He reached down, unbuckled his belt, let his pants slide down so that her hot, sweet mouth caressed his hardness. For a moment, as her tongue kissed there, he forgot about where her loyalties were, or that she might have lured Osgoode just as she was driving him crazy now. All that mattered at this moment was this agonizing ache in his groin that only she could satisfy.
He pulled her away long enough to get his pants and moccasins off and spread her torn nightdress under the lilacs. Now she was on her knees, naked and submissive before him, her ebony hair hanging loose so that it half-covered her small, firm breasts.
“Anyway you want me, Johnny. Anything you want!”
He ought to humiliate her, force her to submit to anything he could devise. But she was small and defenseless and he loved her. Yes, he couldn’t deny it. He loved this Cheyenne girl, no matter what, and the vulnerability of his situation drove him to anger.
His fury made him rough as he grabbed her and threw her down on her back. “You were playing the whore for the lieutenant,” he raged. “Now show me all your tricks!”
Tears came to her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t you, Cheyenne slut?” He cupped her breasts in his hands as he knelt between her thighs. “Were you offering him what you had given me and if so, why?”
She began to cry, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t understand you! I don’t know what it is you want!”
All his angry resolve melted at her tears. He couldn’t bear to see her cry. Johnny lay down between her thighs, slipped his arms under her shoulders, and kissed her tears away. “I’m a jealous fool, Star Eyes. I hate the idea of any man touching you but me.”
She put her face against his broad chest, weeping softly. “It was silly for me to go with Carter. He only wanted one thing and I wouldn’t give it to him.”
“You drive men crazy until they can think of only one thing, Luci.” He began to kiss the tears off her small face. She pressed turgid nipples against his bare chest. He caught her small wrists and pinned them above her head on the ground with one big hand so that her back arched, offering her breasts up to his mouth and free hand.
She slipped her legs around his waist, holding him tightly against her body. “Neither of us can escape now,” she said, and smiled up at him.
“Who wants to?” And he bent his head and sucked as much of her breast into his mouth as possible. He had a terrible, driving need to put his seed deep in her belly, plant his son there.
No, that could never be. She was Cheyenne and possibly a spy. But it didn’t matter tonight. All that mattered was that they were in each other’s arms. He moved down her body, fired by the woman scent of her. He moved to kiss between her thighs, stroked her throbbing wetness with his fingers. He would satisfy her several times this way and then force his sword into her velvet softness.
But he couldn’t control his urge to ride her and he thrust into her, tilting her hips up so she could take him deeply. He was swept along the edge of some kind of dark wave, like being whirled up and caught in one of the tornados that he had seen swirling across the isolated plains. Then nothing mattered to him but emptying himself into her; and her slight body convulsed, locked onto his as if determined to take every drop he had to give.
When he dimly realized where he was again, they were wrapped in each other’s arm, weary and spent under the bushes. Fragrant lilac petals floated down and fell on them.
He brushed them off her delicate face. “I didn’t mean to hurry it,” he whispered against her ear. “I was going to take you a dozen times tonight. I couldn’t help myself. We seem so right together.”
He hesitated, wanting to tell her about the dream, about the woman on the porch of the ranch house in the twilight and how she ran out to meet him as he dismounted from his horse. She might laugh. She might tell him again there was no future for them. He already knew that. It was enough for now to hold her tightly against him, to kiss her hair. It had to be enough; this was all it ever could be.
“I ought to go in,” she whispered, but she didn’t move.
“You’re right. It’ll be dawn soon and we wouldn’t want people to see us.” But he only held her against him more tightly. She was his for the moment anyway. Romeo and Juliet.
“You’ll be riding out against my people soon, won’t you?”
Immediately, his guard went up. “You know that. Why do you ask?”
She ran her finger along his cheekbone. “Do you suppose we could forget about Cheyenne and Pawnee, just turn our backs on all of it and ride away?”
“Together?”
“Of course together. I wish . . .”
