Southern Seduction [Bride Train 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (7 page)

Cole slowed as he reached the yard, not wanting to interrupt. The voice soared louder, filling the yard with a powerful energy. Being twelve, Casey’s voice could break any day now, especially if he finally started growing. He might end up as a decent tenor, but he’d never sound like an angel again. Cole closed his eyes and let the music take him home to Grandma.

It felt like he was there once more. A hungry boy, dirty from a long day’s work, scrubbing up before supper as Grandma shucked peas on the porch. She rocked back and forth, the creaking wood keeping time as she sang. Her cotton dress and white apron stretched over her spread knees, catching the peas as they fell from her knobby fingers. She kept her eyes closed, maybe thinking of when she was a girl being courted by wealthy beaus.

She never hid the fact she’d been forced into marrying Grandpa after being caught in a compromising situation with her younger sister’s fiancé. Though it was totally innocent, her parents refused to listen. She’d refused many suitors and was getting long in the tooth. They solved both problems by bundling her off, far from the city, to marry a distant cousin on her father’s side.

Grandpa said the first time he saw Grandma she was so beautiful his heart was like to break. But she was a city gal who knew nothing of working on an Upcountry North Carolina farm. He didn’t want her soft hands to become hard and callused like his own. Didn’t want her to resent being hitched to a farmer.

But Grandma took Grandpa as he was, the son of a dirt-poor farmer. She’d insisted her papa give the same dowry as if she’d married into one of the top families in Charlotte. They’d bought land farther down the mountain, more suitable for growing crops, and made themselves a life. Grandma insisted she’d never have met a man half as good as Grandpa if she’d stayed in the city. She was a gal with an adventurous heart, and Grandpa respected her. He might not have money, but he was a Southern gentleman through and through.

The mare tugged, bringing Cole back to the present.

“I should thank you for coming up lame,” he said as he cross-tied her in the barn. “Casey might never have told us he could sing, especially like that.”

As Cole worked, Casey sang a hymn he didn’t recognize. What other songs did the boy know? He smiled in anticipation. Wait until Byron and Marshall found out. If Casey could play the spoons and jaw harp, they’d have everything in their band.

He was twenty feet from the kitchen, facing the front window, when the sun shot a beam through the side window. He stopped. A zap of fire shot from his head, through his body, and into the ground as he stared at a vision from his dreams. He must be so desperate for a woman that his imagination created one in the window’s reflection. She had her back to him. His eyes went to the narrow waist that curved out into hips and a lovely pear-shaped bottom. He followed the curve of her backbone up. Angry red lines crossed her back, running from side to side. They weren’t whip marks, but something else. She turned, and he found the same lines on her perfect breasts.

He pounded his fist against his ribs to get his heart restarted. Below those breasts was a narrow ribcage. A swirl of brown curls marked the apex of her thighs. In awe, he raised his eyes to her face. Matching short brown curls danced around her ears. Her face was that of a pixie, with a sharp chin and pert nose.

Those, he recognized. This was no dream. It was a nightmare.

“Casey?” He gulped, blinking to clear his eyes.

She had a sliver of soap in one hand. Keeping her eyes closed, she slid it over a small breast with a raspberry nipple. Her lush lips opened as she began to sing.

“Oh, my God.”

Cole whipped around so fast he staggered. Drops of sweat popped from his forehead, temples, and other places. His cock throbbed in time with the pain in his head. He stumbled to the barn and collapsed against a beam. His fingernails dug into the wood, shoving in splinters. He welcomed the pain. It matched the one in his pants as his cock throbbed desperately for release.

There was a grown woman in his kitchen. Naked. And her name was Casey Wright.

He blinked, but the image was burned into his brain. Seared onto his eyeballs. A vision of wonder, she was dang near everything he wanted in a woman. Physically. He slammed his forehead against the beam. It changed nothing. The clear voice still wove its way through his ears and into his soul.

He’d asked the spirits of his grandparents to send a wife. Grandma always said to be careful what you pray for, as God works in mysterious ways. God had got him this time. Casey was beautiful, a good cook, was hardy enough to survive life on a ranch, and could outsing an angel. But she spoke and acted like an unschooled savage. No matter how well he dressed her, as soon as she opened those rosy lips everyone would know her origins. Unless she was singing.

