The Wicked West

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.

CHAPTER THREE

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.