her being here,
inside his very small shack, inside his life—messing up all three.

She’d taken all but a few moments to wander around his
one lone room. The place wasn’t big, but it was certainly more than an eight by
ten shed. She’d picked up this and that, trying to examine his life under a
microscope. Perhaps she’d been trying to find something wrong with how he lived
his life.

So, he enjoyed simplicity? So what? There was nothing
wrong with a man wanting barely any material possessions to speak of and every
earned penny sent directly to the bank.

She’d then asked for the bathroom and shower. He could
hear the water running. Damnit. She was using up all his hot water just to
scrub away seventy-two hours of unwanted incarceration she’d created  by
stealing a man’s car.

She was damn lucky Mr. Wells had dropped the charges.
But to his opinion, Wells let Liddy off the hook far too easily. If it’d been his
car, he would have flogged her.

In the anticipation of a long shower, and that shower
occupied, Jake began boiling a kettle of water on his stovetop so he’d at least
be able to heat up a cup of coffee. As the kettle whistled, and the water
turned off inside his bathroom, his head turned in that particular direction.
Next thing he knew his darling wife walked right out of the bathroom in little
more than a bath towel wrapped around her slender frame.

“Where did you put my clothes, Jake?”

He had to swallow hard to get the lump out of his
throat.

“Um, I put them on the bed.” He tipped the cup of hot
brew to his lips to hide his grin.

Liddy let the towel slip to the floor. She seemed as
though not having a single care he couldn’t pull his gaze from her flushed body.
Damn!
Watching a wife who’d been out of his life for ten long years cross
over to the particular piece of furniture, drop onto it, and start to dress,
made his loins tighten. She looked directly at him from across the room . . . and
he could barely breathe.

The coffee cup started to shake in his left hand. So
much so, he had to set it back down before he suddenly dropped the ceramic. She
looked so damn sexy just sitting on his bed, dressed in only her tiny hot-pink
bikini underwear, it was all he could do not to cross the room, pin her down,
and make love to her again.

She was about to put on the matching bra, but stopped
midway through.

“Would you please stop staring at me?”

A generous smile that couldn’t be erased held firm.
“Why?”

“Your staring is unnerving. That’s why.”

Jake, with steady strides, sauntered sure-footedly
toward his bed. He grabbed the matching hot-pink bra from her hands and flipped
it away. “And you don’t think watching you dress in such a skimpy article of
clothing isn’t unnerving me?”

Liddy’s sight rose to his. “Then don’t watch.”

“It’s damn hard not to. The place is small. My eyes
don’t have anywhere else to look”

“Close your eyes, or look out the window,” she offered
as practical advice to a man’s sudden need. Advice that was truly uncalled for.

“And then what?”

“Then you keep your eyes closed until I say to open
them.”

“I can’t do that,” he warned.

“Why not?” Liddy glanced toward her bra lying on the
floor, then back to his face.

“Because with my eyes closed I wouldn’t be able to do
this.”

He pushed Liddy’s shoulders so that she fell backwards
onto his bed. Jake quickly removed her bikini underwear with the deftest of
tugs. However slightly out of practice, and caught up at her ankle, once in his
hand he tossed the skimpy material aside.

He never let her catch her breath from the moment of
removal to when he slid over her bared form, pinning her down.

The grate of his jeans against her warmth created
sudden heat between his legs; heat that should not be ignored; heat that must
be dealt with, soon.

With his intentions deliberate, he moved down to drag
his tongue over her midriff, across her navel, under her enlarged breasts, up
her breastbone, over her right collarbone, to her throat, and then back to her delicate
mouth.

Liddy’s hands had slid down his sides, across the
front of his jeans, and she released the dragon trapped beneath the material by
free will. An engorged dragon the conscious memory would not shun.

The gentle slide of her nails to the underbelly of his
shaft just about broke him in half. She wanted this as much as he did. Perhaps
more so, by her bold caress of his thickened cock.

 “Do you want it slow or fast?” His mouth pulled from
her lips to await the answer.

“I just want it,” she said between delicious pants of
pure pleasure.

Jake had no need to be told twice. The long walk home incredible
torture on him, Liddy’s even longer shower had turned into a man’s ultimate
hell. All he’d been able to put through his head was her skin under the pelting
water. The pink hue it would have been. How wet she’d been. How wet he wanted
to make her now.

Especially
now!

His hand slid down her side slowly. It ended up
stalled at the thick thatch of course, potent hairs between her legs. A
gorgeous thatch he wished to see so much closer. Their coupling, though more
than once in their shared cell, had been quick and reckless, to a certain
degree. Now he wanted to make love to her slower, have it more meaningful, more
intensely pleasurable. He wanted to drive his tongue deep into her folds until
she begged for forgiveness.

He felt his fingers pulsate with the desire to be
buried inside her heat. No more than his cock pulsated, unfortunately.

Liddy knew exactly what was coming. Her incredible
blue eyes could not lie to him.

First one, then two, Jake shoved his fingers deep into
her vaginal track, Liddy’s sweet purrs caught against his mouth. As he finger
fucked his walkabout wife, his thumb circling her hardening nub, she raised her
hips to allow him better entrance.

“Easy, Sweetheart,” he smiled against her mouth.

Liddy shook her head. “No, Jake. Not easy. Not this
time. I need you hard and fast. I need you to suck me dry. God! I need you there
now!” She was grinding her hips against his hand due to her unquenchable lust
for sex.

