by Robin Gideon
“We made it,” Pamela said in a whisper.
Her heart accelerated as Phantom stepped closer. She tried to remind herself that he was an outlaw, that she should have nothing but contempt for him. After all, didn’t she hate the Darwells because they were outlaws?
“Yes. Despite the odds and a few unforeseen obstacles, we made it, Pamela.”
“Was I one of the ‘unforeseen obstacles’?” she asked.
When he nodded, Pamela wished desperately that he would take off his mask. Who was this handsome stranger?
“A delightful one, to be sure, but an obstacle just the same.”
Phantom took his hat off, letting it hang from the neck cord down against his back. Then he placed his hands against the smokehouse wall on either side of her, trapping her between his arms without ever touching her.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked softly. “You know if you ever try anything like that again, you’ll get caught. You would have gotten caught tonight if not for me.”
“I owe you for that,” Pamela whispered, her mouth dry.
When she inhaled deeply to compose her erratic thinking, her breasts rose and strained against her shirt. She saw Phantom’s gaze touch her breasts tenderly.
As though he had touched her physically with his gaze, her nipples instantly hardened, tenting the much-washed fabric, an undeniable incrimination of her body’s responsiveness to him.
“T–thank you for the money,” Pamela said, her voice sounding strained. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, and silence with Phantom so near was intolerable.
He was very close now, his lips tempting her. For one second, Pamela thought of crossing her arms to hide her breasts from his view. In the next, she thought of unfastening another button or two so he could see even more. Phantom inspired in her erotic urges that were unprecedented for Pamela, who had never experienced pleasure in a man’s arms.
“The money should be enough for you to live on for a long time, provided you don’t get extravagant. And don’t spend the money too quickly, or Jonathon Darwell will be on to you.”
“I told you before the money’s not for me. There are others who need it more than I do. Like Mr. Beaumont. Darwell has almost ruined him.”
“You’re really going to give the money to people who have been hurt by Darwell?”
“I told you that before.”
Pamela didn’t know what to think, what to feel. As much as she hated not being believed, she detested even more having to explain all over again her reasons for behaving like a common criminal.
Through the darkness, Phantom looked deep into her eyes. She did not look away. She didn’t even blink. She sensed he was challenging her in some way, waiting for her to back down or perhaps suddenly admit she was lying and that the money was really for her own needs.
He reached into his pocket, extracting the remainder of the money he’d taken from Jonathon Darwell’s safe. Pamela breathed a sigh of relief, finding it easier to breathe now that his arms were no longer surrounding her.
“In that case, as long as you’re an angel of mercy, you should have this as well.”
He handed her the money. Despite her surprise, Pamela calmly folded the money in half and tucked it into her back pocket. When she did this, bending her arms behind her back, her shirt opened even more, exposing her breasts and chemise to Phantom. She immediately brought her hands forward, beginning to work the buttons with trembling fingers.
“Don’t.” His long fingers curled around Pamela’s wrists. “Don’t do that,” he added softly. “You’re so beautiful. I like being able to look at you.”
Pamela didn’t know what to say. She felt naughty and daring, especially knowing she was displaying cleavage.
“Who are you?” she asked quietly. “What are you? You seem to know all about me, and I know nothing about you at all.”
“That’s not quite true, on either count.”
Phantom pulled Pamela’s hands apart, and she did not resist when he pinned them lightly against the smokehouse wall. His gaze went down to her cleavage and her pebble-hard nipples.
“We are strangers,” he whispered. He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the forehead, his lips brushing lightly. “The only thing we really know about each other is that we excite each other.” He kissed the tip of Pamela’s nose then placed a firm, demanding kiss on her lips, silencing her protest to the truth he’d spoken. “Don’t try to deny it. I can feel it in you. You can feel it in you.”
Pamela knew that with very little effort she could pull her wrists out of his grasp. He was hardly using any pressure at all to pin her hands to the smokehouse wall. But she did not want to be free from him. She did not want to button her shirt, as she knew she should to be proper. She had the vague sensation of being in bondage, and it heightened all her other sensations.
