A Wild Woman: Mail Order Bride of Slate Springs

by Vanessa Vale

  “We seem to like a wild, feisty, impetuous redhead,” Spur murmured, his gaze raking over my face, my lips, my body.

  “So you took her place,” Lane guessed, obviously not wishing to change the direction of the conversation.

  I nodded. “I knew these two would follow me.” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder and pursed my lips. “When I found her… gone, I was to be off the stage at the next stop. I only had a few coins left and knew my brothers would find me. A failure.”

  A hand on my shoulder spun me about. Knox bent at the waist to meet my eyes.

  “A failure? Hell, Piper, you’re not a failure.”

  “What would you have done when you found me in tiny Lamar, Colorado? No money, no place to live.”

  “Taken you home,” he answered without hesitation.

  “And then what?” I wondered. “Kept an even closer watch on me so I didn’t do anything so impetuous again? Like I said, a man could strike out on his own, so why not me?”

  “The opportunity to become a mail order bride literally fell in your lap,” Spur said.

  I glanced his way, nodded. “I didn’t want Patricia to die. I liked her, at least for the few days I knew her. But it was my chance to take control of my life, just as she had been doing. While I hadn’t known who I was to marry, neither did Patricia. Being a mail order bride is a woman’s choice for change, and I took it. See how far I made it on my own?”

  Knox grabbed me and pulled me in for a hug. “You did good, Sis. I’m proud of you.”

  A mixture of relief and sadness washed over me. “You are?”

  His big hand patted my back. “You took opportunities that were presented to you. Glad you had your gun with you. You kept your head and when these bastards fucked up, you kept your heart, too.”

  “Damn right,” Jed added.

  “But now that Lane explained himself and you’ve told us why you’ve been impersonating someone else, you need to face the consequences of your actions,” Knox said.

  I pushed out of his arms. “I’m not going back to Wichita with you.”

  Both Knox and Jed shook their heads. “No. You’re marrying them. This time with witnesses. Us and God.”

  Jed pointed to the church set back from the boardwalk. In my anger earlier—and being upside down—I hadn’t noticed where Lane had taken me.

  I turned once again to face Lane and Spur.

  “You still want me?”

  Both men nodded.

  “We wanted you from the second you shot a hole in that man’s hat in Pueblo. We knew what we were getting from the start. We just didn’t know who. But we won’t touch you again until this is fixed, until you’re legally ours.” Lane reached out to tuck a curl behind my ear, then realized he was contradicting his words and dropped his hand away. “You want our touch, don’t you, precious?”

  “That’s my sister, Haskins,” Jed warned.

  Lane kept his eyes on me, but barked at my brother. “Yeah? She’s my wife. If you don’t want to know how much I want to fill her with my cock, then you’d better wait inside the church with the minister.”

  I blushed hotly. It was one thing for my brothers to know I’d been with Spur and Lane, another for it to be talked about so plainly.

  “How do we know you won’t toss her over your shoulder and carry her away?”

  Lane rolled his eyes, but Spur spoke.

  “Don’t question our honor.” His voice was as sharp as I’d ever heard it, his eyes narrowed and his hands clenched in fists. “We’ve been over this time and again on the ride up from Jasper. What we did with Piper was—we thought—under the sanctity of marriage. We won’t touch her again until she’s legally ours. But while you might not care if she’s dragged to the altar, we do. She might have been a mail order bride the first time, wed sight unseen. This time it’s different. Everything’s different. Except for how we feel about Piper. How we treat her. Respect her.” He walked right up to Jed, got directly in front of him. If one of them leaned in, they’d be kissing. “Now fuck off.”

  I heard my brothers grumble as they walked up the path to the church.

  Spur turned to face me, the harsh lines of his face softening immediately. “You’re marrying us, Piper.”

  “Now,” Lane added.

  I was overwhelmed with the fact that Lane and Spur were alive, everything Lane shared, my brothers. All of it. And now they wanted me to marry.

  “It’s been two weeks. Two weeks for you to come to me, all the while I thought you were dead.”

  “We didn’t know that’s what you thought. We went to the Tates’ house to find you and they were just as stunned as you to see us.”

  I felt my forehead crinkle into a frown. “Then what took you so long?”

  Spur chuckled. “You mean, if we weren’t dead, what’s our excuse?”

  I nodded.

  Lane ran his hand over his neck. “I found out the cave-ins were caused by sabotage and we had some setbacks. I had to go to Denver and have the new owner arrested. Then I had to arrange for a new owner to take his place so I could come here and live with you.”

  It seemed unbelievable, but I knew it to be true.

  “You don’t have to go into any more mines?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “You don’t have to go back to Jasper?”

