Chapter 41
KODIAK
After Alice explains I’m not a danger—at least to her and hers—I help ’em drag that Collier bastard to the root cellar. Never met the man, but if Alice helped him give up the ghost, reckon he earned it.
Hell, all I wanted was to lift her, spin her, kiss her deep. That’s how I saw it playing out the whole way from Galveston. But finding her there with a dead man on the ground sure took the shine off the moment.
I hole up in the main house while the others go about running the inn. Come nightfall, Alice finds me there. She’s limping some. Stops in the doorway like she ain’t sure she’s welcome.
“Why you hangin’ back, sweetheart?”
“I can hardly believe it’s really you,” she says, quiet-like. “I keep thinking you’ll vanish.”
I grin. “Been called a ghost already today. Seems I’m gettin’ a reputation.”
She laughs a little—worn thin but real. I reach out slow, letting her choose. She don’t move. Just watches me with those wide eyes I’ve seen in dreams every night since Galveston.
“I kept thinking you might be gone for good,” she says. “That you’d realized life would be easier without me.”
I shake my head. “Ain’t nothin’ about this world easier without you.”
Her face softens, shoulders drooping like she’s been holding up the world alone. She leans into my hand like a kitten purring against a leg, and I draw her close, one arm at her waist, the other sliding up her back. She smells of woodsmoke and cold night air.
We stand quite a while, fire crackling behind us, her breath warm on my throat.
“I feared I’d never feel safe again,” she says, barely a whisper.
I bend to kiss her. Her fingers knot in my shirt as though she’ll lose me again if she loosens her grip. And God—her taste—it’s like finally laying down the ache I’ve carried through every empty mile without her.
When she pulls back, her body eases away.
“Virgil is coming,” she murmurs. “Any day now.”
“Good. Been lookin’ forward to seein’ him.”
“Kodiak, I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t fret none. I’ll see it handled.”
“With guns?”
“That strikes me as a sensible plan.”
“You cannot keep solving every problem with bullets. Aren’t you weary of all the running?”
“It’s the only life I’ve ever known.”
“I understand. But we could have something better.”
She steps into the firelight, shadows shifting across her face. “You said you wanted cattle. Hogs. Chickens. We can do that here. Live off the land. Run the inn.”
Being a hotel man don’t sound like a dream. I’d sooner chew nails. But she’s right about one thing—me wanting to live clean, quiet, and with her, whatever comes next. I’ve dreamt of Alice heavy with my child more times than I care to admit. Trouble is, it ain’t a life I can promise.
“We can’t. Not while there’s a price on my head.”
“I cannot run again,” she says, voice firmer now.
Then her fingers go to the buttons at her hip, undo ’em. The fabric parts, and there it is—the scar. Pink, ropey, like a railroad track etched into her flesh.
“It aches when the weather turns. I can walk, work, but it’s not easy. If we had to run, really run, I’d only slow you down.”
For a long spell, I just stare. That wound damn near took her from me.
“I remember that day,” I say. Wind off the Gulf, her skirts soaked in blood, me screaming for a doctor like a madman.
“It’s ugly,” she murmurs. “I walk like a lame mule.”
“You’re the finest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’d do it all over. Swing from a rope if it meant keepin’ you alive.”
Her hands come to my face, trembling. “Don’t die for me, Kodiak. Live. Stay, and live.”
I sink to my knees before her, pressing my lips to the scar. The skin’s warm, raised. I kiss it again, slower this time, mouth moving along the jagged ridges. My hands find her hips. She leans back against the wall, breath catching.
“Let me see you,” I murmur.
With shaky hands, she tugs the skirt open the rest of the way. It drops past her hips in a soft whisper of cloth. Ain’t nothing underneath—just her, bare and trembling in the firelight.
One hand finds the wall behind her. The other grips my shoulder.
I start with a kiss to her inner thigh—slow, reverent. Her skin’s hot under my mouth. I drag my tongue along her, feel her jolt. When I part her and kiss the place she’s burning for me, she lets out a gasp.
She tastes like sin and redemption both. I take my time, tongue drawing soft circles, then deeper strokes. She moans, nails clawing at my shoulder.
“Kodiak.”
I hum against her, sucking gentle on her pretty little button, feeling her whole body start to quake. She’s close already, hips grinding. When she comes, she don’t cry out. She whimpers, legs shaking, head thumping against the wall.
