Longarm and the Banker's Daughter (9781101613375) Read online

  With that, she turned and headed back to the fire with her coffee, the blanket sliding lower on her slender back. Longarm watched her go, sipping his coffee, then dropped to his knees to begin dressing the fish.

  As he worked on the trout with his fold-up barlow, he glanced once behind him in time to see Lacy standing naked by the fire, her back to him. It was nearly dark now, and the fire’s glow bathed her backside in shiny copper, her rump round and full. The side of one breast peeked out from under her arm as she stooped to step into her dress.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. He turned away with a chuff. She giggled.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the creek, a tall man with a rifle stepped out from around the bluff and hunkered down behind a boulder, poking his hat brim off his forehead as he cast his gaze toward the camp.

  Another, shorter man stepped up from behind him and squatted beside him. He was beefy and thick-bearded, and he wore an eye patch. He fingered the Henry repeater that he rested across his knee.

  “Take him from here, Stony?” he asked, keeping his voice low so that he could not be heard above the muttering of the creek.

  “Not yet, Frank,” said Stony Millen of the Gunn and Cruz Bunch, the fire’s glow reflecting in his eyes set deep in bony sockets. “Not . . . just . . . yet . . .”

  Chapter 2

  Lacy insisted on doing the cooking while Longarm lazed back against his saddle with a cup of coffee liberally laced with Maryland rye, taking the rest she said he so richly deserved after springing her tender flesh from the trap of the Heck Gunn Bunch.

  Of course, she hadn’t called her flesh tender. That was Longarm’s opinion, watching her crouch over the fire to fry the fish in his cast-iron skillet, shifting the fillets around with a fork.

  He enjoyed the play of the fire’s umber light in her honey-blond hair and how it shifted back and forth across her low-cut blouse, causing mysterious shadows to dip down into the crease between those magnificent orbs. He hadn’t had a woman since he’d last left Denver chasing long-coulee riders in southern New Mexico, nigh on two months ago now! That might not have been a long time for some men, but for a man like Custis P. Long, for whom the soft flesh of a woman was almost as critical as food and water, that was damn near a lifetime.

  He wished that Lacy would at least take the spare denim jacket he’d offered her, or wrap his blanket around her shoulders against the descending night chill. He needed some relief from the view. But she’d said the fire was all the warmth she needed. “For now,” she’d added, glancing at him from beneath her honey-colored brows.

  That had sent another spear of unadulterated passion through his loins, causing his longhandles to grow tighter across his crotch and under his balls. He squeezed his steaming cup tighter in his hands and took a badly needed sip of the bracing toddy. He thought he heard her chuckling but when he looked at her again, she was adding another chunk of pine to the fire, straight-faced.

  There was plenty of fish, and Longarm ate heartily. When they were finished, once again Lacy insisted on doing the chores. She poured Longarm a fresh cup of coffee, splashed some whiskey in after it, and trotted off to the creek to wash their dishes.

  Damn fine woman, Longarm thought. Damn fine. Almost wish . . .

  Nah. He wasn’t the marrying kind. Besides, once you marry a woman, everything changes. He’d heard about that stark reality more than a few times. Still . . .

  When Lacy came back to the fire, she gave a shiver, then wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. She dragged her saddle over close to Longarm and lay back against it, and for the next forty-five minutes or so drank coffee spiced with the good rye whiskey and talked in a slow, leisurely way, sort of getting to know each other, enjoying the fire’s warmth, pointing out shooting stars.

  Finally, Lacy finished her coffee, set the cup down beside the fire to which she added several more branches, and proceeded to unbutton her blouse while staring down at Longarm. He stared up at her, one brow arched.

  She didn’t say anything until she’d tossed the blouse down on the ground near his crossed boots, had lifted the thin chemise up and over her head, and had tossed that down, as well. She had her back to the fire, so she was mostly in silhouette. But he could still see her naked, proudly upturned breasts rising and falling slowly as she breathed.

