Longarm and the Sins of Laughing Lyle (9781101612101) by Tabor Evans Page B

best leave now.”
    She smiled knowingly, her eyes glinting jeeringly again. “All right. Go, then.” It was like a challenge.
    Longarm sat like a dead, throbbing weight in the chair that he supposed was mostly used by the girl’s father. He stared at her, trying to press his hands down on the chair’s worn arms and hoist himself to his feet.
    But he couldn’t do it.
    â€œYou must get lonely here in Nowhere, Miss Bethany.”
    â€œDon’t I know!”
    â€œYou must have plenty of suitors.”
    â€œThere aren’t many young men my age around. Oh, a few from the ranches come in with a spray of wildflowers from time to time, but it’s hard to enjoy a man’s company when everyone, including my own father, keeps such a sharp on eye me. I’ve never gotten that interested in any one man to invite him over, like you’re here with me now.”
    She blinked slowly, her twinkling jade gaze riveted on Longarm. She touched her tongue lightly to her upper lip before adding, “Alone.”
    Longarm watched her bosoms rise and fall slowly behind the robe that now fully exposed her cleavage and almost the entire right breast except the nipple.
    â€œYou can’t tell me you haven’t . . .”
    â€œOf course I have. A few times. But never to my satisfaction. Sometimes I find myself alone upstairs, just me and my brandy, and I start thinkin’ about what it would be like with a real man . . . a large man with experience . . . one who knew his way around a girl’s body . . .”
    Color rose in her cheeks. She lifted her chin and drew a deep, calming breath, letting her gaze flick down lower on Longarm’s big frame. “. . . and I just get so damn horny I feel like I could go out and fuck one of the stallions in Humperdink’s back paddock.”
    Longarm felt as though forked lightning had struck deep in his loins. He repressed a shudder. She smiled, knowing exactly the effect she was having. She wet her lips with her tongue and said very quietly, “Are you sure you wouldn’t reconsider having a drink with me?”
    â€œWhy not?” he managed to rake out. Even to his own ears, it sounded like someone else locked in the kitchen’s tiny pantry.
    â€œI left the bottle upstairs in my room. Warmer up there; I have a fire burning.” Bethany rose from the sofa and strode gracefully toward the stairs, tossing her hair down one shoulder and giving him a devilishly coquettish look, her eyes flicking over his groin. “If you think you can manage it, I’ll meet you up there.”
    Longarm watched her disappear up the stairs. The girl was right. His pants were getting tight across the crotch, so he had to sort of turn to one side before hoisting himself out of the chair. He adjusted the twill, trying to drag some slack up from his thighs, then tossed his hat down on the sofa and climbed the short, steep stairs.
    He turned at the top. There were two doors, a stretch of pine-paneled wall between them, on which a single wooden crucifix hung. The door on the right was open. Longarm walked to it and stopped in the doorway.
    Bethany stood in front of the small bed in the room, which wasn’t much larger than a sleeping compartment in a Pullman car. She faced him, the buffalo robe now hanging open. The girl lifted her shoulders, shook her creamy, pale body, and the coat dropped to the floor with a quiet, breathy
whump.
    Her body was delectable, arms and legs slender, belly slightly rounded like her thighs, full breasts standing up proudly on her chest, pink nipples pebbled. The light from a nearby coal brazier flickered like liquid bronze across her from the side, raking her and the wall on the opposite of her with curving shadows.
    â€œYou like what you see, Marshal?”
    â€œWhat’s not to like?” Longarm shrugged out of his frock coat and kicked out of his boots, keeping his