Training Ivy [How The West Was Done 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  Harley couldn’t blame her. He had spent many a pleasurable moment gazing at that print, and it wasn’t to admire the fellow in the derby hat.

  Now, Harley asked, “What do you see in this print?”

  Ivy looked up at Harley with wide, astonished eyes. “I see three people. Except, there were only two people standing there last night.”

  “Exactly. And what do you notice about this third fellow?”

  “Well, he’s shorter than Neil. Wider. And he’s wearing a derby.”

  “Right. Now, what do you notice in this image of Gentry’s eyeball?”

  He should not have forced a lady to look at an image of a dead man’s pupil, but Ivy was such a spirited, inquisitive woman. She would have demanded to see the image anyway. “It looks like the head and shoulders of a man, only it’s just a silhouette.” She held a magnifying glass to her eye while Harley dangled the plate in front of the kitchen window.

  “Anything else?”

  “Well…” Abruptly she lowered the magnifying glass and turned her stunned face to Harley. “A derby.”

  “Right. Doesn’t the eyeball fellow look as if he’s wearing a derby hat as well?”

  Slowly placing the magnifier on the counter, Ivy said, “We obviously have to find this derby fellow.” A sly smile crept across her face. “The Eyeball Derby Fellow.”

  Harley uncorked a bottle of champagne he’d discovered in the ice box. “Or is it the Derby Iris Ghost? This means that Neil arrested the wrong person. Was it your impression that Shortridge was capable of murder?”

  Seeing what Harley was up to, Ivy took two champagne glasses from a cupboard. “No. He really seems much too feeble and weak to strangle anyone. He could barely stand up from his chair. It’s no big surprise Neil Tempest arrested the wrong person, really. He hardly seems a good judge of character.”

  Harley paused, about to pour the champagne. It had struck him at the Bucket of Blood that Ivy had tossed Neil a disgusted glance and hadn’t said good-bye to him. They had raced back to Vancouver House for Harley to develop the glass plate, so he hadn’t had a chance to ask her why. Now she was giving him a perfectly good opening. “What makes you say that?” He continued pouring and handed Ivy her glass.

  She sipped, staring at a spot on the floor, hugging herself tightly. “I couldn’t fail to notice this morning, when he showed me the telegraph machine. He was necking with another woman last night after I retired.”

  Harley felt his face redden. That didn’t happen often. He felt the need to confess, however. Deceit wasn’t his strong suit.

  But the nature of his confession was quite awkward. Ivy was an open-minded, modern woman, but his explanation could potentially mortify her to the point where she’d have no more truck with him. Or with Neil Tempest. He cleared his throat. “That was no other woman, Ivy. I assume you saw the marks on his neck?”

  “Yes,” she said sullenly. “And I thought it might be Lupe.”

  Harley sighed. “It wasn’t Lupe. It was me.”

  Now her irises turned into perfect river pebbles, gleaming as they dilated in shock. Her lower lip sagged, revealing cunning, pearly teeth. “What?”

  Harley had no choice. Now that he’d leaked the bizarre information, he had to explain. “I was the aggressor, Ivy. You know my feelings on illicita libido. That I find nothing wrong in toying with other men. I was randy after our encounter in the bath, but I didn’t want to rush you, to make you feel obligated to delve into areas you’ve never experienced before.”

  Ivy drew herself up. “Who said I’ve never delved before? I told you I’ve had two lovers.”

  “Yes,” Harley said slowly. He was surprised Ivy was taking this news so well. “But did the two of them neck together?”

  “No, of course not. I hardly knew both of them at the same time. Nor would they be inclined to such a perverse act.”

  “So you do think it’s perverse or wrong?”

  “No. Perhaps I should have said ‘lewd.’” Her eyes now glittered slyly, and she finished her champagne, setting the glass down on the counter. She took a step toward him. “How did you convince Neil to kiss you? I’m surprised he didn’t run out the door or paste you with a punch.”

  Harley chuckled. “I’m sure it occurred to him. But you see, I was right about his penal colony experiences. Perhaps I should leave that to him to tell you. I’m sure he was equally as riled being in your presence, El Ladid. He didn’t need much convincing. So, you see, you have no fear of a female rival. Neil wasn’t cheating your affections, since you can hardly compare another man to a female rival.”

