Roundabout Road (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter Twelve

How dare he throw in her face she’d not actually
completed the act of sex with Mack—
yet
? And she was saving herself for her
wedding night to the man? And, she hadn’t had sex . . .
in freakin’ ten
years
!

She, more than anyone, knew the punishment of leaving
a husband as befitting the crime.

How dared Jake Giotti judge her? Then thought to get
away with it?
Oh!
And do not get her started on his kissing her!

Argh!!

Ugh!

She’d felt as if melting into a puddle of warm mushy
pudding. Not to mention, her lower half was so frustratingly burning her up
from the inside out, set to match it could’ve surely exploded.

Getting nothing in return, this frustration was building
into uncontrollable.

Jake was always good at getting the fire started. All
he had to do during the four short months they were together was kiss her. And
he just did,
damn him,
better than he’d ever done before. Her breasts
were tight. Her core was tremendously unsatisfied. Her heartbeat was slightly—no,
let’s be honest, shall we?—more than slightly unsteady. And the arrogant
bastard knew this. He was fully aware of what she was going through.

She could see it in his eyes. They’d turned colors. He
was looking at her as if he knew her deepest, darkest secret. And he was gloating
about it.

Self-consciously, she tried to move her arms to cover
what his gaze was suddenly so fascinated with; without it looking too obvious.
A slightly altered chest was now under a tight fitting tank top.
Okay, Okay!
So maybe darling Mack had a little something to do with her barely noticeable
increase in bra size. So what? They were going to be his anyway. If he wanted
them bigger, who cared? He paid for them.

Dearly.

Only the best would ever do for Mack Wells, Attorney
at Law, and only best plastic surgeon she’d been sent to.

And so what if she hadn’t slept with the man? Mack
said he was more than okay with the arrangements of having separate bedrooms
until married. And, with her keeping herself intact, so to speak. But it wasn’t
exactly the truth, now was it? Her being intact?

Yes, it was incredibly odd the bedroom aspect of her
life, but he’d convinced her he’d wanted them to be a little old-fashioned.

The more she thought about it now, their ‘lack of’ was
a little creepy. Truth was Mack didn’t know the truth about her past because she’d
figured on telling him
after
the wedding, and only if she had too.

Liddy was sure when push came to shove, no pun
intended, she could have faked a loss of virginity. She could have faked a lot
of things.

Jesus! Was she really this naïve?

“You got a boob job, didn’t you?” Jake blurted out.

Her mind on Mack, caught up on how she’d ever put
thought to getting away with faking inexperience, and not on Jake, she had to
do a double-take to his question.  Her eyes slid wide open.

If at all honest, any faking would have betrayed her
from the second of undressing to the actual act of intercourse.

“I told you to shut up, didn’t I?”

Liddy was pissed she could have been so stupid.

“Did he pay for them, too?”

Groaning, she snapped, her temper unchecked, the lousy
bastard somehow reading her thoughts. “None of your damn business, Jake.”

Still seated on the cell bench, he spat back, “It is
very much my business,
Mrs
. Giotti, because
technically
those are
still mine.” He pointed at her breasts with an accusing finger.

For Pete’s sake, they weren’t grapefruit at the
grocery store! He didn’t have to point.

Liddy dropped her arms to her sides and slumped down
on the bench. Let him look. Let him look long and hard. Let him look all he
ever wanted to. It was not as if he was going to have any rights to her after she
took him to the cleaners, just to get a divorce.

But then she blurted out ‘
oh so foolishly’
,
following in the wake of what she shall consider as her biggest blunder to
date, “Just get it out of your system, Jake. Tell me all you have to tell me. Drag
me over hot coals. Eat me alive if it makes you any feel better. I really don’t
care anymore. But get it out of your system so we can somehow get on with our
lives.”

The air completely knocked out of her sails beyond this
point, she was too tired and too hungry to argue with him anymore. And, she
supposed, simply too weak-willed to dared a hand into an endeavor of any real
magnitude with her soon-to-be ex.

She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Yesterday’s meals
consisted of one stolen strawberry out of Theodora’s garden and terribly tart
lemonade to wash the stolen morsel down with, once the old hag had caught her
in the act of theft.

Her stomach betrayed the rest of her and growled. Jake
heard it.

“Okay. If you say so,” he warned.

“Well?” she baited. The suspense was killing her.
Surely there had to be more? There was always more whenever it came to Jake
getting in the last word.

“Well . . . what?” he asked, raising his eyes.

“Aren’t you going to accuse me of doing some really
horrible things? Tell me I am a truly despicable human being for leaving you in
the lurch, as I did? Throw it in my face Mack Wells is not man enough and he
buys himself boob jobs? Because he can, you know. He can buy anything he wants.
He’s filthy stinking rich.”

“Nope.” Mr. Giotti’s attitude changed quickly.

“Why not?”

“Because, you’re doing such a damn fine job of it
yourself. I’d be wasting my time.”

Liddy’s sigh came out heavy and painful. He was right.
She was doing one bang up job of accusing herself of some pretty terrible
things; leaving him in the lurch, and letting other men pay for implants that
shouldn’t have been done. She’d been reduced to selling her body, perhaps her
soul, to the highest bidder.

Mack Wells had more money than any man she’d ever
known. All of his wealth, power, and security had gone to her head. Mostly the
security, for it was something she’d always wanted, and likely craved.

Then Jake added more to her further dismay. “I figure
you being stuck here with me as punishment enough. I said what I wanted to say.
The rest is now up to you.”

