Chapter Text
“Don’t look so glum there, cowboy . I’ll be sure to put your money to good use.”
Arthur Morgan glares from across the table, pushing the pile of coins in your direction.
“The hell are you gonna do with that money?” He spits, but cannot help the grin that begins at the side of his mouth.
You toss your braided hair over your shoulder. “As I damn well please, Mister Morgan. I think I’ll take myself to town.”
Pushing the dominoes into the center of the table, you stand and relieve Arthur of his money.
“Maybe I'll find me a nice stable boy and treat him to dinner.” You tease, knowing just how to rib the man in front of you.
He snorts, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one at the table, “Ain't you just a proper lady, wine and dine the boy before robbin’ him blind.”
“ Claro, Arthur, sounds like you have some experience with that.” Javier chuckles from his seat across the campfire. You look over at Javier and wink, laughing under your breath.
Arthur rolls his eyes, taking a drag from his cigarette. You laugh as you deposit the coins into the pocket of your dress.
“The pleasure was all mine, Mister Morgan.” You curtsy in an exaggerated manner before stepping away from the table and taking your leave.
Arthur shoots up as you walk away, heading toward where the horses are hitched across the camp. A pleased smile crosses your face as you hear his heavy footsteps behind you.
“C’mon now, you ain’t really gonna go blow that money in Valentine of all places,” Arthur complains, taking a drag of his cigarette as he follows you.
“Cattle town is gonna be the best place to pick up a strapping young stablehand, Mister Morgan. Besides, didn’t you and Lenny just blow through an embarrassing amount of money in Valentine two weeks ago?” You spin on your heel and press your pointer finger into his chest accusingly.
“That was - that’s… that’s different .” He sputters, almost dropping the cigarette from his mouth. A tinge of red stains his cheeks as his eyes dart away from you.
“Mhmm. Sure…” You roll the second word in a drawl imitating the man’s rough voice, the ‘u’ sounding more like an ‘o’ and ‘a’ smashed together.
He scowls in response.
“Are you seriously going to Valentine for that ?”
You laugh, reaching your horse.
“I’m gonna go check out a lead I heard from one of the workin’ girls in town.” You pull on the strap of the horse’s saddle, tightening the holster where your repeater is tucked into.
“Y’want company?” Arthur asks, dropping his cigarette on the ground and snuffing it out under his boot. God, this man is about as obvious as they come.
“Nah, I’m a big girl. ‘Sides, I’m just lookin’. I’ll be sure to find ya when it’s ready to hit though.” You pull yourself up into the saddle of your gelding, a young silver-coated trotter.
“I’ll be back to take more of your money, I promise, Mister Morgan.” You laugh as you settle yourself in the saddle, looking down at him as he rolls his eyes at you. “Don’t miss me too much, cowboy .” You lower your voice to sweet registers as you lean over your saddle closer to him.
The very hint of a blush blooms on his cheeks again before he looks back to the ground.
This dance, the give and take, the teasing, it’s all burning in your gut deliciously. Somewhere along the way of robbing, thievery, and general skullduggery that the gang lived by, you and Arthur began this flirtation.
You’d be blind not to notice him - especially when he’s been apt to chop wood shirtless around camp. Karen may or may not have smacked you upside the head after catching you staring.
And you - you know you’re not any vixen - you certainly don't have Karen’s bosom, but you’ve noted Arthur’s stare at times, lingering for longer than is socially appropriate.
Also, there’s Mary Beth and Tilly teasing you that Arthur looks at you like a lost puppy. Karen drolls on that whatever this is between you is getting obnoxious and you two should just get in bed together and get it over with.
Maybe if Blackwater hadn’t happened the way it did, you’d have done that by now. It's been a while since you’ve been on your back for anyone , and certainly, since joining this gang a year back, you’ve been trying your damnedest to prove your worthiness as a thief, without sleeping your way around the camp.
But Arthur… Arthur; the stalwart enforcer, the muscle, the fearless, at times ruthless second in command… Somehow, underneath that bloody and hard exterior is a quiet, unsure, and unconfident man.