  Ivy walked her fingertips up Harley’s shirtfront. This was definitely not the reaction he had expected. “That’s true. I would like to witness some of this necking for myself.”

  Harley was stunned into silence, a very rare occurrence. Instead, he drew the backs of his fingers against the side of her face, and she leaned into him like a cat, half-closing her eyes.

  “I like the idea of seeing two men engaging in affectionate canoodling.”

  “I wouldn’t call it affectionate,” Harley warned. “Although I do have a sort of alternating hate-and-love emotional yearning for the man.”

  “Of course you know what I mean. You just want to hear me say it. All right. I like the idea of two men going hard at it, lusting for one another. Because you’re right. It doesn’t detract from their longing for me. It’s simply another manifestation of the same normal sexual urges anyone has. Only this way, I’m not competing against another woman. So I could relax and enjoy watching two luscious bucks make love to each other without feeling insecure.”

  Such a rush of affection for this woman overcame Harley then, he crushed his mouth to hers. Gathering her in his arms, he held her like he imagined he would hold a beloved fiancée, gently and respectfully. However, once again it was Ivy who deepened the kiss, grabbing his shirtfront in her little fists and parting her lips to lick his tongue.

  She stood on her toes, pressing her bosom against his chest. Relaxing into a languid, sloppy kiss, she mashed her humid lips to his, reminding him of the pornographic Arab poem he’d just been translating.

  “‘In kissing her, I have drunk from her mouth,’” he murmured. “‘Like a camel that has drunk from the lagoon. Her embrace and the freshness of her mouth give me a languor that goes to my marrow.’”

  She sighed happily. “What is that? And why do you call me El Ladid?”

  It was probably easier to demonstrate than to tell. Her eyes were already becoming dim, and she was heaving deep sighs, sure signs of readiness. He took a sucking bite from the exposed expanse of her white throat, as he’d done with Neil. “In Arabia they have different concepts of sex. Women must be made to feel extreme pleasure before attempting penetration. ‘Woman is like a fruit, which will not yield its sweetness until you rub it between your hands.’”

  To demonstrate, he ran the backs of his fingers over her bare breastbone, and she shuddered obligingly. In his translations, he had read that an Arabian woman, being asked what was the most likely to create affection in the female heart, answered, “‘O you who question me, those things which develop the taste for coition are the toyings and touches which precede it.’” He dipped his fingers beneath the neckline of her gown, allowing his nails to scrape against the tip of her nipple.

  “Oh!” she cried and swooned back against the counter, where Harley caught her. Pressing his erection to her lap, he diddled the button of her nipple. She crawled up the counter, using drawer handles as footholds, spreading her thighs wide to him.

  Harley exposed a rounded, buoyant breast to the open air. She jiggled her shoulders to signify her willingness. Sucking on her earlobe, he whispered, “‘Amber, unless it is handled and warmed, keeps hidden within its pores the aroma contained in it.’”

  “Oh,” she squeaked, like a kitten. “Please handle and warm me, Harley. I so need to be handled and warmed.”

  Harley smiled and bent at the knees to flick his tongue
across Ivy’s hard nipple. Her titties were remarkable, perfectly rounded and high, full in his hand. He sucked and nibbled, coaxing an array of tiny mewls and sighs from her as his other sly hand inched her skirts up above her knee. When he yanked her bodice down farther, her other breast popped out, full and luscious, and he nibbled at that bullet-like kernel, flicking his tongue across the tip.

  Ivy clasped his head to her chest as her slippered toes crawled up his calf. She cinched her toes in the top of his boot, giving her better leverage against the countertop. Harley found that she twitched and jumped when he simultaneously nibbled and toyed with both nipples. She was wonderfully responsive, not blasé and deadened like so many hookers whose profession it was to be mauled. Yet she was far from restrained and priggish, as so many Western women had been taught to be. No, Ivy Hudson was the perfect student of his brand of eroticism—liberated from repressive chains, her Transcendental upbringing had stood her in good stead, making her perfectly open-minded and ready to be shaped.