“Oh, how so gallant of a gentleman you are. God, Jake!
What more do you want from me? An apology?”

‘
Course
it would probably be a cold day in hell before he would ever get one.

Good grief! The man made her admit she’d had plastic
surgery. No one else in this world knew this, except Mack. And well, her
plastic surgeon. No one could even tell they were bigger. Not unless you really
stared at them, and knew what the girls looked like before the slight
alteration. And she did mean slight—a lousy cup increase in size.

“For starters,” he ruled, staring directly into her
eyes.

“Fine, I’ll apologize. Are you happy now?”

My, did it just get incredibly chilly out?
Or, had she really said these words to the man?

His smile was sudden and nasty, so yes, they must have
slipped out.

“Now actually mean it, Liddy.”

“Damnit, Jake! You’re the one who should be
apologizing to me!”

“For what?” His low-timbered voice became a steady
calm before the storm.

Liddy could feel the barometric pressure dropping.

“How about we start with . . . for sleeping with
another woman, for making my life completely miserable because of it, for
purposely destroying my happiness, or for turning me into hating you these last
ten years?”

“Okay. I’ll apologize,” he conceded, staring at her
chest again. “And while I give in to all of your plentiful demands, you can
apologize to me for running off in the middle of the night, leaving me here all
alone, and then, my having to take the blame for your disappearance when you
knew my head had been turned around by false lies and very little else.”

“You go first.”

“No. Ladies first,” he sneered. “I insist.”

Ten minutes later, they still hadn’t said a single
word to each other.

Twenty minutes later, Jake was checking his watch.
Again
.

Liddy could only take his checking his watch every
hour on the hour for only so long. “You have sixty-four hours to go, you
wretched bastard!”

She was fully aware of what he was doing. Jake was counting
down every last millisecond until his release.

His arm dropped quickly.

Liddy gathered in a deep breath.

Jake’s was much deeper.

When she moved a little on the hard bench, he moved a
lot; crossed his leg over his knee, then rolled his shoulders. He was literally
preening like a pompous peacock right in front of her face.

When she stood up to get the huge kink out of her neck
and lower back . . . he cracked his neck and back right where he sat. Loudly.

Her head turned swiftly. “Would you stop doing that?”

“You first.”

“Fine!” Onto to the bench she dropped.

“Fine.” Jake’s foot fell to the floor, his grin unbidden.

Liddy’s eyes then hit the bloody shirt still lying on
the floor. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why did you put my name on your arm?”

“I already told you the reason.”

“Yeah? Now tell me the truth, Jake.”

He pulled his gaze from hers, drifting it back slowly.
“Some things are better left unknown, don’t you think?”

He must have thought better toward being civil to her,
because he dumped the next bomb right on her head. “Is that why you took his
car? Because he doesn’t know about me? I’m the unknown?”

Her eyes darted to his. “He knows.”

She was feeling way too guilty to look him in the eye.
Her gaze strayed to his mouth.

“And?”

“And . . . it’s why we are not speaking to each other
at the moment. Why there is not likely to be a wedding in three weeks. And why
my life has completely fallen apart.”

“It would not have fallen apart if you would’ve just
stayed in Preacher’s Bend as you were supposed to,” he reminded her.

“I couldn’t stay here!” Liddy let out only a bit of
the steam from the boiling kettle. Not much, only enough to prove her point.

“Why?”

Her returned gaze slammed him right in the chest.
“Because seeing you with her would have physically killed me. There. Are you
happy now? Happy you made my life so completely miserable?”

“No. Not really,” he admitted. “But you wouldn’t have
seen her, Liddy. Eliza skipped town only two days later. Probably due to the
fact I threatened her life if ever she showed her face in Preacher’s Bend
again.
And
, if ever she willingly spread more lies that were not true.”

“You didn’t?”

Eliza Porter was one of Preacher’s Bends’ golden
girls. Eliza Porter could do no wrong. And these backwoods hicks called
her
a hussy?

Jake shrugged his shoulders as answer.

Since there was a bit of a truce going on inside their
shared cell, she crossed over to his bench and sat down next to him, on the
same side as his altered tattoo. Taking a good long look at it, Liddy’s next
words stunned even her. “Can I touch it?”

Jake snickered. “Only if I get to touch those?” He
pointed at her newly vamped chest through her thin tank top.

Taking the dare he would not actually try touching
what she considered as no longer his to touch, she raised her left hand and
traced over a snake she remembered
oh so well
. She really did have a thing
for tattoos, and the men wearing them. And anything at all to do with being
wild, crazy and dangerous somehow set in the scheme of this.

Stopping the tip of her finger on the first letter of her
name, Jake’s eyes moved swiftly to hers. His breathing ceased, as did hers. In
one single moment, time simply stood still for both. It allowed each to
remember things best left forgotten within their lives.

Time closed its eyes toward foolish human beings.

“My turn,” he rasped out unevenly. His head very
slowly dipped toward hers.

Liddy waited with baited breath for his hand to brush
lightly over the top of her shirt. That’s what she thought he’d meant. Tit for
tat, touch for touch. But, no! Not Jake Giotti. The man liked to dive right in
for the meat and potatoes of his meals, devouring without swallowing.

His mouth covered hers as his right hand found itself
under
her shirt, cupping her left breast. A callused thumb pad caressed the nub tip
of what hadn’t been touched in a very long time, into a hard pulsating
awareness of his being the total master; and her, the sub-servant to this
master.