You're in the painfully obvious stage of…. whatever this is between you, where the attraction is undeniable, the tension is palpable. Perhaps it was when Arthur insisted on teaching you how to shoot when a coach robbery in Colorado went south. Perhaps it was the way he curled his arms over your back to help you aim the repeater. Perhaps it was the way his rough, low voice whispered in your ear to keep both eyes open when aiming…
Speaking of which, his rough, low voice interrupts your thoughts.
“You be careful now, Miss.”
“Always am, Mister.”
Arthur nods and gives you a two-fingered salute as you urge your horse into a trot away from the camp, passing Karen on your way while on guard duty. She waves, and you toss some crude joke at her, to which she laughs back, fading out of view as your horse makes it past the brush and woods to the main road. The gang had settled at Horseshoe Overlook several weeks ago after the mess of Blackwater and the terrible time in Colter. Things were slowly returning to normal - jobs were starting up again, there was money to be made.
The golden late afternoon sun falls behind the mountains as you steer your horse through the Heartlands, skirting east of Valentine and into the heavily wooded Cumberland Forest.
Some harlot with loose lips was talking up a client she had, some feckless man from the East who set up in a cabin north of Cornwall’s oil fields. Sounded like he had money, by the way the girl was talking in the saloon. All you had to do was a little scoping out, recruit some of the men for the job, and reap the benefits. You could see the pleased look on Dutch’s face when you bring back the haul, having orchestrated an entire robbery and provided for the gang. You would finally feel worthy .
The low light of dusk descended on the forest by the time you reach your destination. You hitch your horse just off the road, grabbing your binoculars and slinging your repeater over your back before quietly trapezing through the high grass and trees toward the clearing where the cabin stood. Luckily for you, the side you approached from sloped down a rocky hill, and there was a ledge perfect for spying upon the cabin and its occupants.
You sidle up to the ledge and stoop to your knees, then to your belly as you pull a pair of binoculars from your dress pocket.
There we are .
Sprawled out on the ledge, peering through your binoculars with a repeater strapped across your back, you grin. A light is lit within the cabin, shadows of its occupant moving around. Hell, from the one window you can see in, things look clean and new. A sitting duck. You decide to stay another half hour to see if you can delineate any other people in the cabin.
None such exist. You snort, giggling to yourself with glee - this was going to be great. Tomorrow you would recruit Arthur and Javier, maybe John if he was feeling up to it, storm into this cabin, and rob this city slicker blind. Foolproof .
“You think you can just move in on my spot, huh, missy?”
A cold shiver goes down your spine as you whip your binoculars to the ground in front of you. Sprawled out on the grass of the ledge, it was near impossible to reach your repeater at this angle.
Not that it would have helped anyway.
The butt of a rifle meets the back of your head and all goes black.
-
You awaken with a piercing pain in the back of your skull. It takes you moments for your vision to come into focus, but when it finally does, you find yourself indoors, the stench of stale cigarettes nearly overbearing.
Blinking, your eyes become less cloudy as you realize that you’re bound. Your hands are tied tightly behind your back, the fibers of rope rough against your wrists. You lay atop a bed of some sort, though calling it that would be generous. You struggle against your bindings, groaning against the fabric tied tightly against your mouth, gagging you.
A door opens across from you, and as you strain to get your bearings in the dark, the light from a lantern floods the room. Decrepit, falling apart, dirty - a wardrobe with a door hanging off and random items thrown in. Bottles litter the floor.
A chair with a rifle- no wait - a repeater slung over the back of it, hanging by a strap.
Your repeater.
“Now, what do we have here, little miss?”
Your eyes dart back to the stranger walking into the room, the man places the lantern down on a side table.
“I got to thinkin’- who could this little lady be that’s scopin’ out my lead?”
He leans on the bed, uncomfortably close. You squirm as far as you can from him on the bed, your teeth clenching down on the gag in your mouth.
“Yer one of Dutch’s girls, ain'tcha? Colm’ll love this.”
O’Driscoll.
Of course. Dutch had said Colm was operating in the area. Hell - it wasn't two weeks ago that a bunch of the men cleared out a safe house full of them; the green-scarved assholes. Stupid, stupid. Why didn't you take up Arthur’s offer to come with you?
You narrow your eyes at the man and finally notice the green bandana at his collar, tucked into his dirty flannel shirt. He pulls an old, beat-up cabbie hat from his head and tosses it to the ground. His dark hair is disheveled, as is his beard.
