Their Ex's Redrock Dawn (Texas Alpha Biker) (13 page)

Looking at Vincent, who was curled around Tess’ back, Zeb growled, “You fucking got someone to test these?”

“Yeah,” Vincent uttered back.

“But—” Carly started to say.

But then Zeb turned to her again and leaned in close. “Tell me you did
not
eat any of these.”

He was so forceful she nearly blew backward, until she caught herself. How dare he talk to her like that, besides the implications!

“No I
didn’t
.” Then she amended by his look alone, “None of us did.”

“Thank God for fucking something,” Zeb muttered, in a not-nice way, while Rusty fanned herself, while mouthing the words “smoking hot.”

Well, yeah, sure Zeb was, but he was also bossy and starting to piss her off. “You can’t just come in here and act like—” she started to say, but she lost the words when Zeb reached in and lifted her off her barstool.

“Ladies. Vincent,” he growled. “Later.”

He said that “later” sounding like much,
much
later. Then he was pulling her through the bar. Carly thought about screeching, but somehow in her tipsy mind she didn’t want Tess and Rusty to think she was letting Zeb boss her around like he was.

So she called, “See you soon! Thanks so much. Really, thank y—”

The last part was lost on her new friends, because Zeb had her through the door. Where she decided one good thing was that now forced out of her friends’ sight she could yell at her pushy but really hot man.

Her mouth opened to do the yelling, but over her attempt, Zeb growled, “Keys.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, falling against Zeb because she
was
tipsy, and then he was in her purse and had her keys ... then had her passenger door open and it looked as if he was going to throw her inside.

Her mouth opened again to blast him, when he overrode her one more time. “What part of not going anywhere without me did you
not
fucking get, sweetness?”

Oh! Oh!
Carly screamed inwardly, while noticing his use of the nickname he’d given her for those intimate moments when he wanted to spank her or boss her into doing things his way. Which always turned out giving her multiple, banging orgasms. But still! Then she wondered with alarm if he thought what she’d done was bad enough for a serious spanking.

“Yeah, baby, you’re fucking
in
trouble,” Zeb growled, obviously reading thoughts off her revealing, tipsy face. 

Zeb knew he was fucked, because Carly was pissed at him and he wasn’t done making her feel that way about him that night. He still had the damn obligation to explain to her outright that her husband was trying to kill her. So he was popped on adrenalin, as if he was holding the trigger on his sniper rifle and maybe he was being overly edgy ... or maybe not.

He just knew Carly was going to dislike him even more after he had his talk with her, so he was going to damn well edge his bets. Especially after she’d scared the hell out of him by taking Shaw’s damn candy and flowers, which would both be tested for poisons very soon by someone Vincent knew.

“I need you to tell me where your lake house is,” he said, as he pulled the WTSF truck out of the bar’s parking lot, while side-glancing Carly.

“No,” she snapped, only it wasn’t a cutting snap, but had a little slur.

It was not lost on him his babe was feeling the alcohol and she was mad at him. He just wished his heartbeat would go back to normal after seeing her cute ass sitting at the tall bar table with that box of candy planted in front of her.

“Babe,” he said in his seriously-I-mean-it, deeply growled voice.

Her quick glance at him told him she’d felt the command, but she might be judging if she could outdo his dominant stance. And that was
not
happening in his new and better world, so he switched from driving the truck out of the bar’s parking lot to driving it back behind the bar into the darker edges.

“Where are you going?” Carly sputtered.

But the next second he had her pulled off her seat and over him as he kicked his door open and slammed the truck into park. Carly’s skirt rode up, revealing a lacy pink swatch as her legs straddled each side of his hips. One of her legs bent at the knee and the other landed straighter, because the door was open.

“You going to test me?” he asked, with his nose nearly pressed to hers as his hands held her ass right where he wanted it, and that was with very wet panties over his hard cock under the zipper on his jeans.

“You’re a bully,” she declared, pushing on his chest.

“I’ll spank your ass right here, sweetness,” he warned.

She stilled instantly, then her hands patted his chest. “Zeb,” she whispered.

