by Robin Gideon
“Well? Don’t you talk none? My name Gertrude, but everybody calls me Gertie.” She slid her chair a little closer to Jared’s and, beneath the round, much-scarred wooden table, placed her hand on his thigh. “You looking for some company?”
Jared finally spoke. He said, “No.”
The bluntness of his comment caused Gertie to sit a little straighter in her chair. Her hand trailed up from his thigh to his hip. The pink tip of her tongue moistened lips tinted red with rouge. It was obvious to Jared that she was contemplating her next statement to him carefully. He had no wish for either her companionship or her conversation. In front of him was a reasonably decent bottle of whiskey and a beer that was quite fresh, rather cool, and came from St. Paul, Minnesota. Several beers and the bottle of whiskey was all that Jared was looking forward to for that evening.
“Listen,” Gertie said at last, speaking just loud enough to be heard above the badly-played piano and the general din of the saloon’s crowd, “I’m not going to pretend I’m a lady, but I’d really like a drink. Would you see it clear to buying a working girl a drink?”
For the first time, Jared looked the woman directly in the eyes. “Get a glass,” he said.
Her genuine smile took years off her appearance. She was out of her chair in an instant, striding with practiced ease between chairs and patrons who tried to grope her, until she was at the bar. The bartender raised a knowing eyebrow and handed her a whiskey glass. Gertie was back beside Jared in just seconds, her glass on the table and her hand high on the inside of his thigh.
“I don’t want to be selfish,” Gertie said, “so I’ll just let you do the pouring.”
Jared pulled the cork from the bottle, filled Gertie’s glass to the rim, then set the bottle down on the table—conspicuously not returning the cork to the bottle. Gertie, sensing that this wouldn’t be her last free drink of the night from the tall, handsome stranger dressed all in black, smiled for a moment then slowly lifted her glass, careful as a surgeon to not spill so much as a single drop of the precious, amber liquid.
Jared picked up his whiskey glass, took a hefty swallow, followed that up with three swallows of beer, and then leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. The sun would be setting soon. Tomorrow he would talk to Jerome privately, without Gregg being there, and find out exactly what he would be expected to do. If, after all the fancy words, it turned out that Gregg’s blunt declaration of needing a hired assassin proved to be correct, then Jared would refuse the assignment, get on his horse, and ride out of town. It wouldn’t make any difference how much money Jerome offered.
He felt slender, feminine fingers tracing circles on the inside of his thigh, inching closer to the slowly growing bulge of his awakening cock. Jared continued looking out the window. He wasn’t interested in Gertie. Not that he hadn’t been with women of her profession, but for tonight, his thoughts never roamed far from a voluptuous, auburn-haired vixen named Helen Miller.
The very fact that Jared wasn’t interested in Gertie was somewhat more than mildly irksome to Jared. It would be so easy to lose all his worries in a woman’s bed, to bury his hard cock into her willing body, and when he achieved his satisfaction, simply put on his clothes and ride out of town. He’d done it a hundred times in a hundred towns not substantially different from Whitetail Creek. Probably more than a hundred times. But he just wasn’t interested in sex with a stranger on this particular night.
“You look like a man with a lot on his mind,” Gertie said, keeping her voice low. Her fingers eased up Jared’s thigh, crawling over the lump of his burgeoning cock. Gertie smiled and purred, squeezing several times in quick succession. The flesh beneath her palm was growing swiftly. “You not only got a lot on your mind, you got a lot in your trousers, mister.” With the flat of her palm, she rubbed up and down the length of Jared’s cock, her eyes widening with pleasure and awe as she felt the long column of manly flesh stretching and growing down the leg of his black trousers. “Goddamn it, mister, you got the equipment of a stallion.” She ran her fingers up and down over his length, measuring him, judging him. “I had thought I’d be charging you to go on upstairs, but mister, if you want me, I’m yours. That’s the biggest piece I’ve ever come across—and you don’t seem fully grow’d yet.” She snorted with self-derisive scorn. “And trust me, I’ve come across a lot of meat in my life.”
