Alice sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed in Dalton’s clothes.
Trembling, I closed my bedroom door, and then holding her gaze, I twisted the key in the lock. Already, my cunny clenched in anticipation. Cream flooded my channel, dampening my pantalets for the second time today. Why couldn’t I get enough of this? Why had the one time not satisfied me?
Alice stared. I swallowed, summoning courage. “Touch me,” I said, my voice but a breath. “Please touch me again.”
A long, taut silence ensued, and for a moment, I thought she would refuse me. Finally, she pushed herself up and walked across the room to where I stood. My lashes fluttered shut, and I gulped deep breaths of air as she wordlessly began undressing me. Her hands worked hastily. Neither of us spoke as she peeled away my bodice and then unlaced my corset. I started to tell her I had to leave it tied so I could wriggle into it since I had no one left to lace it, but I kept my mouth shut and my eyes closed.
The whalebone and cotton fell away. She released the tapes that held up my chemise, and suddenly my top half was naked. My nipples pebbled as the cool air wafted over them.
Her fingers tugged the drawstring of my petticoat. It whispered down and dropped in a heap around my ankles. She didn’t merely help me out of my clothes. She exposed me, and I did absolutely nothing to stop her.
She turned me and pushed my back against the door, her face hovering inches from mine as she untied the ribbons that held up my pantalets. I resisted the urge to stop her, to grasp the waistband and hold up the last barrier between her fingers and my body.
Her quick, harsh breaths fanned my face, smelling of the sweet Muscadine wine we’d sipped. Her hands shook as she pushed my pantalets down. My chest rose and fell, brushing her coarse linen shirt.
I wanted her. I wanted her as I’d wanted Dalton. More. My body shook with the need to touch her, to please her, to open and soften to her.
Her hands threaded into my hair and released the clasp that held up my chignon. I heard it clatter to the floor as my long locks spilled down over my shoulders. Opening my eyes, I watched as she wound one of my black curls around her index finger.
“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured.
Boldly, I took her hand and drew it to my breast. My senses exploded as she cupped me there and then rolled my nipple gently between her thumb and forefinger. Everything inside me careened wildly out of control. When her hand left my breast and skimmed down my belly and between my legs, I instantly spread for her.
What wanton muse had possessed me? Still gazing into my eyes, she slid her fingers through my already creamy folds. Her shoulder dipped slightly as she reached farther, searching, searching—oh, yes, finding.
My world tilted. I clung to her shoulders and moaned as she found that wonderful spot inside my channel. I’d never experienced a touch so gentle and yet so effective. Her head descended, and at once, my nipple was in her hot mouth. Her tongue flicked the distended bud, and I wound my fingers into her hair, holding her head captive there while her expert fingers plunged into my eager cunny.
The words she’d uttered the night she’d killed the wounded Yankee resounded in my head. “Will you do the same for me?”
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. I was her slave. I would willingly do anything she bade me to do.
The door rattled on its hinges as I rocked my hips in time with her hand. “Yes,” she hissed, and suddenly bliss was upon me.
Shocked that it had happened to quickly, I whimpered and rode her hand as spasms coursed through me with violent abandon.
“Don’t stop,” she said, her mouth now at my ear. “Let it come, Belle. Let it come on my fingers.”
My sheath squeezed her fingers. She didn’t let up. I couldn’t stand it. The pleasure was too much. The throes continued and continued until they finally eddied away.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I gave in to the pleasure she rendered from my sex. Her hips wedged between my legs, and she pinned me hard against the door. She pushed her lust-coated fingers into my mouth. “Taste it, Belle.”
I should have been repulsed. Instead, I grasped her hand and suckled and tasted and drank the sweet nectar she’d milked from my cunny. I was hers, and she knew it.
When I’d licked her fingers clean, she backed away and shucked her clothing. I watched, fervid to touch her. She undressed like a man, kicking off her boots by wedging on the heel with the toes of the other foot. Reaching behind her head, she yanked her shirt off, neck first. I had her breasts in my hands before she could get her breeches undone.