  So when Harley’s nimble fingers breached the slit of Ivy’s drawers and found the swollen lips of her labia, she gasped so loudly he was sure Lupe, raring to get inside her own kitchen and work, had heard it. Ivy took a little leap and wrapped both thighs around Harley’s hips, giving him easy access to her soaking pussy.

  His fingers worked steadily and surely against her extended clitoris. Her breasts heaved, her mouth was half-open, and her eyes were rolled up into their sockets as he stroked and twiddled her slick cunt. Having studied the art of female frigging very diligently—being quite on the wrong side of thirty years of age, he imagined himself an expert at it—Harley didn’t want to race her immediately to orgasm. He would learn a lot more about her response if he coaxed her step by step up the ecstatic rise.

  He murmured against the side of her open mouth, “‘Under her neck my right hand has served her for a cushion. And to draw her to me, I have sent out my left hand, which bore her up as a bed.’”

  Ivy could only stutter out, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” in response to his poetic ramblings.

  Harley had to shove aside a tub of silver nitrate, she was squirming about so. Her pussy was so slick the juices ran down his wrist. It would have been easy to reveal his pulsating cock and plunge it to the hilt, but he wanted to proceed in a more delicate manner with this educated woman. However, he had underestimated her response. When he bent to chew at her nipple once more, she uttered a loud wail then went utterly still, holding her breath.

  She came against his hand unexpectedly swiftly. With mouth frozen in an open position, she flung her head back on a wobbly neck, her thighs like a vise around his hips. Soon she began choking, no doubt distracted by the swift volley of contractions that ran up her inner channel, convulsing her womb. Harley slowed his licks to her breasts when she suddenly began gasping for air, clutching his skull so tightly he was sure he’d have a headache later.

  If so, it was a very worthwhile headache, as her juices poured down his forearm and she succumbed to wave after ecstatic wave. Soon, instead of clutching him, Ivy pushed him away, and Harley knew it was time to wind it down. His fingers against her twat slowed until he was barely stroking it, each movement causing her to twitch.

  She slammed her slippers onto the floor and slid down his torso several inches. “Stop, stop!” she panted. Holding a hand to her abdomen, she massaged herself, staring wildly at the kitchen’s walls. In astonishment, she demanded of Harley, “What was that?”

  Harley chuckled at first, naturally thinking she was joking. But he saw she was dead serious with her beautiful little face all screwed up in anguish. “An…orgasm?” he suggested.

  Smoothing her skirts down below her knees, she jutted out her lower jaw. “What do you mean, orgasm? I near about died! What was that, some Far Eastern trick of yours? I just had an apoplectic fit, and you’re here joking about orgasms?”

  Harley took her by the shoulders. “Orgasm, Ivy. A female orgasm. Why, don’t tell me you’ve never experienced one before.”

  She wrenched herself from his touch, storming to the sideboard and grabbing the champagne bottle. “Don’t give me this spiritualist hogwash! I’ve never heard of such nonsense!”

  Harley was appalled. How could this girl have been raised in the same parlor as the forward-seeing Alcott and Emerson yet have never heard that women were capable of orgasms? He didn’t want to insult her education, however. “Ivy. How is it possible you’ve never heard of such a thing? Have you never frigged yourself to orgasm?”

  She twirled around, chugging down the champagne. “No! Why would I have heard of that? Not to mention, how could you have done that to me? Damnation!”

  “It’s not unhealthy,” Harley tried to say. “In fact, the opposite is true. Didn’t you feel waves of ecsta—”

  “Do what to her?”

  Oh, good Lord. It was the bullheaded yet tantalizing Neil Tempest barging into the kitchen. Unceremonious as always, his sluggish erection packed nicely in his pants, cinched to a bulge by the leather chaps he insisted on wearing. Unfortunately Neil’s mood seemed more belligerent than erotic.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What are you doing to her, Park?”

  All Neil knew was that Ivy stood trembling, aglow with that look of having just been well-fucked. This probably wasn’t the case, because that odious Harland Park loomed nearby, his gigantic erection poking out his trousers under the tight stricture of his proper waistcoat.