He could certainly do hard and fast. He slid down her
body. His tongue dragged a line of moisture straight to her sweet, sweet nether
lips. With his fingers, he parted the pink folds, split her open, and dove
headfirst into the succulent buried treasure. All that sweetness was for him,
and only him. Only one brief second did he put thought to Mack Wells never
allowing himself the pleasure of her exquisite treasures.

Fool man, what the hell had he been waiting for?

“Oh, God! Yes. Oh, yes! Suck me, Jake. Suck me!”

As he felt her tighten, he glanced over her mound and
winked. Sucking was the easy part. He was waiting for Liddy to beg him to fuck
her. That wait wasn’t long as her head came off the pillow and she screamed his
name.

Jake didn’t give her the time to react to what was bound
to happen. He moved forward and entered his wife with one hard thrust; his
groan sounding so foreign inside his head. She’d raised her knees and accepted
his wide berth while trying to catch her breath. She then dragged her nails up
and down his spine as he pumped faster and faster into the dangerous depths of
her soul.

The pace increased, the heartbeats accentuated their
madness, and all hell broke loose the second he exploded into her core.

Making love to his wife for another full hour was just
so damn easy after that.

“We have got to stop doing this,” she warned between
breathless pants.

His hand palming her mound, his middle finger buried
deep in search of more, he said, “What in God’s name for?” He then pulled his
finger out and sucked off the essence of his darling, seductively-tempting wife,
grinning when her eyes widened.

“Because this isn’t right,” she promised, rolling to her
side. The smile held on her face contradicted this lie, however.

“Then quit smiling, sweetheart, if this isn’t right.”

She slugged him hard on the arm. His uninjured arm,
Thank God!

“You’re the one who can’t stop smiling, you big lug.”

“It does seem a permanent affliction of mine.”

Jake pushed to a sitting position on the bed, his head
resting against the wall, as Liddy remained right where she was, catching her
breath.

“As does that,” she reminded gently, pointing directly
at his thickening cock—Jake more than ready for sex again.

He had to hand it to healthy living and the incredible
desire for her body, increasing his stamina.

“You did offer to fix the big booboo on my arm only a
few days ago. Care to make such a generous offer toward this?” He pointed at
his now fully erect cock.

“Perhaps,” she smiled. “After you feed me something.
I’m starving.”

“Here I thought you’d be the one to get up and get us
nourishment.”

“You thought wrong, pal.”

He eased his muscular legs to the side of the bed,
rose, then walked to his refrigerator on the far side of the room. “There’s a
half-eaten ham sandwich. Jar of peanut butter.” He picked up a dish and sniffed
it, grimacing. “Jesus! Not really sure what this is.” He tossed the dish
straight in the trash.

Again, he looked inside the refrigerator for something
to feed a starving woman. The more strength she had, the happier he’d be in the
long run.

By now, Liddy was standing at his side with a small
bed sheet wrapped around her slender form, the sheet trailing behind her by at
least two feet. He smiled down at her face.

“Trying to cover up something I’ve already seen?”

“No. I’m cold. What else have you got in there?” A
hasty peek around his body then made to check the contents for herself.

“Not much. If you remember right, I’ve been locked up
in a holding cell with my estranged wife, then foolishly brought her home just
to have sex with her.”

Her glare was expected, yet she tempered the glared
with slow grin.

“
And . . .
after a full hour of making love to
her, I haven’t exactly had the time to go grocery shopping to get her something
to eat, before she started complaining. And I clearly remember telling her not
to complain about a goddamn thing if she planned on staying here.”

Liddy readjusted her bed sheet. “Well, then. Let’s
go.”

“Go where?” Jake had redirected his gaze to her face.
It somehow drifted to her ample chest heaving out of the top of that sheet.

“The grocery store. Now is as good as any of time,”
she said.

“But . . .”

“Jake. You need food. And what you have in there is not
food.” She grimaced at the refrigerator’s lack of contents. “I can’t think on
any empty stomach. We need to go grocery shopping.”

“No.
We
don’t,” he warned. “I do.”

“Can’t I go with you?”

“And take the chance of running into someone who might
remember you from ten years ago?” His tone hadn’t meant to be filled with open
invitation for argument, but that’s what happened.

Liddy, taken aback by this terribly timed statement, almost
hurt, said, “Fine! I get the point, Jake. You don’t want to be seen with me. It
might put a kink into your potential conquests. I get it. Good enough to put on
the back, but not good enough to be near while standing upright. Is that it?
Never mind. You don’t need to explain anymore.”

Her body language was telling him more than he cared
to hear. He reached out and grabbed her before she blew a gasket.

“Whoa! Hold on there, Little Darlin’. I didn’t say any
such thing.” A hard yank and she crashed into his bared chest. “You’re the one
who’s been trying to hide from the good folks of Preacher’s Bend. Remember?
Julia Hilliard, your best friend. I thought I was trying to be helpful.”

She punched him square on the arm. “No, you’re not.
You want me kept under lock and key so no one knows I’m here.”

“No. I’d rather have you directly under me, terribly
sweaty, and completely satisfied by my many lustful talents. We’ve already done
lock and key.” His grin turned dangerously sinful in spite of the fact he was a
little rankled she was calling him out for protecting her. Too sinful, perhaps,
since the grin had furrowed his wife’s brow.