A Lady of the West by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t take her.
    He laughed soundlessly, a little insanely. He had his lady, all right, but he couldn’t do a thing about it.
    He thought of her white-skinned, perfect body and broke out in a sweat again at the thought of touching her and finding his manhood limp and useless.
    In a thousand nights during the past twenty years he had awakened to hear himself whimpering, and found his hands cupped protectively over his privates. A thousand nightmares had been filled with a scarlet-stained knife and a boy’s hate-twisted face. In his dreams he couldn’t escape and the knife finished its job. The reality had been bad enough; he’d walked spraddle-legged for weeks and his left testicle was drawn and withered. He’d lived in hell until he had recovered enough to find out if he was still capable of humping a woman, though he never let anyone know how desperate he’d been. After finding out that he
was
still capable, he took to bragging that he was more man with only one ball than most men were with two. But bragging hadn’t kept the nightmares away.
    But that wasn’t true anymore. His greatest fear had been realized. He couldn’t get an erection.
    She was so dainty and pristine, so untouchable. Frank McLain sat in the darkness of his room and tried to work things out in his mind, find some sort of explanation for the humiliating failure of his flesh. Goddammit, he’d never had any trouble humping a woman before, once he’d recovered from the knife wound. Only this one.
    So it had to be her fault. It wasn’t him; it was something about
her.
Maybe ladies weren’t for screwing. He had his lady for ruling over his house, his lady to dress in fancy gowns and show off in Santa Fe. With her culture and background, there was no limit to how high he could rise in the territory. That was why he’d married her. Hell, he didn’t care if he got any brats on her; he didn’t give a damn about leaving all of this to some snot-nosed kid who probably wouldn’t have half of his own strength. This was
his,
won with his guns and brains and guts. He was undisputed king in this part of the territory, and now he had his queen. He had what he wanted. Let her keep her knees locked; women like her were made to be treated like dolls, cosseted and protected, showcased in all their finery and jewels.
    That was what was wrong.
He just hadn’t understood before. He’d take care of her like she was royalty given into his protection, untouchable and untouched. When he wanted to hump somebody, he’d go to the kind of women he was comfortable with, women who squirmed and squealed and liked it.
    Like Angelina Garcia. She was just a whore, but she liked it any way a man could give it to her. McLain thought of the times he’d plowed her himself and to his enormous relief felt his manhood begin to stir.Yeah, that was what it had been all along. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, it had been his wife.
    He jerked off his nightshirt and hurriedly dressed. He had to have a woman, a real woman.
    Angelina had a room in the small building where the houseservants once lived, back when the damn Sarratts had kept enough servants to button up their britches. Most of the building was used for storage now; Carmita, Lola, and Juana used two rooms just off the kitchen. Angelina wasn’t much on keeping her room neat; it was always strewn with clothing and food, and stank of sex. She was greedy; she wanted several men a day, and if they didn’t come to her she went to them. She was flamboyantly beautiful, with a lush body, long black hair, and flashing dark eyes. As he hurried across the dark ground, McLain thought of what he was going to do to her and grew fully hard.
    He could barely wait. A thin line of light showed beneath her door. He pushed it open and Angelina turned her head sharply at the intrusion. She was naked, lying under a patched, yellow sheet, and she wasn’t