Lone Star 03

by Ellis, Wesley

  “If that’s a compliment, I thank you, Miss Mendoza,” Ki said. “But bullfighting is something of which I know little.”

  They were interrupted by a very young waiter bringing their dinners. There were boned chicken breasts, a mildly spiced rice, and brown beans mashed into a thick paste seasoned with strips of large, mild red peppers. A tall pillar of thin tortillas, wrapped in a large napkin to keep them warm, took the place of bread.

  Conversation languished while they ate. Efforts by both Jessie and Ki to begin a line of talk leading up to the information they wanted failed to draw more than a few words from Adelita. She seemed to have pulled into a shell after what they’d considered a promising beginning.

  Jessie and Ki had worked as a team for so long that they could communicate by a look, a raised eyebrow, an imperceptible nod or headshake, the movement of a hand or even of a finger. They agreed by such signals not to push too hard for the information they were after. They’d learned nothing new when the waiter cleared away the dinner plates, brought individual flan shells filled with a cinnamon-topped custard, and placed a silver pot of coffee on the table.

  They had barely tasted the dessert when Salazar came in and whispered into Adelita’s ear. She nodded and stood up.

  “You will excuse me, please,” she said. “I have a small duty to perform. Perhaps we can talk again at breakfast.”

  Jessie and Ki were seated with their backs to the arched door that led into the lobby. They watched Adelita until she was almost to the door, then returned to their dessert.

  Jessie said, “Obviously the girl knows nothing about her father’s business.”

  “I understand it’s not the habit of Latin men to discuss business matters with the women of their families.”

  “I’m glad Alex wasn’t that way. If he hadn’t started teaching me about his business when I was young, the cartel would have swallowed all the Starbuck holdings by now.”

  “We should ask Salazar about the Mendoza ranches, Jessie,” Ki suggested. “Perhaps you’d better do that tomorrow. He looks down his nose at servants, as I guess you’ve noticed.”

  “Yes. But I don’t see why I should wait until tomorrow. We’ve almost finished, and he was here just a moment ago, so he must still be in the lobby. I’ll ask him when we go upstairs.”

  Jessie glanced over her shoulder, into the lobby. When she did not turn her head back at once, Ki asked, “Do you see him?”

  “No. I was looking at Adelita. Evidently her father tells her something about his business, because she was talking to a man twice her age, much too old to be a suitor or a sweetheart.”

  Ki turned to look, but saw no one.

  Jessie said, “You missed them. They both walked away, right after the man handed Adelita something. I couldn’t see clearly what it was, but I’m positive it wasn’t a love note.”

  “A message to her father, I’d imagine,” Ki said. “But if our suspicions are correct, Jessie, it might be something we’d be interested in. What did the man look like?”

  “Stout. Not very tall. A rather coarse face, though I just got a glimpse of it. He was very well dressed, judging by the gold embroidery on his coat sleeve, which was about all I could see when he handed Adelita whatever it was he gave her.”

  “Ask Salazar about the man, when you talk to him, then.”

  “I will.” Jessie pushed her chair back from the table. “We’d better go, Ki. We’re the last ones here, and if we wait too long I might miss Salazar.”

  When they went into the lobby, though, it was deserted. They looked at the several doors that opened on the lobby, and Ki shook his head. “Salazar could be behind any of those doors, and I don’t think we want to make too much of a point of asking him questions about Mendoza. Why not wait until breakfast?”

  “No matter what we might find out, there isn’t anything we can actually do tonight,” Jessie agreed. “And after the past few nights, I’m going to enjoy that comfortable bed upstairs.”

  “So will I, after I soak off the dust that I picked up on the way here. We’ll decide what to do at breakfast tomorrow, then, after you’ve talked to Salazar.”

  Ki was sleeping as soundly as he ever did when on a mission and in strange surroundings, but the almost inaudible scratching on his door brought him instantly awake and alert. He knew it could not be Jessie summoning him; she’d simply open the door between their rooms and call him. As was his habit, Ki had been sleeping naked. When the scratching was repeated, he draped his shirt over his shoulders and padded barefoot to the door that opened on the hallway.

