Maxwell, Brandi - Colleen's Desire [The Lost Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting)

by Colleen's Desire

  “Let me get this straight.” Zachery cleared his throat. “You shot Frank, but then you got yourself shot all to hell by someone else? Not by Marc Andollini?”

  Daggard nodded. “Bullets came outta the night. I saw the white flash of gunshots and felt the lead but didn’t see nothin’. I think the bullet that hit me busted a rib. Hurts goddamned bad, Mr. Singer. Real goddamned bad.”

  “That’s not my concern,” Zachery replied, feeling his fury rising. “You killed Frank, right? What about Marc?”

  “Don’t know for sure about the dark-haired one. But the big man, him I know for certain is a dead man. I had his head in my sights when I pulled the trigger, and he went down hard.”

  Harley, on one knee, groaned then and said, “Mr. Singer, you gotta get us a doctor. We all need a doctor tonight.”

  For the second time that night, Zachery Singer looked at a problem, made a decision, and then acted on it instantly.

  He drew his revolver, thumbed back the hammer, and as Daggard looked on in stunned disbelief, fired at point-blank range. The heavy bullet knocked Daggard backward, and the outlaw was already a corpse before he hit the ground.

  The other three men, already having felt the bite of lead that night, were caught completely off guard and were physically in no condition to defend themselves. Zachery aimed and fired quickly. None of the would-be assassins so much as cleared leather before being cut down at close range by a well-placed bullet to the chest.

  “What the hell, Zach?” The shooting had happened so quickly Ralph hadn’t even drawn his gun. His face was ghostly pale. The hand at his mouth trembled slightly. “What the hell was that all about?”

  “I gave them a simple killing to do, and they screwed it up. Now Marc Andollini’s going to be out for revenge because his best friend got gunned down. Those men would have gone to see Doc Hamms, and it wouldn’t have been long before they’d all be spilling their guts to Sheriff Dixon about how I put them up to bushwhacking two bastards that everyone in Golden Valley knows I hate.” He holstered his revolver, then hooked his thumbs into his gun belt. “A minute ago, Daggard and his friends were a threat to me. Now how much of a threat are they?”

  Ralph nodded. “But still...”

  “But still nothing!” Zachery replied contemptuously. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. We’ll let the crows and wolves and coyotes make a meal of them.”

  * * * *

  Colleen felt fidgety, as though she didn’t belong in her own home. Maybe she didn’t belong. At least not when she had Marc and Frank in the house with her.

  “This has been one hell of a night,” Marc said, standing at the side of the bed where his friend was once again stretched out and sleeping beneath a blanket. He was a big enough man to make the bed appear undersized. “I didn’t think of it before, but I’ll have to hitch up your buckboard again and take that back to town to get Doc Hamms. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Colleen shook her head. She found it difficult to look at Marc. It had been less than an hour since she had experienced an orgasm that made her feel as though her body was about to turn inside out. Now she couldn’t look him directly in the eyes.

  She cleared her throat nervously and replied, “No, of course not. Come back whenever you can. I’ll take good care of your friend in your absence.”

  Though Colleen was at the bedside looking down at Frank, she was singularly aware of Marc standing nearby. She was conscious of wearing only the lightweight dress and irrationally felt as though she was naked in front of Marc. No matter how hard she tried to keep from having libidinous thoughts, in her mind’s eye she kept seeing the image of Marc’s handsome face as he pleasured her, his black hair in stark contrast to the whiteness of her thighs, his tongue like a serpent, caressing her clit with such skill…

  “Thank you for taking care of Frank. When I come back, I’ll have Doc Hamms with me, and I’ll bring plenty of provisions so you’re not too put out by having him here. If you don’t mind, we’ll let Doc Hamms decide how long it should be before Frank can be moved.”

  “Whatever is best. And don’t worry about provisions.” She glanced at him and smiled sheepishly. “I was glad that I could be of help tonight.”

