Chapter 14
KODIAK
No woman has ever undone me like this. I’ve lived too long by my own rules. Take what you need. Keep your head down and don’t stop moving. But Alice makes me want things. Fool things.
Her mouth—Christ, her mouth—is softer than any pillow I’ve ever rested my head on. She makes the quietest little sounds, breath hitching like each kiss rattles her. Each one unchains something in me I’ve kept captive for years.
I pull back, and my hand slides to her throat, thumb over that wild pulse.
I don’t know why I do it. I’d never hurt her, but I want her to know I could.
Maybe it’s instinct. Self-defense for making me feel like a damn sack of nerves, knowing full well she could end me with just a look.
I squeeze gently, but she don’t flinch. It’s her trust in me that wrecks me worse than any bullet. Don’t she know I ruin what I touch?
I need her. Now.
Her bodice is a mess under my hands—too many buttons, not enough sense left in my fingers. She don’t stop me. Just watches me, eyes wide’n pure as a fawn, and hell if that don’t make me burn hotter.
How’s a woman manage to smell so appetizing after a full day in the summer heat, dragged through the open country? Even the salt of her sweat makes me lose myself.
I free her, breasts fair as a lily, nipples pink and tight in the lantern light.
God a’mighty. I don’t speak. Don’t even breathe loud.
Just look. Like some pilgrim kneeling to worship at an altar.
Ain’t never seen a shrine built like her, and damn, if heaven’s finer than these tits, I might find God after all. I lean in and take her into my mouth.
She gasps. The sound shoots straight to the root of me.
I grind against her, desperate for friction, my body raw with need.
Her legs shift beneath her skirts, opening just enough.
An invitation. Damn, her heat. I feel it even through the skirts, radiating up at me.
The friction damn near blinds me. Nothing pretty about it, just raw hunger, my cock hard as nails and straining like I’m some kid fumbling in the dark.
We kiss, teeth knocking, messy and wet. My other hand palms her breast, squeezing rough, thumbing her nipple while my hips drive against her like I’m staking a claim.
She clings to me, fingertips pressing against my ass, drawing me closer, like she wants every inch of me even through the damned cloth between us.
I can’t stop. Don’t want to. Every roll of my hips, I find a kind of pleasure that don’t feel deserving for a poor scoundrel like me. She’s making sounds, gentle and sweet, each time I press hard over that searing spot. Christ almighty, that spot.
Her mouth’s slick against mine, and I picture how slick and warm she is underneath this skirt.
The thoughts multiply, spinning like I’m being goddamn hypnotized.
Her insides must be even more inviting than her mouth.
Pious little thing like her’s probably tight as a hangman’s knot.
I lose my breath thinking on it, thinking how I’d sink into her, stretch her, fuck her full, bury my seed dee—
Oh no. No no no no.
But that’s it—that’s the end of me. My body’s moving by itself, jerking like a dog breeding. It hits sudden, violent. Heat tearing through me before I can hold it back. I curse into her mouth as I spill in my pants, harder than I have since boyhood. Shame and hunger twist together, near choking me.
I break the kiss, forehead pressed to hers, breath ragged. My fist knots tight in her skirts, like if I let go, I’ll float away. “Alice,” I rasp. “Christ. You made me spend like a damn boy.”
Her lips part like she’s about to speak, but nothing comes out.
She’s flushed deep, chest rising fast, nipples wet from my mouth.
For a heartbeat she just stares, like she don’t know what to do with what we’ve done.
Then her hands slip from my hair, from my shoulders.
She draws back just a little, breath ragged, and she’s trembling same as me, the need clinging to her.
“God,” she whispers, shifting back. Sitting up, she straights her bodice, fumbling with the fabric, covering herself. “Oh God,” she says again.
Her tears come fast, sliding down her cheeks. She curls in on herself like I broke her, shoulders hunching, palms pressed hard to her face. I hear her whispering to the Lord like she needs saving from me.
Blood pumps hot through my veins like molten steel through a forge. The sound of her crying scrapes raw at me. How can she sit there carrying on like I stole something against her will?
“Hell no,” I snap, harsher than I mean. My chest heaves, mouth flying off hotter than the barrel of a spent pistol. “Don’t look at me like I took what wasn’t offered.”
She flinches, then lifts her face. Tear-streaked, lips trembling. For a moment she just stares, and the storm outside fills the silence between us.
“I-I let you. That’s what shames me.” Her voice cracks, but she pushes on, desperate. “I wanted it, and I ought not to have. Don’t you see? I have sinned, not you. I gave myself over to desire.”
“So what? That’s what people do. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with how you feel. I want you like I ain’t wanted a thing. Say what you want, but you’re mine.”
“I am nothing of the sort, Mr. Randolph.”
“Oh bullshit,” I snarl. “Now you’re startin’ to piss me off.”
She wipes her cheeks rough, smearing the wet across her skin. “I’ll not be claimed by you.”
I lean in, close enough for her to feel my breath, my voice low.
“It’s already passed, sweetheart. Ain’t no more say in it.
You’re my woman, and you’ll be dreamin’ of me tonight, same as I’ll be burnin’ for you.
You can try to pray it away, but you had a taste and ain’t nothin’ holy’ll scrub it clean. ”
Her hand trembles where it clutches her bodice closed. She doesn’t answer, only turns her face aside. Inch by inch she shifts away, rolling over to give me her back.
The tent goes quiet but for the rain on the canvas. My breath’s ragged, loud in the hush.
The fabric of my trousers clings damp and wrong. I curse under my breath, fumbling for my bandana. Opening my fly, I wipe myself clean as I can. Ain’t no hiding the mess, though—damp patch cooling in my britches, clinging strange. I feel like a damn boy caught dirty-handed.
I glance at her stiff back, shoulders drawn tight under her dress, fists knotted in her skirts.
Those tears, praying like I’d ruined her.
Heat and shame twist in my chest. “Yeah, you go on and pray, Alice. Pray your little lamb heart out for all I care.”
We don’t speak much for days. She keeps to her side of the wagon.
At camp, she keeps her hands busy with cooking, mending and scrubbing our clothes.
I drive and tend the horses. The silence’s a weight, but neither of us breaks it.
She’s keeping to herself, like speaking a word is a slippery slope to ending up in my arms.
Every mile we ride, it builds. She won’t dare look at me. Her laugh gone, her voice clipped to nothing but what’s needed. And damn if it don’t grate worse than her crying.
I catch myself stealing glances. The shape of her nose when she’s staring off at the countryside. The curves of her mouth when she’s stirring a pot and don’t know I’m paying attention. That long hair of hers when she takes it down to brush it out. Every move she makes just feeds my hunger.
I know she feels it too, and I reckon the silence, the distance, is her way of keeping it from taking hold again.
By the third day, the summer heat’s thick as lard. Sweat stings my eyes. The horses slow. When we pull up by a wide creek, the water glistens, damn near calling my name. The water’s running fast and cool over smooth rock, and I make up my mind.
She wants to pretend she’s some untouchable saint, begging heaven to scour me out of her veins? Fine. But I’ll show her plain what she’s missing.