STORY EXCERPT

Ivy didn’t like that these two vibrant, hale men seemed to loathe each other. She’d been looking forward to courting both of them and choosing between them. Now it appeared that whichever one she settled on would be murdered by the loser. “Now, Harley. Whatever deed he committed has been paid in full, or they wouldn’t have let him out. Oh, what is this?”

A departing hooker had been standing on a gauntlet, a beautifully fringed and beaded glove that had been stamped into the dirt. Gingerly lifting it, Ivy shook it out, and a length of twisted rope fell onto the ground. Only a foot long or so, the rope was thin and terminated at both ends with a large glass trade bead.

Harley squatted down next to her. He looked at the rope. Then at Gentry’s neck. Then at the rope. “This could be what was used to strangle him.”

As Charlie and Wade lifted the body, Ivy asked, “Yes, but what is it? It’s so short.”

“Could be the drawstring for something.” Harley placed the rope inside the glove and pocketed them both. “Someone’s poke or purse.”

“Like a sort of reticule?”

“Exactly. Say, Neil. This is going to be an odd request.”

Neil fairly snarled at his adversary. His nostrils flared as he looked sideways down his lovely aquiline nose at the linguist. “Odder than anything else you’ve said?”

“Yes, probably. I want to photograph that body. I’ve brought camera equipment for surveying, and it’s all been taken to Vancouver House. You say the body will be at the undertaker’s?”

“Yes. But why would you need to photograph it?”

“It’s a new theory I’ve been hankering to test out. Don’t worry, it won’t harm the body in any way.”

“Well, you know,” Neil said in a new way that was somewhat friendly. “I’ve seen that symbol before, the one on his forehead. I just can’t pinpoint exactly where. But I’ve got a hunch it’s stamped on some paper on the desk of Miss Hudson’s father. Not that it involves him,” he was quick to tell Ivy. “Just that I’ve seen it, incidentally, emblazoning a paper of some sort.” He frowned and looked far away at the horizon. “But I’ve got to get over to Gentry’s ranch now, find his wife.” Looking back to Harley, his exquisite face almost had the cast of nobility when he said seriously, “You’ll look out after Miss Hudson.”

“Most assuredly.”

“I’m coming, too!” cried Zeke. “I can look for the paper you’re referring to. After all, paper is my job.”

“No,” said Neil. “You’re coming with me to Gentry’s ranch. If Katie Gentry is going to be sobbing all over me, as I reckon she will, I’m going to need someone more familiar with female emotional turbulence.”

“I? But I’ve never been married,” Zeke protested.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Neil said darkly.

So they parted ways, Ivy glad that she was at last alone with the accomplished British traveler. Not only was she able to take his solid, substantial arm and parade down Thornburgh, but a heat emanated from him that made her feel assured and confident in some odd way. That was it—she felt protected. The serious mountain man rifle slung across his back, the strength in his swagger, the livid, deep scar across his cheekbone—all these things combined to melt Ivy into a particularly feminine puddle of frailty. Oddly enough, this alleged feminine weakness actually made her feel stronger than she had in years.

Exhilaration flowed through her veins as she strolled with the powerful adventurer. What a day! An hour ago she’d walked the opposite direction clutching the arm of a different man. She was becoming quite the bon vivant, if not something of a fresh judy! “So what is this photographic idea you have?”

“Well. It will sound odd, but there is some scientific basis for it. The idea has been floating about that if you can photograph the retina of a recently deceased person, the retina will function like the plate of a camera and display to you the image of the murderer.”

Ivy’s jaw hung so low she couldn’t even speak.

Harley continued, “Hear me out. If the pupil becomes hugely dilated at a moment of sheer fear, anger, shock, or other strong emotion, the concept is that the image of the last thing the victim sees remains fixed forever. Or for a short time after death, thus why it needs to be photographed to preserve the image.”

“But,” Ivy gasped at last. “What if the last thing he sees is—oh, I don’t know, say, the floor? Or the back of his own hand as he lies face down on that floor? Or the barrel of a gun?”

Harley shrugged. “Theoretically we’d get a photograph of the gun, at least. And the idea has gained enough footholds in society, at least in some shady underworlds, that some murderers have resorted to gouging out the eyes of their victims.”

If Harley expected her to cringe in shock, then he was in for a surprise. “This sounds like that spirit photography I’ve heard about. Some photographers have been able to capture images of the dearly departed standing behind a subject. Of course, the ones I’ve seen mostly look like a photograph of the departed glued to a stick that someone is holding up. Completely ridiculous.”

“I’d like to try my hand at that as well!” Harley cried enthusiastically. “If it’s true that your beloved Neil is a conductor, a medium, if you will, then we might be able to get some interesting results.”

“Oh, he’s not my ‘beloved.’ I only just arrived, as you know. I barely know the man.”

“Really? You seem to have such camaraderie, such an emotional connection. That’s just my observation, of course. And the fact that he’s adamantly and hotly competing with me for your hand.”

At this, Ivy did cringe. “What gives you the idea he wants my hand?”

