Their Ex's Redrock Midnight (Texas Alpha) (14 page)

She ignored the sore part. “I am going slower.” Rusty undulated long and slowly over his hard cock. Cabe’s big hand grasped one cheek of her ass, getting some skin under her shorts.

“That’ll be there tomorrow, boo,” he told her. Then he blew her away, saying, “Tonight, let’s cuddle.”

She halted her movements. Was he losing steam? Had she burned out her super-hot badass man? “But you need relief,” she whispered.

Suddenly she was lying with her back to the couch and they were nose to nose. “I’ll keep it for you for tomorrow.” His voice was firm as he stroked her hair, then her side. “I want to talk and show you I like being around you even without this.”

Oh wow.

She grabbed his abs and cuddled into him. “Aw,” she murmured.

He kissed her lightly. “Now tell me about your day.”

Rusty was pretty much blown away that Cabe was going to lie there on her couch with her and his very hard cock, then just cuddle and talk. It was ... amazing.

And he did it.

For a couple hours that evening. She really liked it, because it felt intimate and it did feel like he was there because of her and not just their smoking-hot sex life.

An hour or more later, Cabe had their fingers intertwined and he was stroking her back while they lay half facing each other. They’d just got done talking about some of her ever-changing plans to make her business actually return enough money to live on, when Cabe asked, “What would you do if you could do anything? The taxi still?”

The answer was right on Rusty’s tongue when she looked over his face, afraid to say it. She’d never get that dream. It was silly to say it. “Not sure,” she muttered.

Cabe cupped the back of her head to hold her gaze on his. “The look in your eyes says you nearly said something.”

She played with his waist while their legs, which were intertwined like their fingers, snuggled and shifted. “A really cool gift shop,” she whispered. “A classy one, and one that made tons of money and no one could—”

“Could?” Cabe urged. “Come on, baby. Trust me with it.”

Strange feelings tickled in Rusty’s throat and down in her belly. “No one would ever think bad of me ’cause of my mom’s shit,” she barely whispered.

Suddenly she was transported against Cabe and his arms were around her tight as he kissed her temple. “I get it, baby,” he murmured. “Not look at you like the tweaker’s daughter?”

She nodded. Geez, she didn’t mean to ever get into this. “You know I know logically no one really looks bad on me because I called my aunt ‘Mom,’ and not many people understood that other messed-up woman that showed up at odd times, causing trouble, was my real mom.”

Cabe leaned back. They were very close. “Logic’s sometimes shit,” he muttered. Rusty figured he’d know that real well. “But a gift shop is surprising me,” he said.

“I’d have to go everywhere buying just the right inventory, and it would be amazing to decorate the store and displays. Also, it’d be a nine-to-five.” She sighed on that and snuggled in against Cabe’s chest. “What about you, Captain—what would you do?”

His hand came back to stroke her hair. “I’ve been so messed up in a bad marriage, I don’t know. I’ve made enough money I really never need to worry about it again, but—”

Rusty felt Cabe suddenly stiffen beneath her and her eyes lifted to confirm that for some reason he regretted letting that last bit out in the open. His gaze looked wary.

“If you’re trying to keep a secret that you’re pretty well off with oil money, Cabe, it’s a lost cause. Tess already informed me about you and Vincent when they were getting together. Your best buddy can afford helicopter rides to Houston on dates, so ...” Rusty rose and looked down at him and his guarded expression. “What I don’t get is why it bothers you I know.”

Cabe untwined their fingers and moved to sit up. “It doesn’t.”

Rusty could
so
see he was lying as she sat up next to him, noticing the distance he was projecting. She fast-forwarded in her mind through several reasons he wouldn’t want her to know he was basically rich, and didn’t come up with anything good. Then when she should have kept her mouth shut, she didn’t. “Is it because I do have money problems and that makes us quite unequal?”

His gaze cut to hers, guarded, but with frustration. “No.”

It
so
was.

That pretty much stunned her. Did he think she wanted him for his money? She didn’t even know what to do with that, and for once she was smart and she backed off. “Okay, cool,” she said airily, trying for oblivious nonchalance. She needed to talk to Tess about this. Stat. But just then she rose, stretching. “I need a shower and bed, honey.”

