The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head (17 page)

The mention of Gieo brought Fiona back to
reality, and she finally managed to push Veronica away. “Leave her
out of this,” Fiona hissed.

Veronica stalked away, more amused than hurt.
“She’s an adorable little thing,” she said. “As long as she has a
talented tongue, I wouldn’t care either if all she knew how to do
was lick and suck. What I’m more surprised about is your taking of
a pet. Wasn’t that one of your primary problems with our
organization?”

“There’s a big difference between what she
and I have and the Ravens’ slave trade.”

“Of course there is. We only dealt in
men.”

“Dealt?”

Veronica flopped onto her overly cushioned
bed, sinking into the marshmallow-esque comforter on her stomach,
glancing over to Fiona with her lower lip jutting out in a pout.
“We discontinued that division when the council ratified a
constitution outlawing slavery,” she said. “Your little slave
rebellion and the money it cost us had a lot to do with the
decision, actually. Oh, but don’t worry, someone figured out we
could make twice as much with indentured servant contracts, so now
you’re something of a folk hero in Vegas.”

“Speaking of, why didn’t Danny recognize any
of you?”

“How could he?” Veronica let out a cute
little giggle, rolling onto her back. “Our human traffickers always
wore masks, and he barely got picked up before you broke him out.
He probably saw hooded figures, the inside of a boxcar, and then
you and your band of rebellious human property making a mess out of
my train. You know you broke my heart and cost me a fortune all in
the same night?”

“That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing
here.” Fiona folded her arms over her chest, trying desperately to
hide the fact that her nipples still hadn’t calmed down from
Veronica’s tweaking of them.

“To put it bluntly, we’re taking over the
west,” Veronica said. “Think about it. We could be the ruling class
in the strongest new-world country. The Omaha Pact gives us all the
food we can handle and then some just to keep us from invading.
With all the desert city-states brought under Vegas rule, we could
finally move against the Slark.”

“You sound like Gieo,” Fiona snorted.

“Again with your pet; she must have a
talented mouth to have you so smitten. Fuck it! Bring the little
crotch-licker along for the ride if you’re so hung up on her.”
Veronica slid from the bed and began the slow process of peeling
away her Can-Can dress, turning her back to Fiona in a feint of
modesty. “I’m not remotely the jealous type. We could even share
her, if you’re willing.”

“I never said I wanted to come back to the
Ravens.”

Veronica glanced over her shoulder, arms
crossed over her breasts as she let her dress fall away, revealing
the fishnet stockings and lacy little thong beneath. “Oh, sweetie,
in a few days, you’re not going to have a choice.”

“I could go east to Texas.”

“Gone,” Veronica said with a little rise in
pitch to her voice. She tossed one of her fingerless opera-length
gloves over her shoulder to add a little flare to the declaration.
“The Mexicans took it over and then they all died of a series of
cholera outbreaks. I think the Slark have their eyes on the land,
but they’d need to go through Arizona first, and they can’t make
that push. Not with Tombstone and Tempe in the way.” Veronica
turned back to Fiona, slowly letting her hands fall away from her
breasts. Fiona knew them all too well, with their pert, pink
nipples and the crescent shaped scar along the underside of the
left breast where Veronica had nearly lost a knife fight in the
wild, early days of the Ravens’ taking over Vegas. Fiona used to
lick the scar, calling it the river of strength that started in the
mountains of her courageous heart and wound its way to the ocean of
her breasts. It felt like an eternity ago, but seeing Veronica’s
scar brought it all back.

“I almost forgot,” Veronica teased, catching
onto Fiona’s prolonged stare at her chest, “you’re a breast woman.
I also noticed your little Korean pet doesn’t have a lot going on
up top, even with a corset.”

“Not breast-wise,” Fiona admitted, “but just
a little further up, she has more than anyone I’ve ever met.” It
was a proud declaration, and one she thought might harm Veronica’s
ego considering, to that point, Veronica had been the smartest
person Fiona knew.

It stopped Veronica in her tracks, but not
with wounded pride as Fiona had hoped. She looked intrigued. “Oh,
do tell.” Suddenly, Veronica couldn’t hear enough about the woman
she’d been degrading the entire conversation. Her eyes reflected
the high-speed gears working behind them, and Fiona knew she’d said
too much.

