Page 5 of Working the Lode

Mr. Bowmaker ran one long arm up against the sardine shelf, nearly engulfing her in his wood smoke and pine scent. Zelnora knew she was melting utterly and completely, and would do whatever this potent man asked of her. He fairly whispered down at her in a husky voice, “How would Brannagh feel…To know that you were alone with a wild mountain man in a shed full of ammunition and whiskey?”

“We’re doing nothing wrong.”

She realized he panted with lust too, his lovely, aristocratic nostrils flaring slightly. “Yet.”

He kissed her, and it was not what she expected. She expected to be thrown to the floor and fucked brutally, the butt of the rifle he still had slung over his shoulder tapping out a staccato beat for the entire Fort to hear. She would have willingly done so, too. No, he was tender, and respectful, his beautiful full moist lips moving slowly across hers. None of that slurping and grunting and shoving of tongues. His free hand cradled the back of her skull in his hand, sinking his fingers deep into her braids. Oh, this was heaven—she had never been kissed like this before, snorting hot air against each other’s faces, slowly licking each other’s lips. He was like a piece of chocolate one wished to melt gradually in one’s mouth, not gulp down all at once.

She needed him closer as she ran her hands down the solid rock of his lower back and over the perfect globes of his ass, and pulled his crotch into her. He came eagerly, with one great exhalation angling his hips into her, so that he lifted her several inches into the air against the sardine shelf, sending some cans bumping to the floor. Oh Good Lord, yes. Even though two layers of leather separated them—his shirt and his pants—Zelnora’s experience told her his penis was long, thick, straight, and so plump she could even feel the giant mushroom head against her dripping quim.

They pulled apart several inches so that he appeared blurry. His face was so close, the clarity of his aquamarine eyes obscured, but not the strength of his lust. And need, she saw suddenly. Need. There was something more here than just the need for a fast fuck. There was something more that he needed, and she aimed to find out what it was.

Her quim shivered with anticipatory delight as a drop rolled down her inner thigh. Her quim that used to be so traitorous was now on the same team as her brain—for once, they worked in tandem, both desiring the same thing, and it was a delicious sultry heaven.

Bringing both slippered feet off the floor, Zelnora attempted to hook her toes around the back of his calves into the tops of his…moccasins? He wore no boots! Under the covering of his buckskins, the hems of which dragged the ground, his moccasins only reached his ankles, and she had nowhere to hitch her toes. He must have known her goal, for he reached one long arm down and gathered her Californio skirt in his nimble fingers, collecting it fold by fold like one would gather a curtain, bringing it slowly up her heated thigh. Oh, the unbearable agony as his fingers came closer and closer to the soaking lips of her sex.

But he only wished to grab her bare thigh in his burning hot, able hand, to lift it higher off the floor, to get a better angle to swivel his hips into her. His eyes seemed to roll back into his head then, and he issued the deepest guttural groan she had ever heard, as though he imitated a bear, and Zelnora went loco then.

“Mr. Bowmaker!” she cried quietly, running her fingers underneath his head scarf so that it slid off, and she was able to finally feel the heat of his scalp, the fine silken strands of his thick ginger hair. She yanked her own bodice down in order to press her nipples against the heated leather of his chest. She arched her back, forcing his face to her breastplate, where he licked a steamy trail from the pit of her throat downward. His tongue may as well have been licking her clitoris for all the shivering and clutching her sex was doing.

Oh yes please, please suck my nipples, she thought fervently, head thrown back as though praying, something she was quite accustomed to, although not in this manner. Gathering a handful of his silken hair into her fist, she gave a gentle yank that may have been misinterpreted, for he suddenly brought his face back up to hers, panting heavily, and she realized he was sweating with passion. Is he this passionate with every woman?

“Miss Sparks…” he pleaded sincerely. “Gut-shot is this child.” He could barely speak, he breathed so heavily. A fine tremor went up the front of his thigh that was plastered to hers. “You’ve turned me into a thoughtless beaver kitten.” He placed his forehead against hers, shutting his eyes as though in pain. “You’re the biggest kind of pumpkin, but I can’t act such as this on the property of another man.” He dropped her thigh slowly, her toes touching ground again, and disappointment washed over her.

Tenderly she kissed the tip of his nose where a drop of sweat perched. “Mr. Bowmaker…” she whispered. “You are a refreshing bed of sweet delights, the most handsome, stimulating, sensuous man I’ve ever met. I absolutely revel in your masculine charms. I know we cannot act such as this—“

Mr. Bowmaker wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and blinked down at the floor, as though he’d forgotten where he was. “Lord. I need to get myself my own pantry shed.”

