Their Ex's Redrock Dawn (Texas Alpha Biker) (10 page)

“A few days?”

Carly heard the fake upset in Rick’s voice. How could he think she didn’t hear it? Because he thought he had her snowed, and he thought she didn’t know anything about what he was doing behind her back.

“Rick, it’s not like you’ll notice. You wouldn’t go to the festival with me, then you’re doing rodeo all damn day long again. You didn’t even take time to come over when you knew I’d be there on the other side of the fairgrounds.” It felt so good to get a little bit of what she was feeling out.

“Well
you
didn’t come to see me either,” Rick snarled back at her.

Carly’s eyes widened. She’d never heard Rick speak to her like that before. He sounded so hateful and impatient, and it wasn’t normal husband-and-wife impatience—it was venom.

“Loving husband,” she whispered, being totally mean and sarcastic.

“
God,
you push my buttons,” Rick uttered. “And why the fuck didn’t you take your damn car, like I told you to.”

The thing about her car was so loaded with implications and questions, Carly didn’t know what to do with it. But some inner preservation made her lie.

“You’re not my boss, telling me which car to drive, and I stopped by the house to pick up a few things I need. I can see you haven’t been there. Why is that, Rick? Where have you been
over
night?”

“Just how the hell can you tell I’ve not been there? Because that’s a load of crap, Carly. Are you accusing me of fucking something?”

Carly could tell, because if he’d been there he’d know her car was gone, but she couldn’t say that or ask him how he knew she wasn’t driving it. He had to have seen her at the fairgrounds. But she needed to end their argument before she said something Zeb wouldn’t want her to say.

“Hell of a marriage we have, Rick. It’s not getting one bit better than the first try, and I’m glad I don’t have to come home tonight, because of my job.”

Then she cut the call and hung up on Rick, while shaking. It was a fight to hold back her tears.

So maybe she dumped on Zeb the minute he opened the door and walked into the room.

“
We
can’t keep doing this!” she cried, sounding as anguished as she felt.

Zeb’s big body stalled halfway to the bed, and the look on his hard-lined face stilled as he muttered, “I knew this was coming.”

“The way we’re fire together it’s not reality, it’s just the crazy madness at the start of an affair. I can’t stay here,” she exclaimed, pulling her hair like she’d pull it out by the roots. Couldn’t he see they were going to burn each other?

“You
will
stay, baby,” he declared. “We’ll slow down, but we are
not
stopping this thing between us.” Zeb’s hands landed on his lean hips in fists.

“I’m afraid to even think what’s going on,” she whispered, sounding as scared as she felt.

Then he blew her away and made her fear reality. “Baby, I’m asking you to put me in touch with your boss Vincent and not ask me why,” he said.

“
What?
” she exclaimed. “You can’t ask me not to ask you.”

“Just did,” he said, with a masculine stubbornness that was written all over him.

“What am I supposed to do?” She flipped her hand up and down, exasperated.

“Go to work, let me figure out what I have to figure out and talk to Vincent,” he said like an order.

“Give it up, just like that,” she demanded.

“Just like that, Carly,” he said lowly, so low she shivered at the deepness. “You give it up to me, and while you’re doing that we’ll get to know each other.”

“But—” she started to exclaim.

“I was a songwriter before I spent my time in the military.” Carly’s lips sputtered shut on her words as Zeb exploded her world. “Carly, you make me wanna write lyrics again.”

Oh.

My.

God.

“I do?” she whispered, while trying to reconcile bad-boy biker Zeb with songwriter Zeb. “Wow,” she whispered more.

Zeb had been standing halfway to the bed, but then he backed up and sat in the chair by the window. That squeezed her heart. He was keeping his word and making them time to get to know one another. At that moment Carly realized how much she needed it. She wanted Zeb just fiercely making love to her, but she needed this more from him before they continued.

Zeb’s face was in the shadows of the room, making him look more dangerous as he put his elbows on his knees, making the muscles in his forearms more pronounced. “You do, baby. I catch myself humming the licks. Never once in the desert or since I’ve been home have I done that.”

