by Jenny Penn
Rushing through the task, she couldn’t wait to feel him pressed against her.
Hard, hot, velvety.
Her womb clenched down unleashing a whiplash of pain when nothing so sweet pressed back against its tender walls.
Snarling over the pain, Mary Anne just ripped the material out of her way, clawing back the lacy folds until, finally, the swollen head of his cock pressed right into her.
Slowly, savoring every second, Mary Anne lowered herself down. Biting her lip, she held back her moan as she felt his delicious thickness part the tight ring of muscles at her entrance. As one solid inch forged into her tight channel, she felt her entire womb convulse, and she gasped out as her weight sank her down over another inch.
Gripping her hips tighter, his fingers bit in as, with a grunt, he slammed her down his entire length. Mary Anne barely managed to hold back a scream at the sudden, deep penetration. A second later, it expelled itself in a rush of soundless air as Malcolm began pounding her up and down his length.
The glorious sensation of being mercilessly pillaged by steel-hard thickness kept her shrieks panting out as nothing more than ragged gasps. Still, she wanted, needed more.
Dropping her foot over the edge of the bed to the floor, she used it as leverage and began to fuck herself up and down the thickest, hardest cock she ever had the beauty of experiencing. Ecstasy whirled all around her, threatening to bear down and shred her world apart when, all of a sudden, Malcolm gave up his own soundless shout.
Going stiff beneath her, he slammed her down one last time before erupting into massive tremors. His release blasted into her, flooding through her body and trickling down her thighs as he held her firm.
“No!” Mary Anne wanted to shout, but the word came out as nothing more than a broken whisper as she stared at the man quickly collapsing into the mattress.
“No, damnit!”
His grip had gone soft and she tried to race over the finish line, but like most dicks that had gotten theirs, Malcolm’s withered back into contented slumber.
“Ah!” Mary Anne rolled off the cowboy. As usual, she had to take care of herself.
Chapter 3
“Son of a bitch.”
Mike stood in the yard staring down at the tracks cut through the grass. He followed the path with his gaze all the way around the bend, along the corral fence, and up into the northern pass the Willis gang disappeared through the day before. Mike knew the difference between old tracks and fresh ones, just as he could tell these hadn’t been made yesterday afternoon or that morning.
The dew froze over the dirt, turning the hoof marks into crunchy spikes of sand. They’d been made last night when the Carol brothers snuck off and dumped their sister on Mike.
Sneaky son of a bitch.
He might have understood Richard’s motivation, but that didn’t make Mike any less pissed.
“Mr. Tanner?”
That was why. Flinching as that soft question lashed him like a whip, Mike silently cursed Richard again as he clapped the dirt from his hands. Rising to his feet to give an answer to the little woman, her impatience cut him off.
“Mr. Tanner, where are my brothers?”
That slight crisp edge of command sharpened her words. She wasn’t asking him a question, she was demanding an answer. Mike didn’t take well to obeying a woman, but he clenched down on his normal response to growl out a more civilized one.
“They rode out, Mrs. Winters. I’m guessing last night.”
“What?” That had her tone sharpening even more. “They just left?”
“They’ve gone after the Willis gang, and I guess we’re supposed to stay here and wait.” And suffer, Mike tacked on silently. That’s what he’d be doing for the next week.
“Wait.” Mary Anne repeated that word with a good deal of hesitation. He guessed it shouldn’t have shocked him what she asked next. “Here? You’re not going to take me down to South Pass, then?”
Mike didn’t like the fact that Richard really hadn’t gone into a great deal of details with Mary Anne about just how much trouble she sunk herself into. No person could defend themselves if they didn’t know where danger lay, but he understood Richard’s reasoning.
He had to forget what his eyes saw and remember that Mary Anne might be prompted into more foolish and rash acts if she understood just what might happen. Sighing, Mike guessed he’d have to be the one to look after the girl.
At some point, that meant he’d have to actually look at her. Mike didn’t hold much hope she’d become any less beautiful as the days went by. He’d just have to figure out how to control his response to the sight of Mary Anne standing there in his pasture.
The grass started to brown and fade, the evergreens becoming a bold statement in a lonely forest of twigs. Against that backdrop, Mary Anne Winters fairly glowed like a flower pushing through the weeds. The curls slipping out from her bonnet to dance around her eyes only made her bright violet gaze shine the more brightly in contrast.
The painful swelling making his pants tight told him he couldn’t look at her for much longer without looking at the parts of her that would make a mockery of his honor as a man. Casting his gaze to the side, he breathed deep and easy, seeking some moment of clarity.
“Mr. Tanner?”
“What?”
“About South Pass?”
“I ain’t going to take you there, Mrs. Winters. I got too much to get done before winter sets in to leave the ranch now.”
“What about your brother?”
At least she could cook, Mike consoled himself as he stretched. He could sleep in the barn, well away from temptation. Hell, once Malcolm roused, he’d corral him into the barn, too. If need be, he’d tie Malcolm’s butt to a post to keep him from Mary Anne.
