Chapter Five
The practices went well, better than he could have ever expected. For one, Mark wasn’t an asshole. Secondly, Gus actually showed up and worked and seemed to be on the wagon. Ghost liked to think it was because he was back, and the two of them had always been powerhouses who fed well off each other. Maybe, maybe not. Whatever the reason, it was good, and they sounded stellar, like old times. If it had always been that way, it’s possible he would never have left in the first place.
But then so many things might be different.
As the date crept nearer , Candace and Brian decided to join them, but they wanted to ride separately…apparently they needed some rare alone time, too. Brian’s parents agreed to keep Lyric for the night.
“I’m so glad they could come,” Macy said when they were finally on the road for the three-hour drive to Crossbones in Austin…a drive that mostly consisted of a two-lane highway and sucked because there were always tractors and chicken trucks and shit like that to get stuck behind. Had to love Texas.
“Me, too. You’ll definitely have more fun with them around.”
“I think both their sets of parents practically fight over who gets Lyric when they go away for a night.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re worried, you know, about our spontaneity going out the window when we have a baby? We’ll always have my parents to lean on if we need them. They can’t wait to be grandparents.”
“I know that,” he said simply, staring ahead through his aviator sunglasses at the long, lonely stretch of roadway before them. “Your parents are great.”
He meant it. They were awesome. They were the family he didn’t have, after his own had been snatched away from him when he was little. And they had taken him in like the son they had always wanted. For his entire life he’d been the guy parents hated. But the Rodgers family had liked him from day one, something that still puzzled him a little…another glitch in the Matrix. Even more weird, he loved hanging out with them, shit talking with her dad, helping him out with stuff around their ranch.
Macy was watching him closely; he could feel her gaze on him. “I know you must miss your own. Especially now that we’re talking about having kids.”
“I guess.”
“You don’t talk about them much.”
“There isn’t much to talk about. Most of what I know about them is from faded memories and what my grandmother told me. Now she’s gone, too. My last connection was severed.”
“Baby.” She reached over to wrap his free hand in hers. “I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up if you don’t want me to.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt, doesn’t help…there’s a void, I guess. But I have you, and you’re my family now. You and all your crazy-ass relatives.”
Macy laughed, and he took a moment to glance over and admire the scenery: her long, shiny dark hair falling in lazy waves down her bare arm, the length of smooth naked thigh revealed by her shorts. Would he ever get used to her? He could see himself reflected in her sunglasses, some piece of riffraff who didn’t deserve her, but was damn glad he had her.
…
When Candace had gone into sudden labor with Lyric while she and Brian were visiting Brian’s sister in Dallas, Ghost and Macy had been the ones to go to their house and pack a bag for them. Macy had walked into their newly decorated nursery to find Ghost in there among the mint walls and teal drapes, retrieving the car seat from the corner of the room with the baby’s diaper bag slung over one shoulder. Neat stacks of diapers rested under the changing table, stuffed animals lined the shelves just waiting to watch over the new arrival. Seeing him like that, surrounded by those things, had caused her ovaries to damn near explode. Especially when those tattooed biceps flexed as he hauled the baby gear outside. He’d also been wearing her favorite pair of his jeans, the ratty ones that hugged his thighs just right and broke perfectly at his heavy black boots. She would never forget that detail, for some reason.
They had joked about what their future baby’s nursery would look like. Ghost was horrified that Brian was cool with pastels; Macy pointed out that Candace wouldn’t necessarily let him put up Cannibal Corpse posters.
That had been before they’d gotten married. Before he’d even proposed. But it had made Macy so, so happy, and that image of him surrounded by baby stuff was lingering in her head right now. Jesus, she’d waited so long, and she was more than ready to get this show on the road.
As Macy turned her attention back to the road in front of them, a thump sounded from the back of her Acadia, and the car shimmied on the road. “Did we run over something?” she asked. The side mirror didn’t show anything but a long ribbon of roadway in their wake.
“No,” Ghost said and veered over to the shoulder. “We have a flat.”
