Slocum and the Ghost of Adam Weyland Read online

  “Who’s Smithee?”

  “The one that accused you and that gambler of cheating a while back. He’s been trying to get under my skirts for weeks, and right now I bet steam is just about to come out of his ears.”

  Slocum wrapped an arm around her and leaned in as if to kiss her ear. Instead, he brushed aside Natasha’s hair and took a look at the table. Sure enough, Smithee was watching them intently. “I think you’re right about that steam,” he whispered. “If he’s been annoying you, I wouldn’t mind putting him in his place again.”

  “Just do me a favor and clean him out when we get back.”

  “If he’s still here,” Slocum said as he moved his hand down to cup her plump backside. “I intend on taking my time with you.”

  Her lips were close enough to his neck that he could feel them curl into a grin as she said, “He’ll still be here. I can’t afford to be away for too long, but I know you’ll make it worth my time. I rent a room across the street. Care to have a look?”

  Whore or not, she was warm, willing, and knew exactly what to do to get Slocum’s wheels turning. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said.

  Natasha waved toward the bar, where two other ladies were waiting. One of them, a blonde with a slender build and long legs, strutted up to the table, placed her hand upon Smithee’s shoulder, and took a seat on his lap. As long as she was able to keep the smile on his face that showed up then, there was no danger of him leaving that spot.

  “Come along now,” Natasha said while taking Slocum’s hand and leading him to the front door. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty more to win when you get back.”

  They crossed the street to a narrow building that was two windows wide and three floors tall. A sign marked the place as the Second Street Boardinghouse. Every step of the way, she teased him by rubbing against him in some way or another, leaning over to lick his neck or even tug at his clothes. Even though it was a short walk to the boardinghouse, it felt like a very long trip. After leading him up one flight of stairs, Natasha dug into a small pocket for a key that unlocked the last room at the end of a short hall.

  “Here we are,” she said while leading him inside. “Since I was just supposed to get you out of that saloon for a while, I suppose we could just sit and socialize for a spell.”

  Slocum grabbed her by the hips, slammed the door shut, and pushed her against it. The room was a little bigger than he’d expected and lit only by what light made it through the windows past a set of thick yellow curtains. Rather than say anything, he let his hands do his talking for him. They gathered up her skirts, pulled them up far enough for him to reach beneath them, and began exploring the smooth contours of her hips and upper thighs.

  Natasha leaned her head against the door and slid one knee up along his leg. “I like that,” she purred. When his hand made it beneath her undergarments to find the thatch of hair between her legs, she said, “And I like that even more! Perhaps we should move this to . . .”

  Grinning while rubbing a slow circle around her swollen clit, Slocum asked, “Move this to where?” When she tried to speak again, he took her breath away a second time by rubbing his finger down to slide it in between the moist lips of her pussy.

  “Nowhere,” she finally sighed. “You just stay right where you are.”

  Natasha opened her legs and leaned most of her weight against the door. That way, his fingers could move in and out of her freely. Slocum kept that up for a few more seconds before easing his finger out of her. He kept his hand between her legs so he could rub the skin of her inner thighs.

  Eventually, she lowered her leg and opened her eyes. “Think I should return the favor?”

  “I suppose that would be civil,” he replied. “Especially since I’m a guest in your room and all.”

  She smirked while pushing him back a few steps. Before he could move any farther, she was tugging at his belt and pulling his jeans down. Natasha lowered herself to both knees, grabbed his rigid cock, and wrapped her mouth around it. Her lips were soft and damp as they slid up and down along his shaft. Before long, Slocum was the one leaning against the door.

  He let out a long breath and savored the feel of her mouth on his hard pole. Not only was she eager to make him feel good, but she knew what she was doing. As her lips moved down, they tightened around him, and when they slid up toward his tip, she teased him with her tongue. His pleasure quickly turned into impatience, and when he guided her to her feet, Natasha looked at him with wide-eyed anticipation.