  His mouth close to the panel, he asked in a half-whisper, “Who is it?”

  Adelita Mendoza’s voice was pitched at the same low tone in which he’d spoken. She said, “Ki?”

  “Yes.”

  “Won’t you invite me in?”

  Ki opened the door a crack. Adelita stood in the dimly lit corridor. She was wearing a loose, filmy white robe that billowed below the cloud of dark hair drifting over her shoulders. Ki opened the door wide enough for her to slip inside the room.

  “I didn’t dare say anything to you at dinner,” she said. “I wasn’t sure whether there was anything between you and Miss Starbuck. I’m still not sure, but I decided to find out.”

  Adelita was standing close enough to Ki for him to feel the warmth radiating from her body. He said, “There isn’t anything between Jessie and me except deep friendship.”

  “I began to see that, just before Pierre came to tell me the man my father sent me here to meet was waiting for me. When I looked back in the dining room, you and Miss Starbuck were leaving the table, and I didn’t want to talk to you in the lobby.”

  “You didn’t come here to talk now,” Ki said. “Did you, Adelita?”

  “No. And please call me Lita, Ki. I won’t feel that we’re such strangers, if you do.”

  “Of course, Lita.”

  She went on, “I tried to give you a hint at dinner, when I told you that you remind me of the toreros who visit the ranch.”

  “I got the idea you were more than just friends with some of the bullfighters, but I didn’t take that as an invitation.”

  “It wasn‘t, Ki. My being here now is one.”

  Lita slid her hands through the unbuttoned front of Ki’s shirt and ran them lightly down his ribs. Ki took his cue from her move, and stroked her cheek softly with the back of his hand. He was moving his fingers down to caress the sensitive area that lay just under the smooth skin at the side of her neck when Lita grasped his wrist.

  Pressing the palm of his hand to her lips, she began running the tip of her hot moist tongue in a circle around its center. Ki’s hand was too heavily muscled for the caress to be effective, and when Lita did not feel it moving in response to her efforts, she took his fingers into her mouth one by one and began to lick and suck on them.

  Ki recognized her signal, but ignored it. He slid his free hand along her shoulders and pushed the filmy material of her robe away from them. She shrugged and the robe slid down to fall in a heap on the floor. In the dim light that filtered in from the room’s wide windows, Ki could now see the dark rosettes of her firm high breasts outlined against their creamy skin. He bent down to kiss them and Lita rose on tiptoe, arching her back to make the quivering globes easier for him to reach.

  Ki drew one of her nipples into his mouth. Lita shuddered with a sharp inhalation. She released Ki’s hand. He brought it down to find the twin to the breast he was caressing with his tongue, and began gently rolling its firm nipple between his steel-hard fingertips.

  Lita’s hands had moved to Ki’s torso by now. She began to purr like a cat, a soft susurration rising from deep in her throat as her hands slid soft and warm over the firm muscles that bulged symmetrically on Ki’s chest and biceps. Her hands reached his groin and found his sex, still almost flaccid. Lita wrapped her fingers around its supple length and squeezed gently, trying to bring it erect.

  Ki did not wish to become hard yet, and he had
learned long ago to control each muscle of his body, even those that in most men respond involuntarily to stimulus. He kept himself soft while Lita fondled him, and continued his own caresses to her firm perfumed breasts, moving his lips and tongue from one to the other. Lita’s hands became more active. She began pumping rhythmically when her softer caresses failed. Ki still did not allow his erection to become complete, nor did he let his mouth touch any part of her body except her breasts.

  Lita maintained her pumping efforts for several minutes, while her own muscles grew taut and the tips of her breasts more sensitive. Then she let go of Ki’s shaft and twisted away. He released her readily.

  “Can’t you get hard, Ki?” she asked.

  “Of course. But we’re not ready for that quite yet.”

  “Do you mean you can make yourself stay soft, and then grow hard whenever you want to?”

  “Certainly.”

  Lita thought briefly, then asked, “And can you also make yourself stay hard as long as you want to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to prove that to me, Ki?”