My impatience to touch her vied with confusion. My mind screamed that this was wicked, immoral. My body had a voice and a will of its own. Her nipples grew taut in my hands. I tweaked and tugged them, fascinated by the differences and similarities in our bodies.
Alice’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. I loved that I did this to her, that I gave her this pleasure. The feel of her firm breasts reignited my own desire.
Taking my hands, she dragged me toward the bed. When the backs of her knees hit the mattress, she sank and pushed herself back, spreading her legs while I crawled onto the bed between them. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the dusting of hair where her swollen clitoris peeped from between two peachy folds. She spread her legs wider, and her flesh opened like the petals of a rose to expose all her glistening secrets.
Beneath all her bravado, boots, and boyish looks, she was all woman—so delicately feminine—that I stared amazed.
“Put your finger inside me, Belle,” she rasped.
Hesitantly, I reached for her but then stopped. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes you do,” she said as her hand clasped mine. She guided it to her center and bucked when I cupped her mound. Her entire body trembled, and she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth.
I swallowed thickly. Heat radiated from her body. Slick wetness coated my fingers. I’d done this to her. I ached to explore her. My fingers curled into the creamy crevices.
Gripping fistfuls of the covers, she bowed off the bed. “Don’t tease me. Please, Belle. Please.”
My pulse pounded. I felt as if I were outside myself, watching as I knelt between a woman’s legs to pleasure her. Doubt surged. And then she grabbed my wrist with both her hands and pulled my palm hard against her. My eyes widened as my middle finger slipped inside her moist heat.
It was as if I’d plunged my finger into ripe, warm fruit.
Alice writhed. Moments ago, when I’d been in the throes of my own orgasm, I’d had no other thought than to please her. Now, fear gripped me. Could I do to her what she’d done to me?
Her sheath—hot and wet and soft—licked at my finger. Summoning every last vestige of courage I possessed, I pushed my finger in farther.
“Yes!” Alice cried. Her fingers moved to her clitoris, and she began to rub it around and around. The knee of her good leg lifted, and she rocked her hips, forcing my finger in and out of her.
Her free hand encircled my arm, and she pulled me forward so that my hair brushed her belly as I rose to my knees. From this angle, I could piston her. Some savage passion came over me as I began to thrust in and out of her channel.
My mind raced, stopping on one thought: had any man ever done this to her? Something ugly and possessive reared inside me at the idea of it. I wanted to ask her. I wanted to make her admit allegiances that I shouldn’t. I wanted something more from her, and I couldn’t even identify what that something was.
Her breasts jiggled with her raw movements, and flicking my hair back over my shoulder, I leaned down so I could latch on to her nipple. I sucked and stroked it with my tongue. Whimpers and groans escaped her lips as she burrowed her fingers into my hair and held my head there. The muscles in her thighs and calves tensed as her legs closed on my body. I couldn’t have gotten free of her if I’d wanted to, and the thought of her forcing me, dominating me, making me do unspeakable things to her reignited my desire.
Her channel ti
ghtened and spasmed around my finger in successive, hard contractions. Her soft cries told me she’d found release. I continued my pace until her arms and legs relaxed, and then, my finger still embedded within her, I collapsed on top of her body.
I don’t recall moving or breathing for what seemed like an hour. Her fingers smoothed over my hair and my shoulder as if she caressed me with a feather instead of her hand.
For the first time in two years, the outside world melted away. Rattle and Snap, my family, my goats, my worries—everything—disappeared until there was only pure physical liberation. I felt safe in a way that I never had before.
Despite our differences, on some level, Alice was the same. She understood me. She accepted me. She knew me as I knew her in that unspoken way only two females can.
That night, I slept naked for the first time in my life—in the arms of another woman.
* * *
Alice listened to the big grandfather clock downstairs chime three. She touched her lips to the top of Belle’s head, and Belle shifted and snuggled closer.
