by Lana Gotham
I grinned, and instead of sliding my mouth over his dick, I backed away.
He groaned. “Little Wolf...”
Leaving him tied, I slowly slid out of my pants, keeping my holster and guns slung low on my hips as I stepped out of my panties.
Hunger and lust danced in Jon’s eyes, sparking warmth into his black irises, but he knew better than to move. The more he moved—the longer I would take. I sashayed toward the bed and leaned over Jon’s faced, letting my breast graze his lips. I pressed my nipples to his mouth, tempting him. Daring him.
But he knew this game. It was our favorite.
He stayed still, without so much as a quiver.
I again straddled him and leaned forward. I licked his ears, then his neck and worked my way down. When I reach his pants, this time I peeled them back, leaving Jon naked on my bed. His tawny skin glowed in the lamplight, a beautiful canvas of lean muscles. His large body covered the majority of our feather bed, his long legs touching the footboard while his head and shoulders were propped against the head board. Dark, black hair lay around his shoulders while his warm, black eyes watched me. The serene expression was painted with hunger, and knowing that I stirred something within him made me crave him even more.
I took his massive length in my mouth hungrily, and he broke his silence with a low, rumbling moan. I sucked hard and slid my mouth over the head while gripping his shaft tight, pumping.
I looked up the long length of his body, and blinked innocently.
“You win, Little Wolf,” he moaned.
I pumped harder, my want for him growing. I grew wet and my pulse beat furiously with excitement.
Unable to stand it even for a moment more, I climbed on top of him. I didn’t ease onto his cock, instead I shoved it inside me, not able to wait. I was starving for him, needing him fully and wholly. I gasped as he filled me, rock hard. I sat for a moment unmoving and enjoying the thrill, with my head thrown backwards and my eyes closed. Gooseflesh erupted over my body, and I was so wet... I lavished in the way he made me feel. So full of energy that I vibrated with it.
Jon’s hands encircled my waist, and my eyes flashed opened.
He grinned wolfishly. “I tried to wait. To play your game. But you feel so good, so wet and hungry...”
My shirt was still looped through the slats of the headboard, abandoned. I knew he could get out of the knots if he wanted...
Jon pulled me even further down his cock, pushing himself as far inside me as he could go. My sex stretched as I relaxed and slid, taking his entire, long length.
I felt the moan in the back of my throat before it escaped my lips. My pussy throbbed and pulsed with my heart beat. He held firmly onto my hips He rocked me back and forth, moving me faster and faster, urgently. The bed rocked, knocking against the wall. Across the room a shelf fell from the wall a moment before one of the bed slats broke. The foot of the mattress dropped, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. The need in me grew until it was all there was. My nipples stood erect as I arched my back and pressed against his abs with one hand.
Still, he thrust. The tension grew. It was hot and tight and so consuming I couldn’t breathe. Then all at once, it released. My muscles contracted around his cock and I screamed out, “Jon!”
He came.
When the delicious pulse of pleasure ended, I fell on top of him, breathless. We lay like this a long moment before I rolled off of his chest and nestled into the spot next to him.
“We probably need to fix the bed, huh?” I asked.
Jon rolled onto his side and searched my face with his eyes. “Probably.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “This isn’t the time to ask this.”
“But?” I asked. “This isn’t the time to ask this, but...”
“But when you entered the house, before,” He gestured to us, useless in the bed.
“Before we fucked?”
He grinned. I think he secretly liked it when I talked dirty, even though sometimes he shook his head. “Yes. Before. You seemed stressed. Worried. And you smelled of tequila.”
“”Yeah. Stressful day is all.”
He nodded silently, which of course compelled me to talk. If he’d prodded I’d have told him to mind his own damned business, but like I said before, Jon is calm. Quiet. For him to even say anything about my mood proved he was concerned.
“We uncovered the body of little Imogene-Clair today.”
Jon tensed as anger flashed over his face, and I thought about how hearing of the death of a child must feel to him, a father who lost his only son, and I wished I would have kept the information to myself.
“And then Viktor Daigle said he’d kill me if I didn’t let it go.”
Jon sat up. “What?” The even demeanor and volume of his voice never changed, but it was as if he’d yelled.
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“I’ll never let that happen. You know this, right?”
“Easy there. I can handle myself,” I said, leaning closer into him. “I don’t need to be taken care of, Jon. I thought you’d know that by now. First people in the town say I need to make the trudge up to Red Soot Mountain. Now you trying to take care of me.” My words held anger, but truthfully, I wasn’t angry at him. It was kind of sweet that he thought I needed protecting, but I couldn’t have him running off and doing something stupid on my account. “I’m a Davis, remember? We aren’t exactly fine china.”
Jon laid back down next to me. “Promise me, Little Wolf. No matter what you will stay away from that mountain.”
I said nothing. I wasn’t one for promising things.
“I’m serious...Alyssa.”
My name on his lips startled me. I stared into his face, and what I saw was unnerving. Worry. Maybe fear.
“That place. Those women. They are dangerous,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Okay. I promise.”
“Good.” He relaxed.
Jon held me extra tight as we drifted off to sleep.
I did my best to never break promises, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.