Phantom began to make love to her mouth with his tongue, teaching Pamela as he aroused her. She sighed, opening her mouth wider, hungrily taking him in, playing her tongue against his. When he moved a fraction closer, she arched her back, her shoulders still against the solid wooden wall behind her, but her breasts now against the solid muscled wall of Phantom’s chest.
Her nipples throbbed with tension, aching to be touched and caressed.
This mustn’t go on, Pamela thought.
Again, her body did not listen to her better judgment. She turned her shoulders just slightly so that the tips of her breasts rubbed against his chest. Hot tingles of pleasure raced through her, and she moaned deeply, soulfully against Phantom’s mouth.
Very slowly, he inched his hands from Pamela’s wrists, his palms sliding over her forearms then biceps. She did not move her arms away from the wall, leaving them bent, hands near her shoulders.
“Tell me not to touch you, and I won’t,” he whispered, his lips at Pamela’s ear. “Tell me not to kiss you, and I won’t.”
I can stop this madness now, Pamela thought. She could not, however, make her throat form the words that would put an end to it all.
She turned her face away from Phantom. Undeterred, he kissed the velvety arch of her neck, sending fresh waves of pleasure coursing through her. She squirmed against the smokehouse wall, feeling the lips of her pussy now clinging damply to her drawers.
His hands moved from her shoulders, sliding over the full, taut curves of her breasts. When he captured her passion-peaked nipples between his fingers and thumbs and pinched softly, a tiny cry of ecstasy escaped her.
“You can’t tell me to stop, can you?” he whispered, his lips at her collarbone. “You can’t say the words because if you did, you know they’d be lies…all lies.”
He squeezed her breasts more firmly, filling his hands with them. Pamela’s passion soared.
“You don’t want me to stop because we both know we’re each other’s destiny. That’s why we met tonight. That’s why we’re here now.”
Pamela’s eyes closed tightly. Why couldn’t Phantom touch her the way she’d been touched by that other man, so that she felt she was being pawed, not caressed? Instead of making crude comments about her being big and strong enough to make a “good bucking horse” for a man in bed, he treated her body as though it were a shrine to femininity, to be worshipped.
In short, why did the Midnight Phantom—damn him!—have to be everything she wanted in a man?
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, his lips now at Pamela’s chest, near the top button still fastened.
Three more buttons of her shirt were undone, and Phantom’s tongue, warm and enticing, was sliding back and forth along the valley between her breasts, above the top bow of her chemise. His fingers curled into the cotton shirt and pulled the tails out of her Levi’s, exposing a chemise that was even older than the shirt.
Suddenly, Pamela was embarrassed by the age and condition of her undergarments, though logic told her it shouldn’t mean anything at a time like this.
Her breasts, full and tight, hurt from the tension. Not wantin
g to position her arms anywhere that might prevent his caresses from pleasuring her, she placed her hands lightly upon Phantom’s shoulders.
Looking down, she saw her breasts inside the thin chemise. To her embarrassment, her body was responding with absolute honesty. Only three ties held the chemise closed.
Pamela’s knees were shaking. Her spine seemed to have melted. Her breath came in deep, ragged gulps. Her skin was burning. She was certain that everywhere Phantom touched her the flesh was seared from her bones.
“Untie them,” he whispered. “Untie your chemise for me. Let me kiss you. Let me taste your breasts.”
Just do it, Phantom! Pamela thought feverishly. Don’t make me help you! Don’t stop! Don’t be a damned gentleman now that you’ve made me so excited!
“Give them to me, Pamela,” Phantom whispered, his voice hoarse with passion.
Pamela looked down, and when she did, it was very nearly her undoing. She watched as he kissed her between her breasts, just above the top tie of her chemise, then he moved to the side, opened his mouth wide, and took her cloth-covered nipple between his lips. Even through the material of the chemise, the sensation of wetness and warmth was all pervasive.
