by Ivanna Roze
Ashton was shaking, she saw. From the cold, she guessed.
"Come here. Lie under the blanket."
"I have to keep an eye out."
"Is this room safe?"
"As safe as it can be," he answered, defensive.
"Then you can keep a watch from under the blankets. You're shaking, you're so cold. You need to warm up."
He stood up and paced back and forth. Anything to avoid getting into that bed beside her. There was plenty of space. She pulled the blanket back a little way, to make the bare side all that much more inviting. He could just slip in, warm and cozy.
He watched her doing it, looked at the bed and at her, then at the closed door and the window. She could see from the way he closed his eyes that he was struggling.
"Come on. It's nice and warm under here."
He opened them again and made his way around the foot of the bed to slip in. "Damn it all, girl."
Cora could tell that he was enjoying the warmth. Whether or not he enjoyed the company was a totally different question, and not one that she wanted to think about. Was she really so repulsive that he couldn't bring himself even to be near her for only a moment?
Cora laid her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The knowledge of how close he was to her, of how private the room was, brought images flashing through her mind. Memories of the cave, of what they'd done there together.
She let them come. Let herself enjoy the memory of how it had felt. She looked over at Ashton after a moment. He had his hands laced behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. His eyes darted down to look out through the window for a moment. Other than that, they didn't move from the ceiling.
She pushed herself upright, and his eye flickered over to her for an instant. So he was paying attention to her. He just wanted to pretend he wasn't. Well, Cora thought, two could play at that game. But she wasn't in the mood for it.
Instead she traced the line of his muscle, from his elbow back down to his shoulder. She ran her finger around it, feeling the shape and the relaxed hardness of it. His skin was as cold as ice. He let her trace his arm for a moment before suddenly yanking it away, as if he had only just noticed that she was doing it.
"Don't."
"Don't you like me?"
"I'm not your husband."
"I'm not married."
"But you will be, some time."
"What's that got to do with it?"
He pushed himself up to match her, but he was bigger, so he looked down on her. Cora felt a shiver run through her body.
"So you shouldn't be dallying with a man like me."
"What if I said I didn't care?"
"Then you're an idiot."
She noticed herself leaning into him, and she noticed that he wasn't pulling away from her, in spite of what he was saying.
"Then I guess I'm an idiot."
She pressed her lips into his, softly. Even the light graze of his lips against hers was electric and arousing.
"Don't do this," he said softly. She brushed another kiss across his lips.
This time he wasn't arguing with her. They separated for a moment, Ashton giving her a hard look, and then a powerful hand wrapped around the back of her neck, pulling her in for a third kiss. This one was deep and rough, his teeth almost chewing on her lips, leaving little bruises that she didn't know that she wanted to go away.
Cora pressed herself in against him, wanting anything that he was ready to give. She could feel him pressing back, the feminine softness of her body molding itself to his hard lines.
"We shouldn't do this," he said in between kisses.
"You always do what you're supposed to?"
Ashton pulled his shirt off and tossed it behind him. "No."
Cora let him work the buttons on her dress. The feeling of his hands trembling with impatience and arousal as he tried to work them was like a drug, going straight to her head.
Then he had them apart and she slipped the dress down her body, leaving her in her chemise and, she noted, very little else. Ashton didn't wait long to move his weight over, pressing her onto her back.
The casual dominance of it sent another shiver through her. She wasn't sure what she would be able to do if she wanted to stop him. She wasn't going to try.
His kisses shifted lower, his teeth grazing the soft skin of her neck before he sucked on it hard, pulling a soft moan from her lips before she could stop herself. His hands were already exploring her body, pressing into her soft breasts, one hand helping her dress to ride up her spread thighs.
The fly of his jeans was pressed into her thigh, sending signals to her sex-addled mind that told her everything she needed to know about what was going to come next. Everything she knew she wanted, and everything she needed.
She reached her hand down between them, feeling for that hardness that pressed against her. The fly came apart with some difficulty. Who had ever made buttons so stiff and so difficult to open? The zip came easier, and then she reached inside for her prize.
It was hard and soft at the same time, and where the rest of his skin was still a little chilled, giving his kisses a pleasurable, otherworldly quality, this was burning in her hand.
"We have to stop."
"Fuck me," Cora purred in response. For all of his protests, Ashton didn't need to be told twice. He let her guide his hardness up to her, and then pressed himself inside. Cora felt the invasion as a fullness that couldn't be described, and one that she couldn't ever get away from again.
He held himself still, looking into her eyes. Cora lifted her head to claim a kiss from him. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing himself to stay still, pulling her chemise up and over her head. It joined his shirt on the floor, and he dipped his head to pull one plump breast into his mouth.
Then he started to move, and every memory that Cora had of how much pleasure he had given her in that cave was overwritten by the difference that she was feeling now. She hadn't known a thing about pleasure until now, her entire body going into fits with every delicious scrape of his hard cock against her insides.