Byron insisted Casey could learn to speak well, but she’d never learn all those social graces needed by his wife. Those little things might seem unimportant, but they’d make a cabin in the wilds of Montana Territory something close to the cultured home he’d grown up in. He groaned, rubbing his face in frustration at his dilemma. He wanted that vision in his bed, eagerly bucking under him. But he didn’t want her in his life for anything more.

No decent woman would marry him if he kept an unmarried woman in his home all winter. But he’d promised Sophie they’d keep Casey Wright here for the winter. Whether Casey was a boy or a woman, Cole would not break his oath.

The image of her soapy hand caressing her breast exploded into his mind. His cock near did the same. A groan erupted from deep in his lungs. She was temptation in the flesh. Until she spoke.

Maybe he could handle her that way. When the temptation to touch her got too great he’d ask her a question. That atrocious accent would keep him from kissing those plump lips, both the ones above her chin and those between her legs.

A sudden thought caused a surge of outrage to blast away his thoughts of bedding her. Had she done this to trap him into marriage? He dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. No, Casey hadn’t trapped him. She’d done everything she could to hide the fact she was female. He groaned, thinking of what Byron said about why Casey and Willy left home

No wonder she hid as a boy. With a body like that she could be sold for a lot of money. Her voice would make her even more valuable to those who liked to have something special to keep to themselves.

His deep groan echoed through the empty barn. No matter how much he wanted to plow deep between her thighs, she was not good enough to be his wife. He picked up a rake and began working off his frustration by piling up manure.

Grandpa must be looking down on him, slapping his knee, chortling and wheezing at how God had answered his prayers. Send a wife, make her tantalizing in almost every way, but have her fall far short of his expectations outside the kitchen and bedroom.

When he and his cousins had headed West, it was with empty stomachs and pockets. They had nothing but what Grandpa and Grandma had taught them, and pride. They’d vowed to build a new home with all the best of the South. They’d be independent and self-reliant. Cole added that their home would offer gracious hospitality, including good food, a certain decorum, and voices that flowed, soft and smooth, like mountain honey.

Casey might cook well but a woman who dressed like a boy, even going so far as to cut her hair, had no decorum. Worse, her words grated like Grandma’s chalk on a slate.

To keep all of their reputations from being destroyed, he’d have to marry her. But none of them could touch her. That would allow him to get an annulment in the spring. They’d have a good cook and housekeeper for the winter and would be free of each other when the snow cleared. He’d even give Willy enough gold to get them both all the way to California. Anything to get her far away.

Then he’d head east to meet the first Bride Train as it crossed the Missouri. He’d find them a wife and get working on a son which he would name Marshall Phelps Taylor, after both his grandparents.

Cole kept his back to the house as he saddled up a fresh horse. Casey was humming now, some slow tune he didn’t recognize. He carefully settled into the saddle, adjusting his seat until his bollocks weren’t crushed. He’d make a trip to the Double Diamond. Jessie would understand his request to borrow women’s things for Casey.

He rode toward the road in agony. Every time he blinked he remembered a different part of Casey’s body. The curve of her small, perfect breasts. How her hips flared out, the right width for his hands to grasp and slam his cock into her. The dark, mysterious cleft between her buttocks.

He wanted to suckle the nipple atop that breast. To kneel behind those hips, bend her forward, and lick her from to ass to belly. To spread her legs and surge between them deep into her pussy. Not the first time. No, he’d take her slow and easy at first, showing her why a woman wanted a man. But when she was used to them, then he’d do more.

What if he pressed a finger into that brown dimple above her pussy? Or three fingers, easing his way with lard? He could spank her and watch his pink handprint appear on her white bottom. Maybe he’d then penetrate her with his cock, watching it slowly disappear into her ass. He clutched at his heart as it spasmed. He’d very nearly erupted into his pants like a boy of sixteen.

