AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stood stock still, trying to decide which would work best, a lie or the truth. She decided on the truth. “Yes, he was here. And I gave him your message.”
“Really, now? You’d think he’d have contacted me and made arrangements to pay his debt. But it seems he rode right out of here, like he forgot everything you said you told him, if you actually told him.”
“I said that I gave him your message, but I cannot control what my brother does.”
“Is that so?”
“I wish I could, if so, this would all be taken care of. But Beau has his own mind and he’s a stubborn man.”
“Humph.” His look was dour. “That’s too bad, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she answered. Until then, he’d been standing a good six feet off and was content there. But now he inched his way a little closer, a little more threateningly. Hannah gazed at him warily, her heart pumping as if a whole flock of birds was taking flight inside her.
She stepped back and he ambled closer still.
“You see, the time’s running out on your brother. I said I’d extract my price, one way or another.”
“I don’t see how I can help you there.”
“Oh, you and your lovely sister here can help a lot.” He stared at Jolie, only to see the girl shrink back a little further, even though she could hardly move with the two men so close behind her. “You see, if we take a payment out of your hide,” he looked back at Hannah, “it’ll satisfy the itch I have to tear your brother in two… at least until that itch gets uncomfortable again.”
Hannah could feel the threat from her pounding temples to her sour stomach to her angry crotch where the meanest of fires was gathering steam in a most unseemly way.
“What does my brother owe you? I’ll pay you if I have to do so, in order to get you off his back,” she spit back, desperately.
Jarrett Cain shook his head. “Oh, ma’am, it’s not money I want from you. It’s that honey skin, that tender flesh, that sweet deep valley between your thighs.” He stood just inches from her now, oozing with lurid charm and his one hand lighting grazing the soft side of her face.
For several seconds, she stood still as if in a trance, then suddenly broke free of it.
“No! You cannot!” Hannah roared, and she foolishly tried to make for the door and her sister, but failed miserably in both attempts. Lyle had her sister firmly by the hair, while Eldon’s arms circled Hannah’s flailing torso and held her fast regardless of how hard she kicked her legs.
“Oh, that was a big mistake,” Cain said, his voice rising. “When women get uppity with me, I thrash their asses.” He turned to the boys. “We’ll bare both of their bottoms before we take their pretty cunts.”
“You have no right!” Hannah lashed out.
Cain whipped around his hot face not more than inches from hers. “I take my rights any way I see them. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let some haughty bitch like you dictate to me what’s right and wrong. Your sorry brother decided to play in my world, with my women, my booze and my kindness. He messed up bad, Mrs. Crowe, and someone has to pay. Might as well be you as anyone. And don’t think I won’t enjoy every minute of it.”
“My husband will be walking through this door at any moment. You best not be here.”
He laughed. “Your husband was on his way up the ridge checking traps. I got so close to him, he tipped his hat. Guess he doesn’t know me by my face. Too bad. If he did, he might be coming down here to protect his own. But he was still trudging up that mountain, all businesslike, while we were getting ready to have his wife. Guess I’m just a lucky man.”
Hannah, furious, spit in his face with all the venom she could muster.
Delivered by an angry Jarrett Cain, the ensuing slap across her check stung, but Hannah did not regret her move, as she watched him wipe his cheek on a handkerchief. Then he nodded to Eldon who shoved her over the kitchen table and began grappling with her skirts.
“Don’t fight me, Mrs. Crowe, or I’ll have you tied down,” Cain warned, while leaning in to her ear. “And I demand some respect from you. You can call me, ‘sir’, when you speak to me. Is that clear?”
She waited too long to reply and he addressed her again. “IS THAT CLEAR?”
“Yes, sir!” she spat out.
“Give her one hot ass, Eldon, and we’ll see how the little lady responds.”
A pair of cruel hands pried her legs apart as Hannah grabbed for the other side of the table. What more could she do but hold on? In the minutes that followed she felt the fiery heat of a leather belt thrashing callously across her bared bottom. The blows stung from the beginning and did not stop as the young buck beat her until her entire body was one wound of angry red. The pain was nearly unbearable. But she was too proud to cry out, too proud to whimper or even sob, even as the fierce lashes kept coming, harder, faster, meaner than she ever remembered being beaten. When it stopped, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief and muffled the threatening sob.
“Oh, don’t go thinking that’s all you’re going to get, Mrs. Crowe,” Cain warned. “You got one handsome butter paddle here that’s going blister this sorry ass.”
He held the paddle he’d found on the drain board before her eyes and leaned in so she couldn’t help but see the poisonous expression in his eyes.
