Devils on Horseback: Zeke, Book 3 Read online

  Zeke rubbed his chin with two fingers. “That you did. Well then, you can call me Sheriff.”

  He said it with such seriousness, Naomi at first didn’t react, but then the corner of his mouth lifted.

  “I never would have guessed you were funny.” She smiled.

  “I have many hidden talents.” He dropped the empty milk bottle into the basket.

  Against her will, she felt a chuckle rumble in her throat. “Is Zeke your real first name?”

  He frowned and didn’t answer for a moment or two. “No, my real name is Ezekiel, my brother’s is Cornelius.” Zeke’s face twisted in a grimace of distaste, as if he’d gulped down sour milk.

  “Very old Biblical names, hm? You don’t hear that much anymore.” She reached through the opening and snatched a piece of cornbread.

  “You figured that out?” Zeke plucked the cornbread from her fingers so fast she barely saw him move. “Most folks miss that. You study the Bible much?”

  A rush of bitterness filled her mouth. “Something like that.” She tried to take the cornbread back in an effort to forget her own personal ghosts. No need to dredge up memories of her father and his Bible teachings—they certainly didn’t save his life.

  He pulled back far enough she couldn’t reach him or the bread. “That’s not very nice, you know,” she huffed.

  “You said you weren’t hungry.” He balanced the cornbread on his palm. “Change your mind?”

  She scowled. “I don’t play that game very well.” The one thing Naomi refused to do, had vowed never to do, was beg.

  Without a word, he handed her the half-eaten cornbread. “Neither do I.”

  “Appreciate it.” She took normal-sized bites, resisting the urge to scarf down the most wonderful cornbread she’d had in three years. No need for the sheriff to think she was a heathen. When she finished, she licked the crumbs from her fingers, savoring the flavor.

  “Good, hm?” Zeke’s voice had a husky tinge to it.

  She glanced up to find him watching her like a great mountain lion. Naomi ignored the tingles of awareness running through her. “Very good. Who’s the cook?”

  He cleared his throat and waved his hand at whatever spell was in the air between them. “Lady by the name of Margaret. She works down at the restaurant.”

  Naomi jumped on the topic, eager to keep her mind off her crazy, uncomfortable situation. “That’s where you took Lucy for dinner.”

  “Um-hm. Me, my cousin and my brother rebuilt it, named it after the old man who used to run it.” He looked into the distance as if remembering, a deep pain in his gaze. “It burned down last year.”

  “Who’s Margaret?”

  Zeke shook himself, once again the unreadable man on the other side of the bars. “A widow who needed a job as badly as we needed someone who could cook.”

  “You fixing on marrying her?” Naomi didn’t know how she let that question pop out of her mouth, but it did anyway.

  Both blond eyebrows shot up. “Marry her? Hell no. I ain’t never marrying. No sense in getting tangled up like that.”

  Naomi didn’t know if she was surprised or relieved, perhaps both. It was none of her business who the sheriff spent his time with. “Then Lucy is just your friend?”

  Zeke chuckled without humor. “Lucy is the only townsfolk who still talked to me when I was at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.”

  That bit of information gave her a glimpse into the elusive sheriff’s life, if only a tiny part of it. “She’s given me a chance and I’m grateful for it.”

  “Too bad you had to spoil it by starting a saloon brawl. Never thought the first person in this jail would be a woman.”

  “What? The first person in the jail? I mean, I realize the cell isn’t finished.” Naomi forgot all of her discomfort. This was a new jail?

  “Yep, the blacksmith put it together a few days ago and, well, we had to use what we could get so it ain’t as pretty as it should be.” He grabbed one bar. “It’s strong though, or will be when the door gets finished.”

  “I can agree with that,” Naomi said dryly. “Too bad you felt the need to test it out.”

  “Are you going to start that again? You know you did wrong, so just accept the night in jail.” He stood and walked over to the desk, annoyance clear in the cadence of his steps.