“I’ll be bringin’ you back to our camp. Colm will want to be speakin’ wit ya. Y’know, he can be quite a convincin’ man.”
You continue to try and scoot yourself away from the man, a dirty, rough-looking scoundrel - just what you pictured when an O’Driscoll came to mind. Unfortunately, the bed where you’ve been deposited is against the wall, and you've quickly run out of real estate to put between you.
“The boys are hittin’ that house now, ain't gonna lose it to any stinkin’ Van der Lindes .” He spits with derision over Dutch’s name.
He turns and spits on the floor before moving closer to you. You try to buck and withdraw further to prevent him from touching you, but between his encroaching figure and the wall, you are trapped.
“But while we’re waitin, might as well have some fun.” He grabs your leg to stop you from moving. He yanks, hard, pulling you across the bed toward him. You yell into the gag. He pulls your boots off and tosses them across the room, they skitter across the floor. His hands dive under your skirt, finding your knees, and where your stockings end at your thigh. They are peeled from your legs as you try to squirm from his grasp.
Tears run down your face as you struggle, the screams reduced to animalistic cries with the fabric between your teeth. You pull on the ropes binding your wrist but are unable to make any headway other than rubbing the skin of your wrists raw behind your back.
“Y’know, pretty little thing like you, maybe I should make you my wife.”
The man looks over you, giving you a toothy grin. He leans over and takes your shirt in two hands and pulls, buttons fly and fabric tears as you struggle against him, yelling against the gag in your mouth. The shirt is pulled from your body in torn pieces before he starts to pull at the fastening of your skirt. You buck your knee up and hit him on the chin. Smarting from the blow, he works his jaw a bit before slamming his fist across your face.
You’re left dazed, vision going temporarily black. You feel your skirt loosen around your waist. There is a tearing of cloth, ripping, and as you’re reeling from the blow to your head, you feel your bloomers torn from your hips. Your threadbare chemise is all that shields your body from this man.
The terrible clicking sound of a belt being undone pierces the stillness.
“Now, now , you haven’t been too nice to me tonight, miss. Think it’s time ta teach you some manners. I know ol’ Van der Linde prolly doesn’t teach you shit.”
He climbs onto the bed, looming on his knees above you. You try to wriggle your arms free, but the rope behind your back is tight against your wrists. You meet his eyes as a cold sweat overtakes you.
He laughs, the bastard. Standing on his knees above you, he undoes the buttons of his trousers one by one. He yanks his shirt up his abdomen before peeling his trousers down to his knees, one hand stroking his hardening cock.
You scream again but gagged as you are, your efforts are in vain.
Hands return to your thighs. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying hard to close your legs, but strong fingers move up to your thighs again and shove your knees apart. Fabric is pushed, higher, higher. The hem of your chemise is hiked over your hips, baring your naked skin to your captor. He lets the fabric go and it pools around your ribcage.
Tears burst from your eyes as you begin to hyperventilate behind the gag.
“ Pretty miss.”
You feel the blunt head of his cock push against your opening, insistently demanding entry. A sob wracks your body as the man above you grunts, pressing hard against you. A piercing pain flashes through your hips, and the opening of your cunt burns as he breaches you, the head of his cock forcing his way in. You’re not prepared for anything like this, and the drag of his skin against yours is a pain like you’ve never felt before.
He groans in pleasure, pushing further into you, and tears continue to spill from your eyes as the pain worsens. He presses his whole body down on yours, your arms screaming in pain as they are forced into an unnatural angle beneath both your body and his.
You thought the burning would never end, the scraping of your inner walls, but the man finally bottoms out, and with a pleasurable moan, he thrusts himself fully inside you, his pubic bone hard against your own.
He rolls his hips, pulling out slightly, and pushing back in. In some small mercy, your body has betrayed you, and your cunt becomes wet enough that the pain becomes less and less excruciating. The energy, the fight, the fire you had, it all seems to have left you, with each heinous thrust of your captor into you, your body becomes more and more limp. Your soul crushed with each squelching noise and moan from the man atop you.
