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

by Willow, Jevenna

  Her eyes widened in breakneck speed. Wasn’t this a bit of a hasty expectation on his part?

  “I meant you change into clean clothes. Perhaps, take a shower. And we figure out what it is we are going to do about you.”

  “What it is we are going to do about me?”

  “Yes, we. And yes, you.” His wording said very clear. “I would guess Debra did not give back your purse?”

  “How the hell . . .”

  “Don’t ask, Liddy. Just go with it. I know more about Preacher’s Bend’s ways and those of Debra Wesley than you can ever imagine.”

  Just go with it? She’s to fucking go with it? She’d been trying to ‘go with it’ for the last few days, even the last few years. There was nothing to go with. Not under these wretched circumstances.

  “At least that boyfriend of yours’ dropped the charges against you. That’s a start.”

  “Did you somehow mishear the man, Jake? Mack’s slated opinion as to my personal association toward him altered quite considerably off course. Somewhat . . . Well, it’s a bit more than off course, isn’t it?”

  “As in completely destroyed by what we did?” he asked, smiling yet again.

  Liddy looked away. She couldn’t bear to see his complete arrogance in the matter. “Yes. But I’m sure it was more on the grounds of what I’d done, than of what we did.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” Her vision slammed into his.

  “Yes. Good.” Jake took another step forward to reach for her elbow. “Come on. You look a mess. And unless you care for Julia to see you as you are, I suggest we get you into a shower, pronto.” He tugged on her arm, getting nowhere.

  “Why is Julia Hillard going to see me like this?” A crack in the sidewalk as he pulled her body forward caused her to stumble.

  “Because I called her to tell her you’re here. In case she doesn’t already know.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?” She stopped Jake from pulling her in the direction he wanted, toward Roundabout Road, by digging in her heels.

  “Why did I tell her you’re here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Until I sort out what to do about you being here, I need Julia to take you off my hands. It doesn’t look as though you’ll be leaving Preacher’s Bend anytime soon. You need a place to stay. Julia took over running Petty’s boarding house. She can take you in until you get back on your feet.”

  “Why can’t I just stay with you?” she begged.

  Begging was beneath her, but she gave it a try. She had nothing else to lose.

  “Because,” he snapped.

  “Because why?” Her curiosity piqued; it poured out quickly.

  “I have a very small bed, sweetheart.”

  “So? What does having a small bed matter toward my staying with you for a few lousy days?”

  “For the moment . . . it’s being used.”

  Slamming on the brakes, she waspishly asked her darling, misguided husband, “By whom?”

  “Fuck, Liddy! By me. Who else did you think would be using it? Oh, wait!” His loud chuckle furthered her anger. “You actually thought I had someone living there with me?”

  He was accusing her of being jealous, and with no actual right these accusations stung.

  “I wasn’t so sure. But . . .”

  “Dear, sweet, innocently naïve Mrs. Giotti, no one has occupied that particular space for ten long years. By now I would’ve thought you understood this. Under the circumstances, green-eyed jealousy is a bit out of place, don’t you think?” Jake was warning her of things yet to come by glaring. “You, Little Darlin’, shouldn’t call the kettle black. And you sure as hell don’t have any rights to tell me I can’t have someone sharing my quarters—if I’d even wanted someone there.”

  “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 tryi
ng 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 . . .”