Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (3 page)

Cougar was so hard, he was in pain. His cock was so sensitive that Cecile’s gasping breath actually hurt. But he couldn’t come any more now than he could six months ago. He gritted his teeth and withdrew from Cecile’s mouth. His cock bobbed hard and heavy in front of her face.

“Jesus! Look at the size of that guy!”

“And he’s still hard!”

Cougar’s humiliation knew no bounds. Not only had he failed, he’d done it in front of half the territory. He schooled his expression to calm, stuffed his softening cock back into his pants and got to his feet. He slid his knife sheath to the side, and held out his hand to Cecile. It wasn’t her fault he’d lost his abilities.

Cecile rose, daintily dabbing at the side of her mouth as if he’d left evidence of coming. “
Oui
!” she called to the crowd, cupping his erection in one hand and clutching her still bare bosom with the other. “A stallion already set to go again! It will be a lucky woman who gets to ride him tonight.”

“Who’s that going to be Madame Cecile?” an older man called from the back of the crowd.

Cecile flashed a coy smile in the general direction of the questioner. She adjusted her bodice. “I have a new girl. Just in today. Very, very special.”

“Yee-haw!” a cowboy whooped. “Fresh meat!”

“Talent,” Cecile corrected firmly. “Fresh, expensive talent.”

“Aw hell,” a down-on-his-luck gambler grumbled. “When are you going to bring in some girls I can afford?”

“When you get around to winning at cards,” Cecile snapped.

As the crowd guffawed and picked up the joke and ran with it, Cecile turned to Cougar. “You did enjoy our little play?”

Cougar accepted his hat from the pretty brunette who brought it to him. “Yeah.”

Cecile nodded to the brunette. “Thank you, Lorraine.”

The brunette smiled and stepped to the side. Cecile looked pointedly at the bulge in his pants. “But it is not your usual pleasure?”

He put his hat back on his head, feeling more like himself as he angled it over his eyes. “You could say that.”

“But you would like to enjoy yourself…fully this evening.”

“Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.” He wasn’t even sure he wanted it to happen. Now that he wasn’t caught up in the moment, he couldn’t imagine anything happening in this place that wouldn’t leave a bad taste.

“If you would tell me your preference, I imagine it is entirely possible.” She shrugged. “It is obvious you do not like a crowd.” With a graceful wave of her hand, she indicated the waiting brunette. “Perhaps Lorraine would be to your preference after all? She has a special paddle that her customers are very fond of.”

Cougar glanced at the innocent looking woman who winked back at him. He couldn’t imagine her paddling men’s bare butts anymore than he could imagine grown men wanting their butts paddled.

He took a deep breath. “No. I don’t think I’d enjoy that.”

“I noticed you watching Aleric. While not as adventurous as some of our women, many of our male customers enjoy his attentions.”

“Have you gone loco?” He lowered his voice as men turned their way. “I am not a goddamned pervert.”

Cecile patted his arm. “Do not take offense. Here at Madame Cecile’s we cater to all tastes. You just need to let me know what you want.”

“I want to fuck,” he muttered, the last of his arousal fading away.

Her expression became pained. “How?”

The only way there is, was the response that came immediately to mind, but he realized that what was normal for him, wasn’t necessarily normal for the rest of the world. He pulled his hat off and slapped it against his thigh. How in hell had all this gotten so out of hand? His jaw clenched, he said, “Straight up, man on top, woman underneath.”

“I see.” She paused, looking at him expectantly.

“What?”

“Well, you’ve been here an hour and have yet to have selected anyone, I assume there is some sort of problem.”

Yeah, I can’t get off
. He didn’t say that of course. It seemed too crude, even if the woman he was speaking to had just had his cock in her mouth in front of a bar full of customers.

“I’ve been having problems…” he growled, holding her gaze.

“Performing?”

“Uh-huh.”

She glanced at his crotch. “To completion?”

“Yeah.”

“And you fear this is permanent?”

“Yeah.”

Her smile patronized him. He would have taken offense except for what she said next. “You are not the first to come to me with this little problem.”

“I’m not?” He didn’t regard it as a little anything, but the fact that she did, gave him hope.

She patted his arm. “No.” She arched her eyebrow at him. “The woman I spoke of before?”

“The new one?”

“Oui. I hired her specifically to deal with men who come in search of such…expertise.”

Whores specialized? His skepticism must have shown on his face.

“She is very good at restoring a man’s virility.”

He hid his doubt behind a low drawl. “You’re awfully sure about this.”

“I know my business. Enough so, I’ll give your money back if you are not satisfied.”

He didn’t claim to know much about whorehouses, or how they operated, but he’d never heard of anyone getting their money back. His confidence began to increase. Still, he did not want to end up in a room with a paddle, or with a hulking pervert. “Mind telling me how she goes about it?”

“She has her ways.” Cecile shrugged as if it were immaterial how it was accomplished. The movement nearly displaced the bodice of her dress. Damn, Cougar thought, his eyes dropping to the sight. He did like the sight of breasts quivering.

“All you need to do is trust her instincts and play along.”

“Play along?” That was too open-ended for his tastes.

“Yes, play along. It will be very clear within a few minutes of entering the room what you are supposed to do.”

He twirled his hat in his hand as he pressed, “I think I’d like a little more information on how—”

An impatient slash of her hand cut off his sentence. He noticed her accent disappeared along with her patience. “You’ll find out when you get there, but I guarantee your ‘problem’ will be solved and it will happen with a woman. Now, are you interested or not?”

God help him, but he was. He’d come here looking for solutions and the woman was offering him one with a money-back guarantee. A man couldn’t ask for much more than that. He put his hat back on. “I’m interested.”

“Such services don’t come cheap.”