He continues on, and you turn your head, staring at the wall. It’s all you can do, focus on the crack in the beam supporting the structure. Your body moves back and forth on the bed as he rolls his hips against yours, thrusting in and out, in and out. He looms over you, his arms bracketing in your head, hips mashed together, warm skin on warm skin. If it weren’t so painful, so raw, so violating , it would remind you of lovers past, tangled up in bedsheets and limbs.
But this feels like it’s never going to end. It feels like hours that he takes you, each push of his body into yours is a little less of you left.
“ Fuck , you’re tight, woman.” He grits out, thrusting harder into you, more erratically, “So g-good.”
Thankfully, he finally pulls out of you, stroking himself to completion, and spatters his spend over your mound.
He grunts as he rolls off of you, stumbling off the bed and pulling his pants back up. He redoes his belt without looking at you.
“You’ll be a popular one ‘mongst the boys, with a tight little cunny like that.”
You stare at the wall, unable to think, unable to move. Your chemise lays limply on your stomach and your legs hang open, your muscles scream against the abuse.
“Maybe later I’ll fuck ye in the ass, surely yer even tighter there.” The man reaches over and grabs a handful of your behind from the side as if to stake his claim.
You just close your eyes. He removes his hand from your skin as he mumbles something. The door opens and closes to the bedroom of this small cabin. You're left alone, your cunt aching, arms protesting, voice hoarse.
What seems like hours later, you hear a loud commotion outside the door. A violent crack pierced the night. You pray that it’s not more men coming to violate you further, tears flowing from your eyes again. You’re unable to find the strength to do anything. You can’t endure this endlessly. Maybe they will have mercy on you and kill you.
The door bursts open.
You are barely able to raise your head, but you make eye contact with the room’s new occupant. It is not your captor, nor any of his green-scarved comrades.
No, it is a lumbering man with honeyed hair and a black hat you’d recognize anywhere.
“Jesus Christ.”
Close, but Arthur Morgan is the closest you could get to a savior right now.
He slams the door behind him.
You cannot do anything but stare, your limbs don’t work, and your muscles protest. Even your neck gives out, and your head lays back on the bed, a strangled noise coming from your throat.
That’s how Arthur finds you. Bound and gagged, sprawled out on a dirty bed. Stripped to a chemise, hiked up over your hips. Your legs open, another man’s drying spend splattered in the dark hair shrouding your cunt. All you can do is stare at the ceiling with cold and broken eyes.
Arthur rushes over to you, throwing his rifle to the floor. It clatters in the silence of the room. He grabs the hem of your chemise, pulling it down over your thighs to give you some semblance of modesty, before grabbing his knife and cutting the fabric tied around your jaw.
You take a shuddering breath, and turn your eyes to the ceiling, unable to look at him. He leans over you and takes his knife to the ropes binding your wrists. They snap, and you somehow find the strength to whip your arms to your front and curl your knees into your chest, trying to make yourself small.
Arthur slowly, carefully places his hand on your shoulder, and you shiver under his touch, a sob escaping your mouth.
“Darlin’.”
Your head, tucked into your knees, raises, and your eyes, full of tears, find his. He stares down at you with such gentleness, but in those blue eyes, a sadness, a fear glimmers.
Your face crumbles as you sob again. Arthur quickly sheds his brown leather jacket and lays it over your shoulders. He sits down on the bed next to you.
“C’mon, let’s get you back to camp.”
“N-no.” You stutter. The thought of anyone else seeing you like this was terrifying. You can’t take the stares of the others. You couldn’t take the fawning of the other women, the clucking of Susan as a mother hen when one of her girls gets hurt. Hosea’s pitying expression. Dutch’s righteous anger. You couldn’t take the pity, the tutting, the attention.
“I don’t- I don’t want to go back there tonight.”
You don’t want to go back there dressed only in a chemise, horseless, with tear-stained cheeks. It would be obvious to everyone what happened.
“Alright. Okay. We’ll figure it out. But we gotta get out of here. Ain’t no tellin’ when anyone else’ll be back.” Arthur looks over his shoulder at the door to the bedroom.
He moves from the bed, taking his rifle and slinging it over his shoulder. You pull his jacket around your shoulders tighter. He moves about the room, surveying out a dirty window before grabbing your repeater from the chair and swinging it over his shoulder as well.
