CHAPTER SIX Ask Me Again #3
He had surrendered because running had become another form of dying. Eight months of flight had stripped his life down to hunger, hiding, and the memory of a brother he had been unable to bury. If Gideon delivered him safely, Jude might expose Harrow. If Gideon failed, the chase would finally end.
Either possibility had seemed better than another dawn alone.
Gideon lowered his mouth to Jude’s hair.
“You came back,” he said.
Jude gripped his shirt.
“You came back now.”
“I didn’t bury him.”
“He is buried.”
“Not by me.”
“You brought a witness.”
Jude lifted his face.
Tears streaked the dust on his skin. The vulnerability transformed him more completely than sleep had.
“Who buried them?” he asked.
“We’ll find out.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Your promises appear dangerous.”
“So do yours.”
Jude’s mouth trembled.
Gideon brushed the tear from his cheek with his thumb.
The touch lingered.
This time neither man pretended it was medical.
They camped inside the ruined schoolhouse.
Gideon wrapped Noah’s field book, map, and letter in oilskin from the tracker’s saddlebag and secured the packet beneath his shirt. He recorded the grave markers once more and sketched the shattered survey box.
Jude returned Noah’s compass to the box.
“Take it,” Gideon said.
“It’s evidence.”
“It belongs to you.”
“So did he.”
Gideon had no answer.
They found dry wood inside the remains of the smithy and built a small fire near the stone wall. The black gelding grazed beside the well with its reins trailing. Gideon left the saddle on but loosened the cinch in case they needed to flee quickly.
Dinner consisted of jerky and beans boiled in the tracker’s dented cup.
Night settled softly over Dry Mercy.
No storm.
No gunfire.
No riders.
The quiet should have been reassuring.
It was not.
The dead town held silence differently from the open desert. Every burned doorway seemed occupied. Every broken wall suggested someone standing just beyond the firelight.
Gideon took first watch.
Jude lay beside the wall beneath the recovered bedroll. Their cuffed wrists forced Gideon to sit close, one knee bent near Jude’s shoulder.
Jude fell asleep quickly.
Grief had exhausted him more thoroughly than the canyon fight.
Gideon watched the fire consume itself.
He thought about Noah’s letter. The kill order. Five graves hidden beneath the official scene of the crime. Any one fact could be dismissed by a determined man. Together, they created a shape Gideon could no longer ignore.
Someone had manufactured the case against Jude.
Whether that made Jude innocent of every crime remained unproven.
But it made delivering him to Cutter impossible.
Gideon looked down at the man beside him.
Jude slept facing Noah’s grave.
His hand remained curled near his chest. The cuff encircled his right wrist, its steel dulled by dust. The chain led from Jude’s body to Gideon’s, a small, absolute line of ownership Gideon had spent days insisting was merely duty.
Jude began to move.
At first, Gideon thought he was waking.
Then Jude’s breathing quickened.
His face tightened. One hand clawed at the bedroll. A broken sound escaped his throat.
“No,” he whispered.
Gideon leaned closer. “Jude.”
Jude struck at him.
Gideon caught his wrist by instinct.
Jude fought the grip violently, eyes still closed.
“Get off me!”
Gideon released him.
Immediately.
He moved backward as far as the cuff allowed and kept both hands visible.
“Jude.”
Jude came awake fighting for breath.
His free hand closed around nothing. His eyes searched the ruins without recognizing them.
“It’s Gideon.”
Jude focused on him.
The hand he had swung remained raised between them.
Gideon did not touch it again.
“You’re at Dry Mercy,” he said. “No one is holding you.”
Jude looked at the cuff.
The statement became a lie.
Gideon felt it.
“So it seems,” Jude said.
His voice sounded hollow.
“I caught your wrist.”
“I know.”
“I released you.”
“I know that too.”
Jude sat with his back against the wall. Sweat covered his face despite the cold.
Gideon remained where he was.
“May I come closer?”
Jude looked toward Noah’s grave.
Then he nodded.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
Gideon moved behind him.
“May I hold you?”
Jude closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Gideon wrapped his arms around Jude from behind.
He placed one palm against the center of Jude’s chest, directly over his heart. The other arm circled his waist. Their cuffed wrists rested together against Jude’s stomach.
Jude’s heart hammered beneath Gideon’s hand.
Gideon held him firmly enough to be felt, gently enough that Jude could move away.
His mouth hovered near Jude’s temple.
“Breathe,” he said.
Jude’s chest rose sharply beneath his palm.
“Again.”
Jude obeyed.
“Slower.”
Gideon felt each breath enter him. Felt the heart beneath his hand trying to outrun memory. Felt Jude’s shoulders tremble against his chest.
“I couldn’t move,” Jude whispered.
“In the dream?”
“They had me in the barn again. Noah was outside. He was alive, but every time I called his name they pulled the rope higher.”
