“Come to bed,” he said, his voice slurred at the edges. My stomach roiled at the thought of lying next to him after what I’d seen. My thoughts fractured, justifying and vilifying his behavior all at once. Still, being cradled in his arms like something precious to him would undoubtedly break me.
“I think I’d rather get ready to leave,” I said quietly. He contemplated the quilt on the bed, seeming to pay no attention to me. I crammed my feet haphazardly into my shoes as I prepared to flee.
He wasn’t trying to stop me. Didn’t even spare a glance in my direction. He slumped onto the bed, struggling to shove his boots off before lying down as I shuffled into my jeans and fled the room like my life depended on it.
Once I was in the hallway, alone, I slumped bodily against the wall he’d been moaning on moments before. The shock receded from my mind, and all that was left was an emptiness I hadn’t expected. I stumbled downstairs to the bar and sat heavily, but waved the bartender away when he offered me a whiskey.
I wanted to feel this.
Resting my head in my hands, I thought about Jesse. He was handsome. I’d known that since I’d first laid eyes on him, but he was so much more than that. When we met, he’d put his own safety at risk, even though all I’d done was wrong him. And while he was good at the hustle, he’d never lied to me.
My mind flashed to the ugly words shouted between us over the last few weeks and the quiet admissions beneath the cover of darkness. A rueful smile twisted onto my mouth. There were so many times it would’ve been easier for him if he’d just lied to me, forsaken me, abandoned me. Instead, Jesse had been kind when it was easier to be cruel, honest despite the steep price of the truth, and vulnerable even though I’d done nothing to encourage soft affection between us.
Still, every time I closed my eyes or blinked, all I could see was his face, slackened in passion, his fingers knotted in another woman’s hair. A sharp ache in my chest ripped wide within me, like an open bleeding wound.
Is this how he felt seeing me on the train?
The thought knocked the wind out of me. Heat built recklessly in my eyes. I sniffled back the tears threatening to fall. I couldn’t just sit here. I couldn’t just—
I stormed out into the dim light of dawn. Walking in the cold air, I watched my breath fog in front of me as I focused on the steady thud of the ground beneath my feet. My world narrowed to the burn in my muscles and the jagged edges of the frigid air in my lungs as I gasped in chestfuls.
Why wouldn’t he be with her? She was uncomplicated. She was beautiful. She wasn’t constantly making mistakes or yelling at him. She sure as fuck wasn’t putting him in danger. I looked up and noticed I’d made it all the way to the other end of town, staring out into the vast expanse of desert beyond. A place that used to welcome me like home, that used to make me safe.
Now, without Jesse, all it did was make me feel alone.
My breath heaved raggedly, my chest rising and falling in shuddering waves. I raised my hand to my face. Incredulously, I wiped away hot tears that streaked down my cheeks. Something cracked open wide within me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d allowed myself to cry. There was no stopping it now.
This was my fault.
I was a fucking coward. I was a coward on the train. I was a coward at the lake. I’d been a coward every single day since I’d lured him into that alleyway. Too fucking scared to tell him I wanted him. That even though I hadn’t been ready before, I might be now. That just the thought of him with another person devastated me in ways I couldn’t begin to understand. The image came again, his eyes closed tight with his fingers clenched in her flaxen curls.
The thought sobered me. I mopped at my eyes with my sleeve before turning and making the long, winding trek back to the inn. The sun had barely risen by the time I got there, despite my best efforts to delay my return. I nervously touched my hands to my face, as if that could somehow hide the blotchiness on my pale cheeks. I sat at the bar again, signaling the bartender for a cup of coffee, which he provided with a slosh.
The bitter heat steadied me, and I wondered how long I would have to wait until Jesse and The Kid woke up. A high-pitched giggle sounded behind me. Familiar and devastating. Closing my eyes for a moment, I braced myself and turned to see the woman. Younger than me, pretty, with warm brown eyes and freckles splattered on her cheeks. Her pretty smile faded into a weary expression as she left her customer’s room.
