by Merry Farmer
“Are you sure it’s safe for us to be so far apart from the rest of the wagons?” Estelle asked as they rode away from the hum of people and glowing fires that made up the night’s camp.
“Pete says it’s pretty safe in these parts,” Graham answered. “We’re in Cheyenne territory, but they haven’t been bothering wagon trains lately. Plus, we should reach Ft. Laramie late tomorrow, so if there was an emergency, help is nearby. Pete said he’d keep an ear out in case we run into trouble.”
“What about Tim?” Estelle asked with sudden concern.
“Nothing will happen to him as long as he’s with Lucy and Gideon,” Graham said. His smile grew. “I think they might want to practice parenting together, see how it goes.”
In spite of all the angst and pressure of the last few days, Estelle smiled with genuine joy. “Do you think they’ve come to an understanding?”
Graham nodded. “In feeling, if not in actual words. I know Gideon is far gone over Lucy, and surprised about it to boot.”
“Surprised?”
“He’s not the sort who thought he would ever develop feelings for anything other than theories and mechanics and technology.”
Estelle laughed at the thought. She would never have pegged silent Gideon and magpie Lucy for a couple, but stranger things had happened. She would never have paired a former slave with a wounded Union soldier either.
Graham found them a spot near a thin stream with a touch of parched grass, a few scrubby bushes, and fewer rocks than the surrounding area. Estelle slid down from the saddle, stumbling when she hit the ground, then helped Graham down. His crutches were fastened to Jackal’s back, and between the two of them, they managed to untie the blankets—discovering a small feast tucked inside—and spread them out to form a cozy camp.
By the time they were seated and munching comfortably on fried chicken and cornbread, Graham asked, “How are you holding up? Really.”
Estelle let out a long, weary breath. “It’s hard. It’s always hard when folks look down on you for no reason other than ideas they have in their own heads.”
Graham nodded. His bad leg shifted across the blanket. “Yep.”
“But just now, Mrs. McGovern said something kind to me. So maybe….” She let her hopes hover in the air, unwilling to form them into words.
A silence fell between them. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but rather that of two people who were so comfortable with each other that silence was only an extension of the feeling between them.
“Tell me about it?” Graham asked at last.
“About what?”
“About growing up,” he went on. “About your family and what it was like. About who you are.”
Estelle flushed, the night breeze licking against her hot cheeks. “There’s not as much to tell as you might think.”
Graham shrugged. “I’d still like to know.”
She paused, gathering her thoughts. How did you explain an abnormal life to someone who, like as not, had never heard of such things?
“I was born and raised on Sunny Oaks Plantation in Georgia, near Savannah,” she said, staring off toward the horizon as though she were looking into her past. “My mother was a house slave and my father was the master of the plantation, George Lindrock. My mother was a wedding gift to my father and his wife, Ms. Millicent Lindrock. It was no secret that my mother was Ms. Millie’s half-sister, the daughter of another house slave and Ms. Millie’s father.”
“So… so your mother was of mixed race as well?” Graham asked, frowning as he pieced together the puzzle of Estelle’s heritage.
Estelle nodded. “I’m not sure who my great-grandparents were.”
“That would explain your coloring,” Graham went on, frown deepening, “but not how generations of plantation owners could keep their own children, their family, as slaves.”
“Some saw it that way, others didn’t,” Estelle explained. “Contrary to what you might think, my life wasn’t bad. My father cared for my mother and for me. Ms. Millie was… she was strange. She was more like my father’s sister—or even daughter—in the way they interacted. They had no children together. Cruel folks used to say Ms. Millie was touched in the head, but I never had reason to speak against her. She was kind to me. She was the one who first planted the idea in my head that I could pass. She even told me she wished I was her daughter so she could take me out in society and find me a handsome husband.”
Graham let out a breath and shook his head. “I shouldn’t judge, because no one knows what others around us suffer, but it sounds as though you grew up in a strange world.”
