Chapter 4
They skipped the pot roast that Addie had prepared. Skipped the fresh apple pie, too. Instead, the moment that Longarm walked into her apartment, they embraced and began kissing each other passionately.
“Where's your bedroom?” he whispered.
“You're not hungry?”
Custis laughed and began to unbutton her dress. “I'm hungry, all right. But my hunger for you far outweighs the hunger in my belly.”
“But I thought we'd have a nice dinner with wine and . . .” Addie nearly swooned. “Take it easy on my lips,” she pleaded. “The lower one is split.”
“And you've got quite the shiner,” Longarm said, “but I'm not interested in your lips and eyes as much as I'm interested in what's under this dress.”
She pretended to pout. “You're an animal!”
“I guess I am,” he agreed, getting frustrated with the buttons and tearing her dress off, then yanking down her petticoat and underwear.
“Oh,” she moaned, “I think I'm going to be assaulted for the second time today.”
“Yeah, you are,” he agreed, his hand slipping between her legs to find her honey pot already wet. “But I promise that you'll like it this time.”
Addie was nearly breathless. “Come on,” she pleaded, dragging him toward a small bedroom. “You've got me so excited I'm already about to go crazy.”
“It'll get worse,” he said, pushing her down on the bed and unbuckling his gunbelt, then kicking off his boots.
She tried to get up, but he leaned forward and pushed her back down on the pink bedspread. “Please,” she whispered, “this bedspread is brand-new and expensive. At least let me turn it back so that we don't get it spotted and stained.”
“Okay,” he said, finishing undressing, “but what I'm going to give you isn't going to be wasted on the bedspread. You're getting it
all
, Addie. Every drop.”
Addie giggled and pulled the bedspread aside. She tore off the last of her clothes and jumped on the bed spreading her long legs. “Come and get me, big boy!”
Longarm wasn't a man who believed in a whole lot of foreplay, at least not the first time he took a woman. So he grabbed his big tool and aimed it right where it wanted to go, and then he rammed it into Addie's honey pot all the way.
“Oh, my gosh!” she cried. “I feel like I've just been mounted by a wild stallion.”
“Then pretend that you're a frisky young filly,” he grunted, slamming his rod in and out and then bending down and licking her taut nipples until they stood up like fresh strawberries.
Addie was no virgin, but it was clear that she wasn't as experienced as Longarm in the art of lovemaking. Longarm felt her wrap her long legs around his hips, and he purposely slowed his thrusting. With all the self-control he could muster, he began to rotate his hips, making sure that his rod was stroking her sweet little rosebud. In less than two minutes, Addie started humping and moaning, and it was clear that she was getting ready for an eruption of epic proportions.
“Oh, dear heavens, Custis, you're amazing. I can't believe that I'm already going to come and you're just getting started. It's never happened to me so quick asâ oh, oh!”
Addie went wild under Longarm, screeching and scratching and wailing with ecstasy. Longarm grinned and bore down on her even harder until he felt like a volcano was erupting between his legs, and then he was driving his hot seed deep into Addie while she threw her head back and forth and howled like a wildcat.
“Oh, don't stop,” she whispered a few moments later. “Don't ever stop.”
“I'm finished for the moment,” he said, damned pleased for giving her every bit as much pleasure as he'd enjoyed.
“Just stir me a couple minutes longer,” she pleaded. “It still feels so . . . so gawdamn good!”
Longarm was more than happy to oblige. But after a while, he could feel his root starting to soften, and so he rolled off Addie.
“You devastated me, Custis. You devastated and ravished me!”
“If you want, I'll do it again after we eat,” he promised. “I'll do it over and over tonight until you are so satisfied you won't know if you should laugh . . . or cry.”
She ran her fingers over her flat belly and then down to the place where he'd just planted his seed. “It feels like it's on fire, but a sweet fire. Custis, in all honesty, I don't know how much of you I can take.”
“We'll have fun finding out,” he said. “And when you can't take anymore, I promise you I'll stop.”
She began to giggle. “You are the best I ever had, Marshal. And I mean that sincerely.”
“You're pretty special yourself,” he said. “When do we eat?”
She sat up, and then was a little wobbly getting to her feet. “I'm going to leak all over the place. I need a few minutes alone.”
“Sure.” Longarm grabbed his pants and left the bedroom, fully understanding the lady's urgent need for privacy. He went back into the living room and found a bottle of wine, which he opened. Two crystal wineglasses were soon filled and as he sipped one glass empty, he studied the room and its furnishings.
There were a number of daguerreotypes and photographs, sepia-toned and showing Addie Hudson with her parents. In one picture, they were standing on the porch of a nice ranch house; in another, the parents stood by a hitching rail and Addie, about fifteen years old, was astride a pinto pony. Longarm studied the faces of Addie's parents, and he could see a strong resemblance between the girl and her mother. The father looked like an old-time cowboy with an impressive white handlebar mustache that drooped at the tips. His white hair was parted exactly down the middle, while a big pair of workingman'shands held a battered black Stetson. Addie's father was tall and slightly bowlegged. The mother was prim and proper, but Longarm could see a lot of strength in her face and in the way her chin was proudly raised for the family photographs.
There were no other children that Longarm could see, so he supposed that Addie just might be an only child. That was unusual on the frontier, where large families were more common.
The furniture in Addie's living room was nice, but nothing special. Longarm was surprised to see a saddle in the corner, and it had obviously been made for a woman or child because the seat was small. The saddle had silver conchos and it was beautifully made. Stamped in the back of the cantle was a single word, ADDIE.
“Did you find anything interesting?” Addie asked, exiting her bedroom in a stunning lacy nightgown that immediately rekindled Longarm's desire.
“I was just admiring the daguerreotypes and photographs of you and your family.”
