Night of Fire: The Ether Chronicles

by Nico Rosso

  The sun had almost set into the dark blue silk sea. It cast burned gold over Tom’s body. His muscles and his scars. And his eyes, wanting her. She could stop now. It would be torture to rein in the blood that surged through her, but it might hurt for him, too. And that could be her revenge.

  Rosa stepped onto one corner of the poncho and leaned over to unlace her boots. They were off quickly, and Tom was at her side as soon as she stood. Their bodies came together again. Mouths joined in a kiss. Her fingers raked down his back, and he growled from low in his chest. Then he pressed forward when her hands searched lower, into his drawers.

  “Rosa,” he whispered. “Rosa, you have to be real, because if I’m dreaming this I’ll die when I wake up.”

  “Is this real?” She wrapped her fingers around his rigid cock. He moaned and her own need intensified. Imagining having him inside her inspired a hot blush through her pussy.

  “It can’t be. It’s better than anything I’ve known.” He quickly kicked out of his trousers, now completely naked in the last light of the sun.

  She stroked along his shaft, watching him concentrate on the pleasure with his eyes closed and brow drawn. His hands found her, warmed her back and palmed her breast. Drawing him closer, she held his cock against her belly. He hissed a breath as their skin seemed to ignite a new fire.

  Lately, touching a man meant tossing a drunk in jail. Or maybe even a fistfight, to calm a roughneck who went too far in her town. She knew she had the strength for those struggles. But she’d forgotten what it meant to share her power with a man. Giving pleasure and receiving.

  That it was Tom in her hand and against her seemed impossible. The fantasies of a young woman and the anger she’d learned as she aged were burning away. She let herself live with each new beat of her heart.

  Tom placed kisses on her temple, her mouth, her neck and lower. He drew out of her hand and knelt before her. With his forehead on her belly, he hooked his fingers into her britches and slid them down. He carefully removed her britches and drawers, placing them on a corner of the tarp. The cool air was a quick contrast to her hot skin and Tom’s hotter touch.

  He kissed her stomach, bit her hip to send a flash of lightning through her body. His hands started at her ankles and moved up her legs. She braced herself on his shoulders. Ran her fingers through his hair. Hot breath caressed her thigh. Then his hand moved there, shaping to her curves.

  “This boy ran away from a girl.” His voice was so quiet, it seemed like he was talking to himself. Or praying. “Came back to a woman.”

  Sliding his hand higher, he brought his fingers along the inside of her thigh. She widened her legs for him. He slowed, just before reaching the core of her heat. Time seemed to stretch out, giving her every second to feel his fingers moving higher and higher. Then he slid along the wet cleft of her pussy. Time stopped altogether.

  She swiveled her hips, drawing him forward and back on her. The pleasure shooting through her limbs nearly buckled her knees. One of his arms wrapped around her waist to help her stand. His chest was against her leg, and the stubble on his chin rasped along her thigh.

  It drove the pleasure higher. Sensations and wishes that she’d buried for years came welling up. Too much. She could be drowned. Her hand tightened on his shoulder. Push him away, she told herself. But she refused. Instead of being swallowed up by all these feelings, she would let herself be carried higher with them. Higher than the tallest peak in the mountains, where they’d always dreamed of climbing.

  “Don’t stop,” she told him. “You can’t stop.”

  “Would never want to.” He stood up with her. “Ever.” His rigid cock pressed against her hip. His mouth leaned down to her nipple. His finger slid inside her.

  Her moan drifted on the evening breeze. She followed it with another and another. Breath came faster as she swiveled her hips to match Tom’s finger moving in and out of her. The climax built in her, carrying her even higher. He ran his tongue around her nipple and bit it gently. Currents of pleasure buffeted her. His thumb slid along her folds and rested on her clit. She lost all sense of the ground beneath her.

  The climax took her. Wave after breathless wave crashed. The only sure thing in the world was Tom’s hard body against hers. So much of the last couple of years was about control. Her grip on the law or the butt of her pistol. Drifting like this, on a current of pure sensation, was the freest she’d ever felt.