  “Didn’t you like that?” she asked as if she didn’t know the answer to that all too well.

  Slocum pinned her against the door again, hiked her skirts all the way up to her waist, and said, “Sure, but I think we’ll both like this a whole lot more.”

  She reached down to guide him between her legs. The moment he felt the tip of his erection touch her lips, he pushed forward to plunge it into her. Natasha let out a slow moan and wrapped her arms tightly around Slocum’s shoulders. By the time he started pumping in and out of her, she’d lifted one leg to wrap it around his waist.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “That’s just what I’ve been wanting all damn night. Fuck me harder.”

  Despite everything else that had happened and her forwardness so far, Slocum was surprised to hear her talk that way. It wasn’t so much the words themselves that caught his attention, but the fierceness she put behind them. The primal tone in her voice and the way she ground her hips against him made Slocum even harder and his thrusts all the more urgent.

  She gritted her teeth, pushed her head back, and pumped her hips in time to his rhythm. “Harder!”

  Never one to disappoint a lady, Slocum reached down to cup her backside in both hands. Once he had a firm grip, he pulled her close and drove his cock into her with enough force to rattle the door on its hinges. Natasha showed her appreciation with a beaming smile and a loud moan. She even reached around to grab his hips and pull him toward her to make sure he never lost his momentum.

  Suddenly, the door began to rattle with something that wasn’t caused by her back slamming against it.

  “Keep it down in there,” a muffled voice said from the hall. “There’s folks trying to sleep.”

  Both Slocum and Natasha froze.

  She grinned at him like a girl who’d been caught rolling with a boy in the loft of her father’s barn. He smirked as well and started massaging her buttocks. Slowly, he began grinding his hips until he was all the way inside her again.

  “Move,” she whispered. “I don’t want any trouble. I live here, you know.”

  “You want me to move?” he asked. “How’s this?”

  She tried to push him back, but was distracted by the way his erect member shifted inside her. When he found just the right spot, she leaned back and knocked her head against the door.

  “I mean it!” the grouchy neighbor squawked from what sounded like a few steps down the hall.

  “Here,” Slocum said as he stepped back and allowed her to regain her footing. “Wouldn’t want you to get in any trouble.”

  She tugged at her clothes, but was much more concerned with scurrying past him to the other side of the room, where there was a modest, four-post bed covered by a multicolored quilt. As she fussed with the quilt, Slocum came up behind her and hiked her skirts up once again. “Just give me a moment,” she said.

  As soon as he got his hands on her bare hips again, he was stiffer than before and aching to pick up where they’d left off. “Don’t have a moment to spare. I want you right now.”

  If she had anything to say against that, she kept it to herself while forgetting whatever she’d been doing with the quilt so she could just hang on to it with both hands. Natasha arched her back and tossed her red mane over her shoulders as she felt Slocum pound into her from behind.

  As he ran his hands along the rounded slopes of her ass and pumped into her again and again, Slocum said, “Do something for me.”

  “Anything. Anything!”

&
nbsp; “Remind me to buy that rancher fella a drink.”

  9

  Adam stood at the bar, leaning upon his elbows as if his back wasn’t strong enough to hold him up. His head hung low and his eyelids drooped. The only muscles that seemed to be working were the ones in the hand that was wrapped tightly around his whiskey glass. Those fingers cinched in a little tighter so he could lift the glass and slam it back down again.

  “Gimme another!” he said.

  The barkeep walked over to him with bottle in hand. “You got enough to pay for another?”

  “What the hell difference does that make?”

  “Plenty, since this is a business I’m running and not a charity for vagabonds.”

  “Vagabonds?” Adam snarled as he did his best to pull himself upright. “I’ll have you know I’m with the men at that poker game! Without them, you wouldn’t have all the business you’re enjoying right now.”

  The barkeep looked over Adam’s shoulder and then back to him. “What poker game?”

