Jeremiah shuddered. “What a deep and darkly disturbed individual. I think you should get right on over there and have him arrested.”
“With no proof?” Derrick said. “Besides, we had to come back here and give you the medicine that Percy prescribed.”
Alameda said, “My brother-in-law Neil is the deputy of Laramie, but he’s stuck out at his ranch in the Snowy Range. Right now we’re likely to find Castillo at the Oddfellows Hall, building scenery for the play. Where I should be now, rehearsing and getting fitted for my new costume. Oh, my.” Alameda coughed into her fist, then reached for a glass of sherry on a nearby table.
Her face looked a bit red, so Derrick stood by her. “Is it the asthma again? You didn’t don another tight corset, did you?”
Alameda seemed unable to sip the sherry. “I…need…a corset…”
Derrick frowned. “You could wear one that allows you to breathe, at least. Alameda, just because you have a voluptuous figure doesn’t mean you need to—damn it!”
She was choking again, able to inhale only extremely shallow wheezes. Just as Derrick kneeled to unbutton her bodice once more, Rudy skidded over to take his place, but Alameda’s fingers were already on her velvet-covered buttons.
“Allow me,” said Rudy, shouldering Derrick aside. “I can perform some animal magnetism on her. There are certain tides in the human body—”
Derrick shouldered him back. “Damn the tides, Rudy. She needs to breathe.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” lamented Jeremiah. “Not more animal magnetism. That always brings forth that horribly creepy Percival fellow. It’s just not natural, ghosts from beyond piercing the veil that separates us. There’s a reason for that veil, you know. It prevents those of us still incorporated in human bodies from going loco—oh, my, what is that?”
Six hands were on Alameda’s buttons, and when the shelf of her bosom spilled out freely, Derrick saw that, indeed, she wore a less restrictive corset. So he had no excuse to go cutting her laces, which was unfortunate for him but lucky for Rudy. As she breathed deeper and color returned to her face, Rudy was already laying his healing hands across her diaphragm, so Derrick retreated.
Jeremiah was moving to the parlor window as though he stalked prey—arms out like a spider’s, legs crawling in different directions. “There is a beast outside,” he whispered.
Since Rudy was selfishly healing Alameda’s breasts, Derrick followed Jeremiah to the window. As they’d been warned about the hallucinatory effects of the whiskey root, he didn’t expect to see much. He was surprised to see sitting in the snowy garden of Albuquerque House a white wolf.
“He is talking to me with his mind,” Jeremiah insisted.
“Oh, hogwash,” said Derrick, but Jeremiah did have a point. How else had Jeremiah known there was a beast outside when he was sitting far across the room?
The gorgeous, furry wolf sat not ten feet from them, staring directly at them. He didn’t seem in a rush, just cocking his fluffy head at them, his icy blue eyes full of intelligence, wearing his winter coat. An object glittered in the snow at his paws, something silvery, about a foot long.
“What is he saying with his mind?” Derrick asked.
“He is saying that The Phenomenal Percy is standing—” Jeremiah turned and faced the room. “Oh, jumping Jehosophat,” he murmured and collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Derrick didn’t stoop to assist the illusionist, as he was now facing an illusion of his own. The two-dimensional Percy stood by a writing desk in the parlor, his arm stuck into a happy wave, an impish grin pasted to his face. Derrick strode forward to see what Percy wanted.
“What’s the news, Percy?” he asked casually.
Percy’s mouth didn’t move when he said, “Rudy must perform his cabinet escape act. That will bring Kittie back from her hiding place.” His arm now moved to a position as though he were reaching for a pencil that sat on the desk. The stiff photographic arm swiped at the pencil but apparently was incapable of picking it up.
“You wish to write something?” Derrick found a sheet of note paper and nudged the pencil toward Percy.
“I can’t,” wailed Percy, his face now changed into a mask of sorrow.
“Try manipulating the pencil with your mind,” suggested Derrick.
Percy’s expression switched to one of concentration as his two-dimensional arm again strained for the pencil. However, Derrick was distracted by a feminine sigh that was distinctly not of the healing variety. Whipping his head around, he saw his friend Rudy with his face buried between Alameda’s bounteous breasts! And Alameda was clutching his skull to her as though encouraging him!