Lovely , Macy thought, good memories deflating as fast as their tire. Not even halfway there yet, and the universe was trying to tell her this gig was a terrible mistake. She was trying to block out thoughts like that, given her plans for the trip, but they still crept in from time to time. He sent her a sideways glance when she exhaled a heavy sigh.
“Don’t worry about it, babe. I’ll have it changed in a few minutes.”
Of course he would, but still. “All right.”
“Unless you want to do it,” he teased as he put the SUV in park and killed the engine.
“I could.” She’d been changing flat tires since she learned how to drive. Her daddy had insisted.
“Yeah, I know. Come keep me company, anyway.”
She got out, the tall grass off the edge of the shoulder tickling almost to her knees. Green fenced-in pasture rolled as far as the eye could see on either side of the two-lane road, dotted with baled hay and grazing cows. Glancing at her phone before shoving it into her pocket, she saw there was little cell reception out here. And that was exactly why her daddy had always insisted she be able to do a few basic car repairs by herself: so she wouldn’t have to rely on strangers of questionable motive.
Like her husband, maybe. Grinning to herself, she watched as Seth popped open the back to get the spare and jack. If she’d been stranded out here alone and defenseless—she wouldn’t be the latter if she was alone, though, another of Dad’s lessons—what kind of first impression would a stranger who looked like him have made if he’d come along and offered to help? Hell, she had to admit it to herself: she would’ve kept a wary eye on him.
The black skull bandanna tied around his shaved head, his full-sleeve tattoos, his bulging biceps…she definitely would have been on her guard, same as she had been the very first time she’d laid eyes on him even in a roomful of people. But she also thought a few full-blown fantasies would have been unfurling inside her head. Things she would never admit to anyone but him.
Macy’s mouth had run dry, and she didn’t even notice he was looking at her over his sunglasses, one eyebrow cocked up. “What the hell are you grinning about?”
“About how hot you look right now.”
Chuckling, he bounced the tire down on the pavement. “By all means, tell me more.”
Instead, she asked a question that had sprung into her head. “Have you ever stopped to help a girl stranded on the side of the road before?”
“Actually yeah. Afraid I was gonna get pepper sprayed the entire time. Or shot.”
Macy laughed and swooped her hair up into a quick, loose bun with the ponytail holder she pulled from her wrist. It wasn’t glaringly hot yet, but neither was it comfortable standing out here on the pavement. A fine sheen of sweat was already beginning to collect on her skin. “Why? Were you not gentlemanly?” she teased.
“Oh, I was extra gentlemanly, to ensure that I didn’t get shot.”
“Was this before we met?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you think about fucking her?”
He pushed his shades to the top of his head and stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Is this a trap?”
“Maybe.” Lightly, she trailed a finger down the spaghetti strap of her black cami. He watched its progression, his predatory gaze caressing the curve of her breast. Suddenly her clothes felt tighter, abrasive. A clear indication she would want to take them off soon.
Understanding dawned in his dark eyes, and he gave a lecherous laugh. She loved that his hands still worked as he spoke to and looked at her; he could do this stuff blindfolded. “You wanna play this out, then?”
It didn’t matter that they’d role played dozens of times. The mere thought brought a flush creeping up her cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on her flesh, and everything to do with the fact that even before devouring him with her eyes just now, she was horny as hell. She swallowed, her throat suddenly parched, and she could swear he watched her muscles constrict. He watched everything, even the bead of sweat that trickled down her chest to soak into the fabric of her cami. Her nipples peaked against the chafing fabric of her bra.
“Fuck, you are a work of art,” he muttered, and she lost her breath.
“Thank you so much for stopping to change my tire,” she said brightly, striving for the chipper relief of a stranded damsel. “I don’t know what I would have done. I would pay you something, but I don’t have any money on me.”
“No problem,” he said gruffly, staring directly at her mouth in a way that told her he had a few things in mind. She loved that he was always just enough of himself when they did this, keeping enough of his own personality to keep her anchored. Because he was what turned her on most, not any character he assumed.
