“You can count on me, Miss Lucy. You know I won’t say anything to anybody.”
“I know that, Ben. Thank you.”
There was a distinct sparkle in the pretty lady’s eyes after the waiter left. Longarm looked at her and lifted an eyebrow.
Lucy looked back at him. And burst into laughter. “Ben is a dear. He’s also a gossip. If I hadn’t given him something to tattle on he would have invented something worse. So now he can make up a dandy yarn indeed. Before midnight tonight half the citizens of Picketwire will know that there is a U.S. marshal in town and that he’s asking questions that probably have to do with the United States mail. By morning they probably will have worked out if it’s mail theft you are investigating or mail fraud.”
“We take on theft from the mails, but the Post Office has its own crowd to look into mail fraud.”
Lucy smiled. “Do the good people of Picketwire know that?”
“I see what you mean. I …” He was interrupted by Ben’s return. The waiter placed a heavy tray on the sideboard, quiCKly piled the soiled dishes onto the old coffee tray, and then silently disappeared taking the old tray with him.
Lucy winked at Longarm. And got up to cross the room—it required only a few strides—to draw a stout bolt shut. No one could enter the private room now unless she or Longarm first chose to unbolt the door.
“Mind if I ask what it is we’re doin’ here? Assuming, that is, that it ain’t mail thievery you got in mind.”
Lucy’s smile was enigmatic. She came around the table to stand beside him, plucked the stub of his cheroot from his fingers, and tossed it into a nearby cuspidor.
She took the hand that had held the cigar and placed it onto one warm, soft breast. “Dessert,” she told him softly.
Longarm decided he might be able to handle dessert this evening after all.
Chapter 8
Lucy Watson turned out to be one of those women who look better naked than clothed, a trait that is far from being universal. Her flesh was a pale, velvet texture, very white and very soft. Her breasts were plump and fluid to the touch, shifting without substance when he squeezed them. By the time Lucy was thirty they would sag, and when she was forty they would hang to her waist. But right now they were fine, the skin containing them so tender it was near transparent. Blue veins showed through like so much subsurface lace, and her nipples were sharp-tipped and prominent.
Her waist was as small as if she had whalebone stays built in instead of ribs, and her hips swelled quite fetchingly beneath that tiny waist span. She was a trifle long-waisted, though, her legs shapely but just the least bit short for her height.
She had delicate feet. And possibly the longest toes Longarm had ever seen on any human creature, though there’d been a hawk or eagle now and then with longer talons. Maybe.
It was her mouth, though, that interested him right at the moment. And what she was wanting to do with it.
“Lie down, please,” she whispered.
He sent a skeptical look around the small room. He sure as hell didn’t recall seeing any beds nearby.
“On the table. It’s all right. It’s strong enough.”
That sounded like the voice of experience, but it wasn’t something a gentleman could ask a lady about. Longarm decided to take her word for it and did as she asked, kind of helped along by the fact that the girl was kissing him and guiding him in the direction she wanted him to go while already busy with the necessary buttons and buckles of his clothes.
He let her put him onto his back on the table—she was right, it was plenty strong enough—and failed to object while she sucked on his tongue and finished unbuttoning his britches.
“Oh, my,” she whispered when she felt what was behind that open fly. “I knew you were handsome, dear. I didn’t know you’re hung like a stud horse besides.” She laughed. “It just goes to show the rewards a girl can get for clean living and a charitable heart.”
“Is that what this is?”
“Close enough, don’t you think?”
“Close enough for my purposes, that’s for sure.”
“Now be quiet, dear, and let me enjoy what I’ve uncovered here.”
Longarm resolved himself to silence.
Lucy lifted his hips and tugged his trousers out from under him, then spread his shirt and rolled him from side to side so she could get that off him too.
Once he was naked she clapped her hands with delight and chortled softly, a low and furry sound that was damn-all close to being the same sort of noise a cat makes when it goes to purring.
“Oh, my,” she repeated. “Oh, this is lovely.” Standing beside the table, she ran her hands over his chest, then bent and began to lick his nipples, both of which had become extremely sensitive to her touch.
Her tongue rambled slowly south, ranging down across his stomach and into his navel, then down again across his belly and into the mat of dark, curling hairs that lay at the base of his now pulsing shaft.
Lucy pulled back for a moment to admire the hard, glistening spear that was his manhood. She smiled and said, “Marvelous. I love it when they bump and bounce like that, all strong and hard and ready.”
“Any time you want …”
“Hush now. We don’t want to rush this, do we?”
“Uh, no, I reckon we don’t at that.”
“I’m so glad you agree with me, dear.”
Longarm grinned. And mustered up a bit more patience. The girl seemed to be enjoying herself. It simply wouldn’t be gentlemanly to take any of that away from her, would it?
“Lovely,” she murmured. “Simply lovely.” She leaned close over him so that he could feel her warm breath on the head of his cock. So close he was sure he could feel the warmth of her body reaching him. Yet without touching him. Quite. His pecker was so hard and ready now that it was bumping up and down with each and every heartbeat. If she didn’t pretty damn soon …
The tip of her tongue flicked out. And again. Touching him lightly, ever so lightly. And each time that wet heat touched him his cock bounced up and away in unstoppable reaction. Lucy teased him over and over again, and laughed with the sheer pleasure of being the cause of his exquisite torment.
Just when Longarm decided he wasn’t real sure he could take any more of that without grabbing the damn girl by the back of her head and ramming himself straight down her throat, she changed tactics. This time she moved to the other side of his pecker and commenced lightly running her lips and tongue up and down the length of his shaft.
Longarm groaned a little and arched his pelvis upward in search of more. Lucy giggled a little. And began to suck on his balls.
He cupped one breast in his hand and squeezed on it. “Harder,” she whispered. He squeezed harder. “No, dear. Really hard. I mean it. As hard as you can manage.”
It wasn’t in him to do that, quite, but he did bear down plenty hard. Lucy shuddered, and he felt a ripple of—something—pain and pleasure alike, he thought, rush through her body.
With a moan she quit mouthing his scrotum and finally took the head of his cock into her mouth, sucking and pulling on him with her lips while her hands cupped his balls and encircled the base of his prick.
“Squeeze me again, dear. Harder. You won’t hurt me, I promise. As hard as you can.”
He bore down even harder on the flesh of her tit, and she groaned while she continued to suck and gobble. He squeezed again and, shifting position so that she was poised above him, Lucy pushed her face down over him.
There was a moment of resistance as the head of his cock encountered the tight ring of cartilage at the entrance to her throat. Then she pushed through and beyond that point so that his shaft extended all the way inside her.