“Evening. Come in.”

  “Thank you.” Both men had wonderful manners. Courtly. Indigo had a hat on that he removed immediately upon seeing her. They opened doors and pulled out chairs and, in general, were a delight to be around. Even if they all hadn’t been extraordinary specimens of strapping masculine beauty.

  They started to fill Loyal in on what they’d seen out on their scouting mission. On the plans they’d gone over with Haldeman for how to deal with the aftermath of the attack.

  It went on as Loyal stirred and then his attention wandered. It was clear this was going to take a long time.

  She moved into the kitchen and put the food off the grill before it burned.

  “There’s some fresh bread in the pantry there and some cold, sliced meat and cheese for you all to eat. Milk too, in the cold case. I need to go check on some things downstairs.”

  Loyal followed her out onto the stairs. “Wait.”

  “For what? You have a job to do. Just do it.”

  She knew it was petulant. He did have a job to do. But she’d been interrupted so many times it was wearing her temper and she didn’t feel like being angry. “It’s fine. I meant it. You have a job to do. Come get me when they’re gone.”

  “We’ll talk. I promise.”

  She waved over her shoulder but kept on downstairs.

  Tobin came out to help her do a quick inventory so she could finish her orders to send back with the transport. It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. They had plenty of staples left. Flour, sweetener, spices, rice and the like. Building supplies were running low though. Nails and tools needed replacing.

  She was hungry so she and Tobin had a meal of bread, cheese and fruit as they chatted about the lawman training he was so excited to start. She tried to avoid the topic of the fight she’d had with Constance, but he knew his mother had come.

  “It was unpleasant. But I urged her to speak to you. Urged her to intervene with your father. I repeated my support of your dreams. That’s not going to change. I’m sad she’s unhappy. I understand, she’s worried about your safety. But you want to fly and I’ll cheer you on. She and your father will get over it. Maybe not before you leave, you should be ready for that.”

  “Indigo said a new class starts in a moon.”

  “Loyal told me he’d recommend you for a scholarship spot. Which will take care of a roof over your head and your meals. I’ll send you some credits on a regular basis. You’ll have time to see vids and maybe take a girl out to a meal.”

  “I can’t thank you enough. I…it means everything.”

  “You’re nineteen once in your life. That’s the time to squire pretty girls to dinner. Or to have a few down the bar with your friends.”

  His lopsided grin cheered her up.

  Loyal came down a while later, just about when she’d started to think seriously on going up and getting in her bed.

  “I apologize but I need to go down to the garrison barracks to debrief with Haldeman. It may be a while longer. You should probably go to sleep.”

  She held back the annoyed sigh, but he saw it in her eyes. He lowered his voice as they moved away from Tobin, Indigo and Marcus.

  “I really am sorry. I wanted to have this time with you. But—”

  “It’s your job. I understand. I do. But this isn’t over. You need to know that. We have things to discuss.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I know. And we will.”

  She kept his gaze, underlining that. It was time to make a stand for herself. And now that she’d done it, she understood enough to know it had to be backed up.

  She’d been asleep when he’d returned to her place many hours later. He could tell, given the folded blanket on the settee, that she’d waited for him.

  Guilt stabbed his belly.

  That was what her life would be if he took up with her. And he was too greedy for her, too selfish to walk away. He wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted since he’d been very young. She smoothed him out, soothed the rough edges, and he needed her. Needed her like he needed to breathe.

  But the idea of her riding along? He’d need to get clearance for such a thing. If he wanted it and he wasn’t sure he did. The road was dangerous.

  He disrobed in the dark outside her room, moving to join her in bed. They’d need to be up and moving in a few short hours. Back to Shelter City this time to make a report. To get more ammunition and to pack up for more deliveries. He’d teach a class or two, as he usually did when they went back home.

  And then he’d start over. Begin a new run on the Highway.

  And he’d come back to her. Because he had meant it when he told her earlier. There was no one else for him.

  She roused slightly, moving to him as if by instinct. And he guessed it was.

  He let her settle, lay her head on his biceps as he tucked her head beneath his chin and breathed her in.

  This was something dangerous. The way he felt with her body against his. Not that he planned to do anything else but enjoy it. He liked dangerous things. Lived on that edge all the time. Pretty face, luscious lips, smart eyes that didn’t miss a thing, his woman was canny and dangerous, no doubt.

  He smiled as he started to drift into sleep. He’d gotten used to this sort of contentment. Oh sure he fell into his job. He loved that too. It was who he was.

  But something else was there now, deep inside. Verity had awakened something. A need to belong, a need to cleave himself to something more than his revolver and his vehicle. The badge that marked him as someone worthy.

  He saw the same look on Marcus’ face when he looked at Trinity. He had liked it because he cared about both deeply. But now he understood it.

  This was love. Not the thing you said to someone you liked a lot. The kind of thing that was bone deep and inescapable.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  She smiled when she woke with his arms around her. He’d come back very late. Or very early. Whichever. He’d stripped naked and slid into her bed, making room for her as she’d snuggled back into his body.

