“Mister, you have made your point, so point that thing somewheres else.”
Longarm said, “Mister is all I was after,” and lowered the Colt, holding it down at his side as he added, “I reckon this is where we say good night, don’t you?”
Timberline nodded and said, “Yep, and I’ll be parting friendly for now, since I suspicion we understand one another.”
Longarm sat his mount quietly as the other two swung around and rode back toward Kim Stover’s spread. He didn’t know if Timberline had been calling or just watching. It wasn’t really his business. The big ramrod and the stubborn redhead were welcome to one another.
But he couldn’t help wondering, as he rode to the hotel, what that sulky little spitfire would be like in bed.
Longarm awoke in the pitch-black little room, aware that he was not alone. He pretended another snore as his right hand slid under the cornhusk pillow for his derringer. He’d left his room key there, too, this time. Wasn’t it safe to sleep anywhere in Crooked Lance?
He flinched as cool fingers brushed his naked shoulder and a soft whisper sighed, “Oh, pretty! So pretty!”
“Mabel?”
“Hush! Oh, do be still! He’ll hear us and he can be so cruel!”
Longarm felt the shabby blanket lift as a cool, nude body slid into bed with him. He moved over to make room on the narrow little cot as his mystery guest flattened small, firm breasts and a work-hardened, almost boyish body against his warmer flesh. As she buried his face in loose, fine hair and began to nibble his collar bone, Longarm folded her in his big arms and muttered, “Did you lock the door behind you, ma’am?”
She placed a palm over his mouth and hissed, “Yes! Oh, don’t make a sound! His ears are sharp and his temper’s not of this world!”
She waited until she saw he wasn’t going to say anything, then slid the hand, moist from his lips, down the front of his body. All the way.
Longarm lay there, as puzzled as he was aroused as she took his penis in her hand and began to play with it, whispering, “Oh, so pretty. I want! I need!”
And then she’d forked a thigh over and was on him, riding him as if in the saddle, astride a trotting pony.
Longarm tightened his buttocks and drove up to meet her as she ground her pubic bone against his, hissing like a pleasured cat with each movement. He ran his hands up and down her spine, noticing how the bones rode under her tight, smooth skin like those of a half-starved Arapahoe camp dog. Then, wider awake and getting more interested, he got a firm grip on each of her small, lean buttocks and started helping her on the downstrokes. She was good, damned good, whoever she was, and she pleasured him the first time fast. As he gasped in enjoyment she kept going, sliding and moaning her own pleasure as the wetness seemed to add to it.
Longarm was still able to serve her, but the first flush had cleared his mind enough to wonder what in hell was going on. The hellcat rutting with him wasn’t Mabel; she moved no way at all like this one. It couldn’t be Kim Stover, could it? Nope, there was more to the redhead than this skinny little bundle of pure lust. That left… hell, that hardly seemed likely!
And then she shuddered, stiffened, and fell forward, kissing him full on the lips as she ran her tongue between them. It was old Stover’s wife or daughter, sure enough. Both of them had buck teeth.
Longarm was a gentlemen of the old school, so he didn’t laugh. The poor, ugly little brute had done her best to please him, and in the dark, kissing her chinless little face wasn’t all that bad. She nestled into him like a lost kitten, kissing him over and over as Longarm felt warm wetness on his cheek and knew she was crying.
He rolled her over to his side and cuddled her, kissing the tears from her eyelids gently as he petted her trembling, nude flanks, as if he were calming a spooked pony or a kicked dog. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck and whispered, “Oh, you’re so nice. So very nice. I knowed it when first I seen you!”
Longarm frowned in the darkness, trying to see his way out of this mess. How was a gent supposed to deal with a lovesick critter like this? Good God! How was he going to explain it? He could already see the jeering looks of the others at the breakfast table. Both mother and daughter were ugly as sin, and come to think of it, which of the damn fool Stover women had he just laid?
Longarm started exploring her flesh gently with his free hand, looking for wrinkles, stretch marks, or some such sign. There wasn’t a fold of loose skin clinging to her thin, muscular body. Her skin was smooth and nice to feel. He tried to picture the two worn-out looking women who’d served dinner. Both had been skinny and scared- looking. Scared little sparrows that never looked a man in the eye. He was hoping like hell it was the older one. She moved like a gal who knew the facts of life, and Jesus H. Christ, if it was the unwed daughter…
The woman took his explorations to mean desire and responded with caresses of her own. She suddenly slid her hips from the cot and trailed her unbound hair down Longarm’s belly, grabbing him again and kissing his semi-erect penis teasingly. Longarm sighed and let her give him a French lesson, for he was in as much trouble already as he was likely to be.
She got him back in the mood amazingly fast, considering her buck teeth and all, so Longarm pulled her up from where she was kneeling and climbed aboard to do it right. Her legs locked around him and she started wagging her tail like a happy puppy. It was a funny way for a gal to move herself, but it was pure heaven, and in the dark it was easy to forget what she looked like in broad daylight.
They made love, wildly and as silently as church mice, for perhaps a full hour. Then she suddenly leaped up, unlocked the door, and was gone without a word.
Longarm made sure the door was locked again, then sank back on the cot, puzzled. It wasn’t as if he’d never had anything as good, but it hadn’t been bad, considering. You never could tell, just by looking at a woman, could you?
He stretched out on the moist blanket, suddenly grinning as the old trail song sprang to mind. “… I