“She’s a scientist,” Fiona said, unable to
stop her bragging, “and a pilot. She built an airship that actually
flew, and it wasn’t her first.”

“I need to talk to this girl.”

“Be prepared to have your ear chewed
off.”

Veronica cocked her head to one side and
shrugged. “She actually seemed a little tongue-tied when I met her
earlier.”

Fiona had never seen anything but overt
charisma and spastic charm from the pilot. She’d bombarded Fiona
with a million questions, comments, and conversation pieces within
the first five minutes of meeting her, and then shoved her hand
straight down Fiona’s pants within a few miles of their first car
ride together; shy and tongue-tied were not normal behavior for
Gieo. Veronica read Fiona’s face, as she always could, and her eyes
widened under the realization.

“I must have really had an impact on her,”
Veronica said, “one you clearly didn’t. Are you losing your touch,
love? Time was you had women and men hurling themselves at your
feet.”

Fiona’s hand reached for the door, but didn’t
even make it to the handle before Veronica caught her wrist. She
was fast, much faster than Fiona even, and knew every tell the
gunfighter had; after all, she was the one who had taught Fiona the
killing trade. Tears, honest to goodness tears, began welling in
the corners of Fiona’s eyes. She was a child in her former mentor
and lover’s hands.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I know what
she’s going through, wanting to be possessed by you. Fiona, you
still have that effect on me,” Veronica whispered, closing the gap
between them. “Please stay. My heart shattered when you left.”

Fiona inhaled deeply of her former lover’s
scent, the strawberries that touched everything about her, the
desert dust clinging to her hair, and the undertone of familiar
sweat coursing beneath it all. Veronica felt like home, felt like
safety, felt like letting go.

“You could have come after me,” Fiona
whispered, not wanting to give in, but knowing she didn’t really
have a choice.

“You said you would kill me if I tried,”
Veronica replied with a little laugh. “But I’m here now.”

Fiona grasped Veronica around the waist and
lifted her. Veronica easily straddled the gunfighter’s hips. Their
lips met again in an urgent kiss. Fiona struggled to breath past
the intense embrace. Veronica was nearly her height and easily
matched her in strength and weight as she’d had a much stronger
path since their parting. Despite being the one being held off the
floor, Veronica steered Fiona to the bed with her hips and legs,
finally pushing the gunfighter onto her back atop the pillowy bed.
Veronica broke the kiss and smiled down to Fiona, running her hands
along her exposed stomach and taut abdominal muscles.

“I’m going to feed you up, get you strong
again, back to your shining old self,” Veronica promised. “In a
month you’ll be ready to stand at my side when I roll over the
entire west coast. We’ll make a world run by women, devoid of
Slark.”

“I’m ready now,” Fiona snarled in protest.
She reached up, grabbed Veronica by the back of the neck and
flipped her down onto the bed, immediately diving on top of her.
She ground her hips into Veronica, pressing the front of her
leather pants against the thin lacy material between Veronica’s
legs.

Veronica let out a little groan of pleasure
and laughed. She easily reversed their positions, flipped Fiona
onto her face, and pinned the gunfighter’s right hand behind her
back. Veronica’s leg found its way up between Fiona’s, pressing her
knee firmly down against Fiona’s ass.

“You’re not strong enough to top me right
now, let alone rule at my side,” Veronica whispered hotly into
Fiona’s ear. “I don’t want to hurt your pride though. Your
confidence is sexy and vital for what’s coming.” Veronica let her
go. Fiona gasped in a few deep breaths, having struggled to breathe
through the face-full of comforter. “I have a gift for you to use
on your pet. It’ll help put a swagger back in your step.” Veronica
strolled across the room, threw open one of her many steamer
trunks, and retrieved an item all too familiar to Fiona. She tossed
the leather harness with a metal ring and a few buckles onto the
bed. The huge, red phallus mounted in the strap-on harness
whispered to Fiona of her former life.