  “We’ll go back together so you can meet Lil. But first, we are getting married.”

  This time, when Lane insisted, I smiled. I wanted to marry them. This time, by choice, not by happenstance. Or luck.

  “No other women?” I asked, wanting to be completely sure.

  “You’re enough woman for both of us,” Spur said, tugging on a curl of red hair.

  “Piper,” Lane warned. “Church. Now.”

  My smile grew. These men were mine. No woman stood between us. No brothers either. All we had to do was say our vows and there was no going back. I didn’t want that. I wanted them, it seemed, just as much as they wanted me.

  “You are very eager.”

  Lane stepped right before me, leaned in so his breath fanned over my neck. “I know what it feels like when you come all over my cock. The sounds you make, the whimper in your throat, the way you scream my name. I have been dreaming of that for two weeks. But I’m not going to even kiss you until you have a ring on your finger. Then… well, you’ll just have to find out just how eager I am.”

  Oh, my. My nipples hardened at his rough words. My inner walls clenched in anticipation.

  I licked my suddenly dry lips. “All right. Yes.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lane

  When I agreed to a marriage to a mail order bride, it came with some sacrifices. We didn’t know the woman, knew nothing of her character, her age, her temperament. Would she like—or more important, could she handle—living in Slate Springs, which was shut off by the harsh effects of winter for half the year? She would be the woman we bedded the rest of our lives. Would we feel attraction for her and her for us in return? I was a virile man and couldn’t imagine curbing my carnal appetites. But what I had felt the biggest sacrifice was knowing she was truly mine. Mine and Spur’s. The proxy marriage license that ensured she was married to Spur was well and good, but it was a piece of paper. No ceremony to feel married.

  While I wasn’t the most godly of men, I wanted to know, to feel, that my bride was truly mine. Even a justice of the peace would have solved this challenge for me. Having our bride standing between us, in Slate Springs where it was legal, and marrying her. This hadn’t occurred with Piper and perhaps that was the reason for all our problems to date. No one felt truly married.

  Until now. Now I would get my wish. I would stand beside a woman I knew. A woman whose temperament matched mine and could certainly handle life in Slate Springs. She was highly desirable and bedding just her for the remainder of my days would be a privilege. And I had her standing between Spur and me before the town’s minister, reciting our vows. Both of us. Not Spur and then me as seco

nd husband per town law. No, I said my vows to Piper as well.

  There was no doubt, hers, mine or ours, that she truly belonged to us, and we to her.

  And her fucking brothers, looming over the proceedings, knew as well and could finally back off.

  If the minister had any objections to both Spur and me kissing Piper to seal the vows, he didn’t share them. In fact, he smiled, content with the union. Perhaps it was because he’d heard of Piper’s antics the past two weeks, most likely causing more ruckus than what we witnessed at the saloon and wanting her under a man’s control.

  Little did he know our bride.

  As soon as we had her to ourselves, with no sibling chaperones, we’d learn more about her, too. Like if she was ticklish behind her knees, the taste of her. While Spur had licked her pussy, I hadn’t. The one night hadn’t been enough. I ached to have her taste on my tongue, to swallow down every bit of her cream as she came all over my face.

  “Time to go, precious.”

  I thanked the minister as I shook his hand, then guided her down the center aisle and out the front doors, not waiting to see if anyone else followed. I would have tossed her over my shoulder again, but I wanted her eager for me, not angry, once we were in Spur’s bedroom and I was stripping her bare.

  “Gentlemen, this is where we say goodbye,” Spur said to the Dare brothers as he offered a handshake.

  “You’re leaving?” Piper asked.

  Jed put his hat back on his head. “We’re not leaving, we’re leaving you alone. Don’t worry, we’ll be in Slate Springs for a while.”

  He looked pointedly at Spur, then at me, a tacit warning. If we did anything to bother Piper, they’d be there to give me a second black eye.

  “Good,” Piper said, smiling. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “The next day,” I countered, narrowing my eyes at Jed and Knox, daring them to argue. They’d gotten what they wanted, now they had to leave us alone so we could fuck their sister good and hard. The only time we’d seen Piper when she wasn’t contrary or wanting to shoot someone was when she’d come a few times. Maybe all she’d needed all along was to be well fucked and I was more than happy to test that theory.

  She looked at me, a small frown of confusion crinkling her brow.

  “Two husbands, two days, precious,” I explained.

  When her brothers groaned, I bent down and tossed her over my shoulder once again. Fuck it. I’d had enough waiting. It was time to make her ours. Fully. Completely. Irrevocably.