  “Frank and I would both be dead right now if not for you and that rifle of yours.” He put his hand lightly on her shoulder, and Colleen flinched slightly. He took his hand from her instantly. “I’d better go now. Are you sure you’ll be all right here?”

  Forcing herself to turn toward Marc, Colleen looked at him, smiling as casually as she could manage, and said with a bit more honesty than she had intended, “Frank’s lucky to have you as a friend. I have to admit that I’m jealous. I’ve never had a friend love me as much as you obviously love him.”

  She looked into his chocolaty eyes. Conflicting emotions warred within her breast, part of her wanting to shamelessly throw herself into his arms to once more feast on his delicious kisses, and part of her wanting to put as much distance between herself and Marc Andollini as possible. When she was near him, she was capable of shameless, lustful behavior she hadn’t imagined was possible for her.

  “Thank you again.” Marc stepped closer, bent briefly to plant a kiss on Colleen’s forehead, then said, “I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”

  He was out the door just seconds later, but Colleen’s heart was racing long after he had disappeared.

  Chapter Seven

  Colleen almost began to sing, then stopped herself. Frank was sleeping, after all, and if there was anything the wounded man needed, it was rest and sleep and time to recover from the bullet that had nearly taken his life.

  I shouldn’t feel this exuberant, Colleen thought as she looked at the sleeping man across the room. She worked up a rich lather of soap suds between her palms.

  Not while I’ve got a very badly injured man in my house and I’m completely naked.

  Setting the thick brick of soap down on the small plate, Colleen turned toward the basin and made quick work of soaping her body in all the appropriate places. She rinsed off the soap with a wash towel, which she continually dipped and squeezed into the basin of room temperature water.

  It’s amazing that I’ve got so much energy. I hardly slept more than an hour.

  But it wasn’t the sleep that had rejuvenated her spirits and given her the almost euphoric energy that had been missing from her life for several years now. It was the memory of the orgasm that Marc had provided the previous evening. An orgasm caused by a tongue, slick and restless, that moved and probed, touched and caressed. Nothing Colleen had ever before experienced could quite equal the wild thrills that she’d become intimately acquainted with while curled nearly into a circle with only her head and shoulders touching the ground. She had been conscious of the obscenity of her position as she looked up at Marc while he devoured her cunt with a skill she could experience but hardly comprehend.

  Rinsing off the soap and working the wet cloth over her nipples slowly, Colleen looked at Frank as he slept in her bed. He was a big man and handsome. It didn’t hurt that he was magnificent to share kisses with.

  When she had finished bathing and with a final soft sigh of resignation, Colleen set the washcloth aside and picked up her clothes for the day. There were chores to do, and those duties wouldn’t allow the niceties of feminine apparel. She chose to wear the clothes she always wore. The clothes that were practical, even if they were neither feminine nor pleasing to the eye. The trousers were of good wool designed to withstand honest and heavy labor without turning to rags. A camisole of cotton she had made herself, along with a shirt of heavy cotton she’d purchased at the general store, was also on the neatly folded pile of clothes.

  But there were still no underpants. As she looked at her clothing options, a warm flush went through Colleen. Heated memories of what it had felt like to have Marc touching her, kissing her, came rushing back with all the subtlety of a tidal wave. When that wave hit Colleen, she shivered and tried to pretend she didn’t rememb
er what it had been like to climax because of Marc’s lusty kisses.

  But in her heart she knew she was lying to herself.

  The ecstasy that Marc had elicited was not something a woman forgot. Not ever.

  Naked, her body only slightly damp, she turned around and looked once again at Frank. He continued to sleep peacefully. A small smile touched her lips. Would it have been so bad if he’d woken to find her naked, her body dripping with soap bubbles?

  Stop thinking that way. The only thing on Frank’s mind is doing whatever’s necessary to heal from his wounds. The closest thing to pleasure on his mind is going to come from a bottle of good sipping whiskey.

  She dressed quickly, blushing a little when she pulled on her trousers. She wasn’t one to dress without putting on underwear, and it seemed a particularly scandalous thing to do during the light of day. It didn’t matter that nobody else would know that she was without underwear. What mattered was that she knew, and she felt strangely daring and adventurous because of it.