“Stay there. I’ll be right back.”
He unholsters his revolver from his belt, pushing the door open and shutting it quickly behind him.
You swipe at your eyes in the silence with the back of your palm. You barely have enough time to collect yourself before Arthur swings the door open and you jolt. He reholsters his revolver and moves toward the bed.
“C’mon, got the horse out front. Let’s get outta here.”
Without letting you stand; or even question him, he swings his arms around your frame, hoisting you from the bed as if you were nothing. One arm hooks under your knees, the other behind your back. You allow it. Normally, you would scoff at being treated like some damsel.
But things weren’t normal now.
Arthur’s heavy steps echo through the cabin as he moves quickly, out the door of the bedroom and through the main room, which was in just as much of a state of disarray. In moments he’s passed through the front door, onto the porch for a step, and into the glen where a ramshackle camp had been set up.
The moon shines bright in the sky. It must be close to midnight.
You peer over Arthur’s shoulder as he moves away from the structure. A crumbled body lays on the porch, contorted in an unnatural position. The bloodied face of your captor stares back at you, a bullet hole between his eyes. You close your eyes and turn away, leaning your head onto Arthur’s collarbone.
His arms tighten around you as you release an audible, shuddering breath.
-
Arthur swings the mare to the north of Valentine, westward to avoid any other bandits in Cumberland, skirting the cliffs along the Dakota.
The blue waters of the river gently rush by as Arthur slows his mare to a walk, her heavy breathing loud in the night as she’s worked up a lathing sweat on her coat.
You’re astride the saddle, Arthur’s jacket wrapped around your frame, fit securely against him, where he holds you tightly with one arm across your stomach and one hand fisted in the reins as he sits behind you.
He allows the horse to splash several steps into the waters before she stops to lean her head down to the river.
You look at the water for a moment as the mare drinks her fill.
“Can- can we stop here?”
He pulls on the reins, urging his mare back toward the bank of the river. She whinnies with discontent. “What d’ya need?”
The arm around your stomach tightens its hold briefly.
“I… I want to wash off.” You say softly, almost too soft for him to hear it. But he does, his mouth pulled into a straight, serious line.
“Course.” He says, voice gruff. Arthur swings his leg back over the horse’s rump, his spurs jingle as his boots hit the ground. He gently places his hands on your waist, slowly, assuredly pulling you from the horse.
“D’ya need-”
“No. I’m fine.” You interject, not able to meet his eyes. You shrug off his jacket and press it toward him, he takes it as you turn away, walking barefoot toward the riverbank. You slowly edge around stones along the shoreline, trying to save your feet from any sharp edges.
You slowly wade into the water, not bothering to strip yourself of the chemise you’re wearing. Arthur turns away, stepping back from the riverbank.
You wade out several steps until the water laps at your knees. You gather the soaking wet hem of your chemise and pull it above your hips with one hand, the other one cupping water and bringing it up to your cunt, rinsing away the viscous reminder of your violation.
You openly sob, shaking, as you drop the hem of your chemise and start to sink further into the water. You vaguely hear splashing behind you and before you know it, you’re lifted out of the water.
Arthur walks you back to dry land, his arms looped protectively behind your back and under your knees. He places you gently on an overturned log next to the tree where he’d hitched the horse.
“Sweetheart, you’re gonna freeze in just your underthings like that.” Arthur places his leather jacket around your shoulders again. You can’t stop crying, your voice cracking over shuddering breaths.
“P-please don’t take me back to c-camp.” You stutter, shivering, voice cracking as tears spill down your cheeks unbidden.
Arthur sighs, taking his hat off his head to wipe his forehead. He places it back on his head before looking around.
“How about I get you a room in Valentine for the night? I’ll buy you a new dress ‘nd then we can figure it out.”
You nod, swiping the back of your hand over your cheeks in a sad attempt to dry your eyes. Another shuddering breath escapes you.
He patiently helps you climb onto the horse’s saddle, settling himself in behind you and leading the mare away from the riverbank. The moon hangs high in the sky as the hour churns later, closer to midnight as you reach the road eastward to Valentine. Over the hours, the sky darkens, clouds moving to obscure the light of the moon as thunder rumbles in the distance, a storm rolling in from the mountains.
