by Aubrey Rose
He moved, blocking her view of the humping shadows, and her hurt blue eyes lifted to his. He could see the pain beneath her spiky, wet lashes and it tore feelings out of him he didn’t want to admit.
“Fuck me, Steven. God, yes, fuck me harder!”
“Quiet, Luna!” a man’s voice ordered.
The redhead struggled beneath him, but he held her to the wall, dropping his head, praying the thing would get over with. The climax came minutes later and he squeezed his eyes closed, while his feminine captive clutched him closer, sobbing beneath his hand.
Then finally the bastards stumbled back into the hotel room, slamming the balcony’s patio door shut. Right then, a loud clap of thunder struck, making the woman jump against him. She had a healthy figure, like he’d never had an opportunity to feel against him before. But it was just half a man’s thought, before he lowered his mouth against her ear.
“That your husband up there?”
She moaned and nodded. A growl rumbled from his chest. He thought she had to be, the way she’d come up on them, and the way she’d looked before he grabbed her from warning them they were caught.
“We’ll talk,” he uttered, dragging her down the hotel walkway away from the balcony. What were the odds he’d meet the wife of the bastard that was screwing his wife?
He was the husband! Tess was gobsmacked as the tall man wearing a black duster and cowboy hat placed her in his big, extended cab pickup that was parked on the other side of the parking lot from “the deed.” She couldn’t think the real words of what it was.
She was shaking and wet as she watched him crossing in front of his truck, going to the driver’s side. He got in, and she exclaimed, “I’m wet.” Her teeth chattered as she tried to control them and explain. “I’ll ruin your seat.”
“Don’t care.” His voice was a low, rumbly burr that she oddly felt in all her secret girly places, but his voice was also tight, as in controlled. His wet hat came off, hitting the seat between them. From the lights of the parking lot, Tess saw he had a long, angular nose, black hair that was long enough to hang slightly over his collar, and he had pinpoints in his undetermined eye color when he glanced at her. His long fingers reached for the heater knob and he turned it on high. Just then lightning struck and she yelped, clutching the armrest on her door.
“Your name?” he asked, with an apparently clipped way of speaking.
His truck started, and her voice was shaking when she answered, “Tess Navarro.”
He hissed a breath, and the sound made her think he’d heard the name.
“Vincent Whitehorse,” he offered as his long arm reach to the back of the seat, and he turned his head to look while backing the truck.
Her breath caught and her eyes widened—she didn’t miss the incredible masculine hotness making up his rugged features. She could have hissed a breath over his name too, because she’d heard of Whitehorse Training and Security Facility. She sent them out flowers she couldn’t use in her flower shop that were good, but getting too old to sell. She liked the theme of WTSF, which was helping to save single teens, young women, and young moms by training them to kick ass, and then getting them into trade jobs or school.
Tess had heard a lot of the jobs were security- or bond-chaser-type work. But she’d seen WTSF personnel on the local community college campus passing out flyers. She’d also seen them around town doing various fundraisers for their charity work. She wondered if he was the Whitehorse of WTSF or just a relation. But the more important question tumbled from her mouth as he took the access road down the side of the highway.
“Did you know?”
He looked as if he was holding rein on a sizeable amount of anger. Which she got. It made his features look chiseled and even more masculine, if that was possible, and she was feeling the distinct flutter inside her for the awareness of a man she thought strikingly attractive.
“I guessed,” he uttered. She kept staring at him as he clipped more words. “Knew. She’s done it before.”
“Oh,” she whined, dropping her gaze, then she mumbled, “Mine too. Once, I know of.”
“Fuckers,” he growled.
Yeah, Tess wanted to growl that word too, and more she wanted to ask why she wasn’t enough for Steven. What was wrong with her? And what kind of idiot was Vincent’s wife, screwing around on a hot man like Vincent. Her husband, Steven, wasn’t “all man” in the hard, virile, and ripped category. He was okay, but not even close to Vincent Whitehorse’s edgy, badass kind of hunkiness.
Wow.
