Page 97 of The Widow and the Wanted

My teeth release my lip.

My wanting belongs to me, ugly or holy or foolish as it may be.

Pleasure coils tight in my belly as my nails dig into the hard muscle of his back, my legs shaking as they lock around his waist. Mouth falling open, I can do nothing but take him.

“Don’t hold back those sweet sounds. Let ’em carry on the wind. I want to hear every moan I pull from you.”

The sound that leaves me is raw and loud enough to startle even myself. And as the pleasure crashes over me in brutal waves, I think—let him hear.

The next day passes quiet enough. No arrows. No riders. No shots cracking from the trees. Only frozen roads, bitter wind, and the three of us too tired to spend much breath on quarrels.

The Gemini stands near the edge of Fort Gibson in a camp called Three Forks, three stories of dark-painted clapboard rising above a clean plank porch, its tall windows dressed in red and plum curtains and glowing with low amber light, even though the day has not yet gone wholly dark. Brass lamps burn on either side of the door.

The railings have been freshly painted, the steps scrubbed clean of mud. Above the entrance hangs the sign for THE GEMINI CLUB. Two women turned away from one another, each posed beside a Greek column, a gold star centered between them. The filigree is weathered at the edges, and the letters spelling MEMBERS ONLY have chipped and faded.

The door gives with a groan. I expect the sort of place I remember. Sawdust, sour whiskey in the air, and the sounds of unruly drunkards. The first Gemini was a shithole with a piano.

This place is something else entirely.

Inside, the air is rich with violet water, cigar smoke, and expensive liquor. This Gemini is shrouded in dark velvet like a coffin lined for a queen. Heavy curtains shut out the day, sunlight replaced by gas lamps burning behind ruby and amber glass, with a golden glow that turns the room soft at the edges. The walls are paneled in black wood so highly polished they throw back blurred reflections of lifted glasses and moving hands. At the bar, two girls in deep red gowns lean against a slab of gleaming mahogany, flushed and laughing, rings winking at their fingers. A piano trills from behind the curtain. Men crowd the card tables in tailored coats, drinking from cut crystal and pretending not to stare until I catch them at it.

Behind me, the door creaks. Boone’s silhouette fills the doorway first—broad shoulders, rough jaw, hat tipped just so. Okee follows, long black hair draped over both shoulders, sharp eyes scanning the exits.

One of the women behind the bar straightens like someone just rang a bell inside her, and then a third appears from behind a curtain, eyes lighting up.

“Well hello,” she purrs. “What have you brought us?”

Boone barely glances their way. Okee nods politely, then lowers the brim of his hat like he’s worried his daddy might catch a glimpse of him through the window.

A woman at the end of the bar sizes me up, kohl smudged under her eyes. She lifts her chin. “You lookin’ for someone?”

“I am,” I reply, steady. “Goldie.”

She lets the silence stretch a few beats too long. A redheaded girl in an emerald satin sash steps into my path with the easy authority of someone playing older than she is. She opens her mouth to turn us back, then stops dead.

“Lula?”

It takes me a beat.

The freckles are mostly gone, the child’s roundness sharpened away, but the eyes are the same—big and blue, clever and too curious for her own good.

“Pearl?”

Her whole face lights. “Lord, I knew it was you.” She catches my hands in both of hers and leans back to look at me proper. “Oh my goodness, I’ll bring you to Goldie.”

Boone shifts behind me. Pearl’s gaze flicks to him, then to Okee, taking their measure with an ease that startles me. Her mouth twitches. “And who, pray, have you brought home?”

“Trouble,” I say.

“Well,” Pearl says, pleased as anything, “then you’re family after all. Come on. She’ll want to see you herself.”

Pearl slips her arm through mine as if ten years have not passed, and starts steering me toward the back. I let her. Boone and Okee follow close behind, drawing glances from every corner of the room. A few of the men look irritated at first, then think better of it when Boone looks back at them. Okee does not hold anyone’s gaze long enough to invite trouble, but I can feel his attention everywhere at once.

“This way,” Pearl says. Then she glances over her shoulder at Boone and Okee, her mouth curving. “Do these two handsome fellows have names?”

Boone eyes her. “Ain’t you about twelve?”

Pearl lifts her chin. “I’m fourteen.”