Devils on Horseback: Zeke, Book 3 (12 page)

“Yesss.” She spread her legs even wider, bringing him so deeply inside her, he touched her womb.

He felt his orgasm starting near his toes and it traveled up until it landed between his legs. She whispered his name as her sweet pussy fisted around him so hard, he saw stars, bringing his orgasm to its fullest. It swept him away on a river of pure ecstasy and he rode in the current with her.

He pulled her to him, their hearts thundering in tandem against one another. Zeke kissed her forehead and tucked her beneath his chin. Sleep tugged at him but he was still deep within her and wanted to enjoy every second of it.

His body shook with the force of what had just happened between him and Naomi. He thought his heart had hardened beyond recognition after Allison’s murder and the war. He’d been mistaken, because it trembled more than anything else on him. Zeke had done the unthinkable.

He’d fallen in love. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Chapter Eight

Naomi returned to the saloon before the sun rose, a smile on her face and a few muscle twinges attesting to her rigorous night’s activities. She was no whore, but going to Zeke, being with him, had been the right thing to do. She understood that and accepted all that came with it.

Being with Zeke for the third time had been dangerous for her heart. He had the ability to turn her world upside-down and sideways. Life, however, was meant for the living. She intended to grab on with both hands and savor every second of sweet happiness she could. The last few years had been filled with so many dark moments, and Tanger was turning out to be the light penetrating that darkness.

The saloon was quiet as a church as she made her way up the stairs. The grin on her face faded when she caught sight of Carmen at the landing waiting for her wearing a sheet and nothing else. Her furious expression told a tale.

“Listen,
puta
, you don’t do no business outside this saloon. I don’t care how good you think you are. You ain’t special and you gotta pay Lucy just like me.” Her lips curled back in a sneer as she spoke, spittle gathering in the corners of her lips.

Naomi didn’t know what to say. The very idea she was prostituting herself outside the saloon had never even crossed her mind, nor was it something she’d ever do.

“Carmen, I’m not doing any business. I went to see a friend who’d been hurt.” Truthful, but not entirely. Her cheeks felt hot with the accusation and the lie by omission.

“Ha, as if I’d believe a
puta
like you.” Carmen jabbed a finger into Naomi’s chest. The sharp point felt more like a knife than a fingernail. “You just be careful,
bruja
. I’m watching you.”

Louisa poked her head out of her room, her sleep-tousled hair resembling a rat’s nest. She blinked and looked at them with bleary eyes. “Carmen, why are you yelling at Naomi?”

“She is doing business outside the saloon.” Carmen’s accusation stung each time she flung it around.

Louisa frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I see her leave and go down the street so I follow.” Carmen shrugged. “She went into the upstairs of the restaurant and stayed. I left and come back here.”

“Why did you follow me?” Naomi demanded.

“I want to make sure you’re not cheating me. A whore doesn’t care whose bed she makes money in.” Carmen was excessively blunt.

“I didn’t do anything wrong and I didn’t cheat you out of anything.” Naomi wiped the sweat from her forehead with a shaky hand. “I don’t have any customers in any bed.” Her voice rose on the last words, anger mixing with fear.

“I believe her, Carmen.” Louisa brushed the hair from her face. “I ain’t seen her go upstairs with nobody.”

“That’s because she don’t want to share her money with Lucy.”

“Is that true?” Lucy sauntered out from the end of the hallway, her eyes cold as brown marbles.

“You know it’s not true. I went to him because I wanted to. Check my pockets if you like. I barely have two bits to my name.” Naomi turned her pockets inside out.

“Maybe I check under your clothes too.” Carmen leaned in close, the smell of onions and malice on her breath.

“You touch me and you’ll regret it. There’s just so much I can take from anyone.” Naomi wasn’t about to let anyone touch her, much less a jealous woman bent on making her out to be a cheating whore.

“Nammy knows the rules. She gets caught, she leaves.” Lucy turned to go back down the hallway. “Carmen, you need to stop being such a bitch.”

Louisa barked out a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth. With a wink at Naomi, she disappeared into her room.

Carmen looked very angry, but there wasn’t anything Naomi could do or say to convince her she was wrong. The whole fight had turned a beautiful morning into a tense standoff and for that Naomi felt resentment towards her.

“You know, we can have a life outside this saloon. I really was seeing a friend who’d been hurt. What we do together, as adults, is our business alone. I’m sorry you can’t see that or accept me as a human being with feelings.” Naomi stomped past her, determined to put the incident aside and get some sleep.

