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ELIZABETH
* * *
“The defendant, Elizabeth Morgan, is found guilty of the charges of cattle rustling, aiding and abetting cattle rustlers, and leading the outlaw gang known as Morgan’s Marauders. She is hereby sentenced to death by hanging…” Judge Warren Abernathy droned on.
His voice became a mere buzzing in her head as she heard him pronounce the judgment of the court. Elizabeth had expected to go to prison if caught, not die. Her lawyer stood next to her, with his hand around her waist as if he expected her knees to buckle. Elizabeth took a deep breath and steeled herself. She’d become an outlaw to escape the fate of someone forcing her to her knees as a prostitute. She wouldn’t go to her knees now.
“… And may God have mercy upon your soul. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
In a clear, calm, and cool voice she replied, “Fuck you.”
There was an audible gasp from the crowd. They, and the judge, hadn’t expected that.
Elizabeth smiled, although it was a struggle for, inside, she was quaking in fear. Still, she had a front that was expected, and she would not see it falter.
“Miss Morgan, a little decorum, please,” said the green-behind-the ears lawyer who had defended her.
“Why? What are they going to do, hang me twice?” she asked, pushing past the bailiff and onlookers to saunter past the standing-room only crowd as the sheriff caught up with her to escort her back to jail. Again. She’d been behind bars for three days; the trial rushed because the judge was leaving town to travel his summer circuit around the territory.
“You might try showing a little remorse,” said the sheriff as he shoved her through the door to her cell. She was the only female—in fact, currently, the only occupant. The place was dank, bare, and smelled of stale urine and sweat.
“Unlike the hypocrites in this town, I try to keep my lying to a minimum.”
“No, you’re just a thief,” he spat.
The older man had no liking for Elizabeth. The feeling was mutual.
“As opposed to the whore you wanted to make me?” she taunted.
He’d given her the option of sucking his cock instead of going to jail. Elizabeth had gagged at the idea of getting on her knees before the fat, tobacco-chewing asshole and told him she’d rather be behind bars. She began thieving out of honor, and she wore it about her like a mantle. She wouldn’t succumb to the sheriff, or any other man. She’d rather die. And it seemed she was destined to do so.
Her mind drifted back to the two men she seen in the crowd earlier during the trial. She’d paid them no mind at that point, but when she’d caught a peek of the duo, one fair, the other dark as night, she’d frozen in place. The bailiff had been forced to nudge her forward to her seat. That one quick peek had been all she needed to set her heart aflutter, just one quick peek. Now, they were men. Big, brawny, well-kept. Their eyes had been squarely on her and, in that split second, it felt as if they’d seen past all the false bravado, past every wall she’d raised to shield her true feelings. She felt as if they’d seen the real her.
“I’m going to enjoy watching you hang.” The sheriff’s words stirred her from her thoughts of the handsome men.
“You’d better pray I go to heaven because, if I don’t, I’m coming back to haunt you, the judge, and every old man on that jury. Maybe I’ll even whisper in your wife’s ear about all the nasty things you wanted to do to me or, rather, have me do to you. Tell me, Sheriff Gutherie, does your wife let you stick your cock in her mouth, or up her asshole?”
He turned a volatile shade of pink.
Elizabeth laughed as the sheriff sputtered and retreated behind the door into his office. She took a deep, cleansing breath. She’d put him in his place, but she was caught in hers. Behind bars and, tomorrow, with a noose around her neck. Now, how the hell was she going to get herself out of this?
GAVAN
* * *
Gavan MacLean watched as the sheriff led Lizzie, as he’d begun to think of her, away. His first glimpse of Elizabeth Morgan, the day the trial started, had knocked the wind out of him. Fuck, she was a stunningly beautiful woman; taller than average with a voluptuous figure, green eyes, and long, curly, auburn hair. The pants she wore allowed every male to see her form, which made him want to gouge their eyes out. He knew their thoughts, for they were the same as his own. Those men all wanted to fuck her, get her on her knees, make her beg. Gavan wanted all of that, and more, but he wanted his name on her lips as she came.
Fuck. He shifted on the hard bench seat. Just to be in the same room with her was to feel her pull. One second, he was free; the next, he was shackled to her. The vixen who’d not only stolen cattle across the territory, but whom he feared had stolen his heart as well. And she was the owner of his cock. No other woman would do.
Her mouth spoke of a deeply sensual nature. A man’s hands could span her waist, her hips flared wide to aide in both getting her with child and having it safely delivered into the world. Looking at her tits, you knew no child would ever go hungry at her breast.
Ach, Lizzie, take heart. Caelan’s here, we’ll set things right. I’ll nay see you swing,
No fucking way would the only woman who’d ensnared him see another night in jail, let alone worse.
When the judge had pronounced the sentence, Gavan had felt as though someone had punched him in the gut. He worried how it might affect her. She might seem to be stalwart and strong, but he knew it had to be an act and was relieved when she told off the judge. Hell, he’d even laughed.
She exhibited, what he was coming to learn was her normal, defiant attitude, toward the entire proceeding. She was a spitfire of the first order, and everything about her made his loins burn. It was when her mask slipped to reveal the lost little girl behind the façade that his heart broke. It had only occurred a few times, and he’d only observed it because he’d watched her closely. She was brave. Too brave. All he wanted was for her to take refuge within the safety of either he, or Caelan’s, arms, preferably both. She wouldn’t have to pretend with them. They wouldn’t let her, neither in bed, nor out.
Lizzie smelled of heather and sunshine. Each time he saw her, or caught her scent, his cock stirred, something it h
adn’t done since he’d been cashiered out of the Her Majesty’s Army along with his best friend, Caelan MacAllister. The two men had been found en flagrante delicto or, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. That had been a disaster, and he’d been wary since. Until now. Now, he was sure.
Lizzie reminded him little of the women of the MacLean Clan in Scotland. Those ladies might be brash and tempestuous but they didn’t make a living rustling cattle and horses with an occasional bank robbery on the side. They might give their husbands a good tongue lashing a time or two, but Gavan had found them dull in the extreme. His Lizzie, their Lizzie, he reminded himself, presented herself to the world as wild and free, mean as a snake with a mouth that would make a sailor blush, a woman who needed the protection and love that only he and Caelan could provide. Some might call it fucking insane, but that was the way of it with his cock, and his heart.
Untamed she might be but, when he’d climbed into bed the night before and closed his eyes, he’d easily pictured her across his knee with her bottom being spanked from ivory to red. A more fitting punishment for her actions, and one he was sure would make her quite contrite.
From there, his visions had shifted to her standing in the corner, her bottom pushed out, cunny and dark rosebud on display before both he and Caelan took turns plowing one or the other together, or one-on-one. Fuck, yes. Thoughts of spanking her, fucking her, watching Caelan fuck her, fucking her together and watching her belly swell with their child, made him hard as a rock. He smiled as he thought that the days of having to provide his own relief would soon be over. And hers for, if there was a woman in need of a few orgasms, it was Lizzie Morgan.
