Story Excerpt

The noose fastened securely around Sarah McLaury’s neck and she said a silent prayer to God. She didn’t fear death, but dangling from the end of a rope never made it to her list of preferred ways to meet her end. She blinked, the sunlight beaming down on her from high in a cloudless sky. All around her, the sounds of spring made themselves heard amidst the scatter of conversations among those looking on. A pull of the lever, a snap of her neck, and it’d be all over. It didn’t seem fitting that such a heinous act should take place on a lovely day.

“Just a minute, Miss Sarah, and I’ll get the hood.”

Sarah started to reach for the sheriff deputy, forgetting her hands were bound behind her back. “No, Virgil. I don’t want it.”

“But, Miss Sarah, it’ll make it easier if your face is covered.”

“Easier for whom? Those vultures out there looking to get their jollies by watching an innocent woman hang?”

“No, ma’am, I meant for you.”

“You ever been hanged, Virgil?”

Virgil snorted a half laugh before he sobered. “’Course not.”

“Then how would you know what’s easiest?”

“Well, when you put it that way, I’m a guessin’ I wouldn’t know after all.”

“No, I’m guessing you wouldn’t.”

“I’m supposed to ask you if you have any last words.”

“No.” She said all she could say in the invitation she sent out last evening. An invitation that would apparently go ignored. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so formal in her request.

In her mind’s eye, she saw the scratchy coal pencil marks on the yellowed paper the sheriff had given her just before sundown. Dear Sirs, she had written. You are respectfully invited to attend my execution on April 12, 1884, at ten o’clock a.m. in front of the courthouse in the Town of Laramie.

She’d signed it, Yours Respectfully, Sarah McLaury, and handed it to the young boy for immediate delivery to the Cassidy ranch. Then she had lain awake all night envisioning James and Billy Cassidy receiving the invitation, laughing their sexy asses off, and even toasting her good riddance over a pint of whiskey between them.

They weren’t coming. The realization of that settled in her belly like a lead weight. Her only salvation lay with the Cassidy brothers. Blazes. She hated asking for their help, hated even more knowing that without them she’d surely hang.

Heavy footfalls shook the platform as a body climbed the stairs behind her. Sarah swallowed, feeling the coarseness of the rope rub a raw spot on her tender flesh, and closed her eyes briefly on another prayer to the good Lord. A hush fell over the onlookers on the ground around the platform. Any second now the sheriff would state the charges against her and deliver the sentence of death by hanging. Then the unsteady door beneath her feet would fall through to leave her dangling from the end of the rope above the open space of nothingness.

“You do manage to get yourself in a world of shit, don’t you, darlin’?”

Sarah gasped, her eyes flying open at the husky words spoken in her ear. “James.”

“Starting to think I wouldn’t come?” His breath fanned the tiny hairs at the base of her ear, sending a shiver of awareness down her spine.

“You certainly took your dear, sweet time.”

“A man’s got work to see to. Can’t make the earth stop spinnin’ because of an invitation, no matter how politely it’s delivered.”

Sarah bit her tongue on a scathing retort and swallowed her pride. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to visit me, Mr. Cassidy.”

James barked a laugh and leaned over, peering at her face. “So that’s what it takes to turn you proper, huh? Put a noose around your pretty little neck and you finally start talking like a woman’s supposed to.”

Sarah balled her fingers into tight fists. If her hands weren’t bound she’d enjoy slapping that arrogant grin off his ruggedly handsome face.

“Say what’s on your mind, Sweet Sarah. Time’s a wasting, and it seems your neck is on the line, darlin’.”

“I thought propriety was what you wanted out of a woman, what you wanted out of me. Isn’t that what you’ve been after all these years?”

“Half the town is down there waiting for you to be hanged for cattle rustling. I know you didn’t do such a thing, but the sheriff, well, he isn’t as reasonable a man as I am. I gathered you tried telling him you didn’t do it.”

Sarah scoffed. “Of course I did. He claims he’s got evidence enough against me.” And she couldn’t very well dispute that evidence when the cattle she’d been accused of stealing appeared on her land.

“Do you want my help?”

Yes, please, James, help me. “Unless you can make some kind of magic that’ll dissolve this rope around my neck, I’m not seein’ as how you can help me at all.”

“Then why send the invitation to Billy and me?” He moved full in front of her, his hard gaze unwavering.

Because I was desperate and scared. Because I wanted to see you both one last time before I died. “I guess so you could see you won.”