  “I did nothing wrong. That fool Jeb put his hands on me and when I said no, he didn’t stop. I smashed a mug on his head and, well, that’s when everything went wrong.” She gripped the rough metal bars with her hands. “I only defended myself. Can’t you understand that?”

  He slapped the desk with one hand, then put his hands on his hips, his back to her. “I understanding defending yourself, but you have to understand that as the new sheriff of Tanger, I have to uphold the law or I’ll be booted out on my ass.”

  “New sheriff? So the jail and its keeper are both new? Just my luck to be the first prisoner.” Her journey to Texas had been riddled with one unfortunate event after another. She’d hoped to leave the bad luck behind, but apparently it had stuck to her like a leech. “I’ve only been in town a week, for pity’s sake.”

  Zeke walked back over and stared down at her. Their gazes locked and the moment hung in the air, timeless and breathless. He reached out and one finger touched her cheek. Naomi didn’t pull away because she couldn’t. This time it wasn’t out of fear, but wonder and longing.

  “Give it time, little one.”

  Naomi felt the ground beneath her feet shift and knew she’d just stepped into uncharted territory.

  She was scared. Zeke expected her to be tough, used to jail cells. Naomi was a saloon girl, yet he saw the fear and sadness in her eyes. Much as he wanted to treat her like just another prisoner, she wasn’t.

  In his experience, women were two types—regular females or ones like Lucy. He hadn’t met many who didn’t fall into those categories. Naomi happened to be one of them, although he was loathe to admit it, since she didn’t make money on her back. She’d started the brawl, after all, but damned if she didn’t hold her own, like a tiny warrior. Zeke didn’t want to respect her, or do anything else with her, and he definitely didn’t want to jeopardize his future as sheriff over her.

  However, he found himself sitting on the cot, and in the dim light of the jail, he started talking. “I’m from Georgia, little town called Briar Creek. Wasn’t much left of it after the war, so me and my friends came west.”

  Although she looked wary, Naomi reached for a piece of cornbread. “I’m from North Carolina.”

  He’d been right then, a displaced southern belle. “I don’t rightly know what we expected when we came out here. It sure as hell wasn’t this place.”

  “Tanger’s not so bad.” She nibbled on the cornbread. “Folks seem pretty nice, well, most of them anyway. Believe me, there’s worse towns than this one, and far worse people.”

  He wanted to ask if she’d been referring to the bar patrons or him, but didn’t want to know the answer. “I suppose they are, but this town’s covered in blood too.”

  She looked saddened by what he said. “Sometimes there’s nothing but life and death. I’ll take life anytime, even if it’s messy and out of control. Too many people I know don’t have that choice anymore. I’ll fight to survive, no matter what I have to do.”

  His stomach cramped because she spoke the truth, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit it. At times, Texas seemed to be just as bad as the battlefields he’d escaped, but Tanger seemed to be where the Devils had finally stopped roaming. It sure as hell wasn’t perfect, but they were trying to make it a home.

  “How did you end up in Tanger?” He offered her milk, as if they were sitting on the riverbank with a picnic basket.

  Naomi took a swig of milk from the bottle as well as any man. “Thank you.” She wiped the residue with her fingers, and Zeke happened to
notice they were long and slender. Foolish man had to pull his gaze away from her hands so he could focus on what she was saying. “I’ve been in Texas about three months, lived in a few towns, but moved around a lot. The supply wagon stopped here and I didn’t have any more money to pay the driver.” She shrugged. “I’ve been in some rough places, but Tanger really is one of the better ones.”

  “You always work in a saloon?” He took a drink of milk himself, more than aware her mouth had been on the same glass moments before. It sent a tingle of awareness through him.

  She shook her head. “No, done lots of things, whatever I had to survive.” This time when she met his gaze, a pulse beat between them.

  Zeke had done many things to survive, and in this tiny woman he’d found a kindred soul. His friends never quite understood how Zeke felt about things, and truth be told, he didn’t talk much about it either. Yet in that split second, it seemed Naomi understood completely. It was a bond he didn’t want or need, dammit, but he couldn’t deny it.