She thought she’d fooled him. But she worried that he’d let her fool him because he really needed to back away from the subject. For her it put a glaring period on their banging fling. This was real and not all hot sex and arousing play. He could be on the rebound. Of course, he had to be. And she could be chasing away being so lonely. That could be the only reason they’d fallen into smoking-hot and kinky sex together.

Maybe they didn’t have anything that would stick?

That night was her first night with Cabe that there was no sex. He’d said there wouldn’t be, but she’d never believed him until it happened. He did, however, pull her into him until she couldn’t tell where she started and he ended, to go to sleep.

Their apartness lasted a week, where nothing was as close and tight or as exciting as it had been.

T
hey’d had straight sex three times that week and two full nights without any. Cabe cooked, she worked late, and neither of them was brave enough to tackle what was wrong. Tess thought Cabe was never comfortable with being rich. Tess pointed out he never acted like he was wealthy. Rusty thought Tess so wanted to believe about Rusty and Cabe together she would invent excuses, because the longer Rusty stewed on it, the more hurt she got about it.

For some reason Cabe thought she was after his money, and he only started thinking about that after she’d brought it up.

On the one hand she was hurt he would ever think such a thing, and on the other she had no clue how anyone could convince anyone else they weren’t a gold digger.

Then it got worse.

Cabe didn’t come home.

All night.

She texted him and called twice but he never picked up.

***

C
abe looked at the hotel as he stepped out of his WTSF truck. It was a fancy one and halfway to Houston. Cabe wondered how the hell Vega found anyone to screw this far away. Then he shrugged, trying to loosen his shoulders as he started walking toward the hotel’s front entrance.

Tag had placed Vega and a man in room 501.

Halfway to the entrance, his phone vibrated and he pulled it from his pocket, saw it was Rusty and he put it back in his pocket unanswered.

He swore under his breath. This was another one of those “how can I explain this to her” things. It was something that he had to do. It was something he was doing to be fully with Rusty. And the minute he thought that he also thought the word “probably.” If he wasn’t so distracted he’d have time to wonder why he hesitated about anything to do with Rusty, because he fucking loved her.

But Tag showed out the front entrance and they chin nodded.

“I got a maid’s keycard,” Tag muttered. “Don’t ask how, just be sure you want to do this and can handle it, brother, because by now they’re into it.”

Grimly, Cabe nodded. “I am. Thanks for the card, it makes it easier. I owe you.”

Tag clamped his shoulder. “I’m a cell call away you need back up or even just a ride, compadre.”

Five minutes later and an elevator ride up to the fifth floor and Cabe was standing in front of room 501. He realized he wasn’t feeling edgy and upset because his nearly ex-wife was in the room before him screwing her brains out—no, he was unsettled because he needed what he was about to do to be the thing to fucking end it.

Cabe stuck the keycard in the slot, waited for the green light, then pushed open the door. The room was filled with light, with the curtains open and the lights on. The busy occupants became aware of him instinctually and nearly immediately. Survival instinct, Cabe figured as he saw Vega’s stocking-clad legs in the air with her butt planted on the end of the bed and a dude planted between her thighs. The guy was pumping full force right before he became aware they were not alone.

“What the fuck?” the guy shouted.

Cabe moved slowly, looking at them. Like in slow motion, he saw Vega’s flushed face turn, and she opened her eyes.

“I’m her husband, dude,” Cabe uttered, and he stopped, putting his hands in his front pockets. “Need to speak to my wife, who I’m divorcing, by the way.”

“Cabe!” Vega screeched, then she crab walked back off the dude’s cock, up the bed until she hit the headboard, and she clamped her legs shut and grabbed her bare breasts because her bra was around her ribcage. They must have been in a hurry.

“You’re shitting me!” the guy shouted, pulling up his slacks.

Cabe shook his head slowly. “Nope, I’ll let you get back to fucking, I just need to talk to her a minute.”

“Are you crazy?” Vega cried.

The guy cussed and muttered while looking bug-eyed, then he stalked to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

Cabe eased the tension out of his shoulders, and he stepped closer to Vega, but not up to the bed. “You said just one night ago you desperately had to have me back, Vega. You said a day before that you’d changed and you needed me ...
only
me.”

