She squeaked in surprised shock, but her voice was back under control when she looked over her shoulder and repeated yet again, “I need to hire your help in rescuing my students."
Her thighs reluctantly caressed him through his pants, and he felt the heat of her woman's place against his leg. He had to give credit where it was due; she was tenacious.
"What part did you plan to play in this rescue?” He wasn't really listening to her answer, mesmerized instead by the feel of pussy. From this angle, the old-maid teacher was looking pretty good.
The rump that pressed into him was rounded; he'd already re-estimated the size of her breasts, raising the expectation from robin eggs to apples. They, of course, were bound as tightly as the rest of her body. She sat, ass cheeks splayed over his leg, heated center brushing his thigh while she looked over her shoulder at him, pink lips shaping her answer. Sensory overload distracted him for a moment.
"I intend to ride with you.” That got his attention.
I intend to ride you.
His cock jumped inside his pants. But she looked at him so trustingly he parsed her words again and figured out what he'd missed
... ride with you, my ass.
He started shaking his head, doubly pissed at his mishearing and his heated response.
She persisted, ignoring his loud, “No.” Charlie needed to run her off fast or dried-up spinster or not, the teacher was going to be fucked.
"Some of the girls will need me.” Her grim tone made it clear that she understood what was happening, probably even at the moment, to the kidnapped students.
"
I don't work for free, teacher. How do you plan to pay me?” He raised his leg and flexed his muscles brushing hotly against her through the material that separated his flesh from her core. Given the state of his arousal, it was a dangerous move.
"I get paid once a month at the school.” She looked worried. “I'm not sure now who will tender my pay. It's not clear to me what's going to happen.” She continued to stare over her shoulder, her female parts riding his thigh, his cock stretched and elongated against his leg.
Well, it's clear to me what's going to happen here in about two minutes if you don't get the hell out of this barn.
But Charlie didn't say it aloud. Instead he looked at her face, scrunched in worry, her teeth nibbling her bottom lip, and had the almost uncontrollable urge to lift her up and bury his face between her breasts. They were looking more like melons to him now.
All sense had left his mind. He was concentrated on one thing ... pussy and how to get into it.
First, I need to get her out of that god-awful wire contraption she's wearin'
... His cock was full and demanding release, and so it was with real reluctance that he offered her one last chance to get out.
"How you get paid is none of my concern. I don't take I.O.U.'s, in poker or for chasing danger, so if you don't have something to offer me in payment, you best be leaving, and you best do it now."
Her chin tilted up and she repeated, “I need to hire you,” and then she turned back to her task and slid down his outstretched leg, and he knew that she was aware of her affect on him. She grasped his boot and tugged.
Well, maybe we can work a deal.
A grin softened the stern lines of his face as he looked at her backside. From his view, he could see the slightest rounding of hips that tapered to a narrow waist. His cock drooled in need, creating a wet spot on his pants pulled taut across his shaft.
She shivered and he asked her, “Scared or cold?"
"I lived through a Comanchero raid because I hid.” she answered. “You are not frightening. The only thing that scares me is the thought that I won't be able to help my students escape those men—so I guess, I'm cold."
"Not for long, teacher,” he growled, his inner beast excited and stretching to get out.
As if reminded by her own words of the haste needed, she continued softly, “We should proceed with your bath, sir, before your water cools.” It was the barest murmured suggestion, but his erection throbbed painfully at her sweet drawl.
Sweet drawl—
her
husky tones were definitely not Texas.
He couldn't resist. He reached for her and brought her up into his lap, nestling her against his cock.
"Wolf—my name is Charlie Wolf,” he murmured into the shell of her ear as he nibbled there and then sucked on her earlobe. It would be the right thing to do, telling her the truth.
Come morning, me and my cousins will be on the trail of Jericho Jones, and your students will be returned to you in due time
.
Charlie cast that thought aside. Instead, his hand fumbled at the buttons on the back of her dress, determined on a different course. “A man has needs a woman like you could take care of.” She drew in a harsh breath, stifling a sob.