  “Why, of course I am. Or isn’t that something you enjoy?”

  “What I enjoy most is to feel a man grow hard inside me.”

  “Most women do.”

  “You can do that for me, Ki?”

  “Yes.”

  Lita was silent for a moment, then said, “I mean that I like to feel a man grow hard inside my mouth. Do you like to have a woman love you that way, Ki?”

  “It’s a very good way to begin,” Ki told her.

  “Let me begin, then!”

  Lita pushed Ki’s shirt off and began rubbing her face over his smooth chest. Like most Oriental men, Ki’s only body hair was at his groin; his chest was as smooth as Lita’s breasts. She rubbed her face over Ki’s chest and stomach, her hands cradling his semi-erect shaft. Ki could no longer reach her breasts and he began stroking Lita’s back and buttocks, but did not touch or seek to touch her sensitive spots.

  After a moment she put her mouth to Ki’s ear and whispered, “Carry me to the bed, Ki! I want to feel you get hard while I caress you!”

  Ki lifted her, a light load for his powerful muscles, and carried her to the bed. For a few moments they lay side by side. Lita offered Ki her lips and they kissed, tongues entwining. Ki stroked her breasts and stomach, feeling her muscles ripple and grow taut as he rubbed. He ran his fingers gently through her dark pubic hair, but made no effort to slip his hands between her thighs. Lita’s breathing grew fast and shallow, and she began to quiver. Then she twisted away from Ki and rose above him, kneeling, her legs straddling his.

  Bending forward, her unbound hair falling to frame her face in a dark tent above Ki’s hips, she ran her wet tongue along the length of his shaft several times before taking it into her mouth. For a long moment she held him without moving, then she began to work her tongue around as her head bobbed slowly back and forth.

  Ki relaxed his control enough to let his erection begin. Lita shivered with pleasure as she felt him swell and start to grow firm. She drew him into her mouth as deeply as she could, and slowed the movements of her head to a more measured tempo.

  Ki slid one foot between her wide-spread thighs and rubbed gently with his big toe. His constant exercise had made his toe almost as supple as his fingers. He could feel Lita’s warm juices start to flow as he drew the tip of his toe along her sensitive bud.

  After a few minutes, Lita began to squirm. She tried to clamp her thighs together to hold Ki’s foot motionless, but with her knees spread as they were, her effort failed. She started moaning and moving her hips in a way that told Ki she was getting near a climax. He stopped the gentle massage and thrust his toe into her, holding the arch of his foot against her quivering button with just enough pressure to keep her on the brink of an orgasm without allowing it to begin.

  Lita released him from her mouth and asked, “Do you like to come this way, Ki?”

  Early in his maturity, Ki had lost the reluctance of the Oriental male to release himself when there was no possibility of begetting a child. He told Lita, “I enjoy it a great deal. But it’s still much too soon. The greatest delight is to delay that final pleasure until these earlier ones have become unendurable. Let me give you a different pleasure now, so that we can continue to enjoy each other longer.”

  Ki did not wait for Lita’s reply, but clasped her waist and lifted her, turning her above him in midair. He lowered her to lie atop him, and raised his head to spread her thighs apart. Lita gasped as Ki’s tongue slid into her and its tip found the hardened button that his toe had already brought to sensitive life. Her lips closed again around Ki’s erection as his tongue began rasping her with gentle firmness.

  Already on the point of orgasm, Lita reached the stage of trembling ecstasy almost at once. Ki knew from the twitching of her body that she could not match his capacity for control, and did not try to delay her any longer. Lita forgot to keep caressing him as she reached her climax. Her urgent tongue stopped moving as she closed her mouth tightly around Ki’s hard shaft while she shook and thrust her hips hard against his face, and Ki savored the warm salty flooding of her flowing juices.

  He did not stop when her trembling ceased and she relaxed, but kept his tongue busy. He carried her into another orgasm before he moved his head away. When Lita had grown calm after her second spasm, her lips and tongue became busy again, and she was still trying to bring Ki to a climax when he lifted her for the second time and raised her high enough above him to force her to release him.

