Buttercup Read online

  “Ooh Siiiiiilllll,” she choked out in a sob. He felt her convulse with tremors from another pending climax. He made love to her with his tongue and sucked her engorged bud, thrilling himself as well as her. The juicy morsel quivered and swelled in his mouth. She cried out through her release. An instant before his brain dissolved into mists of pure passion, a thought surfaced: what if they were caught? He was most vulnerable there. It was too risky. The Indian, the Carnie boys, the coppers chasing him, and his gang could run in at any moment. He licked her once more and dragged himself away, savoring the taste of her on his lips.

  Buttercup’s bottom lip quivered like her core. She looked up at him through the shadow of her long lashes. “Whatcha go and stop for?” she weakly groaned. Her head lifted from the stage. Her breasts jiggled, covered in a slick sheen of sweat. Each perky mound glistened as if sprinkled with stardust. He touched his cock again in his pants, battling the urge to take her there on the spot. The prolonged pause lengthened between them. He tried hard to decide on what next. Her lithe lush body was still shuddering in the aftermath of her climax.

  She waited, pleading with her eyes for more. Silvio broke. He swept her up into his arms. He climbed the short steps of the stage and went through the part in the curtain from whence she came. Buttercup nuzzled her face in the nook between his neck and shoulder. Behind the curtain to the back of the show tent was a small changing place. She moaned sweetly in his ear, holding on to him. He soon spotted it. A cot awaited the hooch dancers after their show. If he ever caught her pinned down on it with another man, giving up what was rightfully his, there’d be hell to pay. But what had she done in the six years he was gone? He forced the doubt of her faithfulness away. She was his. Only his.

  Silvio repressed the knowledge of the changes his mind secretly catalogued. Buttercup was different than in the past, but she was a girl of barely seventeen and he was a kid himself. He paid it no mind. They both had changed. His mind was on one thing. Reclaiming what was taken from him prematurely. Silvio gently placed her on top of the unsophisticatedly fashioned mattress. She stretched her arms above her head and shook her hips at him. The jingles and fluffing of the feathers were wildly stimulating. Silvio smiled. No words passed between them.

  Silvio fingers nervously fidgeted with the ties to the belt of her exotic skirt. He tugged it from under her and then tossed it aside. She was nude, complacent, but her smoldering gaze wasn’t. The first time he saw her she gave him that look. Like kerosene oil on a raging inferno, her beauty incinerated his sensibility. Not so tonight. Tonight he knew and would do everything as planned. Silvio yanked down his suspenders and undid the front of his pants to get on her quick. His hurried actions left her giggling, but when he rubbed his erection down in her delta, parted her legs, and shot his cock through her tight hole in a single thrust, her body shuddered in surprised delight.

  It had been many years. She would remember him. She would remember everything just as he did on the dirty roach infested floor of his jail cell waiting for freedom to come. This freedom. The freedom that would finally break the stifling hold this torturous desire for Buttercup held him in once and for all.

  Silvio bit into her bottom lip, which quickly became pliant. Where tight resistance greeted him, so did heat, a wet heat that eased his glide deeper through her channel. Buttercup gripped his arms, accommodating each inch of him, allowing him to plunge and go deeper. The expansions and contractions left them both gasping and grunting. Overcome with raw need, he broke.

  Uncontrollably, he began pumping at her moist pussy, madly slipping in and out, power-drilling his urgency for her submission. Buttercup purred in response. Madness. She enticed his tongue into her mouth and squeezed both halves of his butt, throwing her hips up to receive him, strike after strike. Oh, he was going to fuck her good.

  The humid cramped quarters, combined with the combustible heat from their joined writhing bodies, had the air in the tent sweltering. Silvio could not be stopped. He would not be stopped. He threw his head back, taking down a deep gulp of air, once his cock became sheathed in the most unbelievably delicious warmth. He found her body taut, thrumming for more no matter the demands he put on her. Silvio slowed his eager pace to something they both could savor. But her body, moving beneath him so tender and soft, made it all for naught. Again, he ravaged her, pounding inch by inch into her tightness. The press of her nipples, as he pinned her beneath him, gave way to nice swirls against his sweaty chest. When the kiss broke, so did his will. She empowered him with her feeble struggles and made him mad with her light giggles against his mouth.

