Six Degrees of Desperation (Dirty Tricks) (5 page)

Charli bucked, arching toward that magic
finger. "Don't tease me. I'm so close."

He stroked her again, drawing all the
sensations to the very tip of her clit, then leaving her hanging,
high and unsatisfyingly dry.

"You're kidding, right?" With her skirt
hiked up around her waist, her corset hanging down so that her
boobs bobbed free, she couldn't imagine how it would look if Audrey
were to walk in at that moment. And frankly she didn't give a rat's
ass if anyone came in, as long as her mystery lover finished what
he'd started before she exploded from need.

"Oh, please," she wailed, sure her voice
carried over the band’s tune in the next room.

With deft fingers, the mystery man slid down
the zipper of his trousers, his cock springing free. He held out
his hand and the man standing at his side slapped a foil packet
into his palm.

"Oh, thank God." At least he'd been
foresighted enough to know they needed protection.

Original Sin ripped open the packet and slid
the rubber over his engorged cock. Then he nodded to the man who
hadn't touched her at all. "Now, you."

The man smiled. "Are you sure?"

"She won't want to miss this."

Charli's eyes widened, her heart thundering
in beat with the lively polka in the saloon. "What won't I want to
miss?"

The man beside Original Sin slid his dick
out of his trousers, cloaked it in a condom and maneuvered around
to the other side of the men holding Charli's thighs. His hands
smoothed over her butt cheeks, his fingers seeking the crease
between and the tight round hole of her anus.

Her butt muscles clenched in anticipation of
what he was about to do. "We only have five minutes leeeeeffft,”
her voice rose as the man behind her poked his cock into her anus.
“Oh, dear. Oh, dear.” Charli took swift, shallow breaths, bracing
herself as O.S. closed the distance between them, pressing his
member to the mound of curls at the apex of her thighs.

The men holding her legs, stood straight and
strong, each allowing a hand to rove over her naked breasts,
tweaking a turgid nipple.

O.S. leaned against her, his lips teasing
her earlobe. “Did I tell you, I love you naked?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Her mystery cowboy touched his cock to her
entrance. “Beg for it.”

“Please come into me now?”

“No regrets?”

“Oh, God, no! I’m begging you, please. There
isn’t much time.”

Her sexy Zorro wrapped strong hands around
her hips and slid into her hot, wet channel. With a man on each
side, one behind her pressing into her anus and O.S. in front,
Charli was surrounded by strong, sexy men and completely without a
coherent thought in her head besides that of fucking each and every
one of them. “Hurry,” she urged. She clenched her legs around
Original Sin’s waist, her ankles locking behind him, forcing him
deeper. The two cocks inside her fit so tightly, she couldn’t
think, couldn’t focus—all she could do was feel.

Original Sin thrust in and out, again and
again, hard, fast and determined.

Charli clung to him, the hands on her thighs
and breasts reminding her there were four men making love to her,
not just one, and holy crap, if it felt good.

The pace increased until O.S. jacked in and
out of her like a car piston.

Her body on fire, the sensations tumbling
one over the other shot Charli into orgasm so intense, she
screamed, her fingernails digging into her mystery cowboy’s suit
jacket.

He thrust one last time, sinking as deep as
he could go.

The man behind her pushed deeper as
well.

Her breath caught and held, the exquisite
pain echoing throughout her body as her Original Sin’s cock
throbbed within, while the other stranger behind her slid free,
releasing the intense pressure.

O.S. brushed a kiss to Charli’s lips and
lifted her off him, sitting her on a stack of boxes.

For a long moment, she sat in a daze, her
heartbeat racing, her pussy and anus tingling from the sweet, sweet
torture. Then her world crashed in, reminding her where she was and
that she wasn’t supposed to be making love in the storeroom,
especially with her mystery cowboy.

All the wind left her lungs as she pictured
Connor, lying on her bed last night, telling her that he was a
one-woman-man. “I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I let
it happen again.”

Original Sin zipped and buttoned his
trousers, then reached out and caressed Charli’s cheek. “You are an
amazing woman.”

“I’m a terrible person,” she moaned, burying
her face in her hands.