She didn’t finish though he waited.
“Luci, my enlistment isn’t up until about the middle of July.”
Her eyes were two deep pools, looking up at him. “Will you reenlist?”
He shrugged. “I–I don’t know. I don’t have any other plans.”
She moved out from under him, her body suddenly wooden. “So for at least a few more weeks, you’ll be out killing my people?”
“That’s what they pay me for.”
“Even if I asked you not to?”
“So that’s it!” He sat up, suddenly disappointed and a more than a little angry. “What a cheap trick! Luci, the Fifth has other scouts. They’d still go after the Cheyenne even if I didn’t scout for them.”
“But at least you wouldn’t have their blood on your hands! How can you expect to make love to me at night and kill my people in the daytime?”
With fury in her voice, she grabbed up her torn nightdress, wrapped it around her, and ran into the building while he called after her, “Luci, wait!”
But she didn’t wait and she didn’t look back.
Chapter Fourteen
Carter Osgoode looked over at Luther North and Cody as they rode down the brightly lit street. “So this is Denver! Doesn’t anyone ever go to bed around here?”
Cody laughed. “Not to sleep!”
Even though it was getting on toward midnight as they rode in, weary and coated with trail dust, the streets seemed full of men and horses. Loud, off-key piano music floated from two different directions as they rode in and dismounted at the livery stable, waking a sleepy hand to put away their horses. The street they stood in seemed to be mostly saloons and bordellos with bright lights and men coming and going. Somewhere a woman sang a plaintive ballad that had been popular during the war: “. . . we loved each other then, Lorena, more than we ever dared to tell; and what we might have been, Lorena, had but our loving prospered well . . .”
“Let’s find a hotel,” Luther said, and they began to walk past the saloon from where the drunken woman’s voice drifted: “It matters little now, Lorena, the past is in the eternal Past, our heads will soon lie low, Lorena, life’s tide is ebbing out so fast . . .”
The song saddened Carter, making him think of the beautiful girl back in Boston, David Van Schuyler’s twin sister, who had never noticed Carter and, in the end, had run away to the Indians.
A man cursed and his words echoed, “Sing something happy, you stupid wench!” followed by crashing glass.
Immediately, the voice broke into: “Oh, Susanna, oh don’t you cry for me . . .”
A body flew through the bat-wing doors of a saloon as they walked past and they dodged. From inside, the sounds of a fight echoed.
Carter craned his neck to look around at the raw boomtown. “We must be crazy to stay in the cavalry when there’s gold around here.”
Luther laughed. “There’s more gold in fleecing miners,” he said as they walked toward the hotel. They had a bad meal at an all-night place and went to their rooms.
Carter didn’t want to go to bed, but he washed up in the cracked bowl and pitcher on the wash stand, lay down, and stared at the wall. On the yellowed paper hung a typical Victorian print of a young man saying good-bye to his true love while she hung on to his arm, evidently begging him not to go. Women!
Maybe he could do a little early investigating. He took the tokens, got dressed, strapped on his pistol, and slipped out of the hotel. Now what? These tokens might not mean anything. They might not even be from a bordello in Denver. But they were all he had.
Carter walked down the board sidewalk, tossing a token up in the air and catching it. A pair of bearded miners stumbled past him. On impulse, he reached out and caught one of them by a dirty sleeve. “A friend told me I could have a good time at this place, but I can’t remember the name of it. Something like a flower. Maybe Rose’s Place, or–”
“Lily, the Gilded Lily,” the miner said, peering drunkenly at the coin in Carter’s palm.
The other one looked and nodded in agreement. “Yep, it’s from the Lily, all right. But that’s a bad place, mister. Purty gals, yes, but they’ll cheat you at the card table and anywhere else they can.”
“But purty gals.” The other grinned, hooking his thumbs in his vest. “Got a new attraction–a punch bowl full of delectable stuff!”
The other laughed and licked his lips suggestively.
