STORY EXCERPT

“Really, Mr. Stone, I’ve no idea why you’re carrying on so. I’m perfectly capable of caring for an infant. Why, at St. Michael’s, I cared for a dozen of them at a time.”

“St. Michael’s? Good God. Did she send me a nun just to torment me, that crafty old biddy?”

“St. Michael’s was an orphanage, not a convent, Mr. Stone. I grew up there. And I am quite familiar with babies, so you needn’t worry that your aunt sent someone who was unsuitable to care for your daughter.”

“Unsuitable? Ma’am, you’re just about as unsuitable as they come for this, this…” He turned away in disgust, as if he couldn’t quite find the words.

Now she really was perplexed. She knew he was disappointed not to have his aunt, but really, how selfish. “Your aunt is very elderly, Mr. Stone. The journey would’ve been too much for her, and caring for a baby is very strenuous work. She couldn’t accede to your request for help personally, but I assure you, I can stand in her place very well.”

It was quite a reasonable speech if she did say so herself, but he still glared at her. “Ma’am, if you think I can treat you like my maiden aunt, then you must not have just come out of an orphanage. You must have come out of a lunatic’s asylum.” To which he stomped off.

* * * *

Jake slammed through the doors of the saloon and curtly ordered a whiskey at the bar. Damn. He couldn’t bring his daughter home now. All his plans were ruined. Lil hadn’t argued with him because she’d never intended to come. Fine. A letter would have sufficed, but to get his hopes up and then send this, this…girl. As if he could live in a ranch house with that walking, talking inspiration for sex. He’d last about two seconds before he let his cock lead him to disaster. He had no intention of marrying again. Ever. So if Lil thought she could trick him into it by sending that luscious little…orphan...out here, she had another think coming. He could read his aunt’s designs as clearly as he could read her handwriting. All that mush about what a fine girl this Miss Melinda was, how hardy and resilient she was, and how this was the perfect opportunity for him to exercise some Christian charity. All that was code for “I know you can’t keep it in your pants for such a gorgeous girl, so I’m sending you your second wife… unless you want to ruin this lovely little thing and send her back to me despoiled and disillusioned.” It would serve Lil right if he did just that. For just a second, he let himself imagine taking little Miss Melinda, with her wide-eyed innocence, home to the ranch and fucking her brains out, and then sending her back on the train to Aunt Lil. That’s just what he ought to do, he brooded, finishing off his whiskey and calling for another. His cock warmed to the idea as he remembered the girl’s lips and the shape of those tits, even though he couldn’t quite see them bound up in the little orphan dress.

In the midst of imagining it, he heard the saloon doors open and suddenly she was at his elbow. The bartender frowned. “Excuse me, Miss, but you shouldn’t rightly be in here.”

Melinda looked around. “Why? Is this a gentleman’s only establishment?”

“You could say that,” the bartender equivocated.

One of Sally’s girls loitered up on the upper balcony, dressed in a shift and long, ratty robe. Melinda noticed her just then and did a double take. A disapproving frown crossed her features, and for a second, damned if she didn’t just look a little like Lil. “Oh, I see. Of course. Perhaps you’d be so good as to speak with me outside then, Mr. Stone.”

Jake gestured for his third whiskey without answering and downed it, clinking the glass down on the bar. He reached in for some coins, dropped them on the bar and sauntered out, his little orphan close behind him.

He turned on his heel, and she practically rammed into him. “Look Miss, er… what did you say your name was?”

“O’Chauncey. Melinda O’Chauncey.”

“Well, Miss O’Chauncey, I’m sorry you’ve come out all this way for nothing, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to just get right back onto that train.” He gestured towards the tracks. The now-empty tracks. Shit.

“I’m afraid there won’t be another train for a week or so. So perhaps you could be reasonable about this, Mr. Stone. I’m not precisely sure what your objection to me on sight could be, and I know you’re disappointed your aunt couldn’t make it out here, but perhaps you could allow me a trial period of some sort. If after that time, you don’t think me capable of handling your daughter, I promise to get back on the next train out of here.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can handle my daughter, but I don’t quite think you can handle me.”

Her beautiful blue eyes scanned his in confusion. She really didn’t have a clue as to what was wrong with this picture. Hell, she must be as innocent as a babe herself not to know why a healthy, full-grown man might not be able to live day and night with a gorgeous young woman in his house with no one to chaperone them but a nine-month-old infant.

“Miss O’Chauncey…”

“Please, that’s quite a mouthful. Please just call me Melinda.”

“Melinda, I don’t know how to put this delicately, and I’ve been out of society so long I’m not sure I even want to try, but let me just say that, if you come out to my ranch to watch my Ginny, it won’t be too long before…” He hesitated. He was going to say it won’t be too long before they’d have another babe on their hands, but hell, for all he knew, she might not even know how babies were made. They kept women so abominably ignorant out east.

