It was as if both of them were aware of the explosion coming and knew they had better hold on for dear life.
Involuntarily, Longarm's hips twitched as culmination shook him. Aurora moaned and swallowed eagerly as Longarm's pearlescent seed raced along the length of his shaft and burst out into her mouth. Spasm after spasm rocked him as he spurted. The moment seemed to stretch out endlessly. He wouldn't have suspected that he had that much to give her.
And she took it avidly, every drop, squeezing the last bit from him and swirling her tongue around his softening shaft to make sure none had escaped her.
Longarm closed his eyes and dropped his head forward. Blood thundered inside his head from his racing pulse. In his life, many women had done for him what Aurora had just done.
But few if any had ever done it any better.
"That was... mighty fine," he said when he had recovered a little of his breath.
Aurora looked up at him and licked her lips one last time. "I did it all right?" she asked.
Longarm took hold of her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. "More than all right," he told her. "If you were any better at it, you'd have likely killed me."
Aurora gave a little laugh and hugged him. "I wouldn't want that."
She reached down, tucked him away, and buttoned his trousers again. "I suppose if you really have to go back to the Diamond K now, at least you'll remember me."
"I'm not likely to ever forget," Longarm said sincerely.
"But next time--and there will be a next time--it's going to be my turn. Dear Angus was a bit squeamish about other things too."
Longarm could just imagine--and that was his problem. In his mind's eye, he saw Aurora spread out there on that bed, splendidly nude, creamy thighs flung wide open, the patch of dark hair and the inviting folds of pink flesh that it framed calling out to him with an urgency that would not be denied. That vision was probably exactly what she had meant for him to see, he thought.
"Next time," agreed Longarm. "You've got my word on that."
"And I'll hold you to it," said Aurora. She kissed him, then said, "All right. Go."
It was only as Longarm was riding away from the camp that he recalled the conversation he'd had with Molly Kinsman earlier in the day, before leaving the Diamond K. He had made a promise to her too, and she had responded in exactly the same words as Aurora. I'll hold you to it. Longarm shook his head in chagrin.
There were times when being a man of his word could be downright tiring--and he suspected that where Aurora and Molly were concerned, this was going to be one of those times.
CHAPTER 12
As Longarm more than halfway expected, Molly Kinsman was waiting for him when he got back to the Diamond K. She came down rapidly from the porch, where she had been standing with her hands on the railing, and hurried out to meet him as he rode up. "Did you have any trouble?" she asked anxiously.
Longarm shook his head. "Nary a bit." For the time being, he wasn't going to mention his suspicions of Ben Callahan, or the confrontation he'd had today with the man, to anyone on the Diamond K. There would be time enough for that when he had proof one way or the other.
"Did you see her?"
Wisely, Longarm refrained from grinning. But it was difficult, because the memory of what Aurora had done to him was still incredibly vivid in his mind. Instead, as he dismounted he said noncommittally, "As a matter of fact, I did. I talked to Mrs. Mcentire and her foreman and found out they haven't had any trouble since the truce they called with your father. Heard about their plans for expanding their operation too."
Molly rolled her eyes in disgust. "That's all we need, more trees cut down on the mountains. Do you know what that will do to the runoff and the soil erosion around here?"
"Well, from what I've seen so far, Mrs. Mcentire and her men are being careful not to clear-cut too much land," said Longarm as he led the roan into the barn. "A lot of those logging companies don't give a damn what kind of shape they leave the country in behind them, but that ain't true of Mrs. Mcentire and her men. I don't think you have to worry overmuch about what they're doing ruining your range."
"I hope you're right," said Molly, "but I'll believe it when I see it."
Longarm unsaddled the roan, rubbed it down, and turned it into its usual stall. Molly pitched in to help him, forking up some hay and carrying it over to the stall. They were alone in the barn at the moment, but it was late afternoon and Longarm knew that wouldn't last. Soon, the hands would be drifting in from their day's work, and they would want to put their horses up. Longarm hoped Molly realized that.
If she did, she didn't care. She stepped up to him and put her hands on his arms. "Custis," she said softly, "you made a promise to me."
"I know I did, Molly," said Longarm, his voice solemn, "but surely you don't expect me to honor it right here and now! Hell, girl, anybody could walk in on us--that young firebrand Seth, or Joe Traywick, or your daddy. Any one of 'em would be liable to up and shoot me if they caught us."
Molly turned away, pouting. "You just don't want me because you probably spent the afternoon romping with her."
She could pack an awful lot of scorn into one little word, thought Longarm. But he wasn't just about to tell her how close to the truth she was. Besides, it hadn't been all afternoon.
He put a hand on Molly's shoulder. I'm not trying to put you off," he said gently. "It's like I told you-"
"I know, the right time and place." Her voice was dull now. It became a little more spirited as she went on. "If you're not careful, Custis, I might just decide that making love with you isn't such a good idea after all."
"That'd be up to you," he said honestly.
Molly gave him a long, searching look, then turned and walked out of the barn. Longarm waited a minute or two, giving her time to get back into the house, then followed. He turned toward the bunkhouse rather than the main house, though. He wanted to talk to Joe Traywick.
Traywick was out on the range somewhere, which came as no surprise to Longarm. He sat down on a stool in front of the bunkhouse and picked up a piece of branch from the ground. Drawing his clasp knife, he opened the blade and began shaving thin curls of wood off the broken branch. To the casual observer, it would look like he was simply whittling to pass the time. In reality, though, Longarm was thinking, replaying and turning over in his mind everything that had happened since his arrival in the Cascades a week or so earlier.
Those rustled steers still bothered him. It had taken a cowboy to pull that off. But the accidents that had struck Aurora's logging operation had to have been carried out by a timber man. It was unlikely any of the Diamond K hands would have known how to rig a high topper's pulley so that it would plunge the timber cutter to his death. Nor would they be overly familiar with the booms of logs floating down the creek and know how to send one of them careening out of control.
Could there be two bunches of badmen causing trouble around here?
Longarm considered that possibility for several moments, then tentatively discarded it. Everything pointed to the fact that someone was trying to play the Mcentire Timber Company and the Diamond K against each other. Longarm's instincts told him that one person was behind the trouble, one schemer who was perfectly capable of hiring both renegade loggers and drifting hard-cases with cowboy skills to carry out his plans.
The knife blade practically flew over the wood as Longarm whittled and thought, thought and whittled.
He was on to something, he sensed. If Callahan was the culprit, he could recruit some of his own men to attack the Mcentire operation, but he would still need some place for the owlhoots he had hired to hole up whenever they weren't creating more deadly mischief on the Diamond K. And even if Callahan wasn't involved, whoever the boss was would still have to have a hiding place for his men. Some place handy, where he could get word to them fairly quickly.