“Some might see it that way,” Estelle admitted. “It was home.” She paused, pulling her memory through the last few years. “As soon as the war broke out, my father knew how things would turn out. He was afraid for me, afraid people would judge and ridicule me. I have younger siblings, you see—a sister and two brothers—but they’re not as fair and could never pass.”
Graham blinked in surprise. “I… I don’t know what to say. Are you in touch with them? Do you know what’s become of them?”
An old ache filled Estelle’s heart. “I heard from my brother Francis last year. He wrote to tell me that everyone was well, but reeling as the Union army swept in. He didn’t know if our father would be able to keep the plantation after the war or if he would have to sell it off, piece by piece.”
“Does Isaiah know?”
Estelle shook her head. “He left as soon as he was able and hasn’t looked back, or so he tells me.”
Graham frowned, scooting closer to her across the blanket. Night was beginning to fall in earnest. Stars poked through the canopy of the sky. The more she talked, the more Estelle felt at ease. She finished her last bite of chicken and began cleaning up the remnants of their picnic out of habit.
“Would you like to go back and find your siblings, see how your family is doing?” Graham asked. “Because I can take you back if you’d like.”
Estelle smiled, touched by his kindness. “I do want to know how they are and what’s become of them. I might even ask if any of my siblings want to come west, once I’m settled. But they’re all younger than me. Even Francis is barely sixteen. And when I left,” she paused, letting out a breath. “We all understood it was permanent, that I wouldn’t be coming back.”
“But that’s unfair, cruel, even,” Graham argued.
“My father didn’t see it that way,” Estelle defended him. “You say you grew up in Kentucky, moved to St. Louis. Well, Georgia is different. We all knew that the best chance I had was to leave and not look back. It was understood.”
“We’ll change that,” Graham said. Estelle had finished packing up what was left of supper and discarded the garbage, so Graham scooted closer to her, brushed a hand along her cheek. “We’ll change whatever we need to for you to be happy. As long as we’re together….”
He let his words drift off into the warm hues of sunset. Instead, he finished his promise by leaning in and capturing her lips with his. He kissed her with a warmth that burned hotter than the sun, with a gentleness that wrapped the two of them in its folds. Estelle closed her eyes, losing herself in that kiss. She could endure anything if Graham stayed by her side.
“Graham,” she breathed, breaking their kiss and leaning back to study his face. He was so handsome, beyond any hopes she had ever held for herself. His blue eyes shone with affection that sent pulses of desire aching through her. “You don’t have to stay with me if it becomes too much of a burden. I know I said I would marry you, but I can’t see that that’s fair.”
“Oh, Estelle,” he hummed.
“No, I mean it.” She cut him off before he could kiss her again, resting her fingertips against his heated lips. “My life may not have been a bad life, but it’s never been an easy life. You have so much you’ll have to face on your own. Yes, I want to be there to help you face it, but if my burdens become too heavy for you, I won’t hold you to me. If you ever find that you want to leave,
I will let you go.”
“I will never leave you, Estelle,” Graham promised, voice trembling with sincerity. “I never could leave you, not now. You are everything to me.”
“But if—”
“No.” He shook his head. “You said your bit and I’ll say mine. I was not brave until I met you. I was not strong until I tripped into your arms. Now that I’m here, with you, I never want to be anywhere else with anyone else. You are my new beginning. You are my future, no matter what that future throws at us. I will never stop wanting to be your husband.”
Tears of joy and immense, powerful love stung at Estelle’s eyes. She didn’t know what she had done in her strange and complicated life to deserve such a beautiful soul as Graham. With a need that welled from the bottom of her heart, she leaned into him, kissing him with all of the passion that had built up and overflowed for him.
Graham met her kiss with nothing but acceptance. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer, sheltering her from the night and the breeze and anything else that could try to harm her. She brushed her hands along his sides as he nipped at her lips. She opened for him, and he slid his tongue gently along hers. She hummed, overwhelmed by the sweetness of it, of him.
