Page 166 of The Widow and the Wanted

Couldn’t say a damn word doing it, though, so I take up the broom instead and sweep like the floor owes me money.

“Silent labor suits him,” Okee says. “Gives the room a certain peace.”

I sweep a hard line of dust right onto his boot.

The evening comes creeping in purple at the windows. Out in the road, wagon wheels clatter past, then fade. Somebody’s mule protests from down by the livery. The Gemini’s piano starts up, tinny and off-key, followed by a woman’s shriek of laughter that makes Lula shake her head.

“Early start over there tonight,” she says.

I fetch the shutters and pull them in one by one. The shop changes when the light gets low. By the time the last lamp is turned down, the shop has gone still.

Lula takes the key from the nail by the door. The bolt catches and the bell above the door gives one soft, sleepy clink as she tests it. Then her footsteps follow mine up the narrow stairwell, Okee’s heavier tread behind hers.

Upstairs, Lula hums while she moves about the kitchen, setting bowls down, stirring the beans, lifting the cloth from the bread. Okee washes. The floorboards creak under all of us, under the whole shape of our life above that little shop. Okee crosses the room with that slow, easy way of his, sleeves rolled to his elbows, collar open at the throat.

Okee sits and leans back, draping one arm along the settee behind me. Not touching at first. Just there. Warmth at my shoulder. His clean soap smell under the sharper notes of the shop still clinging to him. Alcohol, paper, penny copper, mint.

Then his thumb brushes the back of my neck once, slow as a match being struck.

I keep my jaw clamped shut.

That earns me the faintest huff of amusement from him, like he’s pleased with himself. Like he’s found a new use for my punishment.

Before I can think better of it, his hand slides firm around the back of my neck, and his mouth finds mine. My fingers catch in his shirtfront and pull him closer.

He makes a low sound against my mouth. I feel it more than hear it.

I forget about the afternoon. The whole damn wager.

I forget everything but Okee’s mouth and the warm, heavy weight of him beside me.

When he draws back, I follow without meaning to, chasing him like a desperate fool. His eyes drop to my mouth first, then lower. Slow. Deliberate.

My blood kicks hard. I grip his shirt tighter.

He catches my wrist before I can drag him back in, not rough, not gentle either. Okee doesn’t do a thing halfway. He pins my hand against his chest a moment, his heart beating steady under my palm, then guides it down to the cushion beside me.

Then he shifts off the settee with that same awful patience he brings to everything. One knee touching the floorboards, then the other, right there in the middle of our sitting room above the shop. The boards creak under him. Lamplight catches the sharp line of his cheek, the dark fall of his hair, the stern set of his mouth.

He runs his broad palms up my thighs and my breath goes clean out of me.

He looks up from between my knees. “Shhh,” he says, holding a finger to his lips.

The lamplight flickers low as Okee’s fingers work the buttons of my trousers open right there in the middle of the sitting room. Freeing me, he don’t tease. He gives me one slow stroke with his callused hand, then leans in and takes me into his mouth in one smooth glide.

Heat punches through me so hard I near forget the rules. A groan catches in my throat, my hips jerking forward. Okee’s tongue presses flat along the underside, and his hand settles heavy on my thigh.

No rush. Just slow, steady suction that makes my knees weak.

Christ.

I bite my bottom lip hard enough to sting.

He knows what he’s doing. Knows better than anybody alive how little quiet I got in me on a good day, and now he’s kneeling between my knees with my cock stretching his mouth, acting like I’m the one misbehaving.

I glare down at him.

He only raises one brow, calm as Sunday morning, then lowers his hot mouth again.