"I didn't do it for thanks."
"You've got mine, whether you want them or not. And just to show you I mean it~" She broke off, threw her arms around Longarm's neck, and pulled him to her. Before he knew what was happening, she was pressing her lips on his. He thought it was going to be a friendly thank-you kiss until he felt her tongue pressing his lips apart.
Longarm responded predictably. Flo hadn't yet changed clothes, and the gauze-thin nightgown she wore could hardly be felt when he brought his hands up to cup her generous breasts. His fingertips were hard on her budding nipples as he caressed them. The scent of her body, all aroma of woman not lately soaped or perfumed, filled his nostrils. He broke the kiss and bent to take her nipples in his lips, nipping them gently, pulling them into his mouth and feeling them roughen, swell and grow firm as his tongue's tip flicked them through the thin nightgown.
Flo leaned back, bracing herself with her arms, hands flat on the tabletop, her body upthrust to give Longarm free access to it. His face still buried in the soft flesh of her bosom, he rubbed a hand slowly down over her voluptuously rounded stomach and caressed her blond pubic hair. She gave a dancer's kick to send the skirt of her gown flying upward, baring her legs and thighs. Longarm let his fingers stray deeper; she opened to them and he felt her beginning moisture on the soft lips between her thighs.
Flo was leaning back on only one arm, now. Her free hand was rubbing Longarm's crotch, feeling his erection grow. She worked at the buttons of his fly and tried to slip her hand in, but his britches fitted too closely. With a muttered "Damn it!" she unbuckled his belt and tugged at the waistband until she'd pulled the britches down over his hips and freed him.
"I'm as ready as you are," she said softly when she felt his hard springiness under her fingers.
"No use us waiting, then."
He moved between her legs and went in full and deep. Flo was on the table, Longarm standing in front of it. She lay back and brought her legs up, locked her ankles around the back of his neck.
"Ride me, now!" she commanded. "I want to feel you hit bottom! "
Longarm obliged. He pulled away from her, not leaving her totally empty, but nearly so. Then he thrust deliberately, deeper than he'd been able to go before.
Flo shrieked, a cry in which pain and pleasure mingled. "Oh, God, you did hit bottom! Do it again, faster!"
After a dozen deep, shattering thrusts, Longarm felt Flo's juices begin to ooze. Her cries of excitement, the heat of her body, the dangerous surroundings, were having their effect on Longarm. He was moving fast to orgasm. He pounded harder, bringing animal yelps from deep in Flo's throat. She became rigid for an instant. Her inner muscles tightened around him and he pressed hard for the instant before both of them were seized with a shuddering that ended in a blissful outpouring and a total relaxation. Longarm fell forward, pushing Flo's knees down nearly to the tabletop and penetrating her even more deeply than ever for a shattering instant before he relaxed.
Neither of them moved for several moments. Flo found breath enough to whisper, "I didn't know, a minute ago, just how much man you really are."
"You're a right smart bundle of woman, Flo. But we're a couple of damn fools, you know that?"
"After the past few weeks, it feels so good to be able to let go completely that I don't mind being a damn fool. It didn't last nearly long enough, though."
"We'll have more time, later. After we get away from this damn place."
"I think you're telling me something. We'd better get ready to run the gauntlet, is that it?"
"Something like that."
He pulled away from her reluctantly. Flo sat up and Longarm began to button his britches. His sense of timing told him they'd better be thinking of the men in jail instead of one another.
"Get into your traveling clothes as quick as you can," he told her. "I'll go see what things look like outside."
Longarm looked back across the sala before he went out the door. In the dim light of the vigil candle, he saw Flo in half-silhouette. She was standing beside the table, naked, the light dancing on her tall body, outlining its features. Her upraised arms, stretching luxuriously, pulled her breasts high and taut. Her rounded stomach flowed into flared hips, her pubic fringe matching the hair that fell in glowing gold, long, down her back. Her long legs seemed even longer as she rose on tiptoes in her stretching. For an instant he wanted to turn back, but common sense said no. He went through the door and out into the darkness.
This time, it was true darkness. The fire that had flared a half hour ago was dying down. Only a handful of dancers now moved their feet in time to the thin melody of guitar strings. The concertina was silent. There were more figures lying on the ground and leaning against the barracks wall. A wide belt of deep shadow lay between barracks and jailhouse. Longarm felt a twinge of guilt because he'd made his cellmates wait such a long time. It was, he decided, safe now to risk making an effort to leave.
Flo was wearing a flared skirt of dark material, a man-styled blue silk blouse, and a short jacket. She'd twisted her hair into a bun low on her neck. She saw in Longarm's face that it was time for them to go.
"I'm ready," she told him. "Just tell me what you want me to do."
"Stick close by me. We'll mosey slow across the open space. Most of the rurales and their women are sleeping-drunk, and the ones that're still on their feet are about ready to fall over."
"What if they see us?"
"Don't pay any attention until one of 'em starts to holler, and then let me handle things. Can you use a gun?"
"God, no, Custis! The only gun I ever shot was a toy popgun I used in one of my dance routines."
"Then you'd better carry the ones we're taking for Nate and John. Think you can tote 'em?"
"Dancers have to keep in trim. I'm pretty strong, you ought to know that."
He remembered her arms pulling him down to her, her legs clasping his body. "You are, at that." He picked up the rifles he'd taken from Ramos's collection and helped her balance them in her hands before draping a gunbelt with a holstered revolver over each of her shoulders. He'd looked until he'd found guns of the same caliber as his own Winchester and Colt, and had gathered up all the .44-40 ammunition he could find. This he'd put into bags, which he slung over his own shoulder.
"Just move slow and steady," he cautioned her. "And don't fret. We'll make it, all right."
Their passage through the belt of darkness between the headquarters building and the jail drew no attention from the dancers still twirling by the waning fire. Longarm hadn't expected it to. The minutes of danger lay ahead, when they'd be working with the horses at the corral. They got to the jail and found the door swinging wide. Longarm slipped inside. It was pitch-black.
"Nate? John?" He kept his voice low.
"We're all right." It was Webster's voice.
"What in hell's name happened that took you so long?" Hill asked.
"Had to wait until the liquor I fed them rurales put most of 'em under. All but a few's passed out now. But we'll still have to tiptoe when we go outa here." His eyes could penetrate the gloom of the jail's interior now. He saw a white form spread-eagled across the door of the cell in which Webster and Hill waited. "What happened in here?"
"We had to throttle old Sebastian." Hill spoke without emotion. "Hated to do it, but he started yelling when he noticed you were gone. Before we could stop him, he threw the keys down the corridor. We couldn't reach them to let ourselves out."
Longarm reached into his coat pocket for a match, thought better of showing a light in the jail, and said, "I'll scrabble for 'em."
While he was groping around on the floor, Webster said, "We heard all the music and laughing, and I shinnied up to look outa that hole in the roof. By then, it was too light from their fire for us to try a sneak."