  His cock pressed at her ass, which was another reason to smile. She could get very, very used to this life. Waking up with a man she loved every day. Waking up with his arms around her, his scent on her skin like a brand.

  She managed to turn in his arms. He was awake, she could tell by his breathing. And the smile on his lips.

  “Morning.” She kissed his chin as his grip tightened.

  “Morning, milady.”

  He filled her with butterflies and joy that floated through her veins like bubbly wine or the need to laugh really hard. And at the same time, he rolled his hips, brushing his cock against her and filling her with other things. Darker things that made her muscles tighten and a moan burst from her lips.

  She’d never had this before him. And she didn’t want to let it go.

  She reached down, grabbing his cock, and squeezed the way she knew he liked. He’d awakened something in her. Well, many somethings. But a sensual thing. She’d wanted before. But the way he desired her had bloomed into something in her belly. An awareness of her sexuality, of the way she affected him. Of how good, how intimate and dark and dirty what she wanted from him was.

  And that it was all right because she was his. It wasn’t wrong to want him to put his hands all over her in any way he wanted. Because he was her man.

  She liked the way that felt when she thought about it.

  He rolled her to her back as his eyes opened slowly, focusing on her utterly.

  “I want you so much I can’t quite think straight. I just had you last night and I want you again. And again.”

  “Take me.” She arched up to nip his bottom lip like he often did to her.

  He groaned and followed her back to the pillow, his kiss starting off soft and sweet and deepening as his tongue swept over her lips and into her mouth.

  He rolled on top of her, insinuating himself between her thighs so that the notch of her pussy was against the line of his cock. Every small movement sent a shiver through her, another wave of sensation that turned her to liquid inside.

  “You’re so hot. Wet already. Nipples hard. You want it.”

  She nodded as he spoke against her mouth. “Yes.”

  She tried to change her angle by pulling her knees up, bringing him flush to her, slick skin to cock. “In, in, in.”

  He obliged in one stroke that sent her eyes to the back of her head and her back to an arch.

  He grabbed her calves, still kissing her slow and easy, and pushed her knees up, spreading her open impossibly wide. His weight on her kept her in place. Controlled exactly how she moved and when.

  She liked it so much it nearly frightened her. But with his hands on her, his weight restraining her, she knew he could be trusted. Trusted to give her what she wanted. To take what he wanted and make it so good she’d ache afterward just thinking about it.

  Gasping for breath as he got particularly deep, he nipped her lip, her chin. She cocked her head back to give him access to her neck, knowing he wanted it. Wanting to give it to him if for no other reason.

  His beard scratched the sensitive skin of her neck but she didn’t care. The burn was good. It sent shivers through her knowing she’d be red from it later.

  Knowing others would understand just what made her that way. Maybe she’d wear a scarf. Maybe not.

  She smiled at that.

  He released her legs and his hands skimmed up her ribs to her breasts, fingers pinching and tugging her nipples until she saw bright flashes of color each time he let go.

  “Your cunt tightens around my cock every time I do that.”

  His voice was rough. Burrs of desire woven through it as he whispered against her skin.

  She rocked back and forth against him, pressing her clit to his body, getting just enough friction to drive her slowly, achingly up toward orgasm.

  Each breath she dragged into her lungs, each nearly painful bloom of pleasure from the pinch and tug of her nipples, each thrust and drag of her clit against him was like a dance. Just the two of them, body to body saying what words maybe never could.

  She knew what he wanted and gave it to him. She gave herself to him freely, understanding he’d demand it, take what he desired and fill her with the sorts of things she’d never dreamed of wanting but now that he’d been in her in nearly every way imaginable, she craved.

  “You want to come? Hm?”

  She ground herself into him with a little more pressure as she tried to answer but only ended up whimpering a little.

  He pushed her legs up even higher, nearly folding her in half. He got to his knees and continued to fuck her. “Give it to yourself. I want to watch you.”

  Her gaze locked on his face as he watched her hand slide down her belly. The greed in his eyes shocked her as she slid her labia apart and stroked a middle finger over her clit. Lightly at first. But it wouldn’t last long. She didn’t like it light. She liked it hard.

  “Tap it.”

  He remained there, thrusting as he watched her finger herself.

  She lightly tapped her clit, gasping.

  “Harder. We both know you want it harder.”

  Her middle finger came down on her clit harder. Hard enough to make her groan. Hard enough to grab into her with talons and take her a whole lot closer to coming.

  “Yes. Like that. Your pussy likes that.”

  She nodded, stroking with more and more pressure and tapping here and there.

  “Wet your fingers. Don’t want them to get dry and hurt.”

  She began to put them in her mouth but changed her mind, sliding them in between his lips. He groaned, sucking on them, the sound seeming to echo down her arm straight to her nipples.

  When she moved back to her clit she knew within a few breaths she was going to come and come hard.

  “Yes, exactly. Give me one.”

  Watching him as he watched her was too much and not enough. Stimulating to the point that she wanted to pull it down around her and wrap herself up tight with it.