For only a second, Pamela’s knees buckled, and she sagged against the smokehouse wall as Phantom’s lips tugged her nipple into even greater arousal.
“Oh, god,” she gasped, unable to believe that anything could feel so good, that the sensations coming from her breast could arouse the rest of her body so completely.
He bared his teeth, nipping at the tip of Pamela’s breast.
She shivered, her legs straightening so that she stood upright once more, though she leaned heavily against the smokehouse wall and would surely have fallen without its support.
“Do it for me, Pamela,” Phantom urged. He turned his attention to her other breast, taking the nipple into his mouth, moistening the tingling flesh through her chemise. “Open it. Let me taste you.”
His request intoxicated Pamela, who knew that to do as he asked meant her passion would reach yet another, even higher, plateau. But how high was too high? Could she ascend so far that she never came down? And when she did come down, how fast and brutal would the descent be? With Phantom’s kisses, so warm and intimate even through the cotton, it seemed entirely possible that her passion would never cease, that she would never again know a moment’s peace from the longings of her body.
She felt his hands slide slowly down her sides then curl around her hips to cup her bottom. She groaned as his long, strong fingers kneaded the cheeks of her ass, squeezing and caressing her through the Levi’s, tight across the backside because they’d been cut for a man’s narrower hips.
Phantom’s heart nearly burst right out of his chest as he cupped Pamela’s backside in his hands and nipped the crest of her trembling breast with his teeth. He hungered for the taste of her nipples without the distracting cotton chemise, but he would not strip that last barrier from her. That was something she had to do.
His cock ached from being trapped inside his trousers for so long. He wanted to free it, but he knew that Pamela would never understand. She was still holding back, still unwilling to completely explore passion. He sensed her reticence, but he held out hopes of changing it.
“Untie your chemise,” Phantom whispered, his lips warm and wet in the deep valley of her breasts. “Untie your chemise…for me.”
Pamela’s hands were still at Phantom’s shoulders. The pleasure that she anticipated was almost unimaginable to her, but she believed there were more important things in the world than simply giving free rein to one’s desire for gratification.
Each time his strong hands squeezed her ass, a fresh burst of pleasure coursed through her, emanating outward from her pussy. When his right hand eased around her hip to slide up high between her thighs, Pamela’s breath caught in her throat. A fresh burst of cream made her pussy even hotter and wetter.
“Phantom! Phantom!” She gasped as his hand cupped her pussy, the heel of his palm rubbing back and forth over her clit to spread the inferno of her passion through her body in heated waves. Her clit throbbed lustily, pulsing with her escalating desire.
She wanted to push him away. She needed to if she was ever to think of herself in the same way again.
But she could not. Her body could not do the bidding of her mind. Her sense of propriety was no match against the passion that Phantom had ignited within her.
His hand moved back and forth, pushing firmly against her delicate flesh, touching her through her Levi’s. Pamela had never felt so wet, so ready to accept a man’s arousal into her body. Phantom caught her breast between his lips again, tugging at the small, aroused bud through the moist cotton.
Pamela spread her feet farther apart, availing her pussy, shocking herself with her wanton behavior.
What is happening to me? She tried to think but was wildly confused.
Phantom’s hand moved more quickly between her thighs, his palm and fingers putting just the right amount of pressure, the right amount of friction against the lips of her pussy, against Pamela’s pulsing clit, to draw out her pleasure. Still, his teeth tugged at her nipple, sending yet additional waves of excitement rippling through her curvaceous body.
For Pamela, it was as though she had become possessed, her body taken over by a demon. She spread her feet even wider, her shoulders against the smokehouse wall, her hips churning madly in response to the motions of Phantom’s hand between her thighs.
The tension was agony. It was as though there was a knot being wound tighter and tighter within her. That tension was now sheer pain. There was absolutely nothing pleasurable about this, yet she could not stop the motion of her hips.
And then, when the pressure could build no more, when it had reached its peak, the release came.
