Chapter 4
Aaron Mercer came the next afternoon, and she saw that he hadn't traveled alone. Jojo and Lang got out of the front seat of the gray Buick, and looked around before the other man came out. Mercer was tall and lean, and composed of varying shades of gray-hair, silk suit, eyes; only his skin was different; it was tanned and healthy-looking, and somehow Jill knew that the tan would extend farther than just his throat, that it would be baked on all over his body.
He came to the porch with a long, easy stride, a faint smile upon his lips, and when he got there, held out his hand to her. "Mrs. Devlin."
The touch of him was smooth, and his hands were soft, but with strength to them. Glancing down, she saw that his nails were manicured. She took her hand away, aware of a tingle in her flesh, wanting to hide it behind her back and rub away the sensation he'd left on her skin.
"Please come in, Mr. Mercer." She didn't include the two men waiting at the car, and he didn't seem conscious of their presence.
Jill was wearing relatively new jeans, and a horse-show kind of blouse that had fluffs at the sleeves but none up front, so her breasts showed through the silken white material to best advantage. Her hair was tied back with a white ribbon, and she had on only a touch of lipstick.
"I have only bourbon, or if you'd prefer coffee?"
"In New Orleans," he said, "they mix the two, and in time, they have some really wide-awake drunks."
She laughed and asked him to sit down, feeling somewhat like a schoolgirl unsure of herself on a first date. She drew coffee from the big pot and poured in a jigger of bourbon, sitting down across from him.
Mercer sipped at his cup. "Very good. And so are you, Mrs. Devlin. It's a pleasure to look at a woman so healthy and vibrant; hothouse plants can never quite match the natural ones, can they? All right, then-I'm here to do more than admire a lovely woman, of course. And I'll be brief: Do you have some special kind of deal going with Pittman? Something in particular about your property here?"
Jill stared. "I-I think that's personal business."
"Yes, but it might possibly concern me. You've never heard of me, Mrs. Devlin?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so."
"I'm a real estate developer," he said. "I build towns, sometimes. Or retirement estates, things like that. Whenever I move into an area, some people try to figure exactly what I intend doing, and I'd rather they didn't. That's why I asked you about Pittman; he's been spending time with you lately, and he isn't exactly a woman chaser. I also understand that his bank holds a mortgage on your land."
"Yes," Jill said, "he's been seeing me and he holds the mortgage, and if you know that much, you know we're behind on our payments."
Mercer nodded, then asked, "He hasn't said anything to you about me, or why I'm here?"
"Should he?"
"No, but I learned long ago that bankers are the least trustworthy of the people I deal with. They're too familiar with the workings of money."
Jill finished her coffee and bourbon, and liked the flavor it left in her mouth. She was conscious of Aaron Mercer's appraising eyes, of the obvious pleasure he derived from looking at her legs, her hips and breasts.
He said, "I can't find fault with Pittman's taste in women, though. Perhaps he doesn't constantly think of money, as I'd believed."
Jill felt a strange warmth, a sense of having pleased this man, and wondered why the hell it should be in the least important that she should care, one way or another. But there was power in Aaron Mercer, the same kind she knew lived in Boyce Pittman, but a more urgent, stronger dynamic.
"I still don't understand why you've come to me, Mr. Mercer. My involvement with Boyce is-personal, in the main. I'm a married woman, and although it may sound silly, a happily married one."
"Of course," he said softly. "More or less happy, that is. Bored, sometimes; lonely more than you should be-happy like that. Else you wouldn't have a personal involvement with Pittman; you would be far more selective."
She stood up. "Another drink?"
His eyes followed her, strange gray eyes set deeply within that richly tanned face. "You hope I'll say no, so I'll leave and you can stop being uncomfortable."
"I'm not uncomfortable. I'm just a bit angry, because all this is really none of your business."
"Oh, but it is my business. I intend to make you an important part of my stay here. I'll take that drink, please."
Inwardly cursing the man's insolence, Jill took the cups to the kitchen for refilling. Outside, the big man sat in the car; the slim one was perched atop the corral fence.
"One for the road," she said, handing him the cup, knowing that funny tingle as her fingers brushed his. "I'm really not a promiscuous bitch, Mr. Mercer. What I've done with Boyce was something necessary at the time."
"Please sit down," he said, those eyes of his fastened to her own. "I promise not to rape you, although there's something to be said for the mastery-and the being mastered-of a good, feverish rape."
Weakly, Jill sank into her chair, and drank deeply of the hot coffee and whiskey mix to settle herself. Aaron Mercer was an unsettling man. His voice could be rough, turn honeyed, and always so evenly logical; yet its tone was throaty, and carried the forcefulness of the male.
"That's better," he went on, his eyes working slowly over her body now. "A woman's most responsive sex organ, her most erotic of the erogenous zones, is her mind. Then let us communicate, my dear; let us talk of you and your husband, or you and Pittman-and of course-you and me. Don't you feel a certain inevitability about this?"
She touched her lips with her tongue. "I don't know what I feel. Please; you'd better go now."