  The physical completion of their joining rendered him mindless. His growls of pleasure rumbled deep in his chest. The passion was too extreme—nirvana. There would be none. He looked down on her, his hips now rotating and his dick tunneling deeper. He gazed upon her in disbelief. How is it that he, a man of such raw toughness, would desire such a forbidden flower? He tried to weather the brain fever when her bottom maneuvers reduced his thrusts to quick jerky pumps. He couldn’t. His brain felt like it boiled in his skull. The air in his lungs became too thick to release. She was killing him with rapture—sheer passion beyond his understanding.

  Killing him!

  “Buttercup,” Silvio whispered. He forced his focus to return to her face. He thrilled over the gambit of emotions playing over her pretty features as he throttled her sex into submission. Her lashes drifted down to perfect arcs against her cheeks. Her nostrils flared, then relaxed from her sweet pants. It only encouraged him to pump harder and faster. He gave her cock bangs that had his balls slapping her lower half.

  “Ugh!” he grunted, dropping on her but going the distance. He continued his hard and fast onslaught. His face, buried in her wild tresses, muffled his pants of pleasure. He came apart, going and going, faster and faster and faster. Chest to chest, he bore down on her. The tribal beat of her heart matched his own. He could feel the muscles in the back of her legs weaken. One, dropped over his shoulder in uncontrollable shakes. The other fell at an awkward angle as she neared her exhaustive end. Nothing this glorious should ever be denied him.

  “Butttteeeeerrrccuuup!” he wheezed. Moving in and out of her sweet, honeyed flesh, he abandoned his bitter self, his regretful self, his disbelieving self, and gave in...clenching every muscle in his ass and curling his toes. Silvio cried out during his release...

  Chapter One

  1938 Indiana (Present) –A Gangster’s Moll

  Silvio jumped. The pistol dropped between his parted knees. The car jostled over a rocky patch of road then leveled off. He pushed up on the front of his fedora, knocking the felt brim higher on his brow. “Fuck... holy fuck!” he coughed. Eyes darting around, he sucked in three deep cool breaths. He wasn’t breathing. His mind was such a fog, and his lungs were so tight that he’d forgotten how.

  “You okay, boss?” Manny asked, shooting rod straight in the driver’s seat with hands tight to the steering wheel. He usually drove slumped down behind the wheel. The young hoodlum's face was flushed with alarm. Silvio didn’t speak. Not yet. His dick, stiff between his legs, spoke for him. No, I’m not okay. After a dream like that, how could I be? He winced, shifting, adjusting his sack. He was grateful the darkness of the country road concealed his actions. He reached for the floorboard and retrieved his gun. I need to get it together. Don't need the boy's anxious. It was only a dream. A dream like all the others, 'cept this time I'll have my reality.

  “Who’s Buttercup, boss?” Manny pressed.

  “Drive.”

  Manny silenced.

  Silvio’s shoulders slumped. He eased back down in the seat. Road weary, the three men in his gang travelled in silence. This night was different. A shiver of anticipation gripped his gut and twisted it like a pretzel. Eventually, the burn for his Buttercup eased. It always did, eventually. But damn it, his dreams had never been that... real. She must be close.

  “How goes it back there, Touchy?” Silvio mumbled, desperate for a distr
action. A car chase would be nice right about now. He could go for blasting his frustration at those trigger-happy coppers that always wanted his freedom from state to state.

  “Clear, boss,” Red answered for Touchy, his backseat companion.

  Silvio’s gaze shifted to the rear mirror on the Packard. Touchy cast a steely look. Red had the annoying habit of speaking for everyone. Touchy didn’t take well to those liberties though. He found conspiracies in every unsolicited action, no matter the intent, when leveled his way. But thankfully, he wasn’t in one of his moods. Silvio had no patience for a backseat fistfight tonight.

  He kept watching.

  Touchy fingered the groove along the trigger of his shotgun. The grip rested between his legs, pressed hard into his crotch. Red shrugged off the glare. He put his hat over his face, dropped his head back and shifted down into the cool darkness of the backseat. “I say we make a stop at Moncrieff. Get off the road before sunrise. I need to take a piss,” said Touchy.