She plucked the old friend from the top of
the bed and inspected it to be sure it really was the same one. The
extra holes punched to fit the straps to her slender hips were
right where she’d left them. Even the scratch marks where the strap
that ran just above her ass had rubbed against a cement wall when
they made good use of the toy in a parking structure in Barstow
were there. They’d fought Slark all day, losing their entire squad
of Ravens and the accompanying male slaves. When it looked like it
would be the end of them after the aliens had finally cornered them
in the shopping center parking structure, they’d done what anyone
in that situation might do: fucked like bunnies with the
expectation of dying before morning.

They wore urban military fatigues,
camouflaged in grays and blacks for their night ops. Aside from a
few bumps, bruises, and scrapes, they’d both escaped the
catastrophic results of the battle that had claimed the rest of
their squad, but their ammunition and explosives were all burned in
the act of escaping. The Slark knew where they were, but didn’t
know they were down to knives and harsh language for weapons. The
Slark had lost so many in the chase that they waited for
reinforcements as night came on, certain the Red Bishop and White
Queen were capable of slipping away if they attacked with so
few.

The cold light of the moon mingled with the
rosy glow of the various fires burning throughout the city to give
a low, ambient light to the parking structure, level three, section
D, space 49. Fiona was stressed, as she tended to be, and Veronica
was exhilarated, as she tended to be. Veronica had leaned against
the cement support pillar, her face flushed with excitement, dusty
with a sheen of sweat. She’d produced the strap-on from her pack
like it was just another implement of war. Fiona could hardly
believe her eyes at the impracticality of bringing a ten-inch dildo
to a battlefield. Veronica had smiled through her protests though,
and, with her appealing, mesmerizing way, she’d asked, “Is there
anything you want to do before we die?”

She’d stripped Fiona before she could put up
much of a fight. Their empty ammunition harnesses, shirts, boots,
and combat fatigues fell away, creating something of a nest on the
concrete floor. Veronica tried again and again to get the harness
to fit Fiona’s slender hips, finally letting Fiona punch a couple
extra holes further in for the buckles using her pocket knife. Even
as Fiona was getting used to the sensation of wearing such a thing,
something she’d never done before, Veronica was busy mentally
checking off things on her list. She pushed Fiona against the
pillar, fell to her knees, and began giving the most lurid blow job
Fiona could have imagined, taking the enormous, red phallus in her
mouth with inexperienced verve. The strap along the back, just
above Fiona’s ass, scraped and rubbed against the wall with every
plunge and sloppy sucking motion Veronica made. There was little in
the way of physical sensation to the blow job for Fiona, but the
visual, auditory, and energy components shifted her thinking from
survival to sexual ends. When Veronica had satisfied her curiosity,
she’d climbed Fiona’s body, her lips made rosy from the work, an
ineffable smile on her face, having checked off something she’d
never done and didn’t want to die without knowing. “Some of the
girls talk about how great that is,” she’d said. “I had to
know.”

“Oh,” Fiona had replied breathlessly.

“Was it good for you?”

Before Fiona could answer, Veronica’s lips
met hers. They kissed, Veronica’s mouth still tasting rubbery from
the blow job and tingling from the work. Fiona lifted her, spun her
in a half-turn to press her back against the pillar, and guided the
strap-on between her legs and into her as though she were hungry to
accept it. Holding Veronica up, straddling her waist, even with the
help of the pillar through every thrust, was exhausting, but
clearly worth the effort as Veronica was well on her way to climax
before Fiona’s strength and energy even started to flag. She came
screaming, riding hard, scraping her bare back against the cement
pillar, gripping a handful of hair at the back of Fiona’s head.
Fiona had never seen her so lovely, so happy, and so alive. Before
she’d even come down, as though life was the lone remaining half of
an orange requiring harsh treatment to drain every last drop of
juice, she shook Fiona to attention by the handle of her hair, and
locked gazes. There was something wild and primal in Veronica’s
hazel eyes that had excited Fiona in ways she’d never felt. “I want
to try anal,” Veronica had said. Fiona’s brain refused to process
the request the first time, forcing Veronica to repeat herself. “I
said, I want you to violate me with that thing—I’ve never done it,
and I don’t want to die without knowing if I like it or not.”