Jared said nothing, continuing to look out the window. He was faintly annoyed that his penis, as always, had responded to a woman’s touch, acting of its own accord, perpetually ready for pleasure, for excitement, no matter where it came from, no matter what the circumstances were. The rational side of his brain said that there was no reason in the world he shouldn’t take Gertie upstairs. It was all but guaranteed that she would treat him well sexually, and it was always a special thrill to fuck a woman for the first time.
Only Jared wasn’t listening to the rational side of his brain, and he wasn’t interested in the “special thrill” of sex with a woman for the first time. What he wanted—to his considerable consternation—was the thrill of making love to one particular woman again. Traveling over territory he’d crossed before wasn’t usual for Jared, but he didn’t care. He wanted Helen. He wanted to feel her full, firm thighs surrounding his hips as he drove his hard cock into her pussy. He wanted to feel those astonishing tits billowing out against his naked chest as he heaved above her, driving into her with every ounce of strength and energy that he possessed. He thirsted for the taste of her lips.
“Mister, you want to tell me your name? If you don’t, just make somethin’ up. I don’t mind.” Gertie giggled softly, almost like a little girl, as she fondled Jared’s now considerably-sized erection through the gabardine fabric of his trousers. “I ain’t never had a man built like this shoving up inside me. Saints be praised, mister, you got yourself somethin’ real special here.”
Jared at last turned away from the window. He picked up the whiskey bottle and filled Gertie’s glass once again to the rim. His face was utterly devoid of expression when he looked at the woman surreptitiously fondling his erection.
“Come on upstairs with me, mister,” Gertie whispered. She picked up the now-full whiskey glass and brought it to her lips without spilling a drop. When the glass was again back on the table, it was half empty. “You don’t gotta pay me nothin’.” Her face lost its animation, taking on a quiet seriousness as she added, “I ain’t never been with a man like you.” She reached deep between his thighs to fondle his testicles. “You’re more man than any man I ever know’d.”
Jared was not entirely drunk, but he was not entirely sober, either. His cock was hard as stone, but for the life of him he just couldn’t find enough motivation to take Gertie upstairs to her room. She had made it clear that she wanted him, that she would do anything he wanted, and that she wasn’t looking for payment for her services. But every time Jared looked at her, all he saw was a very slender woman with unremarkable breasts that she was more than willing to show with a low-cut décolletage. What Jared was hungry for, what his mind and body were aching for, was a voluptuous woman with large and round and amazingly beautiful breasts who wore dresses that hardly showed any cleavage at all.
He wanted Helen, or no one at all.
Jared rose to his feet. He picked out a five dollar coin from his pocket and dropped it onto the table near the half-empty whiskey bottle. “You take that money and that bottle up to your room,” he said. “If I get the feeling, I’ll be up to see you. If I don’t get the feeling, you just stay alone in your room all night. You can help yourself to that bottle, if you like.”
Such behavior was so uncommon in Gertie’s life that she couldn’t think of anything to say. Jared was walking through the swinging batwing doors of the Golden Nugget saloon when she said with absolute honesty, “You’re a real gentleman, mister. A real, true gentleman.”
Jared had made it through the saloon’s doors, but had not stepped off the boardwalk yet, when he watched two people walk o
ut of the First Bank & Trust of Whitetail Creek. One was Helen Miller, wearing a gray skirt, white blouse with a touch of lace in front that buttoned all the way up to her throat, and a gray, waist-length jacket. Her luxurious, auburn hair was held in a rather severe bun at the base of her neck. She was talking animatedly to a short, slender young man, who apparently wasn’t believing what it was Helen was saying because he was shaking his head vigorously and making motions in the air with both hands.
“This night’s beginning to look up,” Jared said aloud as he stepped off the boardwalk and into the muddy Main Street of Whitetail Creek, beginning to close the thirty-yard distance that separated him from the woman who had captured nearly all of his thoughts from the first moment that he’d met her.