“Should we dress her?” one of the men
asked.

“No, let me.” Her mystery lover moved behind
Charli where she hunched over, wallowing in her horror at having
succumbed yet again to the excitement and lust of multiple
strangers making love to her. The man’s hands moved swiftly and
surely, lacing the strings of her corset, pushing her breasts up
and out. When he’d finished, he brushed her hair to the side and
planted a kiss on her shoulder. “One minute to spare.”

“Please leave,” she whispered.

“Have we displeased you?”

“Far from it. You all were incredible.” She
sighed but kept her face buried. “I’m the one who failed.”

“Not in our minds.” He tugged her off the
boxes and into his arms. “You could never disappoint.”

“Maybe not you.”

“Do you have another lover?”

She laughed, the sound closer to a sob. “Not
anymore.” She tossed her hair and pushed against his chest.
“Go.”

“As you wish.” He nodded to the other three
men, who rounded the column of chip boxes and exited the storeroom,
shutting the door. O.S. faced Charli, lifting her hand to his lips.
“Until next time.”

“No.” Charli touched the gorgeous cowboy’s
arm. “I can’t see you again. Any of you.”

“Are you certain?” O.S. cupped her chin,
staring down into her eyes.

“I can’t.”

“Ah, there is someone else.”

She shook her head, her chest squeezing so
tight she could barely breathe. “Not after I confess my sins. You
being the biggest sin of all.”

A grin spread across his face. “I’m a sin?
I’ll take that as a compliment.” He kissed her again. “I promise
that you will figure this all out and that I will see you again. We
were meant to be together.”

Before Charli could protest further, her
mystery cowboy walked out of the storeroom, the music swelled and
quelled as the door opened and closed.

For several long moments, Charli stood with
a hand pressed to her breaking heart. The tryst in the storeroom
with the dark strangers had been incredibly erotic, a total
mind-blowing sexual encounter. Charli had been powerless to
resist.

Which told her what she should have known
from the beginning—she wasn’t a one-man-woman. She craved
excitement in her sex-life. If the past fifteen minutes was
anything to go by, she’d never be true to one without thinking of
what the experience was like with four.

Knowing what she had to do, Charli adjusted
her skirt, checked her corset to make sure everything was where it
should be and sufficiently covered. Then she trudged out of the
storeroom into the saloon, ready to find Connor and set the record
straight, no matter what it cost.

As she emerged into the ear-numbing din of
loud music and cowboys hooting and hollering, her boss caught her
arm and swung her toward the bar. “Oh, good, there you are. Time
for the show.”

Charli planted her heels. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? You have to.
The men are expecting it, and you’re our only singer.”

“I need to find Connor.”

“It can wait until after the show.”

“No, it can’t.” Though Charli tried to
argue, Audrey was already two steps ahead, dragging her behind.

Someone jammed a microphone into Charli's
hands and the band struck up the lead-in music. Jackson Gray Wolf
grabbed her around the middle and lifted her up onto the bar where
Lacey, Kendall, Bella and Libby waited, dressed like Charli in
their matching red corsets and black ruffled skirts. With the
weight of her transgressions on her shoulders, Charli choked on the
first words of the song. Heart pounding, her gaze panned the crowd,
searching for Connor’s open, honest face, half-afraid she’d find
it…even more fearful she wouldn’t.

Lacey danced over to where Charli leaned
against a support column. “What’s wrong with you? The natives are
getting impatient. Sing, girl, sing!”

As the band got into the spirit of the bump
and grind music, Charli shook off her morose musings and threw her
voice into the song, making it as sexy and raunchy as the throng
expected and deserved.

The overwhelming majority of the crowd was
randy cowboys, liquored up and excited from the adrenalin-kick of
riding the rodeo. As the girls danced, the crowd of masked men
surged toward the bar, some reaching out to touch.

Jackson stood at the front, warning the men
as best he could over the roar of the music and hollering, but they
weren’t listening.

One man grabbed Libby’s ankle and tried to
yank her off the bar.

A shout rose from the back of the room.

Charli recognized Mark and Luke Gray Wolf
attempting to swim through the crush to get to the bar.