  When her pounding heartbeat slowed and she opened her eyes, she found herself in Tom’s arms. He lowered her gently to the fabric on the ground. The wool was cool, but quickly took on their heat.

  A new life seemed to run through her veins. She breathed in the evening air with a long sigh. Tom stretched out next to her and ran a single finger along her ribs, her hip, her thigh.

  “Never thought I’d find something like you up here.”

  She laughed, husky. “Lost treasure.”

  “Glad I didn’t lose you forever.” The darkening sky gave just enough light to show the depths in his eyes.

  “I’m not sure you’ve found me.” Her body needed him. As for the rest of her . . . she didn’t know.

  “Ain’t counting on anything. I’m just going to hold on to you until you tell me to let go.”

  “Not yet.” She traced his shoulder and arm with her fingers. “We’re not done yet.” Catching his wrist, she pulled his hand to her waist. He didn’t need more urging to curl his arms around her and press her chest to his.

  His kiss was hungry. His hands seemed to devour her, finding every sensitive spot on her body. The climax hadn’t sated her. Instead she grew more ravenous with the possibilities. She wrapped her hand around his cock. He thrust forward to meet her.

  He reached down and found her pussy again with his fingers. She bit his lip, and he smiled. She bit a little harder, and he slid a finger inside her. Just the tips of her fingernails dug into his cock and he growled his approval.

  Grasping him at the root, she angled the head of his cock toward her. He moved his hand from inside her and grasped her hip. Their breath came deep and slow. She slid his head against her clit, circling the sensitive spot.

  Her hunger grew as another climax stirred. “We don’t have time to get all the way into town and break into the druggist’s to steal a sheath.”

  “I ain’t that kid no more.” He turned away from her to rummage in his saddlebag, then returned with a small sealed wax paper envelope. “Army issue and vulcanized.”

  “Keep talking like that,” she said, “and I’m going to come without you even touching me.”

  He tore open the envelope and rolled on the sheath. “I could tell you all about Franklin Song’s theories of negative buoyancy and how ether disrupts gravity, causing lift.” Bringing his hands back to her shoulders, he kissed the hollow of her throat. “But this ain’t the time for words, is it?”

  Whispering “Silencio,” she lay back, and he moved over her.

  Her pistol was within reach. Her badge shined like an emerging evening star. She was naked. Hands on his sides, she brought him closer. Her legs slid along the outside of his. She turned her hips to meet him as he brought the head of his cock to her opening.

  Her mouth opened to his. Probing with his tongue, he drew hers out and they tasted each other’s desire. Tightening her fingers on him, she drew him into her. Slowly, he eased through her wet heat. Filling her. She opened further to him. He plunged deeper.

  There were no more words. Only breath passed their lips. His pace quickened. She ground forward to meet his thrusts. He was in her, around her. His chest pressed against hers and she felt the muscles of his arms as he supported his weight.

  What she’d learned of their bodies years ago didn’t count for anything. Tom was a soldier now, scarred and weathered by action. She was a sheriff, the law—and had the strength to enforce it.

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled him to one side. He moved easily, lying on his back so she could straddle him. Angling hersel
f, she sat back onto his shaft, drawing him in deeper than before. They both sighed. Taking him by the wrists, she placed one of his hands on her breast, the other on her thigh.

  Then she started to grind. He thrust with her, drawing her climax closer to the surface. His hand on her thigh tightened its grip. She rode him, naked under the sky, tasting the freedom above her. He rolled her nipple between his fingers, pinched it until the pleasure sizzled in hot waves.

  Faster and faster, she pressed back onto him and he pushed deeper into her. A light sweat glossed her, and she could see the sheen on his skin. She had to taste him. Leaning down, she licked along his neck, bringing his salt onto her tongue. And she drew him in to his root, grinding hard. The climax surfaced, slamming through her.

