by Roxy Harte
“What do you like best?” he encouraged.
She was fascinated by the mischief sparking in his eyes. She grabbed the crotch of his pants and found him hard and ready. “This is no wee thing you stab me with. I like that.”
Daniel laughed.
She jerked at his leather belt. “And I don't have to just lay there not moving with my legs spread. You let me do what I want.”
“What do you want to do now?”
She smiled at him sweetly, then dropped to her knees. She opened the front of his pants and tugged them down. Looking up, she saw his lips part like he might object, but he didn't.
She glanced at his erection and bit her lip. He was so lovely to look at. She stroked his length, marveling at the thick veins marking it. “Do you think it would be all right if I kissed you like you did me?”
He made a strangled sound in his throat. She took that as consent and took the barest tip between her lips, looking up as she did so to gauge her effect on him. He met her gaze and demonstrated as he said, “Push back the foreskin.”
She watched as he exposed the smooth head. She licked her lips, propelled by instinct to take his length into her mouth. He sighed. She rolled her eyes up to see he'd closed his.
She slid his penis deeper into her mouth, so that the head hit the back of her throat, not expecting to gag as she did. She pulled away.
“Oh God, Lucy.”
She jerked her face up. He was enjoying it.
She tried again, sliding in just the head, tracing her tongue around the tip. Daniel moaned. Yes, that seems right.
Daniel's hips moved forward, pushing deeper, but then immediately withdrawing. The motion put her off balance, but she liked his response. She slid her hands up the backs of his hips and encouraged him to move his hips again.
He moved forward and back; she took more of his length, enjoying the sensation as he slid in and out of her mouth. She sucked, drawing on his length. The tip pushed against the back of her throat again, making her gag around his flesh.
His hand tangled in her hair. “Lucy.”
She didn't slide his length all the way out, only so much as to not gag, but immediately regretted the loss. She'd liked the way it felt to have his penis against the back of her throat. She pulled his hips forward and felt the bump against her throat but managed to not gag. She increased the rhythm.
“Oh God, ohhh.”
Sweet cream filled her mouth, and she found herself swallowing hard. She swallowed again and again, until he'd finished coming in her mouth. Daniel withdrew and helped her to her feet. He kissed her, and beneath her palm, she could feel his pounding heart. “Did it feel good?”
“Yes. Very good.” He took off all his clothing and held out his hand to her. Taking it, he led her to the bedroll.
* * *
Two weeks of devastatingly treacherous travel later, Lucy knew she was going to survive. Blisters, diarrhea, and marauding bears hadn't led to her demise, though there had been moments she had honestly and truly wished she were dead. She hadn't died or ditched her booty.
She'd been proud of that.
The trail going up had been exhausting, but Daniel had given the horse many breaks, as he'd been worried about the animal's lungs. Overhead, the skies were a dark, ominous gray, thunderclouds threatening, and a heavy mist, looking like fallen clouds, filled the valleys. Walking beside the horse with evergreens towering over her and skittering jays in the high branches, she wished she could see the beauty Daniel saw.
She knew he was happy; there was joy written across his face. Peace. Even though rain, cold, and hunger had been their constant companions.
She wasn't feeling it.
Huddling into her overlarge dress, the extra material wrapped around herself twice, she cursed Ollie again for believing California would give them all a better life. Day after day, they walked, with seemingly no end in sight. She cursed Daniel for being so damn happy.
She only tolerated him because he slept wrapped around her every night, holding her, kissing her. Even that made her angry. Her mood was so foul.
When they stopped for the night and she started a campfire, she tried to see something in his expression that would tell her he felt more than lust, but so far there was only a rawness of need. “What I desire no one can force; it can only be given freely.” Was he looking for love? She irritated herself thinking with such impracticality. As soon as he had her safely ensconced in a town, the sooner he would be on his way out of her life. She told herself she needed to remember that. Every kiss. Every touch. Remember.
“What's on your mind?” he asked, startling her.
“Nothing.”
He moved closer, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “Something.”