Vincent stopped at Lulu’s, the quiet bar in town, not the wild one. Her husband Steven's “talent,” what little there was of it, never played at Lulu’s. They either played Big Mama’s, the biker bar in the next town over, or Kickin Rodeo, a dance club and bar out on the highway, or mostly venues in Houston or Dallas, out of town. Steven was gone quite a bit.
Tess liked Lulu’s. It was quiet, comforting, and dark. She appreciated the choice as she walked numbly inside beside Vincent Whitehorse with her boots squishing. The rain had eased, and he held the door for her, both outer and inner. Once inside, he went to a back booth and took off his duster and hat. These he shook out and hung over the back of the booth.
She followed him, thinking her boots were probably ruined and mourning the fact that it was so hard to find pink ones. Standing at the side of the booth, she wasn’t certain if she should take off her destroyed leather jacket or not. Finally, she decided she was so cold maybe taking the heavy, wet lump off would help. She was a little worried at the condition of her sheer camisole underneath, which had run dye on the inside of her jacket.
It nearly made her cry, so she tossed it aside, not looking at it closely, while she hoped the candlelit darkness of the bar hid things like her white-lace pushup bra showing underneath her wet camisole. She couldn’t dare herself to look down and see. She just scooted into the booth, on the other side from Vincent, and put her arms on the booth tabletop, hoping to hide any wet tee shirt exhibitions going on in the vicinity of her chest.
Luckily, she didn't know the cocktail waitress, a feat in a small town, because she knew the bartender Trish from high school. But the cocktail waitress looked barely old enough to be legally doing her job and she was doing her style up in cowboy Goth. Black boots, black jean skirt, black tee, with piercings on her lip, nose, and multiple ones on her ears, topped with spiky black and pink hair.
She frowned with black lipstick lips, until she got a good look at Vincent Whitehorse. Then she did a double take and proceeded to blush. Tough Goth girl blushing? Tess looked closer at Vincent; he didn't notice but she could definitely see Goth girl’s point. Vincent was blush-worthy. Vincent’s wife was an i d i o t.
“Two coffees and a bottle of Jack,” Vincent ordered in his growled and totally hot voice.
Tess started shivering and she wasn’t certain it was the cold.
“Right away.” Goth girl smiled, showing a tongue stud. Oh my God. She moved it around her mouth as if she were waving it at Vincent. His black brows drew together.
Tess quickly said, “Thanks, honey, that’ll be all.”
Goth girl’s gaze swung to her, giving her an “I’ll fight you for him” look. Then, finally, she strolled away.
“You're freezing. Take my duster.”
Vincent stood and grabbed his duster, shaking it out more, then stood, waiting for Tess Navarro to get out of the booth. She looked fragile with her dark red hair plastered to her head—it made her eyes look bigger and bluer. He was trying not to look at her chest. It was an amazing distraction. He could see a sexy bra that barely held her breasts contained beneath her sheer, wet top. The bra looked white, the top nearly pink, her nipples thrusting hard points.
His mouth was dry as he looked at her pale features with a pretty mouth and soft skin, then she scooted out of the booth to take his duster and he saw her full hips encased in black, skin-licking jeans, as if poured over her curves. She turned to accept his duster over her shoulders,
and being a man, he looked down to catch her ass before it disappeared beneath his duster. Apple bottom. Tess Navarro’s bottom was fucking sweet. Shame on him.
“Thanks.” Their fingers touched on the transfer of the duster, and her bow-shaped upper lip parted as if by a tiny gasp.
He nearly growled beneath his breath, and then he went to sit on his side of the booth, scraping back his wet hair, trying to get his shit together. So what if the bastard that was screwing his wife had a sweet wife? That bastard was a stupid fuck for taking Luna over Tess.
“How do you think they know each other?” Tess whispered over the booth table, drawing his gaze back to her.
Before he answered, the teenage cocktail waitress clomped her cowboy boots up to the table to set down two cups of coffee and a bottle of Jack. “Trish says you own the Jack now whether you finish it or not.”
Vincent nodded, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Tess grab the bottle of whiskey. Both he and the waitress watched her uncap it and take a swig right out of the bottle. Her blue eyes widened and she coughed.
