He tucked the rifle under his left arm, unbuttoned his trousers, and took care of the business that had brought him here, sending his stream arcing out over the edge of the bluff and letting it splash to earth some seventy or eighty feet below. When he was done he buttoned up again and started to turn around. He froze, then edged his hand toward the action of the Winchester when he saw a shadowy figure approaching him.
It took him only an instant, however, to realize that the person coming toward him was Lucy Vermilion. As she moved, she passed between him and the fire, some twenty yards away, and he saw her silhouette clearly against the flames. “What are you doing out here, Lucy?” he called softly. “I told you I’d be right back.”
“I got to worryin’ about you bein’ so close to this bluff, Custis,” she replied as she came up to him. “I was afraid if you got dizzy, you might topple right off of it.”
“Well, I didn’t,” he told her as he took a step toward the fire. “We’d best get back to camp. We’re supposed to be standing guard.”
“In a minute,” she said, moving so that she blocked his path. She put a hand on his arm again and went on. “I’ve been thinkin’ about you ever since last night, Custis. I know you ain’t up to any slap-and-tickle tonight, but as soon as you’re feelin’ better … well, maybe I better just give you a sample of what you got to look forward to.”
She came up on her toes and her mouth found his. Longarm’s head still hurt and he experienced occasional spells of dizziness, but without hesitation, he put his free arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. Her lips opened and her tongue darted against his. He parted his lips to let her in. She probed wantonly in his mouth as her belly ground against his groin. Despite everything, he felt his staff hardening, and so did Lucy.
She took her mouth away and whispered, “I ain’t a tease, Custis, I really ain’t. But you ought to recuperate a mite before we really go at it again.”
“You’re right,” Longarm agreed. “But we don’t neither of us have to like it, do we?”
Lucy giggled, a somewhat surprising sound from such a self-reliant young woman. “We’d better get back to camp,” she said. “I shouldn’t be out here temptin’ you. I just didn’t want you to forget about what we had before … and what we’ll have again.”
“I’m not likely to forget,” Longarm said fervently. “Not likely at all
…”
Chapter 14
He had to be dreaming, Longarm thought as he woke later that night. He felt a hand at the buttons of his trousers, unfastening them. Soft, warm fingers stole inside the garment and caressed his organ through the long underwear for a moment, then unbuttoned the underwear as well so that his erect shaft could spring free of its confinement. Those fingers closed hotly around it.
Definitely not a dream, Longarm realized, but he was still half-asleep anyway, and the bullet crease on the head he had suffered was making it difficult for him to throw off the bonds of slumber. “Damn it, Lucy,” he muttered under his breath. Obviously, she hadn’t been able to wait after all. He hoped nobody else had noticed her slipping into the bedroll he had fashioned out of blankets borrowed from Thorp’s supplies.
The fingers slid lightly up and down his stalk. Longarm let out a muffled groan of passion. His hips twitched involuntarily.
With the part of his brain that was functioning, he wondered what time it was. He and Lucy had stood guard over the camp until midnight, then woken up Beechmuir and Singh and turned the duty over to them. Longarm forced his eyes open and studied the stars he could see through the trees around the camp. From the look of those celestial timepieces, several hours had passed since he fell asleep. Randamar Ghote and the cowboy called Randall were probably standing guard now. Longarm sort of hoped so anyway. Despite Lucy’s assurances otherwise the night before about how her father wouldn’t care, Longarm didn’t much cotton to the idea of Catamount Jack finding the two of them snuggled up together like this. It would be bad enough if they were discovered by one of the others.
Maybe he ought to just tell Lucy to go back to her own bedroll, he decided. He lifted his head, intending to whisper to her to do just that, when the warmth of her hand went away from his shaft and was replaced by an even greater heat.
Longarm’s head flopped back and he groaned softly once again as lips closed sweetly around his shaft. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sensation. A wet, almost searingly hot tongue circled the head of the pole of quivering flesh. His hips thrust up again, driving more of his length into her mouth. She grabbed on with both hands and sucked harder. Longarm felt his climax building.
There was no turning back. The skillful ministrations of her lips and tongue brought him to the brink in no time. Her grip on him tightened as his seed boiled up and exploded out of him. She didn’t pull her lips away, but instead swallowed greedily as he filled her mouth with the culmination of his passion. Spasms shook Longarm’s entire body for a seemingly endless moment; then he slumped back, an irresistible lassitude sweeping over him. He was still weak from his injury, he knew, and Lucy had just about worn him out. He breathed deeply, trying to recover from the internal earthquake. His head didn’t hurt at all, he realized, even though his pulse was pounding loudly inside his skull.
Suddenly, a disturbing thought occurred to him. He didn’t know that was Lucy sharing his bedroll. Whoever had just given him that mighty nice French lesson had been little more than a mouth and a pair of hands. Soft hands, at that. Uncallused hands. The hands, say, of Lady Beechmuir or even that little Hindu, Ghote. Longarm’s eyes snapped wide open, and it was all he could do to keep from bolting upright with a shout. His pulse began to race even faster, but it wasn’t from lust or excitement now. It was pure-dee fear that made him practically lunge toward the other person in the blankets with him.
Relief flooded through him as he touched long, silky hair. His fingers tangled in it, and he practically hauled its owner up closer to his head. With a chuckle, Helene Booth molded her naked body against him and said in a husky whisper, “Really, Custis, you don’t have to be so rough. Unless, of course, that’s the way you like it …”
“Lady Beechmuir!” Longarm grated. The tide of relief that had washed through him began to ebb, only to be replaced with anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The fire had burned down almost to ashes, but it still cast enough light for him to be able to see her face as she smiled and licked her lips. “I should think that would be obvious,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t you? And please, you simply must start calling me Helene. Especially now that we’ve-“
“Don’t even say it!” Longarm hissed as he closed his eyes and grimaced.
“Why, Custis, you’re acting like you didn’t even know it was me who-” She stopped short, and her attractive
