The Wicked West (2 page)

The sun began its slide behind the mountains, but it remained fiery hot all the same. Lily could feel the warmth slip across her forearm as the light slanted farther into her room.

She didn’t move. She’d long since finished her solitary meal of rabbit stew, one of the few things she could cook on her own, as it didn’t take much skill or knowledge to let something bubble on the stove for three hours. Undoubtedly, the novelty of cooking would wear off soon, but at this moment she felt proud and full of…herself. Yes, full of herself and what she could do.

She’d been nobody her whole life. A marionette, at best. A statue at worst. First, an obedient daughter, then a meek wife, and finally a helpless young widow. But now she was…well, she was nobody, still, but a much better version of it. She was nobody because she was working to decide just who she wanted to be. She had the power now. Power over herself, even if that meant the simple choice of who would come to her bed.

Even to Lily, the feelings of her body were a strange thing. Her husband had been a kind, older man. A man she’d respected and liked, but not a man she’d been interested in kissing, much less sharing a bedchamber with.

Mr. Anders had sensed her obvious hesitance on their wedding night, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d only smiled gently and told her exactly what to do to please him. And it had been such a relief! To be told when to touch him and how. To be praised when she did it right, and scolded when she grew careless or distant. All her anxiety vanished in those private moments. If he’d said she was good, then she knew she must be good.

Growing up, she’d never been able to make her father proud. He’d been a dour man, unmoved by the love of his children. But Mr. Anders had been proud of her, and told her so every night as she knelt at his feet.

A few months after their marriage, Lily had been comfortable enough to confess how she’d ruined her brother’s life in one stupid moment of indiscretion. Her husband had been the picture of sympathy as he’d nodded and explained that she would feel much better after she’d been punished.

Whatever alarm she’d felt at his announcement had vanished when he’d ordered her to lift her skirts and lie across his knees. By the time he’d ceased the spanking, her bottom had burned with pain, but her guilt had finally been inched back. She’d been punished, and that punishment had brought her a thin layer of peace. Each time after, another layer of peace had been laid.

But she could no longer hide her strange wants beneath regrets. Now she desired punishment for pleasure’s sake. She wanted to know the feeling of big, calloused hands, where her husband’s had been pale and narrow. She wanted to know the unusual strength and passion that these Americans seemed to have.

She wanted Sheriff Hale.

The sunlight seemed to brighten for one last, desperate moment, then dusk fell like a shadow when the sun finally slipped behind the jagged peaks to the west. That instant twilight flooded her with anticipation. The sheriff would return home soon, and Lily would offer him her body again.

She was sure she wasn’t wrong about him. At the first moment of their introduction, she’d recognized something in his body, as if his nerves were taut and humming with an energy only she could sense. He seemed to glow with need, and when she had instinctively lowered her eyes before such power, his jaw had tightened, his eyes had narrowed. He’d liked that.

But when he’d noticed her watching past her lashes, Sheriff Hale had jerked his chin up and schooled his features.

Lily was not the type of woman to make advances. Aggression was not her role in this game. Her only solution was to make it clear she would submit to his needs, if only he would take her.

Just as she closed her eyes and let her head loll to the side, the distant sound of boots on wood floated past her open curtains. A door squeaked, then shut with a crack. Sheriff Hale was home.

Lily stiffened in her chair but didn’t rise. It was early still. Not quite nine o’clock. But she was ready. She’d undressed and arranged the length of her silk robe around her on the chair. The lamps burned at their brightest. So did her lungs. Excitement and fear nearly choked her as she waited for him to appear in his bedroom window.

She was wet already, thinking of him watching her. If only he could tell her what to do, exactly how to please him. Her hands shook at the thought.

He must not have gone to the saloon tonight, because she didn’t hear his tread as he walked up the stairs. Her first hint that he’d arrived on the second floor was a soft scuff against the floorboards of his room. He didn’t light a lamp.

Her heart leaped. Now.
Now.

She’d done it the night before, but tonight the idea of performing for him was more frightening. He’d given her no encouragement this afternoon, no hint that he appreciated her offer. And if she put on the same show tonight, he’d know. He’d know that she planned it. That she opened her curtains and arranged the lamps to set her body aglow just for his eyes.

