Beguiled (8 page)

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 tightened 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.

Cinnamon pushed through the others to take her place as leader. I secured her head in the stall and then arranged my skirts as I sank onto the stool. Alice leaned on the wall behind me and watched intently as I reached underneath the goat and grasped her two udders in my fingers. I squeezed thumb to pinkie, thumb to pinkie, and the milk hissed into the empty pail.

“Why goats?” Alice asked. “Why not cows?”

“We had cows,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at her. “Until the soldiers took them.”

Her mouth formed an O, and she averted her gaze back to where I milked Cinnamon’s teats.

“But we’ve always kept goats,” I said, concentrating on the milking. “When my pa was a baby, cow’s milk made him sick, and Granny’s ma—she was the local wise woman back then—gave him goat’s milk to drink. We’ve had goats at Rattle and Snap since.”

“Do you ever eat them?”

“Oh no!” I said and stopped milking to glance at the kid pen where one of my beloved babies was missing. “These are dairy goats. I couldn’t bear to part with any of them…unless a human’s life was in danger.”

Afraid I would start crying, I turned back to Cinnamon and commenced milking her.

“What does the milk taste like?” Alice asked.

“This milk tastes like summer. Like honeysuckles and blackberries and ripe persimmons, like the fresh, tart scent of leaves and grass,” I mused and then smiled. “In other words, goat’s milk tastes like what goats eat.” Since I’d milked Cinnamon out, I withdrew the bucket from between her legs and dipped my finger into the milk. Alice leaned in and sucked the digit between her lips.

I gasped. My whole body reacted as her eyes locked with mine and her tongue teased the underside of my finger. The wet heat of her mouth reminded me of the tight warmth of her channel. My own insides clenched in response.

Perspiration beaded at my hairline. My reaction shocked me. Cream gathered in my own sheath as a deluge of images assailed me. Alice spreading for my touch. Flicking my tongue over her hard nipples. I wanted to do all those things. With her. With a woman.

My heart pounded.

Breaking the spell, she slowly released my finger, pressing a flirtatious little kiss to it before she stood once again. “Delicious,” she said.

Up until now, I’d reserved such actions for the bedroom. Never, not once, had I engaged in anything sexual outside my room or, up until last night, outside my bed. Right now, however, all I wanted to do was pull up my skirts and let her pleasure me. I dragged in a breath. What the hell?