  “The one that . . .” As he turned around to get a look at Slocum and Triedle’s table, Adam could only see empty chairs and a few restless locals nursing their drinks farther down the bar. “Oh, yeah,” he said with a sloppy grin. “That was in the other place. Well, I left that behind because it was too loud and decided to come here. You should be thankful for any customers you can get!”

  “I would be if they paid for their drinks.”

  “I did pay.”

  “Which brings me back to my first question,” the barkeep said with the patience a man can get only after years of dealing with babbling brooks like Adam Weyland. “Do you have enough to pay for another?”

  “Of course I do. Just pour.”

  Rather than take the glass from Adam’s white-knuckled grip, he reached beneath the bar for another and filled it.

  Without missing a beat, Adam took the glass, tossed the liquor down his throat, and slammed it next to the first one.

  “Time to pay up, mister.”

  “You’re right,” Adam said with a slow nod and growing smile. “I am a vagabond and I don’t have enough to pay for this drink.” Swiping an arm across the top of the bar, he shattered the glasses against a wall and added, “Or those glasses.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Adam was grinning from ear to ear as the barkeep reached across to grab the front of his shirt. When he spotted the ax handle the barkeep had picked up from wherever it had been stashed, he started to laugh.

  “Oh, you think this is funny?” the barkeep asked.

  “Most definitely.”

  “How about this?”

  The barkeep’s free hand snapped forward to knock the ax handle against the side of Adam’s head. It wasn’t a powerful blow, but was enough to take the wind from Adam’s sails. His knees buckled, his hands slapped flat against the bar, and when the barkeep let go of him, he dropped straight to the floor.

  As the barkeep stomped around the bar, he asked, “What about now? Still think it’s funny?”

  Adam started to say something, but his throat was quickly filled with vomit, which he spewed onto the tarnished foot rail he gripped with both hands for support.

  Grabbing him by the back of his collar, the barkeep lifted Adam to his feet as if he were picking up a dog by the scruff of its neck. “Let’s see what you’ve got on you,” he said while using the ax handle to pin Adam against the front of the bar.

  The moment he felt the barkeep’s hands sifting through his pockets, Adam lashed out with his knee as well as both hands. If so much of his strength hadn’t been sapped by the whiskey and the disease that coursed through his veins, he might have made a dent in the barkeep. As it was, he put on more of a show than a fight.

  “Adam!” Mia shouted as she raced through the saloon’s front door. “What are you doing?”

  “This man’s robbing me!”

  “What?” the barkeep and Mia shouted simultaneously. Of the two, the barkeep looked more surprised. He overcame that by swinging her brother into the bar while Adam played it up by hitting the warped wood without even trying to cover his face or head. The impact was solid and accompanied by a crunch that could have been made by the breaking of planks or bone.

  Mia rushed forward to grab the barkeep’s arm before he could deliver a straight punch to her brother’s face. “Stop it!” she shouted. “Let him go!”

  Although the barkeep didn’t try to break free or take his swing, he did look around at the few other customers in his place. “I wasn’t robbing anyone! Someone tell this crazy woman that!”

  One of the customers was an old man who looked dead on his feet. The other had the dirty face and crazy eyes of someone who’d wandered in from a storm after being raised by wolves. Apparently, neither of them had a good thing to say on the barkeep’s behalf.

  “Crazy woman?” Adam grunted. “You can’t talk to her like that. My sister may be a tireless shrew, but she ain’t crazy!” He followed that up by grabbing the barkeep’s leg and sinking his teeth into his shin.

  In his haste to pull away from Adam and any other restraint, the barkeep hopped back while trying to shake his leg free. Because Mia still had a hold of him, she was knocked off balance and shoved into a small table.

  “What? You’re who? Shit, I didn’t mean to—”

  But it was too late for explanations—not that Adam would have listened to them anyway. He sank his teeth in deeper when he bit the barkeep again, wrapping both arms around his leg as if he were afraid of being kicked into next week. Judging by the panicked look on the barkeep’s face and the power that he put into his efforts to break loose, that wasn’t exactly an unwarranted fear.