His window stayed dark and quiet.

Now.
Even the voice inside her head trembled as she tried to convince herself, but Lily reached for the pins that held her hair up.

The thick twist of dark hair unfurled under her hands. Her husband had told her of the effect of long hair on men. It signified sex to them, darkened bedrooms and panting breath…the only time they ever saw a woman’s hair loose and wild. Lily ran her hands through the twist to uncurl it, then shook it back to let it fall down her back. Her nipples tightened.

At this moment, he watched her, wondering if she was unaware, knowing she could be simply readying for bed. She might be innocent and vulnerable, and he was standing there watching, his cock hard and ready.

Had he stroked it as he watched her the night before? Was he stroking it now?

She let her hand trail down to her collarbone, let her fingers slip lower to the edge of her dressing robe. What would he want her to do now? Touch her breasts again, or something different?

While she considered the possibility, Lily pushed the neckline wider, edging her hands to the plump rise of one breast. Mr. Anders had told her that her breasts were lovely, and she’d believed him. He’d never lied to her about anything.

Lily tugged at the first tie of her robe and opened it to expose both of her naked breasts. The soft noise that floated from the sheriff’s window might have been her imagination…or it might have been a gasp.

Biting back a hopeful smile, she dared to look at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t claim to know what most women looked like unclothed, but she had the same pert shape as the Venus statue she’d spied at a long-ago exhibition. But her breasts were so much more flagrant than those made of cold marble. They were creamy and warm, the centers a rose pink crested by the deeper pink of hard nipples. They cried out for attention,
demanded
it. Would Sheriff Hale respond?

Lily’s eyes snapped with excitement. She had a rather plain face; she knew that. But right now, as she watched herself in the mirror, she was beautiful. Her lips flushed with color, her cheeks glowed, and her eyes spoke of the need in her soul.

Staring at herself, Lily dragged her hand up the rise of her breast, over her chest and the arch of her neck. When she reached her bottom lip, she paused to trace it before slipping the tip of one finger into her mouth. This time the sound from the other house was unmistakably the hiss of in-drawn breath.

Yes.
He watched her. He wanted.

She slipped the finger deeper, rubbing it against her tongue, imagining that it was the sheriff’s shaft she tasted. Closing her eyes, Lily sucked.

Would he like that? Would he
need
it? He must. Mr. Anders had loved it. He’d petted her hair and moaned that she was a good girl. Lily groaned at the thought and sucked her finger deeper.

She would reach her climax tonight. Sometimes with her husband she hadn’t. Sometimes she’d only been overtaken by a wonderful relaxation. But tonight she would be consumed.

Her flesh tightened around her bones as she dragged her finger from her mouth and drew a damp trail down her skin, all the way to the tip of one breast. When her finger dried, she licked it again, slowly, then imagined Sheriff Hale’s tongue as she painted her nipple with wetness.

By the time she slipped her hand between the lower edges of her robe, Lily’s thighs were shaking. She left the robe closed, needing to hide that part of her until the sheriff ordered her to give him more. She didn’t even face the window as she cupped her sex and whimpered. Slipping her middle finger deeper, she rubbed that one delicious spot, imagining she did it because he’d asked her to.

“No,” she whispered, wanting to be helpless. But he wouldn’t like her saying no to him. Lily raised her other hand and gripped her throat. Squeezing the tender flesh of her neck, she rubbed her sex faster and made her body shake. Touching herself usually brought her very little pleasure, but knowing the cold sheriff was watching made it so much more.

“Please,” she begged. “Please.”

When she heard a low grunt of male pleasure, Lily’s body squeezed impossibly tight. “Oh,” she whispered as her thighs shuddered around her hand. “Oh, yes.” She breathed through the spasms, drawing them out as long as she could, rubbing until her flesh grew too sensitive to bear it.

Slumping into the chair, Lily let her hand fall limp against her leg.

Surely he couldn’t deny her now. She wanted to give him
everything.

Hale drew in a deep, shuddering breath before he bolted upright in his bed. The weak sunlight disoriented him, because he was almost sure he’d just closed his eyes a few moments before.