  “If I untie you, you promise not to run away?” What the hell was he doing? She was his prisoner for God’s sake, and he just offered to free her.

  She narrowed her gaze. “I won’t run, but I don’t know why you’d free me so quickly.”

  He shrugged. “Now that we talked, well, I know you didn’t start the brawl on purpose.” Of course, she could have been lying, but he didn’t think so. “If you stay here tonight, I’ll release you in the morning.”

  As she finished the piece of cornbread in her hands, she chewed slowly, watching him with bulging cheeks. It would’ve been comical in any other situation, but there he was, giving his trust to a woman he barely knew.

  When she nodded, he stood and untied her hands. She rubbed her wrists and whispered a thank you.

  Zeke didn’t want her to be afraid of him since he wasn’t about to hurt her. “Let’s get out of this cell.”

  Naomi hadn’t lost her suspicious expression, so she carefully walked out of the cell and let out a huge sigh when she reached the other side of the room.

  He gestured to the desk. “Have a seat. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  She scooted up on the desk, her feet swinging like a kid’s would. “You know I lost a night’s wages because of this.”

  Zeke hadn’t thought about that, but she knew there would be consequences for starting a brawl. “You got a free dinner.”

  She chuckled softly. “Can I have more?”

  Zeke gave her more cornbread and sat beside her. They stayed there for the next three hours. Although he didn’t want to admit it, he’d never felt as comfortable with a woman before, not even Lucy. Amazingly enough, the urge to drink hadn’t appeared once. They polished off the cornbread and the second bottle of milk. It was the oddest, yet most memorable meal he could remember.

  In fact, he wanted more than a meal, he wanted to find out what her lips tasted like. Naomi was smart, funny and damn sexy. Zeke’s attraction to her roared through him, making him break out in a sweat as he tried to stop thinking about how attractive she was. He hadn’t been with a woman in nearly a year, and he wasn’t sure what would happen if he gave into his baser urges with Naomi.

  When the grey light of dawn crept into the building, Naomi looked up at the small windows. “I can’t believe it’s almost tomorrow already.”

  Zeke felt a pinch of regret that the new day had appeared, ending an almost perfect six hours with a woman.

  “Me neither.”

  “Do you think Lucy will be mad at me?” Naomi stood up and stretched, the fabric of her dress pulling against the apple-sized breasts, hard nipples pointing straight at him.

  “Nah, not for long. She knows how those cowpokes get. My guess is she got twice as much money for the damage and kept them all happy by arresting the person they thought started it.” He raised one brow. “So you made her business even better.”

  “Well, it wasn’t on purpose. All I want is to live and work in peace.” The underlying pain in her simple statement hit Zeke square between the eyes.

  He took her hand in his, the first voluntary contact they’d shared. She looked down at their joined fingers, then back up at him, her brown eyes clouded with confusion.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “Neither do I.” His voice sounded hoarse and shaky.

  Fear mixed with the most powerful arousal he could remember. Instead of giving into the fear he’d been living with, he did what he’d been aching to do since he’d seen Naomi. He took her in his arms and kissed her. Sweet, sweet heavenly saints, she tasted like cornbread, woman and home. Once he’d had one kiss, he took another, then another until he lost count of the hot, melting sensations. Tingles raced down his spine and straight to his dick.

  Not one to miss a party, his staff stood at attention, straining against his trousers, knocking to be let out. Zeke’s rush of blood from the rest of his body had his head spinning.

  He took a breath and leaned his forehead against hers, feeling her shudder beneath his touch. Her sharp fingernails dug into his arms and he knew she must feel as out of control as he did.

  “Please don’t stop.”

  Her whispered plea was not what he expected, but he welcomed it.

  “I do like to please a lady,” he murmured just before he captured her mouth again. Reining in his snarling urges, he forced himself to savor each second with her. Slowly, he nibbled on her lips, alternately licking and nipping at the plump, delicate skin. A kittenish mewl burst from her mouth and he swallowed it.

