CHAPTER ONE
Melanie screamed as the masked riders thundered past the window of the stagecoach. There
were three of them, pistols drawn. A moment later she heard gunshots as the vehicle
lurched to a halt in the middle of the dusty, dirt road. The momentum threw her forward,
onto the opposing row of unoccupied seats. Before she could straighten herself, one of the
robbers burst through the coach door, his Colt .45 pointed at her temple.
“Get up, little lady,” the invader announced from behind his tightly drawn bandanna.
“This here’s a robbery.”
“Let go of me!” she cried, utterly helpless as the ruffian hauled her down the steps,
throwing her into the arms of a second masked man, tall and broad shouldered, wearing a
black cowboy hat, leather vest and chaps.
The man laughed as he passed her off to a third, a short fellow with a yellow bandanna
and a bowler hat. This one decided to keep her, turning her about so she was firmly in his
grasp from behind.
“Give us your valuables,” ordered the first man, the one who’d pulled her from the
coach. She winced at the presence of him so close to her delicate face; he was foul
smelling, with an eye patch and a tall, rounded hat of the sort Melanie was fairly certain
her uncle had told her was called a ten gallon. It was hard to remember. He’d had to teach
her so much about the Wild West, and in such a short period of time. As it was, she had
barely gotten out of the city in time.
“Please, sir,” she cried. “I have nothing of value. I’m a penniless maiden on my way to
Big Rock to serve as the new school marm.”
The man snickered behind his greasy red bandanna. “You hear that boys? The lady’s
headin’ for a posting in Big Rock.”
They all started laughing as they cast significant looks in each other’s direction. Was
there something about the town she didn’t know?
“A posting?” howled the tall one. “Yea, they got plenty of them out in Big Cock—I mean
Big Rock.”
“Yes, I’ll bet there’s plenty you can teach them in Big Cock—on your back that is!”
Melanie flushed red. Uncle Martin had warned her of the coarseness of men in the west,
but this was more than any lady could bear. “Have mercy, sirs. Can you not show some
civility to a lady of breeding? One who belongs to the family of—”
She stopped herself just in time. She’d been about to reveal her lineage, forgetting
that the whole reason she was out here in the middle of this cactus filled, rock strewn
desert wasteland was to hide her identity and secure a fresh start, free of the legal
entanglements which had nearly ended her up on the hangman’s noose in New York.
“Family of what? Whores?” The one with the eye patch supplied. He nodded now to the one
holding her. Without warning, hands reached round and ripped open her black silk traveling
jacket. Melanie gasped, for now she had only the white silk blouse and camisole to protect
her creamy, well-shaped breasts.
“No. That’s not true!” she cried, trying to free herself. A fugitive she might be, but
she was no lady of the evening. As to her false identity (she was traveling as Melanie
Jones, a middle class teacher) it was a fact born of necessity, designed to protect her
from unjust prosecution in New York.
“The hell it ain’t.” Small grubby hands pawed her breasts through the material. Melanie
commenced to squirming, but quickly realized her actions were only serving to stiffen her
abused nipples. It was a shameful thing, but not unexpected. Though a virgin, just
twenty-two years old, Melanie was a woman of strong passions. Many were the boys and men
who’d sought to woo the curvaceous, blue-eyed blonde in hopes of winning her for their
very own, and yet she’d held out.
Cavanaugh Reinhart III, until recently her fiancée, had sought more than her
kisses and when she refused his advances he had visited upon her the nightmare of her
life. It was his fault that she was here now, her once comfortable life in the city
ruined forever.
“You know,” the one eyed man said, “I believe you’re right. You ain’t no whore.”
Melanie did not care one bit for his tone of voice. Nor did she like it when he cocked
the trigger of his nasty black revolver and shoved it to her lips.
“Cause a whore’ll do a man for money, but, little lady, you’re about to do us all for
free. How do you like that idea?”
Melanie swung her head away only to have him bring it back round with the tip of the gun
barrel pressed to her cheek.
“I asked you a question,” he menaced, pushing the gun to her mouth. “I said how do you
like it?”
