Longarm and the Wolf Women (3 page)

As if from somewhere far away, Parsons heard someone striding toward him through the water. As a bearded, hatted head came into view, a wet muzzle prodded his right cheek. He smelled the dog before he saw it, and jerked away.

No, not a dog. Not many dogs that size. The animal facing him—mottled brown and gunmetal gray, with a long, thick snoot and eyes even more feral than those of the women and the bearded man staring down at him—was a wolf. Big and lean, it drew its furry lips back from teeth white as porcelain and sharp as a Bowie knife.

The bearded man had to be nearly seven feet tall, his face nearly entirely covered by the thick, curly, cinnamon beard which was lanced with white, as though from a scar on the left cheek. He prodded the wolf away with his rifle barrel.

“Get away, Moon,” the man growled, his voice deep and resonant.

“Lookee that, Pa,” said the blonde, still staring down at Parsons, prodding his badge with her rifle. “He's law.”

“Sure 'nough,” the bearded man grumbled. He dipped his chin to his chest, staring straight down at Parsons. “You after me, lawdog?”

Parsons's lights were dimming fast. He just stared up at the three savage faces staring down at him, feeling the wolf sniffing at his forehead. He kept thinking, Why didn't I remember the girls? Longarm wouldn't have forgotten the girls.

“Well, that's just too damn bad for you!” The mountain man grinned.

The last thing Parsons saw was the rifle's bore closing down over his right eye. He didn't even hear the shot that killed him.

Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long, known by friend and foe as Longarm, opened his eyes, pulled the silk sheets and heavy wool comforter down from his face, and stared into the spacious room before him, a subtle but provocative women's perfume touching his nostrils.

Only a misty, opal light washed through the window to his right, so he could barely make out the big armoire and heavy, ebony dresser beyond the end of the vast bed he was lying in.

Between the two obviously valuable pieces of furniture hung a gilt-framed painting nearly as large as one entire wall in his own rented digs on the poor side of Cherry Creek. Before the painting, a chair faced him. It, too, looked expensive, but Longarm couldn't even begin to describe from what rare materials it had been so carefully, gracefully constructed.

The chair didn't interest the lawman all that much, anyway. What caught the brunt of his attention was the black fishnet stocking hanging from one corner of the dresser by an even frillier red garter belt. Not far from the dangling toe of the stocking, a dainty high-heeled, patent-leather shoe lay on its side, as if casually tossed there.

Nearer the bed lay several pieces of Longarm's own clothes—white cotton shirt, fawn vest, and one low-heeled cavalry boot. The boot was partially concealed by a pair of women's silk panties so sheer that they appeared little more than a smudge on Longarm's worn boot. They were so thin and insubstantial, Longarm decided as he lay half-dozing and half-savoring the luxuriant surroundings, that he could no doubt stuff the entire garment under one cheek.

He looked around the rest of the well-appointed room, spying more of his own clothes and those of his companion strewn about the ornate furniture and deep-carpeted floor—his string tie was hanging off a gilt wall taper—and remembered the theater last night and the lovely, raven-haired queen he'd attended it with—Cynthia Larimer, niece of General William H. Larimer himself, Denver's founding father.

Cynthia, a debutante who'd attended one of the grandest finishing schools on the East Coast and who spent as much time traipsing around foreign continents as this one, was visiting Denver more and more often of late, ever since she and Longarm had been introduced at the last governor's ball. Mostly, she arranged her visits to coincide with the absence of her uncle and aunt.

That made it easier for her and Longarm, after a late night on Larimer Street attending balls, the opera, the theater, or somesuch other foolishness she dragged him to as a prequisite for getting into her bloomers, to frolick away the early morning hours playing hide-and-seek, naked, in the Larimers' grand hallways and smoking parlors and libraries.

Last night's activity had begun on the front porch before Cynthia had even gotten the key in the lock. It had continued to the foyer for about eight more minutes, then to the large wooden food preparation table in the vast, stone-floored kitchen for nine or ten more.

