by Patty Devlin
A giddy happiness coursed through her, the glee of their success combined with her relief and finding Sam still by her side made it difficult to stop smiling.
Sam drove back to the inn and unhitched the horses. “I had better not go in with you,” he said.
She frowned. “Well, where will you go?”
“Never you mind. I will be here in the morning. That is, if you’re still holding me at gunpoint and demanding I go to Denver.”
She grinned. “I am.”
“All right, then. Go in and get a good night’s rest.”
She started to obey him, then looked back over her shoulder, hating to part from him again.
“Go on, Mabelle.”
She ate a supper provided by the innkeeper’s wife and climbed the stairs to her room where she took off her boots and calico dress.
A rap at the window made her jump and stifle a scream.
She threw open the curtains to see Sam motioning for her to open the latch. She lunged for her dress, but Sam rapped again, his gesture growing more insistent, so she unlatched the window and pushed it open for him to crawl through.
Picking up her dress, she held it in front of her. “What are you doing?”
“I believe we require a little reckoning before we travel together,” he said, removing his hat and rolling up his sleeves.
“Oh no,” she said backing up, trying to gauge his level of seriousness.
The glint in his eye excited her, even as the idea of going over his knee after the last painful trip did not appeal. He lunged forward and caught her around the waist, pulling the dress from her fingers and dropping it to the floor. He sat on the bed and arranged her over his lap so her head rested on the mattress.
“What is this for?” she demanded, squirming in his grasp. “I meant it when I pointed the gun this time!”
He chuckled and loosened the ties on her corset. “I appreciate that, Mabelle, I really do, but I still do not take kindly to having my toes threatened. I thought we agreed I should lead?”
He had not spanked her yet, his warm hand stroking her pantalet-covered bottom, sending frissons of excitement straight to her core.
“That was on the trip to Cheyenne! Now we’re already here!”
He laughed. “Oh so that is how you reason it? We shall see about that…” He opened the drawers at their seam and slapped her bare bottom.
“Ouch! Stop it, Sam!” she protested, bucking under his hand.
“No, ma’am,” he said, beginning a steady volley of slaps. “I will not stop until I am quite sure you received the message I intend to impart.”
“Ow! I received it! I am sorry, let me up!”
He chuckled again, but did not slow his tempo, spanking one cheek, then the other, smarting her poor bottom which had barely recovered from his last spanking.
She kicked her legs. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! I won’t do it again! Stop spanking me!”
“Mabelle,” he said in a perfectly calm tone. “If you don’t quiet down, the entire inn will hear your spanking, and they will know you are not alone in here.”
“Well that would be more your problem, then mine!” she retorted, but she took a mouthful of the quilt between her teeth and bit down, giving a muffled yelp of protest at the flurry of spanks.
He did not stop until her bottom blazed and he had slapped every inch of flesh visible in the window of her pantalets. Then he pulled her to stand, cupping the heated cheeks in his hands. She whimpered, though not from pain, as he kneaded and smoothed circles over her quivering buttocks.
A molten heat deep in her core caused her most private parts to clench and her legs to tremble.
Sam looked up into her face, a smirk twisting his lips. “Who owns this bottom?” he demanded.
The muscles contracted again, moisture leaking onto her inner thigh. She squirmed in embarrassment. “Y-you do,” she managed.
He continued his tortuous kneading. “And so who is in charge around here?”
She wanted to cross her legs, to rub them together and get some kind of relief from the burning desire winding like a coil within her.
“You are!” she snapped, desperate for release.
“Good girl. Go put your nose in the corner and leave that slit open so I can look at my handiwork.”
Why those words should make her even more hungry, she could not explain, but they did. She obeyed him, leaning her forehead in the place where the two walls met and spreading her drawers wide to display her bare chastised bottom.
She stood trembling, desperate for something, anything to alleviate the need within her. Creeping one hand to the front of her pantalets, she surreptitiously pushed at her nether region through the linen, trying to wiggle her finger in such a fashion as to give herself some kind of relief.
Chapter Five
Oh heaven help him, his little ranch girl had her fingers between her legs!
His cock already ached from turning her bouncing buttocks pink, her vociferous protests only heightening his enjoyment of spanking her. He moved behind her, pressing his hands against the two walls beside her head.
“What are you doing?” he rasped, his voice rough.
She jumped in surprise, her wayward hand diving under the protection of the other hand at her waist.
“Untie your drawers, Mabelle,” he murmured. “Let me help you with that.”
He held his breath, expecting her to tell him to go to hell, but after a moment of shocked stillness, her little fingers fumbled with the ribbon of her pantalets. He nearly groaned with excitement.
She undid the ties and stopped, her fingers holding up the drawers. He took each of her hands in his own and lifted them to press against the walls she faced, interlacing his fingers over hers and giving a squeeze as his lips nibbled the outside of her ear and the side of her neck. Her drawers dropped in a pool at her feet. Sliding one hand up her arm, he stroked across her throat, then down to cup the curve of her breast beneath the corset. His other hand wandered southward, sliding down her belly, over the thatch of silky curls, his finger slipping into her hot welcoming sex.
