Badlands Bloodsport

6

“I must warn you, Skye,” Jessica said as the two of them moved farther into the hills, “not to be disappointed.”

Fargo gave her a puzzle-headed look. His eyes, direct as gun muzzles, scanned over her shapely body and the impressive swell of alabaster breasts rising out of her bodice. There was enough weak sunlight now to appreciate the mass of auburn curls and the huge, wing-shaped, emerald-green eyes.

“I don’t expect to be,” he assured her. “Unless you mean this is all a tease?”

“Oh, English girls don’t tease. We are very practical and businesslike in erotic matters. But that is just my point. I expect, of course, that you’ve never been with a British woman?”

Fargo fought to keep a straight face. As a matter of fact, several English fillies had romped in Skye Fargo’s stable of international conquests. However, he saw no reason to disappoint Jessica’s belief that she was the first.

“Never,” he lied.

“By disappointed,” she explained like an earnest schoolteacher, “I mean that the English woman is not as . . . demonstrative in the act of love.”

“Hmm,” Fargo said, feigning rapt attention to his lessons. “That word’s a bit far north for me.”

“Well, it means that, unlike, say, French or American women, we do not cry out in ecstasy or urge the man on, that sort of thing. We consider it unseemly to be wanton and lewd. And with so many thin walls in England, we certainly don’t wish to be loud. We just quietly enjoy the act—if, of course, it is enjoyable.”

“Are English men the same way?”

“Oh yes, as a rule. Quiet and determined, they are. I was with a man once who made a noise when he banged off—but he apologized after.”

“Banged off?”

“Yes, you know—when he finished.”

“Ah.” By now Fargo needed every ounce of willpower to keep from laughing outright.

“Just so you’ll understand,” she concluded. “You are used to these unrestrained American women. I shall probably be enjoying it even if it doesn’t seem so.”

“Well, we’ll both do our best,” Fargo said. “Try not to fall asleep before I bang off.”

She punched his arm. “La! Is that you or an iron bar in that sleeve?”

The iron bar, however, was in Fargo’s trousers, forcing him to limp slightly.

“By the way,” he said, “do English women allow themselves to bang off?”

“Well, yes, but always quietly. Now, again, don’t take this personally, but I’ve had very little success in that regard. A few times when I’m by myself, but never with a man. Still, the act can be quite diverting—you know, a change of pace from the humdrum of the wake-a-day world.”

“Sure,” Fargo said, wondering if a knothole in a fence might do just as well.

They reached a hollow between two sand hills and Fargo saw a pocket of grass. “Why don’t we change the pace right here?”

“I’ll put down my chemise to lie on,” she said. “Help me with the stays of my dress?”

Fargo moved behind her to loosen them, then lifted the wool dress over her head. She folded it neatly, then shimmied out of her chemise and stood before him naked. Fargo realized instantly why she required no corset—she had barely a double handful of waist. The gently rounded stomach tapered into a silky bush of mons hair only a shade darker than the hair on her head.

But her tits especially galvanized Fargo’s attention. He had seen too many fine pairs to ever rate them, but these definitely belonged on the top shelf. Despite their impressive size, they rode high and came directly at him like artillery shells. He swirled his thumbs against the perky nipples, feeling them stiffen.

“Yes, that’s rather nice,” she said demurely.

Fargo, however, wasn’t about to stop there. He wrapped both hands around one breast and lowered his mouth onto the nipple. He had learned long ago that most women liked a bit of nipping, and while sucking them he made fast, tiny bites.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, taken by surprise. “I see! Yes, well, that’s quite nice!”

Fargo had already grounded his Henry. Now, as Jessica lay atop her chemise and opened her legs for him, he dropped his gun belt. She watched with curiosity as he opened his fly and dropped his trousers in a puddle around his ankles. Her curiosity was transformed into utter astonishment as she stared at his blue-veined erection.

“Why, the magnificent beast!”

“Oh, I like to think of him more in the way of a friendly pet,” Fargo assured her as he lowered himself into the saddle. He spread her chamois petals open and pushed into her slick tunnel, parting the elastic walls with his large staff.

She caught her breath on a hissing intake. “Oh, Skye, it feels like you’re up to my navel! I’ve never been filled like this! Yes, yes, oh, it’s so big it’s rubbing my pearl!”

Her voice rose several octaves as she did exactly what she said she wouldn’t: cry out and egg him on. Fargo was delighted to find out that his English muffin was a pumper, thrusting up hard each time he came down. And a squeezer: The strong muscles of her cunny kept squeezing him as if his man gland were a child’s ball, thrust and squeeze, thrust and squeeze, until he felt the familiar tingling in his groin that meant imminent eruption.

Fargo was too absorbed in his own pleasure to count, but at least five or six times she “banged off,” crying out loudly each time and panting like a dehydrating animal. When she felt Fargo going for the strong finish, she cupped his ass and cried out in his ear, “Do me hard, Skye! Hard, hard, harder!”

By now they had left the chemise and were plowing through the grass as Fargo poured it to her. She climaxed one last time as he exploded inside her, her legs locked behind his back. For a few minutes they lay too dazed and exhausted to even know where they were.