* * * *
“Helen Miller, I swear, you’re the oddest young woman I’ve ever met in my entire life!” Marcus exclaimed, jogging several steps to keep up with his friend’s entirely undignified rapid pace. “And will you please slow down? There are those of us who don’t like running, you know?”
Helen wheeled swiftly upon her friend, and the look in her emerald-green eyes was anything but sympathetic. “Marcus, perhaps this isn’t the time for you and me to be together. I’ve had a very bad day, and if you really must know—”
From the corner of her eye she caught movement. Why she paid attention to anything other than Marcus, in the midst of a rather heated conversation, would later mystify her. But Helen did, in fact, turn toward the “movement,” and when she did, the breath caught in her chest because Jared Parker was striding swiftly toward her, and the look in her eyes was sufficient to put ice in Helen’s veins.
“Oh, God,” Helen whispered, a hand to her mouth. “I’ve got to go.”
Chapter Eight
Jared caught up with Helen after she turned west at the back of the bank and found herself blocked by crates of pickaxes waiting to be unloaded into Carver’s Mining Supplies. She had a death grip on Marcus’s left wrist, preventing her best friend from leaving her alone with the man who had proven himself amazingly capable of talking her into doing nearly anything.
Marcus, having been dragged along in a feverish dash from Main Street into the back alleyways of Whitetail Creek, had no doubt that Helen’s fear was completely genuine.
“You’re the man that was at the bank earlier today, aren’t you?” Marcus asked. Despite the fact that Jared towered over him, he moved so that he was standing directly between him and Helen. “I don’t know what business you’ve got with my friend here, but she’s scared of you. And you’d better know that her fiancé is the vice president of that bank, so if you’re a smart man you’ll just start walking away. Her fiancé is one of the most powerful men in the whole Dakota Territory.”
Helen watched as Jared’s dark eyes narrowed venomously. He looked a bit haggard, as though he hadn’t slept well, and for reasons she could not even begin to understand, she took a certain satisfaction in his bedraggled appearance.
Jared slid his hands to his lean hips, pushing his coat back as he did so. He hardly looked at Marcus at all. His eyes glittered menacingly as he said to Helen, “So that overfed, little jackass is your fiancé?” With a fingertip he pushed his new Stetson back on his head. He was shaking his head in utter disgust. “Goddamn it all, not for a second did I think someone like you would be messed up with a preening jackass like that.”
Jared took a step closer. Helen took a step back, pulling Marcus along with her. Her shoulders were against the back wall of Carver’s Mining Supplies. With Jared closer now, Helen was faintly aware of the scent of whiskey.
“You’ve got to leave me alone,” Helen said quietly. She sniffed the air with a touch of drama. “Have you been drinking?”
Jared snarled. “Goddamned right I have. Why in hell would you ever give a man like Gregg Neilson two seconds of your time?” He moved closer, and now his body was nearly touching Marcus, who was shivering visibly but holding his ground. “I recognized that jackass from when he rode to your house. The minute I walked into his office, I knew he was the man in your life. He was the son of a bitch that bought the good whiskey at your house.”
“Don’t. Please, don’t say any more,” Helen pleaded. She was frightened of Jared, frightened of her response to him whenever he was near, frightened of emotions that made no sense to her. Irrationally, she put one hand over her ear, though she continued to hold tightly onto Marcus’s wrist with the other. “I’m not going to listen to any of this.”
Marcus squared his slender shoulders and said as firmly as he could, “You’d best just leave now, mister. The law around here doesn’t take kindly to men who—”
Jared’s dark, flinty gaze turned slowly and ominously toward Marcus, and when he fixed him with his cold stare, Marcus’s throat tightened up and words became impossible.
In a quiet voice, Jared said, “Nothing is going to happen to your friend that she doesn’t want to have happen. Why don’t you just take a walk? There’s no need for you here.”
Before Marcus could respond, it was Helen who stomped her foot and said, “No, Marcus, you stay right here.”
