Ecstasy in Elk's Crossing (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (23 page)

“Where are you going, cunt?” David bellowed then threw his head back on his shoulders and released an enormous belly laugh. “How many goddamn times do I have to tell you to ask for permission before you do things? Is it any wonder I had to slap your fat ass around? When are you going to open your ears and listen to reason?”

Katie was at the end of the bar, doubled over, fighting to remain conscious. The ringing in her ears was so loud she could barely hear David’s insults. The acrid stench of gasoline burned her nostrils. Her blouse and brassiere were so saturated that gasoline literally dripped off of her.

From his shirt pocket, Katie watched as David pulled out a box of sulphur-tipped stick matches.

“Don’t. Don’t do this.”

David shook his head slowly, his gaze locked onto Katie’s. “Not this time,” he said, his voice very low, nearly a whisper. “It’s time for justice, Katie.”

In a single motion, he scratched a match against the emery board on the side of the box and flicked the burning match at her. Katie let out a startled cry and slapped her hands together, trapping the match and putting it out, but not before getting a burn on both hands.

“This isn’t justice,” Katie said. Both palms were throbbing where she’d crushed out the sulphur that had still been flaring when she’d caught the match. “This is murder.”

David sent another flaming match at Katie. This time, instead of catching it, she slapped it out of the air. The match, still flaring when it reached the floor, landed in gasoline. It took instantly to flame, and within seconds the fire was crawling toward the stools near the bar that David had saturated with gasoline.

Katie now had fire to her left, and David standing between herself and the front doors that were her only escape. To get to the back room of the saloon, she’d have to get past David. She watched as fire crawled up onto a barstool. Black smoke from plastic curled toward the ceiling, its stench burning in Katie’s nostrils.

She looked back at David just in time to see another flaring matchstick arching through the air toward her. Again she slapped it out of the air. When the match landed on the pool table, the gasoline-saturated felt tabletop went ablaze. Now Katie had fire to her right and left, with her back to the wall and David in front of her.

“Seems an awful lot like hell, doesn’t it?” David laughed again, but the sound was cut off abruptly, and he glared hatefully at Katie. “You put me through hell, you cunt! This is justice! Your justice! This is the goddamned karma you taught me about, the karma you deserve!”

Katie’s brain seemed to suddenly operate a hundred times faster than normal. As though the world was in slow motion, she saw all of her options clearly and precisely. Most importantly, she saw them with a crystalline lucidity. Her clothes were soaked in gasoline. To her right and left were fires that were growing stronger by the second. In front of her was a demented ex-lover flicking lit matchsticks at her, clearly hoping to get her blouse to start on fire. If she tried to run through the flames to get away from David, her clothes would start on fire. As soaked as they were, if the fire didn’t kill her, she’d still be burned beyond all recognition. The only path to freedom was straight ahead, straight at David, and he had a nasty-looking kitchen knife and a big box of matches. If she waited much longer, the flames would come to her, and she’d die.

David tossed the matches aside and extracted the knife from his belt. He held the knife out in front of himself, crouching over in a classic knife fighter’s stance.

“So what’ll it be, you cunt? Do you want the fire to get you, or do I get to slice your fucking throat?”

“Want to know something? Since I dumped your pudgy ass, I’ve found out what it’s like to get thoroughly and royally fucked.” She forced a laugh from her throat. “Not that limp-dick, half-assed stuff you used to give me. I’m talking about real men with real cocks.”

“You vile cunt!” David took two steps toward Katie, realized he was standing in flames, and then danced backward quickly. The right leg of his trousers was smoldering, and he slapped at the fabric before it went ablaze. “You’re just saying that!”

“No, I’m not.”

With her periphery vision, Katie studied the flames. She figured she had less than a minute before she’d have to make a run for it. But maybe, if she could enrage David enough, he might charge her. With luck, she could push him aside, and then she could get to the other side of the fire, and he would be the one with his back to the wall.

“Liar!”

“That tiny cock of yours never gave me any pleasure. I’ve got four lovers now. Four hot, horny men that love me just the way I am. And I give it to them, David. I give them everything they ask for.” She put her hands on her hips saucily. “I’ve even given them my ass.”

