He was hard and rangy, a long thigh pushed into the ground between my legs. I shoved his chest. “Off.”
He blinked. “Right.” He rolled off, studied the tree line, his body shaking. “Why are we outside?”
“You drunk?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Shot?”
I stood, swept dirt off my gown, my bare feet freezing as they squished into the sludge along the bank. “Why’re you out here—you up to some bandit nonsense?”
He touched his shoulder and lifted his hand away. Blood smeared his fingertips. One Eye nuzzled him, and Stot absently rubbed behind the wolf dog’s ears. He was shot—my wrists trembled with cold, with fear. I felt around his body, the flush of adrenaline warming my face, my hands finding the slick, gooey place he was wounded. I ripped off a length of my gown, tied the cloth around his wound.
“Don’t get mixed up in my mess.” His voice a quiet rumble. He burrowed into the bank and closed his eyes. “Just leave me.”
I finished lacing my boots and helped him into my slicker. “You’re bleeding. You’re on outlaw territory.” I led him up the bank. “The size of it: You’ll die if you don’t whip yourself together.”
With my grip looped around his waist, I tried to guide him onto Cricket. My hands slipped on his wet shirt, felt the shape of the muscles across his back. “Stop,” he said. “I can mount a damn horse.”
“Can you?” I taunted him, but my voice was threadbare.
Then he was up, and I swung behind him, his expansive body between my thighs. He looked over his shoulder, his gaze dark and heavy lidded, his palm holding the cloth against his wound.
“What?” I asked.
“I can ride. Climb before me.”
“That’s absurd.”
“Can you even grasp the reins, around me?” he asked.
I shifted my hips forward in the saddle, my thighs fitting against his. “I don’t need reins.”
He swallowed. “Just climb in front.”
I kept arguing, but he pulled me around, my body sliding along his. He settled me between his thighs. I shoved back against him, and he grunted. His hands smoothed along my legs to grab the reins, and his lips dropped to my ear. “Comfortable?”
“Just ride, you scallywag.”
He chuckled, and I felt the rumble of his stomach muscles along my back. This was altogether unnecessary. He freed my loose hair bunched between us, then clicked for Cricket to ride. That sound, low in his throat, caused a spiderweb of nerves to burst across my side.
We galloped over our moon-shadowed land, his muscular body behind mine, thighs hot against my gauzy nightgown, arm looped tight across my stomach, our bodies surging in rhythm, and I lost the ability to breathe.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ihauled Stot inside and kicked my door shut, suffocating the howl of the wind.
“I got it.” He swayed, held his arm against his chest.
He definitely did not have it. I maneuvered him onto the sofa, his chilled body shaking. One Eye padded over and curled up before the fireplace. After stoking the flames, heat searing my skin through my gossamer nightgown, I grabbed some supplies: calico scraps, gunpowder, a pouch of willow bark.
Stot watched, eyes wider than normal.
“Take off your shirt,” I said, pressing my hair back at the temples, heartbeat pulsing against my palms. A tight shiver from the winter chill—and panic.
He dropped his head back against the sofa. “You’re welcome to help, doll.”
His eyes were closed with something like a smirk languid on his face, his wet hair curling all about. My slicker, which looped over his shoulders, fell back to pool across the cushions. He was drowsy and unbalanced.