From there, the fervor abating enough that they could more fully appreciate the journey as well as the destination, they'd moved to an ottoman in the cigar parlor, to a fainting couch in the second-floor hall under the stairs, then, finally, at around two in the morning, to the very bed upon which Longarm now lay.

The memories of last night were so vivid—he could even hear the girl's passionate groans echoing off the cavernous ceiling as he'd plundered her in the kitchen—that Longarm's loins stirred.

He turned to the brass-and-cherrywood clock on the bedside table. Not even six yet. He turned full around to face the other side of the bed, and frowned. The covers were pulled back. A dent remained in the cream silk pillow where Cynthia's lovely head had reclined, and the silk sheets still bore the slender form of her body.

The girl herself, however, was nowhere to be seen.

He'd no sooner registered her absence than he heard something. He lifted his head from the pillow, rising onto his elbows.

Soft footsteps sounded, the light slap of bare feet on wooden stairs. They were accompanied by the rattling of fine china. As the padding of bare feet on the hall carpet runner grew louder, as well as the dainty rattles of fine china on tin, the perfume fragrance intensified.

The door latch clicked, the long brass handle dropped, and the door swung open.

“Cust-isss?”

The girl's slender silhouette entered the room, her long, raven hair falling from beneath a man's flat-brimmed hat, a long, unlit cigar slanting from her mouth. She held a silver serving tray before her. As she stood beside the bed, Longarm stared up at her, his heart twisting with desire.

The girl—he figured she was in her early twenties though she'd never told him her exact age—wore Longarm's own threadbare long underwear. They'd been washed so many times that they barely fit Longarm's tall, muscular frame anymore. He owned better pairs, but they'd been in his landlady's washtub when he'd dressed for last evening.

On the slight girl before him this shrunken pair sagged like a pink army tent, the unbuttoned, V-necked top falling down to reveal a delectable portion of her full, round, creamy breasts, the nipples prodding the thin cotton like derringer bores. As overlarge as the garment was in the shoulders and chest, it clung alluringly to the full, tapering roundness of Cynthia's hips and taut thighs.

The hat on her head was his own snuff brown Stetson, and the cigar between her teeth was one of his three-for-a-nickel cheroots he must have left downstairs in his Prince Albert coat pocket.

Cynthia grinned. “Hi, there.”

“Mornin'.” His voice was thick, his eyes tracing the row of bone buttons on his underwear top as they angled down her right breast and over the nipple peeking at him like a mouse from its hole.

“I'm wearing your underwear. Hope you don't mind. I was chilly.”

“I won't arrest you if you get out of them pronto.”

“Custis, now, haven't you had enough of that? I myself feel like a mare that's been rode hard by a whole herd and put up wet.” Cynthia giggled. “Look.” She set the tray on his lap and sat down on the bed, leaning across his knees. “I brought you breakfast.”

Longarm had been so entranced by the girl's figure in his own underwear that he hadn't noticed the bottle of Maryland rye atop the tray, flanking the two bone-china cups, steaming silver server, and a plate filled with grapes and orange wedges, another with buttered toast.

Balancing the tray on his knees, he slid up against the headboard and reached for the bottle. “So you did! Thank you mighty kindly.” He plucked the bottle off the tray, popped the cork, and threw back a liberal shot. “Where are my manners?” he said lowering the bottle, running a hand across his mustache, and extending the rye to the girl. “A wake-me-up?”

Cynthia laughed, accepted the bottle, and tipped it back. Her eyes popped wide and she made several unladylike gagging sounds as the liquid hit her throat. Lowering the bottle, she pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth, swallowing hard.

“How can you stand that stuff?” she croaked.

“That's nectar of the gods, girl!”

“Enough!” She swallowed hard, eyes bulging. “Time for something a little more civilized for us both.” She gave him back the bottle and poured coffee into each cup.

When Longarm had added another shot of the rye to his java, he corked the bottle, set it on the floor, then sat back as, coffee in one hand, fruit plate in the other, Cynthia scooted up beside him and began feeding them both with her hands.

