Because He Wanted To by Suzy

It was quiet. Silent enough for a coyote to sneak up on a rabbit for a night snack. Most of the normal folks fled to bed at the early hour the sun decided to leave Four Corners side of the world. Days were shorter, the nights longer. The occasional drunks were making up the noise in the saloon at the wee hour of the night and Chris Larabee had to make sure nobody killed another man for a dumb reason— even if he was ready to turn in for the night.

Chris leaned against a wooden post just outside the jailhouse where Vin Tanner slept with his hat covering his face from the moonlight blaze. No crooks, screw ups, or thieves in the jailhouse that night so it made the place more peaceful to sleep in.

With his thumbs hooked in his gun belt loops, Chris leaned hard against the wooden post trying to ease the pressure in his feet from standing for a near two hours straight. He didn’t want to take any chances to sit in the rocking chair outside the jailhouse because he couldn’t trust himself to stay awake and alert. Standing up made him caution, curious about the drunken men walking about the empty, desert town, lacking the sounds of people’s whispers.

He looked in front of him at the darkened buildings with their owners resting peacefully inside. He looked across the ways at the Clarion building where Mary ran the newspaper and to his surprise, the first floor was lit up with candles.

Chris groaned wondering what the hell Mary was doing still awake that late in the evening. He leaned one way and tried to see if he couldn’t take a look through one of the windows, but he couldn’t so much as a shadow. He saw her cross the last set of windows, carrying a candlestick and a stack of papers. He watched her set the stack of papers down by the window then saw her face appear. Her long blond locks rested behind her shoulders as a few loose strands graced her cheekbones. Her blue eyes glowed in the candle shimmer as she bent over what seemed to be a desk and shut the lace curtains without catching Chris’s stare.

As she shut the curtains, Chris leaned off the post thinking that was it for the night. After Mary decided to turn in when she shut the curtains, he decided to turn in himself. He took a quick swift of the ghost town to make sure nothing was going to make him pull out his pistol, then he turned his back and headed for the indoors of the jailhouse.

A crash— then a scream— then a thud.

Chris turned half his body around to try and locate where the sudden crash and scream came from. Just when he thought it was going to be over until the next shining day, he was mistaken. He looked across the street at the Clarion and Mary still hadn’t blown out the lights. Chris got in running position and quickly moved across the street to Mary’s Clarion. With instinct, he stopped in front of the thick wooden door with a hand on his pistol. He took the gun out of the holster and put it behind his back then opened the door steady.

“Mary?”

He clicked the gun ready to injure until Mary came out of the darkness of the kitchen carrying with her a glass bowl and a broom. Not realizing anyone was present in the room with her, Chris startled her and she nearly dropped the bowl.

“Chris!” she said surprised as he aimed his gun at her. “What are you doing here?”

Chris looked at the gun in his hand and clicked it back, and set it in the holster.

“I thought I heard something.” Chris said standing up straight from his ready and aim status. He took the regret to say he had a worry for her. That he had to always worry about her because of what she believed in mentally and emotionally. After that assassination attempt—Chris couldn’t help but not to wonder where Mary was all the time. What kind of trouble she’d get herself into for just speaking her voice. He’d been wondering a lot of things lately—things he didn’t want to wonder about concerning Mary.

“I dropped the lantern.” She bent down to pick up the big pieces of the broken glass lantern and set them in the bowl. “I’m okay.”

Chris leaned on his right hip and decided he better leave with her business and say nothing else. When she was watching him, he tipped his hat at her and walked to the door without a word.

“Chris?” Mary said before he could put his hand on the doorknob. When she didn’t say anything further, he was forced by his thoughts to turn and face her.

“Yeah?”

Mary looked at her hands wrapped in a white cotton towel as her mind searched for something meaningful to say. If she had Chris Larabee in her presence at that late of the night and no one else around she would have thought it was a miracle he came to see if she was okay and have the chance to talk to him alone without Vin or Buck. She hadn’t spoken a word or two to him since the assassination threat when he told her to drop what she believed in and then drag her out in the middle of the speech the Governor promoted the following day. And that was a week ago. They haven’t consulted since.

Being the law around town, whenever trouble came her way, Mary didn’t know whether Chris came to protect her or just do his job. Though, in the last few months since his return from Ella Gaines’s ranch—Mary knew he was just doing his job. Never asking or knowing what had happened on that ranch, Chris seemed to have kept his distance from her and the others further. More distinct in his own manner—more hushed.

“Are you just doing your job here, Chris?” Mary asked as she stood back up to meet his stare.

Chris looked at her. He didn’t compute what she asked and he turned his to completely face her with question in his body language.