He did intimate things with her ass that started her squirming over his cock and got his hands under her panties from behind.

“I want you to let me go,” Carly demanded; her full breasts were in his face from where she was wiggling over his lap. Her thighs were opened wide enough his finger dipped lower, and he found wet heat from behind. “Oh,” she added breathlessly.

He blew hot air into her cleavage, before he growled, “I’ll let you up, sweetness, you tell me how to get to your lake house.”

Carly started saying, “I don’t know why you need to know that—”

But he got inventive, pushing her forward until his face was seated between her warm breasts as he slid a finger inside her from behind. It was damn sweet and so hot his cock bucked in his jeans, while his babe moaned that sound he was learning meant surrender and “
more
.”

He rode her up his body with some even thrusts, then she started helping back with small mews that were sugar to his ears.

“Yeah, baby,” he uttered, then he split her ass cheeks and fucked her harder with his finger, while dropping the finger next to it to rub her clit.

“Y-you can’t. I-I shouldn’t,” she moaned. “I’m
so
mad at you.” She rode his finger harder.

His voice was muffled between her breasts, but no less growled. “You can be pissed, sweetness, and still give me your pussy and your climax.”

One crazy climax later, Carly glared at Zeb, then turned to look out the front windshield of the truck. Her pink thong was on the dash. Zeb had taken it, saying her thong was now his to remember the time she given up her sweet pussy to him and had come all over him in the truck.

“Bastard,” Carly muttered under her breath.

Because she was really mad at Zeb and he shouldn’t have been able to make her climax like that. It made her a slut. A slut for all things Zeb, and she’d never been a slut before.

Maybe she’d been too much of a good girl and now her inner slut was busting to get out after being imprisoned so long. She just couldn’t figure out how Zeb got her so hot so fast. In her entire life, she’d never come that easy—before, it had taken work.

But within a week of knowing her, Zeb had her clit on speed dial. One touch and she was his. And she’d given him the damn directions to her lake house. Without knowing why. The owner of her clit was very edgy, dark, and silent about why the hell they were going out to her lake house, instead of back to Rowdie’s. Zeb’s ice-blue eyes would glance at her with sharp intent. Then he’d look away.

She wasn’t going to like what he was thinking, she decided as she tried to work out how she could get back to being royally pissed at him right after she’d come all over his talented fingers.

“Hell,” Zeb muttered.

Carly looked over at Zeb, then followed his gaze, looking out at her sprawling lake house. It was a teensy extravagant, in a very over-the-top resort way. The only way she’d ever justified its existence and outrageous expense was that there was a separate compound on the property used as a safe house for the really desperate girls that WTSF took in that needed to disappear.

“What’s the gate code, sweetness?”

Carly turned in her seat, tightening the seatbelt across her chest. Zeb’s gaze dipped, and she swallowed back the fact that she liked him looking at her chest.

Instead, she gave him her most stubborn look. “Do you know that was my very first attempt at a girl crew?”

She’d really expected him to burst out laughing, not look serious and lift his arm across the back of the seat so his big hand could cup her nape. Then his thumb traced a shiver there.

“Sorry, Carly. If they’re good for you, baby, they’ll get that events are running hot and they’ll cut you some slack.”

Events were running hot? Carly really wanted to know what those were, and did Zeb really and seriously think something was up with that candy?

She started to part her lips to comment, but Zeb squeezed her neck, and interrupted. “Code, babe.”

Maybe she didn’t really want to know about “events heating up,” because she gave him the code and went back to being mad at him, which was way easier than facing her life.

––––––––

Z
eb’s head turned. “You have a tennis court, babe. Do you play tennis?”

Carly blushed, then shook her head.

She watched Zeb’s light blues, outlined by dark lashes that made his eyes pop in an intense way, looking over her resort spread. It was a multi-level sprawl of over five thousand square feet, with six bedrooms, five baths, four outdoor decks, ten acres, and a quarter of a block walk down to the lakeshore. She could have gotten closer on the ten acres, but she’d wanted that wide, grassy yard before you hit the beach-like shore, then the lake.

