Untamed Journey

by Eden Carson

  She thrust her body uncontrollably against his hand, wanting his fingers deeper and wider inside her, as her body clutched him into its secret folds. When she felt Jackson slide himself up against her clit, to settle in the wet folds of her heat, she screamed in pleasure as wave after wave overtook her – filling her body, her breasts, her lips with pleasure.

  Pulling her more firmly into his lap, he kissed her leisurely. He carefully removed the last of her clothing, pulling her half-undone dress over her tousled brown hair, before stroking the mass back into place. He pulled her completely naked form up against him, as he leaned back against a large oak for support. He once again stroked his hand down Ruth’s silky hair, not stopping until he caressed the full length of her backside. He repeated the motions, until he felt her stir against him once again.

  Ruth gazed with utter satisfaction into Jackson’s dark eyes, still burning from his unfulfilled need. She straddled his lap, where his need thrust hard and long against her. She smiled slowly and placed his hands on her breasts, thrusting against his warm palms until her nipples hardened in response. She ached for his mouth on her.

  She watched him separate his fingers, exposing her nipples to his tongue. He gently licked first one and then the other tip, circling each until her breathing became rapid and short.

  He pushed her onto her back, where she could feel the smooth touch of long, cool grass against her now naked skin.

  Jackson rained tiny, biting kisses down the full length of Ruth’s torso, not stopping until he reached the center of her heat. He stroked lightly over her mound, until he carefully separated her lips, exposing her naked flesh to his tongue.

  He kissed her with an open mouth, reveling in the taste of her as she moaned her need beneath him.

  Ruth arched her back to the open sky, surrounded by the cool meadow grass at her back, the warm sun stroking her face and caressing her breasts, and Jackson’s burning tongue on her sex. She stroked her hands down her breasts, as a more languid heat pulsed through her body. She unconsciously spread her legs to his probing as he sought entrance to her body, lightly thrusting the tip of his tongue at her opening.

  When she felt his rough tongue glide into her, Ruth’s body responded with a rush of liquid pleasure, flooding her body with unfulfilled need. She stretched her arms over head, clutching the grass and cool earth in her fingers, as she felt his tongue pull out, then thrust back in, reaching further inside her. She responded freely to Jackson’s exploring tongue as it pulsed in wicked rhythm to her body’s needs. She felt the surge of pleasure return, anticipating his touch and the release he would bring.

  As he pulled out from inside her and stroked his soaking tongue up and over her clit, she felt the first wave touch her insides, and thrust her hips eagerly forward, uninhibited.

  Jackson sat up, and quickly pulled Ruth back into his lap, so she was once again straddling him, this time with no cloth barriers between them. He caught her languid gaze with his dark eyes, fully-dilated, as he slowly pushed himself between the soft folds of her skin.

  She felt every hard inch of Jackson enter her, stretching her aching body into a tight fit. Her body clutched around him, flooding their union with more heat, more wet. When he grasped Ruth’s roaming hands and placed them on her breasts, encouraging her to stroke herself as he watched her pleasure. Mindlessly obeying, she began to thrust her hips in need against Jackson, riding him as he groaned, fully encased in her.

  Grasping her hips, he urged her pace faster – pushing her higher and closer to release, as she stroked his hardness between her thighs and her swelling breasts in her hands. When Jackson could hold back no more, he pulsed into her one last time, giving his body and his future completely to this woman.

  Ruth cried out in completion as she felt Jackson’s release enter her body, pushing her into orgasm. Her hips relentlessly clutched him inside of her, pulsing over and over until Ruth’s body slid in pleasurable exhaustion into Jackson’s waiting embrace.

  Chapter 68

  Sue and Ruth returned to Fort Lyon in triumph, delivering a full three-month supply of feed to Colonel Roe, and another one-hundred pounds to the local stable owner. The women each drove their own wagon, with the Mormon, Thomas Minor, bringing in the last of the delivery later that day.

  The Colonel was so eager to get all his officer’s mounts onto the new diet that he agreed, with little fuss, to Sue’s insistence that he provide all the man power to unload her delivery. This left Sue and Ruth free to roam the Fort for the afternoon, while the Colonel’s rank and file did all the heavy lifting.