James tsked. He skimmed the backs of his fingers down her cheek. It took every ounce of her will not to lean into that touch. “Sweet Sarah, seein’ you hang was never what neither of us wanted. I can help. All I have to do is tell the sheriff you were with Billy and me when those cattle came up missin’. ’Course, then you’ll have to come home with us. The sheriff’ll be so happy you’re finally settlin’ down like a woman is meant to that he won’t think a thing of it.”

Sarah knew it wasn’t that simple. She also knew the Cassidy brothers had a lot of pull with the law in this town. Respect went a long way toward believability no matter the story told, and James and Billy Cassidy demanded respect.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Yes.” The word left her on a gush of surprised air as James slid a finger between her pussy lips, swiping at the cream pooling between her folds. She felt his thumb and middle finger part her butt cheeks, and then the finger he’d wet with her own juices lightly grazed over her anus. “James.” His name was half pleasured cry and half question.

“Do you like that?” James’s question came in a flutter of heated breath against the other side of her neck.

Sarah didn’t answer. She couldn’t. A part of her did like it, just as she’d enjoyed it the last time he’d dared to play there, even as much as the rest of her feared he’d go further this time.

“What did you mean last night?” Her voice quivered with the same mixture of arousal and apprehension that coursed through her body. “When I was going to sleep I thought I heard you say you would bind me to you even more, together. What did that mean?”

Sarah drew in a quick breath as the finger pressed inside, slowly wiggling deeper, stretching the taut muscles of her anus.

“I told you before what I aim to do, darlin’,” James said huskily as he slowly eased his finger back only to probe inside her again. “I want to put more than a finger inside you here. I want to put my cock in you here.” His finger picked up the pace, retreating and plundering faster.

Sarah found herself wiggling in search of the touch, her anus so full and yet so empty at the same time. She wanted more. She wanted what he spoke of.

“Let’s lay her down.” Billy’s suggestion seemed to come out of nowhere, lost as she was in the sensations James ignited with his perusal of her anus.

She nearly wept when James’s finger retreated completely, when the warmth of his hands and body left her in an instant. Billy’s hands dropped to the backs of her thighs and he lifted her, guiding her legs around his waist as he carried her to the bed. She felt his cock, rigid and insistent against her middle, but he didn’t enter her. He turned with her in his arms and lay back on the bed, taking her down with him until she straddled his waist, the weight of her upper body resting on her arms on either side of his head.

She locked gazes with him and started to speak when she felt James behind her. His hands found her again without hesitation. He used his finger to collect her pussy juices once more and spread them around her anus, slipping the digit inside.

James didn’t give her time to think, to anticipate his next move. Billy lay beneath her, his hands gripping securely on her hips, holding her poised above his cock. She wiggled, discovering she could move just enough to feel the beads of pre-cum seeping from the slit of his cock as it rubbed at her widespread folds.

“Let it feel good, Sweet Sarah,” James coached as he worked his finger back and forth, stretching her further and eliciting short, pleasured moans from her.

It did feel good, so very good. “Please, James. Please. I need—” She broke off, unable to decipher exactly what she needed through the riot of emotions racing through her.

“We know what you need, darlin’.”

She saw Billy’s gaze flick past her, obviously to James, felt Billy’s hold on her hips tighten. Then he pulled her body down and sheathed his rigid cock in her throbbing channel.

“God, yes.” Sarah threw her head back, her eyes closing as sheer bliss took her sanity. Her inner muscles tightened around his thick cock and, for a fraction of an instant, she knew nothing but the wonder of being stupendously filled by one of the men she loved.

She tried to move, wanting to feel Billy’s cock as it slid in and out of her, as it stroked the raging flames deep inside her channel, but he held her still.

“Not yet.” His voice was strained and, when she lifted her head, opening her eyes to meet his gaze, she saw the same tension in his handsome face.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded. “Please don’t stop.”

“We’re not done. Give it a minute. It’ll feel even better.”

Sarah shook her head, finding it impossible that it could get any better than this. The possibility presented itself in her next breath when she felt James’s finger pull from her anus only to return almost immediately, wetter and more persistent than before.

“Hold still, darlin’,” James coached. “Let me work this oil into your ass. It’ll make it easier, help loosen the hole so I can slide my cock inside.”

Sarah didn’t know where he’d gotten the oil, but she was grateful for it. It did make it easier, so much so that she felt her body relaxing, the muscles in her anus giving as he delved his finger deeper, working the oil into her rear. Sheer pleasure swamped her when he added a second finger to the first, stretching her tender opening wider, working her more. When the third finger inched inside, she thought she might pass out from bolts of ecstasy that shot through her system.

“Damn, this is amazing,” James growled. “I can’t wait another second, Sarah. I have to be inside you now. Are you ready, darlin’? Are you ready to take me?”