  “Miss Lacy,” Longarm said, tossing back the last of his own coffee and rye, “I do believe you’re going to catch your death of cold.”

  She gave a shiver and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I would like to show my appreciation, Custis,” she said smokily, “in about the only way I know how. Call me wanton, if you wish. Even call me a whore. But I wouldn’t offer what I’m offering you to just any man. Only one who so bravely risked his life for mine.”

  She dropped to her knees beside him, leaned slowly forward, staring into his eyes, and lay her hands on his crotch, sliding them up and down his member that had begun hardening the moment she’d started unbuttoning her blouse. She flicked a finger across a fly button.

  “May I?”

  “Why not?”

  Keeping her eyes on his, she unbuttoned his fly, then poked a hand inside his pants. She shoved it through the fly of his longhandles and wrapped her hand around his ever-hardening member. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, my! So . . .” She pumped it gently. “. . . Big!”

  Longarm groaned.

  She pulled it out of his pants and wrapped both hands around the base of it standing up now at full attention, firelight caressing the swollen head. He could feel his pulse pounding in it as she slid one of her hands very slowly up its length, gazing down at the fully engorged staff as though mesmerized. The night’s cool air wrapped around it, relieved by the warmth of her hands. Her breasts sloped down against his right thigh, and then they mashed against it as she lowered her head, stuck out her tongue, which shone redly in the firelight, and touched it to the end of his cock.

  He jerked at the thrill of her warm, wet tongue against his member and the pressure of her breasts against his thigh. Her hair shone radiantly in the fire’s glow, as did her eyes, though most of her face was in mysterious, relentlessly alluring shadow. She rolled her green-silver eyes up to his coquettishly, still touching her tongue to the tip of his throbbing hard-on.

  “Like that?”

  Longarm grunted.

  Her mouth stretched slightly as she smiled. “Bet you’re gonna like this even more,” she said in a taunting singsong.

  He watched as well as felt her mouth close over the mushroom head of his cock and then slide slowly, slowly down its iron-hard length. He threw his head back a little, grinding the heels of his hands into the ground on either side of him, the prickling of the pine needles and sand somehow enhancing the sweet, intoxicating caress of her hot lips sliding slowly down the length of him. When he felt the head of his shaft snugged tightly against her throat, he heard her gag very quietly from deep in her chest, her throat contracting sweetly against him, as she turned her head from side to side, as though enjoying the pressure of his cock snuggling fast against her tonsils.

  Then she drew her mouth back and pulled her lips off the swollen head with a wet sucking sound. She laughed huskily as she drew several deep breaths, smiling up at him radiantly, then lowering her head again, thrusting his cock back against his belly and licking his balls.

  “Ah, shit,” Longarm said, gazing up at the stars, only vaguely noticing one arcing across the sky, shedding sparks, while her warm, wet tongue slathered his balls before sliding up his cock once more.

  Again, her mouth closed over him. His cock slid deep, deep down into her throat once more, but then she pulled her mouth back to the head quickly and lowered it again just as quickly. Her head bobbed over his crotch as she slid her mouth quickly up and down his cock, her lips like warm, damp silk. Gently, she turned her head from side to side as s
he blew him, and he ground his hands harder and harder against the ground, his eyes open wide, teeth gritted.

  This was how he wanted to die, he thought. Just like this . . .

  When she had his blood boiling, she stood and quickly shed her skirt. Kicking it away, she placed a bare foot on either side of him and dropped to her knees, straddling him, leaning forward, lowering her head, and reaching between her thighs to wrap a hand around his cock that was so hard he thought the skin would split like an overcooked sausage.

  He wrapped his hand around each of her breasts sloping toward his chest. The areolae were large, the pink nipples hard. The orbs were every bit as firm as he thought they were, pointing slightly up and sideways—a generous handful each.