“My dear.” Harley patted her hand. “I’ve made a study of the mating rituals of humankind—a sort of amateur ‘sexologist,’ if you will. And the way that fellow took such a rabid and instant dislike to me tells me that I’m a vast threat to him.”

Did Harley insinuate that he, too, was fighting for her hand?

ADULT EXCERPT

“All right, Deputy Tempest. El Dekhal. You must prove you can take my member into your mouth.”

Harley was being a lascivious son of a bitch, he knew. It was in his nature to be this way, but his approach had been changing in the past week. Now, for instance, he wanted only to be lascivious with these two—El Dekhal, the housebreaker, and El Ladid, the delicious one.

But it had been his idea to canoodle about now in the telegraph office. Why not, when the doors were already barred, the customers driven away? No wonder Neil folded his arms before his chest, watching Harley sitting in his chair, choking his enormous prick in his fist.

Neil asked, “What, then, do we call you? What is your Arabic name for an insistent cock that won’t take no for an answer? A cock that is too big to be taken into one’s mouth?”

Harley had a ready answer for that. “El Bessis. From the moment it gets stiff and long, it does not care for anybody, lifts impudently the clothing of its master by raising its head fiercely, and makes him ashamed while it feels no shame.”

Neil grinned with approval. “That makes sense. When are you finishing this book translation? Will anyone be willing to publish it?”

“It would be quite scandalous,” Ivy said with excitement, her face flushed. She had rolled her telegraph chair into Neil’s part of the office and sat now with moist lips, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, vaguely caressing the upper slope of her breast as she observed Harley stroking his own cock.

Harley said, “I have a private backer in England who has been paying me for my translations. It would have to be printed privately, of course. We have subscribers.” He angled his prick toward Neil and observed the hungry, wolfish look in the deputy’s eyes. “Get on your knees, Neil. Your mouth is bigger than our feminine cohort’s, and you had a carnivorous way of licking my balls at the Elks Club.”

“Yes,” Ivy encouraged the head of security. “Suck Harley, Deputy Tempest. I want to watch.”

Harley’s cock twitched with excitement as Neil got on his knees between his thighs. But Neil surprised him by tossing back over his shoulder, “You’re not getting off so easy, Miss Hudson. No one is allowed to just watch around here.”

“But I like to watch,” Ivy protested, hugging herself tightly.

“Pleasure Neil,” Harley commanded. “By pleasuring him, he’ll be inspired to pleasure me.”

Ivy shrugged. “Won’t it distract him?” But she got to her feet and went to rummage around on Neil’s desk behind Harley.

Harley removed his hand when Neil gripped his prick. Harley steeled himself for some clock or gold scale to come flying at Neil’s head, but perhaps Minerva had vacated the premises, as no object went soaring through the air when Neil surrounded his cockhead with his hot, wet mouth. Harley sucked in air at the sudden rush of rapture that raced from his balls to his glans as the thick, slimy tongue began expertly plying him. Neil had sucked many cocks before, Harley could tell.

“Oh, Good Lord, that’s good.” Harley spread his thighs and rotated his hips, fingers interwoven behind his neck. He was taken aback when from behind Ivy grabbed his wrists, binding them with a length of reata.

“That’s right, Deputy Tempest,” she said, in a slightly different, more authoritative voice. “You must punish this prisoner. He was arrested for scandalous doings. Writing about Arabian love practices, and…”

Harley filled in for her, as Neil’s mouth was full with his cock. “Fucking young men in the male brothel.”

“Yes,” Ivy agreed heatedly as she knotted the thong between Harley’s wrists. She rubbed her pubic mound against his shoulder, evidently excited by their game. “The male brothel. You wrote a report on that, did you not, Captain Park? It was really your own experiences you were reporting on. Fucking the men…”

Harley added, “Yes, the men. It was scandalous of me, but I had to participate if I was to know what I was talking about, was I not? The young men are very agile and dexterous, able to put their ankles by their ears while being fucked. Their lovely, long, narrow penises are quick to erect and love being fondled. They have a sort of bridle that I attached at the base of their cocks, the better to direct them. I squeezed and massaged—”

Ivy, carried away on a wave of lust, ripped Harley’s shirt asunder so she could pinch his nipples. Arrows of lust darted down his abdomen, pooling in his full ball sac that Neil now fondled as he suckled on Harley’s enormous, full, purple penis. “Oh, I’ll just bet you did, Prisoner Park. Now you will pay for such lewd activities.” She was a feisty little minx, this one!

She yanked the chair out from under him so he was on his knees, too, and Neil had to bend lower with his tempting ass in the air. But apparently it was Harley’s own ass the vixen was after, for she shoved his trousers down to his knees and stroked him between his thighs. Being helplessly bound excited Harley to even greater heights, and pretending to be a defenseless prisoner riled him to no end. “Dear God, Deputy Tempest,” he cried in mock shame. “How dare you suck my prick? I will never live down the shame of this!”

“Oh, it gets even dirtier,” Ivy whispered as she chewed on his earlobe.