She looked into his face, refusing to meet his gaze. He really was beautiful to look at, strong jaw, high eyebrows, slightly bent nose. She wondered if it had been broken the same night he'd received the scar that cut through his eyebrow.
“Look at me.” He grabbed her chin.
“I am.”
He kissed her, hard, making her open her mouth to him so he could fill her with his tongue. He stole her breath and scattered her thoughts.
Lifting her, he pushed her up against a wide tree, the rough bark an irritation through the thin fabric of her dress. He pressed harder into her, the fabric becoming inconsequential as her mind focused on the roughness as her body pressed into the tree, but then his body molded to hers, his heat searing her, his mouth claiming hers, and she forgot the discomfort of a moment before. She pushed into him, feeling his hard length through both her dress and his pants. She gasped. “Please,” needing to feel pleasure, wanting to forget the hardship of the journey and the tired ache of her bones.
Daniel pulled the ill-fitting dress off her shoulders, revealing her breasts. He kissed and bit his way to her breasts, making her writhe and moan before he even took her nipple into his mouth.
“God. Oh God, Daniel. Please. I want you inside me. Now.”
Daniel gifted her with a lopsided grin. “Patience.”
He dropped to his knees, then lifted her skirt up to her waist. The cool breeze teased at her folds just before his face buried against her, inhaling her scent. He pushed her thighs apart, licking, making sounds deep in his throat like he was enjoying the most delicious meal.
It was too much. Lucy wanted him to fill her. “Daniel! Please.”
She felt his chuckle against her muff before he picked up her leg and slid it over his shoulder. He slid a single finger inside her. “Is that what you need?”
She growled. “No.”
He slid a second finger inside and wiggled them both through her slickness. “That must surely be what you need.”
“Damn it, Daniel.”
He licked the bud of her sex, making her knees weak, and it was a good thing he was supporting her weight, or she knew she'd have fallen. She pressed her shoulders back into the rough tree bark and lifted her hips. “Please, please, please.”
Daniel filled her with a third finger, pumping in and out of her, making her cry out with each thrust. Lucy stopped begging, her mind forgetting words as her orgasm shuddered around his fingers.
Suddenly Daniel was standing again, lifting her, thrusting into her. Getting caught in his gaze, she found herself swimming in the passion she found in the liquid depths of his dark brown irises.
He stayed solid and deep inside of her, not moving, not thrusting.
“Daniel!”
He hovered over her, leaning his face closer to hers. She could feel his warm breath on her face, and she realized she was holding hers. Waiting. Wanting him to thrust hard and fast into her. He whispered, “Tell me what you want.”
She moved her hips, but the wicked, dark depths of his eyes demanded words. She lifted her mouth to his, kissing him with the intensity she wanted from him. He kissed her back with an equal passion, stealing her breath, befuddling her mind.
“Please!”
“What?”
“Fuck me.”
He kissed her deep as he thrust in and out. Hard. Fast. She thought he might break her in two. “Is this what you want?”
Lucy cried, the pleasure he brought her so perfect. “Yes, yes. Oh God, yes.”
When he released her, she shyly met his gaze, making him smile. “That's better. Now tell me what you're thinking.”
Adjusting her dress to cover herself, she insisted, “A woman's thoughts are the only thing that is truly hers. I don't have to share them.”
“You always been this stubborn?”
She shrugged, looking away again.
“Seems to me your back should be crisscrossed with scars, seeing the willful nature you're in possession of.”
Remembering Ezra's scars, she shivered. “Emma loved me too much to ever lay a whip to my back.”
“I've heard most masters aren't so kind.”
She couldn't admit to Daniel that she was the exception, not the rule. She'd seen Emma lift a crop or a whip against an unruly slave, but she'd been kind mostly. She couldn't imagine being treated thusly. Suddenly a new fear assailed her. “What if we don't make it to California? I don't ever want to be owned again.”
He met her gaze, and the look in his eyes terrified her. “No one will ever take you to be used as a slave again, Lucy. I'd kill you before I'd ever leave you to that fate.”
