Tears strained her face…salty, moist tears that didn’t look they’d let up for hours if not days. Natalie held Alexander’s hat tight to her body and she didn’t think to let up to look up into the dreary midnight skies, the thick threatening clouds filled with rain, and the not so relaxing darkness that crept down her spine. But she didn’t want to look up and find the clouds opening and release raindrops. She felt the coldness on her skin, soaking in her wild hair—loose from the pins, and her smoky face. Tears dropped from her eyes, ran down her cheeks and landed on her puffy lips she couldn’t suck in and she slipped her tongue out and tasted the tears. And then she let out of a soft cry as she walked silently back into Four Corners.
Natalie fought Chris off when he wanted her to ride his horse back to town, but time after time he demanded she’d refuse. So angry, so sad, so drowning in tears, she didn’t care if her dress got dirtier than it was, she made up her mind and walked alone and she continued that slow, sympathy walk with Chris far behind her, leading the reins of his horse, and Buck and Vin on their horses, while Josiah walked with the body of Alexander wrapped in a body cloth strapped on his horse.
When they entered town in the calm, empty manner they did, the then lively bunch of the locals still alert and bustling around stopped when they caught glimpse of the miserable woman leading the four peacemakers.
Ezra walked out of the saloon, tucking in a stack of poker cards inside his vest pocket, and JD strolled out of the livery and slowly put one foot before the other towards Natalie and the others.
“Come on,” Vin whispered and guided his reins toward the Undertaker building, where Natalie was heading.
Chris watched Natalie take tiny steps toward that building, and he couldn’t help but tug on his reins and clench his teeth to a solid lock of restraint. “Better get him to where he needs to go, Josiah.” He mumbled after he knew the ex-preacher was close by with the body.
Natalie had her back to Chris, to Vin, to Buck, and Josiah when he passed her to go right up to the doors of the building. She didn’t want to look at any of them, her protectors, the men who willed to risk their life just to save hers. She wouldn’t allow herself to look back for she may fear the worse and cry harder beyond her control. She was afraid that if she looked over her shoulder and right into Chris Larabee’s eyes, she’d do just that.
And damn, that’s what Chris didn’t understand. He wanted her to turn and look at him, look at him with those sorrows filled eyes telling him how angry she was at him. How he should have waited to pull the trigger. How he shouldn’t have killed the man she loved. How he couldn’t just do things like that anymore. Chris needed her to turn around and explain all this to him just with her eyes. He needed that from her. He didn’t want her to suffer, believing it was her fault for her husband’s death, how he wasn’t worth it.
“Is this done now, Chris?” Buck asked strictly with the same glare in his eyes he held with him when the gunshots were fired just hours before.
Chris turned and stared into those eyes, “It’s done. Go on home.”
Buck gave him no more than a nod before riding off to the Clarion where he knew Louise would be waiting for him with Mary. He hopped off the horse and as soon as he walked up to open the doors, Mary did him the favor and she allowed him to walk on inside.
Mary watched Buck enter her business, but that interest faded when she turned her attention back on the scene before her: Vin helping Josiah with a body, Nathan taking his time to unsaddle his horse, and Chris watching from a distance his eyes locked on another woman standing by the doors of the Undertaker. She knew this woman had struck gold in Chris Larabee’s mending heart, but what was really there that she could do for him? A shiver slipped down her spine then and Mary crossed her arms to keep warm from the desert night.
Oh, she couldn’t look at him. Not now. She was too angry to give him anything but disgust in her eyes. But Natalie wasn’t livid anymore; she wasn’t disgusted for what happened, she was just so sad to contemplate anything other than her tears, her hurting.
In the corner of her eye she saw Chris unsaddle his horse then and walk around to stand before it, still with the reins in his grasp.
“Easy…” Josiah said as he and Vin snapped off the reins to the body and slowly lowered it to the ground at their feet. Natalie’s jaw trembled and a fresh batch of tears faltered when she saw her husband’s arm stick out of a loose gap. She wiped at her eyes but it did no good when a new wave washed over and she did everything in her power to keep her sniffs under control.