Silky legs entwined with Alice’s. A graceful hand cupped her breast possessively. Alice should be in heaven. Instead, she was in hell.
She’d told herself she wouldn’t push Belle. Shit, she’d told herself she wouldn’t have anything else to do with Belle. But when Belle had come into the bedroom earlier and had begged to be touched, Alice had been unable to resist.
Instantly, her thoughts flooded with carnal images of Belle’s face as ecstasy crashed over her, of the sounds of Belle’s soft moans and the warm, wet feel of her cunny. Alice tensed at the memory of how Belle’s sheath had contracted around her fingers.
She recalled the alluring mixture of curiosity and apprehension gleaming in Belle’s eyes when she’d touched her for the first time. Alice had never ached for a woman’s touch more. And her mouth! When Belle had taken her nipple into her mouth, Alice had thought she’d die from pleasure.
Still, rejection and heartbreak was inevitable. Alice knew it. Just as she knew Belle would come to her senses and put a stop to their trysts. She shifted her hip, coming in contact with the soft muff of hair at the apex of Belle’s thighs. All this was fleeting and temporary.
Doubtless, Belle was lonely, and Alice offered a safe place to satiate deep sexual needs.
Alice thanked God she hadn’t allowed it go any further. She filled her lungs with a deep breath, but she immediately regretted doing so. Belle’s feminine perfume filled her senses. Alice cleared her throat. Her face flamed when she considered just how close she’d come to tasting Belle’s luscious cunny. Or worse—what if she’d kissed her mouth?
Alice blinked away the visions of taking Belle in her arms and devouring her plush lips.
No. Best not to take their tenuous relationship there. She had already done more than she should to the very beautiful, very vulnerable, very married southern belle.
Chapter Four
The next morning, my cousins left before I went to milk the goats. The big house seemed oddly quiet without them. They’d kept Ma company, and she pouted like a toddler when they took off down the long drive.
I watched until the little band of stragglers reached the front gates, and then I breathed a sigh. “I’d better go do the milking, Ma. You stay here in the house.”
Still clad in her nightgown and robe, she ambled into the parlor. I’d help her dress when I returned from tending the herd. I grabbed my straw hat, tied it on my head, and was just about to step out the door when I heard the now familiar thump, thump, thump of Alice’s crutch.
I turned to find her standing at the top of the stairs. My heart slid sideways at the sight of her dressed in Dalton’s shirt, breeches, and boots. I knew what feminine treasures lay underneath those very masculine clothes.
“I want to work,” she announced as she hobbled down the steps.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” I scolded.
“I won’t spend one more minute in that bed knowing you’re working your fingers to the bone to keep food in my mouth.” She grimaced with each difficult step.
I sighed. She wouldn’t be swayed. Thus far, I’d kept the location of the herd a secret from all visitors and even the neighbors. I couldn’t believe I was actually inviting this—for all practical purposes—Yankee soldier into my haven. Partly, I wanted her to know me.
With a smile, I removed Ma’s blue bonnet from the series of pegs on the wall where we kept our hats. Alice arched an eyebrow at me before she snatched Pa’s old slouch hat off the rack. Muttering something indiscernible about bonnets, she clapped Pa’s hat on her head. My smile broadened as I returned the bonnet to its peg.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” I told her. “Do you think you can manage?”
She gave me a terse nod, and we set off toward the woods.
“I’m a city girl,” she confided as we walked.
I looked her up and down, realizing that although she had masculine mannerisms, she hadn’t grown up on a farm as I had. The contrast in her character amused me. “Not even in Ireland?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t remember Ireland.”
“What was Boston like?”
“Dirty. Big. I’m certain there are nice places in the city, but we were poor and rarely ever stepped outside the Irish community,” she said.
“I can’t imagine living in a city. I’ve lived here all my life. I was born here,” I confessed.
“What happened to your ma?”
“The doctor said it was probably a stroke. She was right as rain up until my little brother was born,” I said, gazing dismally over the rotting cotton as we neared the field.