It would all work out. It would only be for a week. Then Nate Willis would be dead, Richard would have his furs, and Mary Anne could be on the quickest route back east. Mike fed himself those small consolations as he pulled his arm wide over his head. Holding one wrist by his other hand, he forced his muscles to release their tension by stretching them as wide as they could go.
The sun already crested and rose high over the valley’s edge. It got dark early, and his mind churned with all that still had to be done. It wouldn’t have been much with his brother around, but with just his muscles pitching in, he needed to get moving.
“Mr. Tanner?”
She might not have reached his shoulders, dainty enough for a good wind to blow over, but Mary Anne Winters’s tone held the firm cut of a commander. He’d annoyed her, and the angel was reminding him who had all the authority here. Instinctively, Mike stepped forward into that challenge. If she were anything other than Richard’s sister, he’d have kept on going until little Miss Mary Anne understood just who gave the orders on his ranch.
He couldn’t unleash those appetites on her because, widow or not, she was still Richard’s baby sister. Richard trusted him to keep her safe, or he wouldn’t have ridden off in the middle of the night. Mike took his duties seriously, and no woman would make him break his honor. Straightening up, he looked down at her.
“I got work to do.” Escape. That was the best thing a man could do when he had a woman he couldn’t touch looking at him like that.
“Would you like me to have something ready for lunch, Mike?”
That held his feet firm to ground when his mind sent the order to move. Not the question, but his name on her lips. It felt intimate and intentional. A fact she didn’t try to hide when their gazes locked.
“I think given our situation, Mrs. Winters, it would be best to leave it at Mr. Tanner,” Mike responded, letting her know he wouldn’t take any of the attitudes she’d been laying on Richard last night.
“As you wish, Mister Tanner.” She needed to be taught to say that with a whole lot more gentleness, maybe she could even moan it out for him. “What about that lunch?”
“I’ll probably be busy until dusk.”
That time he did
walk away, muttering slightly to himself about the stubbornness of women. He told himself Mary Anne just played a little girl’s game. It annoyed him. That was all. The disrespect she showed deserved a better response than retreat.
Only, he couldn’t give it to her. That blunt reminder smoothed out the smile teasing the tips of his lips right out. With a force of will that saved him many times before, Mike repeated silently, she’s Richard’s sister.
He stressed that point to himself in a vain attempt to wilt the hardened interest tenting his jeans. It didn’t work. Cocks were blind and dumb when it came to some things, especially when they hadn’t been treated to those things in several months.
* * * *
Mary Anne watched Mike Tanner strut off toward the barn with a scowl.
Stubborn man, she snorted to herself, annoyed by his gruff manners.
She understood he might not be having the best of mornings, but neither was she.
The long, restless night wasted trying to ease the ache Malcolm put into her body left her cranky. More than cranky with her body still burning from their encounter and no sign of relief in sight. The need actually became a physical pain that only worsened with her self-administrations.
Mary Anne shook that thought free and lifted her skirt to march back into the house. Determined to ignore the rude cowboy, her gaze still got drawn to the window and the sight of Mike Tanner down by the barn. So strong and graceful in a very sexy way. Undoing her bonnet strings, she watched him tied a horse to the pasture’s fence and headed back into the barn. He wanted her. She knew that look well enough from men, but unlike the many that crossed her path, Mike Tanner fought his desires.
What a waste. Mary Anne sighed as she set her bonnet on the hook next to the last cowboy hat hanging.
The sight of it reminded her of just how different that Tanner brother’s response was to the lust. He’d been the first man in a long time she let treat her like he had last night. The only other had been her husband. Reggie didn’t bear anything else in common with the cowboy stretched out asleep.
She checked his injury first thing that morning before setting up breakfast. Not that anybody had shown up for the meal or the good news that Malcolm looked like he’d broken his fever. The younger Tanner brother appeared much more restful and at peace that morning.
It gave her hope, but it didn’t excuse what he’d done to her. He’d taken his pleasure and left her with a pain that still haunted her body. She wished she were the man sometimes. Then she’d be the one taking and getting her due.
Ignoring the clutter of the breakfast nobody had shown up to eat, Mary Anne took the short walk down the hall that housed the four bedrooms. The first door on the right led to Malcolm, and she stepped through it to find him resting as peacefully as when she left to start breakfast.
Lifting her chin, Mary Anne decided she suffered enough. She didn’t live in the tight confines of proper society anymore. She wasn’t protected by them, so why should she be enslaved to them. Out here men took what they wanted and if a woman hoped to survive, she’d do the same.
With that, Mary Anne closed the door on all her doubts.
* * * *
Malcolm heard the cry of the hinges as his door opened and risked a slight crack of his eyes to see if his angel came back to him. The fog of illness left many details fuzzy in his mind, but he remembered his angel and the bullet wound burning in his side.
The result of the raiders tearing through the ranch yesterday, Malcolm remembered getting shot. He remembered shooting back. What he didn’t have any recollection of is where the woman came from. She might be an angel. That would explain where she came from.
Heaven sounded like a more likely place than South Pass City because she certainly didn’t look like any whore Digger would have picked up on his way through town. Not that he heard Digger or anybody else moving around in the house that morning. It made him curious, enough so that he lowered his gaze as she came into the room. Spying on her through the slight lift of his lashes, Malcolm had enough years of war to know not to trust a stranger even if she looked like an angel.
