The Devil of Whiskey Row Read online

  He could hear her ragged breathing, but she hadn't uttered any cries or whimpers, nor had she pleaded for him to stop. He rubbed her bottom lightly. It was perfectly shaped, like two round orbs—the firm muscle offering a satisfying, springy target. He didn't know how Smoochy had disciplined Cora, but he imagined it was far more brutal than spanking.

  Jake loved to spank. He loved the act of spanking and he loved that his girls submitted willingly to his discipline—even seemed to crave it as attention from him. Spanking was not overly painful, but it was humbling for the recipient. For the disciplinarian, it was an act of dominance, a declaration of power.

  Since he hadn't achieved her submission, he worked the dominance angle with Cora, spreading her cheeks and pressing his middle finger to the entrance of her anus. She stiffened like a board, squeezing her cheeks together tightly and lifting her torso horizontal to the floor. He applied several hard slaps to the back of her thighs, this time eliciting a tiny squeak.

  “Cora,” he said gently, “you agreed to my rules, you agreed to my discipline.”

  She shook her head rapidly. “No!” she gasped.

  He ignored her protest, parting her cheeks again and pressing his finger more insistently, until he breached the entryway to her tight hole. She gave a wavering moan. He applied a few more spanks to her blushing bottom and then slowly guided her torso upright, careful not to let his finger pull too much at the delicate hole. He used his embedded finger to draw her closer, so she stood between his knees. He squeezed her tightened bottom with his other hand, kneading the firm muscle and admiring the heat still radiating from it. Her breasts were eye level, as magnificent as he'd suspected earlier—twin peaches with rosy nipples pointing cheerfully toward the ceiling. Already highly aroused from spanking her, he had to resolutely lift his chin to gaze into her face, shifting in his seat to accommodate his hardened cock.

  He had a firm rule against sleeping with his girls. He couldn't be their daddy if he let things get confused with sex.

  He stroked her flank, keeping his finger firmly pressed within her, feeling her muscles tightening spasmodically around it. When her lips began to tremble and he sensed her resistance crumbling, he slipped his finger out of her bottom, continuing to hold her hips.

  “I remember your parents,” he said with true sympathy. “They were good people.”

  At that, her face contorted. He pulled her into his lap before the first sob erupted.

  Chapter Two

  Cora was blinded by her tears, but Diggory's strong arms pulled her against his chest as he deftly wrapped a blanket around her. She curled into him, sobbing into his collar while he rocked gently.

  “I'm sure you miss them very much,” he murmured in his deep voice, his Irish accent only adding to his cursed intrigue. His words sparked a renewed wave of sobbing. He stroked her back and kissed her wet hair. Confusion swirled through her mind. One minute, the Devil Diggory was the enemy, claiming her from the fire, walking in on her naked in the bath, spanking her raw. The next, he was comforting her and making her feel safer than she had since she was a child in her mother's arms.

  “What would you know?” she sobbed bitterly, then coughed, her lungs still irritated by the smoke.

  “Mmm. I know you didn't deserve the fate you landed, working for Smoochy as a two-bit whore. I know you think your parents would roll over in their graves if they saw you now, and it breaks your heart. But you know what?”

  He cupped her face, holding her jaw and pulling her away from him so she was forced to look into his eyes. They were dark brown, and warmer than she might have imagined. “It's not your fault.”

  The certainty with which he made that pronouncement took her breath away. She stared at him, disbelieving, but desperate to hear his reasoning.

  “I've learned, life is a like a raging river. You get tossed into it, and the most you can do is just keep your head above water. If you're lucky enough to find firm ground, you climb out and make what you can of it. That's all there is to it, Cora. You've done the best you could with what you were given. Your father shouldn't have bargained with your future, but he did, and he lost. And so you lost.”

  Her eyes smarted with tears again. How did the Devil Diggory know so much about her?

