Marshal of Hel Dorado (21 page)

 
    
Despite his earlier distractions, his own
arousal was straining against the unbuttoned britches. She pulled away from the
kiss, wiggling on his fingers as she dipped her hand down to free him.

 
    
Breath hissed out of him as those nimble
fingers teased the head of his cock, drawing it taut.

 
    
“What do you want, Mrs. Carson?” He pushed
the words past the tension in his throat.

 
    
Her shift bunched around her waist as he
lifted her, fingers sliding free and his cock straining as he brought her back
down, nudging inside slowly. Her back arched as he pushed in, inch by agonizing
inch. The muscles in his arms bulged, but he refused to be hurried, enjoying
the expressions of pleasure rolling over her face.

 
    
“You,” she ground her hips towards his,
trying to force him deeper, faster, but he held off, lifting her up teasingly.

 
    
“But I am here,” he gave her a teasing
thrust, groaning at the way her greedy sex clenched around him. “You have to be
explicit…pretend I am Mr. Lattimer…how would you have him court you?”

 
    
She struggled against him as he lifted her
up, his cock just barely pulsing, aching to drive home, but he held off the
want in him. He met her disbelieving gaze with teasing challenge.

 
    
“William…”

 
    
He laughed, teasing her with another
aborted thrust, and her body went warm and slack around him, desperate.

 
    
“Tell me.”

 
    
The shift peeked open over lush, full
breasts.

 
    
“Take me inside.” Her words were a shaking
command. Her fingers clutched at him and he shifted, securing his hand under
her bottom, controlling her as he walked towards the door, each step a gentle
thrust allowing him to go deeper.

 
    
Her whimpers climbed as they pushed the
door open. He stood in the middle of her gentle cabin with its dress stands,
long wooden tables and warm fire burning cheerfully in the stone hearth.

 
    
“Close the door and take us to the bed.”
Despite the threading tremble in her words, she was growing bolder.

 
    
Kid nudged the door closed and walked her
to the bed tucked behind the hearth. Colorful, distinctly feminine, quilts
decorated the doublewide bed. The air warmed around him as he struggled to
maintain his hold, never quite thrusting home, despite the driving need in his
hips.

 
    
Caroline was far from cooperative, her body
eagerly pushing against him, held back only by the grip of his hands on her
bottom. When he bumped the bed with his knees, he paused, looking at her
expectantly.

 
    
Her eyes widened and her sweet grin grew
just a little bit wicked. He arched an eyebrow, waiting.

 
    
“Lower me down and take off my shift.” He
wasn’t sure who groaned more as he complied, drawing free from her hot sex as
he set her on the bed. He discarded her shift without a second thought,
dropping it on the floor.

 
    
She had a full figure, heavy breasted and
rounded hips. But her belly was flat and firm, having never rounded with
childbearing. A collection of dusky brown curls at the juncture to her thighs
was the same shade as the warm, honey color of her hair. His cock throbbed, a
little done with his teasing, but Kid refused to give in.

 
    
A blush stole over her skin, softening it
pink and Kid chuckled. He allowed himself the pleasure of caressing her cheek
with the back of his knuckles. “What would you like next, Mrs. Carson?”

 
    
“I would like you to kiss me.” But she
touched a hand to his lips, forestalling him as he bent to comply. “No, you
must wait for all your instructions.”

 
    
That was the spirit.

 
    
He grinned, kissing her finger. Sam, the
gold, the town and even his father’s constant disappointment a distant memory
as Caroline stretched out in front of him, brazen and proud.

 
    
“You should kiss my mouth, then my neck and
then each of my breasts. I want your lips to tease them, suckling them for
pleasure.” His groin tightened at the picture she painted. “And then I want you
to fill me, riding me until we are both spent.”

 
    
He cleared his throat. “Is that all?”

 
    
“Then you will do it again.”

 
    
Kid laughed.

 
    
“You may begin.” Her laughter joined his,
wrapping around him and pulling him onto the bed. His mouth closed over hers
and he let her take him away from the rest, eager to fulfill each and every
request.

 
    
C
ody
stared at the cabin. He’d caught the scent despite the rain. It was heavy,
musky and laden with sex. He’d watched the woman come out of the cabin and all
but mount the boy on the porch. They’d carried their lust back inside, leaving
Cody to huddle next to the cabin, sheltering from the rain.

 
    
The trails were washing out, but he looked
at the swollen creek. His nose quivered as he lifted it to the air. The damp
smell of wood smoke came from the north and the east. He gave the cabin one
last look before trotting back into the rain.

 
    
 
A
nd if I want to go?
 

 
    
The question hung, poised, in the moist air
between them. But the Marshal hadn’t answered. Instead, he’d excused himself to
tend the horses. Used a small pan to gather water from the rain and carry it
back to them. The great beasts were completely comfortable, shifting in their
sleep to whuffle at the pan, but otherwise unimpressed.