He leaned forward. "That's not what you mean at all. You feel threatened, but you shouldn't. I am complimenting you, my dear. I see you as an intelligent, very attractive woman, a compelling woman of beauty who is also highly sensuous. That lascivious streak is important, because being lovely simply isn't enough, except for some other insensitive clod. But you are voluptuous, ready for debauchery, and I appreciate that. So few American woman have that honest lewdness."
Quickly, Jill drank the rest of the mixture in her cup. It was too hot, and burned her throat, but she needed it, and the time to get herself together. Mercer didn't wait for an answer. "You're twenty-eight, twenty-nine," he said, "and that's the full bloom of the average woman's sexuality, and although you're certainly not the norm, I would say that you're unfolding your petals now, for the first time. Tell me, Jill," he mouthed her first name as if it had a special flavor, "tell me, have you ever had a man go down on you?"
She shook her head before she could catch herself; the man had her mesmerized. "I-that's perverted, a deviate reaction ..."
His smile was comforting, warm and wise. "Only if it's a constantly sought end to sex, rather than a means to heighten pleasure, and even then, there's some question as to perversion. A deviation from the accepted pattern, yes-but does a properly programmed married woman seek an adulterous affair and claim that she is still in love with her betrayed husband? Yet I believe that you are still in love with Sergeant Devlin, because I accept you as a whole person, as the uniqueness of yourself, and therefore not a deviate, but a woman who makes her own rules."
"Oh, wow," Jill breathed. "Mister, you can certainly fit all the little parts together, but I don't see how ..."
He leaned back, eyes smoldering, lips firm. "I would have you undress yourself, slowly and gracefully so I could feast upon each newly exposed part of your body until you were naked. Then you would sit as you are, in that same chair, but with your legs spread farther. Please, my dear, part your thighs slightly. Ah, yes, that's it; now I can see the suggestion of your mound where the jeans are snug against it."
His voice stroked her, soothed her, and Jill found that her eyelids were getting heavy, that a slow lassitude was stealing throughout her body. Doped, she thought, but remembered that she had fixed the drinks herself, that he hadn't been near her cup. It was just his approach, his sexy voice and the things he was saying. He made her feel as if little soft hands were fondling her breasts and caressing her belly.
"You have a lovely vulva," he went on. "I can picture it as you sit there. The hair will be thick and curly, and the same shade as your hair; it will spring luxuriantly against the velvet skin of your belly, and beckon me to look closer at the portals it guards. Ah, yes, my dear-and your labia majora will be distended, reddened in anticipation of love; beneath them, the labia minora, softer lips, wetter lips, eagerly awaiting my kiss."
Jill sucked in her breath, and knew the dampness was spreading through her vagina, that it was seeping out to dew the lips he was describing without ever having seen them. With his voice only, she was being made ready for loving.
"I'll kiss your knees first," Aaron Mercer said, "and proceed slowly along the inner portions of your tender thighs, hesitating to breathe upon your pubic hair before I kiss your mons Veneris. Ah; there will be a definite flavor there, a spicy scent that is all your own. But it is there for me to savor, to taste, and I will touch the end of my tongue delicately into your hairs, pushing it down until it finds and lingers upon your sultry labia."
Sighing, Jill opened her knees and stretched out her legs. Through heavy lids, her eyes peered across at the man, and the look of him was intense, meaningful. She could swear that she felt his breath upon her crotch, his tongue licking hotly over the slippery labia that were trembling so in hunger for more. But somehow, he was still there on the couch; somehow, he was only describing in minute detail just what he planned to do to her body when he went down on her.
Why didn't he? Oh, why didn't he?
He stopped. He wasn't going on; he left her dangling there, wondering what the plunge of his tongue would be like, trying to know the feel of his teeth against her pussy and the snuggling of his head between her thighs. Jill shivered, and with a great effort of will, pulled her feet back to the chair and pressed her legs together.
"You see?" he asked. "Nothing so terrible, no touch of it grimy or degrading. There is only beauty in giving, and only beauty in the taking."
Audibly, Jill swallowed, and hoped that she hadn't dampened the crotch of her jeans while he had been staring so intently between her legs. It was the damnedest feeling, as if it actually had been happening to her, only without being carried through to its ultimate conclusion, and so she had been cheated. She was going to say that, when he began to talk again, but this time, it was different. It wasn't about him performing cunnilingus on her, but about her doing it to him, going down on him.
"You approach me, and naturally you're curious about what sort of penis I have, whether it's short or long, thick or slim, whether it's circumcised, or if you'll have foreskin to play with. I take it out of my pants and let you see, so that your first questions are answered. Then I will lower my pants and sit with my legs open, so you can kneel between them."
Jill lifted a hand to her mouth and pressed the back of it to her teeth. She tried to force her eyes away from his, but the struggle was too much for her. She gave up the fight, and when her eyes did slide away from the penetrating gray of his, they fastened themselves to the bulge that was growing in his pants, to the erection that was swelling along his belly. A big one; a thick one that was also long and heavy. Blinking, she tried to decide if she was fantasizing or seeing the real thing.