  “Truth be known, I was three snow days away from pushing my last husband under the nearest moving carriage,” Sue confessed to Ruth, as they crossed the muddy street. “If the fever hadn’t taken him, God rest his miserable soul, I would surely have done something rash.”

  Ruth couldn’t hide her quick intake of breath at Sue’s shocking words.

  Sue just laughed as she took the girl’s arm in hers and headed toward the only saloon the Fort boasted. “You’re young yet. And in love for the first time, would be my guess.”

  At Ruth’s telltale blush, Sue nodded. “You go through three husbands on the frontier, my dear, and then come talk to me again. You’ll have a hard time summoning up a good blush, that’s for sure.”

  Sue continued to chuckle as she led the young Ruth into the Ladies Tea Room and introduced her to the owner.

  Seamus O’Malley, Sue explained, was the illegitimate son of an Irish potato farmer who had charmed his way into a haystack with the landed gentry’s favorite daughter in County Clare. When the infant O’Malley’s presence could be hidden no longer, the doting father sent his youngest girl to the care of the nuns. The mewling babe was then handed over to his handsome father, along with pre-paid passage to America – for two.

  O’Malley’s father turned his good looks and glib tongue into a successful saloon in Boston proper. O’Malley and son slept in a two-room apartment above the saloon, with the only female influence coming from the frequent lady friends his father brought home. The women never stayed long, but were forever doting on the handsome father, and his poor, motherless son.

  O’Malley was barely seventeen when his father met an untimely end at the hands of a suspicious husband with a pickax. His son took over the business, but set off for greener pastures within a year after being paid a visit by the local police. They demanded a second payment – on top of the normal protection O’Malley Senior had been paying for sixteen years – to look the other way when they learned that O’Malley Junior was too young to hold a liquor license. O’Malley quickly sold the place to a competing Scotsman three blocks down, and staked himself in a new, much rougher establishment on the edge of the frontier.

  O’Malley found that he liked the freedom afforded the average man on the frontier. So every ten years, as the number of rules increased with a growing population, he would pack up and move further west. This had brought him to Fort Lyon nearly three years ago.

  He immediately set up shop, serving good imported whiskey and cheap local beer to the men of the Fort. O’Malley soon learned that the Colonel didn’t tolerate alcohol on duty, and so found himself with a roomful of empty chairs at least two days each week during the inconveniently timed duty rotations.

  After three months of lackluster profits, O’Malley had come up with the idea of serving the women of the Fort – some of whom liked a spot of whiskey, strictly for medicinal purposes.

  It was the first and only establishment of its kind for three hundred miles. It was only open Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, so as not to overlap with the off duty time of the men. And the Tea Room was strictly for ladies. O’Malley was respectful of the women’s privacy, and would turn away the occasional traveler who would show up on a Tuesday in search of O’Malley’s famed whiskey.

  Happily, Sue said, she had timed their delivery on just such a Tuesday afternoon. She pulled Ruth along with her, as she headed in search of a small congratula
tory whiskey.

  Ruth had to carefully weave her way through an uncontrolled melee of wagons, mounted riders, foot traffic, and scurrying children, all swarming across the muddy street. When Sue hitched up her long skirt and advised Ruth to do the same, they made a dash through the mud and muck of a busy work day.

  “Whatever you do, don’t stop,” Sue advised. “Most of the Cavalry is still sauced from last night’s cavorting, and the wagon drivers are too overloaded with cargo to swerve and miss you.”

  Ruth didn’t question Sue’s wisdom, and followed her darting path at a quick pace until they safely reached the wooden planks that served as the Fort’s only pedestrian walkway. As Ruth was pulled out of the teeming street by the laughing older woman, she felt an insistent tug on her other arm. She turned to see who was behind her.

  “Ruth? Ruth Masterson?” an unfamiliar voice called out.

  As Ruth was rather forcefully swung about, she came face-to-face with a large, stocky, and very irate man.

  “Well, speak up, woman. This is you, isn’t it?” Frank Masterson thrust a small photograph next to Ruth for comparison, satisfied he’d found the right woman.

