Page 70 of Return to Telegraph Creek

“Good Lord.What did that cost you?”

Trick gave me a slow smile as she drew her gaze down, then up, my body.

“Less than you might think,” she admitted.“Some a these poor fellas are so darn lonely and aching for touch they’ll do just about anything for a few quick spanks and a wank.”

Oscar cackled.He was kneeling on the wood floor and peering into the trunk, like a child on Christmas morning.

“Oh, Jimmy, we’re gonna take this here ridin’ crop, too,” he said, lifting out a black braided leather instrument.His gaze drifted o’er it like ’twas a holy relic.“I reckon it’s got a nasty snap to’t.”

“Oh, you’ll like that,” Trick said.“If you like a spankin’, that’s the next best thing.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Playtime

“You got a paddle in here?I’d like to try a paddle,” Oscar said, as I about fainted from the things I was imagining.

“Oscar, settle down.We can’t take everything that Trick has in that trunk.”

He held up some metal star-shaped items with screws aimed toward the center.

“I don’t even know what these are.”

I walked o’er to have a look.

“What do those do?”I asked Trick.

She took one out of Oscar’s hand and held it in front of her chest.

“Nipple clamp.You screw it on and leave it there to drive a fella crazy—or a gal.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, scratching my chin.Something didn’t make sense.“Do you use these things on the men you bring up here?”

Trick gave me a leer.“It might surprise you to learn how many men like to be taken in hand.And I ain’t lettin’ some stranger tie me up so’s I’m helpless.”

Oscar stared at Trick as if she were some kind of angel.

“Ho-ly,” he said.“That’s amazin’.”

Trick actually blushed, but she looked pleased as punch.“Well, it’s fun.If I can’t have a regular kinda job in this man’s world, at least I can get paid to whip ’em.”

She walked to the trunk and fished around with her hand.

“I ain’t got a paddle exactly, but a lot of ’em like it when I beat ’em with this old thing,” Trick said, pulling out a device about three feet long, made of rattan or some such material, with a wide, flat end of criss-crossed strands.

“What?”I said, laughing.“A rug beater?You’re jokin’.”

I held out my hand for it, and Trick passed it o’er.

Trick watched me with a smirk as I played with the beater, slicing it through the air to make a swooshing sound and trying to imagine it as a spanking aid.

“Goodness.Look at your boy, Jimmy.”

I glanced at Oscar, who was kneeling by the treasure trunk, his gaze locked on the beater in my hand like ’twas the holy grail, his eyes wide and his face flushed.I reckoned he wasn’t embarrassed.

Desire coursed through me at the dazed look on his pretty face.

“Makes a nice slappy sound when it makes contact,” Trick said, perching on the edge of her bed.“And I’ve been told it delivers a good sting.”