“You’re telling me I’ve got to remember to forget?” Frank sat a little more upright in the bed, his chest bare, his back on a pillow wedged against the headboard. “That’s a new one for me.”
Colleen reached up for the small wicker egg basket she kept on a shelf. Looking at her profile, Frank leisurely studied the rounded contours of her breasts, watching how they moved tautly, seductively.
“I’ll make you some eggs. How does four of them scrambled sound to you?” She turned to face him. “I’ll fry up some ham and make coffee.”
“Do you come with my meal?”
He saw the color come to her cheeks. Her pale skin always revealed her more turbulent emotions. The scattering of freckles on her cheeks and chest pleased Frank, which surprised him. Tantalizing memories of sucking on her breasts, of feeling her lips on his erection, of trying to hold back his orgasm to make the pleasure last and last, rolled across the surface of his mind. His cock began to grow.
“It didn’t happen.” She said the words coldly, with little inflection, but her gaze swept up and down over Frank’s naked chest and stomach, and the pinkish hue darkened in her cheeks and ears.
Frank tossed the blankets aside and spun on the mattress, kicking his legs over the edge. He got up quickly, his body naked. This time he wouldn’t just be the recipient of Colleen’s generosity. He’d pleasure her and excite her until she was certain she couldn’t climax again, and only then would he seek his own orgasmic release.
He had taken only two steps toward Colleen when nausea swept over him, and pain jabbed like jagged daggers stabbing the backs of his eyeballs. He stopped in midstride, putting a hand to his forehead as he closed his eyes.
“Damn!” he whispered. “Goddamn it!”
She was at his side in an instant, guiding him back to the bed, helping him ease down onto the mattress and pulling the blankets up over him again.
“Do you need the laudanum?”
With the laudanum would come an end to the pain, but it would also put him asleep for several hours. Restless by nature, Frank didn’t want to spend more time unconscious. Not when he had Colleen alone and all to himself.
“No.” He barely opened his eyes. Colleen was sitting on the bed beside him. As he looked at her, he realized she had absolutely no idea at all of just how lovely she was, spiritually as well as physically. “I’ll be better soon. How about if I just lay here quietly and you make those eggs?”
“Now you’re starting to make sense.”
With a fingertip, she smoothed a lock of blond hair behind the bandage. Frank took her hand in his and noticed the reddish abrasion surrounding her wrist.
“What happened to you?”
Colleen tried to pull her hand from his grasp, but he tightened his fingers, trapping her. When she used her other hand to pull away, he saw a similar discoloration around her other wrist.
He looked into her eyes and said, “I asked you what happened.”
“Nothing.”
“Like hell.”
“It was nothing.”
“That’s a rope burn.” He released his grip on her hand. “Now tell me what happened.”
Colleen stood, and though Frank was concerned about her injury, he couldn’t keep himself from caressing her visually, his gaze traveling up and down over her entire length.
“The cow got spooked and caught me by surprise. It was an accident.” Her hands came up to the top button of her shirt. “Now if you promise to stay in that bed, I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Frank swallowed dryly when Colleen’s slender, white fingers unfastened the buttons of her shirt. She removed it, casually draped it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, then pulled her camisole over her head.
Her breasts swayed, and Frank felt his erection returning. “If you try to get out of bed, I put everything back on. Understand?”
Frank nodded and felt the pain in his head return in a heartbeat. He cursed under his breath and made a mental note to keep his head perfectly motionless.
Naked from the waist up, Colleen walked to the kitchen area and put kindling into the stove. “Will four eggs be enough? When you own a chicken ranch, the one thing you always have enough of is eggs.”
“I love the way you cook,” Frank said, aware that Colleen was lying about the rope burns on her wrists and that she had removed her shirt and camisole just to distract him. But what a distraction. “In all sincerity, I love the way you cook.” His erection was already tenting the blankets. Colleen laughed softly, and her breasts trembled. “From the bottom of my heart. Truly.”
Chapter Thirteen
“The son of a bitch had posters printed?”
“Shut up, Ralph.” Zachery was in no mood to listen to his friend grumbling about Marc Andollini’s latest efforts at finding out who had bushwhacked him and Frank.
The poster read, I will pay two thousand dollars for information regarding the bushwhackers who ambushed Frank Bishop and myself, Marco Andollini, after the Sons of Freedom banquet. Will pay in gold for verifiable information.
There were four other men, three looking pretty scruffy and fresh from the range, reading the poster that had been nailed to the town billboard outside the general store.
One of the unwashed and apparently unemployed cowboys asked, “What’s ver…veri…”
“Verifiable, you dunderhead!” another man snapped. “Don’t you know nothin’?”
“Where’d they get ambushed?” The insult had no effect on the cowboy’s mood. “Seems like that’s the first place to start lookin’. I got a pretty good eye for followin’ a trail, and that much gold gives me damned good eyesight.”
“I hear you there. Damn sure do. Let’s git on over to the National Saloon. Most likely we can git started on our learnin’ the whats and wherefores of this here situation there.”
Zachery watched the cowboys walk away and felt a dull ache in the pit of his stomach. Had those lousy bastards Frank and Marc given him an ulcer? It didn’t seem likely. However, they’d been frustrating him for years now, so maybe it wasn’t so unlikely after all.