  Harley’s arrogant, enormous penis had been the cause of many conflicting, warring emotions inside of Neil ever since Harley’s arrival in town. And at the moment, since it appeared Harley had insulted Ivy in some way, punching these emotions out seemed most logical. “What has he done to you, Ivy?”

  “Nothing!” she was quick to say, but her trembling state told Neil otherwise.

  When Neil took a few steps toward Harley, the captain held his hands out in warning claws. “Now, now, Tempest. Don’t go getting all riled before you understand.”

  “She’s wondering what you ‘did’ to her!” Neil roared.

  “If you’ll just let me expla—”

  Neil didn’t let Harley explain. He dealt him a powerful uppercut to his jaw, which flung the buffoon backward into the counter. “Yeah!” Neil bellowed victoriously. “You try brawling with a penal colony inmate. See how far your instruments and calculations get you then!”

  Propping himself on the counter, Harley raised only his fiery, murderous black eyes. His nostrils flared in a manner that normally would have been attractive but now meant certain doom. “You don’t understand a damned thing, you yokel,” he snarled.

  “Neil!” Ivy shrieked. “Lay off Harley! You don’t need to protect me against him. I’m perfectly capable of—”

  The bullish captain came at Neil so suddenly he was taken completely by surprise. Next thing he knew, he was lifted in the air by the brawny shoulders and slammed against the wall, the breath squished out of him in one resounding “ooph!”

  When he recovered enough to make a grab for Harley, the engineer darted around to his side and cracked both arms behind his back, like Neil had just done to Rodney Shortridge to put the bracelets on him. Pain speared through Neil’s shoulder at the audible pop, and since he had no free arms to balance himself with, Harley was able to fling him face-first onto the counter.

  Harley pinned him there with one broad fist around his neck as though about to decapitate a pheasant. He kept Neil’s hips still by pressing his own to his backside. The rush of combat heightened all senses, and Neil was disgusted at himself for getting hot at the feel of the large, stiff cock jammed into the crack of his ass. With his wrists locked together at the small of his back, all he could do was huff and puff, inhaling photography chemicals with every snort.

  Squirming only rubbed Harley’s jutting erection more victoriously against his ass. With a sense of impending disaster, Neil was flooded with memories of being in a very similar position not twenty-four hours ago, in the same kitchen, with
the same man. Last night, he’d been flipped over so their hips were glued together. Harley’s frigging technique was so adept Neil had, embarrassingly, shot his load much too soon, betraying how aroused he was with another man’s fist around his cock.

  Neil had tossed all night long with conflicting emotions about this incident. Then, today Ivy had been miffed with him for no reason Neil could discern. But since he was certain it had something to do with the irritating Harley Park, Neil had entered the kitchen swinging. And now he was pasted facedown in a puddle of chemicals.

  Of course he’d be pinned like this. Harley was brawnier, wider, more fit for wrestling. Neil, wiry and quick as a flash, had always had this problem when brawling in Australia. Once pinned by any baboon, his fate was sealed. He couldn’t buck this brute off.

  “Harley! Dear!” Ivy cried. What was this “dear” business? She had called him “dear Neil” only yesterday, and suddenly this pumped-up braggart was “dear” as well? “Don’t smash his face into those chemicals.”

  Harley snarled, “Just teaching him who’s got the upper hand here. I boxed in India and know all the moves.”

  However, he could dart his right boot out backward and bash Harley in the kneecap.

  Harley went down like a sack of potatoes. Neil leaped upon him like a swooping hawk, slamming his entire body against the burly fallen man. He wouldn’t strike a man when he was down, but if they were both rolling on the floor anything was fair game, and now he landed another punch smack against that annoyingly handsome scar. It was satisfying to connect like that, but Harley rolled nimbly away, so Neil’s next punch only painfully connected with the wooden floorboards.

  Once again, the brute was atop him, but Harley didn’t punch. He straddled Neil, rendering all his kicks feeble and ineffective. He clasped both Neil’s wrists in one wide palm and nailed his hands to the floor above his head. All Neil could do was spit, but suddenly all the fight was gone from him. And spitting would not look terribly manly.