He hauled his horse to a stop and carefully—very carefully—dismounted. He tied his horse and unbuttoned his pants. He groaned as he released his throbbing cock. His pants already had a damp spot. If he didn’t find his release soon, they’d be soaked.

He took himself in hand and thought of what he’d do if she was his, welcoming him. He saw her kneeling at his feet, her mouth over the dark head of his thick cock. She’d grasp him with both hands. Unable to get all of him inside her hot, wet mouth, she’d lick him. Up one side of his cock and down the other. She’d ring him with her wet tongue, circling and dabbing into the slit at his tip. She’d pull on his balls, gently but firmly, just the way he liked it. He did it to himself as if showing her how.

He imagined lifting her. She’d spread her legs and he’d bring her pussy down on his eager cock. She’d hold tight, slowly letting her flesh stretch around his wide cock until she took him deep. She’d move up and down, clutching him with her internal muscles. She’d cry his name as she peaked. And then—

“Aargh!”

He roared his release, exploding with a need too long withheld. He fell to his knees, still pumping, still feeling her clench him. Finally, he sat back on his heels, gasping for breath. His horse looked over, switched its tail, and turned away.

“You’re a gelding,” he panted. “You know nothing of this.”

The horse raised its tail and deposited his opinion of Cole onto the dried grass. Cole snorted, then burst into a laugh at what he’d done. Spilling his seed while imagining he was pleasuring a woman he’d never touch!

His laugh turned into a groan as he stood and buttoned himself up.

How the hell was he going to get through the winter with her?

Casey patted herself dry. Running the soap over her body, warm and clean for once, had brought a deep ache to the place between her legs. Her nipples rose with the chill of the room, though she was warm. No, she was hot. Touching herself in the bath made her think of the first day she heard Beth, Sophie, Florence, and Jessie talk about their husbands. It was early in the spring. She and Willy had just arrived in town. She was so cold she’d crept into the empty hotel kitchen and curled in the corner to get warm.

She’d fallen asleep and woken to the sound of women’s voices, coming quickly. She’d snuck into the bottom of the big pie safe. The tin cutouts let all the sound come in, and she could see a little bit as well. When she heard them speak of wonderful pleasure, her ears had strained to take in every word.

These wives weren’t shy. They demanded to be pleasured but gave the same to their husbands. She held her breath while they said how much they enjoyed the many ways three men could pleasure a woman. They kept cans of lard near the bed, in the kitchen, and even in the barn, just in case. The slippery lard, and slowly adding more pulsing fingers to stretch the woman, helped ease a man’s cock into a woman’s bottom. It took her a moment to realize they really did say what she’d heard. She’d almost choked when they laughed about being so excited that they took all three men into their body at once. They agreed that was a rare treat, but well worth it.

Casey had thought a lot about that day. Holding Charlie had increased her desire for both passion and the children that would arrive because of it. Thoughts of Cole, Byron, and Marshall doing to her what the wives spoke of made her body throb.

She’d only had a flash that first morning of Marshall’s naked body. She’d seen Cole without a shirt that time in town, but she wondered what Byron looked like under his clothes. She liked him, though he was quiet and stern. Cole’s shape was rather nice as well, though she was a bit uncertain about him. A feeling of power flowed out of him as if he needed to be in charge. Marshall, though, liked to laugh.

If she was married to Marshall, would he touch her the way the other valley husbands touched their wives? What would it feel like?

She bit her lip and looked around the cabin. This was the first time she’d been safe and alone. No one would come near the cabin until supper. She thought of all the nights she’d dreamed of the three men touching her. But wearing her clothes day and night, and with Willy asleep beside her, she could do nothing about it.

Today, now, was different.

She sat on the bed, still naked, and rubbed her cold nipples with the insides of her wrists. The cold dots drew chilly lines on the insides of her arms when she moved them. She shivered. It made her nipples harden even more.

She closed her eyes and imagined Byron’s hands as she gathered her breasts in her hands, her nipples in the center of her palms. She lifted them and slowly closed her fingers around her breasts. She squeezed, just enough. She opened her palms and pushed her hands toward each other, scraping her nipples across her palms.