  They would definitely make a stop, thought Silvio. But it wouldn’t be Moncrieff. Silvio smirked, his eyes trained on the dirt road. Bold bright light-beams cut down the darkness from out of the front pods of a silver-blue Packard with white wall tires and bullet holes peppered along the rear. It powered an eight cylinder V-12 engine near 80 mph down Route 36. The men were barely seen behind the opaque dust covered windows. The Packard was barely heard as it coasted through the countryside, and that was the point. In fact, the ride would have been uneventful if it weren’t for the locusts.

  Swarms fluttered in and out of the cornfields on starless nights. Nasty critters on blind suicide runs. They torpedoed the windshield, leaving blots of yellow-greenish slime, legs, and antennae smeared across the pane. Manny hit the wipers, to no avail. They just kept coming. The bugs couldn’t necessarily be blamed. They were seduced out of the fields by the glare of lights from back road travelers: bootleggers, racketeers, bank robbers and gangsters. The quad at one time or another had been all of that and more.

  Night travel was best for the business of Silvio ‘Bloodshot’ Garelli. The press bestowed the name ‘Bloodshot’ upon him after a bank robbery in Mason County. It started and ended with a spray of bullets over the heads of terrified customers. The press reported that he carved his name with bullet spray into the safe to blast it open. Horseshit! Not a single person took a hit in all the fun, and still they labeled him a killer because some bank manager up and died from a bad ticker when it was all done. Silvio had never killed a man that didn’t have it coming. This infamy I'm saddled with is all complete horseshit. When asked of his outlaw fame from bank robbing by his crew or the men in their circles, Silvio made it pretty clear that no crime was committed. He needed money like the rest of the country during these bleak times. The banks claimed to be empty but they had plenty, and he wasn’t too keen on asking for it.

  He'd come up empty a few times. His men were losing faith. But the last ride had been it. He and his boys had hit the mother lode. The job was ace. His crew was with him all the way to Mexico. In the backseat was Red Lafferty, a lean second generation Irishman with hair so red it appeared orange in the sun. Red had a sleepy eye, was missing a front tooth, and spit when he talked. That wasn’t all. Red was best known for an unnatural cruel streak when it came to the dames. Sure, they all had quick tempers and a history to justify it. But Red’s brutality toward the birds, brave enough to spend a little time with him, gave even Silvio pause, especially when he was liquored. Silvio had heard tales of Red’s mother being the cause. She was a prostitute who used to put her cigarettes out on Red's arms and then force him to watch her when she serviced her clients. The rumor in the can was that Red killed her. He had heard from an even more reliable source that Red had witnessed the murder of his mother. Whatever the story, it was Red’s to tell. And in his gang, no one had to share a thing.

  Next to Red running the gun, was Touchy—he earned his name in the can. A hard-boiled stick-up man who’d rather kill first and ask questions later. Touchy was the reason two jobs got messy quick. When the vault turned up empty, a cash teller took it in the face and a customer in the gut for just giving questioning looks over Touchy’s tantrum. Of course Silvio ‘Bloodshot’ Garelli got blamed for it. As a reward, they all had nooses fitted for their necks in over ten states.

  At the wheel was always the same, Fat Jim’s little brother, Manny. Fat Jim was the only casualty of the gang. Manny rolled with them ever since. The Gimp is what they called him. Having a clubfoot, Manny was prone to scratching whenever he got nervous. He was an alright kid though. Manny would empty his pockets for any pair of legs promising to split and give him a good time. But he was far too shy to make a real connection. He reminded Silvio of Jelly, but that was a long time past.

  Manny wasn’t useful for much except driving. He used to run firewater before the repeal of prohibition; something Silvio did in another lifetime as well. Racing cars was their blood until the hunt for money became its supplement. On a night like tonight, with coppers on their backs and the main roads blocked, there was only the bootlegger run to take them across the state lines.

  “I said I need a piss!” Red grunted from under his hat.

  “Keep a lid on it,” Manny shot back. “We can’t stop just yet. Right, boss?”