She accepted the gun between her trembling lips. “I–I don’t like it,” she managed to
say, the words wrapping round the slender yet deadly barrel.
“Boss,” said the little man, his equally foul breath hot on her neck. “Want me to get at
them titties for you?”
“No. Let her go. She’ll do it for us. Then she’ll lay her fine, uppity body down on the
ground and spread it for us. Isn’t that right? Unbutton your blouse, sweetheart.” He
grinned at her lasciviously. His good eye was cold and probing, his voice dark and
brittle, belying the term of endearment he’d just employed.
Melanie felt the hot tears spring from her eyes. No one was holding her now, but there
were still the three of them, with guns, strong nasty men, eyes intent like wolves.
Numbly, her fingers rose to do the man’s bidding. What choice did she have? The tiny pearl
buttons felt smooth on her fingers. One by one they yielded. It was ironic, really, that
she’d picked this particular outfit for its conservative bent– the long black skirt and
severe jacket with high button shoes and a simple, unadorned blouse. She might as well
have worn one of her dazzling and risqué gowns from back home considering how she
was being treated as a mere sexual object.
“Take it off,” he commanded when she had undone the final button.
Melanie began to tremor as she tugged at the edges of the blouse, pulling the halves
apart. She hesitated for a brief second, not wanting to shrug the material off her
shoulders. The motion would surely cause her bosom to swell in a most unseemly way.
“Do it,” he warned, aiming the pistol at her camisole-covered belly.
Melanie let her blouse fall to the hard, dry ground. There was a light breeze, and she
could feel the waft of it on her sensitive nipples.
“Take that hat off. Let down your hair.”
The man’s one good pupil was dilated. His voice was husky. It seemed like a dream, the
way her fingers went to her head, unpinning the small, elegantly pointed hat. She’d
trussed her long gold locks up elegantly this morning, so that the cascades of sun-beamed
curls hung only partially, but exquisitely down her neck. Melanie felt oddly naked with it
down, hanging to the middle of her back. Her unadorned hair was a sight no man had seen,
even her uncle, the man who’d raised her since her parents’ untimely death shortly after
her fourth birthday.
The man let out a little grunt of satisfaction. “Put them hands up in your hair, now.
Rub ‘em around good.”
Melanie looked with disgust at the man’s crotch. He was massaging his very prominent
erection through the material. So it was true then, they were intending to rape her.
She drew a sharp breath as she touched her own soft hair, her fingers wrapping round the
silky strands. It was such an intimate gesture, so wildly inappropriate for this evil and
foul setting.
“That’s it,” he crooned, yanking down his bandanna and licking his lips. “Show us how
bad you want it.”
Melanie closed her eyes against the sight of his pock marked face. Cavanaugh would have
loved to see this, she thought sardonically. The proud and aloof Melanie Hawthorne,
purported tease and temptress of the highest order, about to get her due. About to give
to these three despicable criminals the favors she would not grant to him. A shudder
passed through her body. She was sickened, of course, but there was something else, too.
An expectation, a tingling, almost as if her body was seeking out the very treatment she
so dreaded.
Cavanaugh’s words came to her now, whisky sodden in the back of her mind. You want it,
Melanie. Every woman does. The more you protest, it only just shows how badly you need for
a man to be strong enough to stamp his will upon you and make you feel the pleasure that
comes from shame.
“No!” she cried, a sudden flash of reality overtaking her dream-like state. “You
mustn’t! In the name of all that is holy— ”
The one eyed man growled, cocking the trigger to show he meant business. “Hands back on
your head, bitch, or you’ll be pushing up daisies.”
Melanie whimpered as he pressed the barrel to the center of her breast, flattening the
nipple painfully. As though bound there, she laced her fingers once more in her damp,
tousled hair.
Her tormenter laughed devilishly. Smelling her fear and capitulation, he shoved the
pistol back into her mouth, deeper than ever, the gun sight bruising the roof of her
mouth. “Start sucking, honey pie. You’ll need the practice.”
“Don’t,” she begged, her voice an imprisoned, garbled gasp. “Don’t make me—”
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