Alice guffawed as the vast fields loomed into view. “That’s a lot of cotton! It looks like it’s going bad.”
“It is,” I said miserably.
“Why don’t you pick it?” she asked.
“There’s no one to pick it. Uncle Hewlett and I have enough work to do around here with Pa, Grayson, and all the field hands gone. Besides, even if we could pick it and bale it, we couldn’t get it out of the country and sold.”
“What do you do for money?” She’d accurately assessed the situation.
I shrugged. “There’s no money to be had.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence. Alice took in the scenery as we crossed the creek and passed the cabin. She said nothing when I moved the brush that hid the path to where I kept the herd.
This early in the morning, each blade of grass and each leaf glistened in the delicate morning light. I couldn’t decide which time of day held more magic, dawn or dusk.
And now, added to that magic, night.
When everyone else was asleep, Alice and I created magic of our own. No one knew. No one suspected. Even now, as I walked beside her, my skin tingled from being so close to her. Every part of me sang with awareness.
Brownie bounded toward us. I patted her head and praised her, and then she immediately stuck her curious nose in Alice’s crotch. Alice swatted her away.
“It’s all right, Brownie,” I said. “Alice is a friend.”
I turned to Alice. “She’s very protective of the herd.”
“The herd?”
As if on cue, Jeff Davis let out a long, loud bleat. Alice stopped as the massive buck trotted toward us. I chuckled realizing how intimidating he must look with his wide rack of horns and those blazing eyes.
“Is he…friendly?” Alice asked, stepping behind me. She gripped my shoulder with one hand as if I could come between her and Jeff if he took a notion to dislike her. Her other hand readied the crutch to do battle.
I laughed out loud. “Uh…sometimes.” I pushed the tip of the crutch back toward the ground.
As if Jeff could sense Alice’s fear, he pranced and pawed at the ground with one hoof. When he neared us, he stood up on hind legs and pinned Alice with a sideways stare, challenging her.
Her fingers tightened on my shoulder.
I grinned. My little old goat scared
this tough Yankee tomboy. I seized Jeff by one horn and gave it a shake. “Stop showing off, you old fool.”
He dropped down on all four hooves and grunted. I scratched his head and between his horns. “This is Jefferson Davis,” I told Alice.
She burst into laughter. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he does look like old Jeff Davis!”
“Come and meet the rest of the herd,” I said, holding Jeff by one horn as we walked toward the makeshift barn. “Everyone ridiculed my pa for owning dairy goats, but no one’s laughing now. These goats provide all the milk for us and our neighbors now that the soldiers have taken the rest of the livestock.”
And then an awful thought occurred to me. “You wouldn’t tell anyone about the goats, would you?”
Alice cupped my cheek, and the touch was so oddly intimate it made my stomach somersault. “We have too many secrets between each other to betray one another’s trust,” she said softly.
Breaking the spell, the melodic sound of goat bells jangled as the does trotted up to be milked. I turned toward the herd, encouraging them as they approached. I tried to act as if the unexpected caress hadn’t affected me, but suddenly every movement, every step, every breath, every blink of my eyes seemed exaggerated.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever milked a goat before,” I said.
Again, she graced me with a wry smile that deepened the lines in her thin face.
“Have you ever milked a cow?” I asked.
She shook her head.
We climbed the two stone steps into the old cabin alongside the goats. Alice seemed far more leery of the gentle animals than I would have guessed. Her reaction amused me.
“First, I fill the bucket with feed or sometimes hay,” I said, demonstrating. “The does like alfalfa the best, and the more they enjoy their feed, the easier they are to milk.”
I gave Isis a pat on the head. “This is Isis. She’s my fussy one. I always use a fresh pail with her because she tends to kick.”
“They kick you?” Alice asked, incredulous.
“Not me so much. But she will kick the pail over—or worse, dip her hoof into the milk.” I pulled up the short stool where I sat to do the milking.
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