“Cunt!” David screamed and rushed at Katie.

It was losing his temper that saved David’s life. An instant after he attacked Katie, Aaron’s pickup truck smashed through the front wall of the saloon, just to the left of the front doors, careening into the main room, smashing into the pool table as glass, splintered wood, and remnants of neon advertising signs sprayed in every direction.

Aaron bolted from the pickup truck, his handsome face a mask of rage. “Come here, you bastard!” he shouted, rushing headlong at David.

Katie had no choice but to run through fire to get to the enormous hole in the front of the building. Off to her left, she saw that David had bolted behind the bar to escape Aaron’s fury. The other three McGowan brothers were piling out of the pickup’s cab as Katie rushed toward them.

She heard the
whoosh!
when her blouse caught on fire. Across the surface of her mind flashed horrific images of herself, her face and body burned beyond anything anyone would recognize.

Then hands were on her, ripping at her clothes, wiping down her face and breasts even as she was pulled out of the building through the gaping hole created by the pickup.

“Get her down!” one of the brothers screamed.

“Get her clothes off! They’re soaked in gasoline!” shouted another.

Hands were everywhere, tearing and rubbing, stopping the flames the instant they started. Her blouse was ripped from her, and then her gasoline-saturated brassiere. She smelled the stench of singed hair, but not the unmistakable smell of burning flesh. Her Nikes were removed, and then jeans and panties were unceremoniously ripped down her legs.

In something of a daze, Katie pushed herself to a sitting position, finding herself in the parking lot completely naked, forty feet from the saloon, surrounded by the men she loved. Flames now were completely engulfing the ground floor of the saloon, and smoke was coming from the upstairs windows.

“You’re all right?” she asked Aaron. The look in his eyes was murderous.

“Bastard ran upstairs. I couldn’t follow him.”

She could feel the heat of the fire against her bare skin. When she started to get to her feet, the brothers immediately helped her. She looked at the Mountain View Saloon, stepping backward because each second sent fresh waves of heat toward her, each one more intense than the last.

An upstairs window opened. David leaned out, his smile maniacal, waving the long-bladed knife.

“I win, you fuckers! I win!”

He disappeared back into the room. It was the bedroom that Katie had used when she had stayed with her grandparents.

“He doesn’t stand a chance,” Aaron said as ever-thickening smoke rolled out of the upstairs windows.

Aaron removed his shirt and gave it to Katie. She was hardly aware of her own nudity, conscious only of the four men around her, of what they’d been willing to do to save her, and of their love for her.

From inside the saloon, from the upper floor, a hideous cry cut through the night, high-pitched and loud enough to be heard above the roar of the flames.

* * * *

Katie looked at herself in the mirror, and she was not at all happy with what she saw.

“It’ll grow back,” Aaron said, standing behind her.

“Yes it will,” Katie said, “but you’ve got to look at me with a boy’s haircut until it does.” The fire had singed her hair so severely that the haircut she needed was infinitely shorter than she wanted. The only burns she received were the two on her palms, when she’d caught the flaming matchstick.

“Trust me, that’s the only thing about you that looks like a boy.”

Katie turned slowly away from the mirror. The horrors of the fire and of their last-second escape were never far from her thoughts. The McGowan brothers were standing near the door to her bedroom, each one more handsome than the next.

“In that case, why don’t you show me just how much you love me?”

“For how long?”

“How does ‘forever’ sound?”

“Like a good start, is all.” Aaron raised a brow. “Is an eternity asking for too much?”

All four McGowan brothers smiled and began unbuttoning their shirts.

Robin Gideon has been the featured author on the nationally-syndicated TV show
CBS Sunday Morning,
was named 3rd Best All-time for sexy romances by Amazon.com’s ListMania, and is the author of numerous novels and novellas. She lives in what has been described as Frostbite Falls, Minnesota. She loves hearing from her readers and can be reached at [email protected].

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For titles by Robin Gideon writing as

Brandi Maxwell, please visit

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