“Come on,” Zachery said, turning and walking away from the poster. When Ralph got in stride with him, he said, “Those goddamned posters are everywhere. I can’t believe Marc would spend that much money when Frank isn’t even dead.”
Ralph shook his head enthusiastically. “I heard he’s on death’s doorstep, clinging to life with his fingernails. He’s over at Colleen O’Malley’s place. I guess her house was the closest one to where Frank got shot, so that’s where Marc took him.”
“Close to death? That’s what you heard?”
Ralph nodded again. “I was having a breakfast whiskey, and I overheard some men saying that Doc Hamms spent a whole night working to save his life. The way those boys told it, Frank Bishop might live, but if he doesn’t, he’ll just be a head on a pillow for the rest of his life. Either that, or he’ll be one of those funny fellas that can talk but not make any sense.”
“Kind of like you?”
“That’s not funny.”
“You’re right. But it wasn’t a joke.” Zachery, as was his habit, took out an ivory comb from the inside pocket of his jacket and combed the hair from his prominent widow’s peak straight backward over his head. He was particularly proud of his widow’s peak, which he believed gave him a certain panache. “You know, maybe the mistake I made was thinking Daggard and his friends had what it takes to get the drop on men like Marc and Frank. Maybe I shouldn’t have been taking guff from those two all these years.” He stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, and his stride lengthened as new ideas came into his head. “Ralph, maybe you and I should put an end to the threat that Marc represents by taking him and Frank out just as quick and clean as we took out Daggard and his men. What would you think of that?”
“I think that’s damned dangerous. Marc’s lightning fast on the draw.”
“Yeah. But Frank’s in bed, nothing more than a head on a pillow, as you say. If w
e made our move while Marc’s with Frank over at that whore’s house, we’d catch Marc off guard.”
“I didn’t hear she was a whore.”
“She fucked Allen Carpenter, didn’t she?”
* * * *
Marc was feeling pretty good about the way things in his life had been progressing. No less than half the unemployed men in Golden Valley were looking for clues as to who had ambushed him and Frank. In fact, so many men were searching for information that there had been a brief skirmish that nearly became a gunfight when two different groups of men assembled at the sight of the ambush at the same time.
With all those men looking for clues, Marc figured it was only a matter of time before he had in his possession the names of the men responsible for wounding Frank.
Once he had the name or names of those responsible, revenge would be swift, bloody, and final.
Riding toward Colleen’s, Marc thought of the curvaceous redhead and how she had thoroughly captivated his thoughts of late. He couldn’t say with confidence that he loved her. Love was a concept that he couldn’t entirely grasp. Just the thought of saying “love” made him tongue-tied.
Had any single experience ever felt as good as sliding into her for the very first time? Had any music sounded as sweet in his ears as her laughter when he was tickling her? He experienced nothing short of rapture when she finally said, “Fuck me.”
She wasn’t like the other lovers in his life, past or present. She hadn’t asked for anything from him, and that made him want all the more to present her with lavish gifts. He thought that emeralds, the color of her eyes, would be nice. He made a point of avoiding diamonds as gifts. One never knew how diamonds might be interpreted.
He’d just have to find out for himself. A faint smile turned the right side of his mouth upward. Another couple miles and he’d know if Colleen was amenable to another seduction.
What would Colleen be like, he wondered, naked in bed?
His felt his cock begin to grow, and it was an uncomfortable sensation. He’d have to think of something other than Colleen.
But what better way to spend one’s time while on horseback than thinking about a surprisingly vexing, exquisitely responsive, voluptuous redhead? One with emerald green eyes and pink areolas, a fierce determination to be independent combined with a passionate streak Marc knew how to arouse.
Elk hunting season is coming up soon, Marc thought with justifiably little conviction, and there’s trout fishing.
For a young man with a lifelong love of hunting and fishing, trying to concentrate on those familiar pleasures now seemed insanely mundane.
* * * *
“How do you like your scrambled eggs?” Colleen asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Frank swallowed, sighed, and answered truthfully, “Exactly the way you make them.” He paused a moment, looked at naked breasts that were temptingly close, and added, “I especially like the way you serve them.”
He watched, utterly transfixed, as she speared a sliced piece of ham with a fork, scooped up a bit of scrambled eggs, and then raised the utensil once again to his mouth.
“Open,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said after a moment, “I was distracted.”
“Oh? You’re not enjoying the meal?”
“Actually, this is the most memorable meal of my life,” Frank replied with absolute candor. “In fact, I’m quite certain that I’ll go to my grave remembering every moment of this meal.”
Colleen laughed softly, scooped up the last of the scrambled eggs on the plate, and brought the fork to Frank’s mouth. He let her feed the last of the meal to him, chewed and swallowed, then grinned.
In a low voice, with his erection tenting the blankets, he asked, “Now what do I get for dessert?”
Colleen set the plate on the floor. Wearing brown wool trousers but naked from the waist up, she had managed to maintain the façade of being nothing other than a dutiful and conscientious hostess tending to an injured guest. Except, of course, her breasts were bared for Frank’s unhurried and unhindered perusal.