  She bit into his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her back, holding her close. Her breath raced. Blood sped through her, charged with the climax. It seemed like her body would never return to normal.

  When her breathing finally slowed and the rush of her pulse wasn’t so deafening, she heard Tom whispering, “Rosa. Beautiful, beautiful, Rosa.”

  She gained enough control of her body to swivel her hips again, moving his cock in and out. He paced her, then suddenly turned them so she was on her back again. She hooked her heels into his thighs and lifted her hips to meet his. He thrust faster and harder. The dark of night hid everything but the intensity on his face. She sensed his climax building and savored how she had all of his attention.

  She breathed his name, and he rippled with energy. His intensity increased until he buried himself deep inside her and froze. The climax wracked his body. His cock pulsed within her. She held him until his breath returned.

  They rolled to the side, with him still inside her. A sound started deep in his chest. Was he crying? No, Tom was chuckling. It was an easy sound, like whiskey pouring into a glass.

  Joining him, she felt the glow of her body stirred by the laugh. They stayed like that for a few moments. Holding each other and laughing. No doubt some owls were scared from their evening hunt by the strange people, naked and cackling on the mountain.

  It was rare, making this much noise from pleasure, and she held on to the sensation. She might need to forge it into a memory right now. There was no guarantee she’d feel like this again.

  Their bodies slowly separated and they lay back to look at the early stars. Distant bullet holes in a velvet curtain. Her body cooled with the night, and she curled the poncho over her. Tom shucked the used sheath and drew the wool across his body, cocooning them.

  He was like a living furnace next to her. “Autumn stars are the same.”

  “A lot has changed.” As the night darkened and her blood calmed, the questions and uncertainty came back. The answers seemed more distant than the constellations above.

  “Some of it for the better.”

  She turned to look at him, but he was only a black shape in the night, invisible. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “Yes. The answer is yes.” He voice seemed to drift in from all around her.

  “Don’t think you remember what I asked.”

  “You wanted to know if I’d ever fought and killed a Hapsburg Man O’ War single-handedly with only my knife against his ether pistol on the deck of his ship with the guns blazing all around us.”

  She played along. “I really asked that?”

  “It’s what everyone wants to know from me.”

  “In that case,” she said, “to answer your question, yes, I did drop the entire Samson gang with a single bullet.”

  “All seven of them.”

  “From the hip.”

  “With your derringer.”

  They shared the laugh, like passing a bottle of hard cider back and forth.

  He found her hand under the cover and circled her palm with the tip of his finger. “Seeing you fight, I’d almost believe it.”

  “Ain’t too much of a stretch to have you defeating a Man O’ War.”

  He grew serious. “What was the question you asked?”

  “Why does a guy running from a fight join the Army?”

  Night birds made their calls. The wind brushed through pine needles. Tom was silent. He stirred from under the poncho and felt around for his clothes.

  “I’ll build us a squirrel fire.” His warmth left her side. Trousers and shirt rustled. Leather pulled through metal as he cinched on his belts. He sat near her to pull on his boots. Then he was gone into the night.

  She collected her clothes and drew them on. The hems and edges were chilled with the mountain air and tingled against her skin. Boots laced, she tugged on her gun belt, making sure the revolver was seated properly. Was it all gone? The flood of pleasure had passed through her. She couldn’t tell if its power was destructive, or if she and Tom emerged on the other side stronger for it.

  About twenty paces from the charger, Tom dug in the dirt. She picked up the poncho and followed the sound. Only a few feet away, she barely made out his shadow widening a shallow hole with a stick. He struck a match, illuminating his face for a moment. There was a great distance in his eyes, searching.

  He brought the match to the small pit and a tiny fire started to crackle. It cast only a narrow pool of light. If she were just a little further away he would be nearly invisible.

  Looking up as she approached, he smiled, but his eyes remained dark. “Learned these at the front. Little heat, less light. No sense in giving them something to shoot at.”