I hold her through it, mouth gentling, letting her ride the wave.
After, I rest my head against her thigh, breathing hard.
She laughs, breathless. Hands cup my face, pulling me up. She kisses me deep, like she don’t care what I taste like.
“Come with me,” she whispers.
I nod, chest tight. “Lead on.”
I follow, one step behind, watching the sway of her hips, the soft dip of her spine where her blouse hangs loose.
Her skirts are pooled downstairs, so all she’s got on is that blouse.
The hem barely covers the round curve of her backside.
She hasn’t even touched me yet, and I’m already half crazed with want.
But it’s more than that. It’s need. It’s months of hunger, loneliness.
My voice comes quiet. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
She pauses at the top of the stairs, turns her head just enough for me to see her smile—soft, tired.
The bedroom door creaks open. She steps through and halts at the edge of the bed—the same bed that held the man she was bound to by name only, and later, the scoundrel we dragged down to the root cellar.
I catch up to her, slide my arms ’round her waist from behind, and kiss her shoulder. The scent of her clings to my mouth.
“This all right?” I ask, voice hushed against her ear. “This room?”
She nods. “It doesn’t belong to them anymore. It’s ours now.”
I press in closer, resting my cheek to her hair. My hands splay across her stomach, thumbs brushing slow.
“You tell me what you need, lamb,” I murmur. “How you want it.”
She takes my hands and guides them up—over her ribs, her breasts, her throat arching just a little. Her body knows mine. Missed mine.
“Slow,” she says. “I want to feel every part of you.”
She leans into me, like she’s certain I’ll catch her.
“You want me to lead?” I whisper, my mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “Want me to take care of you proper?”
Her breath shivers out. “Yes,” she whispers. “Take care of me.”
I turn her gentle and stop her hands when she reaches for the buttons of her blouse.
“Let me.”
She lowers her arms, lets me do the honors.
I take my time, each button a small undoing. I kiss her as I go—her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her throat, the soft curve of her breast. She trembles under my mouth, breath catching like she’s near forgotten what this feels like.
When I slide the blouse from her shoulders, she stands there bare, the dim lamplight dancing across her skin.
Her nipples are drawn tight from the chill, gooseflesh crawling up her arms. I cup her chest, my thumbs rolling gentle over those pretty peaks.
She gasps, bending into me, and I lower to her—tongue flicking soft at first, then firmer, sucking her into my mouth while her fingers curl into my shoulders.
“You feel that?” I whisper, moving to the other. “That’s me takin’ my time with what’s mine.”
She’s breathing harder now. Her fingers tremble where they grip me.
I let go, slide my hands down her waist. “Bed,” I whisper. “Go on, lie back for me. Nice and easy.”
She does, careful of her hip. Helping her down, I guide her until she’s settled—flushed, bare, eyes wide and waiting.
I step back and start to strip. Hook my thumbs in the suspenders, let them fall slow, one at a time. “You miss me?” I ask, the corner of my mouth curling.
“I dreamt of this,” she says.
I shrug off my shirt, one shoulder then the other.
My belt’s already loose, trousers hanging low.
Her eyes drop, lingering on the trail of hair, the heavy shape of me straining beneath the fabric.
Christ—how it aches for her. I grip my rigidness through the cloth just to hear her breath hitch—watch that slight needy roll of her hips.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want to see,” she says, voice like silk. Thighs parted, her arousal glistens in the lamplight.
I toe off my boots, fingers working the buttons of my fly one by one.
When I push the trousers down and step free, her gaze don’t leave me, not for a second.
Wrapping a hand around the base of myself, I stroke slow, thumb passing over the crown.
A slick bead of desire wells there, and her lips part as I smear it in a slow circle until the swollen head glistens wetly.
“This what’s kept you up at night?” I murmur. “Dreamin’ on how it’d feel to be stretched full of me?”
Her thighs part a fraction. She don’t answer, but she don’t need to.
“Spread for me, darlin’ and let me take what’s mine.”
She parts her thighs for me, her little wince not lost on me. I place a hand on her knee, gentle-like.
“That hurtin’ you?”
“No,” she says, voice steady but breathing fast. “Just tight.”
“I’ll go easy,” I murmur, leaning in to kiss her stomach, the line of her hip. “You just keep tellin’ me if somethin’ don’t feel right. You hear?”
She nods.
“I need to hear it.”
“Yes,” she says. “I promise.”