Ye Gods! What idiot would be impressed by a punch bowl? It didn’t sound like much to Carter, but then maybe these poor, backwoods hicks had never seen a silver punch bowl such as Carter’s mother had used for her parties–before they lost all their money.
He got directions and walked rapidly to the Gilded Lily. He’d have a drink or two, enjoy a girl, and get back before Luther and Cody ever knew he was gone. If he solved this mystery about the contraband guns, he’d be a hero with maybe an advancement. Captain Carter Osgoode.
The Lily was an elegant saloon by anyone’s standard, Carter thought as he walked in. Certainly it drew a higher-class clientele than the others to its big, scarlet-papered room where men leaned on a carved, mahogany bar. Pretty girls danced in skimpy costumes on the stage at one end. It had a three-piece orchestra, too, rather than just a piano.
“. . . He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease,” the crowd sang along as the girls danced, “the daring young man on the flying trapeze; his movements were graceful, all the girls he could please, and my love he has stolen away. . . .”
Carter went to the bar, ordered whiskey, and sipped it, impressed. The glass looked clean and the whiskey tasted good enough to be shipped from back East, not the local home-brewed stuff with rattlesnake heads and red pepper.
“They’re getting ready to fill the punch bowl,” said the man next to him, jostling him a little as he turned.
Curious, Carter turned, too. The dancing girls had cleared the stage and a tough-looking bouncer carried the biggest crystal punch bowl Carter had ever seen out to the edge of the stage, and set it down.
A buzz of excitement ran through the crowd with men elbowing each other to get closer. The bartender carried a case of bottles up by the bowl.
“Okay, Gents,” announced the burly bartender, “you’ve been waiting for the mysterious princess of Egypt and here she is!” The men set up cheers and applause. From the side of the stage entered a tawny, beautiful girl with her hair done up elaborately on her head. She wore nothing but elegant shoes. Carter could only press forward himself and stare. It was considered daring for a girl to dance in a skimpy costume in public in these times, no matter what went on in the private rooms. The girl had a magnificent figure, beautiful breasts, small waist. And suddenly Carter realized there wasn’t a hair on her beautiful, sleek body except for the elaborate ebony locks done up on her head.
Carter felt his breath quicken, his groin ache as he looked at her, pushing through the appreciative crowd of men. The girl walked slowly, teasingly, across the stage, smiling invitingly at the men. Kicking off her shoes, she sat down in the punch bowl, reached for a bottle of wine, and opened it.
As Carter watched, spellbound, she slowly poured the red wine down her breasts, where it trickled across her belly and into the bowl, then she reached for another bottle.
In the sudden silence as the men watched, Carter was close enough to see the burgundy running across her satin skin, dripping off her nipples. She smiled at the crowd. “Come on, fellas,” she purred, “doesn’t anybody want a drink?”
That broke the spell. As the girl kept pouring wine over herself, men jabbered to each other, pushing and shoving to grab a punch cup and elbow their way to the bowl.
Carter had forgotten to breathe. He took a sudden breath, aware of how hot the room suddenly seemed to be. He pushed his way through the crowd, watching the men dip their glasses between her thighs into the punch, drinking it greedily.
He got through the crowd somehow and stood looking at her. She paused in reaching for a bottle, eyed him, and ran her tongue along her lips in invitation. “Want to pour, soldier?”
He couldn’t stop his hand from shaking as he opened the wine bottle, then hesitated.
She indicated one magnificent breast. “Pour it over this.” He did as he was told, mesmerized by the scarlet wine dripping off her dark nipples as men pushed each other to get their glasses under that stream.
He thought he’d seen some wild times in staid Boston, but there had been nothing like this. This was Sodom and Gomorrah with faro tables.
“Soldier, don’t you want a drink?” She smiled again.
He forgot he didn’t care for red wine. Like the others, it seemed the most erotic drink in the world. Carter dipped his glass between her thighs, and drank. The thought of this liquor touching her beautiful, naked body was so arousing to him, his groin ached. Quickly, he gulped the wine and dipped in again.