While he watched in rapt attention, she swept her tongue slowly across her bottom lip. Then she turned and walked back to the open passenger side door, feeling the tremble in her knees. She did perfectly mundane things—getting a sip of water from her Yeti, checking her phone for what messages the meager service out here would allow her—while she waited for him to finish his task.
It seemed to take for-fucking-ever, but she knew he did that on purpose. Building the anticipation.
At long last, a shadow loomed over her, and she looked up at him from her seat, making a show of gasping at his sudden appearance as he blocked out the sun. He trapped her, one hand grasping the open car door, the elbow of his other arm resting on the side of the car. She became all too aware of the length of bare leg she was showing him. Aware because he didn’t miss an inch with those intense eyes.
“All done?” she asked, plucking a little self-consciously at the hem of her shorts for his benefit. This must be how a mouse felt staring up at a great dark bird of prey. Her heart beat excitement through her veins. God, she was wet.
“I’m just getting started,” he said.
“What took you so long?” She let a little snooty-bitch aggravation creep into her voice. Oh, the punishment she imagined that would get her. The smirk he gave her told her he was looking forward to it, too.
“I would think you’d be a little more grateful. I would think you’d be down on your fucking knees.”
Oh. Shit. “I’m grateful,” she protested.
“Care to show me?”
“Um…” Macy swept her gaze around at their surroundings. A whole lot of nothing stretched in all directions. Still, a few cars had passed by while he’d changed the tire—it was still a state highway, even if it was in the middle of nowhere. She looked back up at him. “What did you have in mind?”
He reached for her. With the knuckle of his index finger, he trailed a path down her cheek to the corner of her lips. “This pretty mouth wrapped around my dick, for starters.”
She struggled for exactly how she might react to a situation like this and came up short…except for maybe going for the concealed handgun in her glove box. That’s what made this so thrilling with him, though; she could be whoever she wanted to be. She knew he saw how she melted completely away at his touch. Meeting his gaze directly, she said, “Why should I?”
“Because you want it.”
“Well, that’s not a good enough reason.”
“That’s the only reason. You know I can give it to you better than whatever lame dick you have waiting back home.” He often liked imagining he was cuckolding some poor imaginary dude in her life. She suspected it was a bit of psychological revenge on his brother, who’d stolen a girl he loved away from him many years ago. Macy never protested. There was no reason to. If he liked it, if he needed it, and if she could help him with it and have fun all at the same time, she was all for it. Even if it wasn’t who she was at all, she would be lying if she said it didn’t kick an extra surge of adrenaline through her body.
“You don’t know what I have waiting back home,” she said defiantly.
“I know what you can have right here.” He plucked the phone from her limp hand, tossed it to the driver’s seat, then dragged her fingers to his cock, hard and straining against his fly.
“Jesus,” she muttered, not at all in character. They’d been married for months. They’d been together for far longer. She still marveled at him. And before she even knew it, she was reaching under the hem of his black T-shirt, tearing at his belt and his buttons, and freeing his thick, heavy length from his jeans right there on the side of the highway.
Macy didn’t care. Everything, everything about him went straight to her senses and blinded, deafened, and deadened her to everything else in the world but him. Only him. The feel of him in her grip, at once velvety and rock hard. The musk of his need for her, the ragged intake of his breath. The silver glint of the piercing that she knew sought out the deepest places in her and devastated them.
All that was missing was the taste of his flesh, and she didn’t deny herself a moment longer, running her tongue along the underside of him. Always her favorite place to start, always seemed to get the most explosive reaction out of him. He didn’t disappoint her with the strangled growl that tore from his throat. She closed her eyes as his fist clenched around her hair, demolishing her bun before gently taking it down. That was something else that melted her. His need always tempered with consideration and concern for her. Macy rewarded him with those long sweeps of her tongue that made him shudder, the swirling motions that nearly made his knees give out, the teasing licks around his piercing that made his head fall back, his chest heave. All in preparation for when she at last wrapped her lips around his head, wrapped her hand around his base, and consumed him.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed as she swallowed him down as far as she could. He gathered her hair together loosely in his fist, keeping a tenuous grip on control. “Your mouth was fucking made for me, baby.”
