Authors: Diane Whiteside
She smiled at the recollection and shot a quick glance at his groin. His cock rested against his thigh, rich with color but not yet rampant with eagerness.
Donovan dropped the cloth into the basin finally and returned both to the bathroom. She rolled to her side to watch him and fumbled for a sheet when he returned.
“Sweetheart,” he warned. “Did I tell you to hide yourself from me?”
Her hand stilled guiltily. “No, sir.”
Donovan drew the fine linen away from her, making her tremble. He sat down next to her and thumbed her nipple casually as he watched. It promptly remembered its adventures earlier that evening and hardened in anticipation.
“Your breasts are too rich a treasure to be hidden, sweetheart,” he mused.
Viola couldn’t think of a word to say. She’d always considered herself scrawny, hardly the sort of female a man would like to watch. Her pulse pounded and dew built between her legs again.
“You’ll cover yourself only with what I give you, sweetheart. Do you understand?” Donovan looked up at her face, his hand still doing miraculous things to her eager flesh.
She blinked. Was there a hidden meaning to his command? It seemed innocuous enough. It was so hard to think when his fingers moved like that. “Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Good filly,” he praised, and dropped his mouth to her. She gasped and arched up against him.
And Donovan savored her breasts as if he’d only just encountered them…
William lay quietly in the bed with Viola, listening to her sleep. Her delectable rump was tucked neatly against him, a warm pillow for his cock. Moonlight slipped around the curtains and painted her in shimmering silver.
He stroked her slowly, savoring the contrast between satin skin and strong, lithe muscles. She’d actually managed to lock her heels in the small of his back, the adorable little hedonist. He’d be able to explore some very obscure positions with her, perhaps some he’d only heard of.
Or maybe he’d just spend weeks teaching her the simplest methods. Take her so often she’d always remember him, and how he felt inside her, no matter whom she married.
He cursed silently, the Gaelic phrases summing up his jealousy of that unknown man. His hand slipped up and cupped her breast, kneading it. His, dammit, his.
She firmed under his touch and her hips pushed back against him.
“My Viola.” He bared his teeth in a smile that was almost a snarl. He kissed her neck, lapping at that most sensitive point.
She gasped and moaned, “Mr. Donovan.”
He snatched a condom from the tin on the night table, reared up, and applied it hastily. His breath caught as he stared at her beautiful rump, gleaming in the moonlight.
“My filly, the sweetest ride in the world.” He lifted her hips up and shoved a pillow underneath. He was in her before she could say another word, cock settling into her velvet sheath like homecoming.
“Donovan,” she moaned again as her head drooped, baring her exquisite nape for him.
“Mine, all mine,” he growled as he rocked his hips against her.
He shafted her hard and fast, years of discipline swept away by the thought of her with another man. He’d never before handled a woman with the desperate frenzy she evoked, making him more beast than man. She was his, at least for now.
She reached her climax within minutes. He bellowed his triumph as he followed her into orgasm, her muscles drawing his seed from its deepest roots. Rapture pounded up his spine and out through his cock, battering him like nothing he’d ever felt before.
Afterwards, she muttered something then slept. He had barely enough sense to slide off her before he too slept, an arm and a leg thrown possessively over her.
Tomorrow he’d consider how to control himself around her.
A
sleepy blue eye peered at William over the coverlet.
“You’re awake, Mr. Donovan.”
Viola started to struggle upright. William restrained her with a gentle hand. “Relax, sweetheart, and go back to sleep.”
“Are you certain?” She blinked up at him, looking adorably tousled with her swollen mouth and silver-gilt curls tumbling over one bare shoulder. His trousers tightened as his cock signaled its strong appreciation of the sight.
Down, boyo—you’ve three months to enjoy her delights.
“Quite sure,” he answered firmly. “You can do as you please until I return.”
“Thank you. God give you good day, Mr. Donovan.” She was asleep again before he reached the door.
William strode down Main Street to the depot, feeling at peace with all the world. A smirk threatened but he fought it back, opting for the sober mien of a prosperous businessman.
He paused to watch the weekly stage’s arrival. On time, praise the saints, so perhaps they hadn’t encountered any Apaches on this run. Three men climbed down and William froze.
Conall O’Flaherty was a grown man now…and an exact copy of his father, the land agent who’d evicted William’s family. Pig’s eyes, thick-bodied with a boar’s strength, so he seemed every bit the paid thug he was. All three brothers bore a strong family resemblance, varying only in the sheen of their bald pates and the whiskery forests sprouting from their chins.
The dirk pressed against his arm, from where a twitch of his hand could launch it. His mother had died in childbirth, an agony of tears and blood sheltered only by a ruined cottage. Baby Séamas had followed her to heaven without drawing a single breath in this world. They’d have survived except for these scoundrels and their torches, which had destroyed his father’s world after being turned off by Lord Charles.