Carly scooted to the end of the bed and let her bare feet brush the floor as she leaned on her hands, looking at him. “I can imagine the desert’s not a place for creating new songs,” she said softly.

Zeb felt his gut clench at the fact Carly was picking his service to talk about over his revelation that he was a songwriter. The woman was beautiful inside and out, and he knew he was asking a lot of her not to ask questions about what might be going on with her husband’s actions and to just give it up to him.

He wanted her in his lap, but he quelled the urge. “Yeah, baby, not a place at all to find the notes.”

“Tell me, Zeb.”

Zeb held his breath, then sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. Two days ago he’d believed he’d never be able to tell anyone a thing about his time as a ranger, but two days ago he was very sure no one cared. Then his mouth just spilled.

“It was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be. The docs say we should talk about it.”

“The docs?” Carly asked, still softly.

“Shrinks.” He shrugged. “They make us talk to them some before we’re released.”

Carly’s gaze was so into him, he felt it deep. “What did you do in the Rangers?”

He was going to lie, but his damn mouth did that thing again. “Sniper.”

She blinked at him, not looking horrorstruck or disgusted, and her mouth softened.

“Baby,” she murmured, then she was across the small space and in his lap. Where she stayed for the next hour it took him to tell her things that should have made her leap off his lap, instead of cuddle him closer.

But when he was telling her some of the good things, which happened to smooth out the really bad things, she rocked his world.

“We have to have a get-together with as many from your unit as we can before the end of the year, Zeb. No waiting or it will never happen. I have a huge lake house and I can get boats and jet skis and you could invite them here, or maybe we could get on your bike and go to them. I really wish my brother had done that.”

Strong emotions warred inside Zeb; he was blown away by her compassion and willingness to just throw herself into his life. It felt good ... really good, but he could tell she had bad news about her brother.

“Tell me,” he ordered, holding her face close.

“We were lightening things up,” she muttered. He gave her a look, and she sighed, then whispered, “He took his life after serving in the war. I-it was PTSD, which he wouldn’t get help for. My dad sort of withered after that, and I think that’s why Dad helped Vincent and Cabe get their first two oil wells. Dad likes those boys; they all served, and they reminded him of his son who made it home, but then didn’t make it.”

“Man,” Zeb muttered, trying to take in the load of information. Carly was right—they needed to get to know one another even though he’d been silently fighting the notion. “You have my promise, Carly, if I think I’m going dark, I
will
get help and I’ll listen to you, if you’re telling me I need it.”

She looked relieved and nodded, and then moved from his hands, holding her face to lay her head on his shoulder. “Thanks, honey. It means a lot, especially with all the mess we’re in.”

“Yeah,” he murmured into her hair that smelled like sunshine.

Zeb wasn’t against finding help if he needed it. He’d been thinking about it on the long ride to find Tula, and he’d thought after he caught up with her and he figured out where he was going to settle that he’d better do something. Man the end of a marriage on top of just getting out of a war was too much to do on his own—maybe a group of vets or something.

But since he’d met Carly, and the way she had about her—the way she was open and willing to listen or made him want to tell her things—all that darkness growing on the edges of his mind was going away. Yeah, he’d see someone if he had to, but he might not have to with the right woman by his side.

“Sorry about your brother,” he said, stroking her back.

“He was older and I really didn’t know him well. I was young when he went into the military, then when he came out he was just scary.” She sighed, while stroking his back lightly with her nails.

“So your dad’s into oil along with your boss and that guy Cabe, and you have a big lake house, plus you work at a charity ...” Zeb paused, then deepened his voice as he asked, “Are you rich, Miss Carly?”

She leaned back to look up at him, and he offered the muscle of his upper arm on that side to balance her head on, while his other hand squeezed her really nice hip.

Instead of answering, while he got lost in the gray of her eyes, she asked, “Are you? Being a songwriter and all, or are you a struggling artist, biker, and ex-ranger?”

His smile was slow. “You forgot to add budding dominant to my woman’s sweet ass.” He felt her immediate sensual quiver. She liked that scene as much as he did. Revelation for him, but he was going for it.

“That too,” she whispered.

“I am not struggling, Carly, not even close. You?”

She shook her head. “Not even close.”

