Page 55 of The Widow and the Wanted

It was nothing. Just a quarrel from too close quarters and too little patience. Still, Boone’s restlessness returns to me: the way he swings himself around the cabin, all muscle and momentum. A body built for hours of exertion, not restraint.

The notion comes easily enough of what it might be like to meet that kind of force head-on, to be taken apart by it and left spent. I let the thought run its course, then dismiss it.

Appetite alone is a poor reason for trouble. I think, not for the first time, that if bedding Dr. Bowering once managed to make an entire expedition unbearable, being snowbound till spring with these two will ruin me outright. I swallow, steady myself. Lust is a luxury I cannot afford, and yet the shape of his fingers, splayed wide, thumb brushing the curve of my hip still holds heat like a burn, his touch branding me.

My breath hitches. My own hand drifts down, slow, almost hesitant, resting over the flat of my belly. I pull the blanket closer, and though I try to force my attention elsewhere, the image arrives unbidden: Boone’s broad hand wrapping my throat the way it almost did a minute ago, not gentle, just claiming the pulse there while his other palm slides down my ribs, fingers spreading wide enough to span half my waist.

He’d lift me like I weigh nothing, pin me against the rough logs of the wall, the wood biting into my shoulder blades while his hips shove forward. No preamble. No mercy. Just the thick stretch of him forcing inside, splitting me open until I’m a babbling puddle.

And then—because my mind is cruel—Okee is there too.

He steps in close behind Boone, one thick-fingered hand calmly sliding up Boone’s spine to grip the back of his neck the way he gripped that rifle stock. Guiding. Directing. Okee’s other hand would find me—sliding between where Boone and I are joined, fingertips circling lazy over the swollen knot of nerves. He’d lean in, mouth at my ear, voice velvet-soft the way it was as I balanced the weight of his gun in my hands. “Let him ruin you. I’ll hold you steady while he does.”

My hand has already slipped beneath the waist of my drawers. I’m slick—embarrassingly so—just from the memory of Boone’s mouth an inch from mine, from the heat of his hands gripping my waist, the way his pupils had bloomed dark as a predator when he looked at me like he wanted to devour me. My fingers find the swollen bud at once, slippery and hot, and I press down, rubbing in frantic circles.

A small sound escapes me. I clamp my lips shut.

Below, their voices are only soft murmurs. The fire snaps once, twice. I freeze, heart hammering, listening for footsteps on the ladder. Nothing.

I let my knees fall open wider beneath the blanket.

In my head Boone is already rutting against me again and again until I’m whimpering. Okee holds me from behind now, chest pressed to my back, one arm banded around my ribs to keep me steady.

He would kiss the hinge of my jaw, soft, while Boone pounds faster, brutally chasing his own release. “Fill her,” Okee would murmur to Boone. “Mark her with it.”

The thought shatters me.

My fingers rub faster, blanket rustling in the quiet loft. I turn my face into the crook of my elbow, muffling the choked cry that rips out of me as the pleasure peaks. My thighs clamp around my hand, hips jerking in uneven pulses while the release rolls through me, nipples tightening, quick and painful under my chemise.

I lie there afterward, chest heaving, skin damp with sweat despite the cold. The voices are gone entirely. Only the wind remains, keening against the eaves as I pry my thick tongue from the roof of my mouth and swallow hard.

I pull my hand free, wipe my fingers on the inside of the blanket, and turn onto my side again, facing the wall.

A soft, rueful laugh escapes me before I can stop it.

Oh, you silly creature, I think. What a fool you are. Lying here like some wanton strumpet, dreaming of those two, spent and shaking from the very thought of being used by them both.

Fie on you, girl. Shame on such thoughts. Boone’s a pest, forever goading me into quarrels. This is no place for such fancies, snowbound with men who already crowd the cabin enough without crowding my nightly thoughts too. It’s a bad road, a dangerous one I must steer clear of at all costs.

Chapter 16

Okee

“She knows,” Boone murmured.

I said nothing. Shame was too imprecise a word for what moved through me then. Not fear that Lula would run her mouth—she had already shown herself steadier than that. No, what I disliked was simpler. I did not care to be examined. Least of all by her.

A man can bear the judgment of fools. It is harder to endure the notice of someone whose opinion might matter.

Boone mistook my silence for uncertainty. “She don’t give a damn,” he said, low and impatient.

Perhaps she did not. That did not mean I wished to stand in the light and be looked over.

After that day, I kept scarce when I could. There was always wood to split, traps to check, snow to stamp from the porch. Boone took this for avoidance. I let him.

We rise early now. He makes the coffee while I take stock of what remains.

“We’re down to venison and snow,” I say. “Salt is nearly gone. There’s barely a swallow of whiskey left.”