  Zeke scooped her up and set her on the desk, spreading her legs wide enough to step between them. He smelled her arousal and his nostrils flared with the musky, delicious scent.

  “Naomi, I—”

  She put her hand over his mouth, her gaze dark and guarded in the gray light of dawn. “Don’t open your mouth and ruin it, Sheriff. I might change my mind if you do. Let’s just feel good.”

  Sounded good to him. A woman who didn’t want to talk before getting busy was a novelty, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? Especially one who fit so nicely in his arms.

  “Tell me what you like then.”

  “Mmmm…” she breathed into his ear as he nibbled on her neck. “I like that.”

  He outlined the shell of her ear, sending puffs of air with each lick. She shivered and tugged on his hair, which he took as a sign he was doing something right. As he suckled her earlobe, something resembling a moan came from her throat.

  “Jesus, yes.”

  Well, Jesus had nothing to do with it, but Zeke could accept she mixed up her Biblical names. Her round breasts pushed against his chest, delightfully rubbing and teasing him, whether intentionally or not. He wanted to touch them, weigh them and roll the nipples on his tongue.

  As he worked the row of tiny buttons on the front of her dress, he cursed whatever seamstress had made the particular garment. He needed skin, not frustrated fingers. She chuckled softly and brushed his hands away.

  “I’ll help.”

  Thank God for that. Zeke was surprised to see his hands shaking, unwilling to believe he was acting like a randy young buck with his first woman. She knew what she was doing, judging by the seductive way she unbuttoned her dress, a sultry smile on her moist, reddened lips.

  “You too, Ezekiel.”

  Somehow his first name wasn’t as annoying coming from her luscious mouth. In fact, it was like a caress, a lover’s whisper in the semi-darkness of the room. He could barely believe it actually made his dick harder.

  When he unbuttoned his shirt, she leaned forward and kissed the exposed skin. The touch of her lips sent goose bumps down his body. She spread the shirt wide, tangling her fingers in the hair, causing pleasure and pain to mix together. When her fingernails scraped his nipples, he literally jumped.

  “We’d better get thes
e damn clothes off or I’ll be done before we get started.” His voice sounded so strained, he didn’t recognize it.

  She chuckled and tugged at his shirt. “Get busy then.”

  Zeke couldn’t remember the next two minutes, but then he was nude and she was shimmying off her dress in front of him. A threadbare chemise was the only thing between him and her soft, golden skin. He ran his fingers down her arm, the small hairs standing on end beneath his touch. God, it had been so long since he’d touched a woman’s skin.

  When he cupped her perfect breast, she hissed in a breath even as the nipple tightened beneath his palm. How could he have ever thought they were too small? They were the perfect size, not too big or too small. He rubbed his thumb back and forth against the nipple, earning another moan from her.

  “Mmm, more please.”

  To his surprise, she pulled off the chemise in the blink of an eye and suddenly they were both nude. Deliciously, amazingly nude. She laid her dress on the desk and climbed back up, spreading her legs for him. Crooking a finger, Naomi was more alluring than any siren who’d enticed a man to her.

  Zeke couldn’t resist. He stepped forward and nestled between her thighs, the soft curls of her pussy tickling the end of his dick. He smiled and spread her nether lips until he touched the moist folds hidden within. She was slick with her own juices and he slid easily into her entrance.

  When his dick was just an inch or two into her pussy, he stopped and leaned his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled.

  “Look at me,” he whispered.

  She met his gaze, her pupils dilated in the dim light of the jail. He felt himself surrounded by her arousal. As he leaned down to kiss her, he thrust forward and embedded himself within Naomi’s body.

  A perfect, perfect moment that stole his breath.

  She opened her mouth for his searching tongue and sucked him deep inside her mouth and her pussy. Sweet wet heat drove him to pound into her again and again.

  Naomi spread her legs wider, scratching at his back even as her nipples pressed against his chest. Faster, deeper, harder they flew together. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes.