by Maddy Barone
“Yeah. Maybe they’re off visiting somewhere,” Stone suggested. “There must have been a cow in the little shed, but the scent is old. Either it died or they took it with them.”
Mel scratched her scalp under hair matted by sweat and the hat. “Maybe we should find somewhere else. What if they come back and find us here?”
Snake shrugged. “Then we apologize. Mel, you take the bedroom. The rest of us can bunk out here on the floor.”
She sighed. “I can’t lay in that nice bed. I’m filthy.”
Her husband grinned at her. “We all are. I’ll get a fire started in the stove. We can wash up before we go to bed.”
She went to the cupboards by the stove. “They must be coming back. Here’s flour and sugar and some canned goods. Let’s go on. I’d feel like a thief if I stayed here.”
Mike stepped in from taking care of the horses. “We can leave some money to pay for our stay.”
“Money?” Mel snorted. “We don’t have any money.”
“Yeah, we do.” Mike slapped his waist. “That man gave it back to me.”
Bitterness pushed a laugh out of Mel. “At least one of them has a sliver of decency left.” Too bad it wasn’t her mother.
Mike looked down. “Yeah. What’re we going to tell Marc?”
“The truth. Snake, let’s get the bathwater going.”
The sponge bath was heavenly. It wasn’t as good as sitting in a tub, but the rag dipped in hot soapy water made her feel clean again. The encounter with her mother made her feel dirty in a way that healthy sweat and trail dust didn’t. The men decided they didn’t need hot water to wash in, so they were out in the back gathered around the pump. Had talking to their mother made Mike feel dirty too?
As she was pulling a comb through her damp hair, a knock sounded on the door. “Mel? It’s me,” Snake called.
She jerked her last clean shirt over her head. “Come in.”
Lamplight shone on his black hair hanging in damp waves over his bare shoulders. “I’m taking first watch. Stone will be right outside the front door and Mike is sleeping in the shed out back. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure. Are you coming back here after your watch?”
“Do you want me to?”
Mel glanced behind her at the neatly made bed, thinking of the suppressed hurt that ached deep inside. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m tired of being alone.”
“Okay. I’ll be a back in a few hours.”
She stared at the door he closed behind him for a minute. Why say she was tired of being alone? She was never alone, and sometimes she’d wished for a little alone time. She turned away from the thought and busied herself tipping the dirty bath water out back and tidying the kitchen area. Whoever lived here kept it nice. They wouldn’t appreciate coming home to a mess.
It was so much easier to keep her mind off her mother while she was busy. Once she blew out the lamp and lay down in the bed, she couldn’t keep from thinking of it. She ordered herself to close her eyes and sleep, but instead she found herself going over everything her mother said.
It didn’t seem like two hours passed when she heard the door open and Snake’s almost silent footsteps walk through the living area and around the partition wall.
“It’s me, Mel,” he whispered.
“I know.” The full moon was bright, shining through the window above the bed, so she could see clear enough to make out the somber expression on his face. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his breechcloth and pulled off his moccasins and slipped under the sheet with her. “I guess it’s been a rotten day.”
She shifted over in the narrow bed to give him more room. “Yeah. A rotten day.” She liked the feel of his arm sliding beneath her to pull her against his side. He was naked, but his embrace didn’t feel erotic. It was comforting. She rested her cheek and temple against him where his neck met his shoulder. “I was so excited that we would have Mama back. I couldn’t wait to see her, to hug her. Everything was going to be so perfect once she was home. I knew I’d be leaving her again soon to go with you up north, but I figured at least I’d know she was safe. Without having to make those ransom payments, the ranch would get back on its feet. Everything would be the way it should be. And I hoped you’d bring me back for visits sometimes.”
His lips brushed over the top of her head. “We can visit every year.”
“Mama won’t be there.” She thought of why her mother wouldn’t be there, and an ice pick coated in flaming oil jabbed through her chest. Her mother lied to them for money. She didn’t care that her children had been frantic with worry for her. “How could she do that to us?” she whispered.