  And she came then, on the third stroke with her slippery fingers. He snarled a curse and then her name. Over and over again as he fucked harder and harder on each stroke until his gaze snapped up to hers and latched on.

  He’d never come that hard, or that good. And looking into her eyes as he had tied them together in ways he didn’t know how to process much less give words to.

  So he didn’t. Instead he rolled to the side and she moved close, burying her face in his neck, her arms around his shoulders as he caressed the curves at her hips and down over her ass.

  * * *

  She made breakfast and they sat in companionable quiet as they sipped tea and ate. He watched the sunrise on her skin.

  “Nice to be able to have the shutters up.”

  He agreed. More because it meant everyone was safe. But the way the light lent her a pretty glow was good too.

  “So.”

  He took a bracing breath.

  “I’m sorry about last night. Sorry we got interrupted and that I was back so late.”

  She nodded. “I expect there was a lot to talk about.”

  “We wanted to keep an eye on the Highway here and the trails coming up to Silver Cliffs. We didn’t want to drive away and leave you open to attack.”

  “Or get ambushed.”

  “That either. But it happens. We’ve been ambushed twice in the last few years. Other crews have as well. I lost one of my men. You’re safe here. You won’t be out there.”

  “I understand you’re worried. But I don’t want to wait around here for those few times each annum you come to town for a few days and leave. I want to be with you. I want a relationship, not a visit.”

  He groaned inwardly. She was . . . intractable on certain things. He’d seen the steel in her spine more than once, but this was the first time he was sorry for it. He wanted her to obey his wishes. So she’d be safe.

  “I can come more often. I told you about the higher frequency of deliveries now. My job isn’t only to run transport escorts. I teach at the academy too. We come off the road and have mandated off time every moon. I have a house in Shelter City. You can come stay there with me or I can come here. It’ll be more than it is now. But I can’t just toss you in my escort vehicle today. That’s not how it works. There are regulations about it and even if there weren’t I’m not sure it’s a good choice for either of us.”

  “I’m not helpless! I can shoot. I can read maps. Do you imagine I’ll sit next to you and ask if we’re nearly there every few minutes?” He wisely stifled a laugh at that. “No. That has not even crossed my mind. But I have to be utterly focused on the road when I am on an escort. Not on the beautiful woman next to me and her sweet pussy I’d rather be buried in.”

  “Are you serious? I can’t come with you because you can’t think with your head? You trust Marcus and Trinity and I know they have sex!”

  “They’re trained for the job, Verity. Trinity has been a lawman since she was sixteen. And they’re not the leader of the crew. Neither of them. They all look to me to keep them safe. It’s my job. I can’t just bring my woman on the road with me because she’s lonely.”

  She narrowed her eyes and he held his hands up quickly, recognizing the danger he faced. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

  “How did you mean it then? You seem to think I’m asking you to come along, giving up everything here because I’m a sad spinster who wants to be entertained every moment.”

  “You’re not a spinster. That’s the first thing. And I don’t think, nor did I say you were bored and wanted to be entertained. People try to kill lawmen on the Highway. In the garrisons I have to mete out justice. How will you feel when you watch me shoot someone in the head in the public square?”

  “I’d feel bad for you because I know you’d hate it. But it would be necessary and I know that. Probably better than you do. I live out here. I understand the pressures of abiding by the law. I understand lawmen are the line between civilization and brigands.”

  He scratched his beard, wishing she wasn’t so fucking perceptive and undoing all his arguments one by one.

  “Damn it. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. That I’d be the reason for it when you could be here, or in Shelter City, safe. I can’t risk you out there with me. I can’t and I won’t. Not because of what I think you’d do, but of what could happen to you.”

  “I can’t stay here. I realized it yesterday when Constance and I were arguing. I will always be . . . beholden here. Stuck in the ways I’m supposed to act. Every day I wake up and I’m alone. And I know it will only be allowed so long and I’ll have to make a choice. A choice to marry a man like Jackson or to accept that I’ll be unwed and asexual. Right now I’m given some freedom, yes. But my sister voiced something that is totally true. My remaining here without being married will turn people away. So I’d have to turn off my sexuality. No dating. No fucking. Nothing. I’d have to let that part of me dry up so I can remain unwed.

  “Or I could just give in and marry a man like Jackson. If I’m lucky. If I don’t move on that within an annum or two I’d have less choices. Worse choices. I can’t wait for you to come to town the way I have been. Those times are ending. My freedom is drying up. I don’t want to dry up and blow away like dust.”

  He started and stopped a few times trying to find the words. Finally she shook her head.

  “You can’t know what it’s like. You’re a man from the center. You don’t have to make choices in the same way just to exist. I’m telling you I can’t make that choice. I can’t. I’m telling you I love you and I want to be with you. I want the world out there, violence and all. Better that than slowly dying.”

  The horn sounded outside, signaling the start of the day. And the time for him to be readying to leave.

  “I will be back for you. There’s no need to let Jackson in your bed just because you’re mad you can’t get your way.” He said the last angrily and she wanted to throw her teacup at him because he still didn’t seem to grasp what she had said totally.