A Soft Kiss in Winter

by Lily Graison

  Turning to her side, she put her back to him, raised one hand to her aching breasts and trapped the other between her legs. One lone finger slid between her wet folds to that soft bit of flesh that caused her entire body to jump to attention the moment she touched it. Gideon’s image filled her mind’s eye, that finger moving in slow, small circles against the center of her and for a brief moment, her mind filled with pictures of Gideon’s hand between her legs, his mouth on her flesh and she had to bury her face into the pillow as the movement of her fingers on her breasts and beneath her damp curls brought her closer to release. The moment her body clenched, her sex clamping down on nothing but air, she bit her tongue until she tasted blood, Gideon’s face burned into her memory.

  When her body calmed, she sighed. Her limbs felt liquid, her body sated. She lifted her head and looked back over her shoulder. Gideon was still turned away from her. She stared at the wall as the blood racing through her veins slowed, her heartbeat returning to normal.

  Thomas’s face filled her mind’s eye and the guilt she should have felt at pleasuring herself while her thoughts were on another man wasn’t there. What did that mean? She’d loved Thomas. Even after he’d struck her and yelled cruel things, she’d loved him. Or thought she had. Shouldn’t she feel guilty? But was she really being unfaithful for wanting someone that wasn’t him? To have just sought out her own pleasure imagining it was another man making her burn for release instead of him?

  She tucked her hands underneath her pillow. As much as she’d loved Thomas, he wasn’t coming back. The crushing pain she once felt didn’t feel as raw now. She supposed it wouldn’t have. He’d been gone for six months. Six months that left her scared and hungry and starved for the simple comfort of another person’s presence.

  Being alone on that prairie had been the most terrifying experience she’d ever suffered until those men had found her. If Gideon hadn’t come along when he did…

  She didn’t want to think about what would have happened and dwelling on it did little good. She had nothing to worry about now. Gideon would keep her safe until they made it to Silver Falls, of this she had no doubt.

  Chapter 8

  A loud noise drew her from sleep. Victoria sat up and looked around the room. Dim light shined through the window. It was just after dawn. She glanced at the fireplace. The blaze was high, flames dancing in bright yellow, orange, and red. Had it burned all night?

  Rising to her feet, she slipped on her dress and crossed to the door and opened it. The other room was bathed in gray shadows and she looked for the source of the noise but nothing seemed out of place. Looking at the pallet Gideon slept on, she gasped. He wasn’t there.

  The front door opened the moment later. Her eyes widened when she saw him. He was dressed, his arms loaded with wood. “What are you doing up?”

  He pushed the door shut with his foot and carried the bundle to the box by the wall. “The woodpile is getting low. We’ll have to go easy on this or I’ll have to cut more.”

  “You’ll do no such thing. You risk tearing your stitches moving around so much. I can only imagine how well they’d hold up if you were outside chopping wood.”

  He rose to his full height and dusted off his hands, then raised one to his chest, rubbing it across the wounds she knew still had to hurt. “I didn’t say I needed to do it today.”

  “Maybe not, but you still shouldn’t be moving around yet.”

  “I can’t lay around all day either.” He looked to the kitchen and nodded toward the stove with his head. “The leftover stew should be hot if you’re hungry.”

  She hadn’t realized the stove had been lit but now that she looked, she could see the flame shining around the door and the scent of hot stew filled the air. “And here I was hoping for bacon and eggs”

  He grinned. “Sorry to disappoint. The chickens froze, so no eggs.”

  Her eyes widened. “They froze?”

  He gave her a teasing look and walked back to the door. “Chickens don’t last long around here. Something always ended up eating them before I could so I stopped trying to keep them. There’s coffee, though.”

  She looked at the stove again as he went back outside, the coffee pot just now catching her attention, along with the scent. She’d never been much of a coffee drinker. She preferred tea but it had been so long since she’d had anything other than water, she poured a mug full and took a sip, and grimaced. She searched the shelves and smiled when she found the sugar, adding a spoonful before taking another sip. “Hmmm. Much better.”

  Gideon came back carrying more wood and she narrowed her eyes at him. “If you tear those stitches open—“

  “I’ll resew them myself if I do.” He laid the wood in his arms in the box and took off his coat, tossing it over one of the cushioned chairs near the fire. He crossed the room to the kitchen—his steps slow but she didn’t mention it—picking up a mug from the shelf above the sink and pouring coffee into it. “The weather looks clear. If it holds we’ll be able to make it the rest of the way down the mountain without any problems. If it starts snowing again, it’ll take longer.”

  “When will we leave?”

  “Tomorrow if you’re rested.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you going to be able to climb down the mountain hurt?”

  He rubbed his chest absently. “I’ll be fine.”

  She doubted that but she had no right to tell him what to do. She wasn’t his mother or his wife. That last thought brought back memories of what she’d done the night before and she turned toward the window, her face heating as she remembered. She still couldn’t believe she’d done something so wicked. What had come over her?

  Gideon crossed the room and she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he grabbed a ball of string from the shelf above the sink. One end had a small loop tied to it and he hung it from a nail in the wall she just now noticed. He draped the string across the room, tying the other end to a nail by the bedroom door.