 
    
Scarlett turned her gaze away and back out
to the rain. It was a wall of water, a more effective cell she’d never seen.
Not that she couldn’t venture out, but the wind whooshed up against the cave
entrance, twice threatening to gutter the fire with the rain that spattered
inside.

 
    
Twice, she’d put her hand out, encouraging
the flames, drawing them out and setting the dampened wood to sizzle and pop.

 
    
She was aware of Sam moving through the
cave, clearing the debris of their meal and repacking it into one of his
saddlebags. He retrieved more wood, adding it to the fire. The weight of his
stare pressed down on her.

 
    
“I don’t understand,” she said, keeping her
gaze outside. The stone-embedded runoffs were filling up, the water racing
downhill, creating a moat around their rocky homestead.

 
    
“Don’t understand what?” Sam dropped back
onto the stone floor next to the bedroll, choosing to sit next to her rather
than opposite. The heat of him was a warm lure, a tease. Sam, no, she couldn’t
think of him that way. The Marshal used a longer stick to poke at the logs,
kicking up more heat.

 
    
She didn’t quite sigh, but exhaustion sat
like a dead weight across the back of her shoulders. Her bottom was still sore,
a reminder of his earlier reprimand. In some quiet, silly little part of her,
she was impressed that he’d dared to spank her.

 
    
That he’d not even slowed down.

 
    
Humiliation was coupled with admiration and
it was the strangest sensation. Not that she wasn’t debating how to get even
for it, but she supposed hitting him in the head with a log was her fault.

 
    
“Scarlett?” The Marshal nudged her, a
gentle reminder that she’d spoken. She pulled her gaze away from the flames to
look at him. He needed to shave. The bruise on his cheek emphasized the
tiredness around his eyes. He needed to sleep, too.

 
    
She supposed he would be as resistant to
that idea as she was.

 
    
But for different causes.

 
    
She was worried Buck would find her.

 
    
He was likely worried she would bolt.

 
    
“I don’t understand why you’re not afraid.”
All her life, she’d been taught to hide her abilities from strangers, to never
reveal what she could do for fear of reprisal. But Sam—the Marshal had seen her
at the pond. He’d even asked her to light the fire in the cave and he wasn’t
afraid to spank her, when even in her exhausted state she could have lashed out
at him.

 
    
Sam held out his right hand, forefinger
extended. The pad was a white mass of blister, thick against the calloused
finger. “Do you know when you did this?”

 
    
Scarlett shook her head slowly, looking
from the blister to his face. His lips quirked into a half smile.

 
    
“When you were taken by the fever, next to
the pond. I was trying to help you get out of the dress. I put my hand on her
back and your skin was burning.”

 
    
She put a hand over her mouth, shame
coupled with embarrassment. He’d stripped her from the dress and carried her to
the sick cabin. She remembered waking to the ice, to his eyes skimming over her
naked body and the strange trembling sensations that boiled in her belly.

 
    
“Other than whacking me with that log,
that’s the only time you hurt me. And since I am fairly certain you were trying
to get to that pond to do what I saw you do this morning, I don’t think you
meant to do it. The burn, that is.” His smile grew rueful. “Unfortunately, I
won’t be asking you to get any fire wood.”

 
    
The wry comment kicked a laugh out of her
and she pressed her fingers to her lips. She dropped her gaze from his, shy at
the teasing note. Despite his earlier rancor, he seemed almost in too good a
humor.

 
    
“I’m not sorry I hit you…well, I am only
because it hurt.”

 
    
“But you could have hurt me far worse.” His
tone carried such utter patience and reason.

 
    
“You lit the wood by just stretching your
fingers out. You set the water on fire. You created geysers that turned the
pond to steam. Your skin burned me with a simple touch. If you’d wanted to hurt
me, Miss Scarlett, I am of a mind you could have done much worse.”

 
    
Scarlett frowned, guilt a bitter taste in the
back of her throat. “But even knowing that, you’re still not afraid of me?” She
stole a look at him from beneath her lashes. The patience in his tone was
reflected by an odd kindness easing his face.

 
    
A kindness that gentled the hard planes and
stiff jaw.

 
    
A kindness she’d imagined in her dreams.
That thought stirred an entirely different kind of heat inside of her and she
shied away from it. Dreaming about her curiosity was one thing, seeing it
plain, sitting right next to her, within an arm’s reach was altogether
different.

 
    
“If you wanted to, you could, right?”

 
    
She nodded, slowly.

 
    
“Have you ever burned a person? On purpose,
deliberately set them aflame?”

 
    
“Once, when I was little, I was just seven
and I was upset. I don’t even remember why I was so upset. I remember stomping
my foot and something struck inside of me, it pushed outwards, racing through
the room and when I woke up, the floor was blackened and I’d burned my father.”
Her voice stumbled over the memory, the gorge swimming up as she remembered the
stench of sizzled flesh.

 
    
“One of my brothers was there, he was
holding me and my other brothers were taking care of father.” The memory was so
real. She’d been in Cody’s lap, his arms cradling her close and his expression
fierce. He’d been arguing with Wyatt when she woke, yelling at him that they’d
been pushing her too hard.