Man, something tight inside him loosened, as he whispered, “Never told Tula about how much money.”

Carly’s deep gray eyes widened. “I kept thin on telling Rick too. I fudged a lot about how much I have.”

“Man,” Zeb’s voice rumbled. “You saying ‘fudged’ with those full lips makes me think of licking it off you.”

Carly’s ass rolled seductively over the erection in his jeans. “You saying ‘lick it off me’ is doing the same thing.”

Zeb grabbed her waist. “Okay then, up we go,” he said, lifting her as he stood, and she clutched his shoulders for balance. “Made a damn promise to you, and I intend to keep the first one, through the last one ... we’re cooling it.”

Carly looked as if she didn’t want to cool it, as she petted his upper arms a few times, scrunched her pretty nose, and then muttered, “Okay, but it’s going to be hard.”

“Yeah, fucking hard as a rock,” he quipped back.

Her gaze turned to his bulging jeans. “I can’t just
leave
you like that,” she exclaimed.

“I’ll live,” he retorted.

“How long?” she asked, looking worried.

“Long as it takes, baby.”

––––––––

C
arly hugged Zeb’s back as they rode through the starry night. After Zeb declared they were dating and getting to know one another, he’d taken her out to dinner on his hog, and then for a ride afterwards.

They’d eaten two towns over, trying to avoid any local gossips’ radar. She hadn’t minded at all, because that meant a long bike ride there and back. Zeb had insisted they stop and buy her some leathers, so now she had a sexy pair of leather pants along with a cute short leather jacket with some fringe on it that Zeb had chuckled over while shaking his head.

But the jacket was cute and Zeb’s eyes had stayed on her as she’d strutted out of the bikers’ shop, still in heels so the tight leather pants really showed off her swaying bottom.

Once on his bike, Zeb had growled, “Twice as hard to keep my cock outta you with your sweet ass licked by that leather.”

Carly had squeezed him tight, giving him full breast contact. “Maybe we can get-to-know-each-other date by day, and then be lovers by night.”

Zeb had taken her to dinner, where she discussed the fine-tuning of her notion and she’d campaigned for her idea by slipping off her heels and using her toes under the tablecloth to stroke the ridge of his cock under his black jeans. Zeb had worn a brown leather jacket that looked worn into softness, and a black tee shirt that had the word “Rangers” in a gold diamond across his broad chest and showed the edges of his tattoos up the right side of his throat, above his collar. That and his dark, unshaven jaw with crystal blue eyes made him hotter than hot as his eyes narrowed on her, while she’d stroked him with her toes.

Later, as the night air blew under the visor on her helmet, she remembered how Zeb’s hand had closed with heat over her foot, then he’d pressed the bottom of her foot hard onto the thick ridge in his jeans. He’d agreed to be lovers by night, and to no-fucking by day, until she told him she thought they knew each other well enough.

It was a very hot thing Zeb had done in a long line of them: willing to go celibate to get to know her. He would have done it too, she was certain of it, and it made her want him even more. But now that she knew getting to know each other was their top priority, she could go back to completely lusting after him by day and showing him how much each night. All of it—the man, the bike, and the promise of crazy-hot sex—was making it easy for her to “give it up” to him like he’d asked her to do.

He had his reasons, and too soon she’d find out what they were. So for right then she was going to revel in her hot fling with a man that had just pulled out a platinum card and paid over a thousand dollars to put the best leathers on her money could buy. That had made her so horny she’d wanted to lick him right in the store. No one looking at Zeb would think he was rich, and she freaking loved that.

Her thoughts got distracted because the vibration of the hog between her thighs was tweaking her sensitive clit to distraction. At the same time she was feeling Zeb’s hard body against her, until she had her hands over his cock and she was rubbing the hardness through his jeans. She went for the snap on the top of his jeans and the big bike swerved, making a quick turn down a dark side road, out in the low-bottom fields.

Carly had the head of Zeb’s cock cupped and squeezed in the palm of her hand, where she felt creaminess, knowing it meant he was thoroughly aroused when he pulled his bike off the road into the cover of some trees and bushes. It was so dark only the headlights told her they were surrounded by trees.