EXCERPT

“Bartender,” he bellowed, “I need a bottle, a bath, and the fanciest lady you have.”

His gaze languidly circumnavigated the room, and she held her breath, her mind willing his selection. His fabulous azure eyes locked with hers, which caused her heart to race. When he yelled, “That one, she’s mine,” Valerie became light-headed.

The man grabbed the offered bottle and glass. “I need another one for the lady.”

Cliff, the bartender, produced the requested glass, and the man threw a silver dollar on the bar. “Thanks. Set my companions up, too, would you?”

Cliff nodded and slid over to wait on them.

The man directed a devilish grin at her. Valerie’s nipples swelled from the molten stare of his blue eyes and a perfect smile from faultless white teeth. After throwing the saddlebags back over his shoulder, he ambled, glasses and bottle in hand, toward her. She studied him. Unkempt, dark brown hair hung in mild, attractive curls from beneath his tan, weather-beaten hat. His jaw square, a narrow mustache rested between his hawkish nose and narrow lips set within an angular face. He was beautiful…and he’d picked her.

He stopped two feet from her. “What’s your name?”

For an instant, she couldn’t think of it. “Valerie.”

“Can I call you Red?”

Regaining a modicum of control, she casually shrugged and smiled. “Everyone else does.”

He smirked and dipped his head. “Good. I’m Duke, and I need a bath. Would you like to bathe with me, Red?”

Almost numb from his sensual aura, she nodded. “Sounds like fun.”

A twangy voice drew their attention. “Duke, I’m going to be busy for a while.”

For the first time, she got a good look at one of his companions. Young and handsome, he stood with an arm around Maude and the new half-breed girl.

Duke chortled. A small grin appeared on his face. “Two, huh? You think you can handle two?”

“Don’t know yet. But I aim to try. Goin’ to make up for lost time.”

Laughing, Duke lavished her with an impish grin. “How about you? Could you handle two?”

Thinking he meant the other younger man, she looked him over.

Boyishly handsome, he had long, sandy-colored hair and almost identical blue eyes. He was a couple inches shorter than Duke and had a warm, engaging smile. He couldn’t have been much over twenty-one. She stared at Duke. “Him?”

Duke shook his head. “Nah, Cody don’t need the help.” He nodded toward the bar. “Cody’s brother, Cory. He’s shy, never been with a woman.”

She glanced in the direction of his head hitch and saw the duplicate of Cody leaning against the bar, nursing a draft.

Duke laughed again. “Only kidding. Wanted to see how game you are. Another time maybe. Tonight, you’re all mine.”

His gaze shifted to Cody. “All right, Cody, but we have to be going in a couple hours. We have to get rooms at the hotel.”

All of a sudden, Valerie felt emboldened. “You can stay in my room. No charge. And I’m sure Maude or…”

“Chana.” Cody offered her name, an effusive smile on his lips. Maude and Chana nodded, both mumbling affirmation.

She could feel lightning clear down in her toes when Duke took her hand. “Good, one of them can take Cory, too. Will you see to it, Cody?”

Cody nodded, turned, and walked off with his flesh-and-blood booty. With Cody gone, Duke’s smoldering eyes regained her attention.

“Why don’t we sit down and have a drink first, pretty lady.”

She flashed an effusive smile. “I’d like that.”

He led her to the closest empty table and pulled a chair out. She sat, and he pushed it in, then he took a seat himself. “Is bourbon all right, or would you prefer something milder?”

She would have preferred something else, but she didn’t want to trouble him. “Bourbon is fine.”

He poured them both a drink. “I can tell from your accent you’re a long way from home. Boston, isn’t it?”

She nodded, hoping he wouldn’t be too inquisitive.

“So how did you end up out here in wild and restless Virginia City?” She scanned the ceiling as she pursed her lips in revulsion at the thought of what had brought her to this. “Benjamin, my husband of nine months, came out to make our fortune. He found what appeared to be a solid silver vein and filed a claim. He sent money back to Boston for me to join him, and when I arrived two months later, I was a widow.”

