by Shirl Anders
Her cheating husband? Who cared?
Him calling his skank “slicky.” Her calling him “Daddy.” Who cared?
Them being behind Zeb’s back as the smoking kiss from heaven went on. Who cared!
She lurched into Zeb, trying to get closer as her arms latched over his big shoulders. He seemed to hunch over her, surrounding her, and his hands grabbing her ass lifted her even tighter into his big, hard body, while his lips moved hotly over her mouth.
“Daddy’s chicky needs that hard cock.”
Carly jerked against Zeb, with a whining wail probably rushing down his throat, but his thick, muscular arms tightened around her and his lips grew stiff, but kept kissing her mouth even more roughly. Carly had some sense of movement, then more laughter from the unfaithful couple as they passed by. Zeb kept moving her, keeping his back to them as they passed—how close, Carly couldn’t tell.
“Daddy’s got you, slick baby—”
Carly moaned, nearly collapsing, but Zeb held her up, and through her open lips his tongue swept deep and she forgot about the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Zeb was in a war zone. His cheating witch of a wife was so close he could strangle her, but at the same moment he had his hands full of the sweetest ass he’d ever felt. That was because Carly had a thong on underneath her gauzy dress. He also had the heat of her mound attached to his erection, which was having a fucking heart attack being that close to sweet pussy, after the damn twenty-one-month celibate graveyard it’d been in, with only his married hand trying to ease it. And his mouth was kissing the best mouth he’d ever tasted, attached to the largest breasts he’d ever felt pillowed into his muscle.
Why not top all that off with the dickwad doing his wife calling her slicky, her calling him fucking daddy ... them being so close he could spit on them. While he tried to keep his head enough, with the hellfire of passion burning over him, to keep the cheaters from seeing Carly or making him.
He fucking did not want them to know he and Carly were onto them.
For Carly’s sake.
Somehow he knew she needed his back.
TWO] Sweetness Could Slay Him
Carly’s hand connected with Zeb’s cheek, knocking his chin back a notch with the blow. He heard the slap she’d delivered to his jaw ringing in his ears as his gaze sharpened on her very well kissed lips. Christ, he hadn’t been the only one kissing ... or full-body rubbing.
“That was—” she hissed at him with fury blazing her gray eyes into a charcoal color.
He’d let her lips go and he still had her pinned against his hog. But evidently with enough room to slap him, he thought with a sneer.
“Not fucking cool,” she finished on a raised scowl, while her healthy chest heaved and her gaze scratched over his face.
He thought pretty little Miss Carly Oliver probably didn’t use words like “fuck” much. And something inside him he hadn’t felt in years rose up to her feminine challenge, when he should be trying to explain.
So outta his mouth came: “You damn well attacked my mouth the minute my lips touched yours, sassy ass,” he grated at her. Then over the sound of her indignation, he added, “Hard nipples right the fuck here.” He banged his chest, leaned forward, until his nose was an inch from hers. “Not saying what you were rubbing my cock with.”
Her sucked-in breath nearly stole his breath it was so big. “I did not rub m-my—” she sputtered. “On your-r—”
Yeah she did, and he wanted her to do it again. “My cock,” he provided for her. He might be flying on the edge of fury, and then lust just swooped in behind it, but it felt good.
“Oh!” she expelled with a little feminine screech, then she tried to turn away from him and get to the side of him. But he had hold of her before her turn, with his hands gripping her full hips that felt like got-to-have in his hands.
“I didn’t fucking tongue you without a reason, Carly,” he growled at her.
She wiggled those full-figured hips in his hands, obviously trying to get loose and not realizing how much more it made him like it. Damn she felt fine. Her gaze sent daggers into his brain.
“So why did you?” she asked with a furious hiss. She threw her hand past his chin. “We could have caught them right there in front of us!” she exclaimed, with her hand returning to palm his chest. “And not listen to that horrible crap they were—” Her voice stumbled to a whispered halt.