But catching a glimpse of her deceased husband’s profile beneath the cover-up, she cried out softly and put a hand to her chest to keep from busting out with tears of rage again all over the place. And Chris Larabee would be the first she’d attack.
Josiah covered the body back up and Vin looked up and over his shoulder at Natalie standing alone behind a wooden post holding up the Undertaker’s panel and he couldn’t help but feel for the now widow of this man he held at his feet. He looked up and right into Natalie’s eyes and she felt a sudden mixed jolt of anger and aggression. The bounty hunter was not the man she fell in vain with. She had no right to have these angry feelings toward him and her attention aimed to the corner of her eye, gazing right at Chris, standing in an erect profile by his horse, watching her.
He was watching her, staring her down and Natalie didn’t have the nerve to pull away from his strong gaze. She didn’t move she didn’t shift her weight; she hardly cared about the stream of tears falling down her face, dripping to her neck, evaporating on her dirty hands.
Her dirty hands? Natalie jerked her head down, only she thought she did when her gaze slowly changed from the harden gunslinger’s eyes to down at her hands. There, they were covered in dirt, mud. Her dressed skidded with grass stains, and black as the night fingers. She then brought her hands up to her neck, felt a burning around the back, and pulled her hands away to smear off more dirt. She touched her tears under her eyes and she knew she had dirt just about everywhere from the fire flames, the smoke, the muddy ground, the wet land. Puckering her lip up, she looked across the town lot at Chris again and he still hadn’t looked away from her yet.
Natalie took her eyes away from him again and again watched Vin and Josiah heave the body of Alexander and take him in the murky depths of the Undertaker. It was over now. She knew that. Chris wanted to think he knew it as he watched her slowly begin to take a step away from the building, away from him. And when she looked up at him for the last time, another bolt of resistance shot through her eyes right into his, and she left him with the knowledge of guilt, and self-pain. She didn’t forgive him. She wasn’t going to forgive him. And she never wanted to look at him again…
There she stood by the window with her gaze locked on the undertaker building, her skin ablaze after the hour long bathing. From this point of view, the building looked baleful and empty. And her husband’s corpse was alone and she didn’t understand why that lonesomeness crept through her veins.
It was over. Her husband was at peace so why wasn’t she? She didn’t have to fear for her life anymore, never had to glance over her shoulder or travel from town to town. And that was the dreadful reality. Why did she still feel this way? The way when a loved one departs and you grieve for sometime, a day maybe two, and then you’d move on and live again…and she still cried.
She wanted him back. Maybe not Alexander himself, but the man he was. Before death and hate tore them apart because she still loved him, and she needed someone to hold her again. Rub her back, telling her everything was going to be all right.
Natalie wrapped her arms around her body, covered from neck to toe in a satin robe, the only coolness on her heated body. She held the lapel to her neck in a fist as she stayed in a gaze at the haunting undertaker.
Then there was a knock at the door, a ring in her ears, and she didn’t look to see who intruded on her tears after the door opened then shut.
Chris took a second to take in the dark room and then the lone silhouette at the window. For a brief moment their gazes collided and heat of mixed anger and need passed through them. He walked across the room right up to her glowing in the moonlight, her eyes ablaze in tears.
The sudden rage Chris didn’t know was there came out and he clutched his hands into fists and he leaned forward so close their noses almost touched.
“He’s ain’t worth your tears, Natalie. He wasn’t even worth a bullet, but he got mine and I don’t regret it. That man deserved to die, you don’t. He ain’t worth it, y’ understand me? Not your tears— not you.”
That came out the Chris Larabee way: hard and direct. He leaned away, back to his comfortable state but he didn’t let up the glare in his rigid eyes, the heat in his body.
This was it. He was through having these mixed feelings for a woman grieving over a man who did not exist anymore. Chris let himself get too close for comfort, and he damned himself for that feeling now. He sucked in a cool breath, shifted his weight, and then turned away from her.
Good. He had the strength to walk away and leave her without another look back…he had that power until he felt the brush her fingertips grace his abdomen, and she forced him to look at her. Aw hell.