Arthur curses under his breath as the wind blows in the scent of rain. Still another hour to Valentine, even pushing the horse at an uncomfortable pace. He pulls you closer to his body as fat drops of rain begin to fall.
By the time you reach Valentine, the roads are choked with mud and a soaking rain pours from the sky. You shiver under Arthur’s coat as he urges the mare around the back of the Saints Hotel. He slides off the saddle of the horse, looking up at you.
“I’ll go get a room. You can meet me at the back door over there.” He says before pulling you down off the horse by your waist, putting you on the ground gently. You shuffle his coat to cover your head as he hitches the horse to a post.
Your feet squelch in the mud as you make your way to the back wooden stairs, waiting for Arthur to return. It's only a few moments before he does, rounding the corner in the night like a man on a mission.
“Here”, he presses a key into your hand, “second door on up the steps. I’m gonna go down to the general store ‘fore it closes to get some clothes and food.”
Arthur pulls a revolver out of his belt, pressing that in your hand as well. “Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”
You nod gravely, pulling his jacket tighter around you. As the rain falls, you slowly make your way up the stairs, and Arthur watches you enter the hotel before turning down the muddy street toward the store.
You pad quietly down the hall, reaching the door Arthur had mentioned and inserting the key into the lock. The door swings open and you quickly shut it behind you.
You place Arthur’s jacket over a chair, tucking the revolver into a pocket, and rub your arms as you move closer to the fireplace. Fortunately, with the weather, the hotel staff had kept the fire lit. The room was small, the wallpaper fading, but for Valentine, it was the best one could get. You survey the room before landing in the mirror, finally looking at yourself.
The mirror reflects a ghastly sight, and your dirty, threadbare chemise does little to shield you. Your hair is half out of its braid, plastered to your skin. Your feet are covered in mud, shoeless as you are. Red-rimmed eyes betray you in the reflection.
You grit your teeth and yank the chemise off of you, throwing it in the fireplace with a groan of frustration. The fabric, though wet in areas, quickly caught aflame.
You stare at yourself in the mirror, breathing heavily. Searching your reflection, you look for something , some mark, some scar, some kind of wound that showed what you had been through. Your kind, outlaws, wore scars like badges of honor. Javier’s dance with the gallows painted on his neck. John’s bout with wolves across his face. Bullet wounds and stab marks are a testament to the survival of this kind of life.
You sigh, tears escaping your eyes again. As you look over your nude form, you grit your teeth. There was nothing, other than some chafing on your wrists from ropes and fading redness on your cheek.
Your hand starts to shake as you lift it from where it hangs at your side. A shaky breath, a barely concealed sob, the popping of the fire, that’s all the sound that exists in this room. Your shaking fingers move to the cradle of your hips, to the hair over your mound. Your index finger presses inward, parting the seam of your core as you wince. You’re swollen, and as you trace up to the opening of your cunt, you gasp aloud in pain, pulling your finger back from your irritated skin.
Your gasp melts into a full-blown sob as you sink to the floor in front of the fireplace. You weep, pulling your knees into your chest, trying to block out the memory of the man’s hands on you, his length inside you.
Trying to block out the look on Arthur’s face when he found you.
-
You wrapped yourself in a blanket and sat in front of the fire. Three quick raps on the door pull you from your fugue joltingly.
“Hey, it’s me.”
You stumble up, pulling the blanket closer around yourself, and unlock the door. You back away from it as it swings open, Arthur stepping in with his arms full of wrapped packages. He moves past you and deposits them on the bed, before turning back toward the door.
“I’ll let you dress. There’s plenty of food here. I’m going to take the horse just outside of town and camp there.”
Fear creeps into you. “B-but…”
Arthur turns and looks at you.
“P-please don’t go.” Your eyes water over again as you clutch the blanket closer to yourself.
“Are y’ sure?” He asks, pulling his hat off and shaking the excess water from it.
“I’d like you here.” You whisper.
“Whatever you need. I’ll do whatever you need.” He replies quietly, eyes trained on yours for a moment, sincerity in those blue-green pools.
He steps toward the fireplace, moving to kick off his boots and leave them by the door.
