Chapter 17
Temperance couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Judging by the tension in Owen’s body, he couldn’t, either.
When he had come home from having words with Elmer, he’d said, “He’s not happy about Mavis staying in town. I’ll make a quick run to camp tomorrow. I need to pay out the debt on this place before he tries to do it and makes me prove this place is mine.”
It was. She’d seen the certificate with her own eyes, but Elmer could just as easily make up another certificate, couldn’t he?
The possibility of a legal fight had been weighing on both of them all evening.
They turned in early, but they were sighing and shifting restlessly, trying not to touch each other, but this wretched bed made that impossible.
Even Clarence had begun to find the sag into the middle uncomfortable. He had figured out that the nook beside the hearth was a warm place to curl up in, especially in the evenings when the bricks still held the heat of the fire. Thus, there was nothing between Temperance and Owen, except the wrinkles in her gown—the one Owen had bought her for chores that she’d taken to wearing to bed—and the shirt and drawers he slept in.
“You don’t have to worry,” he said, voice low and heavy. “I’m not going to let him take the saloon, not when I’m so close to opening it. You can trust me. Now go to sleep.”
That wasn’t what was keeping her awake, although she definitely felt even less secure than she had yesterday.
No, she was warm and dry and mostly comfortable, but frustrated. Yearnings were teasing through her limbs, making her want to slither closer to the firmness of his body. She was lying as motionless as possible while her mind raced with imaginings of roaming her hands across his chest, down his stomach, and over his sex.
She didn’t want to be thinking these things, but it was as if his body called out to hers. Her own body felt ripe. She knew how much pleasure could be had in the soft friction of skin against skin. She knew how sweet it felt to be petted, and she wanted to feel those sensations.
“Do you think I’ll be safe here by myself?” she asked, trying to cool her own ardor.
“Yes.” He rolled toward her. “I’ll leave the dog.”
“What’s he going to do? Drive them out with the lash of his wagging tail?”
“He’s more of a welcoming committee, isn’t he?” He huffed a faint laugh. “Are you really worried about being here alone?”
“I—” There were some things better left unsaid, so fate wasn’t tempted. “I think I’m afraid you won’t come back,” she admitted in a whisper.
“I’ll come back. I’m not going to let Elmer steal from me.”
That wasn’t what she meant. What if he decided she wasn’t worth coming back for? Not to give her a job or to keep her safe, but to be her friend.
Was that what he was, even though she was fighting an urge to rub herself against him?
“I’ll leave early. No one will even know I’m gone before I’ll be back again,” he added. “It’s a long, hard day, but I can make it there in one, as long as the weather holds. I’ll only stay the one night and be back before dark the following day. You’ll have this bed to yourself for a change.”
“I like sleeping with you,” she murmured, cringing slightly at making that admission.
“Ah, Temperance, don’t tempt me,” he chided in a soft rumble. “I spend enough time thinking about how it would feel to have you under me.”
“I think about that too,” she said with a pang of helplessness, throwing her arm over her eyes, soaked in iniquitous knowledge. “And this is why I’m sure I’m ruined. He made me into a harlot. I wasn’t like this before, you know. Not even with him, but now I wonder all the time how it would feel to be with you.”
“You’re not a harlot. Temperance.” His arm reached out, and he dragged her into him. His leg slid across her, pinning her deeper into the mattress. “Do you feel this way about all men? Does Elmer make you feel this way? What about Fritz?”
“No,” she said truculently, trying to resist the urge to melt into him.
“Well, as nice as Jane is, I don’t want her in this bed. What’s going on here is between you and me. The only reason it’s wrong that we’re feeling this way is because I’ve hired you, not because there’s anything we need to be ashamed of. I’ve tried to be as clear as I can about not wanting to marry, so that’s another reason I won’t make love to you.”
But you can if you want to, she nearly said. Her body was saying it. Her arm curled around his waist, and she turned her face into his shoulder so she could feel the heat and strength there. So she could breathe in the smell of winter air and pitch from the wood he’d brought in before bed and the tang that was purely him.
He breathed a small curse and his chin dipped. His nose grazed her brow, her cheek found his jaw, then their lips found each other, parted, and fit. Sealed. Clung.