The teenage waitress snickered beside him.
“You eaten?” he asked Tess.
She shook her head. “Don’t want to eat.” The bottle tipped up again, and he turned to the waitress.
“We’ll take potato skins. Now.”
The waitress tilted her head at him, curling her hip toward him. He got a message, felt a bit of shock, then growled in his most menacing voice: “Jailbait.” She started to open her mouth to tell him she was all of two years over jailbait age. But he knew teenage girls too well in his charity business, and he interrupted her snit.
“No damn way you should be giving it away, brat. You’re worth more than that.”
Her mouth slammed shut.
“Vicki! Over here. Now!”
Vincent glanced to Trish at the bar, nodding slightly, as the teenage waitress, obviously named Vicki, stomped away. Trish waved at him, rolling her eyes. Without looking back at Tess, he shot his out and clamped it around her lifting hand, which was around the bottle of Jack.
Turning his head, he said lowly, “Slow down.”
“Why?” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and it got to him as he held her hand tight.
“They're not worth it,” he stated flatly.
She looked at his hand clasped over hers and made a frustrated sound, tugging her hand free. Then she slapped her hands on the table. “Don’t need a babysitter,” she declared. Then she scooted out of the booth, leaving his duster behind, and she swayed her too-perfect ass up to the bar.
Two cowboys, sitting on the end of the bar she swung her ass up to, both turned to look, and Vincent knew they were getting an eyeful of her breasts, draped in barely there wet material.
He tilted his head back. “Hell,” he uttered. Then he grabbed the Jack and took a swig.
Just because he didn’t care as much about Luna’s cheating, because he was over all her crap and readying to cut her loose, didn’t mean he couldn’t feel every inch of what Tess Navarro was feeling. He’d felt it in the past—when he’d let himself, back when he cared.
Somehow, because his lowlife wife was screwing Tess’ husband, it made him feel responsible ... toward Tess. He cussed again, taking another swig. From the little he’d seen of Tess, she was looking too sweet for that bastard husband of hers to screw over.
Vincent set the bottle down and pushed out of the booth. His long strides took him to Tess’ side, where one of the straggler rodeo cowboys had her corralled between his legs. Tess was knocking back another drink of undetermined contents as Vincent’s gaze swept over the cowboy’s hands shaping her full hips.
Vincent came to a halt in front of the cowboy Romeo, giving him a look over Tess’ head that spoke volumes. The cowboy paled, then quickly unlatched his hands from her feminine curves.
Tess’ glass lowered, and she looked over her shoulder, seeing him. Her lips trembled in a false smile. “Join the party!” she exclaimed. Then she yelped as he hooked one arm around her waist and he transported her back to their booth. “You can’t just do that!” she exclaimed, looking over his shoulder.
“Just did it,” he muttered, helping her back into the booth on his side, with his body holding her captive.
“I liked him,” she declared with a definite slur.
He grabbed her chin, looking into her eyes, which, even inebriated were the clearest blue. “Liar.”
She looked back in his eyes, and then her gaze lowered slowly to his lips and lingered there. He felt that look at his mouth, and it startled him how much he felt it.
“I’m not good enough,” she whispered, and his heartbeat slowed in a painful way.
Whatever he’d been going to say, to talk to her, get her on track ... he didn’t know, figure out their next step, was swept from his mind as he closed his eyes for a moment. Hell.
The next second, he opened his eyes and lowered his mouth over her soft lips, kissing her with the simple intention of making her not hurt so much. But he’d not been prepared for the feel and the incredible taste of her mouth or how soft and giving her lips were beneath his.
She grabbed the back of his head, moaning and pulling him deeper. That quick ... fire ... hot and burning stroked through him. Fucking Tess Navarro could kiss. She could kiss the lips off a man who’d had no intentions of getting involved with any woman for a long, long time. Maybe years.
And when he thought it couldn’t get any better, her tongue touched his.
Tess nearly got up on her knees to get closer to Vincent Whitehorse, plastering her breasts against his hard chest. She’d never touched a man’s mouth that tasted so good, lips so firm, and expertly molding her lips, kissing top, bottom, and along the seam.