  Silvio’s eyes darted to the night, the silent black void beyond the tangled branches of the forest trees and beyond them the open plains of farmland. Normally, a straight run in the night and then a hiding place at sunrise was in order. Capture might be waiting after each bend of the road. Not tonight. Plans had changed just for her. In another life, she would be his Moll, but in this one she was just his ghost. She cursed him with night-sweats and dreams. It had been six years since he laid eyes on her. He reached inside his coat pocket and removed the worn brown paper flyer. In the dark of the car, he studied the writing. It was a hand drawn carnival advertisement that promised food, games, girls, and fun times.

  Silvio didn’t believe in fate. But even he had to marvel at the hand of destiny. After years of wondering and searching, a drifting wind blew his second chance under his boot heel just as he stepped in front of the Wells Fargo Bank’s doors. Curious, he knelt to retrieve it from the sidewalk. The carnival boasted wonders never seen, such as the bearded lady, elephant boy, snake charmer, and twins with one body. A Ferris wheel and trapeze act were the main draw. But at the very top corner was a featured spot for a hooch dancer, Buttercup.

  “Gimp, take Danberry lane. We’re making a stop,” Silvio said, crumbling the flyer in his gloved fist.

  “Stop? Out here? Why, boss? You said—”

  “Because I need to take a piss, kid. Do as he said,” Red grumbled, stumping his foot in the backseat. Silvio didn’t bother to answer. He found her. He thought about this moment constantly before he broke the chain gang. His search always turned up nothing. Hunting for a colored woman in a travelling carnival was harder than he could have foreseen. Each time he came close, the carnival moved on.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, he’d find her and no matter what they thought, she was not going to leave his side.

  The train car was hers. She’d decorated it as such. Her costumes were lined up on hooks from a thin macramé rope run across the front of the car. She’d sewn each and their sparkling adornments by hand. Posters from her favorite shows were tacked to the walls. Benny, the strong man, was also an artist. He made the best posters of her. Amidst Sylvester’s things were gifts from men vying for her time. She loved the music boxes mostly. Some even gave hats or rhinestone necklaces. Nothing too extravagant for a carnival Negress, still they were hers and hers alone. Tiny allowed it. He thought it good for business to have regular customers. He would even grant a private show or two. But the rules were to never be broken. Lone Wolf was on hand to make sure no one dared. The rule for all was 'look but do not touch.' Buttercup no longer knew the pleasures of a man. Not after Silvio Garelli.

  Of all of the parts of the carnival, here i
n her train car with Sylvester is where she felt safe. No more forlorn nights on a cold cot in a ratty tent. She’d earned the right to her own.

  Buttercup rose from her chair. She tightened the sash to her robe and picked up Sylvester’s things. He slept in her bed. His light snore told of a day of frolicking and mischief. After dropping his britches and hand sewn shirts in a basket nearest the vanity, she fetched the paper that a townie had left behind.

  Her time was short. She could already hear the grunts and shouts of the rousties who pitched the game tents. Soon they’d be calling for her. But she would make time for this. Buttercup turned up the flame on the kerosene lamp just a tad to make the lettering rise.

  ‘BLOODSHOT AT IT AGAIN!’ the headline read.

  Buttercup dropped to her knees before her chest of secrets. Reading, she held to every word in print. The article proclaimed that Silvio had made away with an undisclosed bounty in a spray of bullets. It also asserted that his band of thieves were terrorizing good citizens while emptying the banks of their meager holdings. She turned the page. Her heart leapt to her throat when the only picture they had of him, a jail-shot, greeted her.

  Silvio scowled at the photographer, his glare dark and menacing. But it mattered little. He was ever so handsome. Unruly waves of black hair, dark eyebrows brooding over the dreamiest pair of jeweled eyes. Buttercup traced her fingers over his image. The anger was there too. A hate filled glare at the photographer told of his bloodthirst for revenge. He wasn’t the boy she knew. This man, this thief and killer was far from the man she wished he’d be, despite what became of him because of her. The date on the paper was yesterday. The city of Jefferson was only sixty-five miles east. She pressed her lips together, secretly wondering. How close?