Natalie dropped the insanity act, going straight for what she was thinking before about needing a man…and since her anger and heart were laid out for inspection, this was a good time just as any to reveal to the gunslinger what she truly needed from him.
And she edged closer to Chris and whispered, “Then make me forget him.” Tears burned in her eyes, and just like that Chris’s walls of strength crumbled to the floor and he went silent, shutting off his oxygen, and listened to the fast escalating of his heartbeat.
Natalie moved her fingers then and palmed the curve of his gun belt, tugged on it and pulled him to her, moving her hands up his chest until she came to rest at the top button of his collared shirt. She didn’t wait for his resistance or push her hands away. After that first touch, she knew he was here to stay and she waited no longer to take.
She looked into his eyes then moved down to his lips, his throat, that first button of his black shirt, and unbuttoned it.
And Chris didn’t move, not one muscle. Midway down his shirt, Natalie caught glimpse of his sun-kissed chest, the ripples of his stomach, the specks of hair leading to his trail. She heard his breath skip to her touch as she got a firm grip on his shirt and pulled it free from his trousers and his whole body trembled and jerked when his hands shot up, finding strength to cover her hands and stop her from going further.
Mortified to this sudden intrusion, Chris knocked all sense back into Natalie’s mind and in the low light her eyes gleamed dark and hot, “Do you want me to stop?”
Did he want her to stop? The question was distasteful, scaring his wits right back into ready mode. He planned to leave her in her thoughts and tears. He wanted to get rid of her mesmerizing expressions, her mysterious ways. He wanted to leave her but his feet would not allow him. And he was afraid that he might enjoy this, enjoy her if she planned to take their new relationship to the next level.
But he wondered all this and didn’t bother to respond to her already forgotten question. He didn’t want to talk anymore, and he didn’t want to debate with himself why. And he sure as hell didn’t need her watching him with those serious, solemn eyes that made him want to run a mile…and made him want to lash out at everything about why being here was wrong.
No, the way she was looking at him didn’t help at all. Especially with her hands so close to where he ached for release. Taking it slow to the brink of losing one’s mind, Chris watched the question in her eyes turn to wonder then widened as he tugged on her hands, what am I doing, and slid them lower to his gun belt.
No longer in control, Chris allowed her to dip lower and the accidental brush of her fingers against his erection completely zapped his synapse. He helped to get rid of his gun belt and before he knew it he sucked in another quick breath but the oxygen didn’t make a lick of difference when she undid the waist button and started on his fly. His vulnerable parts of his body were exposed for her eyes to see, how she unbuckled and unzipped him in one smooth tug, her cold hands on his flesh was unbearable to take much longer.
He needed something to hold onto, to ground him against the dizzying roar of heat, and just when he aimed for the sash on her robe, the pressure of her hands on him released and she was now looking up at him. In the whisper of a moment, she stripped his duster off and it dropped to their feet.
Too serious to crack any humor, a smile, or a simple shrug of the shoulders with Chris trying to make sense of what drove him to her room in the first place, to ask her to stop, but she cupped his face in her palm and looked right into his eyes, her gaze dark and steady and serious. She felt the bristly texture of his unshaven cheek, the warmth of an exhaled breath, the tension that held his whole body straight and erect, and she ached to kiss him so badly that her lips stung with the wanting.
“Yes…” she mouthed and stretched to kiss one corner of his mouth and then the other. She made a sound low in her throat, a kind of smoky hum that rolled through him in one long, hot wave that caught him totally unprepared, completely at a loss. She held his face close and hard then she ducked beneath that broad-brimmed hat and kissed him.
All Chris could do was close his eyes and thread his hands into the thick softness of her hair and kiss her back. And Lord how he kissed her back. With a hunger he couldn’t control with a thoroughness he no longer wanted to control. They came together in an unchoreographed duel as she wrapped her arms around his neck then brought her hands to his shoulders then she pulled him close to her as she guided him toward the bed but his feet tried to stop her.
