Working the Lode (20 page)

“Course, I’m not much for the settlements,” the man added. “But I should build Zel a nice house.” He observed Zelnora with obvious love. “Maybe a weekend house. I was thinking of finding some grape vineyards up north, near General Vallejo’s place. Seems to me one could make a good living making wine. The wine the missions have made in California is just well nigh to puke water.”

While Zelnora looked surprised at the vineyard idea, Joaquin thought it a fine one. He pointed at Cormack with his claret cup. “You’re right. I’ve often thought about that myself. There are a few old-fashioned vineyards with wooden troughs making tolerable brandy, but the wine is undrinkable.”

Cormack was warming to the conversation. “Yes, Dr. Marsh near Mt. Diablo has made several casks of wine which are now fermenting. The fruit’s rind is very thin and dissolves in your mouth immediately. He gave me some
aguardiente
—if aged longer, it could equal the brandies of France.”

“I’m familiar with Dr. Marsh,” Joaquin allowed. His band had rustled several hundred cattle from Marsh’s land. Cormack smiled forgivingly, perhaps aware of this. “If you’d like, I can send a few men to Vallejo’s to see what’s available, what he’d be willing to sell off, if it will be healthy for grapevines.”

Clutching the claret bottle, Zelnora scooted on the floor between Joaquin’s outspread thighs. “Have some more wine.”

Cormack averted his eyes and spoke briskly. “That would be fine. Just don’t let them rob anyone, all right?”

Joaquin nodded. Zelnora placed the bottle on the hearth and didn’t return to her chair, merely draped her arms over his thighs and looked up almost adoringly at him, placing her palm lightly over his crotch. The warmth of her hand caused his cock to enlarge, and now he, too, couldn’t look the mountain man in the eyes. He gulped some claret and added, “I’m looking for new boulevards of business to get involved in. Highway robbery is becoming too hazardous with the new anti-foreigner laws and militia mobs.” His cock was now too ample to ignore, and Joaquin did nothing to close his thighs or shove Zelnora away. “An early death might be acceptable to my men, but I’ve decided it’s not for me. I need to stay around for my daughter.”

As Zelnora closed her hand over his pulsating prick, Cormack said, in the direction of the fireplace, “That’s certainly something to consider. Send your men to Vallejo’s and let’s see what they report back.”

“My fiancé is quite attracted to you,” Zelnora murmured.

“Zelnora!”
Cormack snapped, not unkindly.

Zelnora didn’t cease. Circling the head of his prick with her thumb, she said salaciously, “He doesn’t like to admit it. But I saw how aroused he became when you were slapping his big…stiff…penis.”

Joaquin was dumbfounded and couldn’t bring himself to reply. American women were so forward! A Spanish woman would never dream of imagining such a thing, much less giving voice to it.

The lewd woman continued, “And spanking his juicy ass. Would you like to do that again? Or perhaps he’d like his revenge and would like to spank you. I’d like that very much.”

Cormack cried, “Mr. Valenzuela doesn’t want to hear such talk!” For the first time, he looked at the couple crouched at the stool, Joaquin leaning back on his palms and thrusting his crotch at the mountaineer’s sweetheart. Falling to his knees, Cormack grabbed Zelnora by the shoulder and yanked her away, much to Joaquin’s chagrin. Yet his next motion excited the bandit even more, for he took Zelnora’s place and kneeled between Joaquin’s thighs, one hand above either knee. “Do you? Such talk is only suitable for highwaymen, the sort of man you don’t want to be anymore…”

Ah, what exquisite, dazzling, aquamarine eyes. His athletic shoulder muscles undulated as he squeezed Joaquin’s thighs, and his erect nipples demanded to be sucked. He made a slight shrug of his shoulders. “It doesn’t trouble me,” he allowed.