Now those brutes had come to the New World to serve a man with money and no scruples, just as their father had done in Ireland.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he wanted to kill them. Slowly and with fire, the way the Apaches tortured their enemies. But he couldn’t. So far, they’d done nothing wrong in Rio Piedras. Damn.
His revolver nudged his leg as if pleading for use. His fingers twitched. He recovered himself with an effort that left him sweating and turned toward his depot.
“Donovan!” An all too familiar voice snapped his head around.
“Lennox,” he responded warily. The man had his sword stick but no apparent guns.
“Allow me to present my men, the O’Flaherty brothers.”
“Mr. Donovan,” the three murmured, their hard eyes measuring him before giving respectful nods.
“Boys.” William nodded curtly. He was grimly amused by how polite they were to him, behaving very much as hired help toward neighboring gentry. They obviously didn’t recognize him, which was fair enough. He’d inherited his height from his mother’s family. “Is there anything else, Lennox?”
“Just one matter.” The O’Flahertys drew back at Lennox’s glare. Their master lowered his voice confidentially. “I understand you’ve encountered some difficulties handling freight here.”
William murmured something noncommittal and waited.
“Perhaps a one-time payment might alleviate your difficulties. Say, five thousand dollars?”
William frowned. Why was Lennox, the cheapest bastard in the territory, offering money? “Five thousand dollars, Lennox? You feel the road hazards have strengthened that much?”
“Not road hazards, Donovan. But a peril lurking within your compound, that of an unmarried woman.”
“Mrs. Ross.” William was quite calm now. His senses heightened until he could see the pulse in Lennox’s temple.
“Exactly. If I paid five thousand dollars or even ten thousand—a significant sum, sir!—would you release her into my custody? Then I’d marry her immediately and propriety would be satisfied. I have the funds waiting in my office.”
William’s fist moved before Lennox finished speaking, and sent the arrogant fool sprawling in the dust. Passersby halted to stare. Even the stage driver stopped his bustle of activity.
The O’Flahertys started forward but Lennox rejected their help. He stood up and dusted himself off, glaring at William.
William waited, hoping for a fight. Feet pounded up the street as his teamsters swarmed to the scene. Lennox cast them a single, fulminating stare.
“I said nothing disrespectful of Mrs. Ross, Donovan,” the slimy bastard snapped. “Any interpretation you put on a sharp business offer is your own. I’ll not make such an offer again. Good day.”
“Lennox.” He’d have to watch that snake but he’d done business before with worse. Given the Army contract, Donovan & Sons would be in Rio Piedras for months to come.
And he must consider how best to deal with the O’Flahertys.
Viola buried her nose deeper in the mug and savored the deep, rich aroma of real coffee. A small wriggle situated her more comfortably in the bed. She was tender and sore in places she’d not thought possible. She shrugged off the aches as simply the aftermath of strenuous exertion.
The rich, buttery scent of brioche floated up to her from the tray across her lap. Her father always insisted on having exactly this meal every morning. Now its presence wrapped around her like homecoming, even on an Arizona late afternoon.
The family tradition had started as her great-grandfather’s first meal in France after escaping from a British prison ship during the Revolution. The taste of civilization and freedom, he’d called it. Even Hal had inherited a weakness for coffee and brioche, despite his abhorrence of anything their father liked. He’d sworn to have this meal as often as possible once he became a first-class Missouri River pilot.
Viola leaned back against the cushions and smiled as she remembered her brother. Hal was two years older, but they’d been inseparable as children. She’d tagged along with him on more than one expedition to go horseback riding, ride the river, or explore the woods. He’d written her every week for four years, no matter where he was on the wild Missouri, after he ran away from home.
When he’d returned at age twenty, she’d gone with him while he enlisted in the Union Navy.
Viola had hurried home afterwards to tell their mother.
“Mother, Hal’s joined the Navy!”
Silence answered her. Juliet had married her New York beau a month earlier, which left Mother alone in the house except for the servants. But why didn’t she answer?
“Mother?” Viola ran into the front parlor, barely remembering to be careful of its intricately carved rosewood furniture and innumerable objets d’art collected by the Lindsay family during decades in the China trade. “Isn’t it marvelous? Now he’ll be a naval hero just like Grandfather and Great-Grandfather. And Father, too, of course, now that he, too, is serving in the Union Navy.”
Desdemona Lindsay was looking out of the front window, her small fist pounding a tattoo on the frame. She swung around and glared at Viola, so similar in coloring but not in build. Viola was flat as a board but more than one man had written odes to her mother’s rich curves. “Naval hero? Nonsense!” she spat.
Viola came to a halt at yet another round of maternal disappointment. She tried to soothe her parent. “He’ll be well, Mother, truly. Father and Hal will be home in six weeks after they win the war and Jefferson Davis goes back to Mississippi.”
The older woman snatched up a priceless Ming vase and hurled it into the fireplace. It broke with a loud crash and Viola flinched as shards flew across the Aubusson carpet.