Every inch of him was made for her. She tried to show him with every move, every whimper. Her fingers found his hips and gripped him hard. With his free hand, he skimmed his fingertips up her bare thigh, and she wriggled her legs wider to accommodate his touch, needing it, aching for it. But he eluded her most greedy parts and suddenly pulled her head back.
She glared up at him balefully, incensed at being torn away from her task. Instead of letting her get back to it, he reached between their bodies to plunge his hand into her cami and fondle her breast, circling her nipple with maddening strokes so that it stood in a sensitive peak. Her eyes closed again, her breath coming in pants.
“I want to see these,” he said, those strong fingers still in her hair as he tore her top down. “I want to suck these.” She gasped, praying she wouldn’t hear the fabric rip for a split second but then thinking, Fuck it, I have a dozen. His sudden onslaught forced her farther back into the car as his lips closed around her nipple and proceeded to destroy every last remaining rational thought she might have. His hands, the wet heat of his mouth, the sharp suction of it, were all that remained. “Want to fuck you,” he rasped between hot, sucking kisses.
“Please, oh God, please,” she moaned, her hands skittering over his head, his broad shoulders, tugging at him, pulling him in.
“Get in the back.”
She almost laughed, but she was beyond it. Always cars with them. Who could complain? From somewhere, she managed to gather the muscle strength to obey him and climb in the back. He followed and closed the door behind him, shutting out the singing birds and distant lowing of the cows. In here it was hot, and she was already sweaty, but when he settled in one of the second-row captain’s chairs and pulled her over him, it didn’t matter anymore. She couldn’t help him get her shorts off fast enough, but she left on her panties. He liked to fuck her with them on.
And she knew, as she pulled her panties aside and he guided the head of his cock to her drenched pussy, that she wasn’t going to last a minute. When she lowered herself, stretching around him, her mouth falling open, that became an indisputable certainty. Not one single minute. He felt too fucking good.
Her cry rent the still air; his answering groan vibrated through it. So tight, so perfect, she felt them throb together as they joined, separate pulses beating for each other. In the cramped space, it was uncomfortable, it was difficult, but they had never liked things easy. He rained kisses and caresses across her breasts, letting her have control of the pace. Macy rocked her hips in slow, wide circles, watching his dark eyes when she could see them. Seeing his pleasure, the heavy-lidded rapture there, amped up her own. God, she wanted it to last, but she felt herself tightening already, and it was too good to stop. Every stroke lit a new spark inside.
He knew that, though, damn him. He kissed her mouth and grabbed her hips with an iron grip, stilling her motions while she squirmed and mewled against his lips. “Easy, baby,” he murmured between delectable sweeps of his tongue into her mouth. “You’ll be done before you’ve started.”
“I’ve started,” she panted.
“I haven’t. Not yet.”
Jesus Christ. She’d married Superman. “But someone might—”
“Someone won’t.”
He’d better be right about that, or she might beat him up. If a curious passerby stopped to offer them aid, and she was cruelly denied this building orgasm—and denied his —yes, she could possibly resort to violence. “I need it,” she whimpered pleadingly, grabbing him by fistfuls of his shirt, rocking her hips as much as she was able. She’d all but forgotten her character, but she slipped back into it in one final, desperate push to drive him over the edge. “Please give it to me. Show me everything I’ve been missing. Make me come so hard that I’ll beg you to take me with you so I don’t ever have to go back home.”
The iron grip moved from her hips to her ass cheeks as he growled and attacked her neck, sucking hard at a patch of her skin until it tingled and burned. He took over from there, lifting and impaling her so hard and fast their bodies slapped together, and all she could do was throw her head back and ride and let sensation reign. All those new sparks roared into a conflagration she couldn’t battle even if she wanted to, and she let it consume her as she went boneless with the force of her climax. Seth caught her against him, slowing and lengthening his strokes to give her the reprieve she needed while she shuddered and clenched around him.
She could always break him down.
“So fucking wet,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m curious to know just how many times I can make this sweet pussy come all over me.”
Oh God, he could always break her down, too. And he could probably make her come until her heart burst from it.
“Turn around,” he ordered.