She cried out, sobbing her joy, as the passion still surged through her, her climax more powerful than she had ever dreamed possible. She clutched on to Phantom, grabbing him so that she would not fall to the ground, her knees buckling, her legs no longer strong enough to support her weight.
Her breath came in deep gulps. Once she’d reached her release and her orgasm was final, once the waves of white-hot ecstasy had subsided, clear, lucid thinking returned with frightening speed. Quite suddenly, Pamela was all too aware of what she had been doing. And she didn’t like it at all.
She pushed out of Phantom’s arms and turned her back to him. Crazy little tingles, aftershocks of the ecstasy she’d just experienced, continued to shiver through her, but she did her best to ignore them.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered. She tried to button her shirt, but her hands were trembling too much to accomplish that simple task. She shoved the tails of her shirt back into her Levi’s. “Go…please go…please leave me. This is all wrong.”
Pamela wanted to turn around to look at Phantom. At last she would be able to see him clearly, without the darkness and shadows that he kept to maintain his secret identity. She wanted to look at him, but she didn’t dare because, whenever she looked into his eyes, she ended up in his arms, doing things that she’d hardly even thought of, things that certainly were terribly, sinfully wrong.
“You want me to leave?” he asked.
Without turning, Pamela nodded.
“Remember what I said about Jonathon Darwell. Don’t go after him. If he catches you, he’ll kill you,” Phantom warned.
Pamela said nothing. She couldn’t think of Darwell at a time like this.
She waited, wanting him to speak, wanting to make some sense out of what she’d just done.
“Phantom, will I ever see you again?” she asked.
Silence greeted her.
Pamela waited. Still she received no answer. Finally, she turned around. Phantom was gone, disappearing from her life just as quickly and mysteriously as he’d entered it.
Chapter Six
It was midafternoon when Pamela awoke. She sat bolt upright in bed, instantly awake yet thoroughly a
nd completely confused.
She recognized her familiar surroundings, the same four walls that had constituted her bedroom for the past six years. She was home, waking up in her own bedroom, so everything should be just the same as it always had been.
Except everything had changed.
No, that wasn’t quite right, and Pamela knew it. Everything hadn’t changed—only she had.
“Oh, no,” she said in a soft voice. She put her hands to her face and fell back prone on the bed.
The Midnight Phantom.
It hadn’t been just a wildly exciting erotic dream. It was reality, and now she had to live with the consequences of what she’d done—or at least allowed to happen.
But what consequences were there?
Pamela removed her hands from her face and stared at the rough-hewn timber ceiling of her bedroom. Only two people in all of Whitetail Creek knew what had happened the previous night. It wasn’t likely the Midnight Phantom would tell anyone, and she most certainly wasn’t going to breathe a word concerning that exchange. So what possible consequences could there be?
Pamela closed her eyes, shutting troubling questions out of her mind as she went backward in time to when she’d been in Phantom’s arms.
He had called it destiny. He’d explained everything they’d done with one another as destiny, a preordained event that could not be avoided any more than a person could change the arrangement of the stars in the night sky.
A slow, sensual smile spread across Pamela’s mouth. She had surprised herself. Rather, her body had surprised her by reacting the way it had, so readily, almost greedily, accepting the pleasure Phantom was willing to provide.
And maybe, just maybe the best part of all was the fact that nobody would ever know what had happened in that shadow-shrouded alley in Whitetail Creek. Pamela knew the damage done to the reputations of girls who let men have their way. They were called scarlet women, and worse. Ironically, the reputations of the men involved rarely were damaged. In fact sometimes they were enhanced, as though these men had achieved some great victory.
To the high society crowd of Whitetail Creek, Pamela Bragg, if known at all, was just the sister of a local shootist who made his living as a bounty hunter. Although a tomboy and often disliked as a troublemaker, she did not have the reputation of being loose with men. Despite her behavior of last night and very early this morning, that would remain unchanged, no better but certainly not worse.