  Sitting in a chair, Colleen pulled on her thick, white socks, then her boots. As always, she would make herself a breakfast after she’d collected the eggs and milked her cow. Her father had taught her that she should always do the early morning chores first to work up a little appetite before treating herself with a hearty breakfast.

  She went back to the basin, picked it up, and was nearly to the door when a soft groan from Frank stopped her dead in her tracks. She turned to face him so quickly that some of the water splashed out of the porcelain basin.

  “Morning,” he said, his voice low and muzzy with sleep. “Mind letting me use that water before you toss it out? I’d like to wash up a bit.”

  “How are you feeling?” She walked over to the bed and set the basin near his hip. The water was milky with soap. “You had a pretty bad night.”

  “I feel like I’ve been kicked in the head by a mule, then stomped on by a bull.”

  She tried to look only at Frank’s face, but the blanket was pulled up only to his stomach, so the broad expanse of his muscular, entirely hairless chest was exposed. Though she wished it wasn’t so, she was aware of a tiny ember of lust beginning to warm inside herself.

  “Here you go.” She handed him the damp towel. When Frank smiled, the spark became a warm, red glow within her. “I’ve got my morning chores to do, but if you need anything, just call out. I’ll either be in the barn or the chicken coop.”

  She watched as Frank, using his uninjured left hand, dipped the washcloth into the water, squeezed it to get some of the water out, then somewhat clumsily rubbed his chest with the cloth. He was obviously right-handed, but his right wrist and forearm were badly swollen and discolored.

  “You’d better let me help you,” Colleen said after a moment. “It’s hard doing anything more difficult than scratching your nose with the wrong hand.”

  Frank gave her a boyish smile that hinted at embarrassment. “Seems I’ve needed your help a lot lately. Now that I’ve got my wits about me a bit better than last night, would you mind telling me all that happened? There are a lot of things about last night that aren’t exactly crystal clear.”

  Well, your best friend gave me the most powerful orgasm of my life and then I left him completely unsatisfied. He’s probably worked up a real good hatred of me by this time.

  She didn’t put her self-lacerating thoughts into words, though she did feel something akin to actual physical pain at simply thinking them.

  She placed the basin on the floor, sat on the edge of the bed, and began washing Frank, starting with his neck. As she worked her way slowly downward, over his chest and shoulders, underarms and biceps, she spoke of the previous evening’s events, pointedly beginning her tale after she had shared kisses with both him and Marc.

  “How many stitches did you put in my head?”

  “Eight. I spaced them close together, so there should not be much of a scar.”

  Frank looked at his swollen and discolored right hand. “It’s going to be a while before I hold a deck of cards in that hand.”

  Colleen bent to the side, rinsed the washcloth again, then shifted just a little lower on the bed. And that’s when she saw that Frank had an erection tenting the blankets.

  “Oh!” she gasped, her eyes widening in surprise. “Oh, my!”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that.”

  Though she couldn’t actually see his cock, the size of the tenting blanket suggested that he was every bit as magnificently endowed as Marc. The awareness that she had directly caused two of Montana’s handsomest rakes to have erections was both thrilling and embarrassing. Colleen simply never thought of herself as a woman who did such things.

  It took a while for her to drag her gaze from Frank’s cock up to his face. There was a faint blush to his cheeks now, made more noticeable by the whiteness of the pillow beneath his head.

  “You’re lovely,” he said in explanation. “It just sort of happened.”

  “But you’re injured, and I know you’re in pain.” She put a hand to her mouth and mumbled between her fingers, “Oh, I say the dumbest things sometimes!” Her gaze turned once more toward that part of Frank that obviously hadn’t been injured. In fact, that particular part of him seemed to be in the peak of health. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s my fault.”

  With a groan, Frank replied, “Yes, you’re at fault, though there’s no reason to apologize.” He grinned and lifted his battered right hand. “There’s no way that’s going to relax on its own, so while you’re in the barn, I guess I’ll have to figure out some way of becoming ambidextrous.”