  Ruth recognized the photo as one her aunt had arranged less than a year ago.

  “I’ve been looking for you close to a month now. Where did you disappear to?” Masterson asked, paying no mind to Ruth’s companion, who still had a firm grip on his wife’s arm.

  Sue demanded her own explanation. “Ruth, do you know this man?”

  “Well, I –” Ruth could barely find her voice, the shock was so great. She had just about convinced herself that her future lay with Jackson, and had not thought about her proxy marriage in weeks.

  “I’m her husband, Frank Masterson. And who might you be?” He deliberately took a step toward Sue, expecting her to back up and release Ruth’s arm.

  Sue stood her ground and gave Ruth a good shake. “Ruth, tell this man he’s made a mistake.”

  Ruth paled as she looked her new friend in the eyes and whispered the truth. “There’s no mistake. I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you telling me you’re a married woman?” Sue asked, her mouth dropping open.

  “Well, yes. Yes, I am, but not really. I mean we just now met. Isn’t that right, Mr. Masterson?” Ruth faced the stranger before her, having finally found her voice.

  “We’ve been wed, all legal and proper, for weeks now. Makes no difference how it came about. You weren’t forced, were you?” Masterson narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer to Ruth.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” she admitted. “But it was my aunt’s doing, not mine. She gave me no choice. I had to eat, and she threatened to throw me out on the street,” Ruth argued in her defense.

  Masterson tightened his grip on Ruth. “Don’t be dramatic, girl. Women all over the world get married to put food on the table. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I’ll provide for you and our children, as my duty demands.” He plastered a smile on his face, and even tipped his hat to Sue, as they had started to draw a crowd of curious onlookers. “Now come along, I have a hotel room right across the street where we can talk about this in private.”

  Sue tugged just forcefully enough on Ruth’s sleeve to force Masterson to let go or start a public tug of war with two women.

  “Ruth, don’t go with him,” Sue implored in a low enough voice that Masterson could not hear her over the noise of the street.

  Every passerby was straining to catch a word.

  “I don’t trust him,” Sue insisted. “Not one bit. And Jackson deserves an explanation. He’s in love with you. He’ll forgive you.”

  Ruth could not swallow past the knot in her throat, knowing the truth of what she had done. She had lied to Jackson. She couldn’t imagine why he would ever forgive her.

  “But I’m married, Sue. Mr. Masterson is telling the truth. It is legal. It was a proxy marriage, arranged by my aunt. I was on that train to come join my new husband when it was robbed.”

  Masterson tugged on Ruth’s arm. “Come along, now. I have business to see to and can’t wait all day for lengthy goodbyes. You’ll see your friend again, I promise. You can visit all you want after we get settled.”

  As Masterson started to drag Ruth off the wooden sidewalk, the red-headed Seamus O’Malley cut him off, placing his considerable bulk in between the ladies and this stranger.

  “Ladies, is this trash bothering you?” the Irishman asked.

  “You meddling son of a bitch! That’s my wife, and you’ve got no right. Now, step aside.” Masterson barked his orders, hand on his revolver.

  Ruth quickly intervened. “Mr. Masterson, please. Why don’t we have lunch here and talk? In private, as you wanted? I’m sure once I tell you all that has happened, you’ll understand my dilemma.”

  Not wanting to pass the next six months in the local jail awaiting the arrival of a circuit judge, Masterson nodded his head in agreement. He even had the good sense to open the door for Ruth and Sue.

  O’Malley ushered all three over to a corner table, out of view of the front door and the straining necks of the three old men who warmed the front stoop. “You can sit right here. I normally have a strict policy of no men on Tuesdays, but since it’s you, Miss Sue, I’ll make an exception.”

  When Sue started to join them at the table indicated, Masterson protested. “We need some privacy. I understand you consider yourself a friend to my wife, but you have nothing to worry about. I may have been a bit short with you out there, but understand, my new wife disappeared from an armed train robbery. I thought she was lost or dead – or worse. I’ve been looking for her everywhere once I found out her body wasn’t on the train. I’ve been worried sick.”

  She turned to Ruth. “What do you want to do?”

  Ruth did her best to smile and reassure her friend. “I’ll be all right. We’ll just talk.”