  Longarm sucked a sharp breath as she slid the head of his cock against her crotch. He could feel the silky tickle of her pubic hair, the petal-soft folds of her snatch as she teased him against her, making her wetter and wetter until with a little grunt she leaned forward and ground her pelvis down on top of his.

  His cock slid up deep inside her. She expanded and contracted around him, like a grasping hand, and then she rose up and fell back down.

  Rose and fell.

  Rose and fell.

  Her hair slid across his face and his chest, tickling.

  If I were to die tonight, the lawman thought, what a way to go!

  But it wasn’t his time. He just wasn’t ready yet, he told himself sternly as he closed his hand over the Colt that lay holstered at his side, under the coil of his shell belt.

  Hearing the brush snapping around him, he slid the pistol from the holster just as Lacy ground her pelvis against him once more, squirming and grunting and squeezing her knees against his ribs. It took an extreme force of will to do what he did next, just as the girl lifted her beautiful rump in the air, sliding her honey-moist pussy to the end of his cock.

  Raising his Colt in his right hand, he planted his left hand on the girl’s shoulder and heaved her aside with a great grunt and chuff of expelled air while at the same time he drew aim at the pair of wolflike red eyes showing from the other side of the fire and just beyond its sphere of dancing umber light. The man-wolf crouched there shouted, “He sees us!” as he jerked a rifle up.

  Longarm’s Colt roared, and the wolf eyes disappeared with a shriek. As Lacy yelled, “Not yet, you sons o’ bitches!” Longarm jerked up to a sitting position and fired at two shadows jostling in the trees to his left.

  Pow! Pow!

  One man yelped. Another cursed.

  Longarm fired two more times at the thrashing figures, then heaved himself to a crouching position and, cocked Colt extended straight out before him, turned his head quickly from right to left and back again, pivoting on his hips, scouring the camp’s perimeter for a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

  Something moved in the direction in which the wolf eyes had shone. Longarm walked over to see a short, hatless man in a short bear coat crawling off into the brush.

  “Hold it,” Longarm said.

  The figure stopped, flopped over on his butt. Blue steel winked in the starlight. Longarm’s Colt roared. The slug tore through the middle of the man’s forehead, basting the ground behind him with dark, white-speckled fluid. His head bobbed and then fell back along with the rest of him onto the ground.

  Brush crackled to Longarm’s left, in the direction of the creek. Boots thudded. A man wheezed and grunted, and then Longarm heard one of his bushwhackers wading into the stream.

  Longarm glanced back toward the fire, saw Lacy stretched out on her back on his bedroll, propped on her arms. She was naked, sweat-slick skin glowing like brass in the firelight.

  Longarm wagged his gun at her. “Stay put,” he said, edging his voice with steel.

  She merely shrugged as she watched him.

  Reloading his Colt, he strode toward the creek, but by the time he got to the edge of the water, a tall man in a black hat was pushing up onto the far bank. He was limping and cursing under his breath. Longarm extended the Colt, emptied it quickly.

  Bam! Bam! Bam-Bam! Bam-Bam!

  The man fell on the other side of the creek with a thud.

  Longarm turned back to the fire.

  Lacy lay as before, propped on her arms, legs spread. He moved toward her. He stopped and crouched over one of the two dead men, touched two fingers to the man’s neck. Dead. Stepping over the carcass of the owlhoot he recognized as Jim Riley, one of the Heck Gunn’s bunch, he continued to the fire and looked down at Lacy. The honey-blond stared up at him, her eyes coy.

  “How did you?” she asked.

  “How long you think I’ve been at this?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. Her nipples pointed at him. She had done nothing whatever to cover herself, and it rankled him. “A few years, I reckon.”

  “Hell, I spotted the mare’s tail of dust on our back trail early this morning. When we stopped here, they pulled up behind the bluff on the other side of the creek. I heard every move they made. Knew you were only trying to keep me distracted so they could fill me with lead.”

  He squatted beside the fire and filled his cup with piping hot coffee.