Derrick abandoned Percy and raced over. He tore his friend from his beloved’s bosom and tossed him so he skidded on his ass.
“What sort of healing is this?” he bellowed. “That’s fine behavior from a guy who pretends to only be interested in other men’s chests! Was that a lie?”
“Forgive me.” It was Alameda who apologized, holding her arms open to Derrick. Of course he instantly melted, kneeling between her thighs, where Rudy had previously been nuzzling her bosom. “His hands were giving me such pleasure.”
“I’ll bet!” Derrick snapped, casting Rudy a look meant to kill a buffalo.
“No!” Alameda protested. “I mean healing pleasure. Suddenly all the congestion and stricture in my lungs went away. I have never been able to breathe this freely. It was I who clasped his head and drew it to my chest. I imagined his breath would be even more healing.”
A flash of guilt went through Derrick then. He could testify that Rudy’s “breath” could indeed be very healing, and it shamed him. Alameda’s little gesture was not nearly as lewd as the act he and Rudy had committed together the night before. Derrick had slept in Rudy’s bed, dreamless and exhausted, but had woken to a fat erection pressed against his ass. Of course he had leaped out of bed and gone to bathe. But memories of the orgasm—the best of his entire life, it was true—that Rudy had coaxed from him with his voracious mouth would not easily subside.
Perhaps it was to erase these memories that Derrick now dipped his head to her chest and gave a fat cow’s lick there. He licked the beautiful sloping spot, the canyon between her rippling breasts. When she purred in appreciation and held his head as she had been holding Rudy’s, his awareness of the entire room shrank to the space only they occupied.
Derrick completely forgot about Montreal Jed, cold as a wagon tire under the window where the watchful wolf still presumably sat. Or The Phenomenal Percy, who couldn’t even pick up a pencil. No, Derrick’s entire world suddenly consisted of Alameda’s magic bosom, so incredibly buoyant it defied gravity. His lips vibrated with her delighted purring, encouraging him to squiggle his tongue up the rise of a milky, monumental breast.
It stimulated him to inhale Rudy’s scent of cedar wood, left behind in Alameda’s cleavage. It made him feel as though he were closer to his two new friends, both of them at once. And Rudy—where was he, anyway? Derrick inhaled deeply of both the cedar and Alameda’s jasmine scent that rose strongly as he dipped his tongue underneath the edge of her corset.
With a little jiggle of her shoulders the breast popped free, and Derrick fell right to lapping up her plump nipple. She wriggled her hips anxiously, and Derrick felt the swell of her mound of Venus as she massaged it against his chest. When he panted against her nipple, tiny bumps raised around the areola and a squeal came from deep in her chest.
She whispered in a new, husky voice, “I want you so badly.”
Derrick raised his head slightly from his suckling. “Show me how you accomplished your crisis yesterday,” he murmured, taking up a handful of her rust-red skirt. How many layers did this damned thing have? There was a fringed hem like a curtain covered by an overskirt with tassels, then a handful of some fancy embroidery.
Alameda’s dark Latin eyes smoldered with mischievous fire. Derrick lapped at her erect nipple and saw the reaction in her face. Her eyelids fluttered, and her pupils se
emed to roll up a bit in her head. She was the most responsive woman he’d ever tangled with, and he couldn’t wait to dip his fingers into her pussy. But he wanted direction. In his experience, women were the best compasses of their own bodies. All of the different methods they used were enough to rattle a man.
Alameda assisted him to raise her skirts, eagerly gathering them in her hands. She had no modesty about bunching the layers up in her lap and displaying her lacey drawers to him.
He kissed her lightly on her curvaceous lips. “Show me.”
Sitting back on his haunches, Derrick avidly watched as her fingers went to the slit in her drawers. He helped by holding back the two edges of scarlet flannel, gratified by the sight of the elongated, purplish button peeking out from dark curls.
“I take my fingertip like this,” said Alameda. They shared a devilish glance, but Derrick had to study her technique. “I take some of the…the juice?”
“Juice,” Derrick agreed.
“On my fingertip, but it is usually already very slimy. See? Then I just diddle, mostly on the right side here. The right side seems more sensitive than the left. The middle is too sensitive. Just…right…here…Ah!”