“I love you, Estelle,” Graham murmured before caressing her cheek and kissing her harder. His mouth explored hers, his teeth grazing her bottom lip. His tongue teased her with light thrusts, tempting and invading without fulfilling the promise that now burned inside of her. She wanted more. With every taste and touch, she wanted more.
She closed a hand around the fabric of his shirt near the waist of his pants and tugged. Graham gasped and shuddered as she freed his shirt then smoothed her hand along the plain of his abdomen. His skin was hot, deceptively soft over firm muscle. She pressed her fingertips into his side, then ran her hand around to his back, higher along his spine. His shirt came looser and looser as she explored his skin.
Impatience got the better of her, and she pulled the rest of his shirt free of his trousers with her other hand, embracing him fully. Graham groaned against her mouth, drawing an echoing moan of need from her. She should stop. She was a lady. But need was more important, as was the joy of Graham’s back muscles flexing against her hands as he moved to bring them face to face.
Estelle straddled Graham’s lap in the quick shift. She sighed in satisfaction as the move enabled her to brush her hands against Graham’s sides. Without thinking, she lifted his shirt higher, and he raised his arms so that she could tug it off over his head entirely. She sucked in a breath at the sight of his bare chest, spreading her palms across it, teasing his nipples with her fingertips.
She’d seen Graham without his shirt before, bathing in the river, working in the camp on hot days, but this was different. What had struck her as a fine physique and defined muscles before felt more like an erotic feast for her tired eyes in the starlight. Graham let her look, resting his hands on her hips and studying her face with a lazy grin. That grin alone—the certainty and the promise that it held—left Estelle’s insides quivering with want.
At last, Graham gave up waiting and brushed his hands along Estelle’s sides. She breathed in sharply as he tugged her blouse from her skirt and began undoing the buttons.
“Do you want me, Estelle?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.
“Yes,” she gasped as his fingertips brushed the tops of her breasts.
“Truly? Because this is special. This is forever.”
Estelle’s core squeezed and ached in response. Her blood was on fire and her focus poured into that part of her that wanted to be filled with him. “Oh, yes.”
He leaned into her when he finished with her buttons, pushing her blouse from her shoulders. He kissed her neck as his hands slid down her arms, taking her blouse with them and discarding it. They then searched out the hem of her skirt and he burrowed under it to find her legs. As his kisses trailed down along her collarbone to the swell of her breasts, his hands found her knees and began a slow, tantalizing journey up the bare skin of her thighs above her stockings, hiking up her skirt with it.
She arched back so that he could continue his kisses along her breasts and so that he could push her skirt up around her waist. Everywhere he touched her tingled with excitement and longing. It was so good she could hardly think. His hands skimmed their way up to her hips as soon as her skirt was out of the way, and he gripped her and pressed her down so that her hot center came into contact with the hardness of his staff.
She sighed, grinding down onto him. Her mind was scattered and any sense that would have stopped her from being so shameless was simply gone. Her body wanted so many things, and wanted them with a power that astonished her. She wanted to free her breasts from her corset for Graham to touch and kiss and suckle. She wanted to doff her drawers and press that part of her against him. She wanted to open his trousers so that she could sheath him within her. Those desires should be shameful, but with Graham they just felt right.
“Estelle,” he murmured against her chest, kissing the top of one breast, then the other. His hands were trapped beneath her skirt, but he tugged at the top of her corset with his teeth.
“Yes,” she groaned, shaking with need.
She reached for the clasps of her corset, ignoring any lingering awkwardness at undressing herself with Graham’s mouth both urging and impeding her work. He was so eager to touch his lips and teeth and tongue to her skin that she barely had room to unhook herself and shed her corset. He didn’t wait for her to lift her chemise over her head, but lifted her up by her waist to bring one of her breasts to his mouth.