Most people would twist their heads back and forth looking it all over, but Zeb just swept his gaze with an immobile jaw that had her not knowing what he thought. Like, did he think it was too much? It was really embarrassing, but she’d built the house, lakeside dock, and patio, with sheltered boulder grotto, and lighted water features—had a blast doing it, and she’d especially loved decorating it once it was done, but then after the builder was gone and every throw pillow was placed to perfection, she’d looked around and realized she’d built a freaking estate. But for whom? She was on her own then.

Then she’d decided it was for a husband and children someday. But any man she’d dated she’d been hesitant to bring out to the lake house. It had just seemed so over the top—well, it really
was
over the top, and what did that say about her? All kinds of things she felt uncomfortable with, the first being “I’m loaded and have way more money than you.” The second was “I’m loaded and therefore you could either be very uncomfortable about that fact or you could instantly become gold -digger guy.”

Then there was the other thing she could feel, the thing she felt with Zeb looking over her place: did he think all that luxury defined her, making her arrogant and frivolous? Because the damn place really took a lot of work to keep up, and she’d bought another house in town so Rick had never known about the lake house. She rarely got to come out to it.

It was all twisted with something to do with her childhood, and not having a mom growing up or a permanent home because her dad, while wonderful, moved a lot, following business, which he did a lot.

“The best damn house I’ve ever seen,” Zeb said.

Carly sucked in a breath, startled at the feelings rushing through her. She wanted to lean forward and ask him, “Really?” She couldn’t believe he thought that. Did he really think that?

“Thanks,” she muttered, not sure what to think, but the accompanying embarrassment vanished.

“You do this all yourself, sweetness?” Zeb asked, pulling the truck around the circular drive. He glanced at her as she bit her bottom lip and nodded. “You have a hell of an imagination, baby,” he said, stopping the truck. “And style.”

She would have smiled, but she was still mad at him, so she reminded him of something she’d been reminding him of since they’d met. “Sugar’s not getting you anything.”

Zeb figured he wasn’t getting it for a while after he laid it down to Carly anyway, so he was glad he’d gotten her sweet pussy before he’d had his say. He knew it wasn’t his fault this mess was happening, and he knew an unemotional mind wouldn’t be throwing blame and anger his way over it. But he knew not to expect Carly was going to be reasonable or unemotional over the shit he had to lay down to her, so he was prepared to shoulder her anger, if she kept spreading it his way.

He also knew when he walked into Carly’s pad, and he could see it was hers from the ground up, that he was going to be amazed, and he was not wrong. From the great room, high ceilings, skylights, windows damn well everywhere all showing beautiful lake scenes, to the kickass boulder fireplace that filled half of one wall, the place was amazing.

He was going to tell her too, when he got the other stuff out of the way and she came back to him all sweet like she normally was. Then he was going to make love to her, telling her how cool her lake house was, because she was blushing over it.

He wasn’t sure if she was shy about having someone see her vision when she’d never let other men in her life see it, which he liked being the first, or if she was hesitant about the show of wealth. He got that part, because he did not show his out there for the world to see either. He’d learned after he’d sold his first couple of songs and the money had rained in on him that wealth had its own set of issues.

Luckily, he’d had Travis Call as a friend, and Travis managed some of the biggest names in the music business. Travis had told him to put away in his savings two times as much as every penny he spent, and Travis also said that having money did not give Zeb an instant asshole card. Travis’ advice, and seeing several singers hit big, get carried away in fame, booze or drugs, women, partying, and hangers-on, then crash big time, had shown Zeb more than he ever intended to have going on in his life.

That and the little detail that he had never wanted his mother to discover his wealth had kept him low key about it, just like Carly was. His mother was a no-show in his life ever since she’d made a new family, while leaving him to rot with a carny dad who’d died when Zeb was twelve. But Zeb’s mom had been too busy with her new baby to be assed enough to come get Zeb. Zeb had ended up in foster care, until he’d run away from that, finding a home with a traveling band at fifteen.