She bucked, gasping and standing on her tiptoes, throwing her head back onto his shoulder.
“That’s it, sugar. Let me pleasure you,” he murmured in her ear. Growing more excited, his left hand dove inside her corset to seek her nipple, which he pinched and rolled between his finger and thumb, all the while sliding the fingers of his right hand over her moist slit.
She gave a cry of need, her hand closing over his at her sex, urging him onward. He pushed his finger past her entryway, her plump folds enveloping it with heat. “Oh!” she gasped.
He leaned over her to plunge deeper still, adding a second finger and pushing them in and out, the back of his thumb catching the most sensitive area until she squirmed and squealed with need, her thighs clamping around his hand, her bottom clenching as she yanked up on his hand to embed his fingers deeper within her. The walls of her sex rippled against his fingers, squeezing them as she shuddered with release.
When her climax passed, she fell back against him, spent and limp. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her the few steps to the bed, where he helped her under the covers. She gave him a dazed look, her face still flushed with passion. He pulled off his boots and climbed on the bed beside her, purposely not joining her under the covers.
“Put out the lamp,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse.
He smiled and extinguished it, clasping his hands behind his head and listening to her breathe. She lay still for a few minutes, then began to wriggle.
“That wasn’t all, was it? I know there’s more to it than that.”
He chuckled. “Are you already hungry for more?”
“Yes,” she said in the darkness.
He rolled to face her, leaning on his elbow. “I’m not going to take your innocence, Mabelle. It wouldn’t be right without making you my wife, and I can’t very well make you my wife when I’m a Wanted man.”
“
Why not?”
“Well, the preacher who married us might turn me in, for one thing, and I might not have long to live, for another. I do not want to leave you with a ranch to run and my child to raise by yourself.
“It would be an honor to raise your child,” she said softly.
His heart surged and he rolled on top of her, covering her body with his own, claiming her lips with a possessive kiss, his tongue invading her mouth.
She answered by looping her arms around his neck and parting her legs, though the blankets tangled between them. He sat up, straddling her and pulling the bedding down as he backed up until he freed her legs from the quilt. Gripping her thighs, he parted her legs and pushed her knees back, lowering his head to her sex.
“Wait! What—?” Mabelle gave a strangled cry as his tongue met her delicate pleats, tracing her slit along its full length before he settled his mouth over her little peak of pleasure, which he intermittently sucked and flicked with his tongue.
Mabelle struggled wildly beneath him, her incoherent cries urging him on. Using the fingers of one hand, he plumbed her depths, then curled his fingers to tickle her inner wall, seeking the secret place that could make a woman scream. When he found it, she tore at his hair, thrashing against him until her juices ran freely.
She pushed up on both elbows, panting when it passed. “I still don’t believe that’s precisely how it’s done,” she said.
He lifted her ankles in the air and applied several swift slaps to her bottom, catching her sex between her legs with each spank. She gasped, squeezing her cheeks together and trying to lift her bottom to dodge his blows.
“Are you complaining?”
“No sir!” she exclaimed, and he laughed, pleased she remembered to call him “sir.”
“If you do not stop begging me for it, I will have to go spend the night in the barn.”
She reached for his trousers, retracted her hand shyly, then reached again. “Surely there is something I could do for you?”
He groaned. Unbuttoning his trousers, his cock sprang out, rock hard with need. He guided her little hand to the base of it, showing her how to grip it firmly and slide her fist up and down his length. He rolled to his side with his back facing her to give her a better angle, and she spooned him, her arm around his waist, her little palm squeezing his eager cock. She needed no further instruction, pumping her hand up and down, driving him delirious with the sweet sensation of her delicate feminine hand, the smell of her juices still filling the room. He closed his eyes, imagining the privilege it would be to actually take her, his cock plunging into her hot, wet channel…
His orgasm came like a runaway stagecoach, no chance of stopping it once it had begun. He took over for Mabelle, not wanting to surprise her when he squirted his seed in a powerful release.
He rolled over and took Mabelle into his arms, kissing her neck as they nestled together, sleepy and spent from the delicious love-making.
#
She slept soundly despite the newness of having a man’s hard body beside her. She woke when he stirred and watched him as he climbed out of bed, his muscles rippling, his every move oozing masculine power.
She wanted him to spend every night beside her, to wake every morning to the sight of his commanding presence. But fate had cursed her to fall in love with a man whose days were numbered.
As bold as she had been the night before, in the light of the morning, she wished she had on more clothing beneath the covers. She waited until he turned his back and slipped out of the bed, running to snatch up her drawers and try to get them on before he turned back around.
He caught her hopping on one foot and laughed. Striding over to her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “Feeling shy this morning?”
Her face grew warm. “No,” she said defensively.
He laughed again. Spinning her around, he yanked down the drawers she had just managed to step into and gave her several swift slaps on her bare bottom. “Have you forgotten something?”