“Let yourself go,” she whispered in his mouth. Her voice so close, her body, her breath that it sloughed over his skin and seeped into his blood. He watched her lean forward and kiss his chest. Watched her eyelids flutter shut and that sight—soft and engrossed and sensual—brought on a surge of lust so intense his knees all but buckled.
But he stopped from drowning his senses into a night of consensual lovemaking. She dipped to sit on the edge of the bed, looking up at him with a thousand misgiving emotions spilling in her veins. And the light concern in his eyes weren’t helping the worries either. She lifted her bottom and scooted further up on the bed and now waited for Chris to do something, anything to show he wanted her.
He gazed down at the woman who wanted—no needed him. She needed him to come to her with the enraptured look on her face, the softening on her lips, and the please-take-me challenge in her eyes. And how much he wanted to fall into her body, lay thickly between her thighs and forget about the real world for the rest of the night, the rest of his life.
And he stood there staring down at her still as the night. She looked up at him vulnerable and exposed. She propped up on her elbows, her legs bare where the robe slithered away on either side of his legs.
So much for the I-gotta-get-out-of-here anger. He was stuck there, but for how long? He cursed at himself for again thinking too much instead of doing what he wanted. He cursed at himself for letting her take control over his mind and body and soul. He cursed he didn’t have the better strength to just walk away when she slid her hands working the buttons on his shirt. And he cursed at himself over and over with no end as his hands dropped to the unfinished shirt and he shed the remains along with the rest of his clothing. He dropped his hat on the bed and Chris placed one hand on the mattress, slowly, looked up at her with a nervous gaze, and slowly, he placed the other hand down and soon before he knew it, one of his thighs settled between hers, and he couldn’t help himself from digging into her heat.
She responded with a deep hum of satisfaction.
When she was forced to lay on her back, for a second their gazes collided and he felt such a jolt—a left-right combination punch of need and fear and dread and desire—that he immediately ducked down to her mouth. They met with lips and tongues, with teeth and passion, and Chris closed his eyes against the onslaught. He slid his hands inside her arms and brought them above head and held them there with one hand as the other traced and learned every curve of her body until settling between her thighs, prying them apart.
The brush of his fingertips against her skin nearly brought her undone. Natalie licked at his bottom lip then sucked a breath from his mouth when the pressure of his body, where he ached, rested heavily between her.
Chris roughly found the slit in her robe and slipped his hand beneath the satin fabric and cupped her bottom then stroked over and around her hips to finally rest on her thigh, holding her still to him. The robe came apart from a weak knot. He released her hands and slowly he kissed his way down her body, drinking in the soft taste of her skin and the husky rasp of her breathing and the strong arch of her back when he took each nipple into his mouth. When he palmed the curve of her belly and slid lower to hook his fingers in her underwear, she sucked in another ragged breath.
“Please.”
He came to her again and kissed her mouth, nipped at her bottom lip, ran his tongue along her jaw line. He pulled back enough to glimpse at her long dark curls scattered on the mattress. He watched her reactions to this sudden tease of his hand cupping her thigh to him. With her mouth dropped, she opened her eyes and watched him watch her. She brought her trembling hands up to touch his face, then circled around to squeeze the back of his neck, playing with the hairs on his nape. She then tightened that grip and he leaned forward as she leaned up to meet his kiss.
This was too much for just kissing. He had to be inside her and Chris wouldn’t waste another breath of life to accomplish that goal. He released his hand on her thigh and angled his waist to rest hard and strict between her and she had no other place for her legs then around him.
Natalie met his eyes and slowly drew him into her wet velvet heat. As if she’d divined his need for slow, his craving for self-control, his fervent desire to keep a grasp on the sweat-slippery reins of restraint.
He curbed the incessant need to close his eyes and give himself up to the wild primal instincts of his blood. He needed to be that steady, solid, unfailing man he’d created.
“Slow,” he breathed as she took him to the hilt, and then she squeezed some internal muscles and drove the air hissing from his lungs. Dizzy with lust, with need, with her, he struggled to hold himself still, to withdraw inch by inch, to not drive himself all the way in, again and again.