Tough shit, I told her to stay out.
But then she straightened under his hands and suggested. “Why don't I bathe you while we talk.” Charlie paused at that, his hands stilled on her buttons. He had never been bathed by a woman. He'd heard of it, sometimes dreamed about it, but in thirty-two years of living, it had never happened.
The combination of the bartender's antics and the rejection of the saloon whore had launched an evening Charlie intended to spend in a drunken stupor, smoking a cigar, in a tub of hot water. An hour before that had sounded like a good time to him. Now he had a woman offering to bathe him so he would listen to her story of woe.
Giving her one last chance to leave was the hardest thing he'd ever done. “Don't want to talk. Don't have a thing to say.” If she didn't get her hot pussy off his lap and hike on out of here, he was going to jump her bones and get himself hung.
She continued to squirm, pressing her rump into his cock as she struggled to turn and look at him. “I am sure that my monthly stipend will be forwarded here. I contacted the school officers for assistance today."
She's really not as skinny as I thought.
He drew in her scent, rolling it over his senses. Beneath the road dust and everyday sweat, she smelled sweetly like a woman. He ran his thumb down her smooth cheek.
I'll be damned; she's not as old as I first thought, either.
He felt oddly aggrieved like she'd been laid out as bait, and he'd taken it without looking close enough.
"I will do whatever it takes to hire you. Mr. Wolf.” Her hands were clasped in front of her now, as she endeavored to appear calm. Squirmed around the way she was, it felt natural the way her breasts brushed against his chest. The woman was asking for it and didn't even know it.
But then he glanced at her hands. Her white knuckles belied her pose. So Miz Parker wasn't as composed as she would have him believe. Deliberately he lifted and rolled his hips under her.
"Anything?” He shifted and murmured his words against her neck.
"So these girls at the fancy school,” he paused in his nuzzling of her neck to ask, “They're friends?"
"They are children who were my responsibility. I saw the riders coming across the field and didn't call out in time. When they arrived, I hid, saving myself instead of protecting my charges."
Charlie could see she was eaten up with guilt.
Good, I can use that.
She spoke calmly but firmly. “It's my responsibility now to rescue them. The sheriff here refuses to get a posse together, and by the time the U.S. Marshal finds a tracker and deputizes men...” Her voice piddled off and she shook her head, denying that inevitability. “So yes, I'll do anything."
She straightened on his lap, her back pressed to his chest, buttocks against his engorged shaft. He leaned forward and resumed his attentions to her ear, licking down the crease between flesh and lobe. He wasn't playing with her anymore.
He murmured his last warning, “If you do that, Naomi, you'll be the lowest of the low—a white woman who fucks redskins. Because, make no mistake, if you stay, I'm going to be inside of you."
He nuzzled the delicate earlobe until she shivered and moaned, then tasted the flesh with tongue and lips before biting just a little bit harder than a lover should on the soft flesh between his teeth. “Best get out of here or you'll meet the same fate as your students."
He stood, his swollen cock marked by a wet spot and outlined inside the now taut pants. He dumped her from his lap, rejecting temptation. But, instead of leaving, she replied, “Not at all. They have no choice.
I
do."
The woman didn't know when to quit. He turned to look at her then. “So you'll trade your life for theirs?” He watched shock blanch the last of her color, before she answered quietly, “Yes."
Later, Charlie always remembered that as a frozen moment. Her word
yes
hung in the air between them, meaning so much more than that one sound. He broke the spell when he grunted his assent. “So be it."
Reaching behind her, he drew his knife from the straw and ordered, “Hold out your hand."
She closed her eyes and held up both palms extended toward him. Using his knife, he cut a thin line on his palm that instantly seeped blood. Then, his sharp blade tasted Naomi's flesh. Her eyes popped open and she looked at him, puzzled. “What?"
He pressed the cuts on both hands together. He said the necessary words in Kiowa, and fumbled a strip of cloth, binding their hands together.
"Now we talk.” She wiggled her fingers nervously in his palm, but he held her hand pressed against his until he was sure that their blood had mingled.
