Shit, if he couldn’t get laid himself, he didn’t want to have to lie here and listen to someone else grunt and huff. If it came to that, he was thinking, maybe he should cough or pretend to snore or something to warn them off before things got serious.
The voices became a mite louder, although still not loud enough for him to make out any of the actual words. Which was just as well. He didn’t particularly want to listen to some other fella’s romantic lies to a traveling stranger.
Then the softness of the talk was shattered and the woman’s voice turned hard.
“Damn you!” she snarled. “How dare you.” Her hand swept up in a quick, unexpected slap that caught the male square across the chops and rocked him back onto his heels. Little Miss Lah-De-Dah had one helluva right when she wanted to uncork it.
“Hey!” the man barked, and his right hand flew high over the woman’s head.
It was one thing to sit quiet and try to avoid intruding on someone else’s moonlight tryst. It would have been something else entire to sit there and watch a grown man batter a woman. Any woman.
Longarm sprang off his bedding and was onto the man before the fellow had time to see him coming.
Well before the man’s hand came down in a blow, Longarm planted a fist slam onto the bridge of his nose.
Apart from the force of the blow, which was considerable, Longarm had the advantage of surprise. It must have seemed like some avenging ghost was attacking out of the night. One moment there was only the couple standing there alone. The next second there was a malevolent presence added to the game. One that could punch like a mule can kick.
The man went down, rolled over and over through the dust, and came up to one knee with both hands pressed to his face. “Jesus, mister, you didn’t have to do that,” he complained.
Longarm wasn’t much interested in starting a debate, so he kept quiet.
“I think you broke my nose,” the fellow complained.
“I can bust more’n that if you want.”
“Shit,” the fellow mumbled, coming to his feet.
Longarm took half a step backward, readying himself, but there was no fight in the man in front of him.
“You want her, mister? She’s yours.” With that the fellow wobbled onto his feet, swayed a bit, and once he’d righted himself, stumbled off in the direction of the shed where the others were sleeping.
Longarm was left alone in the night with the imperious mystery woman. Who, he noticed now, had removed her big hat and was standing now all wide-eyed and breathless in the pale moonlight.
She was, he saw, an uncommonly handsome creature with huge, intense eyes and hollow cheeks, both of which seemed to emphasize the generous size and full-lipped shape of her mouth.
And why was it, Longarm asked himself, that he was standing there staring so long and hard at those large, luminous eyes and, most especially, at the moist fullness of those lips.
He ought to say something, he decided. Introduce himself. Something. Too late for the social niceties. The woman stepped forward. Reached out to him.
For an instant Longarm felt like a hatchling fowl mesmerized into stony immobility by the cold gaze of a hungry snake.
Then the moment was past, and he felt the heat of the woman’s breath enter his stunned and gaping mouth.
Chapter 6
Longarm surely did like it when a lady was willing to show appreciation for a gentleman’s favor.
And lordy, was this woman ever appreciative.
First thing, she did her level best to suck his tongue smack out of his mouth. She tried and tried, and when it didn’t work tried a little more.
And while her mouth was occupied with trying to swallow his tongue, her hands were just as busy peeling him out of the clothes he’d already loosened in anticipation of sleep. By the time she was done, Longarm had a pretty good idea of what an ear of fresh corn felt like when an Iowa hausfrau was through shucking it. She’d peeled him as slickly as slipping the shell off a boiled egg.
Once Longarm was down to the buff, she went to work on herself. That was somewhat less of a trick since it turned out all she was wearing was that big floppy hat and the linen duster buttoned high to the throat. No doubt as a concession to modesty.
And all the while as she was tossing articles of clothing to each of the four sacred winds, she was somehow able to maintain her lip-lock on him. She did it all—he’d have sworn to it in a court of law if called upon under oath —without once having to break her kiss.
If, that is, so avid and passionate a contact could be called that. The term “kiss” did seem almighty tame when he considered the extent of what this gal was doing.
It was more like a rape or a ravishment than a simple kiss.
And all he was doing was standing there and taking it. She was the one doing all the work.
Within seconds—or minutes, he wasn’t entirely sure and did not care in the slightest—the both of them were stark naked with the woman trying to crawl inside his mouth—another quarter inch or so and he figured she would bump into his tonsils and have to either give up where she was or hunker down to duck underneath them—while she simultaneously attempted to wrap herself so tight around him that she could swallow him whole.
All of which might sound a wee bit uncomfortable, but in fact was not.
