Acres, Natalie - Propositioned by Outlaws [Outlaws 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Free Page B

or so his friend said. By studying him then, she halfway believed Art.
    Lane’s green eyes sparkled like the expensive jewels she’d seen one of the miners’ wives wear right after her husband struck gold. A woman could look in eyes like that and appreciate what she had in a man. Sincerity lived there, and sorrow. One thing was certain—Lane was a good man.
    She cursed under her breath. How the hell would she know? She was probably buying into her ma’s theory. All her mother’s men were saints.
    “Why are you in Cripple Creek ?” she asked.
    “ Cripple Creek ?” Art studied her intently. “Is that what you call this here place?”
    “Yes. Just right over a couple of hills lays one of the greatest mining towns in the West. Did you come here in search of a fortune?”
    “You might say we came to find out about one we’re accused of stealing,” Lane explained.
    “What’s that?” she asked, tightening her arms around her chest.
    “Don’t go and worry your pretty head none,” Art said. “We ain’t bandits on the run.”
    “Are you wanted?” she asked, thinking about the numerous posters hanging outside the marshal’s office in town.
    Art flashed a wide grin. “You tell me. Are we?”
    Victoria gulped. Was this the kind of banter her momma enjoyed? She clutched the letter tighter and pinched the underside of her arm. It was rather peculiar that these two men showed up on the same day she discovered her mother’s letter. Rather odd indeed. She twisted the skin and yelped. “Ouch.”
    Art frowned. “Somethin’ bite you?”
    “No,” she replied, convinced the timing of the letter and the arrival of two outlaws was nothing more than a twist of fate. “I asked you a question.”
    “He asked you one, too,” Lane reminded her.
    “I don’t go to bed with outlaws.”
    “Do you go to bed with men?” Art asked.
    “What difference does it make?” she fired back.
    “Just askin’ a man’s question,” Art told her. “If you got a price, let me know.”
    “Well, I’ve never in my life,” she said, stomping up the first of several hills they’d have to climb. Halfway up the incline, she turned and looked down on the men she’d left standing there in all their amused glory. “I’ll have you know right this second…” She shook her finger several times and continued, “I ain’t no whore.”
    “Let me guess, it’s not for the lack of trying?” Art teased her.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You ain’t a whore, and that much is obvious,” Lane said. “I’ve seen one or two of them in my time.”
    “That’s your problem, I reckon. I didn’t ask you to tell me your flaws.”
    “No you didn’t,” Lane said, chuckling as he shook his head. “And I said I’ve seen one or two of them. I didn’t say I’d put it to one or two of them.”
    Victoria gulped. There was something about Lane’s frank way of saying things in simple terms. He made her body alert to all sorts of possibilities. Her nerve endings tingled, and her mouth was dry one minute, moist the next. And God help her, she couldn’t help but notice the sizeable bulge in the man’s breeches.
    “So are you wanted by the marshal or not?” she asked, deciding their answer would more or less let her know whether or not she wanted to entertain strangers.
    “I reckon we are,” Art said regretfully. “Does that mean you’re gonna judge us?”
    Lane stroked his two-day growth of beard. “I don’t believe she will.”
    “How would you know?”
    “Lucky guess. I heard the way your voice changed as you read that letter there in your hand. There was something about the way your body went rigid. Your hands shook, and I believe if you hadn’t been in the open daylight, you might have let your fingers wander, maybe you would’ve pleasured yourself, slid your hands down the front of your pantaloons and done the kind of things you ain’t yet to experience with a man.”
    “That’s not so,” she said, holding her