“I can take care of myself, Matt Dillon!” Kitty had stood with her hands stubbornly
planted on her hips, sparks flying from her intense blue eyes. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
Riding Buck carefully through the shadowy darkness back
towards Dodge, Matt is thinking back to the time when he’d last seen
Kitty. Before Bonner had gotten his
filthy hands on her. They’d been
arguing. He had to go to Hays City for
the trial of Jude Bonner’s younger brother Virgil, and Kitty mentioned going to
visit her friend Bess Roniger out Silver Creek Road while he was gone.
Matt had looked at his little red-headed spitfire standing
there so mulish and obstinate yet, at the same time, so beautiful and desirable
sometimes he thought he could drink her damn bathwater. It made him sick to think of anything
happening to her. So, he just said the
first thing that popped into his head. “Come on, Kitty, calm down now, honey.”
He knew he’d picked the wrong thing to say when one of those
finely chiseled eyebrows rose heavenward.
He just stood and awaited the hot-tempered onslaught. Her voice took on a hard edge as she talked. “Ever notice how people who tell you to calm
down...are the ones who got you mad in the first place??”
He watched as her soft lips pursed into a thin line. Matt groaned inwardly. “I’m sorry, Kitty, really I am. But Silver Creek Road? That’s quite a distance, honey. Why don’t you stay here till I get back,
leastways until this all blows over?”
“I told you already I can take care of myself,” she
snapped. “I get lonesome sometimes when
you’re outta town.” She walked to the
window, crossing her deep blue satin-clad arms stubbornly as she looked out on
the bustling street below. “I need a
little change of scenery once in a while.
I can stay with Bess and Will for a few days while you’re gone. Sam can take care of things here at the Long
Branch.”
“But, Kitty, that’s such a long, lonely ride out there. What if there are dog soldiers prowling
around what with Virgil Bonner’s trial coming up, just looking for trouble...”
“Matt, this time it’s the dog soldiers. Next time it’ll be somebody else. I can’t live my life in fear of what might
possibly happen to me!”
“Please, Kitty, stay here while I’m gone.” He sauntered up behind her, sliding his hands
around her waist. “I’ll feel so much
better if you’re not traipsin’ around the countryside alone without me.” He pulled her back against him. She could feel his voice rumbling clear down
deep in her belly. He quipped,
straight-faced, “Plus, then you won’t have to put up with all those Roniger
kids!”
“Well, it just so happens, I like kids!” she protested with
a pretty pout.
“But seventeen of ‘em?!”
She couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I guess you’ve got somethin’ there.”
He leaned over and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her
neck, on a spot he knew from experience made her shiver in delight. “Promise me you’ll stay here with Festus and
Sam and Newly while I’m gone. So I know
you’ll be safe.” He brushed aside her
soft curls and kissed her ear.
She turned her head back towards him to answer. “I’ll stay here, Matt. Just for you.” Kitty looked at him from beneath thick
lashes. “You know how much it pains me
to say that, right?” She couldn’t keep a
little smile from twitching at the corners of her mouth.
And Matt couldn’t stop himself from kissing those sassy,
bewitching lips, painted the color of a desert sunset and shimmering in the
afternoon light slanting through the window.
Even after all these years, he still couldn’t get enough of Kitty
Russell, the smell of her, the taste of her skin, the sounds she made when he
touched her just right, the feel of her supple body beneath him as he moved
inside of her.
After all these years, she could still drive a man to
distraction, after a long day’s work with everybody sittin’ around in the Long
Branch, drinkin’ beer and swappin’ stories, mostly ones full of horse
manure. She’d give him that look across
the table, the one that made his gut tighten and his toes curl a little inside
his worn leather boots. Kitty Russell
could say so much with those seductive blue eyes of hers and not have to utter
a single word out loud. lt made him feel
like he was a kid again when he could feel his traitorous body responding,
right in the middle of the dadgum saloon, and he was unutterably thankful for
the wooden table hiding the evidence.
And she did it all with her eyes.
Then he couldn’t wait until Festus and Doc and everybody else slowly
trailed out of the saloon to head home so he could take his beautiful girl with
her tantalizing bedroom eyes up those familiar stairs and make slow, heated
love to her in the old brass bed.
Sometimes he wouldn’t wait until everyone had cleared
out. Sitting so close to her with all
their old friends, knees brushing under the table, breathing in her scent,
listening to her laugh as she barely trailed the tips of her manicured nails
and smooth fingers over the back of his hand.
The need for her growing inside him was all too overwhelming. He’d send Kitty a silent signal, then declare
to his companions that he had piles of urgent, official government paperwork to
catch up on, so maybe he’d see them later.
And he’d tip his hat to Kitty and wish them all a good night.
Matt would make his escape by the swinging front doors, then
sneak around and up the back stairs, letting himself into Kitty’s bedroom with
his own key. Within minutes, Kitty would
arrive, face flushed and eyes shining, ready to take on her Marshal in a
reckless game or two. They’d spend
several utterly uninhibited hours tangling in the sweaty sheets, drinking their
fill of one another’s bodies, resting together afterwards, passion sated,
deliciously intertwined skin on skin.
Those spontaneous meetings between the two of them seemed to always be
the most intense--their passion burned longer, their voices cried out more
hoarsely, their whispers more urgent.
In addition, the intimate moments they shared together after
one of their testy little arguments tended to be a trifle more...heated than
usual as well. Now that he hoped Kitty
had come to her senses and decided to stay in Dodge with friends who could
protect her instead of roaming about the countryside alone and vulnerable, he
figured the argument was pretty much over, so the making-up part could commence
at any moment now, as far as he was concerned.
He laid a hand gently against her belly and pressed her back
flush against him, so that she could feel what her nearness was doing to
him. He watched as her eyes closed
languidly, her small hand brushing the hardening evidence of his desire for
her, making him groan. He’d already been
surreptitiously admiring her beautiful face and form as they had argued, the sun
streaming through her red-gold curls, setting them on fire, the beams
illuminating Kitty’s abundant curves.
Kitty occasionally complained about the pounds she’d put on
over the years. All Matt could see was
there were more generous, softer curves to hold and touch and kiss and
caress. She always pulled a face at him
when he said that, but he thought that his version of events had pleased her
all the while. Because she continued to
unstintingly share her lavish, womanly body with Marshal Dillon to this very
day.
But now, as Matt rides along toward Dodge in the predawn
darkness, he remembers that argument and the sweet making-up time
afterwards. He tries to recall only what
Kitty looked like when he slid her skirts up her long legs and touched her the
way she liked to be touched, and they made love against Kitty’s bedroom wall on
a lazy Wednesday afternoon. Matt nibbled
at Kitty’s delicate neck some more, until she moaned and then made that sound
down low in her throat that made his body stand up and take notice. She turned in his arms and pressed her
breasts against him, shimmying her hips against his to let him know what she
wanted.
His brow knits as he tries to remember her face, full of
adoration and passion and simple trust when she leaned in to kiss him, opening
her warm mouth to him and whispering sweet nothings against his lips until she
came in waves and could no longer speak.
That’s the way he wants to remember her, but then his mind is torn back
to the present and how he knows she looks now, her silken hair tumbled and
tangled, her face bruised and bleeding, her tender body broken...just like his
beleaguered heart.
Because ultimately he realizes that if he hadn’t talked
Kitty into staying in Dodge, if she had only visited the Ronigers as she’d
wanted, then she would have been safe.
Jude Bonner and the dog soldiers wouldn’t have been able to hurt
her. The tough lawman’s sun-browned,
furrowed face crumples in misery at this weighty knowledge while he rides home,
back to the woman he loves.
tbc
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