Fargo felt himself floating to the surface of awareness. Finally he managed to speak. “You were right. You just lay there like an old biddy, gritting your teeth until I was done.”

She had opened her mouth to retort when a sudden gunshot, from the direction of camp, made both of them sit up.

Fargo didn’t wait for Jessica to dress, racing back toward camp with his Henry at a high port. When he arrived, everything was at sixes and sevens, everyone milling around the conveyances. Sylvester Aldritch stood about forty yards out to the east, aiming through the scope of his expensive German hunting rifle.

Fargo had no idea what was going on, but he didn’t like the stench of it. He jacked a round into the Henry’s chamber and tossed a snap shot toward Aldritch’s right foot. A plume of sand spouted up, only inches from his oxblood boot, and he spun around to stare at Fargo.

“What in bleeding Christ is that jackanapes up to?” Fargo demanded of Slappy.

“Ah, I was standing guard when that Cheyenne spy come drifting in closer to take a squint around. I was notched on him with Montoya’s rifle, so there weren’t no danger nor nothing. Then Aldritch gets up to drain his snake and has him a conniption fit when he gloms the feather-head. ’Fore I could stay his hand, he jerks that smoke wagon outta the coach and tosses a shot at the spy.”

“Did he hit him?”

“Shit! That prissy limey couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a banjo. He was going for a second shot, but he’s too slow to catch a cold. By the time he got a round into the breech and figured out how to work the bolt, Red John was over the horizon.”

Aldritch, his muttonchopped visage scarlet with rage, had returned to camp. “Fargo, you impertinent scoundrel! How dare you shoot at me?”

“To chew it fine,” Fargo said, “I shot near you. If I’d shot at you, you’d be celestial by now.”

“The unabashed audacity! I was forced to do your job while you were out . . . out copulating with the Blackfords’ maid!”

“Better to copulate than never,” Slappy chimed in, and Skeets snickered.

“You’re sadly misinformed,” Fargo said, “if you think it’s my job to kill a Cheyenne spy.”

“How can you possibly know he’s only a spy? We were sleeping. Upon my word, Fargo! He could have sneaked in and killed one of us.”

Fargo hooked a thumb toward Slappy. “The camp was under guard.”

Aldritch slanted a contemptuous glance at the cook. “That hash slinger? He was cleaning his fingernails.”

“Next time I serve you up some hash, you highfalutin fop,” Slappy said, “look for a surprise in it.”

Aldritch was almost demented with rage. “Do you see how it is, Lord Blackford? These Americans are not just gutter trash—they’re out-and-out thugs no different from the plug-uglies at Five Points! If we survive the red aborigines, how will we survive them!”

It was Ericka who spoke up in the face of her husband’s silence. “Certainly not like this, Sylvester. You are not back in Dover. The Americans whipped the Crown soundly and established their own nation. They have a far different society from ours, one based on merit and not inheritance. I rather admire it although it has its rough edges.”

“Yes,” Rebecca chipped in, “and you shouldn’t have come here if you cannot accept it. Perhaps your anger about Mr. Fargo and Jessica has something to do with the fact that she has spurned your own advances.”

Aldritch puffed himself up with offended dignity. “That is a calumny!”

“Indeed? I was listening from the drawing room when you attempted to purchase her favors for five pounds. Will you call me a liar?”

Fargo had heard enough. “Look, folks, this isn’t the time or place for such piddling squabbles. I like England just fine and think the world of the queen—I wouldn’t have a country if it wasn’t for England. Let’s give over with all this truck and fix our thoughts on getting out of our present fix.”

“Hear, hear,” Lord Blackford said. “Bully for you, Fargo!”

“It looks like we’re all awake,” Fargo said. “Since we won’t likely be attacked on this first day, let’s push on and see can we find a better spot to make camp. About an hour’s travel will put us in the Badlands—there’ll be more places to fort up. We’ll be on the move all night, so we’ll stop to sleep around two hours before sundown.”

Jessica finally showed up, and Fargo knew what was coming. The woman who had solemnly declared she was not “demonstrative” had been recklessly loud and didn’t realize how far sound carried on the plains. Now she noticed that every man in the party was staring at her. Some, like Slappy and Skeets, were grinning wickedly. Others, like Derek the Terrible and Aldritch, stared with open malevolence and jealousy.

“Tell me, Montoya,” Slappy said with feigned innocence, “have you rubbed any pearls lately?”

Jessica blushed to her hair roots while the other two women turned modestly away—both smiling. Montoya, who was too polite and reserved to embarrass a woman, stayed silent. But Skeets pitched in.

“Ebenezer, that last meal you cooked was first-rate, eh? Why, I’ve never been filled up like this.”

Jessica gave a little cry of mortified distress and, catching up her skirts, hurried toward the mud wagon.

“I say, Skeets,” Lord Blackford said in a tone of mild disapproval.

However, Ericka and Rebecca both turned to watch Fargo with speculative eyes for a few moments before returning to the coach.