Then with sudden regret, Mary was ashamed for keeping Chris without a reason. But perhaps just looking at him was her reason. She loved to look at him. The way he moved in silence, the rock solid expression he carries, and only to know there once was a man full of life. That man was gone— burned out without hope to look forward to in the days to come.

Knowing the facts of his past, Mary only became an allied to him, making sure their relationship was strictly business and nothing more. She had her pain to face as well.

“Well I—all I mean is,” Mary searched the words scrambling around in her thoughts. “What I mean to say is—“ she looked down at the mess at her feet. “Could you help me with this? My back’s been killing me all day from bending over the ink presser.” She gave a snort then regretted it.

Chris looked at the closed door, keeping him away from what he really wanted to do—leave the Clarion before temptation of his thoughts go crazy to take Mary in his arms and make love to her— just because he wanted to.

She asked him to do something for her and he could have denied her and left her alone to clean it but he had better manners than that so he took the broom from her hand. He didn’t bother to look at her for what his thoughts would create about the journalist. Thoughts he wouldn’t mind having but didn’t want nor crave.

He bent before her and began to sweep up the glass.

“Thank you.” Mary said. Chris didn’t acknowledge her—not even a moan.

Mary stepped back when she felt Chris’s hands sweep around the ends of the baby blue dress she wore. “I wasn’t expecting a late visit.”

“I thought you were in trouble. That’s why I came.” He stood up with the glass swept in the bowl. He handed the broom and bowl to Mary and this time he decided to glance at her.

“Thank you for your concern.” She said. A moment passed as they stood staring at each other before Chris broke it by tipping the rim of his hat again and turned to leave.

“Chris?” he heard her say humble across the room.

Stopping dead in his tracks he turned to face her again.

Mary took a deep breath before speaking. “I couldn’t help but wonder where all this is going.”

“Where what is going?”

“This—you and me.”

Chris strained his jaw. Why did she have to bring up what he had been trying to avoid for months? He didn’t want to be with her. His mind told him no, it wasn’t right and he would only end up hurting her.

Mary set the bowl down on the table and leaned the broom stick against the wall. She clamped her hands together and rested them against her stomach.

“It’s wrong of me to say this to you—for all that you’ve been through, but I can’t help to think what I can do to make it feel better — feel right.” She took tiny steps toward him. “You say I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I’ve had that taste to kill who murdered my husband. Now that man has been found and put away for the pain he’s inflicted on Billy and me. I do know what you’ve been through. I do.” She had enough courage and strength to lift a hand and run her knuckles over his cheek. “I’ve found my peace with that—knowing I can have someone to lean on for support. Someone who knows what I’ve been through.”

Chris looked deep into her pleading eyes, wanting to snatch her in his arms right then, but he told himself not to. It was hard.

“I’m ready, Chris, to love you and have you.” She traced his closed lips with her thumb.

Mixed feelings clouded his mind and didn’t know how to react to her last statement. He wanted her, that wasn’t a secret to him, but to her. He never found it in his heart to love again. To have someone to hold onto again. That’s what Maria was for. Just to hold onto during cold, lonely nights when the memories of Sarah and Adam were too intense to take alone. Maria would always allow him to take out his anger on her verbally. Speaking to whatever came to his mind. He never had to stop to think what to say or not to and that’s the kind of woman he wanted—someone who didn’t care.

So he needed to push Mary away before he did something he’d regret.

“I’m not ready. I can’t give you what you need. What you want from me.” He told her as cold as he could muster. “I’m just your protector.”

Mary pulled her hand away from his face but didn’t take her eyes away from his. She waited for a change in his eyes but nothing came. Chris looked at the floorboards from her hurt, intense stare. She had nothing left to say to him. She thought she said everything humanly possible to make him want her. With sad eyes beginning to fill with tears, she stepped a foot back from him then walked past him, wanting to drown herself to sleep.

But a hand wrapped around her waist and rested on her navel, keeping her from walking.

Chris knew exactly what he was doing. When he turned around to grab her, he closed the gape between her backside to his chest. He leaned his face closer to her fallen hair and smelled her sweet smelling curls. He then lifted his other hand and moved her hair to the side so he could have an access to her neck.

He moved in closer and whispered in her ear, “But that doesn’t mean I don’t need you back.”

Her limbs lost their strength and she swayed against Chris’s chest. She couldn’t help herself—she felt her defenses crumbling. And then Chris surrounded her with himself. He pulled away with his hand still on her stomach and found the ties of her dress and quickly with his fingers began to untie them.