He took long, hard strokes, hitting deeper and deeper, moving faster and faster, harder and harder, until the sound of flesh slapping on flesh filled the room along with the moans that Cora couldn't stop herself from making.
"Oh God—I'm going to—"
Cora couldn't finish her thought before her muscles all tightened at once and stayed that way as he moved inside her. Her legs wrapped around him, trying to hold him in as deep as they could. He fucked her harder still, spiraling her somehow into greater and greater heights, until it seemed as if she had always been cumming.
She felt him twitching inside her as he came and let her eyes drift shut with the new, impossible pleasure that she was feeling. So many of her older, married lady-friends had complained about their husbands, and about what they did in the bedroom. If they'd had this experience, Cora thought, then they would never have complained.
She laid back on the pillow, gasping for breath, feeling Ashton's body-weight pressed down onto her, pinning her to the bed. A moment later he withdrew from her and moved off to her side, claiming another kiss from her lips.
Cora let her eyes close, let her tiredness overwhelm her for a moment. They would figure out what to do next later. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the moment, all the feelings running through her. Even the warmth that he had planted inside her.
Sixteen
Ashton lamented their lack of supplies. He'd managed to save his bag, so everything wasn't completely lost. And Cora at least had the clothes on her back, and when she got back into Detroit she would still have plenty of money from her brother to replace what she had lost on that train. But things had just gone from a comfortable train ride home to a long one.
Even then, a second train ride seemed like it might be a foolish decision. But there wasn't anything else to be done. If they took a stage, it took a day's worth of risk and turned it into a week's worth. Even if they had already learned that t
hey were vulnerable on the train, they were at least less vulnerable than they would be on a stagecoach.
So they had to do what they had to do, and that was get back onto the train. "You ready?"
He closed his eyes as he heard the frustration in her voice. She didn't like how he was acting, and she shouldn't have. It was because of what had just happened, what had almost happened before, that he had to be so distant. Because it was only a matter of time, if he wasn't, until it happened again.
Ashton Lowe was a monster hunter. He wasn't a knight in shining armor, he wasn't a priest, but that didn't mean that he didn't at least make an effort to remain somewhat respectable. He ought to have tried harder, though, because instead on this case he'd fucked a woman he was under strict orders to bring back to her brother, with no allowances for letting his cock do the thinking for him.
Besides, they wouldn't be able to stay here forever. Ash shivered at the thought that when they went back out of that room and into the main hotel, that the cold and the wind would still be kicking up. Devils were patient things. A hundred years to move three miles tended to do that.
The big ones, the ones that could really move, they were less patient, but only because they had less need to be. If they wanted something, they were going to get it. Eventually. And heaven help whoever they wanted.
But he had to hope that they'd be able to make it out safely. The alternative was… what? To stay in that bedroom forever? He could have gotten behind that, if there were some way to get food and drink brought to them. That bridge had already been burned with the way they'd entered.
The owner didn't seem too plum pleased about the way he'd barged in. Hunters out here were not too few, but they were usually better received than that. Then again, their first act of protection didn't usually involve destruction of property.
He settled his hand on his gun and shut his eyes a moment. He hadn't prayed, not in years. Not since his apprenticeship had ended. It had always been something he did to please the old man, nothing more. Well, now he did, clumsily struggling to remember the right words.
'Father… don't… let me die. I know that's not right, but can't we just overlook it this once? Amen.'
With that done he set the flat-brim black hat on his head and stepped out into the hall. For all the build-up he'd felt, nothing happened. Whatever the Devil had been here for, it had evidently decided it was needed elsewhere. Ash was not optimistic enough to believe that it might have decided that Cora wasn't worth pursuing. Rather, it was more likely that she was there for the taking whenever the moment was right, and the moment wasn't right any more.
Something else had taken its attention.
Ash looked back and signaled for her to follow with his head. "It's safe. For now, at least."
She pushed herself up from the bed and followed. Nothing to carry, and no porters to hire, because everything she had was at the bottom of a valley, more than likely crushed to a pulp and then burned to boot.
They didn't speak on the way through the hotel, because Ash didn't speak, and he knew that she wasn't going to speak to him until he started to act more personable with her. Couldn't she understand that he was doing the right thing? Couldn't she try to stop punishing him for what he had no choice in?
He'd broken the line of the door when he smelled something odd. A slow, acrid burn, and a hard gust of wind that seemed timed exactly to catch him and nothing else. It made him take a step to catch his balance, and then it was gone again.
But for that instant, he swore he heard someone shout out Cora's name.
He turned back, and Cora wasn't behind him any more. Ashton cursed under his breath. It didn't take much retracing his steps to find what had happened. Someone in the front room, someone who looked like they had spent more time drinking at noon than most did the whole day, had attracted her attention.