Worrying my bottom lip, I dug in my pocket, pulling out a few bits from my jeans pocket. I walked over to her slowly, pressing the money into her palm without a sound. She looked up at me, startled, before her warm brown eyes welled with tears. I didn’t know if she knew who I was, or why my face was tearstained. All I knew was that she’d had a harder night than I did. I wouldn’t blame her or Jesse for the way I was feeling right now.
“Take the night off, okay?” I said. She sniffled, turning her back before disappearing out the front doors.
“Bonnie!” The Kid exclaimed from behind me, taking the steps two at a time. He bounded over to the table in the corner where we’d been taking our meals and sat in the seat he liked next to the wall. I retrieved my coffee from the bar before joining him.
Moments later, Jesse stumbled in, eyes bloodshot as he slumped into a chair across from me. The sight of his mussed blonde hair and pale skin tugged at my conscience. I slid my coffee over to him, our fingers brushing briefly. Whether I had blotchy, tear-stained skin or not, he still looked like shit.
“Bonnie—”
I turned my attention on The Kid, a clear sign I didn’t want to talk about the night before.
“Mornin’, Kid,” I said. It was all the prompting he needed to carry me away with conversation. Shooting birds, crater beasts, rules of being an outlaw—all his chattering started to blend together, but I nodded along anyway.
“Can we talk?” Jesse asked, reaching across the table to place his hand over mine. The warmth of his hand and the brush of his thumb against my skin shuddered through me. My jealousy clawed hot and ugly up the back of my throat, like bile. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t what he wanted. He liked pretty blondes, preacher’s daughters, innocent and undamaged women, or at least the appearance of them. I wore my scars like armor.
I pulled my hand away, pressing my lips together to stamp down the tears that wanted to rise again. I cleared my throat and schooled my features into a careful mask of indifference.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” I said, meaning every word. He didn’t do anything wrong. If I thought that, I’d be a hypocrite. There were no promises between us. He didn’t owe me his loyalty or fidelity. If I could be sexually empowered, hell, so could he.
“I’m gonna stock up so we can head out before we waste too much daylight,” I said, my words soft even though I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
I threw myself into preparations. Keeping my hands busy and my mind driven to distraction. I traded with a man on the corner and managed to haggle a good price for a worn green tent and a harmonica for The Kid. He seemed to like music. Hauling everything down from the rooms, I brought it over in several trips to the stable, where Eagle and Jesse’s horse were rested and freshly shod. Sighing, I started to tie down the bags and tack the horses. I took care to pack everything tight enough to make it easy to set up and break down camp each night.
It was when I was nearly finished that Jesse walked into the stable behind me.
I didn’t have to turn to see if it was him. I felt his eyes on my skin, the way I always could. They lingered around the curves of my shoulders, as if he were trying to read my emotions through my body language. Good luck. I could barely keep up with them myself. My breath hitched, and I crossed to the table in the corner, keeping my back to him. My hands shook as I fiddled with a brush I’d used on Eagle’s coat in an attempt to keep them busy.
Why isn’t he saying anything?
The silence stretched long between us, pulling my raw feelings taut within me. The th
ud of his boots in the dust unsettled me. I gripped my shaking hands on the edge of the table as he approached. Slowly, so slowly. Each step echoed the painful thud of my pulse. Until I felt his familiar, comforting heat licking against my skin, relaxing the tense set of my shoulders. He was so close, his scent made me dizzy, something warm like leather and desert dust and yet, still uniquely him.
“What d’ya want, Jesse?” I asked, my voice more breathless than I wanted it to be. He inhaled languidly, his breath close to my ear. As if he were drinking me deep into his lungs the way I had seconds before. His hand covered mine on the edge of the table. I sucked in a breath at the startling contact.
“She was pretty,” I said, my voice a garbled choke. He stayed silent, his thumb making a firm circle on the back of my hand. My fingers flexed in response, entwining with his slowly, methodically. So that I could feel every second of friction. I didn’t know that you could feel so much with just the tips of your fingers. I didn’t realize it could make your heart pound in your chest like the rapid tempo of a Comanche drum.