Snake pulled her more firmly against him. “I don’t know,” he murmured into her hair, sounding troubled and soothing at once. “I just don’t know.”
“We would have given her money if she’d asked. She could have married that man and lived wherever she wanted. There was no reason for her to make things up like that.” Clean anger, so much better than tears, burned. “The boys did everything they could to earn money for her ransom, but I married Rob Fosse. He contributed lots of money for Mama, but it wasn’t worth it. I did all those foul things for nothing.” Her throat hurt with the secret she never told anyone, even her brothers. Could she tell Snake? “He made me…I mean…”
No, she decided, it was over, so there was no use going into it now. Under her, Snake’s body tightened ever so slightly. His hand smoothing over her hair was gentle, a contrast to his voice. “What did he make you do, Mel?”
She swallowed to be sure she could speak evenly. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone except Mama. I can’t tell her now, so I’ll tell you.” She swallowed again. “Because I trust you.”
Snake wrapped both his arms completely around her and pulled her to lie on his chest. “Tell me,” he said gently, tenderly.
She hesitated, breathing in the clean scent of his skin, not looking at his face. “Well, it wasn’t so bad at first. I mean, he was rough in bed and that kind of scared me, but it wasn’t so bad. Then it was things I didn’t like. The more I didn’t like it, the more he offered to pay. I don’t want to talk about it!” she added sharply when she felt his chest rise in preparation to speak. “Okay? We needed the money for Mama more and more as the ranch failed to bring in as much, so I did what he wanted, but I hated it. Then he wanted his brothers to watch us while we…And then he wanted me to do things with them. That’s when I started saying no, and Rob didn’t like hearing no. That last afternoon, Jim cornered me in the kitchen. He ripped my shirt open and bit my breast so hard I screamed.”
Snake made a sound exactly like one his wolf would have made. She hid her face against his throat. “I punched him so hard I broke his nose,” she confessed.
“Good,” said Snake in a very, very sweet tone. “And which one is Jim?”
Her giggle was just a bit hysterical. “You killed him back in Ellsworth.”
“Good.” Snake’s tone was no longer sweet at all. “And bad. Because I really need to kill him again.”
She sighed. “Anyway, I complained to Rob. That’s when he started to hit me. He said he and his brothers expected more for their money than they were getting from me. He wouldn’t stop hitting me. I thought he might kill me. So I shot him and ran home.”
“And they chased you back to the D and threatened to burn the ranch, kill your brothers, and rape you.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged, and felt how the movement of her body against his affected his cock under her belly. “Uh, Snake?”
He groaned. “Ignore that. I can’t help it, but we don’t need to do anything about it.” She saw him swallow. “I said that a couple of nights ago too, didn’t I?”
She lifted her head to stare down at him, gaze following his black hair spilled over the white pillow. “Yeah, you did.”
A gentle heat glowed deep inside her, a hesitant sexual awareness of the naked man she lay on top of. Snake was nothing like Rob. Rob ha
d been very handsome, and she had been entirely willing to fall in love with him, but the willingness faded almost immediately. The all too brief carnal side of her marriage with Danny didn’t give her much experience with lovemaking, but Rob’s cruelty destroyed her curiosity about sex. But Snake was different. Wasn’t he?
“I don’t think you’d ever do anything to hurt me.” It was a cautious statement, almost a question.
“Never,” he agreed, emphatically.
“Then I don’t want to ignore it.”
He went utterly still for a moment. Then she was on her back, and he was above her. The hair she’d admired a second ago was a wavy mess silvered by moonlight, hanging around his face to brush over her throat.
“Are you sure?” he asked in a low, raw voice. “Be very sure, Mel. Today was hard on you. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
She reached her hands up to grip his hair. “Today was hard,” she agreed. “And I’m feeling pretty hurt by what Mama did to us. But that’s not why I want to make love with you. Kiss me, Snake.”
His eyes squeezed closed, as if he were in pain. “I don’t want you to hate me in the morning.”
