Springer, Jan - The Pleasure Girl [The Desperadoes 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
Page 7
His gaze snapped to her face and his eyes softened.
“I know. I want to. I figure it’s as good a time as any. And I’ll have you to drown my sorrows in after.”
She swallowed and waited.
“I was with my daughters when it happened. We’d gone on our annual dad-daughters camping trip. My wife hated camping, so she always stayed home. But my girls…” His voice thickened with emotion.
“How old were they?”
“Jenny was twelve. Lynn was eleven. They loved to go to a new camping place every year. So this time around, we decided on a group of caves two days’ drive from home. We were going to make it a weeklong trip. We were actually inside the caves when it happened.”
Horror raced through her. He must have seen them disintegrate.
“We had no idea anything was wrong until we returned to the campground and realized there weren’t any people around.”
Relief swept through her. “The girls survived the solar flares.”
He nodded. “My daughters survived the Catastrophe. I wish they hadn’t. It would have been a much easier death.”
Uneasiness snapped through her. Obviously, his kids had died.
“I couldn’t get the car started, couldn’t find a soul to help. Not one person. It was eerie, and I could tell the girls were getting uneasy. There was nothing but static when we tried to use our cell phones. I knew something was seriously wrong when we went to the campground office and found the door unlocked and no one inside but a whimpering dog who was lying beside a pile of what looked like ashes on the floor.
“I thought maybe some nutcase was on the grounds and had maybe tried to build a fire indoors and everyone had been evacuated. That’s when I also noticed there was no electricity. The coolers full of food and drinks weren’t humming. The air conditioner wasn’t going as it had been the couple of times we’d gone in during the week, and it was pretty warm inside the building. Things were just off, you know what I mean?”
Teyla nodded. Yes, she understood. All survivors understood the desolation they’d experienced after realizing something of cataclysmic proportions had happened.
“We found a car with a key in the ignition and piles of ash on the front seats and back seats. I sat on the ash, turned the ignition, nothing happened.”
He sat on the ash. On a dead person.
“How did you get home?” She didn’t have to ask if his wife had survived. She knew instinctively she hadn’t.
“We stayed at the campsite that night. Realized we were totally alone. Realized something bad had happened. We spent the next day outfitting ourselves with knapsacks, filling them with non-perishable foods from the store. Bottled water. I had a gun, and we found some hunting knives for the girls. My youngest, she wasn’t handling it too well. Crying. We were worried about Ann.”
“Your wife?”
He nodded.
“We started walking. You know kids that age; they can’t walk as long as an adult, so after a few hours, they were pretty tired. We noticed a farm with grazing horses. Helped ourselves to four of them, and of course, no one was around at the nearby farmhouse or barn. My oldest daughter had a passion for horses and knew all about saddles and bridles and what horses ate. Don’t know what we would have done without her. She showed us how to ride, and we followed the highways home. We saw no one. Just abandoned cars and trucks—ashes in them. I kind of got the idea they were people, disintegrated.
“Checked out a couple of houses for more food. It was the same story. Unlocked doors. Pets going hungry. We left the doors open so they could get outside. We couldn’t take them with us. When we got home, we found Ann in the bed. Nothing but a pile of ashes beneath the covers. She was probably taking an afternoon nap. She did that sometimes after working in the vegetable garden. We buried her out back and tried to make do the best we could.”
“And your daughters?” she asked softly as they turned and headed back to her farmhouse.
“I made the mistake of leaving them home alone one day while I went foraging at some neighboring homes for more food. When I came back, they were both dead. Hung themselves in the basement.”
Shock sliced through her. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat, and it sounded thick with emotion. Understandably. She felt her own emotions welling too at the thought of how horribly shocking it would have been to find his two children hanging. It must have been so devastating.
“They wanted to be with their mother. Besides, I wouldn’t want them growing up in this world. It’s an evil, dark land now. Every person for themselves. They would have grown into desperate human beings, doing things that they would normally never have had to do in the old world, just to survive. Just like the rest of us.”
Just like the rest of us. Meaning he was doing something he would never have done in his life. Just as she was doing.
They both fell silent again as they walked. The glow lacing the sky lit their way, giving an eerie, greenish view of her farmhouse and the outer buildings in the distance. She realized now that there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of out here. Just her vivid imagination. She smiled at that thought, and to her surprise, Logan’s hand laced with hers. He squeezed her fingers gently, as if telling her everything was going to be all right, and for the first time in a long time, she actually felt that, yeah, maybe things might work out okay.
Chapter Five
“Do you think it’ll ever go back to normal?”
Logan heard the hopefulness in her question. Knew she was talking about the cold weather. He also knew he should sugarcoat what he’d heard. Protect her from the truth. It would be better if someone else dashed her hopes. But maybe the truth would be better if it came from him.
“Nothing will ever be the same,” he answered. May as well let her know what he’d heard. “They’re saying it will probably take hundreds of years before the weather returns to normal. But look at the bright side; you’ll have vegetables from your greenhouse, so you’ll never starve.”
She chuckled in agreement. It was a nice, sweet, innocent sound he would like to hear more of.
“So you enjoyed supper?” she asked timidly as they walked into the yard.