  Sue nodded curtly. “O’Malley and I will be right over here if you need anything.”

  Masterson pulled out a chair for Ruth, and she sat down. His nimble mind ran through his options. He had been expecting to find his wife dead, or at least alone and destitute – not surrounded by new-found friends.

  “Please, my dear. Let’s start again. I’m afraid I overreacted out there, but you can understand how upset I’ve been, with my new wife missing. You’re my responsibility. I should have seen to your protection, and I feel I failed you. I’m ashamed to have made such a huge mistake in sending another man to see to your safety, when I should have done so myself. I had no idea Jasper Smith would prove to be so unreliable. He was a childhood friend. I felt an obligation to offer him gainful employment, to keep him off the streets.”

  “You’ve spoken to Mr. Smith then? Since the train robbery, I mean?” Ruth cautiously fished for information, afraid to hope she was not in fact a murderer, but equally afraid to find herself face-to-face again with her attacker.

  “Yes, just recently,” Masterson began. “He concocted some story of being shot by one of the bandits during the robbery. But I can always spot a liar. And I know he was hiding something from me. What really happened on that train? And where have you been for the past weeks?”

  Ruth was so very tired of half-truths and lies that her first desire was to blurt out the entire story. But she feared the reaction of her would-be husband.

  “I don’t know the entire story of what happened on the train,” Ruth began. “I just heard a terrible noise in the middle of the night. I was so scared I hid in my compartment with the door locked. The next thing I knew, it was all over and the Marshals came to my door to explain what had happened.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with the train, with the other passengers?” he asked.

  “I was too frightened to stay there alone. All the other passengers had traveling companions, and I thought Mr. Smith was dead. I was alone in a strange place, where I didn’t know anyone. Several of the lawmen agreed to escort me to the next town, and here I am.”

  Masterson didn’t buy her sto
ry, any more than he believed that Smith had told him the entire truth. But he didn’t much care either way. He needed a warm body to be his wife, and finalize the land claims he’d staked in her name. If Ruth turned out to be a serial liar, he’d find out soon enough – and make himself a widower once he had his railroad built and money coming in.

  “Well, I don’t mean to upset you, recalling that terrible ordeal,” Masterson said. “I promise we’ll never speak of it again. Now, please. Let’s start fresh. I have the biggest house for a hundred miles waiting for a woman’s touch. If we leave in the morning, you can be hanging new curtains by tomorrow afternoon.”

  Ruth started to panic, not knowing how to persuade this man to let her go. “Mr. Masterson, please understand. I’ve changed my mind. In fact, I never wanted this marriage. I mean no disrespect to you. You’re still a stranger to me, but I’m sure you’d make a wonderful husband to the right woman. But it was a mistake for me to sign those papers. And you deserve better than a reluctant wife.”

  “I completely understand how any woman would have cold feet. Especially considering all you’ve endured. But my dear, correct me if I’m wrong, but you still have no one to go back to. What will you do?”

  Ruth detected the man’s impatience with her, but wouldn’t quit. “I have friends here now. And please believe me when I say that I will pay you back for the cost of my train ticket and the wedding dress you purchased. I’m sure you could easily get an annulment. I’d take responsibility for the entire situation, and sign any papers the church might require so you can find a new wife.”

  “I’m trying to be patient, Ruth,” he said, eye ticking furiously. “But you’d owe me a lot more than the few dollars I paid for your ticket and a few rags. Your sweet aunt took me for quite a pretty penny.”

  Ruth’s mouth dropped open. “What do you mean? She didn’t say anything to me about this.”

  “I’m not surprised. We both called it a dowry, although the fact that it went in the wrong direction was not fooling anyone. Now let’s drop the niceties for a moment, shall we? Your aunt sold you to me, and pocketed all the profits. But don’t you worry, I’ve got money, and I’ll be even richer soon. I have nothing but respect for the practical nature of women. And if you do as you’re told, and be a proper wife, I’ll keep you in all the fancy dresses you want. Now, come along. An annulment is out of the question. But if you cooperate, I’ll forget this ever happened.” Masterson stood and held out his hand to Ruth.