She couldn’t keep the strangled laugh in. “Snake, please kiss me.”
His lips were gentle, careful, exploratory. Instead of the dread she felt when she was with Rob, Mel felt yearning, a hint of arousal heating her blood. His hair, still a little damp from his bath, was cold on her skin. She felt her nipples pucker against his chest. She liked the way he kissed. She remembered that from the morning after the rainy night a few nights ago. His hand slid from her shoulder and passed over her breast with exquisite pressure. The cotton of her shirt abraded her nipple and sent heat racing through her.
He slid his mouth from hers to nibble on her neck. “Why do you want me to make love to you tonight?”
“You’re asking me this now? Now?”
He nodded, sending his hair over her throat in a caress that teased her arousal even hotter.
“Because you’re my husband.” That was lame. She blew out a frustrated breath and tried again. “I know you won’t hurt me like R—I like the feel of you against me, skin to skin. I want you.” She paused, trying to find honest words. “For me, sex is kinda scary. But I want to try it with you. Is that wrong?”
“No.” His teeth glowed in a brief smile. “I just wanted to be absolutely sure this is what you want.”
“Good grief,” she muttered. She opened her legs, and he slid into the cradle of her spread thighs. His weight pressed deliciously against that one needy spot. She bit off a faint moan. “Do you want me?”
He pushed his cock against the thin cotton of her underwear. “What does it feel like?”
It took effort to keep from moaning again. “It feels really nice.”
“Okay, since we’ve figured that part out, let’s keep going.”
She laughed out loud, something she’d never expected to do in bed. “Okay.”
She thought he’d jerk her shirt and underwear off and plunge inside her, but he went back to kissing her. Soon his hand stroked down her belly, and then slid up under her shirt. His fingers were hot, touching her bare skin in gentle but thorough exploration. Mel found herself panting against his mouth, wanting his hand on her breast in the worst way. When his thumb brushed over her nipple, she jerked in a breath that came back out in a groan. She clenched her teeth to keep from doing it again when he lifted her breast in his palm and gave it a gentle squeeze. Her head dug deep into the pillow, her arched throat a perfect target for Snake’s mouth. He didn’t ignore it, licking and nipping his way from her chin to her throat and to her collarbone. Mel fumbled at the buttons on her shirt, eager to feel the wet heat of his mouth on her nipples. She realized in a vague, distant sort of way she might have torn a button or two off her shirt in her haste, but right now she didn’t care. Snake helped her get the shirt off and throw it on the floor.
“Snake?” she whispered, voice soft and hoarse with need. She plumped one breast for him. “Kiss me here.”
It wasn’t exactly a kiss he gave her, but an open-mouthed devouring. It felt so good she almost sobbed, and when he drew her into his mouth and sucked, she couldn’t control a short, choked scream. Danny had done that to her, but it hadn’t felt nearly so intense with him. “Oh, Snake,” she moaned. “So good. I didn’t know it could feel that good.” As soon as she said it she snapped her mouth closed. How embarrassing!
“It gets better,” he promised.
It made her feel less embarrassed to hear the panting quaver in his voice. He lifted off her, and cool night air kissed her damp breast when he tossed the sheet off. She opened her eyes to see him kneeling between her thighs, gaze fixed on her panties. A faint sense of loss passed through her. Now he would push inside between her legs, and it would be over. Disappointed but resigned, she squirmed to ease her panties down her legs. He helped and tossed the panties on the floor with her shirt. She was pretty sure the crotch of her panties was wet.
For a long moment he did nothing but stare down at her.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded, trying to close her legs.
He stopped her with gentle but firm hands. “Like this, Mel,” he said, pulling her legs up with a hand under each knee so her heels were on the bed, her knees wide apart.
Mel closed her eyes and waited for him to ram into her. It had been fun while it lasted, and he probably wouldn’t hurt her. At least she had gotten some pleasure out of it. His hands smoothed up and down her calves for several seconds, and then up and down the backs of her thighs. Confused, she opened her eyes and raised her head to look at him. He was staring down at the nest of blonde hair between her legs with fascination. She tried to close her legs again.