Yeah, it was a damn hard thing to hear. That was probably half the reason he was holding the voluptuous babe in his arms like he was.
“I know you’re riled and not thinking. But we have to know why the hell he came back, while doing her,” Zeb snapped back at her.
Her lush lips opened, as if she were set to ream him again, but then she deflated and her clear irises grew liquid. “You did that for me?” she asked, sounding confused.
Aw hell, that was sweetness coming out. He’d glimpsed it earlier in her, and many other things he might ignore, like how good her curvy figure felt, how her mouth hinted at naughty things, or the fact he was still married—to a cheater, but still married nevertheless. But sweetness ... that sweetness could slay him.
Zeb made certain Carly was steady, then he unlatched his hands from her hips and he stepped back, like he should have done much earlier.
“Yeah,” he answered, with one hand gripping the back of his neck; the other he shoved into his pocket so he wouldn’t touch her again.
“So they’d not see us?” she asked, as if trying to understand why a complete stranger would lock lips with her.
All that fury and lust were still raging through him, but he had to get a grip, so he turned from looking at her, as he muttered, “Yeah.”
The crowd was getting bigger at the festival as it got darker. “I should thank you,” she said softly behind him. “You are right, I wasn’t thinking.”
Zeb didn’t answer, he just dropped his hand from his neck, watching a sweet ride rumble past. It was a chromed-out chopper, but the tanks were plain and really needed some style to do the rest of the bike justice. He chin-nodded the biker as he passed, with his old lady on the back dressed in a leather halter and jean shorts.
Things he’d missed overseas were naturally being with his wife, and that wife in bed with him. But he’d missed other things, like a woman on the back of his bike or song lyrics coming smooth in his thoughts. Problem was, he’d only heard the rhyming and rhythm of a song a couple times in the last four years he’d been in the Rangers. Now something was playing deep in his thoughts, trying to rise.
Sweet lying love.
He nearly hummed a couple cords, but he felt a soft hand on his bicep. “We should talk, you want a drink?”
Carly eyed the big motorcycle gleaming in the overhead parking-lot lights. “Hog,” Zeb had called it when he’d said, “Get on back, ride my hog.”
Her flowing dress would be blown up by the wind and everything she had would be seen, but boy did her thighs quiver to feel that motorcycle moving down the road. She’d never been on one. Thoughts of Rick destroying what little was left of their marriage had her almost there, but she hesitated.
Zeb was astride the big bike, and twisted back to look at her, with his wide hand curled over her hip.
“Never been on one?” he asked. Carly shook her head. “It’s good to gauge a man, sweetness. Not good to just get on the back of a bike with anyone. Me, I’d rather kiss five miles of pavement, you on top, than ever see a woman harmed on my bike.”
Carly understood about half of what he was saying, and she was very impressed; the other half scrunched up her nose.
“I’ll go slow and easy,” he finally said. “Put your leg over.”
So she did.
Zeb couldn’t believe how good he felt: gorgeous babe, showing lots of skin on the back of his bike. He felt like roaring, “Bite this, Tula!”
He shouldn’t feel so good; he should be destroyed, hunkered down and licking his wounds. But nothing seemed to get his mind from the s
hapely bare legs hugging his hips, or the feel of Carly’s hands holding tight on his abdomen. He drove slow because she wasn’t dressed for a serious ride, and she pointed directions over his shoulder. He had no clue where she was taking him after the declared need for a drink.
It was a damn bikers’ bar.
He didn’t believe it of her, surprised the hell out of him, and it was busy with some serious street cred parked out front. He counted ten custom-painted choppers.
But he pulled to the side of the building by a very well lit area and slowed his hog to a rumble, turning his neck to speak to Carly. “You ever been here, Carly?”
She shook her head. “No, Zeb,” she said over the growl of his bike. “Biker likes biker bar.” She was still holding him tight.
“Too rough for those heels,” he told her. “You got a liquor store and river we can drink by?”
She nodded against his shoulder. Where she took him had grass and a small pier, and it was a ways out of town so a person had to know where they were going.