When Alameda found the right spot her eyes really did roll up in her skull. Derrick was fascinated with her manner of flicking her index finger against her button, coiled up pertly like a tiny rosebud, blooming with each stroke. It was always a stimulating sight to watch a woman pleasure herself, but it was absolutely unbearable now. Alameda with her thighs splayed open, breasts heaving and jiggling with her rubbing movements. It was all too much for any healthy man to bear.
Derrick experimentally lifted a hand, prepared to replace hers with his, when suddenly Rudy was sitting next to him, eyes shining with excitement.
“Is that the usual manner a woman frigs herself in?”
Derrick couldn’t help but smile at his friend. Perhaps Rudy had never witnessed such a sight. “They all seem basically the same, but no two women do it exactly alike.”
Rudy raised an eyebrow. “Allow me?”
Derrick’s heart stopped for a moment. Then it struck him. He had told Rudy last night something about not wanting to dally with anyone else. But if Alameda allowed Rudy to toy with her in Derrick’s presence, perhaps that was a different thing altogether.
He made a minute nod. “Alameda. Rudy wonders if he could—”
Alameda’s outburst made both men jump. “Oh, holy mother! Would someone—anyone—just please assist me?”
Derrick retreated, but only by a few inches, as Rudy replaced Alameda’s fingers with his. As a magician accustomed to sleight of hand, of course he was nimble, and Derrick instantly roiled with jealousy to see the reaction Rudy’s technique had on the fetching Miss Hudson. She moaned in a staccato “Uh—uh—uh” as she clutched the chair arms, her feet clenched in tiptoes in their little boots.
Rudy was evidently thrilled at the reaction to his technique. “Ah,” he said, leering. “Am I doing this right, Miss Alameda?”
“Oh, God yes!” Alameda looked about to rip the chair arms off. “Shut up and don’t stop!”
Feeling left out of the steamy coupling, Derrick moved to embrace Alameda. Gently he replaced a lock of dark brown hair that had slid undone from her coiffure. He gingerly licked her earlobe to see if she could stand the distraction. When he saw no reaction—she seemed to be meditating, barely breathing, concentrating on some inner mantra—he whispered, “Come for us, my little duck. Come all over Rudy’s fingers.” She gasped when he pinched her upturned nipple, so he slurped at it to lubricate it for further diddling. He continued whispering, “Come, you fetching hellcat. Let Rudy feel what a gusher of juice feels like flowing over his hand. You’re making Rudy hot with your pussy all juicy in his hand.”
He just assumed this. It sounded good, and Alameda seemed to like it, too, for she commenced biting her lower lip. Derrick sped up his fiddling with her nipple. “Rudy wants to watch you come. Let him know what it feels like to make a real woman come. Reward him for his talents and efforts. He wants to watch—”
Hell, Derrick was rewarded. Gasping a sudden, giant breath, Alameda held it. There was a brief pause during which Derrick knew she was floating on that plateau of near-orgasm, that cusp when one knew the ecstasy would come crashing down. And then she came.
Derrick nearly felt she would break the chair with her bucking, choking, and gasping. Rudy could barely keep ahold of her slippery button with her violent humping. His expression was quite concerned as he struggled to keep up with her. Derrick maintained his twiddling of her nipple and his nibbling at her earlobe, whispering, “Come, Alameda. That’s good. Ah, that’s good. Just let that gusher of juice flow down Rudy’s wrist. Show him how talented he is. Come.”
Derrick had never seen a woman’s orgasm last that long. He thought Rudy’s wrist might be tiring, the way she carried on, jerking her hips with every convulsion. At last Derrick slowed down his tickling of her tit and ceased his nibbling at her ear, to give her a chance to deflate. It seemed she might break something—the chair or an inner organ—if she kept this up. He could see why she had fallen down yesterday and banged her head.
“That’s good.” He encouraged her. “You’re just a sensuous little hellcat, my darling duck.”
“Beautiful,” breathed Rudy.
“You might want to stop,” Derrick advised him. “Otherwise they get overly sensitive and it starts hurting.”
“Oh.” Rudy withdrew his hand as though burned. “Do they always come that long? Is it always that drawn out?”
