Page 28 of The Widow and the Wanted

It won’t. But for now, I am alive. And I am safe.

Chapter 10

Boone

Okee and I sit in the downstairs bed, guns ready just in case Hollister’s men tracked us. Lula is up in the loft, and Okee and I whisper to each other so our words don’t carry.

The faint fragrance of soap lingers. Her soap. It don’t belong in a dusty hunting cabin in the middle of nowhere. Should reek of leather, tobacco, and sweat. Easy to notice perfume in a place like this. Couldn’t forget it after breathing it for hours while we nearly froze. The scent of flowers and blood while holding this pretty little stranger close.

I shift a little and let my shoulder brush Okee’s. He doesn’t flinch or pull away—just lets it happen. Lets me lean, slow, until my weight settles against him. His body’s warm, solid. Familiar as coming home from a long journey.

He don’t speak.

Instead, he leans in and presses the barest kiss into my hair that sends a shiver through me. I lift my face. So much could be said in his dark eyes when it’s just the two of us, without ever exchanging a word.

“Thanks for playing us a song,” he hushes.

“Well, you said please so pretty.”

That earns me a smile, but he turns away after, tightening his grip on his gun. I let my eyes wander over him, just a little. His hands steady on the rifle, the sharp line of his jaw in the firelight, the quiet strength in his body.

I rest my hand on his thigh.

“So all this time I been sayin’ we’re a matched pair, and you went along with it from the very beginnin’.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We are a matched pair, cvfek cumpv.”

The words hang there between us, soft as the flurries outside. Sweetheart. In his momma’s language. His language. Like it’s nothing more than calling me by name. I feel the heat crawl up my neck, same as always when he lets something sweet like that slip.

I rest my head on his shoulder, burrowing in and pressing a kiss to his neck. I whisper against his cheek, warm breath at his ear. “We are, ain’t we?”

I rub the bulge at the front of his trousers, his hardness warm under my palm.

“We shouldn’t. Not with her here,” he says, soft, before adding, “Between what you said on the wagon and you serenading me tonight, this woman’s liable to run into town and have us both strung up.”

Back on the wagon, he damn near shoved me off the bench for telling him I loved him. “You reckon she speaks Mvskoke? That’s why you tried to shove my dick in the dirt?” I joke.

He chuckles and nudges me again with his shoulder, gentler this time.

I pull my hand back slow, though his thigh is warm under my palm and I ain’t eager to leave it. Shifting closer, I let my knee press firm against his, the heat of him bleeding through wool and denim. “She won’t hear us. She’s worn clean through.”

He don’t answer right off, just stares into the coals. I know that look.

I lean in till my lips brush the shell of his ear. “Let me take the edge off you. Just my mouth.” My hand slides higher, cupping the hard line of him under the cloth. It pulses once when my fingers close around him. “You been carrying us for days. Let me carry you a minute.”

He turns his head just enough that our foreheads touch, wanting written plain in his expression.

“Please,” I beg. “I’ll be quiet. Swear it. Ain’t nobody hearing a thing.” I stroke him slow through the fabric, feeling him swell fuller under my hand. My own cock aches, trapped behind my buttons, but right now it’s him I need to tend. “Just let me taste you. Been thinking on it since the trail.”

I wait a breath for his answer, then his hand comes up, fingers threading rough through the hair at my nape—not pushing, just anchoring. “Quick,” he breathes. “And quiet.”

I sink down between his boots before he can take it back, knees hitting the rug soft. The bed don’t creak. I work his fly open careful, one button at a time, till his cock slips free, flushed dark, the head already slick with want.

The scent of him—clean skin, musk, the faint trace of soap from his bath—strips me down to appetite alone.

I draw him along my face and cheek, dragging him slow over my skin, greedy for the feel of him. Laying my tongue to his stones, rolling them gentle in my palm, holding and tugging till his head tips back on his neck.

He brings his chin forward again, if only to see how I intend to ruin him.