  When it was secure on both ends, he turned to look at her. “To hang your wet clothes on. They’d be frozen solid if you hung them up outside.”

  Her clothes were still in the sink. She’d forgotten about them. She gave him a tiny smile. “Thank you. I hadn’t thought past the washing them part.” She set her mug down and walked to the sink. She’d have to put more water on to warm. “Do you have anything that needs cleaning?”

  “No, my dirty clothes were sliced beyond repair.”

  Heat filled her face as she remembered cutting his clothes away, and what he’d looked like when she’d pulled the ruined material off, and she looked away, knowing her face was red. There was no way it couldn’t be with how hot it grew.

  “Thank you, by the way.”

  Looking up from the sink, she was surprised to see him so close. She hadn’t heard him move. As hard as it was to do, she met his gaze and held it. A shyness she’d never felt with Thomas caused her pulse to race as they stood there staring at one another. His eyes were so light grey they were mesmerizing and the way he was looking at her cause the heat in her face to travel down the length of her body to rest in her belly. Why did he affect her like this? This instant—lust. With nothing more than a simple look from him, all she could think about was him touching her. Of what his hands would feel like on her flesh. It made little sense.

  She looked away. “You’re welcome. As for your clothes, the mountain lion shredded most of the material. I just cut away the rest of it to get them off of you.” She blushed again and instantly felt foolish. She’d never felt so out of sorts with Thomas. She’d always been comfortable around him.

  That’s because you loved Thomas.

  Was that the difference, then? Was it because she’d loved Thomas that she was always at ease in his presence?

  Maybe. But that didn’t explain why Gideon was making her pulse leap just because he stood so near. He wasn’t intimidating or threatening, so what was causing it?

  She shook the thoughts away and
reached for the bucket she’d filled with water the night before. Pushing the clothes over enough she could get the bucket under the water spout she gave the handle a few pumps. Just like the night before, nothing happened.

  Gideon came to her other side and moved her hand away and pumped the water himself. He wasn’t as gentle with it as she had been and it took no time for cool, clear water to pour from the spout.

  He put the filled bucket on the stove and regardless of what he said, she knew he was pulling those stitches. The pain on his face when he moved certain ways told her that much. “How are the stitches holding up?”

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “I wasn’t able to tie the bandages on last night. Did you? Or did you take them off.”

  “Took them off. They were too bloody to worry about keeping.”

  If he was still bleeding, those wounds needed cleaning again. She nodded and turned, gathering up what remained of the sheet she’d cut up the night before for bandages and laid them on the table, grabbed the towel and bowl from last night, and filled it with a bit of the water warming on the stove. When she had everything she needed, she glanced at him and swallowed the lump forming in her throat when she said, “Take your shirt off.”

  She was blushing again. One softly spoken request for him to remove his shirt and she averted her eyes and blushed the prettiest pink he’d ever seen.

  The cuts hurt like hell and he knew without looking he might have torn a few of the stitches loose but hadn’t wanted to say anything about it. Playing doctor in order to fix him up wasn’t her place but if she was willing, he’d let her.

  He made short work of the buttons and cross the room to where she stood. He sat on the edge of the table and pulled the shirt off his shoulders. Blood still seeped from the wounds in a few places. “I guess you were right.” The cuts looked worse now than they had earlier when he’d seen them. Long slash marks tore across his body from shoulder to hip. A few of them were red, the skin puffy near the stitches on his stomach but surprisingly, none of them had torn loose. “See. They’re still all there,” he said with a smile. “Which is good. I didn’t want to have to sit through putting them back in while awake.”

  Victoria wet the towel in her hand and moved to stand in front of him. “It still looks bad.”

  “Well, a mountain lion tried to rip me in half. I guess it would.”

  She gave him an exasperated look and he smiled. The fact she was offering to tend him was surprising. They’d not spoken much on their trek over the mountain. They’d said more today than they had the entire time it took to walk here, which he was thankful for. Her being so quiet gave him too much time to think and thinking always leads to thoughts he shouldn’t be having so he’d take all the chatter she wished to give him.

  He winced when she pressed too hard on the cut near his stomach. It was red, sore, and hurt worse than the rest of them. Her head was bent, her hair still loose and falling over her shoulders. He’d thought she’d been lovely before, when she’d been unkempt, her hair in wild disarray and dirt smeared across her dress and face, but now, seeing all those pretty curls dangle down her back and her walking around barefoot in his home made him want things he hadn’t wanted in longer than he could remember.

  He shifted on the table, spreading his legs further apart as she straightened and rewet the towel. When she leaned back toward him, she took a step closer. He could feel the heat from her body she stood so close. There were a few freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her eyelashes were long, her eyes deep green. She looked up and he noticed the bruises on the side of her face were starting to turn a sickly yellow. Without thinking, he raised his hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, then ran the back of one finger across the swollen flesh. “Does this hurt?”

  She caught his eye and licked her lips. His gaze was drawn there and held.

  “Not much,” she said.