“Cabe,” she whispered beseechingly.

“Fuck, let me go, Vega.”

Tears burst out of her eyes and she curled into herself. “I-I—” she gasped. Then she shook her head as if trying to shake the tears away. “You’re right, Cabe. You
don’t
deserve this.”

Cabe felt like crying, and not because it felt so bad, but because it felt so good. “I don’t deserve it,” he agreed, then he turned and started to leave.

“I’m sorry, Cabe,” Vega called behind him.

Cabe didn’t turn back.

***

“Y
ou are
not
going to cruise by Rowdie’s,” Rusty snapped to herself, because she was alone in her taxi and heading straight for Rowdie’s.

But still, she was trying to convince herself not to do it. Okay, so she messed up and she was freaked out that Cabe hadn’t come to her house, the place she thought of as their home, all night. She knew she was a big part of the blame in whatever was happening because she’d not forced herself, then Cabe, to talk out whatever
this
was. Instead she’d played hurt and distant.

“It’s a little extreme
not
coming home
or
calling all freaking night, though.” She scowled, pulling into Rowdie’s just to see if Cabe’s truck was there, but if it were there, she definitely would not be so pathetic as to try to see him.

A second later, she let out a long, desperate breath. “He’s not here.” Rusty wasn’t certain why that relieved her. She should want him to be there so she knew he wasn’t out hurt from an accident, or worse, horror of horrors, that he wasn’t back with his wife.

But all that flew from Rusty’s thoughts as she came gaze to glare with the eyes of the bad Indian dude that Finn, Cabe, and Justice all wanted her to stay far away from.

“Damn, it’s Ian Runningtree,” she muttered under her breath, and he’d definitely seen her. Unfortunately, the thing about Rowdie’s was it was one way in and you had to back up or into a parking spot to get back out of the parking lot.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Rusty cursed, because there were no parking spots to back into. She was reaching to throw her cab into reverse to back out of the entire lot, when she saw long, light red strands of hair flipping up in the air beside Ian.

Ian saw it too from his movement toward Rusty’s cab, and it turned him back. But it wasn’t in time to catch the slender redhead from running past Ian.

“Angel!” Rusty screeched into her cab, watching the bigger, meaner Indian Ian had been with hauling out of the room Ian stood beside, right after Angel from the drive-in. Angel looked scared and Rusty stopped her process of backing up, instead hitting her auto window to yell, “Get in the taxi, Angel!”

Rusty had no clue what was going on, but she knew it couldn’t be good. She could also see it was going to be a race as to whether Angel, who was getting closer and had a bloody nose, would reach the taxi before the bad guys. Rusty hedged her bets by slapping the security panel Cabe had made her take, hoping for the—

Oh God yes, those ungodly loud sirens.

“Get in!” Rusty yelled, urging Angel on when she faltered at the sound of the sirens and the flashing of red, blue, and white lights all around Rusty’s cab. But the bad dudes faltered too ... as if the cops had arrived.

Then Angel had the passenger door open and was diving inside. “I need help! You need to get out of here they’re after you too!”

“Slam that door shut,” Rusty screeched, even as she had the taxi in reverse. The meanest-looking dude hit her hood as if he could physically hold back her moving taxi. Angel shrieked things Rusty couldn’t make out in panic mode, but she did suddenly hear the back door to the taxi open.

She’d been so focused on the guy on her hood she’d lost track of Ian, who was trying to jump into the back of the taxi while she was frantically trying to back up while not hitting anything.

“He’s trying to get in!” Angel wailed.

Rusty heard that! She whacked the control panel again and the security window from front to back snapped close, then she whipped the wheel, and just managed to miss a parked car but throw Ian out of her taxi he was half into. Only she didn’t have enough room on the other side, and her taxi hit the side wall of the motel office, throwing Angel nearly up into the windshield and her into her steering wheel with the jolt of stopping.

Still Rusty reached out and hit the controls that locked all the doors and raised all the windows, then she grabbed Angel in a hug just as Ian and his meaner-looking partner hit her taxi with their fists.