“What?” she said, the spanking stoking her desire, which had never fully been spent the night before.
He slapped again, right between her legs, catching her sex with the flat of his palm and her back hole with his arm.
She yelped in shock.
He repeated the action. “This bottom belongs to me. You cannot hide it from me, because I decide when it gets bared, when it gets covered, and how often it gets spanked.”
His words turned her knees to jelly, flames of passion heating her sex from the inside out. He brushed his fingers across her moist opening and chuckled. “Someone’s ready for more.”
Pulling up her drawers, he reached around in front to tie them. “Sorry, sweetheart, but we need to get on the trail before I’m discovered here.”
She could scarcely recover, bewildered with desire, she simply stood in her corset and pantalets and blinked at him.
He smiled, his gaze warm. “You are beautiful, Mabelle Law-less. I would like nothing better than to stay and ravish you all day long, but it will have to wait.” He handed her the dress she had discarded the night before and strode to the window peering out. Voices carried from outside, the sounds of men saddling up and riding off.
“I think I’ll just walk downstairs and out the front door,” he said. “But if anyone recognizes me, I’m going to get on my horse and ride like the dickens. You just hitch the horses and start toward Denver and I will find you. Understand, Law-less?”
The tension produced by his plan eased under his appreciative gaze. Somehow he always made her feel brave, as if she could handle anything. She pulled on her dress and boots and nodded. “Ready.”
He smiled. “Let’s go.”
They slipped out without anyone commenting, and he made quick work of hitching the wagon and tethering the horses—now three with Huff’s steed. They set off, following a trail running parallel to the railroad tracks.
They rode in easy silence, stopping only to rotate the horses.
“How far is Denver, anyway?” Mabelle asked.
“A few days.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Are you sure you want to go?”
She lifted her chin. “Of course, I’m sure. This could be your one chance to clear your name.”
“And if it’s a trap? Or if I get killed? You’ll be a long way from home. Not that I don’t think you can handle yourself on your own.”
Their night of passion had made her bold. “I’m willing to take the risk. For you.”
He smiled, but he seemed wistful. “Only reason I’m risking it is for you. If there truly is an inheritance, you might as well collect it, even if I’m dead. Looks like love has made fools of both of us.”
She flushed to her roots at the word love, her lips unaccountably trembling. He put his arm around her and slid her closer to him on the wagon seat. “Look at me, Mabelle,” he said softly.
She turned to gaze up at him. He put a finger under her chin to angle her face up and kissed her lips.
They pitched camp when they came upon a little creek in a hollow protected from the wind. Even though it was not yet dusk, Sam said it would be better to stop near water then to push on and perhaps not find another choice resting place.
They ate from the provisions she had purchased in town. Sam set up a few snares and kept a keen eye trained for any game to shoot, but he did not manage to provide any meat. He spread their bedrolls out in the back of the wagon, and they laid on their backs and stared up at the stars.
“The sky here is so different,” she murmured.
“Different from where?”
“Virginia. That’s where I came from.”
“Why did you move out here?”
“The truth?” she said.
“Yeah, of course the truth. I spank for lies, you know,” he said, giving her a mock stern look.
She squeezed her thighs together, his words igniting the desire he had barely slaked the night before.
“It seems absolutely foolis
h now. So much has changed.”
He took her hand, intertwining his fingers between hers where they lay between them. “I know,” he said softly.
“I didn’t like any of the marriage prospects my parents trotted out for me. I kept refusing my suitors, until my father threw his hands up in the air and said I must marry the next prospect who came around. So when the letter came saying Susie had been taken ill, I jumped at the chance to get on a train for Wyoming. I did not think it through at all. I had no idea what life would be like here, or the reality of Susie’s consumption.”
“Were you sorry when you got here?”
“Never. Even with all the hardships, even with losing both Frank and Susie, I have never once wished I married one of those stuffy men who think women should sit in parlors and cross-stitch and speak in quiet tones.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, exaggerating his relaxed way of speaking. “I prefer my women to wear guns and collect bounties on Wanted men.”
She giggled. “You sure about that?”
“Only dead ones. I mean,” he said, jumping to correct himself, “Only the ones I’ve shot.”
“You still afraid I’m going to turn you in?”
“No ma’am,” he said with the signature confidence that made her swoon.
“What sort of women do you like, Sam, truly?”
“I had a wife,” he said with the tone of confession. “She died in childbirth.”
She gave his admission ample time to settle before she murmured, “I am so sorry.”
He shrugged. “No one said life is fair,” he said. “That is what my ma always used to say.”
“What was she like?” she asked, hoping she did not offend him.
“My ma or my wife?”
“Your wife. And your ma, I guess,” she said, curious to know everything she could find out about her outlaw.
“Both of them were like you—strong. Brave. My wife was demure, but my ma had the devil’s sass in her, just like you. She had to, owning a saloon. She never bowed to anyone—had the whole town wrapped around her finger.” He squeezed her hand.
