“Well … it would only be for a couple of hours if there’s four teams,” Lucy said. “I reckon it’d be all right. We’ll stand the first watch, though, so in case you get to feelin’ poorly, we can wake up somebody else and let them take over.”
“Fair enough,” Longarm said with a nod, then looked around to see if everybody was in agreement.
No one objected, although Longarm thought he saw a definite look of disapproval in Helene Booth’s eyes. He wasn’t sure why she would care one way or the other, unless she still had her cap set for him and was jealous of the fact that Lucy would get to spend that much time with him. The way he felt, though, romance was sure as hell about the last thing on Longarm’s mind, so Helene didn’t have anything to worry about.
With the matter settled, everybody got ready to turn in except Longarm and Lucy. She poured another cup of coffee for him and one for herself, then sat down cross-legged beside him on the ground, her Sharps at her side.
Not surprisingly, Lord and Lady Beechmuir didn’t just spread their bedrolls on the ground in plain sight of everybody else. The seemingly bottomless packs they had brought along yielded up a canvas tent, which Singh and Ghote set up with practiced efficiency. The tent wasn’t large, but it was big enough for Booth and Helene. The two servants slept in the open, rolling up in blankets, as did Thorp and Randall. Catamount Jack, of course, was accustomed to having no roof except the stars, and within two minutes after he spread his buffalo robes and crawled into them, he was snoring loudly.
Longarm waited until it seemed that everybody was asleep, then stood up. Instantly, Lucy was on her feet beside him, worriedly putting a hand on his arm. “What are you doin’, Marshal? If there’s something you need, I’ll be glad to fetch …”
“No offense, Miss Vermilion, but some things a fella’s just got to do by himself,” he said with a faint smile.
“Oh. Well, in that case…” She picked up his Winchester and handed it to him. “You’d better take this with you, and keep your eyes open.”
“I generally do,” Longarm assured her, not adding that when a man took a leak with his eyes closed, he sometimes wound up pissing down his boot.
He felt a little shakier than he let on, but he was able to circle the campfire and move off into the darkness beyond the ring of light. It took only a moment for him to realize that they were camped on a bluff overlooking the river. He could see a silver line of moonlight reflecting off the Brazos below. The night was full of sounds: the call of an owl, the rustle of small animals, the far-off howl of a coyote. The noise was a welcome reassurance to Longarm that nothing strange was prowling around at the moment. He would have worried more if the night had been quiet.
He tucked the rifle under his left arm, unbuttoned his trousers, and took care of the business that had brought him here, sending his stream arcing out over the edge of the bluff and letting it splash to earth some seventy or eighty feet below. When he was done he buttoned up again and started to turn around. He froze, then edged his hand toward the action of the Winchester when he saw a shadowy figure approaching him.
It took him only an instant, however, to realize that the person coming toward him was Lucy Vermilion. As she moved, she passed between him and the fire, some twenty yards away, and he saw her silhouette clearly against the flames. “What are you doing out here, Lucy?” he called softly. “I told you I’d be right back.”
“I got to worryin’ about you bein’ so close to this bluff, Custis,” she replied as she came up to him. “I was afraid if you got dizzy, you might topple right off of it.”
“Well, I didn’t,” he told her as he took a step toward the fire. “We’d best get back to camp. We’re supposed to be standing guard.”
“In a minute,” she said, moving so that she blocked his path. She put a hand on his arm again and went on. “I’ve been thinkin’ about you ever since last night, Custis. I know you ain’t up to any slap-and-tickle tonight, but as soon as you’re feelin’ better … well, maybe I better just give you a sample of what you got to look forward to.”
She came up on her toes and her mouth found his. Longarm’s head still hurt and he experienced occasional spells of dizziness, but without hesitation, he put his free arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. Her lips opened and her tongue darted against his. He parted his lips to let her in. She probed wantonly in his mouth as her belly ground against his groin. Despite everything, he felt his staff hardening, and so did Lucy.
She took her mouth away and whispered, “I ain’t a tease, Custis, I really ain’t. But you ought to recuperate a mite before we really go at it again.”
“You’re right,” Longarm agreed. “But we don’t neither of us have to like it, do we?”
Lucy giggled, a somewhat surprising sound from such a self-reliant young woman. “We’d better get back to camp,” she said. “I shouldn’t be out here temptin’ you. I just didn’t want you to forget about what we had before … and what we’ll have again.”
“I’m not likely to forget,” Longarm said fervently. “Not likely at all
…”
Chapter 14
He had to be dreaming, Longarm thought as he woke later that night. He felt a hand at the buttons of his trousers, unfastening them. Soft, warm fingers stole inside the garment and caressed his organ through the long underwear for a moment, then unbuttoned the underwear as well so that his erect shaft could spring free of its confinement. Those fingers closed hotly around it.
Definitely not a dream, Longarm realized, but he was still half-asleep anyway, and the bullet crease on the head he had suffered was making it difficult for him to throw off the bonds of slumber. “Damn it, Lucy,” he muttered under his breath. Obviously, she hadn’t been able to wait after all. He hoped nobody else had noticed her slipping into the bedroll he had fashioned out of blankets borrowed from Thorp’s supplies.
The fingers slid lightly up and down his stalk. Longarm let out a muffled groan of passion. His hips twitched involuntarily.
With the part of his brain that was functioning, he wondered what time it was. He and Lucy had stood guard over the camp until midnight, then woken up Beechmuir and Singh and turned the duty over to them. Longarm forced his eyes open and studied the stars he could see through the trees around the camp. From the look of those celestial timepieces, several hours had passed since he fell asleep. Randamar Ghote and the cowboy called Randall were probably standing guard now. Longarm sort of hoped so anyway. Despite Lucy’s assurances otherwise the night before about how her father wouldn’t care, Longarm didn’t much cotton to the idea of Catamount Jack finding the two of them snuggled up together like this. It would be bad enough if they were discovered by one of the others.
Maybe he ought to just tell Lucy to go back to her own bedroll, he decided. He lifted his head, intending to whisper to her to do just that, when the warmth of her hand went away from his shaft and was replaced by an even greater heat.
Longarm’s head flopped back and he groaned softly once again as lips closed sweetly around his shaft. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sensation. A wet, almost searingly hot tongue circled the head of the pole of quivering flesh. His hips thrust up again, driving more of his length into her mouth. She grabbed on with both hands and sucked harder. Longarm felt his climax building.
There was no turning back. The skillful ministrations of her lips and tongue brought him to the brink in no time. Her grip on him tightened as his seed boiled up and exploded out of him. She didn’t pull her lips away, but instead swallowed greedily as he filled her mouth with the culmination of his passion. Spasms shook Longarm’s entire body for a seemingly endless moment; then he slumped back, an irresistible lassitude sweeping over him. He was still weak from his injury, he knew, and Lucy had just about worn him out. He breathed deeply, trying to recover from the internal earthquake. His head didn’t hurt at all, he realized, even though his pulse was pounding loudly inside his skull.