“Would it make a difference if I told you I was thinking about you last night?” he said, his words raw. Wrenched from somewhere painful inside of him. My breath shuddered audibly, and hot tears welled in the corners of my eyes.
“It’s none of my business,” I said. Even to my ears, the words sounded false.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, sounding smaller than I’d ever heard him before. As if the words were being raked over broken glass. “I can’t have you.”
Something shattered inside of me, my resistance crumbling to nothing.
“Why not?” I asked with an edge of desperation, whirling to find myself trapped in the cage of his arms. “Why can’t you have me?”
“I’m not your type, remember?” he asked bitterly, his mouth turned down into a scowl. I scoffed, ducking beneath one of his arms and taking a step away from him. Only one. Because Jesse’s fingers were still tangled with mine and he didn’t let me walk away. He gripped my hand tight, yanking hard enough to spin me around to face him. He was furious, his mouth set in a hard line.
“Don’t run away from this,” he demanded.
“Fine,” I said, turning on him. “I’m not your type, farm boy.”
He blinked, trying to clear the confusion clouding his eyes. I tugged my wrist out of his hot grasp.
“You... you’re good,” I said, trying to explain. I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “Good, and honest, and kind. I’m not like that. I’m fucked up and broken. I won’t apologize for it, because it’s who I am. That won’t change.”
“Change? Who asked you to?” Jesse asked. “I know who you are, Bonnie. You robbed me at gunpoint when we met. You’re ruthless and difficult and downright fucking mean sometimes—"
“Well, then, why don’t you—"
“Shut up,” he said, with enough conviction in his deep canyon timbre to make me actually shut my mouth. He dragged a weary hand down his face, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “You have all these goddamn rules. But all you’re doing is using them to keep me at an arm’s length. Is that what you really want?”
The truth of his words hurt, physically, like slices into my skin. I’d had the thought myself only that morning. How lonely I would be without him. His eyes grew soft, and he walked toward me again. I felt the table at my back.
“The rules are just the basics of survival out here—"
“Tell me what you want,” he said.
“They don’t mean anything. It was just supposed to be a distraction for The Kid,” I said.
The defiant and cowardly parts of me raged at being faced with my own shortcomings. There was comfort in familiar pain. Even though loneliness ached, there was a kind of safety in the knowledge of it. Better to hurt in familiar ways than to be surprised by new ones.
“Not those rules. Your proposition. One night only. One time offer. No repeat performances,” he said, repeating my own words back to me. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. His words tilted my entire world on its axis. That now-familiar heat built in my eyes. Goddamn it. He was right. His blue eyes pleaded with me as he stared me down with an expression of open longing. No games. No teasing. No bullshit.
“What if...” The words tumbled from my lips haphazardly, before I could think to stop them. I bit my bottom lip hard, wondering if I was making a huge mistake. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and the look in them was positively feral. He shuffled closer, strong arms like thick columns of muscle, caging me once more within the frame of his body. His shoulders hunched as he bowed in anticipation of my next words.
“What if I wanted more than that?” I asked, my words barely a whisper. “What if I made an exception for you?”
His hands were on my body before I could blink. Sliding along my waist and then lifting me onto the table so that I was eye-level with him for maybe the first time. His chest heaved, each breath forcing me back onto my forearms as he leaned forward. His fingers brushed gently against my jaw to push my hair away from my face as his eyes dropped to my mouth.
He hesitated, heart thundering, with a wild kind of vulnerability in his eyes. His mouth slid down and hovered over mine, drinking in my ragged breath. I could taste him on my tongue. His eyes were liquid heat, a desperate question hanging in the infinitesimal space between our open mouths. The charged silence between us screamed one thing.
“Are you sure?” he whispered against my mouth, finally breaking the stalemate. Each time we wound up here, I’d run. As far and fast as I could from admitting what I knew now with absolute certainty. I have feelings for Jesse. The kind I couldn’t quite define. Overwhelming, terrifying, inevitable. I didn’t answer him.