Cormack came closer on his knees, so that the enormous erection inside his buckskins was poised directly over Joaquin’s. His voice and eyes softened when he said, “It makes you no difference to be pawed by a man?” and placed one hot palm on Joaquin’s stomach, his thumb inching up the white cotton shirt.

Again, Joaquin shrugged minutely. “A man’s touch is more powerful…more direct…straightforward.”

Zelnora was on her knees behind Cormack, her gentler and subtler fingers unbuttoning his broadfall once more. She shimmied her hand down his flank so that his erection burst free, bobbing in the air above Joaquin’s crotch, and his own cock twitched and jumped to view the meaty tool again in such proximity. Was the mountain man inviting him to grip that beautiful cock? Joaquin felt his own eyes grow misty with longing.

There was a sly grin at the corners of Cormack’s mouth as he slithered his long fingers down Joaquin’s bare, inflamed hip to undo the first silver button of his velvet
calzoneras.
“That’s right,” Cormack agreed flippantly. “A man is straight and strong as the barrel of a rifle.”

“You want to touch and stroke his penis, don’t you, Cormack?” Zelnora whispered over the man’s bare shoulder, in between loud sucks to his shimmering bicep. Joaquin could see her hand squeezing the juicy globe of his bare ass, his buckskins crumpled at his knees. “I know you want to. Go ahead…I like to watch.”

With her other hand, she tickled Cormack’s rigid nipples with…a shaving brush? It certainly looked like one, with soft bristles, perhaps of badger hair, and a shiny, polished wooden handle. Cormack’s eyes slid shut, fluttering, as he wrapped his fingers around the base of Joaquin’s cock. His lips moved, but no sound came out. His cock jounced at every slight graze of the badger brush, and he squeezed Joaquin’s taut prick as he lunged his hips toward him.

Joaquin could bear holding still no more at the sight of the
pelirrojo
man’s broad hand wrapped around his prick, and he lifted one palm from the stool to draw him toward him, gripping the back of his neck almost fiercely and parting his snarling lips for a kiss.

The sweet softness of his lips! How succulent it was to nibble and sup at this muscular man’s mouth, their chests pressing together. The woman’s licentious instructions enticed Cormack to lustier pinnacles. He frigged Joaquin eagerly, shamelessly jerking the cock up and down, grunting like the wild bull that he was.

“That’s good, Cormack…” she whispered over his shoulder. “You fondle his penis so impatiently. Is it because you like the feel of another man’s penis in your fist? Do you like that, Joaquin? Is he as good as a woman? Better than a woman? You like his firm, eager fist, don’t you? You enjoy the feeling of his long fat penis sliding against yours.”

Breaking the kiss with an unrestrained slurp, Cormack panted against Joaquin’s lips. “I want to feel this delicious raw cock explode in my hand.”

“Do it,” Joaquin growled.

And Cormack plastered his mouth to Joaquin’s as he frigged the penis even more energetically, Joaquin sliding his own hand down Cormack’s white ridged belly to nestle his burly balls in his palm, the testicles he had recently slapped to such great summits of arousal.

“Cormack…” Zelnora whispered against his neck. “Do you like this fat, hard thing plunging up your ass? You like being filled with something so stiff and hard, don’t you?”

“Oh, God, Zel…” the mountain man muttered against Joaquin’s mouth. “Don’t stop. Fuck me with that big…hard…thing.”

What was the woman doing? He had never known a woman of any nationality to act so immoral! Joaquin slipped a fingertip down the slick ridge behind Cormack’s balls. Was she actually gliding the wooden handle of that brush into Cormack’s tight ass? The thought that she was buggering him with that thick plug drove Joaquin to even greater summits. So many times he’d frigged himself while imagining lunging into that delicious ass, sometimes with Cormack subserviently on his stomach, thighs splayed like a frog while rubbing his firm pole against a buffalo robe, and sometimes, even more slavishly, on his back like a woman, bulging erection slapping against his own belly as Joaquin pumped into him.