“My mother passed away long ago and I still miss her terribly, but not as bad as Father does. He doesn't look much different today than he did back then. He's still ramrod-straight and strong.”
“I'm sorry to hear about your mother's passing.”
Addie nodded and swallowed hard. “She died in childbirth. The doctor said she was too old and not strong enough to have a second child, but she very much wanted to give my father a son so she just . . . well, she took her chances and it didn't work out.”
Longarm could see that Addie was near tears. “In some of these pictures you look like a little cowboy,” he said. “Did you sort of double for a son?”
She sniffled and brightened. “As a matter of fact I did! At a very early age, I learned how to ride and rope. And I'm really a pretty good hand with horses and cattle. I can even shoot straight.”
In a playful gesture, Addie raised both hands, index finger pointed to the ceiling, and pretended to shoot a pair of pistols.
Longarm chuckled. “Riding, roping, and shooting are good things to know how to do . . . even for a girl.”
“I'm no longer a girl,” she said, coming over to give him a kiss. “I'm a woman.”
“Yeah,” he said, running a hand up and under the nightgown to caress her firm buttocks. “That's for sure.”
They began kissing, and Longarm felt his manhood rising to the occasion, but Addie finally pushed him back and panted, “We've got to eat. If you're going to ravish me over and over, I might die if I don't get some food.”
“Then let's eat that pot roast,” he said, going into the little kitchen and refilling his own wineglass while bringing Addie the other. He raised his glass in a toast. “To us!”
“To us,” she said, eyes shining with happiness. “You know, I can't believe that you saved me and my money only this morning. Maybe it sounds silly, but it really seems as if I've known you before. It was such an . . . an amazing coincidence that we happened to come together on Colfax Avenue just the way that we did this morning. And now look at us!”
“We didn't waste any time,” he said. Longarm glanced down at the erection pushing his pants out embarrassingly far, and then felt his cheeks warm. “And look at me down there!”
Addie slipped her hand into his pants and gave him a firm squeeze. When he started to put his wine down and grab her, she backed away saying, “Oh, no, you don't! We'll get back to the bedroom after we eat, big boy! I promise you'll love my pot roast and the dessert I've baked.”
“You're my dessert.”
“Oh, you don't want any fresh apple pie?” she asked, raising her eyebrows questioningly.
Longarm loved apple pie. “Well, yes, I do. I'll take a big slice of that pie and then I'll take a big poke into
your
little pie. How's that?”
They both started laughing. “Sit down at the table while I start getting food on the table.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
They chatted about lots of things over dinner, and it was only when they were finished with the apple pie that Longarm said, “Addie, I need to talk to you about tomorrow.”
“Why even think about tomorrow when we still have all of tonight?”
“I would really like to know why you were carrying so much cash this morning?”
Her smile faded. “I know that wasn't smart. But I had sold some family things and borrowed a little money from a rich lady friend. I was on my way to the train depot to buy a one-way ticket to Cheyenne.”
Longarm could guess the reason. “You were going home to help your father in Buffalo Falls.”
“Yes, I was. I mean, I
am
. I have to, Custis. And I'm so sorry, because I don't want to leave you now that we've just found each other, but my father's life and everything he loves is in danger of being lost!”
“Tell me more about what is going so badly for your father in Buffalo Falls.”
“I don't know a lot about it,” she admitted. “My father sent me away to stay here in Denver while I learned doctoring.”
“Doctoring?”
“That's right. Did you know that Denver has one of the few university-trained women doctors in the entire West?”
“I believe I did read something about her in the newspaper a while back,” he replied.
“Her name is Dr. Grace Huntington and she studied in England. No medical school would accept her in America, so she and other women have been forced to go to Europe where they are a little more progressive. My father wanted me to go to a medical school in Europe, but I just couldn't bear to leave him for so long, and the expense really made the whole idea out of the question. So he and I compromised, and I wrote to Dr. Huntington three years ago about becoming her assistant with the idea of learning and practicing medicine when I returned to Buffalo Falls, Wyoming.”
“And she agreed.”
“Not at first. But I'm persistent and I kept writing Grace . . . I mean Dr. Huntington. Finally, I just came and camped out on her office doorstep until she gave in and agreed to teach me medicine.”
“So you're a doctor?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I don't have universitytraining and I couldn't practice surgery in a big-city hospital.”
“I was in the Civil War,” Longarm said, not wanting to think about that horror of blood and death. “I saw plenty of surgeons and most of them were no better than livestock butchers. Their amputations were crude and the soldiers often bled to death screaming in agony.”
“I know,” Addie said. “And while I was never at a battlefield like you must have been, I have heard that the battlefield casualties during the War Between the States were overwhelming. But in defense of those army doctors, you have to understand that a battlefield surgeon would have had no time to spare tying off all the blood vessels after amputation because there were so many other wounded soldiers bleeding to death at the same time.”
“Let's talk about something else,” Longarm said. “I want to talk about you and Buffalo Falls.”
“There's no doctor near that town for over a hundred miles,” she said. “Being a woman, people won't accept me as a healer at first. But when I start delivering babies, fixing broken bones, suturing up terrible wounds, and saving lives and limbs, they'll come around. I know that for a fact.”
Longarm shook his head with amazement. “You're quite a woman, Addie. I can't believe I was lucky enough to meet you.”
“I'm the one that was lucky,” she said. “You saved me and the money. Money that my father desperately needs to hire attorneys, and maybe even someone who is good with a gun.”
“Who is he up against?”
“A terrible, ruthless, and cold-blooded killer named Wade Stoneman,” Addie said, her voice taking on a hard edge. “I've never met him, but Father says he is taking over Buffalo Falls and every ranch that he can lay his bloody hands on through any lawless means necessary. Have you ever heard of the man?”