  “I thought it was a terrible travesty when Smoochy took you down there. That was why I tried to buy you out of that fate—it wasn't to force you to work for me.”

  He had tried to buy her. She remembered that night clearly—the same evening Smoochy had gently led her from her parents’ dead bodies to his brothel. Diggory had shown up and tried to purchase her like a cow at auction, which had been even more terrifying than realizing she had no choice but to work for Smoochy. It was part of the reason she couldn't trust him now. Except that he seemed completely sincere.

  “What would you have done with me?” she probed suspiciously.

  He cocked his head and looked at her thoughtfully, then shrugged. “I don't know, honestly. Sent for your kin, if you had any. Paid for your travel out of Dorado Hills. Anything but let an innocent lass be corrupted by this.” His upper lip curled as he waved a hand to indicate his establishment. She frowned, surprised to realize he might not relish his success as a brothel and gambling hall owner.

  “But why would you care what happened to me?” she demanded.

  His expression turned to stone. “You remind me of someone I once knew,” he said.

  As if to preempt any further questions in that direction, he stood, lifting her into his arms and laying her on the bed. “You can sleep in this bed tonight, but you'll have a bunk at the end of the hall where you'll keep your things and stay when you're not entertaining.”

  “I don't have any things,” she muttered.

  He looked down at her kindly and stroked her wet hair back from her face. “I know you don't, sweetheart. But you will. Listen, I'm going to use this bathwater since it's been drawn, to try to wash off the smell of smoke. Turn your back if it bothers you.”

  It did bother her, but, devil take her, she could not make herself turn around. She lay on the bed, watching with nothing short of fascination as Diggory shucked his shirt and pants. His back rippled with firm muscle, tapering to a narrow waist and strong legs. She could see a long scar looking like a knife wound ran along his side to his back. Word was Jake Diggory may dress and talk like a gentleman, but he fought like a bandito. He was quick with a gun and brutal with his fists. No one in Dorado Hills crossed him. Ever.

  Rosa, one of the whores at Smoochy's place, had told her the story of how Jake Diggory came to own his gambling hall. “He worked there, as a strong arm, running the gambling tables and playing the piano for the French girls’ dancing routine. Jenson, el señor who owned it then, he did something bad to one of the girls—cut her with a knife, I think, or beat her real good. They say Diggory killed him with his bare hands—he could have used a gun, but he preferred to fight like a wild dog. They say you couldn't even recognize Jenson's face when he was through with him.”

  Cora had shivered, but secretly admired his defense of the girl. At Smoochy's, no one protected them from their boss, who had done as he pleased, taken whomever he pleased, or beaten whomever he pleased. She mused now on Diggory's promise that no one would hurt her on his watch. Maybe it was true.

  “The girls, they all covered it up for him,” Rosa had said. “The body disappeared and no one would tell the sheriff anything. Afterward, they say Diggory was going to leave Dorado Hills, but the girls begged him to stay, said they needed a man to protect them. And then Smoochy goes over, sniffing around to see if he might take over and Daddy Diggs puts his gun right in Smoochy's face, tells him to turn around, walk back to his place, and never set foot there again. And it's been Daddy Diggs’ ever since.”

  She watched him now, cupping his hands in the water to splash it over his head, where it streamed down over his face. Her body was in a wild state—her bottom still stung from the spanking and her back hole burned, yet she felt warm f
rom the gentle way he'd cradled her afterward. Something about his acknowledgment of her parents—that he'd known them, that he thought they were good people, had awakened some part of her she'd thought was dead. It was as if the old Cora, the real Cora, was suddenly stirring somewhere deep within her. And for some reason, Jake Diggory made it seem like he knew that girl.

  But still she didn't trust him.

  She wondered if he would force her to service him. Or maybe the better question was when. Her skin prickled with heat at the thought, which was a new feeling for her. Could it be she actually wanted him to use her? Certainly not. She had never, in the five years she'd been selling her body for money, wanted a man. Yet now she felt a tiny thrill of excitement at the thought of Diggory—dark, unyielding, and downright dangerous—taking her for his pleasure.