“Mother?” Viola stammered, startled by the uncharacteristic destruction of property.
“Those fools, those arrogant fools! They’re fighting for the wrong side and we’ll lose everything. My father was right when he said I shouldn’t marry a Yankee.”
Viola’s mouth hung open. “Grandfather said that?”
Her mother charged across the room and shook her by the shoulders. “Don’t you see, Viola? You’re the last one left to me and you must understand, as I learned from my father. One day there will be a great Southern empire stretching from California to Virginia and as far south as Venezuela. The world will crawl to us for our cotton, gold, and horses.”
Viola gaped. She remembered Grandfather Davies saying something of the sort during family gatherings at Fair Oaks, his big plantation outside Louisville. She even recalled how heated her uncles became when expounding on the subject to Father. Hal always laughed at the idea, saying the true empire lay to the west and not the south. She tried again to defuse the storm. “Are you sure, Mother?”
The Kentucky-born aristocrat began pacing again. “Of course I am! This war will destroy us. Your father will lose everything: his fleet of steamboats, his money, this magnificent new house. All our valuables will be gone forever if he supports the Union.”
“Perhaps he considers his country worth the cost,” Viola ventured. “After all, the British put a price on Great-Grandfather Lindsay’s head and burned his home.”
Richard Lindsay’s wife shuddered. “Intolerable. I have never understood how a man could destroy his wife and family’s future in such a fashion.”
“He stood by his word, Mother, as a man of honor must.”
“And men are fools to be bound by frivolities like that, my dear. The South is going to win. I know it as clearly as I can see your face. You and I must make sure our family survives and prospers.”
Chills ran across Viola’s skin. She licked her lips nervously. She hoped her face didn’t show her thoughts. “What are you thinking of, Mother?”
“Assisting our Southern brethren every way we can, Viola.”
“How?” Viola stammered, hoping her mother meant something innocent, such as sending letters to the relatives at Fair Oaks.
“There are a great many avenues we can explore, my dear. Taking messages will be easy, of course; no one would dare stop us. More useful will be obtaining interesting tidbits of information from loose-lipped Yankees, for transfer to the right parties in the South. You could be very helpful if you’d just learn to flirt.”
“Spying?” Viola’s voice cracked. The next words emerged in a whisper. “But that’s treason.”
For the first time in her life, Viola thought her mother truly looked at her.
The older woman hesitated for a moment and her mouth tightened. Then she laughed, a girlish peal that had captivated more than one man, but never a woman. “My dear child, criminal behavior is out of the question. Don’t be absurd.”
Viola wanted to believe her more than she’d wanted anything in her life. But she needed to be certain. “Truly, Mother?”
Mrs. Richard Lindsay patted her daughter’s cheek. “You have my word on it, Viola. I will never commit treason.”
Viola closed her eyes in relief.
Chills chased across Viola’s skin at the memory.
She’d forgotten on that 1861 morning that treason was a crime defined by the victors, making it irrelevant to the deeds of those on the winning side. But Mother had reminded her more than once of that truth during the next four years, as she single-mindedly pursued a Confederate victory.
Viola took another mouthful of coffee.
She’d always wanted someone to trust completely and now she had exactly that: herself. She didn’t need anyone else to honorably win her free of this town. Her bargain with William Donovan would pay off Edward’s debts and provide a fresh start in San Francisco. And surely Mr. Lennox would stay away, now she was living with another man.
Honor also demanded she give Donovan her best work. Viola had never imagined she’d labor in the bedroom, and truly, yesterday’s activities hadn’t felt like drudgery. She smiled, memories circling of Donovan’s handling, his mouth’s skillful play over her skin, and his big cock stretching her from within.
Warmth blossomed in private places at the memories. She took another sip of coffee.
Best of all had been the last time, when he’d bent her over the bed and ridden her hard. No hint of self-control had colored his actions then. He’d been all man and she’d been the woman at the center of his universe.
Viola smiled again as Sarah Chang knocked on the door. She would happily perform such labors whenever Donovan asked.
“Mrs. Ross? Are you ready now?”
“Yes, thank you.” She rose cautiously and made her way to the bathroom on rather unsteady legs.
Amazing how a night of Mr. Donovan’s attentions could exhaust one. And make one sleep remarkably late. She silently apologized to Sally and Lily Mae for ever doubting their account of William’s prowess.
A long hot bath, followed by an expert massage, restored her. She declined the proffered cheese straws and coffee, still replete from the earlier brioche. Sarah worked exotic oils into her skin until even Viola’s calluses started to soften. She was a puddle of relaxation stretched across the bed, but curiosity insisted on satisfaction.
“How long have you worked for Mr. Donovan, Sarah?”
“Almost twelve years, Mrs. Ross.”
“So long? How did you start?”
“He took both Abraham and me into his household after Abraham left the tong to marry me.”