“Actually, I was thinking that perhaps you wouldn’t mind being dessert.” Her tone was low and sultry as she eased down the blanket to expose his flagrantly inflamed erection.
She curled her fingers around the rigid shaft, and Frank felt a charge of desire go through him like a surge of electricity. He’d had sex with more women than he could remember or count, but Colleen, in all her inexperience, had a peculiar way of captivating him so completely he could only think of her and her alone.
“I’m assuming that you wouldn’t mind being my treat,” she said, her hand gliding up and down over him.
“I’m feeling a bit selfish.” Frank had to twist his shoulders to use his uninjured left hand to smooth a lock of velvety copper hair away from Colleen’s eye. He tucked the hair behind her ear, and as he took his hand away, his fingertips caressed her cheek. “I’m a man who likes to give as good as he gets.” His eyebrows waggled. “In fact, I like to give a little more than I get in return. Aren’t we told that it’s better to give than to receive?”
He watched the color come to her cheeks, and it surprised him a little. Why should such a comment cause embarrassment when his cock, at that very moment, was in her hand? Why, when his erection had already enjoyed the pleasures that her tantalizing lips and frisking tongue could provide?
There was little about this woman that didn’t mystify him.
“You’re still recovering from getting shot in the head, remember?”
“That’s sometimes difficult to remember. You’re an amazing distraction. In fact, when you’re close, you’re all I can think of.”
Her soft laughter was a delight to Frank. Even if she wasn’t stroking his erection, he would have taken the greatest pleasure in the sound of her laughter. The fact that she could be simultaneously delightful to have a conversation with and erotic as hell was virtually unprecedented in Frank’s experience.
But her expression soon changed and was tinged with a sadness Frank didn’t understand.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. She slid lower on the bed, her breath now warm against the crown of Frank’s cock. “I might believe them, and then I might be foolish enough to fall in love with you.”
“What would be foolish about falling in love with me?”
Frank could hardly believe he’d voiced the question. In the past, whenever a woman started using the word love in any context whatsoever, he took that as his cue to make a hasty exit from her life.
“You’re getting better with every passing hour, and very soon now, you’ll leave this house.” She planted a soft, warm kiss on the tip of his cock, then licked it slowly, leisurely, until the entire crown was moist. “And a man like you simply doesn’t fall in love with someone like me.” She licked the tip again, and a shiver went through Frank. “That’s just the way life is, so why don’t we both just enjoy ourselves here and now while we still can? You’ll leave me soon enough.”
Frank would have put up more of a protest, but Colleen took him in her mouth and began softly nibbling with her lips. She didn’t stop until the crown was pressing firmly against the back of her throat, and then she rotated around him, emitting a soft cooing sound.
What if I didn’t leave? What if I fell in love and stayed right here in this bed, with you, for the rest of my life?
The thought was so jarring to everything that Frank thought he held dear and true that he actually flinched.
Colleen released him from her oral embrace instantly. “Did I hurt you?”
He shook his head. “No.” He curled a lock of her hair around his fingertip. Thoughts of permanence with a woman had always been avoided with the intensity that other men avoided deadly diseases. “A little more…if you wouldn’t mind.”
“My pleasure,” Colleen said as her butter-soft lips slipped around the plump tip.
“Not exclusively.”
With a
sigh, Frank forced thoughts of permanence with Colleen out of his consciousness. What had prompted him to even consider such a possibility, anyway?
Dismissing the errant thought as some unpleasant side effect of getting shot in the head, Frank settled back on the pillow. He watched as Colleen nodded slowly up and down over his cock. She sucked slowly and precisely, diligently pleasuring all his nerve endings.
At first Frank didn’t notice that while Colleen’s left hand was wrapped securely around the root of his erection as she worked her lips and tongue over the top of it, her right hand was between her thighs. She was rubbing herself slowly but firmly through her trousers.
“Let me do that for you,” Frank said. With Colleen sitting on his right side and with his right hand horribly bruised and swollen, he couldn’t possibly back up his offer with any skill. “Or, better still, let me taste you. My right hand may be out of commission, but I’m a hell of a kisser.”
“Yes, you are,” Colleen said as she rose to her feet.
With anticipation so intense that Frank felt like a foolish tyro in sexual matters, he watched as Colleen’s slender, white fingers unbuckled her belt, then quickly unfastened the small, brass buttons. Seconds later, she was opening her trousers and doing a little dance as she pushed the fabric over the curve of her hips and down her legs. She stepped out of them, paused only a moment wearing a pair of obviously homemade underwear, then unknotted the drawstring and let them slither down her legs.
The triangular patch of red hair at the apex of her thighs magnetized Frank’s gaze.
“Don’t look,” Colleen whispered, modestly folding her hands to cover her pussy.
“This doesn’t seem like the time to get modest.”
“I’m not pretty…there.”
Frank frowned. “That’s stupid.”
She shook her head. “He…” She cleared her throat. Frank didn’t have to be told to know that the “he” she referred to was Allen Carpenter. “He said I was too big there.”
Maxwell, Brandi - Colleen's Desire [The Lost Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Page 12