  No, that was fear or disgust, not excitement.

  Definitely not excitement.

  He stood from the tub, brushing water from his limbs and shaking droplets onto the floor like a dog stepping out of a river. She stared at his manhood, hanging thick and long, even at rest. He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow, but instead of commenting, merely asked, “Not ready to sleep?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you hungry?”

  She sat up in the bed, holding the blanket to cover her breasts. “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on downstairs, then,” he said as he pulled on his clothing.

  She sat up and pulled the coverlet off the bed, draping herself with it.

  He glanced at her and grinned, his smile transforming his face, making him look ten years younger. She smiled back before she could think to scowl. He held out an arm and she moved into it, allowing him to guide her, barefooted and clad only in a blanket, down the hall.

  He showed her where a key was hidden above the door frame for the bunk room at the top of the stairs. Inside, he pointed out an armoire. “You can wear any of the clothes in there—the girls share most everything.”

  The room had rows of bunks along the walls, and a long plank table in the middle. The older Mexican women were sitting around the table and Joaquin was with them, chatting in Spanish.

  A sheet strung across the middle of the room divided it in half. Seeing her taking it in, Diggory said, “That side for men, this side for women.”

  “Which men?” she asked, rather stupidly.

  “Right now, it's just Hank and now Joaquin,” he said, nodding gravely to the boy. She wondered, vaguely, where he slept and was simultaneously relieved and disappointed that it wasn't in the bunk room.

  “Josefina,” he said, addressing the older Mexican woman who'd brought in her bath, “Will you find Cora something to eat when she's dressed?”

  “Sí, señor,” Josefina answered.

  It seemed Josefina had already taken Joaquin as her charge. She shooed him off to bed now, speaking with all the command of a loving grandmother. “Buenas noches,” Cora bid him, smiling and winking at the boy, happy to see he appeared comfortable here.

  Cora looked through the clothes, examining with interest the drawers, which were all cut short in the legs with ruffles added to the bottoms as decoration. She donned a pair and found a corset which she pulled over her head and fastened in the front. She didn't bother tightening up the lacing in the back. After slipping into a chemise and modest day dress, she followed Josefina down the stairs to the back kitchen, where Josefina handed her a plate of beans and rice and left her on her own.

  She didn't think she was hungry until she ate the first bite, then she shoveled the food into her mouth, suddenly ravenous. Afterward, she climbed back upstairs and found an empty bunk, fighting the feeling of contentment that had fallen over her. She needed to stay on the defensive if she was going to survive here.

  She climbed into bed and heard the charming sound of Diggory's piano striking up and the crowd cheering. It must be time for their famous French can-can. She thought about creeping down the stairs to watch it, but found her limbs were too heavy to attempt leaving the bed. Instead, she fell soundly asleep, lulled by the familiar sound of loud, drunken voices and the unfamiliar, but thoroughly pleasing sound of lively music.

  * * *

  Jake absently finished the warm-up music he was playing on his piano, his mind still on Cora Underhill. He normally felt satisfied, even powerful after spanking one of the girls, but Cora's punishment had left him needy. Fifteen years celibate and he had never craved sex once, not even working in a brothel with naked and willing women all around. Spanking the girls filled the void, gave him small moments of intimacy, and allowed him to express his masculine power without being untrue to Eliza's memory.

  But tonight, the thought of Cora's impudent breasts, the sensation of her soft form across his lap, the way her big eyes had searched him for answers kept rising in his mind. Was it just because she reminded him so much of Eliza? Or was it something else?