Carmen, for once, didn’t say another word as she turned and went back to her room, the sheet swishing behind her on the wooden floors.

Naomi swallowed and pressed a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart and to mend the wound left by Carmen’s accusations. Naomi slammed her door so hard, her teeth rattled. She didn’t care who heard or complained, because it sure as hell made her feel better.

The bed reminded her of who’d shared it with her and Naomi laid down, eager to find his scent even if it was just in her mind. After she woke, she would make Carmen understand she was wrong about Naomi and Zeke. It was not a customer relationship. It was much, much more.

* * * * *

Their nightly visits continued for a week. Zeke would come to her one night, then she would go to him the next. Sweet, delicious heat in double doses filled their bedrooms, each joining more intense than the last. He was out of control and he knew it, yet it didn’t stop him from going to her bed or welcoming her into his.

Each time they came together, they ended up talking for hours. He’d known there was a common bond between them, but he hadn’t known how strong it was. On a hot Wednesday night, a few weeks after they’d met, Naomi told him in a broken whisper about why she’d left North Carolina.

“My father was too old to fight. I was a late-in-life child for my parents, so he stayed behind in my hometown. Vista was just that, a vision of gently rolling hills and beautiful trees. Folks in town knew each other and it was a nice place to live.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “You see it sat right near the Virginia border, not too far from the battlefields. Sometimes at night when it was really quiet, you could hear cannons.”

Zeke tucked her under his arm and pulled her close. Naomi was clammy and cold, stuck in the past, and he needed to let her tell her story. Although, he didn’t want to hear what happened, he listened because it was part of who Naomi was.

“A Yankee troop or whatever they call themselves stumbled into town one Sunday morning. Most folks who were left in town were in church—there wasn’t much left to do but pray those days. Food was scarce, supply wagons didn’t come through anymore. We were getting a bit desperate, but we still had faith.” She let out a long sigh, a warm breath against his chest. “Until that morning anyway. They stuck a broom handle or something like that in the door and set the building on fire.”

Zeke couldn’t help the tightening of his arm or the curse that sprang from his lips. War had turned men into monsters.

“They stood outside and watched as we tried to get out through the two small windows.” Hot tears slid onto his skin as she cried silently for what she’d been through. “I-I tried to help everyone, but we were mostly women and children and the windows were too small for everyone to fit through. My father, the reverend, tried to chop a hole in the door with a chair but it was no use.”

She was silent for so long, Zeke grew concerned. He tipped her chin up to look at her. “You survived.”

“Only in body, my soul would never be the same. You see, I had to watch my father burn to death right after he threw me through the broken window.” A sob escaped from her throat. “He sacrificed himself to save us, and in the end, none of us were saved.”

It was what she hadn’t said that worried him. Her story was familiar in wartime, and he’d heard similar ones, but the quaking woman in his arms had something else to say. The war had taken more than her father from her. The eerie similarity between Allison and Naomi grew stronger after hearing Naomi’s story. How had a man stuck in hell been drawn to women born of men of the cloth?

Zeke didn’t ask any more questions because he couldn’t. Her pain was deep enough to remind him of the pain he’d buried far inside him.

“I’m sorry, little one.” He hugged her close until she stopped shaking, though he didn’t think he ever would.

* * * * *

He sat drinking coffee in the restaurant, trying to pretend he’d slept more than a few hours in the last two weeks. When he’d glanced in the mirror this morning, he was surprised to see how shitty he appeared. Dark circles lay under his bloodshot eyes, giving him a haunted look.

Was he haunted? Perhaps by the fever that gripped him whenever he thought of Naomi. Jesus, just thinking of her his pants grew tight as his blood rushed around his body. He was becoming hopelessly entangled with her, and he was afraid it had already passed the point of no return. She was too damaged inside, almost as much as he was. Together they would be a lethal combination.

“You look like shit.” Lee sat across from him, biscuit in hand and a frown on his face.

“Thanks, little brother. Don’t use such pretty words next time, just give it to me straight.” Zeke took a big gulp of scalding coffee.

Gideon clapped him on the shoulder, then sat next to him. “Something, or should I say someone, is keeping you up, Sheriff.”

“I think it’s that blonde whore from Lucy’s.” Lee didn’t miss much.

“Ain’t nobody’s business but mine. But I’ll tell you right now, don’t ever call her a whore.” Zeke started to rise, but Gideon’s hand kept him down.