He kissed her again, making her believe him, making her believe that he loved her, even though he'd never said it. He loves me. It didn't seem to matter so much when he stepped abruptly away from her to tend the fire. She watched him poke the bits of wood with a stick, coaxing flames, and thought about what life in California would bring them. She imagined a small house, a house that was their house, and children. She'd never considered having a child before, but suddenly a child in her arms seemed like the perfect new beginning in a new place.
* * *
Two days later they caught the sight of campfires in the distance. A lot of campfires. “Wagons. We'll go around.”
Lucy didn't need him to tell her twice. She certainly didn't want someone interfering in what she was beginning to see as the beginning of her new, perfect life.
They walked well into the night, well past the group, and into a town. A heavy scent of pine and wood smoke filled the air. The town was new, the wood of the buildings recently hewn, most either not painted or in the middle of being painted. The clapboard buildings touched at their sides, mostly all two stories, with flat roofs and narrow windows. The wide streets were thick, muddy, rutted deep. The horse's hooves made thick splatting sounds with each step. The mud pulled its foot deep. Glop. Shreep. Glop. Shreep.
Daniel had led the horse most of the day, allowing her to ride, but here he held out his arms. “Best if you walk. Don't want the animal to break a leg now that the journey is almost over out of foolish carelessness.”
She slid out of the saddle, and when her feet hit the ground, she sank past her ankles and fell forward, her hands sinking as well when she caught herself. “Lord have mercy.”
The mud smelled of horse dung and worse—whatever the worse was, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She may have wallowed in the muck forever, trapped like a fly in a web, had Daniel not pulled her by her elbow. Disgusted by the thick muck on her hands, she wiped them on the back side of her damp dress. Since leaving the desert, she'd been mostly cold, damp, if not outright drenched through, and found herself wondering why she'd ever thought the heat of the desert had been a bad thing. She'd have cried if she hadn't already shed every tear in her body while on the Overland Route. “I hate California! All it does is rain.”
“Not always.” Daniel assured her and led both her and the horse forward, her feet sinking, sucking her down into its mire, so that it took all her strength to pull her foot free.
“What's the name of this place?” Lucy asked, having grown used to the silence of nature the weeks it took to cross the mountains. She looked around, wide-eyed, as men on horses fired their guns into the night sky. Two women leaned out of an upstairs window and screamed, not a fearful sound, but a celebratory hoot.
“Hangtown.”
As they passed buildings, she noticed some of the walls were covered over with posters, hung haphazardly at odd angles, some ripped partly down and pasted over again. They all read the same thing: WANTED—DEAD OR ALIVE. Sketches showed what the men looked like, and while some were frightening, some were no more than boys. There were so many. She guessed Daniel must have noticed the direction she was looking, or maybe saw fear on her face, because he promised, “No one is going to hurt you. Not as long as you're with me.” He kissed her forehead. “Besides, not all those men are dangerous.” He laughed. “My face is probably on at least one of those placards, and while I won't say I'm a guilt-free man, I wouldn't believe anything those damn things say either.”
Lucy saw no humor in the possibility of Daniel being a wanted man. She snuggled closer to him, hugging his back. “I think I was less afraid of the grizzlies.”
She felt his chest vibrate with mirth.
“Might as well say we've entered no-man's land here. California laws don't hold much sway. The local vigilantes decide who lives and who dies.”
Lucy's eyes went wide.
“Don't worry. Most folks here like me well enough, and the ones who don't”—he shrugged—“don't matter much, the way I see things.”
Looking around her, Lucy was appalled. This is why men left their homes? A sour feeling filled Lucy's stomach as Daniel led her to an area on the outskirts of town set up with tents. She looked over her shoulder at the town, two-story buildings on both sides of the strip. White folk. She looked back at the tent city. Black folk. “Seems things aren't so different here as back East.”
Daniel seemed to read her thoughts. “Immigrants. Same as you, trying to escape bondage and persecution. It won't be this way where I'm taking you.”