  She spread out the poncho for them to sit on and joined him by the fire. The warmth and living light was welcome. They pulled the edges of the poncho over their shoulders and huddled together. The answer to her question might never come.

  “Thanks for the fire,” she said.

  “Just big enough to warm a squirrel’s nuts.”

  “Should’ve brought my tiny coffeepot.”

  He held out a canteen, sloshing the water inside. “This’ll have to do.”

  The metal was warm where his hand had held it. She unscrewed the cap and tasted his kiss as she drank. The water was refreshing, but didn’t clear her head. Had she and Tom started up again? Started over?

  She handed the canteen back to him. He took a quick sip, still deep in his own thoughts.

  None of this was as simple as stopping the Crandall men from taking her town. Compared to the questions tumbling through her mind like falling oaks, gunfights against rotary shotguns and iron coaches seemed easy.

  He took a long breath. “They’re still working.” The sounds of the repairs drifted up the mountain. “Get some rest while they ain’t sleeping.”

  Maybe she and Tom just made the final memory of them together. It was all over, and nothing could be new again. She wanted more water to rinse the bitter taste from her mouth. They’d proved they fought well together. And her body still remembered what fires they could light when alone. But could it work now? He was still Tom Knox, the man who ran out on Rosa Campos. They’d changed, though. She didn’t know if it was enough. The past was a coiled rattlesnake. Would it finally sleep or strike?

  Chapter Six

  UNDER A SLIVER of a moon, she had snuck out of her house and met him by the river. They’d made love, eaten blackberries and shared a bottle of beer he’d stolen from Francis’s saloon. They’d talked about the Yukon, and how they would perfect paraffin cloth for rainproof coats for the prospectors and make more money than they could spend. She had slept in his arms, breathing easily, her dark hair fanned over his chest.

  This night Rosa was restless sitting against him. She faded in and out of sleep, sometimes gasping herself awake. Orienting herself, she’d stare at his face for a moment. But he didn’t know if she found what she was looking for there. Eventually, she’d close her eyes and drift off again.

  He counted off time by the chips of bark he threw in the small fire. The Crandall men kept working, and he kept thinking about how Rosa looked on top of him, hair hanging over her shoulders as the pleasure took her. Having her,
real, in his arms, was more than any fantasy he could conjure. It wrecked him.

  A last taste of what he could never have because of what he’d done. Wounds that wouldn’t heal. His gut twisted. He was a damned man, paying for the sins of the idiot he used to be.

  Rosa woke again with a short gasp. She steadied herself and warmed her hands over the fire.

  Her voice was smoky, and he tried to savor the intimacy. “You should get some rest. I’ll take over the watch.”

  Far below them the Crandall men continued their labor. He tossed a small stone in their direction and it landed on the soft soil in the shadows a few feet away. “At least we had a better evening than they did.”

  She gave a little laugh, then busied herself collecting chips of bark and small twigs from around where she sat. “Sleep.”

  Not only was his body trained to fight from being in the war, but it was trained to snatch any shred of rest where it could. He folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. And he tumbled into darkness with Rosa against his shoulder.

  Usually, sleeping this close to a fight, his dreams were filled with broken hammers on pistols, bullets with no primers, or ether tanks with no lift. Tonight images of Rosa danced through his mind. Why does a guy running from a fight join the Army? It ran over and over again in his head. She accused him with the question. She absolved him with it. It was her knife and bandage. It was her own wound, and he needed to stop the bleeding.

  The surface of sleep rushed toward him. The cold night air slapped him in the face. He stretched his arms and rolled his neck, coming more awake. Rosa was still right next to him. The small fire showed the concern in her eyes as she looked him over.

  “Might’ve been sleep, but it didn’t look like rest.”

  He warmed his hands over the flames. “How long was I out?”

  “Hour, two?”

  The canteen water was icy. He took small sips and gave it to her. She drank a little, keeping her eyes on him.

  “I’ve had mine,” he said. “You can sleep again.”