“I can’t move,” she whispered into the softness of his hoodie.
“Move, or I’ll move you,” he menaced.
He would; he could throw her around like a rag doll. She enjoyed it sometimes. She loved knowing he was strong and had the ability. But the bite of his fingertips into her over-sensitive flesh right now would be too much. So she managed to rouse her heavy limbs into motion and lift herself away from him, immediately missing the hot press of him against her. She shimmied out of her panties before settling on him again, facing forward, leaning back on his hard chest while—oh God —his fingertips found her clit and drew tantalizing circles around it.
“I told you,” he said into her ear, the rasp of his voice raising the fine hairs there and at her nape. “I told you not to come so fast. You left me behind, and now you’re spent and I’m not. That’s hardly fair, is it?” He eased deeper into her, forcing the breath from her lungs. Then he jerked his knees wider, which jerked her legs wider, giving him all the access that he needed to drive her insane again.
And he was just beginning to move when the unmistakable thump of a closing car door behind them made them both freeze. “Shit!” she cried, jumping off him and snatching up her panties and shorts; thank God her top was still on.
Of course, Seth had the unfortunate task of wrestling his substantial rock-hard cock back into his jeans and actually getting the fly closed, grimacing all the while. A glance out the back windshield showed Macy the sight she’d dreaded: a highway patrolman walking toward their car. While both of them dripped with sweat and reeked of sex. “Shit shit shit! It’s a hi-po.”
Seth only laughed. “Aww, caught with your panties down, you bad girl. Get your sweet ass in the front so I can move.” He gave her a smack on said ass for good measure, and she squeaked before leaping up into the passenger seat and trying in vain to do something with her sex-tousled hair. Seth, wincing with every move, managed to maneuver himself into the driver’s seat just as the officer stepped up to the window. “Cops fucking hate me,” he grumbled, then dutifully rolled it down.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said with a formality that almost made Macy giggle, especially considering his previous words. She managed to restrain herself.
“Is everything all right?”
“Fine. We had a flat, but I just got it fixed. We were about to be on our way.”
The patrolman glanced from Seth to Macy, who gave him a trembling smile. She was trying damn hard to act normal, but it was difficult when she was still in the throes of her wild sexual heat. While her damned husband was turning in an Oscar-worthy performance, calm, cool and collected, his wrist draped casually across the steering wheel.
“Any reason why you’re still sitting here?” Oh fuck. He knew exactly why they were still sitting here.
“Yeah, sorry about that. We were having a discussion.” Seth said. A discussion . Macy looked down at her hands, pulling her lips between her teeth, willing her expression to remain neutral. “We’ll move along.”
“I’ll need to see some ID first.”
He identified them both, questioned them both—Macy assumed to make sure she wasn’t in any danger, which kind of pissed her off—and let them go at last. By then, any remnants of her desire were long dead, her first seduction attempt horribly thwarted.
“Hey, at least you got off,” Seth teased once they were back on the road, reaching over to tickle her behind the neck. “I could still break rocks over here.”
“Sorry,” she said dismally. “That might have put me off road sex for a while.”
“Aw, hell. Don’t say that . You have to live dangerously every once in a while.”
“Yeah, but…how embarrassing.”
“Nah. If we were teenagers and they called your parents, now that would be embarrassing.”
Macy couldn’t help but chuckle. “Can you imagine my daddy getting that phone call?”
“I might arrange a trip out of the country.”
“You and me both.” Her dad had almost caught her and Jared in a compromising position once, but of course Seth wouldn’t want to hear about that. Her parents still loved Jared, too, but they would probably like him a lot less if they knew some of the things Macy knew.
Seth fidgeted uncomfortably, and suddenly she felt bad for him despite her newly made rule. “Poor baby,” she cooed, running her hand up his densely inked arm. “I bet I could be persuaded into fixing it for you.”
To her astonishment, he shook his head. “I’ll save it up for you, darlin’,” he said huskily, grabbing her hand and giving the back of it a kiss. “Get ready.”
A shiver of delight skittered through her. That sounded like it would be well worth waiting for.