“It sure as hell is our business, Zeke. We’re not only kin, we’re a family, looking out for each other.” He glanced at Lee. “Both of us are worried.”

That idiot Byron Ackerman strolled into the restaurant as noisily as he did everything else. “Good morning, gentlemen. Sheriff.” He threw his nose up in the air like a high-fallutin’ woman and went over to an empty table by the window.

Gideon shook his head. “That man doesn’t like you, Zeke.”

Lee snorted. “That’s the gospel truth.”

“I don’t like him either.” Zeke watched the hotel man as Margaret appeared by the table and smiled at him. Not just any smile, but a wide one with a pink tinge to her cheeks. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Lee glanced back at Ackerman. “What the hell is she doing?”

“My guess is Mr. Ackerman is looking for a woman to spark with and he’s found one.” Gideon never shied away from speaking the truth, but hell’s bells, they didn’t want their Margaret sparking with the likes of an uptight Yankee.

Lee let loose a curse under his breath. “That ass has been here every day for breakfast. Margaret should’ve told him to leave, but no, she must’ve been enjoying flirting with him ’cause he kept coming back. Now she’s making cow eyes at him.” His fist clenched as he stood, the chair’s scrape on the floor echoing in the restaurant. A few folks eating breakfast glanced up, but it was Margaret who met his gaze.

She pinched her lips together then raised her chin as if challenging him to say something. Margaret waited a few moments before she turned back to Ackerman, pointedly giving Lee the cold shoulder. He started towards them but Zeke grabbed his arm. It was like stopping granite and it damn well stung Zeke’s hand.

“You’ve got no claim on her, brother.”

“He’s got no claim on her either, lousy Yankee bastard.” His voice shook with fury, a very bad sign.

Zeke glanced at Gideon and without speaking decided on what to do.

“Let’s go take a walk, cowboy.” Zeke stood and pulled Lee towards the door. “Gid can handle the breakfast orders.”

Lee gazed at Zeke. The naked longing in the brown depths of his little brother’s eyes was all too familiar. “I know, brother, I know. Come on.”

Although not an easy task, Zeke got Lee out of the restaurant and into the sunshine.

“You sweet on Margaret?”

Lee almost stumbled at Zeke’s question. “What?”

“You were ready to tear Ackerman to bits back there. Jesus, Lee, it ain’t a bad thing, you just need to do something about it if you want her for your own.”

Lee walked beside him for a few minutes before he responded. “I didn’t plan on liking her, that’s for sure. The woman is contrary and mean.”

Zeke didn’t believe that. “Margaret is quiet, but she’s never been mean to me.”

Lee snorted. “Then count yourself lucky. She’s impossible sometimes and dammit, she treats me like I’m a nuisance.”

Zeke sympathized with his brother, but to him, the path was clear. “Tell her how you feel.”

Stopping in his tracks, Lee looked absolutely horrified. “What? I can’t do that. She’d have me in her apron pocket and only let me out for special occasions.”

“Well, that’s an image.” Zeke swallowed the smile that threatened. “Kicking Ackerman around isn’t going to help.”

“I know that, but hell, Zeke, I just can’t let him take her.”

It was worse than Zeke thought. Lee just didn’t like Margaret, he
loved
her.

“It seems we’re both in the same boat, little brother.” Zeke’s heart crimped at the thought of Naomi. He had to tell someone, and who better than Lee. “I’ve got myself tangled up with a woman too.”

“I heard tell you were keeping time with somebody. It is that blonde I saw with Ackerman, right? She didn’t look much like a woman for a sheriff.” Lee could sometimes be so abrasive.

“I don’t need you telling me that. As soon as one of those biddies on the town council see us together, I’m gonna get booted out on my ass.” Zeke’s own desperation came back on him like a wave.

“So stay away from her. She’s a whore.” Lee sounded so matter-of-fact, it made Zeke’s teeth grind together.

“Dammit, she’s not a whore. And talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Are you steering clear of Margaret? It ain’t that easy. Naomi’s like a fever inside me and I can’t stop thinking about her.” Zeke blew out a shaky breath.

Lee was quiet for a minute, and when he spoke, his voice had a husky quality to it. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts.

“I guess we’re both a couple of pitiful fools, aren’t we?” Zeke let loose a chuckle.

“Oh, no, you’re definitely more pitiful than me.” Lee shook his head.

Grateful for the funning, a reprieve from his chaotic thoughts, Zeke punched his brother in the arm. “Ha, that’s a big fat lie. You take the cake of pity with your ugly face.”