When he swung his leg off his bike and stood, turning to take Carly’s hand to help her off, he got a nice eyeful of creamy thigh in the moonlight. Damn. He wanted her. He scraped a hand over the bristles of his skull cut.
“I thought you’d like the bikers’ bar,” she said as she settled beside him and he bent to open the saddlebag and pull out a four-pack of wine coolers and a cold bottle of Stoly.
“Sweetness, I’d be fighting over you all night in there,” he said, handing her the wine, and then he bent back to dig out an army blanket he had. “Not that a good fight wouldn’t feel damn good,” he muttered.
“You would not have had to fight over me,” she declared.
Then she swung her ass in that frilly dress that he definitely would have had to fight over to keep gangs from trying to claim her. It was one thing if she was his and showing his leather. But since she had on no bra, was wearing a thong and barely anything over all of it, she called a dress and he called air—that and those heels arching her calves, he definitely would have had to fight off attempts of other bikers trying to haul her fine ass off on their bikes.
What he couldn’t decide was if it was Carly or the fact he was pounded over his unfaithful fucking wife. He intended to find out, because they did have something very much in common. If it wasn’t for Carly he’d probably be in that bikers’ bar looking for a drunken fight. Somehow he thought being there with Carly was better revenge on Tula and her new lay.
“I use to neck out here in high school,” Carly informed him as he approached. She grabbed one side of the blanket he held, and they laid it out on the ground.
Zeb straightened, looking around while uncapping the vodka. “Nice spot for it,” he agreed, looking at the slow-moving river.
He’d been riding for so long and he’d been so damn tense, right then he felt like a band had loosened inside him. He took a slug of vodka and felt the cold burn of it down his throat.
Carly laughed lightly, and he turned to see her sitting on the blanket with her bare, shapely legs out in front of her and crossed at the ankle. That sexy dress she was wearing fanned out around her, and his thoughts strayed to what she barely had on underneath, while he cussed himself silently about the fact the lady had just found her husband cheating and she did not need his lustful attentions.
“Just one guy ... one necking session, really,” she said. Then he noticed she was trying to open a wine cooler.
He moved over to sit just beyond the swirl of her dress. “Let me.”
No lip, she just handed it to him. That kind of surprised him, and it felt good. He popped the top easily and handed it back to her.
“Thanks,” she said in a soft voice he’d not heard from her yet. More attraction and interest was itching inside him.
Will not covet the cheater’s wife—
“Played hard to get?” he asked her about the one encounter.
He guessed she blushed, but it was too dark to tell as he took another pull of vodka, then watched her answer.
“There definitely wasn’t anyone to tell me about sex back then. So after that one fumbled thing out here with a basketball player, who I thought wanted more than just in my panties, I sort of freaked and never tried again.”
Zeb watched Carly take a drink of her wine cooler. The way she pressed her lips around the bottle—he forced his gaze away. Fucking A, pretty soon he was going to hit on her, and he better clue her in or back off the persistent damn thoughts.
“First,” he said, “every guy’s angle at that age is panties; second, your mom didn’t inform you?”
He watched her bend one leg and start pulling her high-heeled sandal off. “Mom disappeared right after I was born, and Dad, well, he’d never touched that subject with me.” Then she muttered, “Can’t believe I’m talking about my adolescent sex life and I’m not even drunk yet.”
That made him chuckle, and she looked at him. Her eyes glimmered with reflections from the river.
“Sorry, Carly, about your mom; mine played remarry, disappear, and never looked back into a whole new family when I was just old enough to miss her, and I haven’t seen her since.”
Carly shook her head. “They used to say dads disappeared and moms were too maternal. I think for once I’m glad mine just went poof and didn’t show me every day that she could do it with an entirely new family, but just not do it with me. That sucks, Zeb, really.”
Zeb couldn’t remember anybody ever understanding the crap with his mom, but he realized he might not have told anyone before it slipped out to Carly. Something about her was open and made him want to draw closer, real close.