  He stared at her mouth. She had full pouty lips made for kissing and he wondered what she’d do if he leaned down and tasted them like he wanted to. He pushed the thought aside, lowered his hand and rested it on his thigh before clearing his throat. “What will you do once we get to town?”

  She stilled and stared at his chest as if thinking. “I don’t know. Send a telegraph, I suppose. My parents will pay for my passage back home.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Or at least, I hope they will.”

  “You think they’ll abandon you?”

  Another shoulder shrug. “It’s hard to say. When I left, I did so with nothing more than a scribbled hand-written note left on the breakfast buffet. I’ve not talked to them since. They may be too angry to help me.”

  “Would they do that?”

  She was quiet for long moments. “I don’t think so. Regardless of how hurt they may be, they’ll not refuse.” She met his gaze. “Above all else, they did love me. I can’t imagine my running away changed that.”

  She was too close. There was no reason to be standing this close to him but the moment he’d shifted on the table, his legs moving further apart, Victoria had stepped right between them as if she had a right to.

  Another glance at his face and butterflies took flight inside her belly. He was staring at her, the look in his eyes so intense gooseflesh dotted the skin on her arms.

  His touch against her cheek had felt like a brand scoring her flesh, his gaze on her mouth causing the ache from the night before to burn anew and she hoped the disappointment she felt when he lowered his hand didn’t show on her face.

  She gave one last pat to the raw flesh near his shoulder and took a step back, reaching for the bandages. “No more carrying firewood in. The flesh around some of these stitches looks irritated and angry so take it easy.” He didn’t respond but did lift his arms when she went to wrap the bandage around his back. The move brought her even closer to him than she’d been a few minutes earlier. All she’d have to do was tilt her head a small fraction to kiss him. Their eyes met briefly and she looked away, tying the two ends of the make-shift bandage together. “Did you eat?”

  He shook his head, his gaze once again focused on her mouth. “No.”

  His voice was a rough whisper. It caused things low in her belly to tighten. His attention on her mouth was causing her pulse to race. Would he kiss her if she asked? Would he think her wanton if she raised up on her toes and kissed him instead? She cleared her throat and said, “You need to eat something. How do you expect to climb down the mountain if you’re too weak to walk?” She glanced at his mouth, then turned away and crossed to the sink before she made a fool of herself. Grabbing a bowl from the shelf, she spooned in a bit of the leftover stew and grabbed a spoon. He was buttoning his shirt back up when she turned to face him. “Eat this, whether you want to or not.”

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Her clothes still needed washing so she grabbed the bucket of hot water and poured it in the sink on top of them and hoped the mundane act of washing clothes would calm her racing heart. She’d have to let the water cool first so, she grabbed her own bowl of stew while she waited.

  The day passed quietly. She washed her clothes, put the beans she’d soaked the night before on to cook since there wasn’t enough stew for another full meal. Gideon busied himself at the table cleaning his rifle and ever so often when she looked his way, she found his gaze locked on her, her pulse leaping when their eyes met. She’d never been studied so intently by a man. She’d been taught it was rude to stare but would never have told him so, not when every time she found him looking at her, warmth filled her belly, her breath would catch in her throat and the ache from the night before returned. Images of him in that bed with her filled her head, his fingers playing across her skin instead of her own.

  The sun rose high over the mountain and started its descent down the other side before she was finished washing and hanging her clothes. Gideon had moved to one of the cushioned chairs near the fireplace, his head laid back and cocked to one side.

  The beans were
almost done, the smell filling the cabin and making her stomach growl. If there had been milk, biscuits would have tasted like heaven with those beans. She searched the pantry shelves and smiled when she found cornmeal. She would make hoecakes instead. She found the salt and a jar of bacon grease and carried them back to the kitchen and searched for a pan to fry in. She’d only made them once before and that had been over an open fire but Thomas hadn’t complained so she assumed they tasted all right.

  Gideon never moved as she fried the hoecakes, which she was glad of. She had to throw out a whole pan of them. She’d burnt them black before realizing the fire was too hot. The next batch didn’t turn out pretty but they weren’t burnt. Regardless of how bad they looked, they would make a better supper than just beans alone.

  She cleared the table, grabbed clean bowls and spoons, filled two glasses with cool water and set everything on the table before looking at the chair Gideon was sitting in. He had to be sleeping. He’d not moved in over an hour. She hated waking him. He needed rest, but he needed food more. She crossed to where he sat and said his name. It took three tries to get him to stir and when he looked up at her, she regretted disturbing him. “Supper is ready. Are you hungry?”

  He blew out a long breath and rubbed his face with one hand. “Not really but I know you’re not going to let me get away with not eating.” He smiled and joined her at the table where she dished up some of the beans for him and sat the hoecakes within reach. They ate in silence, the ticking of the clock on the mantel the only sound other than their spoons clinking against their bowls. Gideon ate little and he looked pale. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

  He looked up and gave her a tight smile. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s the price you pay for getting out of bed too soon after being hurt. Hauling in wood didn’t do you any favors either.”

  “Probably not.”