  ***

  Spur

  Lane carried Piper all the way to my house and up the stairs. While it was a small town, I lived several blocks from the church and no doubt we’d be the talk of the town readily enough, especially the way she carried on. Of course, if everyone in town had assumed us dead, then the talk would be even more than just carrying our bride like a sack of grain. News of death was frequent, especially in so remote and inclement a location. It was rare, if not never occurring, that someone came back from the dead.

  Seeing Piper’s lush ass taut beneath the fabric of her dress as it swayed on Lane’s shoulder made me feel far from dead. In fact, my blood was pumping through my veins, and my cock. Since her brothers had been with us, I’d willed away the cock stand as best I could when arguing with Piper. I didn’t want to show them how much I loved seeing her all riled up. She had no guile, no social politeness to her when she was angry, and when it was directed at Lane and me, I just wanted to kiss and fuck that anger away.

  A little explanation didn’t hurt in diminishing her ire either. Fortunately, Lane had finally shared about Lil and given a two-sentence description of his childhood before his mother died. Piper hadn’t cared about the stigma of his past, about Lil’s profession, any of it. It had been easy for him to tell her the truth. Why he’d worried I had no idea, but Piper wasn’t one of those stuffy old biddies who would faint at the utterance of the word nipple or pussy, let alone learn of our backgrounds in a whorehouse.

  “I like seeing your things in my bedroom.” I picked up a stocking that dangled with its mate over the side of the bed. It was so delicate and feminine and it reminded me of our physical differences.

  Lane put Piper down and she gripped the brass footboard to steady herself, then looked around at the room in disarray. Besides the stockings, a dress slung over the chair, a hairbrush and loose ribbons on the dresser. The bed was unmade and while I was usually fastidious in my household chores, seeing the indentation from her head in my pillow, the sheets tangled from where she slept, was arousing.

  Hell, everything was arousing.

  She’d thought that we hadn’t desired her enough, that we’d need to slake our lust with a whore and then that we were dead. I could only imagine the emotional turmoil she’d been in for two weeks. How could she trust another man if we’d behaved in such a way, after only knowing her a day?

  Perhaps we had a second chance. A second chance for all of us to trust each other. A second chance to show her that our cocks were meant just for her. That we would always be hard around her, need her, want her.

  Enough. It was time to claim our bride again… for the first time.

  “We need to know, precious, what you’re thinking. If you’re upset with us. Mad. Happy. Sad. Whatever. Tell us.”

  She looked up at Lane with those red-fringed eyes. “Nervous.”

  I sat on the side of the bed, still holding the stocking.

  “Are you afraid of us?” I asked. She never had been before.

  “No. Not afraid. Worried.” She looked down at the wood floor, then to me. “I know now there hasn’t been anyone else. I believe you, but I’ve spent the past two weeks thinking otherwise and I worry if I measure up.”

  “To an imaginary woman?”

  She nodded.

  “The only way to get you to believe you are the only one we want is to prove it to you.” Lane stepped back, leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. He wasn’t as imposing from a distance and with his casual stance.

  “You weren’t nervous that morning in the kitchen when we were so rudely interrupted,” I reminded, frowning. My balls had been aching ever since.

  Lane laughed. “I’ve never hated the Tates more than in that moment.”

  “But they’re so nice. They’ve been kind to me the past two weeks,” she replied.

  “Then we’ll take them a food basket as a thank you, but that day you had my shirt on and if I remember correctly, it was lifted up about your hips,” Lane said as he pointed to her middle.

  “Yes, you were leaning against the pump sink,” I added. “Showing us your pussy.”

  Her cheeks flushed prettily.

  “Drop the skirt, Piper, and let’s continue where we left off.”

  She bit her lip and slowly shook her head.

  My stomach flipped, worried she was refusing us, that she didn’t want our attentions.

  “I want to see how hard you are for me first,” she countered.

  I looked up at Lane, then back at Piper. “You’re a tease, aren’t you?”

  She smirked in reply and I could see she knew right then that she held all the power. We might be two dominant men, but she was the one who ruled us. She definitely led us around by our cocks and she was just discovering that.

  “Later, when I don’t want you so bad, you’re going to get a spanking for that. For being in another damn saloon.” I paused, let those words settle in. I saw her eyes flare with heat, her cheeks bloom with color. Oh, yes, she liked that idea. As I continued, I opened my pants and pulled out my cock, began to stroke it. “You want to see how hard we are? To know you’ve been taunting us with the curve of those breasts? The sway of your hips? That plump bottom lip? I remember your taste and want it again.”

  Lane chuffed out a breath, frowned. “You got a taste. I had to listen to you for the three days we were stuck in that damn mine telling me how she tasted like honey, that your mouth watered from her flavor. It’s my damn turn.”