His heat pressed in on her, but this time it was a good heat and she was drawn to it, wanted more of it, demanded of it. Mary didn’t stop him, and she had no intention to. As he worked the back of her dress to undo her, the corset loosened and she was allowed to take a relaxing breath of air then sucked up fresh heat Chris created. With the hand on her stomach, he turned her around and she faced him with eyes closed. With his other hand he reached around the back of her neck and brought his lips to hers without hesitation or much thought.

He then dropped his hands to her shoulders, then to her wrists and pulled on the sleeves and her dress slowly began to fall off. It passed her arms down her stomach and slipped off her thighs to now where she only stood before him in her lace undergarments.

With her eyes still locked in ecstasy, like any man, Chris took his time to look down her body at her breasts and length closed legs. He moved closer to her and shielded her body with his as he kissed her lips again. She opened her mouth and allowed him to explore her insides. The kiss began slow then grew chaste as their hands roamed. Mary put her hands on his shoulders, grabbing his maroon shirt collar like an animal. Chris moved his fingers in her hair, pulling to bring her closer to him as humanly possible.

Unable to resist his gentling touch, working her hands across the material of his shirt, she explored the muscles in his lower back with her fingertips. Then she found herself exploring his body more and she slid her hands up to his collar again, unbuttoning the top button.

When she felt his hands touch her nude back, she moaned and rocked against him in agreement. Chris deepened the kiss and skid his hands slowly down her sides and over her hips. Then he cupped her bottom and pulled her snuggly into him so that she could feel the enormity of that need for her.

Wet heat flushed through her and she nestled closer. His heart beat so fiercely she could feel the rapid palpitation against her own chest. Her own heart responded in kind. And her breasts grew heavy and ached for his touch. As if he read her mind—and he very well might have, she thought through a haze of desire—he worked one hand upward to the fullness of sensitive flesh that only one man before him had ever handled. She moved in his arms slightly to allow him access, and at his first touch, her knees gave away. Chris caught her and swung her up in his arms.

“You ready for this?”

But he didn’t move until she nodded her head for acceptance. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her to the staircase, and once he stepped up, he began kissing her again. Not deep full kisses, but light exchanges that set her lips to tingling. She squeezed her arms around his neck and buried her face in his neck to keep from shivering. She wasn’t cold, by all means, it was the feel of the knowing Chris Larabee was about to make love to her.

By the time he got to the landing, she was tingling all over. Once in her bedroom, he laid her across the full size bed and continued downward.

But when he freed from her for a moment, Mary froze. She opened her eyes and found him taking his maroon shirt off, sliding it off his shoulders and removing his gun belt. Without including the bed sheets to their soon to be love making, Chris moved upward, his kisses leaving tiny stings that traveled along her nerves to her center. Forgetting her trepidation, she arched. He kissed her through her sensible cotton panties. With his teeth, he caught the edge and pulled them lower, exposing her bit by bit so slowly that she thought she could scream if he didn’t hurry.

Chris plunged upward and covered her body with his, pressing his erection into her hip. Both nude and vulnerable, she gave herself over to sensation for a man who needed her the same way back. Restless, wanting more, she spread her legs and pressed herself against him.

In one smooth motion, he straddled her, careful to avoid any soreness, he slipped inside her and stopped.

Breathing hard, she tried to stop, too. Tried to savor the moment. But nearly crazed with need, she couldn’t. She moved under him, raising her hips so she moved along his length. Now it was she pressing her palms against his bottom, pulling him closer until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

Mary, in both pleasure and pain from making love for the first time in two years, she rolled her head off the side of the bed as Chris thrust deeper. He moved away from her neck down to her breasts and gripping and kissing both.

Panting, she lifted her head from the edge of the bed and watched his face lost in her breasts. Closed eyes. Tight expression.

Mary closed her eyes and rolled her head back again and let go of her last bit of control. Chris road her to ecstasy, and they shuddered long and hard before touching down together.

As he made her chest moist from his kisses and the burning sensation they created quickly, Mary ran her fingers through his wet hair as she moaned her loudest, exploding a second time. She moved her hands down to his muscular shoulders and squeezed with all her might as she crunched her face with pleasure.

She floated, loving Chris’s weight pinning her to the bed. She wanted more. She wanted everything from him. Chris leaned off her breasts with his hands still attached to them as he made his way back to her face and sunk his lips into her neck. Mary hiked her legs up wanting Chris to deepen his manhood further into her. She wanted all of him.

She met his lips at last and they shared a slow, sensual kiss, making out strongly as they reached their third climax.

They pulled away from each other to take a long, deep breath and release it a second later. Chris wiped a heap of sweat off Mary’s forehead then bent down to give her another kiss.

It’s all because he wanted to.