“Hmmpph.” Daniel led her into a tent. Benches were set up for dozens, but only two other men were eating. He led her near a small pot fire, and the warmth did much to improve her spirits, though she felt self-conscious because she was the only woman in the tent, and the men present hadn't taken their eyes off her since she'd entered.
When a large woman carried two plates to them, overflowing with beans, potatoes, and chicken, she forgot all about the rain, the mud, and the men. Discovering there were also biscuits with fresh butter made her feel like she'd died and gone to heaven. Just the aroma made her mouth water.
She ate without worrying about who was watching her and barely restrained herself from licking her plate clean. The meal reminded her of home and a time when both she and Emma were younger, both their mothers still alive. She didn't think the biscuits were as good as her mother's, but they were close.
Someday, in her own home, she'd make Daniel biscuits.
The thought made her smile until Daniel winked at the woman serving them, and the happiness that had sustained her through the worst two days of the entire journey evaporated. The woman ducked out of the curtain, and Daniel's gaze followed her for only a moment before he went back to sopping up the remainder of his bean gravy with the last bite of biscuit. “You think I can find work here?”
He shrugged and kept eating.
“This is California, and you only committed to taking me to the first town. I guess this is it.” Lucy watched his face but didn't get even the slightest reaction. Believing hthe worst, her last dash of hope plummeted. She'd used him for warmth and comfort; he'd relieved his lust, but there was nothing more.
Carrying her empty plate across the room, she pushed open a back flap and found three women. The first was the woman who had brought them their meal, who stood over a large kettle atop a glowing coal bed. Two others sat on the ground, talking as they mended torn shirts by lantern light. Embarrassed for interrupting, which she obviously had, by their expressions, she held out her empty plate.
“You want more?” She didn't stop stirring; the mending wo
men shared a look.
“No, I was wondering if there is any work in town.” She set the empty plate on a small table. The closest woman pointed her needle at her. “Out!”
The large woman left the fire and started walking toward her. Lucy felt confused; she'd done nothing to provoke the women. Suddenly Daniel was there, pulling her back. He apologized and put a half-dollar in the hand of the woman who'd brought them their food. Outside in the night air, Lucy demanded, “What was that about?”
“They saw you as competition.”
“Competition?”
“For jobs, for their men.”
Lucy scrunched up her face. “What are you talking about?”
Daniel whispered, “Pay attention.”
She waited for him to say more, and when he didn't, she noticed what was going on around them. Four men hovered near the tent, the looks on their faces saying there were things they would do to her if they could. Two other men were eyeing their pack-laden horse, and the three women who'd been behind the food tent appeared in the open doorway. Lucy was assured by the heavy weight of the tin inside her skirt pocket, but still, she didn't fancy a skirmish over goods.
Daniel lifted her onto the horse and climbed up behind her. The shift in mood terrified Lucy, making her tremble. Taking the reins in hand, Daniel headed them back into the main town at a quick pace. No one followed them, and after a moment, Lucy felt ridiculous for having been so afraid.
Over their heads, women called down to them. One of them had her eyes painted darkly. She called, “I remember you, dark cowboy. Been long time since you visit me.”
Lucy gasped. “That was a prostitute!”
“Yes.”
“She wanted you to come to her.”
“I believe so.”
Lucy felt a flush of heat begin at her toes and travel up the length of her body. She was surprised when her hair did not burst into flames. Her chest heaved as she asked, “What you do with me, you did with her?”
“Yep.” Daniel kept riding, and she realized she was growing angrier with every passing second but didn't understand why. “You're an animal.”
He laughed at her, his arm looped around her waist tight, but didn't say anything to defend himself. As they rode through town, Lucy noticed a woman striding toward them. She was the most beautiful woman Lucy had ever seen. Her hair was caught up in an elaborate style, and the dress she wore was billowed out by a wide hoop. As she drew closer, Lucy saw the neckline was immodestly low and that the woman had painted her cheeks and lips. She gasped, thinking the woman was of ill repute, and glanced away. Daniel reined in the horse, and the woman exclaimed, “Daniel Hatch! It has been too long.”