“New subject,” she said softly, pulling off her other sandal. Her bare feet did not escape his notice. “How did you get to town today, to find her like you did?” Zeb looked out at the river and took another slow pull on the bottle. When he lifted it from his lips, he heard her saying, “I’d like to enrich my wine cooler with a drink of that.”
He chuckled again right before he tackled a hard subject, and he handed her the bottle of Stoly. “Just got out of the Army Rangers three months ago. Came straight from overseas and got home—no wife.” He paused, listening to her cough after a drink of vodka. “Lightweight,” he added as an aside.
“I’ll learn,” she retorted, taking another ... which made her cough the same.
He barely held his chuckle, as he continued, “Got on my bike and I’ve been looking for her. Luck, maybe rotten luck, I’d just came into town where I’d heard the pageant would be this week, and followed the crowd.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. You just stumbled on her after three months.”
Carly was holding the bottle out to him, and he took it back, looking at the shadows on her face. “Yeah. Not sure I was looking for her right then, but when you see a couple going at it, you just—”
“Look,” she finished.
“Yeah.” He sighed. Then he shared: “Think I knew by Kansas it had to be another dick.”
Then Carly was closer to him, scooting by his side, leaning in a little. “I think it’s pretty lowdown she couldn’t stay home and tell you face to face.”
There was more implied she wasn’t saying, but he was glad to hear it from another person. Sometimes things in a man’s head twisted, and he’d wondered if he was right.
Her hand cupped his bicep. “I’m glad you’re home safe, Zeb, and you look unhurt.”
Damn.
He had to take a quick drink of vodka to keep from showing emotion. How’d she know the sorest spot? He’d figured most would think it was his woman dicking around with another man, but after war it was the soft-spoken wish that he was home safe from someone who gave a damn that he’d really wanted.
“Now that I’m back in the world, it seems unreal,” he admitted with a growl of emotion in his voice.
“Back in the world?” she asked, still touching him, and he liked it too much.
“Back in the U.S. It’s ranger slang.”
/> Her hand dropped from his arm, and he missed it as she swept it up to pull off her pink ball cap. He liked that, seeing she had bangs. Her entire face changed without the ball cap on, and instead of just being pretty, she became beautiful.
He couldn’t figure out what the hell her husband was thinking not taking her to bed and never letting her out. Just by looks alone and what little bit of her personality he could see made her very attractive. That made him wonder what her hidden flaws were ... that her husband took up with Tula over her.
Tula was gorgeous in an exotic way. She was three-quarters Indian, with a petite figure and the most amazing dark eyes that had very seductive tilts. Carly had some tits and ass, and she was tall, with long blond hair. He liked to look at a nicely round ass in jeans, but he’d never been attracted to a full-figured woman before. Maybe it was the fact he knew Carly barely had anything on underneath the gauzy dress she wore, and he’d been caught using his hand for far too long.
“Ranger is Army, right?” she asked. “Like a SEAL, though.”
He played it down. “Just an Army grunt. Now a vet.”
“How long were you in for?” she asked, after taking a drink of her wine cooler.
“Four,” he muttered, thinking if he got too much of a buzz on he would have a harder time controlling his arousal. And that pissed him off. “Only got leave twice,” he uttered, and then he harshly laid it out. “It’s been twenty-one damn months since I had a woman’s pussy under me.”
Fuck, there, he thought; now she’d know maybe she shouldn’t be out there alone with him.
Zeb heard Carly’s small gasp, but he didn’t look at her; instead he started to get up. “Better get you to your car,” he growled.
He wasn’t exactly surprised he wanted Carly after just verifying Tula was two-timing him. He’d feel justified to get a threesome on, him and two babes, if he was into that. But he shouldn’t drag Carly into his revenge-filled and deprivation-inspired lust. She’d just found her husband being unfaithful too.
Carly realized something had changed with Zeb, and she grabbed his belt and a loop on his jeans, trying to keep him from rising.