“Don’t keep me waiting,” Helsa requested.
Fargo didn’t intend to. He hiked his gun belt up above his waist, lowered his pants, and ran the tip of his member along her slit. He was going to do it several times but she suddenly raised her bottom and thrust forward and he was buried inside of her.
“Yes,” Helsa cooed. “Oh, yes.”
Fargo commenced to rock on his knees. The table was hard and his knees soon hurt but the pleasure eclipsed the pain and he continued to impale her. She met each thrust with a thrust of her own, and while his fingers tweaked her breast, her fingers cupped him, down low, and did things that sent pure delight rippling up his spine.
Fargo gripped her hips. He pumped harder and faster and she did the same.
The table swayed and creaked, and it was a wonder the legs didn’t collapse.
“I’m close,” Helsa cried. “So close.”
Not Fargo. He paced himself, letting it build slowly. Suddenly her fingernails dug into his shoulders and she tossed her head from side to side while her body thrashed in the throes of release. He felt her spurt, felt the wet down to his knees.
“Yes! Yes!” Helsa cried.
Fargo might have held off longer except for the smell of the beef and potatoes. He focused on the feel of her, on the moist sensation of her inner sheath, and the next thing he knew, he was spurting. She clutched him close and ground fiercely against him. Her cry mingled with his groan and together they coasted down from the summit of their passion to the hard reality of the kitchen and the table under them.
Helsa kissed him on the mouth. “When you make love to me I feel as if I’m in heaven.”
“Hell,” Fargo said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t make more of it than there is.” Fargo slid off her, sat up, and swung his legs over the side.
“Don’t worry,” Helsa said with a hint of reproach. “I’m not about to ask you to marry me.”
Fargo’s pants were down around his ankles. He bent and pulled them up just as the back door opened and in strode Harvey Stansfield with his six-shooter leveled. Behind him came Dugan and McNee.
Harvey was grinning like the cat that saw the canary in a cage. “Is this a bad time for a visit?” he asked. His mirth was echoed by his friends.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Helsa demanded in outrage as she pulled her robe tight around her.
“We came to settle accounts,” Harve said, looking at Fargo.
Dugan and McNee had their hands on their revolvers but hadn’t drawn them. Both were trying to get an eyeful of Helsa.
“I thought you were in jail.”
“That we were, thanks to you,” Harvey said. “Bitch.” Without warning he took a long step and backhanded her across the face. Helsa fell back against the table and would have fallen except for Fargo, who caught her about the waist.
Helsa was more shocked than hurt. Her hand to her red cheek, she said, “How did you get out?”
Dugan answered her. “It’s simple. We told that pudding bowl of a marshal that if he let us loose, we’d pack up and be out of Haven inside of an hour.” Dugan chuckled. “Of course, that was five hours ago.”
McNee nodded. “Tibbit believed us, the lummox. As if we would leave after what he did to us.” McNee pointed at Fargo. “Three times he’s whupped us but this time is the charm.”
“That’s right,” Harvey gleefully agreed. “We have you now, big man. We have you and we are going to finish what we started.”
“Cat got your tongue?” Dugan taunted when Fargo didn’t respond.
“I bet he’s afraid,” McNee said. “He knows we have him dead to rights and he’s peeing in his britches.”
“Not him,” Harve said. “He may be a lot of things but he’s not yellow.”
“You’re standing up for him?” Dugan asked in amazement.
“Hell no. But you didn’t hear him beg when we threw that noose around his neck, did you? He hasn’t tried to skedaddle when we’ve jumped him. It’s almost a shame he won’t live out the night.”
“What are you saying?” Helsa said. “You touch a hair on his head and I’ll see to it that you are treated to a hemp social, so help me God.”
“She will, too,” McNee said, sounding worried.
“Not if she’s not alive to tell anyone,” Dugan said.
Both looked at Harve Stansfield, who shook his head. “Kill a woman and we’ll have the whole town after us. But that doesn’t mean we let her be a witness.”
“A witness to what?” Helsa asked. “To the three of you shooting him down in cold blood?”
“Too quick, too painless,” Harve said. “Thanks to him I can barely talk, my lips are so swollen. He has to pay for our bruises and aches.”
“But it was your fault,” Helsa almost shouted. “You tried to hang him even though he was innocent of any wrongdoing.”
“How were we to know?” Harve rebutted. “And that’s long since water over the dam. All that matters to us is to have our fun and light a shuck before the marshal comes after us.”
“Tibbit will throw away the key,” Helsa predicted.
“Only if he catches us, and we’ll be long gone before they find the body.”
Her chin jutting in defiance, Helsa planted herself between Fargo and the three. “I won’t let you, you hear? You’ll have to go through me to get to him.”
“Women,” McNee said.
“They are more of a bother than they are worth,” Dugan said.
“Except in bed,” Harvey chimed in, and leered at her.
Not one of them thought to make Helsa move. Not one of them seemed to realize that they couldn’t see Fargo’s hands with her standing in front of him.
Fargo realized it. His gun belt was still hitched above his waist, his holster high on his right side. He began to slide his hand toward it.
“Out of the way,” Dugan told Helsa.
“No.”
“You’re trying our patience, lady.”
Fargo said over her shoulder, “I have a question.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Harve said.
“What do you aim to do with me?”
“Damn, you are stupid. What do you think? We aim to drag you out and throw you over a horse and take you into the woods and finish what we started the other night.”
Helsa placed a hand to her throat. “You mean you intend to hang him? That’s hideous.”
“He’s made us laughingstocks.”
Fargo’s hand was almost to the holster. He tensed to jerk the Colt but froze when Harve suddenly seized Helsa’s wrist and pressed his revolver to her head.
“On second thought we’re taking you with us. We leave you here, even trussed up, you might get free and raise a ruckus and we’ll have the marshal after us sooner than we want.” Harve glanced past her at Fargo and said, “Hell. We forgot to take his pistol, boys.” He cocked his. “How about you hand it over nice and easy or this just might go off?”
Fargo would have rather swallowed burning coals than give up the Colt but with that pistol against Helsa’s head, he plucked it out.
“McNee, take it and cover him. He’s not turning the tables on us this time.”
Fargo submitted to having the Colt taken and to having McNee step behind him and jam the muzzle of a six-gun against his spine.
Harvey lowered his pistol and smiled. “Well now. We have the upper hand at last. Dugan, go bring the horses into the backyard.”
“Why are you giving all the orders?” Dugan responded. “We’re in this the same as you.”
They argued, and Helsa shifted toward Fargo and said, “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should have thrown the bolt on the back door but I wasn’t sure if you would come in through the front or the back.”
“Hush, bitch,” McNee said.
“I can talk if I want,” Helsa said. “And don’t use that kind of language around me. I’m a lady, I’ll have you know.”