Cowboys and Kisses Read online

  Once her clothes were scattered on my floor, I offered her my dressing gown just as Aaron and Otis knocked and lugged in large buckets of warm water. After I let them out of my room, I caught sight of Connor and had to stifle a giggle.

  She frowned. “Go ahead, say it.”

  “Your horse would likely look better in my dressing gown than you do.” I tipped my head to assess her. “You look more like a woman in men’s breeches than in my clothes.”

  “I get taken for a man often enough, but I don’t care. It’s not like there’s any other choice of clothing that makes sense. Some fool women do their branding and riding in skirts, but I can’t rope a calf sitting side saddle in a corset.”

  I sprinkled bath oil into the water, then stood back as Aaron and Otis appeared again with more buckets to empty into the bath. “Most goods from Mr. Ward’s catalog don’t make sense for life in Long Grass, let alone on the Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail.”

  “Where are you from originally?”

  I shrugged. “Does it matter? Everybody out here is from somewhere else, except the Pawnee and Cheyenne. I’m told the native women get along fine without corsets and bustles. They even ride horses astride.” I knew little of their lives, and the woodcut illustrations in the newspaper didn’t resemble any of the native traders I’d rarely glimpsed from my window.

  “Most ride better than I ever will. I’m going to guess you’re from up Boston way? Otherwise I’d say you were from ‘round here.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I hedged. My family had cast me out, and I had no desire to identify them.

  “Lots of people in a city like that. No sky, no air. No real horses.”

  “I’m not sure the horses would agree.”

  “They don’t know what it is to run. A life spent pulling a cart is like living in a cage.” She shook off a shudder.

  I might have said something about cages and living in them. Milla had discovered the vast cage of the prairie, hadn’t she? The sky went on forever, but she hadn’t been able to escape.

  I said none of that, because in spite of the near-unheard of rarity of a woman customer, she was just that — a customer. Other than the specifics of my talents I would later put to use, I would treat her like any man who’d bought me for the night. Most customers don’t like it when they feel as if they’ve bought something that wasn’t willingly for sale. It’s a necessary lie for the purpose of commerce, that we were all here by choice.

  A choice between living or dying was not a choice.

  New girls wanted to believe they had a choice, though, until they came up short in their earnings or needed the doctor’s scraping. Then their lack of options became painfully clear. Milla had once upon a time called herself lucky to make money on her back instead of as a slave to a crop or a herd of cows. She must have felt differently after the doctor, all that blood for days, then the…party.

  “Sounds to me like you’re from farther south than I am.”

  “Yes ma’am.” She sketched a bow. “I’ve spent some time back and forth on the Chisholm Trail, but originally I’m from Charleston, then San Antonio.”

  “Why you’re just a southern belle, then.”

  “Like none my mama ever did see.” The humor of our banter was in her eyes but something else flitted over her face. She was perhaps thirty — she may well have been in the south when Sherman cut his bloody swath across it nearly a decade past. Half the town was folks who’d run from the south and kept running until this place claimed them.

  White and black alike, if you could survive and figure a way to make coin, you were free to stay and build a new life. Some found, as the natives had, that keeping their land or product of their labor was another thing entirely — especially if what they had was desired by someone more powerful, be it hard-scrabble land for cattle, or, as I knew so well, merely a room with a better view.

  Until the preacher had shown up a year ago, no one had cared how anyone managed to live. It may not be godly, but at least there had been no confusion. You presumed your neighbor had no thought but himself and you were never disappointed. If I never forgot that Cherry’s first concern was money, I would survive much longer in this house than Milla had.

  Aaron and Otis clattered in with the last buckets. Connor flipped them both a coin on their way out, saying, “In about twenty minutes bring another round.”

  The door no sooner closed than she slipped off my dressing gown and sank gratefully into the water. It turned black seconds after she curled up enough to submerge.

  She wasn’t tall, not even as tall as I was, and her skin was leather dark where the sun had touched it, and pale but for grime where it hadn’t. Her back and hips were also marked with scars of her work — rope burns, nicks, and the jagged tears of bull horns. There was no doubt that she worked a herd.

  The gun said she was a cowboy, not merely a drover. What amazed me was that she was small for the work. Light on horseback, I figured. Maybe that was a good trait, time to time. But even on a trained horse a bull would be a formidable weight to master.

  With a splutter she sat up in the water. “That’s a piece of heaven.”

  Taking my gentlest soap from next to my ewer, I positioned myself behind her. Running the bar over the breadth of her shoulders, I appreciated the muscles that corded her arms. I slowly soaped from neck to elbow, but when I moved the bar over her stomach, she took it from me and washed her front herself.

  My hands were sudsy enough to rub into her hair. After a few minutes of scrubbing, she passed the bar back to me and I lathered her hair more carefully. It was short, shorter than I’d ever seen on a woman, but it didn’t put me in mind of a man either. Nothing about her had me thinking about men. I felt an unusual twinge of anticipation. I did not know what she might like, but as she relaxed under my hands, I knew she would not be cruel.