Frowning, he glanced toward the gray light streaming through the window at the foot of the bed. It was daylight, all right. And the window reminded him of more than just a night spent sleeping.

Blood rushed to his face at the memory of what Mrs. Anders had done. And what he’d done while watching her. He’d imagined pumping into her instead of his own hand. Imagined his fingers holding her neck arched tight and to the side as he plowed into her. Imagined her begging him to stop as she came all over his cock.

“Damn it,” he spat, disgusted with himself…and with her.

What the hell was she thinking? Either she was dumb as a rock and unaware of what curtains were for, or she knew exactly what she was doing. And the woman hadn’t struck him as anything near stupid in the two weeks he’d known her.

Which meant she’d wanted him to watch her. Naked. Naked and fingering herself to climax.

His cock stirred, swelling against his belly, even as his stomach burned at the thought. This was a law-abiding town, and he was the sheriff, for God’s sake. If Mrs. Anders was a whore of some kind, she belonged on the other side of Center Street, where decent folk could ignore the goings-on if they chose. She didn’t belong here, two doors down from the schoolmarm’s house and half a block away from the church. She either had to cut out her little show or she had to go.

Her show…By God, he’d seen naked women aplenty, but he’d never seen anything like that. Sucking her finger into that tight, pink mouth, wanting him to imagine her tongue against his flesh. And he had. He’d pictured her on her knees for him, licking and sucking until he came down her throat.

“Fuck,” Hale spat impatiently. He was hard as a rock now. He’d end this today, but he couldn’t stomp over there in this state, or he’d likely have her against the wall before he could deliver his lecture on propriety. Always pragmatic, he simply took himself in hand and pictured Mrs. Anders. It took only a few minutes of stroking before he was done. Problem solved.

Within an hour, Hale was cleaned up, dressed and fed, and ready to take on the wicked little widow. As he knocked on the door, he thought how much more pleasant his life could be if he could get her to take up whoring in the next town over. Far enough away for a little discretion, but close enough to dare a weekly visit.

The door opened to reveal a flat-faced maid. “Mrs. Anders, please,” he muttered.

The girl nodded and opened the door to him. Hale removed his hat and hesitated only a moment before stepping in. Though he’d been here less than twenty-four hours before, the house seemed suddenly small, especially when Mrs. Anders herself stepped from the kitchen into the hallway and froze.

Her wide green eyes blinked slowly at him, and Hale felt his face burn. This had seemed a much simpler conversation in the safety of his own home. He glanced toward the maid, a girl who’d only just left the schoolhouse, if he remembered correctly.

“Jenny,” Mrs. Anders said. Right. Jenny Madole. “You may go and purchase that leg of lamb now. Let Mr. Kimball know I want a small one. Make sure he cuts it right.”

“Yes’m.” The girl headed back toward the kitchen. He heard a door close.

“Sheriff Hale.” Her voice dropped to something soft and uncertain. “What can I do for you?”

Get on your knees,
his brain supplied, and Hale’s cheeks burned hotter. He didn’t like feeling embarrassed. Anger bloomed beneath his breastbone.

“I’m sorry to have to broach such an uncomfortable subject, Mrs. Anders, but you leave me no choice. You…You understand that I can see into your bedroom at night?”

He hadn’t really meant it as a question, and the woman seemed to know that, because she didn’t answer. Her cheeks pinkened a bit, though, and she dropped her eyes to the floor. Hale’s heart sped at her strange show of modesty.

“I can see through your window,” he repeated, just to be sure she understood. Mrs. Anders nodded. Yes, she knew. His speeding heart pumped blood low in his body so that he had to shift his stance. She’d done it on purpose. She’d let him watch.

Strange that she’d appeared a sexual animal last night as she’d fondled herself in the mirror. Now she looked pale and stiff. The perfect English lady.

Hale cleared his throat. “I can’t allow this kind of activity in my town, Mrs. Anders. I’m not sure what might be acceptable on the other side of the ocean, but we don’t appreciate that sort of thing here.”

Her eyes flew to meet his briefly and her cheeks finally burned as hot as his felt. “Did you watch?” she whispered.

“Pardon?”