“Definitely. And I’m really going to love dessert.”
She smiled shyly, and his heart did a really neat flip. Yeah, he liked her. Liked her a lot.
“I thought the peaches were dessert,” she replied. He could hear her voice was a little husky. He knew she was teasing about the peaches because he also knew she understood what he was talking about. That he wanted more sex from her. She was dessert. He realized he probably would never get tired of her. She was way too refreshing a woman for a man to tire of her.
“I haven’t had dessert yet,” he replied.
He saw the little shiver of anticipation rock through her. Felt it simmering inside him, too. Like a volcano ready to erupt.
Touching her breasts and cuddling with her earlier while she’d prepared supper had only stoked the fires within. He’d wanted to take her right then, but he knew he’d probably come across as a sex-starved, crazed lunatic. He certainly didn’t want her to think that about him. Okay, so he was sex-starved, but a lunatic? Well, maybe. Any man who rode for the Durango gang had to have some loose screws. They were a Robin Hood type gang. Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Give to themselves first, as well as their own selected charities. The best part of his job was when they’d ride by a derelict house with bawling, hungry babies and people living there wearing nothing but soiled clothing. They’d drop off some money on the porch or one of them would ride up to the lady of the house and hand her the money, telling her to buy milk for the kids.
The women appreciated that, especially if they were alone with kids. Perhaps giving to the poor was to ease their conscience? Hell, he didn’t care. Just as long as those rich bastards got screwed for taking advantage of people. He stifled the threat of the familiar red-hot anger that always came when h
e thought of those so-called capitalists who were jacking up the prices unnecessarily and refocused his attention on Teyla.
“I haven’t seen any signs of hired hands. Do you run your greenhouse and the land by yourself?” He didn’t notice any tilled land, so he already knew the answer. But he just wanted to make sure she really was all alone out here.
“I run this place myself. I did have a horse until recently, but he died. Buried him over there on that hill beside my husband.”
He followed to where she pointed off to the south and noticed a pond and behind it, a small hill. Yeah, that would be the hubby who turned to ash. Just like millions of others during the Catastrophe.
He caught some tears sparkling in her eyes, and he resisted the urge to put a comforting arm across her shoulders. No emotions, my man. Those are the rules. He would be here for only another day and a night, and then he’d be gone, rejoining with the Durango Gang and taking from the rich to give to the poor.
Yeah, he knew he was doing wrong. But hell, so were the rich guys. And he also knew two wrongs didn’t make it right. One day he’d have to quit and make amends, but maybe not for a very long time.
They walked up the stairs, and she unlocked the door in silence. He resisted the urge to check around her home, just to make sure no one had slipped inside while they’d been out. Man, he needed to shrug off this feeling of being hunted or he wouldn’t enjoy the rest of his time here with her. Making a conscious effort to pretend life was normal, he helped her off with her cardigan. Hanging it up on a nearby hook, he got rid of his jacket, too.
It was nice and warm in here compared to outside, and as she walked toward the sink, he realized he didn’t want her washing the dishes or doing any type of work, except being with him. He wanted her now. Bad.
Reaching out, he grabbed her arm and twirled her around. Her sweet mouth went into an “O” shape of surprise and he just couldn’t resist her any longer. The minute he melted his mouth over hers, the intense need sliced through his system like an explosion. Since he’d touched her earlier, his cock had remained heavy and swollen, painfully erect, pressing way too insistently against the tight prison of his jeans. Now all he wanted to do was get his clothes off and sink his aching cock deep inside her warmth.
As he kissed her deeper, he felt her palms slip against the back of his neck, pressing him harder against her mouth.
Oh, yeah, he liked this woman.
He plundered her lips. They were cool from outside, and he tasted their dewy freshness. He drove his tongue into her willing mouth and loved the fact she accepted him with ease and eagerness. She moaned softly, the sound sexy and sultry, filled with need. He growled as her cool hands slid from his neck, her palms sliding erotically over his chest down to the clasp on his jeans. She popped it open and he heard the zipper lowering. His knees weakened with the fierce need rushing through his bloodstream, but he forced himself to grab her wrists. To stop her.
She whimpered as he broke the kiss and appreciation slammed through him at the pink pleasure washing her face. Her lips were red and swollen from his kiss, her eyes glazed with sexual heat. He saw the question in her look. The one that asked if she’d done something wrong.
“Not yet. I need to prepare you before we go any further. Prepare you for the others. For tomorrow.”
Fear and excitement flared in her eyes. They warred for a few seconds but the excitement won.
“Go into the bedroom and get naked on the bed. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“You’re torturing me here,” she breathed, reluctantly leaving his arms and doing as he instructed. He liked that she followed his orders. Liked that she was so eager to climb into bed with him again.
Logan grinned. “That makes two of us.”
When she entered the other room, he sighed heavily as the yearning to take her raged through him. Strolling to the woodstove, he seized a couple of split logs from the pile, opened the cast-iron door, and shoved the wood inside onto the flickering fire. Then he grabbed what he needed from his saddlebag, pocketing it before he lifted the pot of hot, steaming water off the top of the stove and poured some into a nearby ceramic basin. He dashed the hot water with some cold water from a nearby bucket and dipped in his finger, making sure it wasn’t too hot.