Detaching his mouth from Cormack’s, Joaquin craned to see over his shoulder. Zelnora cast him a devilish smile, her forearm thrusting into Cormack’s arched backside while the man gyrated his hips to give Zelnora better access. Cormack groaned with such animal abandon that Joaquin instantly splashed a great load into his hand, the lubricious friction of the sperm between the two men’s bellies creating a smacking sound.

Cormack slithered his thumb up the underside of Joaquin’s cock to milk out the last spurts while he groaned against his throat. “Oh, god, yes…I’m going to lick your jism off your hard cock.”

“Taste it, Cormack, taste it.” Zelnora encouraged him.

Dropping to his knees, Cormack hefted the cock in his fist. He sucked, tentatively at first as though savoring a bonbon that might melt. But when Joaquin grabbed the back of his head and thrust, gasping, all inhibition seemed to vanish. He furiously lapped the sperm from the crown, the underside, the entire length, and Joaquin urged the mountain man’s face to slurp at his balls. He had dreamed of this for so long…

A frustrating interruption nearly had Joaquin reaching for his Colt’s to rub out some folks, regardless who they were.

“Mr. Valenzuela! Your soldiers are here!”

It was that pumpkinheaded associate Quartus, thumping at the door as though the forest was on fire.

* * * *

Cormack slumped to the floor when Joaquin raced away, buttoning his
calzoneras
and tucking in his fancy shirt.

Ho, boy. Cormack wanted to câche in a steep mountain ravine where only goats dared wander. He just wanted to go under, but he had to face Zelnora now. As casual as could be, his sweetheart opened a fresh claret bottle and removed a few clay jars from the window to let in cooler air—as though she had not just shoved the handle of a shaving brush up his ass!

Sitting in the rocking chair and handing him his refreshed claret cup, she said smoothly, “That was the most exciting thing I’ve ever viewed, Cormack. But you must know…Don’t you dare attempt doing that with another woman!” Her tone was only halfway teasing.

Ah, good, talk of women, not men. Now he could turn to her and look into her face. Gently, he said, “I would never even dream of attempting that, my mountain flower. How could any woman compare to you? I have everything I want right here.”

Zelnora smiled cunningly. “Except a dusky, rigid penis.”

Cormack felt his face redden. He could no longer deny he’d been aroused for months at the thought of the desperado’s long, dark penis erupting in his mouth, or pumping into his ass while pinning him down, or perhaps…Perhaps one day Cormack would get his revenge for the spanking by restraining the other man, binding his hands so he was helpless.

He knew his attraction to the mysterious bandit brought back to mind his mountaineering years, the dangerous times he’d lifted hair from Arapahos and fought the Blackfoot. Cormack knew those shining times were over with the disappearance of the beaver. Some of his fellow mountain men had gone on to become guides for overland parties coming to California, but such an eventuality was a dim shadow of his former carefree ways, and this child was no traveler, he had been a trapper. He wanted a woman’s face about his lodge. He wanted Zelnora.

He shrugged carelessly a few times, just as Joaquin had. He hoped that his knowing smile told Zelnora what she needed to know.

Quartus came to the open cabin door, his round spectacled eyes like beacons in his skull. He clutched the doorjamb with white knuckles. “Zel, Cormack. I believe Mr. Valenzuela and his guerillas are saying something about Elder Brannagh. All I could make out was
‘Brannagh nos dijo entrar las montañas
.’ Why would Brannagh be telling them to go into the mountains? I didn’t even know they knew Brannagh, unless they recently robbed him.”

Zelnora stood in the doorway, moonlight illuminating her figure as she squinted to see the group of bandits, Three-Fingered Jack and Feliz among them. “Maybe they did rob Brannagh.”

Quartus pointed at the ground. “Their plans is plain as beaver sign!”

Cormack frowned. “Plain? What’s plain?”

Quartus sank his fists into his pockets. “I don’t know. I just like it when you say that. ‘Their plans is plain as—’”