He couldn’t take his gaze off her as he filled his glass again. “If we drink it dry, does the last man get the cherry in the drink?”
“Maybe.” She smiled at him. “I get to choose which one gets me.”
“Then I’m going to stay right here until it’s all gone,” he said, swaying a little on his feet. He had another drink, then urged other men to crowd around and drink up. When the wine was gone, maybe she would choose him.
The evening became a blur to him as he stood there, helping lower the level of the punch bowl. “How can the management afford to do this for free?”
She shrugged one bare shoulder, gleaming wetly with red wine. “It’s cheap stuff. Besides, once fifty men have tried to drink it dry, they have a tendency to spend more at the card tables and upstairs.”
“Can I take you upstairs?”
“You’re a bold one, ain’t you? I like your style, soldier.” She grinned, held out her arms. “Here, help me out. I’ll get my robe and–”
“Ye Gods! You don’t need a robe!” He reached to lift her out, but didn’t put her down. She clung to him wetly, staining his uniform with wine. “I’ll take you just the way you are!” He started for the stairs with the men cheering him on.
They went down a shadowy hall. “Which room?”
“You’re in a helluva hurry, ain’t you, Soldier?” She indicated a room with a nod.
Carter went through the door, kicked it shut with his foot, dumped her on the bed, and began to peel off his clothes.
“Don’t rush, Lieutenant. I can show you a way to make it more fun.”
He hesitated as he took off his clothes. All he wanted to do was fall between her wet thighs and get rid of this ache as fast as possible. There was something he liked to do to women, but most wouldn’t let him. Still maybe this strangely beautiful girl could teach him new delights.
Carter finished undressing, took the brass token, and laid it on her naked belly.
She lay there, red wine from her body staining the white sheets, and looked down at the token with a smile. “Uh-uh,”–she shook her head–“you’ll have to put something extra in this deal for the Girl in the Punch B
owl to satisfy that craving you got.”
He hesitated, took out some silver dollars, and tossed them with a clink on her belly. “Is that enough?”
If it wasn’t, he was going to rape her before anyone could get in here to stop him. There was something about this girl that reminded him of the half-breed girl back at the fort. And then suddenly, he knew what it was. “Dark Egyptian princess, my foot! You’re just an Injun!”
She laughed, not moving except to gather up the coins. “Pawnee. In my old life, I was called Deer.”
“Well, Deer, get ready because its rutting season and you’ve found yourself a stag!”
He fell across her, kissing the red wine off her wet breasts, and running his hands all over her.
She reached for a bottle, and rose up on her elbow to take a long drink. “And now some for you,” she whispered, and she poured a small pool in the hollow of her belly.
It had to be the most wildly erotic thing he had ever done, licking the wine from her satin skin. He realized she was more than a little drunk herself. “I thought girls weren’t supposed to drink when they worked.”
“I’m not.” She smiled at him and reached for the bottle again. “But I don’t think the boss knows so far.” She ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip invitingly. “I’ll make you happy enough not to tell either.”
“Damn right you won’t!” He was suddenly afraid of completing the act with this girl. She looked experienced. Carter was always concerned that women would laugh because his maleness was small. Carter licked her slowly, savoring the taste of the wine on her skin.
“I’m ready for you, soldier.” She spread her thighs wide and closed her eyes.
“Uh-uh, we do it my way!” Before she could realize what was happening, he grabbed her arm, rolled her over on her belly, and fell on her. She struggled but he had one hand over her mouth and the other under her, squeezing her breast. He knew how to make a woman feel he was built big. He thrust hard into her from behind. Women always fought him when he did that to them, but it felt good and tight to a small man. She fought him, too, and tried to scream. But he had his hand over her mouth, and when she struggled, he jerked back on her head, and squeezed her breast. Hard.
Cheyenne Caress Page 21