Chapter 8
Viktor Daigle was dead.
His house keeper found him, stretched over his bed, same as his wife, and all of the other victims. Only, he was the first victim that I had no trouble believing someone would want to kill. Sympathy was too hard to feign for the putrid man, so I didn’t even try.
“Ain’t ya gonna, you know, check the windows and doors and such, Sheriff?” Tom asked.
We had walked into the room, I’d looked around, and turned to leave.
Why bother. I knew who’d done it.
“What do you think we’ll find, Tom?” I snapped.
Tom froze, and looked at me, hurt. “Sorry Sheriff. It’s just that. Ain’t you gonna at least shut his eyes or something?”
“Why Tom? Viktor Daigle was a bad man,” I spoke gently. “Why should I worry about who killed a bad man?”
Tom looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “Because you’re not bad.”
I sighed. I turned and walked back into the room and gently placed my hand over Viktor Daigle’s eyes, closing them for the last time.
Next to me, Tom stuck a large hand into the pocket of his leather duster and pulled out his trusty bag of chewing tobacco, and popped a disgusting ball into his mouth.
THE GOSSIP OF VIKTOR’S passing spread through the town like a disease, being handed from one neighbor to another.
People’s reactions ran the gamut from, If someone can kill Viktor Daigle and get away with it, then the rest of us don’t stand a chance! To, I’m glad that old bastard’s dead... He’s dead, his wife is dead- there ain’t anyone left to pay back my loan to- so I am in the clear!
One thing was for certain, no one was saddened by his passing. Worried. Scared. Confused. Sure. But not sad. I only worried that people’s fear would make them stupid. That they would grow brave and start thinking of Red Soot Mountain as a viable plan. If that happened, then they’d have to find t
hemselves a new Sheriff. I knew the Sheriff had always been a Davis, but no way was I screwing with a witch—even if I hadn’t promised Jon. There wasn’t a reason on god’s green earth that I could imagine putting myself at the mercy of witches. Witches aren’t human. They aren’t held to our moral code. To a witch, the death of a mortal isn’t a sin. It isn’t wrong. They take a human like we’d swat a fly—without a second thought. Of course, they are always willing to bargain and trade. But they will always come out ahead. It is the one and only thing that all of the stories have in common. People visit the mountain and may be okay for a while, but eventually it all goes to hell.
“You find anything out about Gilbert McCroy?” Me and Tom were at my office riding out the hub-bub. We couldn’t walk outside without someone asking if there’d been any new information.
A grin spread across Tom’s face. “Sure did, Sheriff!”
People talked to Tom. Or rather, people talked in front of Tom. He could bring up a subject and just set back and listen. Even though he was my deputy—to most people he was still ‘Tom, the town idiot.’
The thing was—Tom’s a parrot. He might not be too bright, but he was great at bringing back information. And not being bright didn’t make him stupid, either. He understood more than people gave him credit for. Hell, I was beginning to believe he understood more than I myself gave him credit for.
“Well, what is it then?” I asked.
The glowing smile vanished from Tom’s face and his skin colored to the shade of a strawberry. “I uh. Well.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.
“Come one Tom. Spit it out.”
“I will Sheriff. It’s just that, well, you’re the Sheriff, but you’re a, um. You’re a lady, too.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deep. It was my hot button and could set me off faster than anything. “Tom, the full weight of these murders is resting on my shoulders. My shoulders, Tom. I have permanently shut the eyes of too many of our citizens. Were they good people? Probably not. But who is? Now, I am going to give you one more chance to do your job. You tell me what you heard. Now.”
“Ok. Ok. It’s just that Gilbert. He. He uh. Well—you know he taught piano? He was kind of a big shot, just like he said he was. Only he had to leave because. Because he liked kids.”
I stared at my deputy. He stared at the floor.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he did stuff. To his students. That was the rumor going ‘round.”
“How did you find out?”
“Madame Jenny’s got a new girl from Richmond. Real pretty. I didn’t even have to snoop. She’d read Gilbert’s name in the obituary and asked me if he was really dead. When I told her indeed he was—she said good riddance.”
“Good idea checking out the brothel,” I said. “What made you think of that?”
Tom looked horrified. The red drained from his face, leaving him as pale as death.
“I didn’t Sheriff,” he mumbled, “but a man’s got needs after all.”
Me and my big mouth. I tried to shake away the image of Tom meeting with the town Madame’s “ladies”. It was too much. I wonder what this meant between he and Cheryl? Poor Tom, he thought he was going to make Cheryl love him enough to get married while he slept with the whores upstairs? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was an idiot.
THAT NIGHT, ON OUR ride home, Diana was extra finicky. She stopped and jerked every so often as we sauntered along at a slow pace, flicking her ears and letting out deep whinnies.
I used the ride home to try and clear my head, enjoying the calm, rhythmic song of nighttime. Coyotes and crickets had always been my orchestra. They brought peace to a hectic life, and often brought back memories of napping on my mama’s front porch, back when she was alive and I was a child. Tonight, however, there was no peace. Information ran loops in my head. I felt as if I was missing something just beyond reach. That no matter how I grasped for it—I couldn’t quite get it.
