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“Thalia, please.”
“Please, what?” I toy, just as he did while tickling me earlier.
“Please … don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
He lifts his head from the floor, eyes blazing with furious lust, and the tic of his jaw is a measure of the conflict burning inside him.
He wants this, too.
“Don’t stop,” his voice is hoarse and strained, like he’s fighting to say it.
Smiling in my victory, I lean forward and drag his bottom lip between my teeth.
He growls and palms the back of my head, seizing my mouth with possession.
All at once, he stills beneath me, kicking his head to the side. His muscles harden with tension, and he seems to be distracted by something.
Lifting a finger to his lips in a signal to keep quiet, he nudges me off of him and sits up from the floor. Not a single floorboard creaks when he stalks on hands and knees toward the window. Shadows move about through the glass, and I nab the blanket to cover myself as I back around the edge of the chair toward the bookcase.
The cabin door flies open on a thunderous crash, with the business end of a gun leading the way.
Remus? Why didn’t Yuma bark?
Muscles trembling, I stay tucked behind the chair, watching Titus prowl toward the unwary intruder.
The gun’s barrel gives way to a muscled woman with ratted hair and dirt-caked skin. The second she steps into the cabin, her eyes dart toward my hiding spot.
She aims her gun toward me, and that’s when Titus strikes.
In seconds, she’s lying beneath him, her gun held against her chest like a cage, as he looms over her with his fist drawn back for a punch.
Another woman enters the cabin, weapon aimed at Titus, and I jump from my hiding spot. “Wait!”
Two more women file in behind her, all of them armed, dressed in worn clothes that make them look unkempt. They move slow and crouch like animals, as if it’s their instinct to walk on hands and feet.
The second woman points her gun toward me.
“Unless you want me to smash her skull in, I suggest you lower your weapon,” Titus grits, still holding the first woman captive.
“Hard to do when your brains are spattered on the wall.” Yet another woman enters the cabin, this one wearing a leather vest over a dirty white T-shirt, with her hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail. So many females in one place is unheard of out here in the Deadlands.
She trains two handheld guns on Titus, making a total of four weapons aimed at him.
“What is it that you want?” I lift the blanket up higher, wrapping it tighter around my body. Whereas not wearing clothes doesn’t seem to bother Titus, at all, I feel entirely vulnerable standing before them.
“Did you not see the carving on the wall? This place belongs to us.”
That’s why Yuma didn’t bark. He’s familiar with them.
Titus snorts a laugh, refusing to release the girl beneath him. “How long did you think a little picture was going to keep people away?”
“Has for years. Most ‘round here recognize what it means.”
“Why leave the food behind?” I can’t take my eyes off her guns, thinking how easily she could slip and shoot the back of his head.
“Mother earth provides the nutrients we need. Not a fucking can.” Still holding her guns on Titus, the leather-vested woman tips her head. “You either release my sister, or I’ll waste every bit of lead on you and your girl.