Estelle couldn’t contain the sounds of pleasure that escaped from her as he closed his mouth around her nipple and flicked it with his tongue. Even with a fine layer of cotton between them, the sensation was exquisite. She arched against him, threading her fingers through his hair and trying to remember to breathe as he teased her nipple to a hard nub. It had never dawned on her that something could feel so good.
Yet, as good as it felt, it still wasn’t enough. The ache in her core was fierce, needy, demanding to be filled and satisfied. She reveled in the sensation of Graham’s mouth on her for a moment, then moved her hands to unclasp the back of her skirt and her summer petticoat. As soon as the fabric went loose, Graham’s hands traveled upward to her sides. He shifted to brush one across her abdomen, and tremors so strong they left her gasping shook her. Those tremors only increased when Graham gripped the waist of her drawers. He sought out the drawstring, pulled it loose, then tugged her drawers down over her hips.
His breath now came in ragged sighs as he pitched forward, cradling her as he tipped her to her back. As soon as her back hit the blanket, he lifted her hips, pulling her drawers down. Estelle sucked in a breath and writhed with impatience as the cool night air hit the hot ache between her legs. She had to close those legs so that Graham could inch her drawers all the way off, not bothering to remove her boots as he did. She managed to shimmy out of her chemise, freeing her breasts completely at last, but before she could to anything about the loose, bunched fabric of her skirt around her middle, Graham took hold of her knees and wrenched them apart, drawing them up and balancing himself against them.
The deliberateness of his gesture left her exposed and panting with need. There she was, spread before him on her back, and all she could think was “Please, please let him touch me.” She reached for him, brushing her hands along his sides as he knelt between her legs.
“Graham,” she mewled, pleaded.
Instead of touching her heat as she prayed for, he balanced himself and reached for the fastenings of his trousers. With quick, sure motions, he opened them and pushed them down over his hips. His engorged staff sprang up, and Estelle caught her breath. He was gorgeous, the picture of masculine beauty. He was large and thick as well. The dark hair at the base of his staff accentuated his size and the tight mounds of his testicles. She wanted to laugh at the way he displayed himself to her, chest heaving with desire
, as if he wanted her to look at him and more. She also wanted to caress him and play with him and do things to him that no good girl should want to do.
Boldly, she sat up enough to reach for him, closing her hands around his length. He gasped, gripping her knees for balance. He felt so strong and wonderful in her hands, softness and steel together.
“Heavens above, Estelle,” he groaned as she explored his length with her palms, tested his head with her fingers. She wanted to know every inch of him, know everything about him. “I can’t,” he burst out on a panting breath at length, pushing her hands away. “I can’t keep going. I need to be inside you.”
Those words sent giddy tremors of need straight to all the parts of Estelle that felt the same way. She let him press against her shoulders, urging her to return to her back. She lifted her hips as his hands slipped their way across the tender flesh of her thighs. The heat in her core was unbearable, begging to be touched, stretched, filled.
When his fingers reached her damp folds, she gasped and shuddered. He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a growl of possession, and brushed the opening of her sex. Each touch brought a new jolt to her body, a new gasp and groan, a new wish to be sated. He pressed his fingers into her, teasing her opening, but just as she was tempted to surge against him, he trailed two fingers up to the tense nub of her pleasure.
Estelle gasped hard as a whole new world of pleasure washed over her. The ache she felt before was nothing to the heady tension of her body’s reaction to his stroking. Her eyes flew wide at the sudden, impossible build-up of pleasure inside of her, coiling and pulling and promising her so many things. The fact that he watched her as his fingers did their work, studied her face in all its strange contortions of pleasure as she writhed against him, needing more, excited her. The pleasure was just so unbelievably good. It left her reaching, grasping, so close, straining.
With a final coalescing that drew a cry from her lungs, her body exploded with pleasure. As the beautiful tremors of passion pulled her under, shaking and pulsing with light and bliss, Graham reposition himself, pushing his staff into her. The invasion was so sudden and so perfect that she cried out again and embraced him, digging her nails into his back as her tremors continued, clamping around him inside of her.