  “No.”

  The single word was out of Colleen’s mouth before she could stop it, and once spoken she couldn’t pretend it meant nothing. She looked down at his concealed erection, then into Frank’s eyes. Seconds ticked away, and neither spoke. The significance of the single word surrounded them like an erotic but rather frightening specter.

  “I caused it,” she said, her hushed voice now barely audible. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She felt the instantaneous acceleration of her pulse, and her breathing became quick and deep. She looked into Frank’s cool blue eyes and wondered what he thought of her now and whether her bold declaration would be viewed as courageous or tawdry.

  Her gaze finally trailed slowly down his naked chest to the tenting blanket below his waist. She took the blanket carefully between forefingers and thumbs, her movements slow and precise, just as they had been hours earlier when she’d put stitches in his scalp. Lowering the blanket, she exposed his cock, and at first sight of it, she sucked in her breath and unconsciously held it for several seconds.

  His cock was pale, angling sharply upward, the crown swollen and taut. Colleen wrapped her fingers around the shaft and was a little surprised to discover that, while holding him, she couldn’t touch her fingertips to her thumb. When she squeezed him, he groaned softly.

  She was uneasily aware of him looking at her. She twisted on the mattress, turning so that her back was toward the headboard. Leaning to the side, she half-reclined on Frank’s stomach and began working her hand slowly up and down over his hard cock.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, Colleen thought as she watched her hand moving along the entire length of a large erection.

  Frank and Marc are too handsome. They inspired me to behavior I wouldn’t dream of doing with anyone else.

  A drop of fluid formed at the slitted tip. With her thumb, Colleen smoothed the slick droplet around the crown. The low, rumbling groan was all the approval she needed. With her heart pounding against her ribs, she bent at the waist, brought her lips to the head, and planted a smacking kiss on the spongy knob. Then, slowly and hesitantly, the tip of her tongue slipped out between her lips. As she licked the crown, moistening it with her saliva, she tasted the salty tang of his pre-cum. When she pushed her lips over the knob, the sigh she drew from Frank heightened her confidence.

  She began bobbing slowly. The size of
Frank’s cock made it impossible for her to fit much more than the crown into her mouth, so she stroked what she couldn’t suck. She nibbled down the shaft, her lips caressing as her tongue slithered along the responsive flesh. When she felt the bulbous crown pressing firmly against the opening of her throat, Colleen drew a tight suction on Frank, her cheeks caving inward.

  “Oh, yesss,” Frank hissed, putting a hand on the back of Colleen’s head.

  But Frank wasn’t Allen. Instead of pushing her down, Frank caressed her hair lightly between his fingers and thumb. Though Colleen had at first tensed up, she quickly relaxed and resumed her slow. When she tried to take him deeper, her throat rebelled.

  She tossed her head up, sputtering softly, keeping her face turned away from Frank.

  “Don’t hurt yourself. There’s no need for that.”

  Colleen wanted to kiss him then. Kiss him full on the lips and feel his tongue exploring her mouth. She wanted to take off all her clothes and feel his big, powerful body pressing her into the mattress. She wanted to feel his cock, fiercely aroused and solid as stone, spreading the delicate lips of her cunt, pushing deep into her, filling her, binding her to him.

  “Turn around,” Frank said as he took his hand from Colleen’s hair. “I want to see you.”

  Hesitating, Colleen remained leaning over Frank with her back to him. Her behavior was wicked enough, more licentious than she had ever expected, but it would be so much more scandalous if she knew that he was watching her. She stroked him, keeping her actions hidden from his piercing gaze.

  “You’re so lovely. Please, let me look at you.”

  “I’m not lovely,” Colleen replied softly. She stroked his saliva-moistened cock a bit more vigorously, but when she started leaning down to take him once again between her lips, he pushed his fingers into her hair and held on, stopping her descent. “Let me please you,” she whispered. “It won’t take much more. I can tell.”

  “Stand up.” He cleared his throat and added, “Please.”