  “No, Ki!” she cried. “I want to taste you coming before we stop! Let me have you again!”

  “You will,” he promised, swinging her around and lowering her to lie beside him. “You will, but it is still too soon.”

  Lita’s muscles were water-soft now. Ki knelt above her and grasped one of her ankles in each hand. He spread her legs and pushed her ankles away from him, bending her knees until he could place the soles of her feet on each side of his chest. Her knees were above her waist, almost touching the bed, and her thighs were yawning open. Lita grasped Ki’s objective at once. She reached down between their bodies and guided his jutting shaft into her.

  Ki leaned slowly forward and Lita cried out with pleasure when she felt the fullness of his penetration. As Ki kept lowering his body, the weight of his chest forced Lita’s knees lower and lower, and his hard shaft pushed ever more firmly against her already sensitive button.

  “Ay, madre de Dios, Ki! Chingame prestamente!” Lita cried, reverting to her mother tongue in the near delirium of her ecstasy. She groaned happily, “Es mas dentro de algún hombre he penetrado! De cual mas vete?”

  “Un poco,” Ki replied, forcing himself down a bit further.

  Lita wrapped her arms around Ki’s neck and pulled herself up to find his lips with hers. Her back was arched now like a bow drawn full, and Ki began to thrust. He moved only his hips, and kept the full weight of his chest and shoulders on her feet. Lita’s cries rose and fell as he drove into her.

  Ki moved deliberately at first, and when Lita began to writhe and tremble under him, he increased the speed of his hard thrusts until she shrieked and flowed again. Ki did not stop. He brought her to another orgasm within a few minutes of the first, and then drove on until she came for the third time. Ki did not relax after Lita’s third orgasm, but kept her on the threshold between pleasure and pain with slow, deliberate thrusts of his bulging shaft. When she began building to another orgasm, he was almost ready to release himself.

  “Do you still want to taste me when I come?” he asked in a soft whisper.

  “Oh, yes, Ki! Yes!”

  “Then it’s time now for you to have your wish.”

  With the same swift, graceful movements that marked his combats, Ki withdrew from Lita and turned to lie above her. She grabbed his shaft and he felt her hot lips close around it.

  Lita’s thighs were sprawled loosely, and Ki spread them still wider. He bent h
is head and found her swollen, tender button with the tip of his tongue. Lita moaned when she felt his touch, but did not interrupt the attention she was giving him.

  When Ki finally released his rigid control and let Lita’s busy tongue and lips bring him to his orgasm, he drew his own tongue with rasping force along her sex, and with a convulsive twisting of her hips she began to flow as Ki spurted and spurted again and yet again, until his rippling shudders ended and he was fully drained.

  Minutes passed before Lita stirred under him, and when she did, Ki moved to lie beside her. She sighed softly and passed her hand along his body.

  “None of the toreros I’ve known has ever exhausted me so pleasantly, Ki. Can I stay with you for a while?”

  “Of course. Unless—”

  “You are thinking that Pierre might find my room empty and say something to my father? Don’t worry, Ki. My room is only a step or two down the hall, and Pierre will be discreet. And the night is still young.”

  “It is, of course. Sleep if you want to, Lita.”

  “I will, for a while. But if you should wake me up for us to have a velade before I must leave, it would not make me unhappy.”

  “Perhaps I will. We’ll wait and see.”

  Ki was almost as exhausted as Lita by the long day he’d had, and the unexpected strenuous exertions of the past hour or so. Lita went to sleep at once, and a few minutes later Ki dropped into a deep slumber.

  He woke with a start. The first brightening of the false dawn was creeping gray around the edges of the drawn curtains at the window. Lita still lay beside him, deep in an exhausted slumber. Ki’s sure instincts told him that something must have roused him. He did not move, but concentrated on trying to remember what he’d heard in the few instants when he hung between sleep and awakening.

  Before memory could return, Ki got his answer. Muffled footsteps sounded in Jessie’s room, but they were not in the same tempo with which Jessie walked.

  Ki reached the connecting door in two long strides. He flung it open just as the door that led from her room to the hall was closing. Jessie was not in the room.