Duke’s brows rose above widening eyes. “What happened?”

Valerie shook her head at the waste of it all. “I was told Benjamin got in a fight over one of the girls right here and was shot right outside this parlor house. The girl involved described it to me but has since left. She said they brought him in here and laid him upon a table. Someone sent for a doctor, but by the time the he arrived, my husband had passed away.” Using the side of her forefinger, she brushed a solitary budding tear away. “They claimed it was a fair fight, but the shooter skedaddled out of town and hasn’t been seen since.”

Reciting the events of her husband’s death used to make her weep, but in the ensuing thirteen months, too much water had passed over the dam. Now, though she knew better, it almost seemed as if it had happened to someone else.

Was she becoming inured to this debauched life?

God, I hope not.

ADULT EXCERPT

She lifted her hand and grazed his bristly cheek. “Oh, you poor man. Well, I have the cure for that, but first you must get undressed, and so must I.”

His long stare pleaded with her. “I will, but, please, may I?”

She didn’t particularly enjoy sex with her customers, but she didn’t mind disrobing in front of them and watching their hungry admiration. “Go ahead.”

“With your dress and shoes off you seem much smaller. May I ask how tall you are?”

“I’m five-and-a-half-feet tall.” She tilted her head and smiled inquisitively. “What about you?”

He reached up. Shaking fingers untied her corset. “Six feet, three inches. And you weigh?”

“I weigh a hundred twenty pounds. Would you prefer fuller-figured woman?”

He removed her corset, allowing her breasts to feel the fresh air. Her breasts were of average size, but she’d been told that, because of their shape, color, and disposition, they were particularly attractive to men. Duke gasped. Cool air assailed her nipples, hardening them while he set the corset on the chair. Duke tenderly, lovingly, cupped her breasts.

“Never! You are perfect the way you are. Your breasts are perfect. Your waist and ass are perfect, too.”

She gasped when he bent down and wrapped his sweet lips around a swollen, jutting nipple. Instinctively, her hands lifted to his scalp, where her fingers tunneled through his head of fine, thick hair.

She reveled in the fact that this man, who had stirred her with a glance across the room, now sucked on her sensitive, light pink nub.

Her pussy grew hotter and hotter. Wetness collected inside her vagina, and some escaped, trickling down her thighs, tickling her as it went. Her heart beat so hard, she thought it might come through her chest. “Please, there’ll be plenty of time for that.”

She sighed as he pulled away from her breasts. Two thumbs slid between the waistband of her pantalets and her flesh. He nodded.

“Has anyone looked after your pleasure, even as you looked after theirs?”

What is he getting after? “Not that I recall.”

“Then I shall.” Stooping, he pushed the pantalets to the floor and kissed her furry mound. A thrill raced through her. Did his tongue touch my love bud? Oh, how she loved the sensations that shot through her. Some of the girls told how wonderful it felt when a customer performed oral stimulation on their vulva, but no one had yet tried it on her. He appeared to contemplate it, his fingers clawing through her red strands. She swallowed, knowing that the second his mouth touched her sensitive button, she’d shatter. His tongue edged out and over her pulsating bud, and she held her breath.

He did it. She almost swooned. He licked her bud, triggering an ache in her pussy for him. This was no clod of a john. This man could cause her to feel like a goddess. She stepped from the pantalets and, once again, roamed her fingers through his hair, guiding him. She stood, naked as a newborn, in front of this fully-dressed man, enjoying his wicked tongue on her long-neglected, tender nub.

“I wish I could bottle the bouquet of your sweet cunt and take it with me,” he announced before urging her back until her thighs rested against the tub edge and bidding her to sit there. When she did, he spread her thighs and ran his fingers through her fire-red bush. Parting her nether lips with his fingers, he devoured the hollow between her soft folds. With his tongue, he aggressively engaged her love bud and probed her deep recess with two fingers.

Wishing his mouth to have even greater contact with her little bud, she reached down, grabbed the back of Duke’s head, and pulled him deeper into her overheating, moist pussy. She felt as if it slow cooked at medium temperature on an iron stove.