  “What else of Shakespeare do you know?” With a sigh she slipped lower into the filthy but still warm water.

  “‘Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh,’” I quoted as I scrubbed her shoulders again.

  She turned in the tub and our gazes locked, and something there in her depths stole my breath. Her voice like the memory of a smoky fire, she added, “‘Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace.’”

  I didn’t recall the rest of Romeo’s speech, except the end. “‘Thus with a kiss I die.’”

  Her lips parted enough for her to say, “Oh, surely there won’t be death in your kisses, Darlin’.”

  The half-smile of promise, the flutter in my lashes — flirtation suddenly came to me easily. “I had quite the opposite in mind.”

  She leaned toward me with a now open grin, but a knock at the door brought me to my feet. “Fresh bath water.”

  While Connor waited again in my dressing gown, Aaron and Otis emptied the bath with their buckets, flinging the water from my window to the yard below. When the tub was empty enough, they poured the remaining contents out in a single slosh, then repeated their multiple trips with fresh water. Connor stood quietly throughout, then tossed each another coin. I locked my door behind them and turned to her, my heart beating in a long-forgotten rhythm.

  She slipped off the dressing gown again and, hell fire be damned, nothing about her put me in mind of a man. Her shoulders were broad and strong, yes, but her breasts were full and tipped with roses. Some of Cherry’s girls would envy their weight and shape. “Join me, Darlin’?”

  “The tub’s not that big.”

  “I think if we’re very close it could be a good fit.”

  My fingers were trembling. She wanted me bare and of course she could have what she wanted, but there was something in her eyes that confused me. I wasn’t used to taking all my clothes off, either. She had bought me for the night, I reminded myself, not the half-hour.

  She sank into the water with a deep sigh and closed her eyes. “I feel nearly human.”

  “You’re less horse, that’s for certain.” I turned my bac
k to undo my bodice, feeling unaccountably modest. You’re not a lady, I told myself. You’re a whore and you should be stripping for her. That’s what she wants.

  I turned around again, my practiced smile ready, but her eyes were still closed. I finished with my laces, skirts, and chemise. Only when my hand stirred the water did she open her eyes to look at me.

  “Glory be,” she said softly. “You are all woman, aren’t you?”

  I blushed. “So are you.”

  “Not the same way.” She shifted in the water as I stepped in.

  We fit in the bath, barely, and some water slopped onto the floor. My head was on her chest as I rested on one hip between her legs. I could not ignore what pressed against me there. It had been a long time since I’d loved a woman. Connor was the first as a customer. Some of the other girls were occasionally interested in learning more about our bodies, and such explorations were freely given, and about our own desire. Even then I could not show the depth of my pleasure and relief to feel moments of tenderness with another woman.

  It was even longer since more than lust had found me in a woman’s bed. More than lust had been my downfall, after all. I was here because of my youthful ardor, that I’d dared to name my feelings, which was even worse than being caught in intimate embrace with another girl. My parents put me on a coach with a one-way ticket, inconvenient in my affections for my family’s sense of place. I did not know what they told my brothers or other kin. Sent west for my health, then somehow simply lost to them all?

  I could have stayed had I said I did not love that girl — I no longer remembered her name. God didn’t like liars and didn’t like perversion, leaving me betwixt and between. Truthful, but damned anyway.

  I shifted my hip against her and felt her move in response as we steeped in the water, trading lines from Shakespeare. When fingertips ran lazily from my shoulder to the tip of my breast I watched in amazement as it hardened to her touch. It almost felt like it was happening to a girl I wasn’t anymore.

  Connor was my customer. I was there to please her. I turned my head to see that she too was watching my nipple.

  “You don’t find me strange?” Her fingers closed around the swelling point.

  “No stranger than I am.” Part of me wanted to hide that her touch was penetrating past all my false smiles and pretenses. Customers were supposed to think we were whores who liked our work, but it was my falsity, the pretending, that was my shield. It allowed me not to care what happened. I sold the only thing I had and though no preacher would ever agree, it was an honest trade. I didn’t have to like it, though. I only had to fool the customer into thinking that I did.

  But I liked this. I liked her touch, the soft tug on my nipple. I couldn’t say no to her, true — she was a customer. But I still liked it, and that further confused me.

  “Oh Darlin’,” she breathed. “Does the rest of you respond this way?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Then I’m a lucky woman tonight.”

  “I hope that you think so by the morrow.”

  She said the strangest thing and I did not believe, then, that I had heard her rightly. “Let me please you tonight, and I will be very lucky.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “DARLIN’.” SHE HELD out a hand, her hair still wet from the bath and spiked from vigorous toweling. Aaron and Otis had taken the tub for someone else’s use and claimed Connor’s filthy clothes for laundering. On their last trip they’d left behind two shots of whiskey. I’d locked the door once again and busied myself with the blankets until she’d turned from her saddlebags.

  I squeezed my wet hair one last time with the sodden towel and handed her one of the shot glasses. We sat on the edge of the bed, our knees brushing. We touched glasses, then tossed back the contents. She was smiling as we shared appreciative gasps and her gaze never left my face.