After I’d left Tom at our office, I’d gone to do a little digging of my own.
Once I’d gotten over the shock of Tom visiting the brothel for non-work related reasons, I had to admit that it wasn’t a bad place to try and sniff out information.
I visited Madame Jenny’s myself, to ask about the victims, offering to pay the girls well for their time, and expecting to hear more about Gilbert McCroy.
I was shocked when not one, but four of the long-time girls had something to say about Ronnie Robinson.
Ronnie was known around town as a clean cut, nice guy. He ran the mercantile, and was always generous, giving rock candy to kids even if they couldn’t pay. I’d even been a little upset myself when he’d been killed.
But according to the ladies of the brothel, the dapper store owner had been a closeted sicko. The last girl he’d visited before his death, he’d burned so badly with a fire poker that she no longer was able to work at all. Ronnie had always given Jenny top dollar, so she told her girls that if they liked their jobs, then they would keep quiet.
If she knew about the fire poker—and I didn’t know how she could not know—and she still made her girls work for Ronnie, then I thought she herself deserved to be laid across her bed, eyes open, with one hand covering her mouth for eternity.
Now that Ronnie was dead, and wouldn’t be spending any more money in her establishment, the old Madame just shrugged and let her ladies spill the beans.
Jenny did take care of the girl he’d maimed. But it was too little too late.
Suddenly, Diana whinnied and reared onto her back legs, almost spilling me from my saddle.
“Woah!” I yelled, squeezing my horse with my thighs and hanging onto the reins for dear life.
“What the hell!” I cried. The horse calmed and the reason for her sudden upset was revealed.
The masked man was standing in the middle of the road.
Smiling at me.
Chapter 9
“You trying to kill me?” I shouted
“Why? Should I be?” He remained unflustered at my accusation. His voice was smooth and deep, his words had a humorous current woven through them.
My anger boiled, yet underneath it all, there was a tense excitement that I could not explain. The icy fear from being so close to someone who had killed so many, mixed with the intense heat of my anger, made me almost swoon. My head swam. I found I couldn’t take my eyes from his lips...his lips that were turned up on the right side into a half smile. As if he were a man waiting on the punchline of a joke—not a man who doled out justice based on his own twisted code.
And I’m not the kind of girl who swoons over a man.
Any man.
Especially not some half insane Vigilante who thought he could be the sole proprietor of rectitude in GloryLand.
My GloryLand.
I pulled myself together, as he took another step towards me.
“I checked behind Mary-Bell’s horse barn,” I said.
“And?”
“And you were right.”
As he continued to walk closer, Diana backed up.
“Woah, girl,” I said, first calmly. And then “Diana, knock it off!” as I yanked hard on her reins. She shook her head from side to side, and finally I gave up and slid from the saddle.
It was a stupid thing to do, not to trust my faithful appaloosas. She was a good judge of character, and if things went bad, I had a much better chance if I was on her back. But I reasoned that if this man had wanted to kill me, then I’d be dead already. Murdered in my bed, just like the others.
“Of course I was right. I never take the life of an innocent,” he said, still wearing his half-cocked grin. “I already told you that.”
“Why should I believe you? And what does that mean? An innocent? Who is innocent, really? Everybody’s done something. You can’t go around breaking the neck of anyone who you think hasn’t lived a pure life.”
“Who said anything about pure? “ He replied. “I said innocent. Pure sounds...boring.”
“You are avoiding my question.”
His half-cocked grin spread into a full on smile, and it was wicked in the best way possible. Shivers danced across my skin. With a final step, he closed the gap between us, and before I could stop him, he grabbed my gun and tossed it away.
I should have been scared. I never let anyone disarm me, much less a confessed murderer. My heart raced in my chest, making my breaths shallow and quick.
The masked man leaned down, and with his lips almost touching my ear, whispered, “Do you believe me?”
I looked into his mostly covered face. His bright blue eyes appeared brighter, shining through the two slits of dark fabric.
I do believe him, I realized. Which was ridiculous. He’d done nothing to prove himself, besides not kill me. But while my heart threatened to run away, my gut was telling me that I could trust him.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I may regret it, but I believe you.”
Without warning he pulled me into him and kissed me hard. It was primal and rough—the way I kissed Jon. His scent of sweat and tobacco filled my head and was wholly masculine. The Vigilante opened my mouth with his lips and coaxed me deeper into the embrace with his tongue. He held me firm against himself, and I wrapped my arms around his neck to keep from stumbling. The kiss was greedy and messy, and everything that I didn’t know that I wanted.
And then it was over and again he was standing in front of me.
Smiling.
And again—it pissed me off.
“What is your problem?” I said, hoarsely. “You can’t just go around kissing women like that. I didn’t-“
He placed a finger over my lips, still smiling, and shook his head.
To my mortification, I closed my mouth.
“You said you found Imogene-Clair,” the cloaked man said. “I am assuming that you know about Gilbert McCroy? And Ronnie Robinson?”
I nodded.
“Jo Cartwright?” He asked.
“No. I can’t imagine what sweet old Mr. Cartwright could have done to warrant such a death.”