“Not usually.” Derrick stroked Alameda’s temple as she began to breathe more regularly, although her abdomen still hiccupped as she tried to catch her breath. He chuckled softly. “In fact, never. My duck, my duck,” he cooed distantly.
“Is she all right?”
“I hope,” Derrick said dubiously. “Yesterday she wasn’t.”
“Yesterday?”
Derrick shot his friend a mischievous glance. Perhaps he wanted Rudy to think he had made Alameda climax yesterday. He certainly felt left out, and now he would have to perform even more thrillingly to impress this spitfire. But for now, he was satisfied that she had allowed Rudy to participate. Rudy preferred men—didn’t he?—so Derrick felt no real threat to his courtship. “You’ve never done that to a woman?”
“Not at all,” Rudy said matter-of-factly.
Frowning, Derrick smoothed Alameda’s skirts, dropping them one by one to the floor as she pulled herself up wearily in her chair.
She whistled weakly. “Wow. That was, ah, inspirational.” She looked at Derrick as though she’d never seen him before. Then a wave of recognition flowed over her face. “Ah. Help me up. I think I’d like some more sherry.”
“Are you sure?” Derrick stood and took her hand.
“At least I didn’t fall and hit my head this time.”
Rudy asked, “Does that happen often?”
Alameda looked back over her shoulder as she headed for the sherry. “Never. Until I met the two of you. It must be your magical conjuring skills, your animal magnetism.”
“Do you feel well?” Rudy asked. “I mean, with your asthma.”
Alameda took a deep, hearty breath. She did look satisfied as she picked up her sherry glass. “I’ve never felt this good. You men have the power of healing.” Her eyes caught a piece of paper on the writing desk, and she picked it up. “What’s this?”
“Oh,” said Derrick. “I’d forgotten. Percy arrived when you began magnetizing Miss Hudson. He said if you put on your cabinet act, Kittie will reappear.”
At this, Rudy jumped up. “I can do my escape act!”
Alameda said, “I can’t participate since I’m supposed to be in the Black Crook play. In fact, I should be getting over there right now. What is this a diagram of?”
Derrick took the paper from her. His jaw fell open when he saw that Percy had, indeed, succeeded in manipulating the pencil. It looked like a—“Design for
skis,” he murmured. Percy’s ski was shorter and curvier than any Derrick had ever used and seemed to have a new binding to keep the ski on the foot. “Use birch binding,” Percy had somehow written.
“That son of a bitch,” Derrick marveled. “Alameda, do you mind if we stop at a carpenter’s on our way to the Oddfellows Hall? Not that Castillo carpenter, of course. Someone who could make me this.”
“Poor Montreal Jed.” Rudy stood at the window looking down on the mangled supine form. “Hey, what’s that in the snow?”
Alameda waited on the front porch while Derrick and Rudy put on their Indian snowshoes to go retrieve the implement Derrick had earlier seen at the feet of the white wolf. Oddly, no paw prints were pressed in the snow. With hands on knees, they bent to view the bowie knife in the snow. One spot of blood was splashed on the blade, standing out vibrantly against the blinding snow.
“Or cinnabar paint,” Derrick mentioned.
Rudy picked up the knife and touched his tongue to the spot. “Blood. This is not good.”
“Where in the hell,” Derrick mused, “did that wolf come from?”
Chapter Eleven
“All right. Tie me up. Tie the most elaborate, difficult knot you can think of,” said Rudy. “Remember, the audience member is going to make the most convoluted knot he possibly can.”
It didn’t feel as though Derrick was making very complex knots as he tied Rudy’s wrists at the small of his back. “Why don’t you just have an associate sitting in the audience do it? That way he could tie the knots you know how to get out of.”
“That’s what’s usually done. People are more savvy nowadays. They’ll be much more amazed if they see me getting out of knots one of their friends tied.”
“But they won’t see you,” Derrick protested. “You’re going into this cabinet to escape, right? And you’ll shut the doors?”
“Right. I’m really hoping that Castillo decides to bring Kittie back during this act. Maybe everyone will be busy looking at my cabinet as I struggle and knock it around, and he’ll allow her to walk in the front theater door. I can get you to hide in here, too, and bang some damned tambourine around. All right. Rub that bear grease all over my hands and wrists.”
Cold Steel and Hot Lead [How the West Was Done 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 9