  Finally, I felt a rare blush steal up my throat. “What?”

  “You’re lovely,” she said, and strange, so strange, I think she meant it.

  But even stranger was that she leaned forward then and kissed me.

  I couldn’t help myself. I drew back with a gasp.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No, you surprised me, that’s all.”

  “Why? Are you really not used to a woman’s touch?”

  “No, no that’s not it. I’m not…” How could I explain it without reminding her of what I was? I didn’t want to remind myself even. I wanted to be here by choice, for once.

  She exhaled, then one corner of her mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “I don’t care what men want or don’t want. I want to kiss you. It’s a starting place for all the things I want to do with you.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I won’t —”

  My lips tingled with the light pressure of hers once again. She made a small noise and kissed me more deeply. I opened to her as I felt my body swell with desire. Her strong arms went around me, gently, and she pulled me against her to kiss me more earnestly still.

  I closed my eyes and enjoyed the way she loved my mouth. Her tongue teased against mine.

  It had been so long since I’d been kissed. Men had use for my mouth and knew that others had as well — kissing a whore was nearly as foul as tasting her down there. Connor’s kiss grew more heated, and I moaned as the needful hope rushed over me, that if she could kiss my mouth, she might…she might…

  “Darlin’.” Connor licked my lower lip. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. I didn’t know how to tell her that, while I told that lie a hundred times a month, right now I was speaking the truth. It was not flattery. Her hands were warm on my waist and her arms very strong and secure around me. “Yes, Connor, I am. I think I am going to enjoy tonight.”

  “That’s my plan.”

  I brushed my fingertips over her shoulders, aware that her breasts had tightened. I wanted to feel the rosy tips against my teeth.

  She forestalled my lips moving to her shoulder by pulling me onto her lap. As her fingertips ran over my body I felt like fine velvet, caressed for the pleasure of the sensation. Her hands were calloused yet moved over me with subtle, attentive touches. A fingertip grazed under my nipple, exploring the roughness of the puckered skin. Her other hand petted slowly down my still damp shoulders, pausing now and again to circle lightly until I arched. Then the pressure was more insistent, and warmth spread over my entire back.

  “Now where did you learn to do that?” I nuzzled her jaw. “It feels wonderful.” She said nothing and after a pause I leaned back to catch a look of chagrin. “What?”

  “My horse,” she said. “He enjoys a rubdown.”

  I arched one eyebrow. “As long as you’re enjoying this more, I’ll forgive the comparison.”

  With a whoop she dumped me on my back on the bed, and landed on top of me, grinning madly. “I assure you that my thoughts right now are some I’ve not had about my horse.”

  “I am glad to hear it.”

  “Glory be,” she said, and she took one of my nipples into her mouth.

  She didn’t bite or suck like a starved babe. At first, I couldn’t think what it was she was doing to me, what purpose it had, then the pleasure of it washed over my skin. She was teasing, toying, blowing softly, rubbing the hard tip against her lips.

  “Now that,” she murmured, “is the definition of beautiful.”

  With a lustful glint she concentrated her attention on my other nipple, not stopping until it too was stiff and ruby in hue.

  Aroused, but still aware that she was here to take her pleasure, I reached for her breasts. I could only be honest — I did not want to touch her because I had to. Their firm fullness was alluring and ripe, like long-forgotten fruit.

  She raised her head to look at me in response to my touch. I softly stroked and squeezed until she moved out of my reach with a grin. I let out a long, loud groan, quite beyond stopping myself, as she touched her breast between my legs. Moving hungrily t
oward the contact I lifted myself as she pushed forward, equally desirous.

  “That’s right, Darlin’, that’s right.” She ground against me until the lamp shimmered behind my eyes. Abruptly she wasn’t there anymore, and I made myself focus only to see her looking down at her wet breast with another lustful, sensuous grin. With one finger she gathered up the slippery love from between my legs and tasted it.

  I shuddered and she gave me a knowing look, then bent over me. She knelt between me and the footboard so she could put her mouth on me. Put her tongue inside me.

  I wanted to cry, to scream, but the only sound I could make was a low, welcoming moan as my hips jerked against her mouth in response. She had bought me for the night, and I could enjoy this ’till dawn. I knew I had to please her, before we were done. Yet if she was willing to warm me up this way first, there was nothing I would not do for her quite willingly. It felt so good, so consumingly right, that I cared not if it made me a whore who liked her work.

  The pleasure ignited my skin and shortened my breath. She could have required me to do this to her, before her bath. She might have called me names and used me as a stand-in for someone she couldn’t strike or intimately hurt. I should not expect more than that from any customer, even one who gave me this singular bliss. Yet, as she continued to lick and please me, my mind filled with more ways to take pleasure together.

  There was no pretense in my sudden shout and the quaking of my limbs. The thump of the bed was not to entice those downstairs to imagine the pleasure they could have if they’d pay the price. I gripped her hands as tightly as I could and lost all control.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE LAUGHED WHEN she finally raised her head. “Well, that was better than a month of Sundays.”

  “Please,” I said weakly. “Let me catch my breath.”