Resident bartender and tough-as-nails
biker-babe Libby had it under control. She pressed her free
stiletto to the cowboy’s forehead and pushed, sending him flying
back into the crowd of rabble-rousers.

A cheer went up at the same time as a scream
rent the air.

As if in a surreal dream, Charli sang on, as
a fight broke out in the middle of the crush, the Gray Wolf twins
at the center.

In the sea of faces and cowboy hats, with
fists swinging, loud curses flying and men stumbling into one
another, one face stood out.

Connor Mason stood to the side of the melee,
dressed in a white shirt, white cowboy hat and pulling a white mask
from his face, looking every bit the knight in shining armor, come
to rescue her from the storm. He glanced around, ducking to avoid a
meaty paw of a fist and stared up at Charli, with a grin.

Charli’s heart fluttered, her chest
tightening until she could barely breathe.

Connor was the man of every woman’s dreams,
the sweetest, kindest, most predictable man she could ever hope to
spend the rest of her life with. Why did she have to go and make
love to the men in the storeroom? All for a little short-lived
excitement.

Singing from rote memory, Charli’s words
choked on a sob. And how could she let Connor go? She’d have no
other choice, because as soon as she told him what she’d done, he’d
walk away, never to again grace her bed.

She’d have to get a new set of batteries for
her vibrator. More than that, she’d miss Connor’s smile and having
someone around to talk to, to sleep with and hold her through the
night.

Control disintegrated and the room became a
free-for-all brawl.

Sheriff’s deputies pushed into the back of
the room, one carrying a megaphone. He raised it to speak, but
another man in a black business suit, wearing mirrored sunglasses,
yanked the device from the deputy’s fingers and handed it to the
man in the gray business suit beside him. The businessman pointed
it toward the bar and yelled, “Elizabeth Stratton, get down off
that bar!”

Beside her, Libby, the tough-as-nails,
biker-babe bartender turned white and toppled into the crowd of
cowboys out cold.

Her head spinning, her pulse hammering
against her ears, Charli stared at the mayhem, the man with the
megaphone and the jumble of bodies toppling one at a time. Her
voice trailed off with the band as she struggled to find Connor’s
beautiful, sexy face in the horde. Just as she did, a huge cowboy
with the build of a professional linebacker powered a left hook
into Connor’s jaw, sending him breaking through a cluster of men
wrestling over a tabletop.

Charli gasped, taking a step toward the edge
of the bar. “Connor!”

Another cowboy jerked Connor up by the
collar and swung.

Connor ducked his head to the side and the
man behind him took the full brunt of the blow, bellowing like a
poked bull. He shoved Connor around, balled his fists and landed an
upper cut to Connor’s belly so fast, Connor, who was still twisted
in his shirt from the other guy, couldn’t react.

“You bastard!” Charli yelled, then screamed
like an Indian on the warpath and launched herself off the corner
of the bar and into the fray. She landed on top of the man
attacking Connor, rocketing him into another’s gut.

Apparently the guy whose back she rode had a
girlfriend who was quick to jealousy.

Before Charli could get her own legs under
herself, the bleach-blond cowgirl shrieked and grabbed Charli’s
hair, flinging her around and away from Connor, screaming, “You
bitch! Get off my man.”

Caught off balance, Charli fell face-first
on the floor, the wind knocked out of her lungs.

"Leave my man alone!" Blondie landed in the
middle of her back, yanking and tugging at Charli’s hair, slapping
her upside the head several times, making Charli’s ears ring.

When she finally sucked in enough air to
make a difference, Charli had just about had enough. She bucked
once.

The skinny-ass bitch on top rode her like a
mechanical bull.

Well, ride this.

Anger spiked and adrenaline kicked in,
giving Charli enough oomph, she bucked and rolled, twisting the
vicious bitch over onto her back. She straddled her and pinned her
arms above her head. “Don’t call me a bitch and leave me the fuck
alone!” She wanted to, but she didn’t, slap the woman, although it
took all her control not to.

Before Charli could rise and put distance
between herself and the crazy woman, men formed a circle around the
women on the floor, shouting, “Cat fight!” The circle grew, hoots
and hollering going up all around, drawing more spectators.