“Did you watch me, Sheriff?” Her gaze slid over his hands. “Did
you
appreciate that sort of thing? Because I didn’t hear your protest last night. Or the night before.”

Goddamn it. Shame expanded beneath his chest. “Listen here. If you want to start a business putting on shows for strangers, you’re welcome to do it elsewhere. But you can’t whore on this side of Center Street, understand? I’ll run you out of town.”

“What?” True alarm flashed over her features. “But I…I’m not a doxy, Sheriff Hale. I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean for anyone but you to see me.”

Hating the way his pulse leaped at her words, Hale shook his head. “Save the protests, Mrs. Anders. Either you learn to keep your curtains closed or you’ll have to go back where you came from.”

Her wide eyes filled with tears that caught at the edge of her lashes without falling. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Hale shook his head, but her face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”

When she sat heavily in the nearest chair, he moved forward instinctively to hover over her, uncertain what to do. “I don’t need dramatics from you, ma’am. Just good behavior. This hasn’t always been a decent town, but it is now, and I aim to keep it that way.”

“Yes, Sheriff.” Her neck bowed, and his hand rose of its own accord to touch the shiny hair on the crown of her head. “Oh,” she sighed, and he felt the shudder rise up through his arm. She glanced at him past her lashes, and her tongue darted out to lick her lips.

Hale’s cock swelled.

“I can be good,” she promised, twisting up all the air in his lungs. “I’m not one of those women, Sheriff. I swear. I’ve only ever…I’ve only been with Mr. Anders, you see. And he was like you. So I thought…”

“What do you mean, he was like me?” He snatched his hand back instead of curling his fist into her soft hair.

He heard her swallow in the silence. “He had very strict expectations of me.”

Fear exploded through him. “What the hell does that mean?”

She watched him for a long moment, and she suddenly seemed very powerful, this meek woman seated before him. Powerful enough to see through all his careful lies. Before her gaze dropped to the floor, it pierced something dangerous inside him. “I’m sorry I’ve displeased you. Tell me what to do, Sheriff.”

“What to
do?
”

“To please you.”

Need shot through his body with frightening strength. Hale wrapped his fingers beneath her chin and jerked her face up. “You listen here. I don’t know what you’ve got going through your head, but you won’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Understand?”

When her lips parted, her breath rushed out, but Mrs. Anders didn’t look the least bit afraid. “Yes, sir.”

“If I hear even a hint of a rumor, I’ll…”

“Yes?” The breathy word whispered over his wrist.

“I’ll…”

He couldn’t think what to say. All his ideas only played into the perversion she was hinting at. Before he could think of a punishment that didn’t involve laying his hands on her body, Mrs. Anders turned her head and brushed her wet lips over the pad of his thumb.

Heat sizzled up his arm and spread out through his whole body, mixing up with the anger already there. Before he could think better of it, Hale slipped his thumb between her lips and pressed his fingers tight under her chin to hold her still.

“You will behave, do you understand?”

She tried to nod, but he tightened his hold, pressing his thumb to her bottom teeth. Her hot tongue rubbed him.

“You’ll behave or you’ll be sorry.”

She tried nodding again, then gave up and closed her lips around his thumb. When she sucked, his knees nearly buckled. “Stop,” he ordered, dragging his thumb free with a jerk. “Just…stay the hell away from me.”

He swung around and stalked from the house, neck burning as if he’d turned his back on a dangerous animal. She seemed so harmless, but goose bumps chased across his skin as he stepped out into the hot sun.

She could see that thing in him. The thing his wife had seen and hated. If Mrs. Anders could see it, did everyone know? Was it that obvious?

He’d been raised to be a good man. A responsible man. His pa had been a preacher, and a caring one at that. Hale had always aspired to be just like his father, but something was wrong deep inside him. His father’s gentleness had skipped right over him, somehow.

In school, Hale had found himself getting hard whenever someone got their knuckles rapped. Then he’d fallen in love with a sweet blond girl named Emily whose shyness had filled him with a feeling of power. A few days after he’d declared his love for her, Emily had spilled ink across all her papers, and the schoolmaster had taken her out back for a whipping with a birch stick. The sound of those smacks had mixed up with Emily’s cries and aroused Hale to a painful state. For months afterward, he’d fantasized about spanking her himself, making her cry and beg, and he’d been so ashamed that he’d never spoken to the girl again.