  Catching Olive's eye from across the room, he gave a nod and she moved to find the other girls for their nightly can-can performance. Gigi and Marie had brought the can-can with them, along with countless other customs and know-how from the French brothels where they'd worked before they came to America. They were the first in the wave of women who embarked for California with the promise their passage would be paid by brothel owners when they arrived. Jensen, the former owner of his place, had paid Gigi and Marie's fare, promising them they'd pay off their debt in six months, but keeping them as indentured servants long past the prescribed date.

  The girls lined up now on the side of the stage he and Hank had built for them.

  “And now, gentlemen,” he called out in his best entertainer's voice. “May I introduce to you the lovely ladies Olive, Margaret, Gigi, and Marie—two misses, two mademoiselles! Give a big hand for them, fellows, and they'll give you a special treat!”

  The gambling hall was filled with the sound of applause, boot-stamping, and cat calls. He began to play the signature music of the dance as the girls sashayed across the stage, their skirts swishing in a blur of ruffles and the intoxicating flashes of their black stocking-clad legs. They'd choreographed an intricate dance in which they formed two lines and then one, changing positions, locking elbows with one another and spinning in dizzying circles. The girls teased the men, giving their skirts little lifts and flounces while catching their eye, building into an energetic crescendo of cartwheels and then a final line of high kicks, which drove the men wild with the glimpses of their garter belts. Then came the punch line, in which the girls turned one by one and flipped up the back of their skirts to show their ruffled drawers, to the enthusiastic shouts of the audience. The finale was two girls spinning while holding one leg up to their ear, as the other two executed a split on the floor with their arms outstretched in a high “V” and smiles plastered on their faces.

  The men whooped and stomped some more.

  “Let me hear your appreciation for Daddy Diggs’ girls!” he called out and the applause grew louder. “Twenty dollars to take your own spin with one of them, step right up and pick one out now!”

  He heard grumbling at that. Most of the men were flat broke and the gold rush prices were outrageous. Still, those who couldn't afford the girls would buy drinks, and they'd lose to him at faro or roulette or craps. Either way, if they walked into Daddy Diggs’, he'd take their money.

  He surveyed the room as he played, keeping a sharp eye for any sign of thievery, cheating, or violence. Magdalena worked the faro table as Hank monitored for cheating. The girls flitted about the room, accepting a few coins or the offer of a drink to sit down next to a man, giving him a brief and rare opportunity to enjoy a woman's presence in a land in which men outnumbered women ten to one.

  Marie had drifted over to lean an elbow on the top of the piano as he started up with another lively tune. “What's with the new girl?” she demanded.

  He glanced up, then looked back at his fingers, his mind mostly occupied with the music. “Name's Cora,” he grunted.

 
“From Smoochy's?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Daddy, you know she's going to be trouble. Smoochy's girls were the lowest of the low. They lie, they cheat, they steal. She'll be stealing from you the first night.”

  Jake glanced up at Marie's sour face, then looked out over the crowd, keeping his eyes alert for any sign of trouble. “You think?” he asked noncommittally.

  “Yes! She'll rob you blind, Daddy. She'll probably steal from all of us. You've heard what they used to say about Smoochy's place. No one walked out of there without having his money stolen.”

  He gave a very slight lift of his shoulders, not giving Marie the satisfaction of looking at her again. He surveyed the crowd again.

  “And that boy, too. If she doesn't steal, I guarantee you he will. You shouldn't have brought them in here, Daddy. We don't need them. We hardly have enough work for the four of us!”

  Jake met her eye now, raising an eyebrow. She took the warning, snapping her mouth shut and standing up from the piano. “I'm just saying…” she said sulkily.

  “I've heard enough. If you keep it up, you're going to get a spanking.”

  Her lip thrust forward, but she said, “Yes, sir,” with a grudging tone and abandoned her post at his piano, in search of a more receptive audience with Margaret.

  He bent his head to the keys, mulling over her warning. It was true Smoochy's girls were known to steal. His instincts said he could trust Cora, but then again, his judgment might be clouded. She wasn't Eliza, after all, no matter how alike they looked.