Striding across the room, his heart kicked up a notch when she stepped into the sunlight that puddle below the window sill. She glowed just like an angel. All golden sweetness and honey, his angel took his breath away.
Away it stayed when she began to pull the pins out of her hair. One at a time, she freed the long, luscious strands of chocolate curls until a full, delicious wave cascaded down her back to dance over the tempting curve of her ass. Eyes fully open, Malcolm didn’t dare to hope what that small gesture meant for the future.
His mind couldn’t even begin to process such complex thoughts. Its attention caught instead on the beauty before him. Even through the extra folds of the oversized skirt and shirt, Malcolm could clearly see the full curves of her breast and ass rounding out the material.
The plumpness of her rear matched the rounded curve of her breasts, large enough that even at this angle he could glimpse a bit of their tempting swell. His gaze remained riveted to that sight as she discarded the hair pins onto the little table nearby.
Only when her hands lifted, blocking his sight, did his gaze shift to watch her fingers curl around the top button of her blouse. She isn’t? His breath caught on that thought as she did. Before his dry eyes, the ruffled edge of her stiff neck collar relaxed.
His heart didn’t beat once as her hands worked their way down the row of pewter buttons. Not a single breath did he draw as the sides of her blouse sighed away from her curves. With a shrug of her shoulders, it slid completely free, and Malcolm began to pray she’d turn around.
With the bright light, he could easily see through the thin silk of her chemise to the creamy smooth skin of her back. As graceful a sight as it was, he would really rather see her from the front. He got distracted from that prayer by her hands. Dropping her shirt atop of the hair pins, her hands settled over first button in the line of them running down the back of her skirt.
Every ounce of blood he had drained right down to his balls as she popped the first one free. Oh, it hurt to watch her thrust those breasts right into the sunlight while she arched and wiggled reaching for those buttons. A pain Malcolm savored in enduring as cock swelled and pulsed in hungry anticipation.
Just the sight of her breasts would have kept him content for days. All puckered and hard, the little tips pressed out against the sheer cotton in a promise that very soon they’d be delivered right to him. The best breakfast a man could be served along with that ass. Malcolm’s gaze fell back to her fingers.
Working the stubborn buttons free, the dark folds of her waistband dipped lower to reveal the white petticoats covering her lush rump. Like a hawk, he tracked her hands, anticipating which article of clothing she intended to remove next. He was pretty damn certain it was all coming off.
Then what would happen? Moisture beaded along his forehead as a myriad of answers assailed him. They were all so wicked and naughty he couldn’t pick which one he wanted the most. Then he realized it didn’t matter as she unsnapped her petticoats and stepped right out of them.
He’d take anything to get those legs wrapped around his waist. Soft and rounded, he could still see the slight definition of muscle. A hint of strength, it whispered possibilities about her stamina and endurance to his already throbbing cock. It almost became too painful to look. His dick ached badly.
Pumping out an endless litany of demands, his cock wanted him off his ass and working at dipping into that honey. Malcolm didn’t twitch under the rush of need. He had no interest in stopping the torment. It was just too sweet.
Sweet did not describe this angel. Not when the lovely lady bent right over to undo the laces on her shoes. His breath caught as he got a straight view of the glistening folds of her pretty, pink pussy. That would be the delicious bounty he knew he’d be feasting on. As if to second that motion, his cock bounced against his stomach.
That tyrant would rule over her tight s
heath like no other who invaded its hungry depths, but it would have to wait its turn. First, Malcolm intended to lift that little woman up by the hips and lower that pussy right down on his face because he wanted a taste of that little naked cunt.
Naked, as in perfectly smooth and soft looking. He’d never seen a pussy like it before, and he couldn’t wait to take a nibble. All she had to do was come close enough to grab. Maybe he wouldn’t have to grab her. Maybe she’d crawl across the bed with those beautiful tits swinging. Then she’d spread those creamy white thighs across his chest with a lift of her hips and she’d feed him that pussy.
Oh, but I can wish.
The grin he’d been working on flattened out at that thought. He might not have to wish because the little woman straightened up. Almost naked now, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer than it took to get her chemise off.
Tracking the smooth glide of the hem as it trailed from her ass up the arch of her back and then off, Malcolm finally took a breath as the last barrier to all his wicked dreams floated like a sigh to the floor. Here she stood, his perfect woman, his future wife. Malcolm didn’t doubt for a moment she would be his wife because he would never let go of his angel.
My angel.
She sighed and placed an almost sorrowful hand on the window. “You are a good man, Mike Tanner.”
Chapter 4
Her whispered words echoed in Malcolm’s head, freezing all other thoughts as a prayer rushed from his heart.
Oh, thank you, God. I don’t know what I did, but I am your most humble and grateful, very, very grateful servant.
She wanted his brother, and Malcolm liked to share. So did Mike, and so did all their brothers. Given the slim pickings in the West and long, lonely winters, it had gone unsaid that one brother’s wife would be another brother’s woman as well.