"Surely scaring me to death with a knife wasn't necessary,” her voice was close to a scold. “I thought you were going to kill me.” Her nipples tented the front of the ugly dress, and he couldn't look away.
He unwrapped their hands, releasing her to step back while he dropped his buckskins without further warning. “Have to do,” he muttered to himself.
"What are you mumbling about?” She didn't try to disguise the irritation in her voice. It piddled into quiet when she realized he was naked. When he reached out to pull her close, deliberately pushing his cock between her thighs, she seemed to forget her question altogether. Her mouth opened and closed like a guppy, and he smiled inside.
Holding her gaze, first he ground his groin against her mound, and then, lifting her slightly, he pushed his hard length against her dress material until it rode up into the vee between her legs. He held her still with one hand on her hip, while he languorously rubbed his naked cock against her nether lips.
He didn't dare linger there, or he would spill his seed without ever filling her glory hole. He wanted to pull up the skirt and take her. Instead, he watched her skin grow pale and her chest rise and fall rapidly in distress. Even so, she stared back at him steadily.
"Still sure you won't mind layin’ under a dirty Injun?” he queried, mimicking the saloon owner's words and tone.
"If you will use the water Mr. Wallace provided for your bath, you won't be dirty.” Her tart answer studiously ignored his body moving against hers. But the cloth that rode between them was damp, and her flesh, felt through the thick fabric of her dress, was heated. He quit trying to scare her, his anger easing under her calm practicality.
"Yes, ma'am,” he agreed and started to turn away. And then his original desire to test her limits revived, and he turned back. “Touch me,” he ordered.
"Whhhat?” He could have lit a cigar from the blaze in her cheeks. He took her hand and put it on his engorged flesh.
"I mean—touch me, like this.” He clasped her slender hand around him, even though her long tapered fingers didn't meet.
She looked down in astonishment and he knew that she'd never seen a man's naked dick before, then she jerked her gaze away from his flesh. But she couldn't remove her fingers because he wrapped his big paw around them, stroking her hand up and down his shaft.
She was trembling so much he was afraid she might fall down, but she didn't cavil or whine. When her odd-colored eyes blinked back tears, he hardened his voice, gruffly asking, “Think you can take a big man like me?"
She didn't answer his question, eyes staring at his chest, as though she'd never seen one of those before either.
"You need to bathe now,” she repeated her earlier suggestion and pretended that her hand wasn't pleasuring him below.
"Tub's plenty big enough for a little bit more. Take your clothes off and get in with me.” This time he
had
shocked her beyond docile cooperation.
Her face primmed up and she dropped his cock, stepping back as she said, “I will not."
He'd been waiting for her first challenge, and it pleased him to cut away the iron trappings that compressed her flesh as he would cut away the false trappings of her society. He drew his blade and once again pulled her to him.
"What are you going to do, cut my hand again to punish me?” Her words were derisive, not the respectful tone of a squaw. It occurred to Charlie right then that Miss Naomi Parker wasn't exhibiting the usual white woman's fear of him.
In one motion, he cut through the fabric of her clothes—the dress, the chemise underneath, and the lacings of the corset that constricted her flesh. He stroked his finger down the pinch mark that marred her flesh, pleased to see pink flesh and rounded breasts spring free. “Don't wear one of those damned things again."
Apparently struck dumb, she said nothing when he shoved the cut material wide, pushing it off her shoulders, to the floor, where the corset landed with a loud
thunk
. She stood before him in nothing but cotton drawers.
"That was my only dress.” All the spunk seemed to drain out of her, leaving her looking tired and vulnerable.
"It had blood all over it.” But he would have cut if off of her had it been clean. The dress was a mockery of her surprising delicacy. Done talking, he took hold of her drawers and pulled them down.
The bleached cotton skimmed right off narrow hips but caught for a moment on a surprisingly rounded bottom. He followed the cotton, bending to unlace the half-boots she wore. “Step out of your shoes,” he ordered. On his way down, when his head was even with her feminine curls, he noticed their light color and nuzzled her there for encouragement.