Gideon’s palm remained over his heart.
“You’re not there.”
“I know.”
“Feel my hand.”
Jude covered it with his own.
“I feel it.”
“Feel the floor beneath you.”
Jude pressed his boots into the dirt.
“The wall.”
Jude leaned back against Gideon.
“The chain,” Gideon said.
Jude’s breath faltered.
Gideon nearly regretted it.
Then Jude lifted their connected wrists. Steel moved against steel.
“I feel it.”
“I’m going to remove it.”
The promise came before Gideon understood he intended to make it.
Jude turned his head slightly. “When?”
“Soon.”
“That is not a time.”
“No.”
Gideon drew him closer.
His mouth brushed Jude’s temple.
Accidental.
The rule required him to stop.
He did.
Jude felt the hesitation.
His heart had begun slowing beneath Gideon’s palm.
One beat.
Another.
The spaces between lengthened.
Jude turned within Gideon’s arms.
The movement brought them face-to-face.
Gideon loosened his hold but did not remove it. One hand remained against Jude’s chest. Jude’s knee settled between Gideon’s. The fire had dimmed enough that the contours of his face were softened by shadow.
Jude looked at Gideon’s mouth.
Then into his eyes.
“Kiss me.”
Gideon’s entire body went still.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“You’re upset.”
“I know what I’m asking.”
“You are still my prisoner.”
“I know that too.”
Gideon searched his face.
The nightmare had left Jude shaken, but his gaze was clear. No panic. No confusion. No plea for comfort disguised as desire.
Only choice.
“Ask me again,” Gideon said.
Jude’s fingers closed around the front of his shirt.
“Kiss me, Gideon.”
Gideon touched his face.
His palm settled along Jude’s jaw, thumb resting beneath the healing split in his lip. Jude leaned into him.
Gideon moved slowly.
He gave Jude every possible second to change his mind.
Their noses brushed.
Breath mingled.
Then Gideon placed his mouth against Jude’s.
The first contact was almost unbearably gentle.
Jude’s lips were warm despite the night.
Softer than Gideon had imagined and rougher where the split had not completely healed.
Gideon kissed him without pressure, without demand, holding himself at the threshold of something he had denied for so long that crossing it felt like stepping beyond the known world.
Jude made a quiet sound.
His fist tightened in Gideon’s shirt.
The sound entered Gideon like fire.
He kissed Jude again.
This time Jude answered.
His mouth moved beneath Gideon’s, not submitting but meeting. Their lips parted and returned, learning one another through fragments—pressure, breath, the slight turn of Jude’s head, the way his free hand climbed from Gideon’s chest to the back of his neck.
Gideon’s thumb moved over Jude’s cheek.
Jude drew him closer.
The kiss deepened.
Restraint did not vanish. It transformed into precision.
Gideon felt every place they touched.
Jude’s chest against his.
Jude’s fingers at his neck.
The hard line of one thigh pressed between Gideon’s legs.
The mouth opening beneath his with a trust that made Gideon’s entire body tighten.
He tasted water, smoke, and the faint salt of tears.
Jude kissed like a man who had spent years using words to conceal hunger and had finally run out of language. There was urgency in him, but no carelessness. He followed Gideon’s pressure, then challenged it, pulling at the front of Gideon’s shirt until their bodies came fully together.
Gideon’s arm closed around his waist.
Jude’s injured side fit against him.
Gideon adjusted instinctively, supporting rather than crushing. Jude noticed and kissed him harder.
Heat moved through Gideon with frightening speed.
His hand left Jude’s face and entered his hair. Damp black strands closed around his fingers. He held the back of Jude’s head and changed the angle of the kiss.
Jude exhaled into his mouth.
The sound destroyed what remained of Gideon’s control.
He drew Jude across his lap.
The chain snapped tight.
Steel struck bone.
Both men stopped.
The iron cuff had caught between their wrists. The chain pressed against Jude’s stomach and Gideon’s chest, an undeniable piece of the law inside their embrace.
Gideon looked down.
Jude’s right wrist remained closed in federal steel.
Gideon’s left wore the matching cuff.
The key remained sewn inside the waistband of Gideon’s trousers.
He had possessed it through every touch.
Every request.
Every answer.
Jude had asked for the kiss.
But Gideon still controlled whether he could walk away afterward.
Gideon released him.
He pulled back so abruptly that Jude nearly fell from his lap.
Jude caught himself. “What happened?”
Gideon could not look at him.
“Gideon.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Jude’s expression hardened. “I asked you.”
“You asked while chained to me.”
“I knew the chain was there.”
“That does not make us equal.”
“I never claimed it did.”
Gideon stood.
The movement dragged Jude up with him.
The sudden distance between their mouths felt violent.
Jude’s lips were flushed from the kiss. His shirt remained twisted in one fist. Desire and hurt fought openly across his face.