A soft moan resounded in her throat. His hand came to her hair, and his thumb stroked her temple and outlined the shell of her ear. He shifted more fully atop her, and his hips settled more heavily onto her own.
This was what had been keeping her awake, and now she indulged some of those fantasies. Her arms wrapped around him and found their way up and down his back, learning the planes of his shoulder blades, the valley of his spine, and the firm muscles that flexed in his back.
“What do you want?” he asked on a hot breath that pooled into her neck. His lips nuzzled under her chin and down to her collarbone. “I don’t have a skin. I can’t fuck you, but I want to feel you. Can I?” He took hold of her skirt and lifted himself off it, starting to draw it upward.
“Yes,” she whispered back, helping push the cotton out of the way then giving in to curiosity and searching out the shape of him through his drawers.
The hiss of his breath going in was such a shaken sound, she smiled into the dark.
“You don’t mind?” she asked, half-laughing.
His answer was a gratified noise that was more of a growl deep in his chest. His mouth came back to hers. He plundered her mouth with his own while she shaped and squeezed him.
All of her grew hot. She was tangled in clothing and bedding, trying to find the slit in his drawers to touch his naked erection while his own palm climbed the inside of her thigh, sending runnels of heat into the notch at the top. He covered her mound and flexed his wide palm against the thin layer of muslin.
Lightning seemed to strike into her loins. As a small sob escaped her. He murmured, “Mmhmm,” as if he knew he had just undone her with that simple act of claiming.
They shifted and searched. He leaned away to open his drawers, then brought her hand to the heft of his hard, naked cock. It twitched in her fisted grip.
His mouth found hers, his teeth scraped lightly across her parted lips, and when his hand burrowed past the slit in her drawers, he proved Dewey to be an absolute amateur when it came to seduction. Owen’s touch tickled along her seam a few times, enough to stir the hairs and cause a rush of wet heat to flood into her folds. Her mons felt heavy and swollen and a distinct throbbing began like a pin prick at the apex of her sex.
While his tongue plunged into her mouth, seeking her own, his fingertip delicately parted her, found her slick juices and skated them all around. Her flesh flowered with hungry yearning. She had no sense of what she was doing to him. She could only hold him tightly while he moved in her grip. Her world had shrunk to the way he was lazily working two fingertips up and down, teasing the peak and plunging further into her valley each time he returned.
“Owen,” she moaned when he gave her a chance to breathe.
“No?”
“Yes. Please.”
With another growling noise, he gave her the full length of his finger, deep into her channel.
She kissed him harder. Squeezed him tighter.
His touch left her, then returned, bigger. Two fingers. Snug, but oh it caused everything to feel that much more intense. He tucked his fingers deep into her, setting the heel of his palm flush against that place that pulsed with such longing.
She couldn’t help moving against his hand in the same way he was thrusting into hers, all while kissing him flagrantly. Offering her tongue and enticing him to suck it. The tip of his cock was leaking fluid, making his cock slide in her grip while her own body grew hotter and slicker and wetter and needier.
This wasn’t the tantalizing, tickling, beckoning sensation she’d felt in the past. This was far more intense. Her whole body was one live nerve ending, feeling tight and taut and tense, but wallowing in the sensations at the same time. She liked the steel of his shape pushing into her hand and the strength of the arm that kept her caged beneath him. She was hot and her hair was pinned, and she couldn’t open her legs far enough, but she didn’t want any of this to end. She drank in his scent and moaned louder. The ropes strained with their movements as they increased their writhing. The whole bed was creaking.
“I’m going to come,” he said, catching at her earlobe with his teeth. He shifted his touch, so his thumb circled that place that had been trapped under the friction of his palm.
Suddenly her inner flesh clamped onto his.
With a small scream, she fell into a cataclysm far more powerful than any she’d ever felt. This was not the cresting of a hill to see a pretty valley beyond. This was a plunge off a cliff only to be caught by a hawk and carried away. She was dimly aware of his guttural shout and the way he pulsed in her hand, but she was twisting in the fires of her own release. Wave after wave of acute pleasure swept over her, causing her whole body to shudder in ecstasy.