Slowly he pulled back, and she squeezed her thighs around him and held him there while she stroked his tongue, in his blood, wrapping him in a thick, sweet cloak. He kissed her throat, nuzzled his face in her shoulder and bit her earlobe as he moved with a slow rocking cadence while the pressure built in the back of his brain and in the tightly bound tension of his muscles.
Her hands slipped through his hair, caressed the long muscles of his back and then griped his biceps as she arched up to meet a stronger thrust, changing the angle, driving even deeper and crying out with her pleasure. That was it, that guttural cry of pleasure, that sound of complete abandon, the buck of her hips and the drag of her flesh against his.
“It’s okay. Take what you want,” she murmured, her voice as thick and tight and hot as his body. “Now, Chris, please.”
Heat engulfed him. A blazing sensual storm he could no longer fight. He drove faster, harder, deeper until his breath exploded, fast and furious, as his climax came in a blinding explosion of pleasure that swallowed him whole.
Letting their bodies cool in the tangled sheets, Natalie didn’t let up the lovemaking for one second and when she reached up to kiss Chris’s mouth again indicating she wanted more. He took this pleasure and regained his breathing and began to move again, but Natalie resisted and placed her hands on his chest.
“Not like that,” she whispered through heavy panting. She twisted from beneath his body and rolled on her stomach. “Like this.” Natalie looked at him and waited, waited to see what his next move would be to this new way of making love.
As the seconds passed Chris grew tenser, more wide awake and he found strength in his limbs and so attuned to the silence on the noiseless late night. And that was possible because he was concentrating so hard on anything but the tenderness in her eyes and the sound of her rigid breathing.
She watched him, waited only a few seconds more before Chris came to her shoulder and kissed it.
This was definitely okay.
He moved her hair from her neck, and it was okay to kiss her there. It was okay to kiss the back of her neck, kissing it senseless, and then he kissed down her spine until he moved back on top of her, repositioning himself to slide into her from behind. Adjusting from both pleasure and pain, chills spilled down her spine as he started to move again.
Natalie gritted her teeth, grabbed for the pillow mashed against the bed board, and squeezed as hard and tight as she could. Her breath pushed through her clenched teeth and what she made herself do only lasted one second when she bit down into the down pillow. And that didn’t help the strenuous pain and giddy deep in her loins, the growing climax, the shiver in her toes as they curled and kicked up.
Chris tried everything in his power to maintain what his body pleaded to do to her. And that was drive into her with no end. To just keep thrusting as if this was their last day of living, their last breath to take in, their last time to make love with all the passion they’d bottled up for so long.
With her legs in the air, her face buried in the pillow, Natalie’s breath escaped right out her lungs when he drove into her burning body over and over. She didn’t have the strength to lift her head, her hands, her body for that matter. And when he slipped his hands underneath her shoulders, and held onto her as he released what he’d been holding back for the second time…when another roaring climax crushed through him, out of him, and deep into her body.
She tried to whisper something but he couldn’t hear her and like he needed to. If anyone said a word to him loud and clear right at the moment, Chris wouldn’t have heard them for nothing. He was lost in ecstasy, allowing his body to cool as he covered her heated back with his rock hard chest, as he dipped his face down and nuzzled into her shoulder, moving her moist hair away to then lay his cheek flat on her back. He took deep breaths, long breaths, and kissed her shoulder, sending another round of chills down her spine, but too tired to realize the hormonal arousal beginning to start up again, Natalie released the pillow she held so tightly and twisted back around to lay her backside down on the cool sheets and look up at his drowsy-eyes. He was spent, and so was she.
And when she rocked hard against him and murmured, “Thank you.” Chris took her like that again, in a long, lazy joining, and again in the predawn quiet when the pace was slow and sensuous with enough time to recognize his earlier bout of fear for what it was.
Not performance anxiety or any sense of disloyalty to the wife he still loved, but fear that he would enjoy this—enjoy her—so much that he would never want it to end. That he’d want to grip his fingers on her jaw and drag her mouth down to his, to swallow her cries of release whole and absorb them into his body.
That he would want this to go and on and never end.