A muscle twitched angrily in Jared’s jaw. He looked past Marcus at Helen, the expression on his face hot with anger and yet cold-blooded. Several seconds passed in total silence before he put a hand to Marcus’s shoulder, pushed him two steps to the side, and then hooked his left hand around the back of Helen’s neck.
“I know what you want. I know what you need.” He paused a moment. “Most of all, I know how you like it,” Jared said, his voice low and menacing. “So get ready because you’re going to get it.”
He pulled Helen closer as he slanted his mouth down over hers. His kiss was brutal, demanding that Helen respond, triggering in her that strangely submissive quality that Jared’s dominating, alpha-male persona alone could reach in her. As he pressed his lips tightly against Helen’s, Jared forced her harder against the wall, trapping her voluptuous body. Holding her securely with his left hand, he put his right hand over her breast and squeezed, his ardor and fury, his hunger for the pleasures he knew were possible with Helen, causing him to use too great strength.
With her mouth pressed against Jared’s, she uttered a high-pitched squeal of pain. Helen used her free hand to push Jared’s hand from her tender breast, though she continued to squeeze tightly onto Marcus’s wrist with the other.
Jared finally ended the kiss, and when he did, he forced his knee between Helen’s legs then raised his knee so that his thigh pressed firmly and intimately against her. Her lashes batted against cheeks that had become pink with a combination of embarrassment and sexual excitement.
“Don’t,” Helen gasped, her mouth open as she gulped in air, her expression one of fear and futility. “Don’t do this to me, Jared. There are—”
Jared spat, “You can’t mean to tell me that you actually want that banker!”
Helen’s green eyes instantly became glassy with unshed tears. “There are things that you’ll never know,” she said softly, her tone changing from helplessness to a world-weariness. “I have obligations that make everything…” Her voice drifted away.
“Make everything what?” Jared demanded.
Leaning back against the wall, Helen’s face was completely blank of expression when she finally answered in a voice so soft it was almost inaudible, “Difficult. Very, very difficult. Sometimes even impossible.”
Jared took Helen’s face in his hands, using his thumb lightly to brush over her lips as he looked into her eyes. He said, “Tell me. I’ll make the difficulty go away. I’ll even take care of whatever the hell you think is impossible.” He smiled crookedly and added, “People pay me damned good money to make problems disappear.”
Helen glanced over at Marcus. The young man’s face was ashen, his eyes darting nervously from Jared’s face to Helen’s before jerking back again. With her gaze on Jared, she shook her head, and with a kind of sad resignation replied, “You just don’t understand…”
He kissed her again, a bruising and demanding kiss like the first time. His right hand went from her shoulder down to her breast, and this time he caught her nipple between forefinger and thumb and caressed with just the right amount of pressure to draw the maximum amount of pleasure. Despite herself, Helen moaned into Jared’s mouth as she began kissing him back. When Jared touched his tongue to her lips, Helen willingly parted them. His tongue eased into her mouth and began the erotic tongue-dance of lovers.
They kissed for a full forty-five seconds before Marcus said softly, “Helen, this isn’t the right time…and Lord knows this isn’t the right place for…ah…” He cleared his throat nervously. “Come on, Helen. Let me take you away from here. This man…he’s not good for you.”
Jared ended the kiss and stood erect, glaring down at Marcus. His eyes went from his face to the wrist that Helen was still holding tightly with white-knuckled intensity. A crooked half smile pulled up the corner of his mouth and caused the dimple to form in his cheek. “By the look of it, she seems to think you’re some kind of lifeboat that’ll keep her from going under.” He lost the half smile so that his expression was oddly neutral, though his body was tense. “Stick around. Maybe you’ll learn something. I don’t mind an audience, and I’ve been known to teach more than a few young bucks a thing or two about giving and receiving.”
Helen gasped, “Oh, God! I can’t believe this is happening!”
“It’s happening, all right,” Jared replied like a shot. “And I know just what you need.” He paused for several weighty seconds before adding, as much for Marcus’s ears as for Helen’s, “And how you like it.”