She moaned against him with her nipples hardening tighter for the ride. Hot, hot, hot. She was melting and she had to go deeper. Her tongue slid forward and he growled deep in his throat, vibrating her everywhere. Then his tongue plunged into her mouth and his hand fisted in her hair, at the back of her head, using that pull to guide her mouth where he wanted it. And he wanted it deep.
So deep ... she lost her breath, quivering against him. Then he gave her breath back to her, and it filled her lungs as she panted lightly. She was leaning into him with her hands clenched on to his muscular shoulders.
“Your eyes are black,” she whispered.
“I’m a fucking Indian,” he growled—and boy she felt that in her nipples—then the bottle of Jack pulled between them. Vincent took a swallow, then he pressed the bottle to her lips. His burning gaze watched her drink—watching her throat, her lips, and then her eyes. She felt the heat of him against her and she wanted to rub.
To kiss her like he did meant he had to want her. All that she’d drunk, on an empty stomach, made her think it was her best idea in years.
Badass Indian ... hot.
Thirty minutes later, with her panties on fire and Vincent nearly having them off her several times in the bar, he stalked, while she staggered beside him—toward a ... she squinted.
“Rowdie’s Motel.”
It was next to Lulu’s, and Tess wasn’t certain she knew that. But the rain had stopped and her clothes, besides her jeans and panties—that meant her bra and camisole were dry from the combustion heat between her and Vincent. The bottle of Jack, half gone, was in Vincent’s left hand, attached to the arm not corralling her body against his side.
Tess wasn’t certain where her jacket, his duster, and his hat were, and she didn’t think she cared as her hand tried to get between him and his belt and jeans over his ass.
She would freaking show anyone she was hot enough to want!
Vincent’s hand, cinching her to his side, was playing with wicked touches, on flesh, inside the front of her jeans. His fingers stroked skin at the top of her melting panties as they walked. She wanted so desperately for his fingers to be able to get deeper inside her jeans. Way deeper.
Abruptly his fingers left, and she whined with dis
appointment, swaying against him.
“Take a room,” she heard him utter, and she looked up to see Finn O’Neil, former high school jock, a year ahead of her, and now undetermined possible drug lord, possible biker, possible good guy gone bad, behind the counter of Rowdie’s Motel. Finn’s black hair sported a spiked crew cut, and he had a wicked goatee on his chin and a tattoo trailing up the front and sides of his muscular neck.
“You freaking own Rowdie’s!” she exclaimed, looking up at his electric-green eyes staring down on her. She might have slurred her words a lot, and toppled sideways, but Vincent caught her.
“Fucking room,” Vincent growled again, and Finn slapped a key on the counter.
“Ten,” Finn growled back.
Tess swayed against Vincent, looking between them. There were hardass looks going on, then Vincent nodded, and swung her out the door.
“Later, Vin,” Finn snapped behind them, then the door swung shut.
“They call you Vin, baby,” she slurred, with her head spinning.
“You. Call me Vincent,” he answered.
She nodded. “Vincent baby with the smoking body and mouth made from somewhere not of this world. Oh, and badass, hot Indian.”
Suddenly, she was lying on a bed with Vincent on top of her. “Hot Indian, huh?” His gravelly voice silenced as it settled over her mouth.
She wiggled free of his mouth. “So hot, my panties are melting.” She swept her hand over his head to the room at large. “That never happened before.”
He moved down her body, grabbing the waist of her jeans. “Let’s see these hot panties.”
Vincent knew he was plowed and he didn’t give a shit. Tess Navarro was one hot chick and he was going to give her multiple orgasms to cover her pain. Maybe it would fucking cover his too, because Tess’ sweet and erotic mouth kissed him right into bed.
Until he had to have the rest of her—he had to see her—to feel her. Everything about her curvy body was driving him nuts. It lured him in, and then smacked him upside the head like a punch. When he pulled her breasts free of the lacy white bra she had on, his body went into lust overdrive. Fat, sassy, plump breasts with taut, hard nipples ... he just lost himself in them for long minutes.