  The ax handle dropped down onto Adam’s shoulder and then thumped against his back. “You’re both crazy!” he said while hitting Adam on the arm.

  Mia tried to get up, but slipped as the table beneath her finally gave way. A pair of hands came to her aid, but drifted directly to her chest and stayed there. “That’s good enough,” she said as she regained her footing and turned to face the man who’d helped her back up. Seeing the lecherous smile on the old man’s face, she immediately began swatting at him. “Get your hands off!”

  Even as she slapped his face, the old man wouldn’t stop smiling. A sharp kick to the groin gave her enough room to get away from his clumsy advances. When she approached the bar again, she found her brother still lying on the floor with the barkeep looming over him. “Get away from him!”

  “You don’t understand, lady!” the barkeep shouted. “He owes me for a drink.”

  “All this for a drink?” she asked.

  “Don’t believe him!” Adam said. “He’s a robber!”

  “And,” the barkeep grunted while dusting himself off, “for the glasses he broke.”

  Having recovered from the jolt to his nether region, the old man waddled over to Mia and grabbed her ass with both hands. She yelped in surprise, turned around, and smacked him across the face. That lit an angry fire in the old man’s eyes, which was quickly extinguished by the ax handle, which cracked against his ear.

  Mia drew a sharp breath, followed the old man’s descent to the floor, and then looked up at the ax handle, which still hung in the air a few feet away from her face. Tracing the length of chipped wood down to the hand that gripped it, she soon found herself looking at the barkeep’s sweaty face.

  “Drinks, glasses, and,” the barkeep added between tired breaths, “for being an asshole. That’s what this is about.”

  She nodded slowly and gazed down at Adam, who looked ready to vomit another mess onto the floor. “I suppose that does sound like my brother,” she said.

  “I don’t care if it sounds like your mother or yer Aunt Tilly!” the barkeep roared. “I’ll kill this son of a bitch if he don’t pay up! Now get my money and get him the hell off of me!”

  She stepped up to the bar, reached down to grab Adam’s ear, and pulled. He stumbled back to his feet, only to knock his head against the ba
r as his legs flopped in every direction other than what was needed to get him up.

  “You’re taking his word over mine?” he asked.

  She didn’t stop pulling his ear until he was looking directly into her eyes. That’s when she said, “It’s probably worth more.”

  Using the back of his hand to wipe the drool and dirt from his mouth, Adam said, “Maybe it is.”

  “Do you have the money to pay this man?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Look for it right now and be quick about it,” she warned, “or I’ll walk outside and let him resume looking for it himself.”

  Adam locked eyes with the barkeep as he reached into his pockets one at a time. He checked his pants pockets, shirt pocket, and finally the watch pocket in his vest before finally coming up with a few folded bills. “Here you go,” he said while flicking the money at the barkeep. “Choke on it.”

  Like any man who’d become accustomed to dealing with an unruly public, the barkeep caught his money without getting cross at how it was delivered to him. “Much obliged, stranger.”

  “Come on, Adam,” Mia said. “Time to go.”

  Adam accepted his sister’s hand until he was solidly back on his feet. Then he shoved it away as if he hadn’t needed it in the first place and resented the fact that it was so close to him. She’d also become accustomed to dealing with unruly drunks and walked to the door.

  “I knew you didn’t have it in you,” he said.

  The barkeep stooped down to pick up the spittoon that had been spattered with Adam’s puke. Even after standing up again to survey the mess from higher ground, it took him a moment to realize Adam was looking at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Get out of my place before your sister needs to pull your fat from the fire again.”

  Adam punched the barkeep in the face. Even though his fist all but bounced off the other man’s jaw without much more than a subtle smacking sound, he puffed out his chest and wore a vicious sneer when he said, “You didn’t have the guts to finish me before, so why the hell would you do it now?”