No doubt, that was who had shouted at her. A little message left for her by the Devil that so badly wanted her, he supposed. Well, he'd felt the 'signs, and that was enough to tell him not to trust whatever she was being told now.
He stayed by the door. No telling how soon trouble would start, and he didn’t' want to break his concentration all on account of listening to one old bum. If something was going to start, then he would be ready. If it wasn't going to start, then he knew enough to know that whatever was happening here, he wasn't going to go along with it.
Cora's face twisted in thought, and then she nodded. The old drunk turned up to look at her, and then said, louder than before. "Who are you?"
Cora stood up to head back over to Ashton. "Nobody at all, mister."
He stepped out the door. "What was that all about?"
"Nothing," she said. "A misunderstanding, that's all."
"As long as you don't listen to anything that old man said, then misunderstand all you like."
"Of course not." Cora waved the idea away like she would've never considered it. Ash let out the breath he'd been holding in, the tension gone just a little bit. Just enough to maybe not have to worry about her doing something stupid.
"Good."
He bought the tickets. Two, heading through Ohio to Detroit. He paid the teller and then they started the wait for the train to arrive. It wasn't long. Twenty minutes of strained silence, and they were in business. Then it would be a little more than a day—no doubt they would have something that they could read to pass the time—and Cora would be home.
Ash would be fifteen thousand dollars richer, and he could try to forget any of this had ever happened. Easy. Cora would forgive him, eventually. She would move on. That was how the world worked.
He smiled grimly as the train pulled into the station, assuring himself that he would forgive himself, too. If he never did, like he wasn't going to for Peters, then that was fine too. After all, he was a real bastard.
There wasn't any luggage to see onto the train. Just two people stepping on, guided to their rooms by the steward. Ashton left her be. She deserved to be angry at him, and he wasn't going to look for forgiveness he hadn't remotely earned.
Conductors made the last call, which seemed as good a time as any. He stepped out into the hall and rapped at the door to Cora's room. Another woman answered. She was in her fifties, with a bony figure and a nose like a knife. "Yes?"
"Cora Little in there?"
"The woman who was supposed to stay with me?"
"I suppose so." He hadn't realized that they were anything other than private compartments, but he hadn't specified, either.
"She said she had something to take care of back in town, and she left." The woman shrugged. "Are you looking for her?"
The train was already starting to move. Inches now, but soon it would be going far too fast to get off, unless he had no other choice. He made for the exit.
"Sir, the train's already moving—" he bowled past the conductor who tried to stop him, sending him back-first into the steel wall behind him. It was better than out of the train, and that was exactly where Ashton was going. He made the platform with inches to spare, and Cora Little nowhere in sight.
Seventeen
The wind wasn't blowing any harder than normal. If anything it was a nice day, once she got back off the train. A coat might be useful, but she certainly wasn't going to need one too badly, not before she got on the next train heading south toward Utah.
The train behind her started to go. She would need to get the hell out of there, long before Ashton figured out what had happened. It was lucky that she had managed to get off the train without him seeing. Now she was going to have to hope that it took him just a few minutes more.
She heard, dimly, a conductor trying to stop him. Well, she wasn't about to be caught just because of something like that. She made a bee-line for the other side of the ticket booth, steadying her breathing as she heard boots hit the wooden station floors hard. That was him, all right.
If he caught her, then it was just another long, silent wait for the next train back to Detroit, and she coul
dn't back. Not knowing that they had missed something. It was gone by now, she knew, but the old man had confirmed it as sure as anything.
Her mother was with a family now, and a large one. It made sense now, that it was in Utah, because apparently she was one of several sister wives to some man, and from what Cora knew that was nearly the exclusive purview of the folks who lived there.
She forced her heart to slow down as she heard the boot-heels knocked their way straight to her. Knock, knock, knock, until it sounded like all he had to do was turn his head and he'd see her. But she was around the corner, and then he stopped short.
"You seen a woman get off that train?"
"I haven't seen anything, mister."
"I'm just trying to get her home, nothing funny going on."
"I haven't seen a thing, I told you."
"Great." She heard Ashton let out a frustrated sigh. "Give me a ticket to Utah, will you?"
Ashton paid ten dollars for a ticket. She didn't have her baggage any more, so most of her money was gone. But she'd at least brought her clutch, and that had a few dollars in it. More than enough for what she was hoping to do, and she could wire for more when she got back to Salt Lake City.
She heard the boots walking away, and then the teller's voice spoke to no one in particular. "He's gone, you're fine."
Cora turned back out. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"I need a ticket to Salt Lake City."
The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue with her. Ten dollars, same as before. She counted out two five-dollar bills and passed them. The man passed back a ticket.
Then she settled down into one of the benches and waited. It would be a while, but she wasn't going to risk running into Ashton any sooner than she had to. He would be mad, no doubt. But did that matter?
She didn't realize that she'd started to nod off until Ashton's hand was on her shoulder, shaking her awake.