  “These three might be dead,” Lacy said in a faintly jeering voice. “But there’s plenty more where they came from, and in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a very valuable prize.” She spread her knees a little farther apart, until a pink circle, like a small rose blossom, shone in the darkness of her snatch. “Since there’s really no hope for you, we might as well finish what we started, don’t you think, Custis?”

  Chapter 3

  “No point in goin’ to sleep frustrated,” Lacy added, wagging one knee and making that pink rose between her legs open its tender blossom still farther. She stuck the tip of her right thumb between her lips, and bit down on the nail.

  Longarm stared at her. His heart began thudding again. Her long, slanted cat eyes glowed in the firelight. She wagged her knee. He looked around the camp. Except for the dead men, they were alone.

  Obviously, Gunn and Cruz had sent only those three to retrieve their prize. Would they send more? If they did, they wouldn’t likely show up till tomorrow. Maybe not ever, if the main gang decided to keep drifting without Lacy. After all, they had over thirty thousand in bank loot. That was enough to soothe the loss.

  Longarm looked at Lacy again. His heart hammered his breastbone. He kicked out of his boots and shucked out of his clothes. As he did, he kept his Colt in his right hand. Naked, he followed his jutting member over to the girl and knelt down between her spread legs. Just then she reached above her head and pulled a pistol out from under his saddle. He smashed his own pistol down hard on the Remington.

  “Damn you!” she screamed.

  “You think I didn’t notice that jake yonder didn’t have a pistol on him?”

  He tossed the Remington into the brush, set his Colt down just right of his naked right hip, and mounted her. She reached up and roughly raked her hands across the slabs of his hard chest, then ran them through his hair, snaking her legs around his waist and grinding her heels into his back.

  “How did you know about me?” she said angrily, bucking up against him as he drove his shaft into her hard.

  “That you were in with ole Heck from the start? I didn’t know,” he said. “At least, I wasn’t sure until you started throwing yourself at me. If you’d been a little more ladylike, you might have kept the wool over my eyes.”

  He drove his cock into her again, slid it back, then pushed it inside her once more—slow, purposeful thrusts, feeling the heat in his loins building. She dug her heels into his ass harder, wrapped her arms around his neck, forced his face down to her tits, which he raked with his nose and bullhorn mustache as he fucked her.

  “You bastard,” she said, grunting and groaning, bucking up against him. “Oh, you
fucking bastard!”

  “Not very nice talk coming from the banker’s daughter.”

  “You think I care? I was so goddamn tired of being tied to that house and that piano and my father’s library, hardly able to venture out to the woodshed to stroke myself without Mother or one of the maids coming along to make sure I wasn’t meeting a boy out there.”

  “How’d you throw in with Heck?”

  “Saturdays my mother and that nasty ole father of mine—you should see the way he looks at me sometimes, when I’m wearing something as low cut as that red blouse you couldn’t take your eyes off of!—hop in their buggy for a ride in the country, paying social calls on bank patrons. Good business, you know, to make the simple farm and ranch folk think they’re Daddy’s personal friends.”

  She chuckled and groaned as Longarm slid his cock in and out of her. “Oh, Jesus, you fuck good, you bastard! Your cock is twice the size of Heck’s. Oh, shit, I hate you!”

  She punched his shoulders as she writhed beneath him, sucking her lower lip.

  “And . . . ?” he prodded.

  “And Heck’s bunch rode into our backyard one day. They were skirting town, on their way from a stagecoach robbery, and I found them winching up water from our well. Heck started sparking me, showed how much money his gang had taken from that Well’s Fargo strongbox, and I told him I knew where he could get a whole lot more than that. And after he got it, my father wouldn’t allow the Jawbone marshal to go after him . . . if he had me along . . . oh, gawd, you’re good with that thing!”

  “How were you so sure he wouldn’t leave you high and dry?”

  She smiled up at him devilishly as he thrust his engorged shaft into her harder and harder. “You know exactly why, you bastard!” She lifted her head and raked out an evil, echoing laugh.