Verboten

12.

Harry draws you to your feet and pushes his shirt from your shoulders, allowing the fabric to slink into a pile around your ankles as he whispers an encouragement for you to undress him as well.

Each button of his dress shirt is plucked open with ease before it's untucked from the waistband of his trousers, every tattoo revealing itself with the release of a fastener, your nose and mouth pressing against the warm skin of his chest as you push the material to the ground. You take note of bruises and scratches on his arms and shoulders, his breathing ragged when you begin to unzip his slacks.

He gathers your hair into his fingers and holds it away from your neck, stepping from his pants when they're pushed to his ankles and kicking them aside. His cock is straining against the material of his breeches, the laces loosely tied around his waist as if he tied them on in a hurry, "I couldn't get you off my mind."

Your eyes lift to find his already digging into you, his chest heaving with breath when he's stricken with pain at the sight of your severe black eye, "I felt I should return to you... although I almost chose not to. I'm glad now that I did." He closes his eyes and grinds his teeth together, "I could end him."

You choose to ignore the threat of your father and untie his drawers, sliding them from his hips and eyeing his rigid length before tilting your chin towards him. The muscle in his jaw bulges and disappears as he clenches and you stand on your toes to leave a soft kiss to the undulating knot, "I thought of you every single minute as well." You kiss his mouth before quietly adding your correct observation, "you knew the whole time that you were going to cut a path."

His eyelids peel open and his eyes are like those of a wolf; ice cold with anger and pupils dilated with hunger, soft around the edges with a slice of compassion. You entwine your fingers with his and lead him to the water, collecting your cake of soap from a nearby rock and guiding him into the deepest part of the creek.

You lather the soap between your palms and begin washing his fingers and nails, massaging his arms and shoulders, watching as suds and bubbles marble his chest and stomach, sinking into his belly button and slowing their path as they soak into the bristle of hair in the center of his pelvis.

He watches your face and the careful work of your hands, his sight dipping to your bare breasts and peaked nipples before the urge to reach up and cup them is too overcoming. His thumbs swipe across your tender flesh as he takes a step closer, his hard tip dragging across your stomach before he drops his mouth to yours again. He slips the soap from your fingers and backs away with a calculated exhale, "I missed you," and then he's sinking under the water as if he were ashamed of his last statement and desires escape from the thickness of the air that lingers around his words.

Harry's head and shoulders bob above the surface of the water as he washes his face and his hair, his eyes flickering to you every so often. You sit on the bank of the river with his shirt loosely buttoned around your frame, washing his discarded clothing against a craggy rock streamside. The water turns a sickening rusty red as blood that wasn't immediately visible in the black fabric disperses into the current, your eyes catching his once then twice before you stand with the sodden material hanging from your hands.

You wring out his trousers and his shirt, laying them on a large flat rock to dry and looking at him once more in question before folding your thighs against your chest as you sit on your sheet and wait. You're suddenly filled with worry about who Harry is, wondering for an instant if you are safe in his presence but then allowing yourself to sink into your sharp intuition.

He has come forward to protect you on more than one occasion, both in catlike and deliberate ways. He has returned to you soaked in blood and dirt, he is comfortable with a gun and he seems to be confident in his ability to snuff someone that he is angry towards. He revels in mystery and reservation and even though you've blurted his name and he was in your father's saloon for weeks, not a single person can identify him.