“Hush now. We don’t want to wake Eric.”
“We?”
“Shhh. You’re going to make me laugh, and I don’t want to do that. It hurts.”
“Sorry. So, um, what was it that you wanted to do if it ain’t tell jokes an’ play pinochle?”
“What makes you think I don’t want to play pinochle?”
“You’d ‘a brought a lamp.”
“Actually I did want to play pinochle. But I forgot the lamp. Do you think we can think of something else instead?” Her hand was groping around in the dark. This time it wasn’t a chair she was feeling for, though. It wasn’t a chair she was finding either, although the particular part of Longarm’s anatomy that she settled on to explore in more detail was soon about as hard as the leg of a chair. “Oh, my,” she whispered. “I do like this.”
“You sure you’re feelin’ up to this?”
“I am. So are you.”
“Look, Angela, you don’t owe me a damn thing. An’ I wouldn’t want to hurt you. So whyn’t you slip back inta bed now before …”
“Shhh.” She squeezed his cock with one hand, and with the other laid a finger over his lips to hush him. “I’d shut you up with a kiss, except it would hurt too much to bend over like that. Do you mind?”
“I ain’t complaining.”
“Good. Now hold still and let me do this. Otherwise I’m afraid we’d get to thrashing around, and I don’t think I could stand much of that just now.”
“I’ll try an’ be good,” he promised, only half facetiously.
“As I recall, sir, you are very good indeed.”
Longarm chuckled. And offered no objections when Angela squatted over him with one foot planted tight against each side of him just slightly above waist level.
She touched him lightly on the flat of his chest with one hand to stabilize her balance, and with the other guided his cock while she lowered herself onto his manhood.
Angela needed no preparation. She was wet and ready before the head of his cock ever slid in between the lips of her pussy. He heard her sigh softly in the darkness as the length of him burrowed deeper and ever deeper inside until she had captured all of him within her.
“Nice,” she whispered. “So nice.”
“What, did you come here to talk the night away?” he teased.
She laughed, a little too loudly, then continued to laugh under her breath. He could feel the tiny movements and pulsations as her stomach quivered and rippled with the laughter. It was a nice feeling. Friendly, sort of. He liked it. And told her so.
“Thank you.” Slowly, stroking long and deep, she lifted herself over him and then came down again. Gently. Deeply.
“Damn but that’s nice.”
“I do agree, sir, and I do be thanking you.” She leaned forward and touched his cheek with a fond caress.
Yeah, Longarm thought, Buddy Fulton’s mama was one nice little lady. Sweet and giving. And a good screw too. Never mind what she looked like in the daytime after Cletus Terry got done beating on her. She was one very nice little woman.
Longarm lay back and let her gently draw the juices of his masculinity out of his body and into hers. He came with a sigh and a shuddering, pulsing flow, then closed his eyes and let sleep claim him. He didn’t even know when Angela left him. And if she bumped into any furniture on her way back to bed, well, this time she didn’t wake him.
Chapter 29
“Dang it, Miz Fulton, you’re in no condition to be lifting that heavy griddle. An’ believe me, you an’ Buddy don’t want to try eating what I’d cook. So you stay right there where you can get on with the business of mending while I go down to the cafe and fetch us back something. No, I ain’t gonna listen to no mumbling or fussing about this. My mind is made up on the subject.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
“In that case, Mr. Long, could I ask you for some tea today?”
“You don’t like coffee?”
“Not really.”
He’d been bringing coffee right along and had never thought to ask if she liked it. Hell, everybody liked coffee, right? Well, almost everybody. So tea it would be today. And coffee. The thought of starting the day with a dainty little old cup of dishwater tea instead of a good stout mug of coffee was too awful to contemplate.
“I’ll bring you some tea. What about you, Buddy?”
“Could I have a pork chop?”
“You can have as many of ‘em as you like. What’ll it be?”
The boy’s eyes became wide with the prospect. Pork chops? As many as he liked? “Two pork chops?”
“Three if you’d ruther. It don’t make no nevermind to me, son.”
Buddy grinned. “Three pork chops then. And some fried taters. And some hominy. I love hominy. And some …”
“Eric!” his mother warned.
“It’s all right, Miz Fulton. He can have anything he wants. I said so. Only thing is, whatever he takes, that’s what he’s gotta finish. I won’t be carrying the stuff up here just for him to waste.”
Angela subsided. So did Buddy’s enthusiasm. “I have to clean my plate?”
“Dam right you do.”
“Then maybe you should make it two pork chops. And not so much taters and hominy. What do you think?”
“I think you’re gonna have you a good breakfast. Miz Fulton, how ‘bout you?”
Her request was considerably more modest than her son’s had been. Tea, toast, maybe a little jam if it wasn’t too much trouble.
He’d just order up three hearty breakfasts, Longarm figured, and Angela and Buddy could work out between them who got around what. He made a mental note of what he needed, then picked up his Stetson and unbolted the shanty door.
The door hadn’t more than swung open before there was the booming report of a shotgun blast, and the door kicked back on its hinges under the thundering impact of the shotgun charge. Sometime since last night, Longarm thought even as he was swinging into action, the guy with the two-shot gun had gone and gotten himself some real shotgun shells. He wasn’t loaded for duck hunting this morning.
“Lower. No, scoot bac: just a little bit. That’s better.” Longarm’s first concern was for Angela and Buddy. He had the both of them lying on his pallet with the protective bulk of the iron stove between them and the shotgun outside. A heavy shotshell pellet fired at close range can punch clean through the sort of thin lathing that the Fulton shanty was made from, and he didn’t want either one of these innocents hurt any further on his account.
He put them in the safest place he could find inside the house, then dragged the wood box over to shield them from the side. He stuffed a pillow underneath the stove to more or less close in the gap between the iron legs, then covered the woman and the boy with the quilt he’d slept under. A good quilt can stop a partly spent shotgun pellet. Maybe. Often enough to be worth the effort now anyway.
“Both of you lay still. I don’t wanta have to think about what my target is. If I see something move I wanta know I’m free to fire. Do you understand that? It ain’t a matter of who’s brave or who ain’t. It’s a matter of can I shoot without worrying about you two. An’ that can be the difference between me living or me dying. I ain’t being a hero ‘bout this. I’m bein’ selfish. An’ I wanta stay living so I can keep right on bein’ that way. You understand that. Buddy? Miz Fulton?”
He waited until he got a nod of understanding from each of them, then draped the quilt over on top of them, covering even their heads so as to give them as much protection as was possible.
“Wait here an’ don’t move. I’ll be back quick as I can be, but I don’t know how long that’s gonna be an’ won’t make you no promises that I might not be able to keep. Just you both mind, you stay here till I come fetch you. That way we’ll all be safe.”
He touched Angela on the shoulder and gave Buddy a poke on the upper arm, then palmed his Colt and eased up beside the open doorway.