Ensuring the door was locked, he noted she hadn’t drank the whiskey he’d poured earlier during supper. That was okay. Maybe she just wasn’t the drinking kind of girl, and he realized she was the first pleasure girl that didn’t drink when he’d offered.
He spiraled a finger around the neck of his whiskey bottle, positioned the lone oil lamp in his palm and grabbed the basin with water, then entered the bedroom. There was enough of a glow splashing from the lamp he held and from the fire glittering in the hearth that he could make her out sitting on the bed. Her lower half was covered beneath a comforter, but her breasts were exposed. A shaft of desire ripped through him at the sight of her large, suckable nipples.
Control, my man. Control. You need to prepare her. Then you can take her as much as you want.
He ignored her and his throbbing cock as best as possible as he deposited the ceramic tub filled with warm water onto the dresser and headed into the adjoining bathroom.
* * * *
Teyla’s heart hammered a mile a minute as she listened to Logan rummaging around in her bathroom. What was he up to with the ceramic basin? Why was he in the bathroom again? When he reappeared in the doorway, her lower belly fluttered with appreciation at how wide his shoulders looked. She couldn’t get over how wonderful she felt just gazing upon him and how it seemed as if she’d known him for like ever.
He strolled with confidence in his long strides as he walked toward the dresser. He appeared as if he wasn’t in a hurry. As if he didn’t have the same urgency running through him as she did.
Damn him. Why did he affect her so much? Why did she want him to be inside of her so badly? It was a nerve-racking need she’d never experienced before.
Warily she watched as he placed a towel, lather brush, and a bar of soap on top of the dresser. He took a swig from his whiskey bottle before dragging another throwaway razor from his pocket, thrusting off the plastic protective cap and then dousing the blade area with whiskey.
“Umm, did you want me to shave your face?” Surely he didn’t expect her to give him another shave down there?
“I’m going to do the shaving,” he reassured her. His next words made her want to bolt. “On your pussy.”
She swallowed as nervousness skittered through her.
“My…”
“The boys like their pussy nude,” he interrupted. “You’ll also be more sensitive toward the pleasure.”
Oh, of course. For a brief moment she’d forgotten she was merely here to be their pleasure toy. He frowned and looked at her kind of funny, but she plastered on a smile. One she suddenly didn’t really feel. But she needed to remember her agreement with him. He could do what he wished, and she was a pleasure girl. His wish was her command.
Her disappointment faded quickly as she watched him drop a face cloth in the steaming water. Having him shave her would be an interesting experience, she realized, and tried hard to control her rapid breathing.
“Where did you want me?” She tried to inject a professional tone into her voice, but it came out breathy and low. Too sensual, dammit.
“Over here on the side of the bed. On the edge like last time. Legs up on the bed with your knees wide apart. While I shave you, I want you to play with your nipples. Want you ready for me when I take you.”
She swallowed as his husky spoken words draped over her like velvet. Her lower belly clenched and her pussy quivered as she thrust the sheets off her. She got into the position, across the bed, then lay on her back, bringing her ass as close to him and the edge of the bed as possible before bringing her knees up and spreading her legs for him.
His gaze was smoldering as he looked between her thighs and licked his lower lip.
He nodde
d to her. “Play with yourself.”
She bit her bottom lip and found her nipples. They were already hard and sensitive as she pinched and feathered them. Her breathing quickened even more as she reacted to her touches. His breaths also came faster and louder as he watched. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and then he reached into the basin, bringing out the steaming face cloth. He waited a moment, probably thinking it was too hot, before he squeezed the cloth then lowered it over her pussy. Heat exploded against her flesh, and she moaned at the intensity of the contact. He tucked the edges of the hot cloth in against the sides of her labia and went about lathering up the soap with the lathering brush.
He didn’t say anything as he worked. The slow and easy way he moved the lather brush loaded with frothy, raspberry-scented soap and then followed up with the razor was in direct contrast to the quick way his eyes were darting to her face to catch her gaze. Then to watch her touching her breasts. Then down to where he moved her labia this way or that while he worked on shaving her pussy.
When he finished cleaning away the soapy areas with water and the cloth, he finally spoke. “I want to prepare you now. For the others. Turn over onto your belly.”
She nodded and sat up. She set a couple of pillows on the bed and then lay down on her stomach, angling her hips over the pillows.
She inhaled sharply as his warm palms smoothed over her ass cheeks. His fingers trailed along the crack, and he hesitated when she tensed as he touched her tight sphincter.
“Easy, baby. Loosen up,” he murmured.
She breathed harshly, tried to relax and waited anxiously as he smoothed his palms once again over her ass cheeks. He was taking his time, she realized. Calming her with his touch like a master would try to calm a frightened mare.
“Breathe deeply. Breathe slowly,” he whispered. The gentle sound of his voice had her relaxing.
“Dr. Elizabeth said you’ve done anal before,” he said a moment later.
“I have,” she answered truthfully, feeling her cheeks heat. The couple of regulars who enjoyed anal had small cocks. Nothing compared to the size of Logan.