He’d never told anyone about those feelings. Never acted on them at all. Even when he rode all the way to Cheyenne to visit the whores, he held it back. He might hold them down and take them hard while he growled out foul words, but he never asked for submission or dealt out punishment.

So how could Mrs. Anders see that he wanted her eyes cast down and her voice soft? How could she know that his greatest fantasy was for a woman to do exactly as he ordered no matter what he asked?

She couldn’t. That hadn’t been what she’d meant. Surely.

And his wife hadn’t known, either. She’d only been disgusted when he’d taken her from behind like an animal. She’d said that herself. No one knew his secret. No one.

“Sheriff?”

He jerked to a stop, then looked around to see that he’d walked nearly to the edge of town. The mill owner stood nearby, leaning against the doorway of his noisy building. Sawdust hovered around him like a halo.

“You all right, Sheriff?”

“I’m fine. Just lost in my own thoughts. Best head back, I suppose.”

It was a good thing the miller had stopped him from wandering any farther. Fifteen minutes later, he’d barely set foot in the jail when a ranch hand came riding in on a foam-flecked horse. Dust flew when the animal skidded to a halt.

“Sheriff!” the hand cried out. “We need you out at the Big Y. Doc Rivers, too! Head out as soon as you can!”

Hale ran out the door. “What’s happened, Rich?”

“Two of the hands have been shot. Jim Boll’s still alive. We’re riding out after the rustlers who done it.”

“Wait for me, damn it.”

“Too late. Mr. Layton’s already taken some of the men out.” With that, Rich wheeled around and rode toward the south where the Big Y ranch sprawled out for ten thousand acres. Luckily, the ranch house was only two miles out, because Hale needed to get the doc out there fast. He could only pray none of the other men would get their fool heads shot off in the meantime.

The world rested heavy on his weary shoulders by the time Hale guided his horse back into town that night. His mount was probably wearier than he was, having been pushed up hills and down ravines for hours in the afternoon sun. Hale ordered the stable master to take special care with the animal, then he trudged home himself.

Rage pulsed like a second heart inside his chest. The rustlers had come upon two hands branding yearlings and had gut shot them before rounding up the unmarked cattle. The boys had died slowly. Jim Boll, only sixteen years old, had taken his last breath not one hour before. All day, he’d moaned and cried until his voice had simply broke. His mother, the cook for the ranch house proper, had been there the whole time, holding his hand in quiet agony, whispering words about God and peace.

As far as Hale could tell, God always seemed to stay silent on these issues. It was Hale’s responsibility to deliver peace in this county. Or if not peace, at least a little punishment.

But neither Hale nor Mr. Layton had managed to track down the rustlers, so they hadn’t even had the pleasure of seeing justice served. And tomorrow would be another long day of searching. Hale wasn’t sure if he wanted to rage or cry or sleep, so he drew himself some cold water in the kitchen and bathed off the filth of the day instead. After eating a quick sandwich of salt pork and stale bread, he pulled himself up the stairs and started to toe off his boots.

Then he noticed the glow falling through his window.

He couldn’t quite believe he’d managed to forget about Mrs. Anders after the drama of this morning. And now, staring at the faint rectangle of light touching his floor, he couldn’t believe that she would really have left her curtains open after he’d ordered her not to. But there was no full moon tonight. The light could only be coming from one place.

Slowly, he stepped toward the window, anxious and hesitant at the same time. If she’d disobeyed him…

He tilted his head to peek past the dark edge of his window. There she was, chin tilted up defiantly as she watched herself brush her hair in the mirror. She was less exposed tonight, still wearing her corset and shift under the open robe, but that didn’t stop the anger from squeezing the air from Hale’s lungs.

Damn her.

All the frustration of the day rose up and stuck in his throat, urging him to shout himself hoarse. His hands fisted. His jaw ticked. One simple request and she hadn’t been able to obey it.

She shrugged off the robe.

Hale spun around and headed down the stairs. He didn’t knock at her door. He didn’t even pause. He simply strode in and raced upstairs. She was still brushing her thick hair when he stepped into her room.