She wanted to bite him. To pull him inside her skin. To cleave herself to him for all time, so long as she could feel like this forever.
“Owen, Owen,” she moaned against his throat, aware her hand was wet with his release.
“So good,” he murmured against her jaw, gently withdrawing his touch, but staying to caress and soothe her quivering flesh. “Oh, Temperance, that was?—”
Glass shattered. Something loud and heavy hit the floor in the parlor. Clarence leapt up to bark wildly, scaring a fresh scream out of Temperance.
Owen covered her as though protecting her from the roof caving in, shouting, “Fuck!” too loudly at her ear. “Wrap yourself in the blanket and get to the door.”
He threw back the covers and left the bed.
Owen fixedhis drawers and picked up the six-shooter from the table by the bed where he always left it. Fumbling through the dark, he found the parlor door and cracked it.
“No fire.” That was a small relief. “Clarence, shut up.” He blocked the dog from pushing past him through the door.
“Clarence, come,” Temperance commanded in an undertone. “Do you want a candle?”
“Yeah, light one.” Owen kept his focus through the cracked door into the parlor, not seeing any movement or hearing any noise. There was a distinct draft from the smashed window, though.
The match caught, and Temperance brought him the candle.
“Stay here. Don’t let the dog in.” He slipped into the parlor, but there was nothing to see.
The gown she was sewing was on the table where she’d left it. The stove was cold because he’d only used it when he and Emmett were sleeping in here. Shards of glass glinted on the floor by the broken window, but there was no one in here.
Watching his step since his feet were bare, he checked the doors behind the black drapes. They were securely locked. So was the front door. There was no sign of movement outside. Whoever had done this was gone.
Owen picked his way to the horseshoe in the middle of the floor. There was nothing special about it except that it was well-worn and rusted, perhaps retrieved from the blacksmith’s pile of discards on the way here, since there was one up the street.
Swearing under his breath, Owen brought the shoe into the kitchen and latched the door.
Temperance had the kerosene lamp lit. Her eyes were wide as he showed her the horseshoe before hooking it on the handle of the kindling rack.
“The door is still locked. The only damage is the window.” Which would cost him a pretty penny to replace. He imagined that was the point.
“Who—?”
He snorted. “Make a list. Dudley. Fritz. Elmer. Sureshot.” He pulled on his trousers, then his shirt.
“Where are you going?”
“To check the horse. I won’t be long.”
“Take this.” She offered him the lantern.
He left her the candle, but the dog insisted on coming with him.
A quarter hour later, he returned and shrugged. “Quiet.”
She was at the table, pensively chewing the corner of her mouth.
“Temperance.” He waited until she looked at him. Her eyes were wide with distress. “I’m not leaving tomorrow.” He couldn’t do that to her.
Her shoulders sloped. “Thank you.” Her voice was shaken.
He nodded jerkily, but he couldn’t help wondering if this was Elmer’s doing. Was he keeping Owen here, so he had time to get his own cash together and buy him out?
“Go back to bed,” he urged her. “I’ll sweep the other room.” He had his boots on and was too keyed up to fall asleep, despite what they’d been doing right before this happened.
Perhaps she was recalling that too. She searched his eyes in the dim light for an answer to an unasked question.
He didn’t know what to say about that. They probably shouldn’t have done it, but he didn’t have any regrets that they had.
“It’s going to be all right. Don’t worry about this,” he said.
Beneath her apprehension, an expression flickered across her face that he was all too familiar with. It was part disbelief, part disappointment, wondering if he was serious or deluded. She wondered if he failed to comprehend the stakes, or if he didn’t care they were this high.
He could hear her reminding him yesterday that she was relying on him. He was relying on her too. Did she realize that? Yes, he could find someone else to draw numbers in a ledger, but he wouldn’t trust anyone else as much as he trusted her.
He scratched the back of his head, not sure why that was, but it was true.
“I’m going to make this work for both of us, Temperance. I promise you that.”
“You don’t make promises,” she reminded him softly. “And please don’t ever make any to me that you can’t keep.”
With tight lips, she moved to the bed.