It was one of her morning rituals. Longarm didn't mind. The problem was that by the time she'd slowly slipped a couple of grapes and orange slices into his mouth, sometimes even using her own mouth to do so, he was so damn horny that his head swam giddily in spite of his throbbing hangover from the night before.

Now she pulled away from him after stuffing an orange wedge into his mouth with her tongue and, grinning, chewed what remained of the wedge, the juice running down her full, red lips to her chin and down her long, creamy neck. Her eyes danced in the dawn light penetrating the curtained window behind Longarm.

He looked at her breasts, both revealed by his billowing underwear top, nipples jutting like pink rubber knobs.

“Now, Custis, don't get in a hurry,” Cynthia admonished huskily. “We need our nourishment.”

A bead of orange juice ran into the deep V between her breasts. Longarm leaned down and licked the bead from her smooth, warm skin. She gave a shiver and chuckled.

“Ooo!”

Longarm smacked his lips as he sat up, lifted the silver tray from his lap, and dropped his legs to the floor.

“Custis, we're not finished yet,” Cynthia said primly. “We each still have two oranges and two grapes left.”

“I've had enough,” Longarm said as he padded naked across the room and set the tray on the dresser. “Of that.”

He turned and strode back to the bed. Sitting up beside his pillow, her long legs doubled beneath her, breasts hanging out of the underwear top, Cynthia stared at him. She still wore his hat. She slipped another grape between her lips and opened her mouth to speak but stopped when her eyes dropped to his jutting shaft.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, slowly chewing the grape.

Longarm held out his hand. “Not that I'll be needin' it for a bit, but I'll be takin' back my underwear, young lady.”

Eyes riveted to Longarm's swollen cock, Cynthia swallowed, wiggled her shoulders until the garment had fallen to her waist, then crawled to the edge of the bed before his jutting shaft. She wriggled like a snake until the washworn underwear had slipped over her hips and down her thighs to bunch up around her ankles.

She kicked them off the other side of the bed, rose onto her elbows, and ran her cheek along the side of Longarm's shaft. She pulled her head back and wrapped a hand around the throbbing member, staring at it as a sultry smile touched her lips.

Longarm sighed, blood surging, and plucked his hat from her head, tossed it away.

Cynthia stuck her tongue out, touched it to the bulging end of Longarm's dong. He dug his toes into the carpet, almost unloading right there. He managed to hold back while silently humming the first few bars of an old hymn he'd learned as a child.

Looking down, he watched her, groaning softly, slide her mouth down over his organ and move her head toward his groin, the heat of her tickling tongue setting him on fire.

 
When she'd taken as much as she could, making a slight gagging sound, she pulled back slowly until her lips swelled over the head of his organ and popped off. Spittle stringing between her lips and his cock, she glanced up at him coyly.

“Sure you wouldn't like another orange?”

“Certain sure,” he grated out, guiding her head back onto his cock then grinding his feet into the carpet as she began throwing the blocks to him, making loud sucking and choking noises as she worked.

The blood surged with more vigor through his veins, and he threw his head back on his shoulders and stretched his lips back from his teeth.

Unable to hold back any longer, he spread his feet and let himself go, his hands clutching her shoulders as, knees bent slightly and leaning back from his waist, he jettisoned his seed down the frantically opening and closing throat of General Larimer's bewitching niece.

 
Forty-five minutes later, having taken a whore's bath and dressed while Cynthia, spent from the blow job and one more hard, parting romp, dozed beneath the sheets, Longarm let himself out the back door of the Larimer mansion and lit a three-for-a-nickel cheroot in the lee of the brick carriage house.

The last time he'd left the Larimer place, after a night and morning similar to the one he'd just enjoyed, someone had tried to bore a bullet through his forehead. The shooter had been a relative of an outlaw he'd kicked out with a shovel after said outlaw had ambushed him from the privy behind Longarm's own rented digs on the other side of Cherry Creek. The relative was old history now, too, but that didn't mean there weren't more relatives of other dead or incarcerated men on his trail.