“This is embarrassing, Snake. Can we just get on with it?”
He leaned over her to kiss her mouth gently. “Don’t be embarrassed. I guess I shouldn’t stare, but I’ve never seen a woman’s pussy before. It’s wonderful.”
While she mouthed “Wonderful?” he scooted back down, raised her heels to his shoulders, and put his mouth against her wet crotch. Pussy, he called it. Why he called it tha— Her train of thought crashed when he licked her, one long hard swipe along the seam between her legs. His lips, tongue, and teeth played with her body until she couldn’t decide whether to sit up or stretch out straight. In fact, she felt like she was flopping like a landed fish under his firm hands. His teeth settled gently over her clit and bit down with delicate care. Her moan was so loud, she slapped her hand over her mouth.
“What?” Snake said, looking up at her. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure,” she panted. “I just don’t want Mike to hear and come rushing in to save me from an attacker.”
He grinned. “Yell my name next time, so he’ll know who’s attacking you.”
While she gaped at him, he went back to what he’d been doing. The thought of Mike racing in to find her spread naked on the bed with her husband’s face between her legs made her laugh. It felt good to laugh during sex. But her husband’s finger sliding inside her felt even better. His tongue on her clit and his finger inside her beat out a rhythm that she caught on to. Red hot need pushed its way up her legs until she was mindless in pursuit of it, shoving herself against Snake in desperate demand. She’d felt this before, in a milder version, but when his teeth and fingers pushed her over the edge, it was like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life. She screamed his name as she convulsed, clawing the sheets beneath her to avoid ripping her nails through his shoulders.
Gradually the shudders ebbed away. Her husband leaned over her on one elbow, barely discernible now that the moon had moved in the sky. “Snake,” she whispered. “That was wonderful.” Something very close to adoration crowded her heart, with only a tiny sliver of space left over for regret. “It’s your turn now, right?”
“In a minute. Let’s give you a little time to recover.” He sounded smug. “You liked that.”
“Yeah, I
did.” Now he would want her to put her mouth around him. She inwardly sighed, hoping he wouldn’t be rough. Rob liked to jam himself down her throat so hard she gagged. It made him laugh. She didn’t think Snake would be like that, though. She sat up and groped in the dark for his cock. She found him hard and ready. It pleased her when he jerked in a breath as her hand squeezed him. It was good to know she could affect him the way he affected her.
“Wait!” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to suck on you. Isn’t that want you want?”
“Not if you don’t like it. I can tell you don’t like it.”
He kissed her, his mouth tasting hot and salty from licking her. It reminded her of how much pleasure he gave her. His generosity made her want to do something for him. She ran her hand up and down his thick cock.
“I don’t think I’d mind with you,” she told him.
He groaned. “Then next time you can do that. Right now, though, I just want to be inside you. Okay?”
In answer, she lowered herself back to the bed, legs open wide. Since she still had a grip on his penis, he had to follow her. “Come inside me, Snake.”
He fitted his cock against her opening and slid inside with one hard thrust. The power behind the move might have overwhelmed her an hour ago, but now she welcomed him moving inside her. His thrusts went from long and powerful to short and desperate. He held himself above her on his elbows, lowering his head now and then to brush his lips over hers. Every small groan he made gave her pleasure. What he did wasn’t so different than what Rob did, cock buried inside her, moving in and out, belly slapping against belly, but somehow it was unique. Mel wasn’t sure exactly why or how until he lifted his head to look down at her through the tangled curtain of his hair. Even with the moonlight merely a hint of its former brightness, she saw his eyes. What she saw on his face moved her almost to tears. He cared for her. Even in the midst of such passion, he cared for her.
In that instant, his back bowed, and he rose up above her on stiff arms, howling, “Mel!” And long moments later, when he lay in a limp sprawl on top of her, he murmured, “Mel, my sweet mate,” against her throat with such reverence she blinked tears back.