Free The Red Velvet Horse (Siren Publishing Allure) by Iona Blair Page B

bend over the bed and drop your pants,” he ordered her in a voice that sounded alien even to his own ears.
    “Wow, you really do have an appetite tonight.” Carla giggled nervously. She did as he wanted, leaving her shoes on and poking her behind well up in the air to accommodate him.
    “God that’s great...just great…” he muttered like a mantra, while he fucked the living bejesus out of the woman, whom he thought might very well have betrayed his confidences in the worst possible way.
    When she came and sat on his lap afterwards, curling up like a cat in a contented little ball, he wondered if perhaps he might be mistaken. Heavens, am I getting paranoid? Or, was he just seeking someone else to blame for his own carelessness?
    However, several weeks later, the Police recovered some of the pieces stolen in the robbery, and the dealer who had fenced them identified Carla as the source.
    “Well at least we have everything back now…or almost,” April exclaimed gratefully when she heard the good news. She had been working on a window display for Halloween at the time. “So you can tell that crook Nick Eglassio to take a hike. We will not be doing business with him after all.”

Chapter Six
     
    Now that I was in touch with my darling Tom again, all else in life paled beside the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the very sight of his letters. “Marry me, Hannah, please,” he implored. “Let’s not risk losing each other again.” Yet, much though I would have loved to accept and move back to the sweet air of the pacific coast, I knew it was but a pipe dream. For I already had a husband living there, a brutal beast named Ned Beasley.
    Also––and this I will not attempt to either deny or justify–– I had got used to a more luxurious style of living and was reluctant to abandon this comfort to eke out a mean living as the wife of a tram conductor.
    That was not the end of it either. My sexual appetite had increased since working at Mrs. Cloud’s, and I simply could not imagine being restricted to one man forever, even if it were someone as handsome and dear as my beloved Tom.
    It was around this time that a most unexpected occurrence took place.
    Old Jock and I had just enjoyed a particularly rousing time astride the wanton Neddy. I could hear the church bells tolling in the distance, heralding in a New Year. As we clinked our glasses together, and swallowed the champagne in one greedy gulp, he asked me to be his wife.
    “I could never get enough of your sweet quim, lassie,” he declared with a frankness that did him credit. “And if you were my wife we could be shagging away like beavers every minute of the day.”
    “You do me a great honor, Jock,” I replied, once the initial shock had worn off, and I had contented myself that he was indeed serious in his proposal. “But please, give me time to consider.”
    Marriage was a big step, as I had found out to my cost with the monstrous Ned Beasley. This thought entered my mind with just the right amount of wryness to offset any bad feeling or bitterness, for these are poor bedfellows who rob us of joy, as certainly as they do no harm to the stinker who caused them in the first place.
    “Are you going to accept him, Ma’am?” Mattie asked, her plump little hands clenched uneasily in her lap. Concerned, no doubt, as to what her position would be in a new household.
    “I am,” I replied without hesitation. For Jock was a very wealthy man, having made his fortune in the lumber business. Chances such as this did not come along every day. While it was true that he was uncouth with the most vulgar of sexual appetites, he was not ungenerous. Always giving me a most handsome tip on top of the fee to Mrs. Cloud. Unusual for a Scotsman, or at least that’s what we’ve been led to believe. There again, this unbecoming characteristic was probably attributed to them by their old archenemy the English. Scotland being a poor country, they simply didn’t have it