Honeyed and liquid, his voice poured over her, and somehow she looked down and saw herself kneeling there before him, ready to do anything he wanted. No-anything she wanted, and at that brightly faceted moment in time, Jill Devlin wanted very much to lean down and take the enlarged head of this man's cock into her lips.
Closer and closer it loomed, and she saw the clear, shining drop of fluid clinging to the slit in the glans; she saw the distended ridges and below them a vein throbbing and expanded with the essences of life that pulsed in it.
Her lips parted; her breath gusted warmly down upon that lovely object, and the saliva gathered sweetly inside her cheeks and along her tongue. Jill's mouth opened wide, and she could almost-almost-taste the male musk exuding from his cock and the hairy testicles nestling below.
"Not yet," he said sharply, and Jill blinked her eyes rapidly, amazed to find that she was still sitting in her chair, that Aaron Mercer was still fully dressed upon the couch.
Clenching her hands, she felt a chill touch of fear, some deeply buried primeval warning system that was sending out caution signals. He stood up slowly, so as not to alarm her further, and his smile was benign, meant to heal. She was still afraid of him, but her fright seemed irrational when he began to talk about business.
"We can talk some more soon, Jill. About your ranch and about ourselves. Please remember, if Pittman seems to be doing something wrong for you, at least come and ask me about it. We'll talk then."
Dazed, she followed him to the door and said good-bye through dry lips. He didn't look back, but crossed the yard at his long, easy gait to where Lang was holding open the back door of the gray Buick. Jojo drove the car away, moving slowly and carefully down the rough road, and Jill stared after it for a long time after it was gone.
Then she shivered and rubbed her hands rapidly over her upper arms to warm them. Turning back into the house, she hurried to the kitchen and drank a large, straight shot of whiskey. Steps sounded on the porch, and she stuffed the bottle back into the cabinet and snapped the lock.
Dink Watson knocked on the door. "Mrs. Devlin?"
She busied herself at the sink, washing coffee cups. "Come in, Dink."
Hat in hand, boots scuffing across the floor, he stood beside the table until she asked him to sit down. Then he said, "Thank you, ma'am," and accepted the steaming cup of coffee she served him.
His hands shook as he sipped at the brew, and his rheumy old eyes watered. After a while he said, "Didn't mean to get drunk, but then I never do. This fella come visiting-old Sam Starr from Texas, come clean out here because he didn't know Hale Devlin was dead; used to be partners with your daddy-in-law a long spell back."
Dink forced himself to drink more coffee, and Jill said, "And naturally, this Sam Starr brought along some whiskey, so you two could talk over bourbon and branch water."
"Somethin' like that," Dink admitted. "Then it got kind of drunk out, but not afore we took a good look at the stud horse. Sam Starr was right interested in Comet D; said something about the bloodlines him and Hale Devlin had been tryin' for.
I'm right sorry about losin' a day's work, Mrs. Devlin, and I'll make it up."
"Drink your coffee, Dink. Was this man from Texas driving a pickup with fat tires?"
"Yes ma'am-Chevy three-quarter with one of them campers on it; got to have overload springs and good tires for that kind of weight."
Then that explained the set of tracks she'd seen in the yard, but it really wasn't clear why this Starr hadn't called the ranch from town, or inquired around about Steve's father before driving out. And she still hadn't seen him, only the hired hand had managed that.
"I'll get to the rest of that fence tomorrow," Dink said. "I appreciate you doin' all the chores like that."
"Okay, Dink. This Texan didn't say anything else?"
The old man rubbed his forehead. "Can't recollect, rightly. We talked horses a whole lot, and he said he was sure sad that him and Hale Devlin split up like they did."
She shrugged. "Guess he'll come back, if he has anything important on his mind, like buying some of our horses. I'd sure like to unload most of them."
"Can't say he looked at the rest much," Dink said, "just the stud."
She asked, "Can you eat?"
He shuddered. "Not right now, ma'am, but I thank you just the same. Might be I'll try some mulligan later on tonight, if my belly settles."
"See you tomorrow, then," she said. "I might have to run back to town on business; seems like that's all I do, stay on the road to and from town, but it's because of the ranch. You know we're in trouble, don't you?"
Dink rose from the table, battered hat twisting nervously in his veined hands. "Yes ma'am, and I sure wish there was some way for me to help."
Jill put a hand on his arm. "Without you, we couldn't run at all, Dink."
He left quickly, embarrassed by praise, and she watched him check the water troughs before going on to the barn. It was true enough; Dink Watson kept things together with spit and baling wire, and it was up to her to supply the credit the ranch needed. If not through Boyce Pittman, then maybe through this other interesting and frightening man, Aaron Mercer. What had he said about being a developer, and about coming to see him if Boyce didn't help?
That had been overwhelmed by the other talk-the hypnotic words that created such imagery she had been caught up in some kind of dream that left her shaken to the core. Whatever the cause, she had been ready for oral gratification, both to receive and to give it. Just that bit of knowledge was spooky enough.