There was a brief pause before Zelnora almost giggled, but suddenly Brannagh’s loud braying wafted up, coming from outside the store. It appeared he brayed at someone other than them, but they quickly separated by a few feet, smoothing down their clothing, clearing their throats, regaining their senses.

Mr. Bowmaker was just restoring his head scarf when Zelnora found herself grabbing a fistful of his leather shirtfront and yanking him toward her. “Listen to me, Mr. Bowmaker. My husband, Quartus Stringfellow—remember that name—will come to you at the mill and give you a message. He will tell you when and where to meet me. You…would like to meet again, wouldn’t you?” Without waiting for a reply, she took several long strides to the barrels of powder and shot he had requested and pointed stridently at them. “Here. Take whatever you want and head down the hill; I’ll wait several more minutes.”

Mr. Bowmaker seemed dazed. “Miss Sparks. I’ve got an erection fit to break a plate. Maybe it’s best that you go first, and I’ll wait.”

The last thing in the world she wanted was to leave his alluring presence, but it was only a matter of time before Brannagh became suspicious, and if Mr. Bowmaker was this passionate, he would want to meet with her again.

She grabbed some of the sardine tins that had rolled onto the floor, and for good measure filled her cup with lemonade. She dared not kiss him again for that would lead to untoward frenzy, so she merely cast him a longing glance. How handsome he was, yet vulnerable in his lust. Still breathing heavily, those long arms hanging at his sides now meant something so different from two hours ago. She felt she was an entirely new person. He had made her feel that way.

Tearing herself away, she stepped out of the door.

She wanted to tell him she loved him, but that was ridiculous!

CHAPTER FOUR

January, 1848

Coloma

Bowmaker

The icy water numbed Bowmaker from the waist down. The currents of melted snow turned his nipples into painful points and shriveled his cock, but he was determined to bathe. After two weeks of working on the mill in the stinging driving sheets of rain, he needed something refreshing. He rapidly slathered the soap—made by Gennie Wimmer, the only woman in Coloma—into his armpits and between his buttocks, letting the rushing of the waterfall wash the dirt away. Then quickly, he knelt on the rocky bottom of the river to soap his hair, the roaring of piercingly burning water surging over his head for only the briefest moment, and then he was out, scrambling onto the bank.

He’d taken this opportunity to bathe, as the sun had peeked out for an hour or so. Marshall had opened the mill’s floodgates to full capacity to scour the tailrace, allowing it to run all night, so there was no work to do now. Panting, he leaned back on his elbows on his buffalo robe, warmed by the sun. He’d spent ten years bathing in the melted snows of the Yellowstone, Green, and Columbia rivers, so he rapidly recovered from his ordeal, like a lizard sunning itself on a rock. Yet he could still only hold his milky face to the sun for so long, even after a decade of peregrinations—damn his Scottish heritage. Laying flat on his back, he slapped his felt hat over his face and thought, as usual, of Miss Zelnora Sparks from Sutter’s Fort.

That brief spree with her in the pantry shed had put him into a horn-tossing mood ever since. Not only did he feel queersome about having nearly fucked her among a stack of sardine tins, his blood on fire, but her parting statement that her “husband” would bring him a message made his brain dance before his eyes. Trying not to think about the husband, Bowmaker instead thought of her lush breasts, jiggly globes of womanhood being offered to his mouth, for his own gustatory delight. With these thoughts—and kissing her sweet raspberry mouth was probably the most sensual thing of all—his prick began to stiffen, and out of habit his hand went to it, just the palm stroking the underside as it lay pulsating against his belly. He fondled his balls, one bent leg with knee in the air, hips angled toward the sun, imagining for the thousandth time in vivid detail her bare velvety shoulders, the cinnamon smell of her braids, how lubricious her pussy when he humped his erection into her, the fishy sex smell of her drifting up into his face.

Now two hands, one cupping his balls, the other wrapped around what he knew to be his enormously proud cock, and Bowmaker could feel himself smile as he slowly began to frig himself. Ho, boy, what would it be like to have the bountiful Miss Sparks’ hand around his prick? Since his wife’s death he had spread his bed with many a woman, of course, and he could speak the lingo of most of them and treated them with consideration, but it had been twelve years since he’d tussled with an American woman, and he’d become like one possessed.

The beaver were all trapped out. There was nothing left for Bowmaker in the mountains, and he couldn’t see going back to his former occupation. That was a lifetime ago. He was getting old, and wanted a woman’s face about his lodge for the remainder of his days. This realization had him shaking in his moccasins, but there it was.