He pulled a fat leather pouch from his shirt pocket.

“How much?”

She snatched it out of his hand, bounced it a couple of times and said, “This should be fine.” The pouch disappeared into the depths of her cleavage, and the woman held out her hand. “We haven’t formally introduced ourselves. I’m Madame Cecile.”

“Cougar McKinnely.” He raised the soft, white hand to his lips, placing an obligatory kiss on the back.

“Well, Cougar,” Cecile sashayed toward the stairs, tossing the invite over her bare shoulder. “Follow me to your new territory.” She paused on the bottom stair. “Consider it yours for the rest of the night.”

Chapter Two

The door closed and locked behind him. Cougar turned and frowned. The hair on the back of his neck whispered a warning, but he shrugged it off, dismissing the unease as old ghosts popping in to visit.

He looked around the room. It was empty and dark. A single oil lamp over in the corner, turned down low, was the only source of light. He didn’t sense any danger, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. That everything wasn’t what it appeared to be.

He waited by the door for the woman to show herself. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and a rustle from the vicinity of the bed drew his attention. He took a step away from the door.

He located his “angel of mercy” after his second step. She was lying on the bed, a small froth of stark white on the red coverlet. As he watched, she rolled onto her back, her legs shifting with the movement.

His third step never materialized as he stared.

“Son…of…a…bitch!” He dragged out the curse, because well, he’d never seen anything like what he was seeing now, and as long as he was swearing, he figured he could keep staring. The woman was breathtaking, gorgeous, incredibly sexy. As he watched, she shifted position, her right knee drawing up and away from her body, causing the thin veil of white she wore to float away from her thighs. The faint light behind her illuminated the space between the raised thigh and the recumbent one. As he followed the shadow to its end, he could almost make out the darker cast of her pussy. He cleared his throat.

Madame Cecile might know what she was doing after all. He started to pull off his shirt. “No doubt Madame Cecile told you about me…?”

A word from her would have gone a long way to soothing his unease. Instead, she moaned seductively and rolled away. The movement pulled the sheer gown tight across her small ass, delineating the sharp rise of her hips and the firm line of her buttocks. He swore he could make out the crease between them. He paused with his shirt halfway to his head, his eyes locked on the sight. His mouth went dry and his heart started a slow thud. Lord, she had a beautiful ass. The curve of her right cheek looked like it would fit perfectly into his palm. He estimated the depth of the crease would encompass one knuckle. He wondered if her little rosette was a delicate pink or a soft tan.

She rolled again, this time onto her stomach. He lost all train of rational thought as she wiggled—there was no other way to put it—up onto her hands and knees and swayed, presenting him with a splendid view of her hindquarters. He slowly pulled his shirt the rest of the way off. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the shadowy crack. He loved a woman’s ass. Loved to tease it. Tempt it. Spank it. Coax it into accepting his cock. There was nothing like the first time a woman accepted him. He loved that moment when she gave herself to him, his cock parting her tight passage as he took her past her inhibitions to the pleasure beyond.

And damn! This woman had a perfect ass.

He rubbed his hand over his chest. She shifted backwards, her buttocks rising as if begging for his attention. The touch of his hand. There was a time when he would have stepped right up and given the cheeky butt the swat it was asking for, but times had changed. His hand curled into a fist. He was a begging man now.

Not even sure he could deliver on any promises his body would see fit to make. Until that changed, he was better off just sticking with the tried and true.

She wiggled some more, bending her elbows so the gown wafted over her hips, but he didn’t get more than a glimpse of white flesh and a shockingly hairless pussy before she slid off the bed and stood up. He groaned when the gown fell back down over her thighs, covering the sight of that tantalizing bare flesh.

Damn! He’d been hoping she’d just kind of toss the floaty thing on the floor. He rarely got to see a woman fully naked. He’d discovered in his youth that respectable women had a tendency to bring their modesty to bed. He guessed that shyness extended to some prostitutes, and he mentally kicked another fantasy into the manure pile.

He could, he decided as she stood swaying in place, quickly come up with a few more but it would be tough for him to come up with anything more erotic than what she was doing now, standing as she was, feet slightly apart, her body undulating to a rhythm only she heard. Every time she moved, the gown billowed out, revealing with light and shadow, the outline of her sex. Then it would fall back into place, leaving only the impression to tempt his imagination. The glimmer of interest he felt before, spoke again. Louder, stronger, and hope began to keep pace with his heartbeat.

She took a step forward, then another. He held his breath, knowing the next one would take her into the light. It seemed an eternity before her small, bare foot moved forward. He released his breath on a low groan when she did.

Anticipation skittered along his nerves as she turned to face him, and his greedy eyes dropped to her body. He barely swallowed back his dismay. The slender prostitute stood before him, shoulders back, flaunting a body as delicately curved as a porcelain figurine. He placed his shirt on the room’s only chair with weighted hands. This wasn’t going to work.

The old fear, his constant companion for the last twelve months, surged in his stomach, jangling his nerves and stripping away the shreds of his confidence. He could feel the panic building, signaling the end of his hopes.

Dammit! He wouldn’t fail again. Not here. Not now. Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, noting the tremor. His fingers curved into a fist. Every instinct for self-preservation screamed for him to run, to avoid exposing himself to more humiliation, but sheer determination kept his feet rooted to the floor. When he spoke, he kept his voice at a low drawl. “Hello.”

In response, she breathed something airy and short. He assumed it was “Hi.” Truth be told, he didn’t care because she was in motion again. He couldn’t take his eyes off her body, the lithe way she moved, the deliberate manner in which she placed her feet, and the sway of her hips, which had that gown billowing again. She said something else. He could tell from the way her lips pursed and flattened, but he wasn’t paying attention because for the first time in a year the only sound he could hear was the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.