He tried again. “There’s no one at the ranch but me. My hands don’t bunk with us. They just come from neighboring parts. So at night, it’d just be you and me.”

“And Ginny.”

“Right.” She didn’t seem to be getting this, looking up at him so trustingly. He finally settled on saying, “It’s not proper.”

ADULT EXCERPT

He didn’t even know why the hell he was trying to explain himself to her instead of just fucking her. She wanted it, as the untutored movements against his hand, her head thrown slightly back, showed him. He should be shoving his cock deep between her legs by now, not just watching, tortured, as she clenched her vaginal muscles around his finger and ground her ass into his erection.

“I was too hard a man for a woman like Victoria. I as much as killed her—”

“You didn’t,” she protested automatically.

“And I’m too hard for a little virgin like you. So don’t be coming out here, asking me for it when you’re too drunk to know what it is, and I’m too drunk to know how to stop.”

She leaned forward then and kissed him, so sweet and soft she was damn near making his point for him. He grabbed the back of her head, giving a sharp little tug to her hair, and turned her soft sweet kiss into practically a fuck of her mouth with his tongue. After a while, he pulled away, though she hadn’t fought him.

“I can’t give it to you soft. Not now, not ever. Even if I pretended for a while, I’d fuck you how I want to fuck you in the end, and you’re too innocent—”

“I’m not some frail little thing like your wife or spoiled little girl like Regina Winthrop. I’ve known a hard life. I can take whatever you want to give me.”

“You shouldn’t have to, not from me. You’re not some whore at Sally’s I can pound away at for hours and make up for it with some dollars on the dresser in the morning.”

“Women aren’t just whores or saints, Jake. We’re all a little of both. If you treat us just like one or the other, then you don’t even want a real woman, you just want a doll.”

 He didn’t know which was more potent: the whiskey or the feel of her hot body in his lap.  His fingers were wet from her juices, and his cock in his jeans thrust against the sweet naked curve of her inner thigh and ass.   All of it was damn near too much for him. Add to that, she had to go and get logical on him.

“You’re not a doll, Melinda. I know you’re not a doll. You’re a warm, beautiful young woman who I damn near cannot keep my hands off of.” He demonstrated the point, pulling her shift off her shoulders, baring her to the waist, and filling his palms with the luscious weight of her breasts as she arched her back, her long golden curls, glistening in the firelight, falling along her back. Her skin felt like silk against his hands.

“I want you to make love to me, Jake. My choice. My decision. The hard punch wore off long ago. I’m drunk on you. And I need to be held, need to be loved. If only for a little while before I move on. Love me, Jake.”

Not a man in this whole wide world, not one with a functioning cock anyway, could resist that. He pushed her to stand up, and the shift fell off her hips to the floor. “Okay, Melinda, I give in. You win. We both win. But you gotta show me you’re no delicate flower. Undo my belt.”

She glanced down and fell to her knees naked in front of him. Lord, the sight of just that. He widened his legs and she moved to position herself in between them. Her fingers went to the leather belt, and she undid it without hesitation, leaning in close, her head bent down to look at what she was doing. A part of him wanted to rip his pants open himself and let his cock spring out so he could thrust his fingers into her hair and bring her mouth down to him while she was so conveniently kneeling there. His breathing quickened at the thought of her soft, warm mouth closing over the head of his cock and sliding down to take him deep into her throat, as deep as she could take it. That might just shock his little orphan out of her compliance, pushing her to suck his cock as a first test. At this point, though, if Melinda turned noncompliant, he just might have to shoot himself.

“Now undo the zipper.” Again she obeyed. He held his breath. “Now take my cock out.”

It damn near pushed its way out all on its own, but she didn’t shy away from the task. He lifted his ass up in the end and pulled his jeans all the way off. He did the same with his shirt till he was as naked as the woman still kneeling at his feet. He pulled her up to straddle him on the chair, till she was kneeling on the seat of the chair, holding herself above him while he leaned back. He looked into her deep blue eyes. “Now you put my cock in you.”

That one seemed to stall her a little, and he reached a hand between them, thrusting a finger in her vagina. She was wet enough alright. Tight, though. He moved his finger gently, and she gasped. He continued, his thumb spreading the wetness on her clit, and she cried out, her eyes closed. He sucked one pink pert nipple into his mouth, and he felt her clamp down on him. He quickly thrust another finger in, and she orgasmed with a low moan.

 Enough of the instruction. He pulled his fingers out and replaced them slowly with his cock, working it in a bit at a time before she even seemed to realize it. She was still spasming, and her eyes shot open.

“Come on, girl, take me. You said you could.” He taunted her in a whisper, and she accepted the challenge, coming down swiftly on him to take the last few inches of his aching cock.