sensations in her body. Making her cunt crave more of what he’d given her this
morning.
“Jack,” she gasped as the excitement his touch evoked rippled through her.
He gave her that half-assed, cocky grin of his. “Just want to know if I make you wet, darlin’.”
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She couldn’t believe his audacity. But it made her smile. “Got your answer?”
“Oh yeah.” He groaned.
She brushed his hand away, though with some reluctance. “Behave. I don’t want to
be tarred, feathered and run out of town my first weekend here because we’re causing
such a stir.”
Jack kept his hand on her bare leg, though in a somewhat more respectable location.
His heat and the strength that emitted from him warmed her insides and made her
snuggle a little closer to him.
“This town could use a little shaking up,” he said in a contemplative tone.
Liza wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Ruby closed in on them. She
delivered two white plates piled high with spaghetti and one ginormous meatball on
the side of each.
Enticing though the food was, Liza felt momentarily disappointed at the sight of
today’s “special”, given the sinfully delicious aroma that wafted from the kitchen,
telling her more complex and artery-hardening creations were being whipped up
behind the magic curtain.
Ruby set the plates in front of them and said to Liza, “You’re not one of those girls who eats like a bird, are you?”
“Oh hell, no,” she said as she unraveled her flatware from the napkin. She dropped
the white paper square in her lap and reached for the parmesan cheese in the large glass container. Shaking a little on top of the pasta, she added, “This looks great. Smells good too.”
“Taste it,” Ruby challenged her.
Liza cut a respectable hunk off the side of the mammoth meatball and popped the
piece in her mouth. “Oh God!” she exclaimed in the most impolite way, nearly losing
the meat from her mouth. So much for her well-cultivated manners.
One of Ruby’s thin eyebrows lifted. Jack grinned at Liza.
As she chewed the most flavorful meatball she’d ever tasted, she resisted the urge
to close her eyes and sigh as she savored the moment. After she swallowed, she said,
“That is one fierce meatball! And I’m from New York!”
Ruby beamed. “I’ll be sure to tell Mike you approve.”
“Mike?” Her brows knitted together. “What about ‘Pietro’?”
Ruby grinned. “Aw shoot, honey. There ain’t no Pietro in Wilder. I just thought it
had a nicer ring to it than ‘Mike’s Joint’, which is what the old man wanted to call the place. Thank God he can cook, because sometimes I think all the roosters aren’t
crowin’.”
Jack dug into his lunch as Liza said, “I’m going to need another one of these
meatballs.” The spicy Italian sausage, garlic and herbs mixed with the ground beef
created the perfect combination of flavors. She couldn’t wait to dive into the tomato sauce, wondering how Mike had spiced it up.
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Ruby said of her double order, “Where you planning on puttin’ it, sister?”
“I worked up an appetite this morning,” she said. A hot flash of excitement touched
her cheeks as she recalled exactly what had made her this ravenous. Jack Wade and his wicked ways. “Besides, I’m sure I won’t have any trouble working off the calories
later.”
Jack nearly choked on his spaghetti, obviously getting Liza’s intent and surprised
she made the innuendo in front of Ruby. Admittedly, Liza’s pussy thrummed with
anticipation of what other tricks the Devil might have up his sleeve. She suspected he had an extremely creative sexual repertoire—and she was looking forward to
experiencing the full extent of it.
“All right, then,” Ruby said, obviously pleased. “One more meatball coming up.”
She left them alone again and Liza twirled several long strands of pasta around her fork and bit into the best spaghetti she’d ever tasted.
“Damn,” she moaned. “Did Mike go to culinary school in Italy or something?”
Jack shook his head. “Born and raised in Wilder. I went to school with his
daughters.”
“Interesting.” She took another bite, then asked, “Where are they now?”
“Here in town. Married with kids.”
Liza thought about the folks she’d seen last night at the saloon and then the families today on the streets of town and said, “Lots of families in Wilder. Some really young couples too.” She recalled all of the faces she’d encountered in the past couple of days.
Jack set his fork aside as though he’d just lost his appetite. Sitting back in the booth, he said, “The reverend frowns upon premarital sex, so…”
“Lots of religions frown upon premarital sex,” she pointed out, not getting his
meaning.
“Yeah, well, he takes it a little more seriously than most.”
“What, did he outlaw it?” she asked on a half-laugh, because Jack’s tight-set jaw
told her this wasn’t really a laughing matter.
“Not legally,” he said. “But morally…”
Liza picked at her pasta, wondering what sort of stranglehold Reverend Bain had
on this town. “Are you telling me teenagers get married just so they can have sex?”
“Not all of them.”
She shot him a curious look. Considering the way he’d made love to her earlier,
with unquestionable expertise, she had to ask, “Have you ever been married?”
“Fuck, no,” he said, looking slightly mortified. She remembered how proud he’d
seemed last night by his bachelor status.
“So apparently you’re impervious to the good reverend’s wrath,” Liza said.
“Because what we did this morning in my cottage would easily earn us fifty Hail Marys and several Our Fathers apiece.”
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He grinned at her suddenly, stealing her breath. “Darlin’, I don’t let anyone tell me what I can and can’t do. Or how I can or can’t make love to a woman. Especially one
who gets me as worked up as you do.”
Liza bit back a smile as heat flushed her cheeks again. “Thank God for that,” she
said of his strong conviction. “I’d have hated to miss what you did to me this morning.”
The prickly sensation between her legs reminded her how much she’d wanted the
Devil in Blue Jeans last night. And this morning. How much she wanted him this very