Maidia’s laughter exploded in Longarm’s ear. Between chortles, she said, “That sounds so funny, I can’t help myself. Here we are, with me holding onto this beautiful thing for dear life, and you with your fingers in me, and I’m calling you Marshal Long and you’re calling me Miss Harkness. Don’t you think we ought to be a little bit more informal before we really get serious? You could call me Maidia, you know.”
“I was waiting for you to tell me I could, Maidia.”
“And you must have a first name?” Maidia was tonguing Longarm’s ear and squeezing him at the same time.
“It’s Custis. But I don’t answer to it much. Mostly, my friends call me Longarm.”
“Not just of the law, either,” she whispered. “Long something else, too, or my fingers are lying to me.”
“You think you’re about ready to find out if they are?”
“Yes.” She positioned him. “Go ahead. Show me.”
Longarm showed her, deliberately and slowly, pressing into her with neither haste nor hesitation, feeling her breath come faster as he penetrated more deeply until they were fully joined.
“Mmm,” Maidia murmured in his ear. “No dream could ever equal what I feel now.” She moved her hips from side to side. “Just lie still for a minute or two. I want to do it myself first. You won’t get anxious, will you?”
“Not a bit. You do what you feel like doing. I can wait.”
“I can’t, though. I need to”—Maidia twisted more violently as she spoke—“I need to get my edge off so I can enjoy it more later.” She was beginning to work her hips back and forth. “Then, when you get on me, I can-I can”—she shook in a long, shuddering convulsion—“I can hold on longer.”
Her voice faded in a sighing murmur, and the tenseness of her muscles melted away. Longarm felt her wetness trickling down his groin. He lay quietly for a few moments until Maidia sighed contentedly and stirred, then he rocked his own hips gently. She shifted her body to let him roll on top of her, and raised her thighs, locking her legs around his hips.
“You read my mind,” she said. “Now make the dream I didn’t finish come to life.”
Longarm was in no hurry. He moved slowly, staying in her deeply until her inner muscles began throbbing against him. Then he began to thrust, withdrawing slowly and returning fast. Maidia gasped the first time she felt him pounding into her, but as the moments passed and Longarm showed no signs of slowing his pace, her excitement grew. She brought her hips up to meet his thrusts, her body heaving and turning under his, until the pace grew too much for her to maintain. She sank back under his weight and let her legs fall, spreading them wide to receive his strokes, her head pressed hard into the ground, her neck arched, her chin high in the air.
Longarm stopped thrusting. “You want to rest awhile?”
“I’m resting,” she said gustily. “You go on. This is the dream I don’t want to wake up from a man on top of me, making love to me like he’ll never stop. Oh, I do love it, Longarm! But it’s usually over so quickly that I miss the best part, just feeling a man big and hard in me while I lie back and enjoy it. You go on as long as you can. And you’ll know when something wonderful’s going to happen to me. Don’t worry about that.”
Longarm went on. As he continued, pounding deeply into her wet, hot depths, the very relaxation of Maidia’s unresponsive body began to excite him. He felt himself building, and slowed to hold back. Maidia caught the change in his tempo.
“You’re getting tired,” she said. “Go on a little longer, if you can. I’m getting ready to come back to life.”
Now Longarm no longer tried to keep from letting himself build. He was reaching the stage where he was about to lose control, when Maidia jerked under his pounding as though she had just awakened from a faint. She began to tremble. Her legs tensed and locked around his hips again. She rode with him as the pressure inside him mounted and reached the bursting point. Longarm gave a few last, fierce plunges while Maidia screamed as the panther had screamed earlier. She shook, her hips heaving, her body writhing, as Longarm stiffened and fell forward with a sigh.
Neither Longarm nor Maidia spoke for several moments. Then she said, “I’m glad I spoke up, Longarm. I almost didn’t but if I hadn’t, have, would you?”
“Not after the bad time you had earlier, with that fellow trying to rape you.”
“Well, that wasn’t very good, of course. I don’t like to be treated like a thing, and that’s what he was doing. And I’m sorry I tore into you the way I did. It was stupid, but I didn’t know what had really happened. But you must have forgiven me, or you’d have said no when I asked if I could come into bed with you.”
“You’re wrong, Maidia. I figured, at the first, you just needed to be with somebody for comforting. After all, a lady like you-“
“There aren’t any ladies,” Maidia interrupted. “Just women. And we’ve all got that tickle between our legs, just like you men have. Only most of you are honest about it. Most women aren’t.” She yawned. “I guess I’m ready to go back to sleep now. It’s all right if I stay, isn’t it?”
“Why, I ain’t about to let go of you,” Longarm said with a wide grin. “I want to be where you can reach me easy if that panther wakes you up again.”
Maidia went to sleep quickly, her head resting on Longarm’s sturdy shoulder. He lay awake for a while, wondering if the panther might scream again, and trying to figure out how he was going to manage to get to Fort Smith on time after promising Maidia he’d see that she found a guide to get her safely to Choteau. He gave that up, deciding to leave it to chance. Then his mind turned to the case he was on.
You got a real pig in a poke here, old son, he told himself for the tenth time since Vail had explained his assignment to him. Just how in hell Billy expects me to come up with what him and his Arkansas District friend wants is way past anything I can see. I’ve got a sneaking hunch that Arkansas’s chief marshal’s just looking for somebody to blame when this business all goes up in smoke.
Vail had been unusually vague when he’d explained to Longarm why it was so important that he go to the Indian Nation. All he’d said was that there was a chance that whoever had been trying to spring Cole Younger from