I kissed him. He barely had time to register that I’d moved before I sealed his mouth to mine in a savage kiss. His surprised exhalation was muffled against my lips. It didn’t take long for him to catch up, one of his arms wrapping around my back to crush our bodies together. I opened his mouth with mine in a flurry of teeth, and lips, and tongues. My fingers buried deep in his thick hair, and I pulled him closer.
I wanted to erase the taste of that woman from his mouth, to claw the memory of her away from his skin. He pressed closer to me, and my thighs opened so he could settle his hips between them. My need for him was a living thing, throbbing out of control and stealing my senses. Reaching deft hands down to his belt, I made quick work of the buckle, the clink of it echoing between labored breaths. I hooked my legs around his hips and writhed against his thick desire, eliciting a thunderous sound from deep in Jesse’s chest.
“Would you guys stop kissin’ already?” The Kid shouted from the open doorway, stilling us both. “Every time y’all kiss, you end up fighting, and I don’t wanna hear it all day!” He flung frustrated hands into the air.
I laughed against Jesse’s mouth, and it was then I realized how ridiculous this must’ve looked to The Kid. The both of us, half on top of a table, my legs hooked around Jesse’s hips and breathing so hard we may as well have run after another train. Jesse leaned his forehead against mine, gulping down a calming breath and groaning in regret.
“He has the worst timing,” Jesse said. I laughed again, my lips and the skin around them feeling swollen. He pulled away from me slowly, letting me down onto solid ground.
“We’re comin’, Kid,” I said, shrugging at Jesse in disappointment before turning to our horses. Jesse fumbled with his belt as we led them out together. I reached out for his hand, and he tangled his fingers with mine. I smiled at him, and his eyes glinted at me with an expression of barely veiled desire. A mirror of my own.
“We’re gonna have to name Jesse’s horse next!” The Kid exclaimed and I nodded, not really hearing anything he said. I dropped Jesse’s hand with a squeeze before mounting Eagle and settling myself in the saddle.
The road before us would lead to Fort Hood, but the path I was on was leading me to a place I’d never been before. It was terrifying and exhilarating. Jesse was quiet
as we rode out that morning, but the heat burning low in his eyes made one thing abundantly clear.
Whatever was happening between us wasn’t fading away; it was only getting stronger.
Chapter Sixteen - Jesse
I couldn’t stop looking at her. Even hours later, as the afternoon dragged forward, my pulse pounded like a drum each time I glanced Bonnie’s way. The fire that burned inside of me yearned for her. As The Kid prattled on about our time in Lamesa, all I could do was watch her. I wanted to capture the way her dark hair shone in the bright sunlight. My hands twitched as I imagined tangling my fingers in it again.
Every time she would catch me staring, whether it was at the curve of her hip or the smooth expanse of her neck, Bonnie smiled. The heat in her cheeks sent my heart racing, and my jeans grew tight.
The heat of the afternoon became oppressive. Then again, it could have been that satisfied glint I’d catch in Bonnie’s eye from time to time.
What if I made an exception for you?
Her promise from this morning left me jittery. I felt like a child again; anticipation grew with each passing hour. I couldn’t wait for The Kid to go to bed. I imagined getting lost in the taste of her skin while peeling off her jeans.
“Jesse?” my brother asked.
“Huh?” I choked out. My gaze flicked to Bonnie. A secret smile perched on her lips. She turned her eyes from me, the black curtain of hair blocking her features from my gaze.
“Buttercup?” Harry asked. I turned my attention forward. Bonnie snorted in amusement. I couldn’t tell if it was at me or The Kid.
“What?”
“Your horse,” Bonnie said. When I once again glanced toward her, her eyes glimmered. She was laughing at me.
Oh. The horse. Why were we talking about the damn horse?
“His name?” my brother prompted.
“We can’t name him after a flower,” I said, the words gruff. “He’s too powerful for that.” The Kid’s face fell. I’d declined at least a dozen names already. His brow furrowed as he sat in front of Bonnie. He flung his hands wide and huffed dramatically.
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