“I’ll… I won’t look.” He mutters, pulling a chair from next to the door and placing it in front of the fireplace, taking a seat and rubbing at his forehead tiredly.
You shuffle back toward the bed and unwrap the package Arthur placed there - a simple grey dress, long-sleeved with petticoats and a new chemise lay folded underneath the brown paper. You drop the blanket and let it puddle on the floor, dressing yourself in the clothes quickly.
“T-thank you. I’ll have to pay you for these.” You murmur softly, tying the last fastening on the skirt before turning around and facing him.
He nods his head in the negative, but continues staring at the fire. “No y’ don’t. It’s fine.”
You look around the room forlornly, but finally, exhaustion begins to set in. You sit on the bed and the wooden frame creaks under your weight.
“Y’okay?” Arthur does finally turn around and look at you, concern alight in his eyes.
It takes you a moment to respond.
The twinge in your hips, the hoarseness of your voice. The chafed skin of your wrists, the overextension of your muscles. The memory, weighing you down like an anchor.
You’re so tired.
“No.”
You can barely recognize your own voice. He certainly can’t. You don’t wait for a response as you move to lie down in the bed, turning away from him.
Arthur watches you settle in, pulling the worn blanket over yourself. Sighing to himself, he turns back to the fire, pulling his hat off and running his hand through his hair.
He shoulda killed that man slowly .
-
You awaken in bits, blinking into existence. Slowly accumulating to your surroundings, you press yourself up into a sitting position, finding yourself on the bed in a hotel room. Arthur is across the room, sleeping in a chair, his legs propped up on a chest, his hat over his face. The fireplace smolders with the last bit of embers from the night. Sunlight filters in through the dusty lace curtains.
Swinging your legs down to the floor, you wince slightly as the bed’s frame creaks loudly. Arthur jolts in his chair, his hat falling to the ground.
“Sorry…sorry-” you whisper, knowing how miserable it is to be woken suddenly.
“`S fine,” Arthur mutters, covering his mouth with his palm as he yawns.
You rub your upper arms quickly to warm yourself up, staring at the empty fireplace.
“Y’ want to go back to camp?” Arthur’s voice pierces the stillness that had settled in the room.
“Y-yes. I think so,” you pause, “Arthur…”
“Mm?” He doesn’t look up from pulling on his boots.
“Please don’t…. Don’t tell anyone.”
He stops, looking up at you. “Course,” nodding gruffly, a serious expression on his face. He places his hat on his head and throws his brown jacket over his shoulders. He moves toward the fireplace, grabbing the rifle and repeater balanced against the frame, and slinging them both over his shoulder.
“A-Arthur…” you pipe up again, your voice small, “I don’t, I don't have shoes.”
Arthur raises his eyebrows before cursing under his breath after looking at your feet, partially obscured by your skirts. “ Shit , lemme… Lemme go down to the store and get some.”
“I have more at camp. You don't have to. We’re goin’ straight there, right?”
He nods, and you make toward the door, “Just… check out and I’ll meet you around back.”
“Alright, I‘ll just be a minute.” He gruffly nods, grabbing the key to the door and heading out. You hear his heavy footsteps make their way down the hall and the stairs.
You sigh, straightening your skirts, and look yourself over in the mirror for a moment. Was it obvious? Did you look different? Would people know?
It would not do to dwell. You move to the door, open it, and quietly relatch it before quickly moving down the hall and out the back door, rounding the raised deck to the old staircase behind the hotel. The wooden stairs creak under you, as you carefully pad down to the enclosed yard behind the hotel. You cringe when you look at the wet, muddy ground between you and Arthur’s horse, several feet away, hitched to a post outside the hotel’s property.
Arthur rounds the corner from the front and looks at you standing on the last stair. You frown, “I’ll be right there.”
The outlaw doesn't take that answer. Rolling his eyes, he stalks toward you, his boots squelching in the mud.
“Wait, Arthur-”
He picks you up like a sack of potatoes, over his shoulder, your behind high in the air as he turns toward his mare several feet away.
You screech indignantly, “Put me down, you big oaf!”
“I'm sure your ladyship doesn't want to be in the mud with us low-lives.” He snorts, reaching his mare after passing through the soggy ground.
“I swear , Arthur-”
Arthur heaves you forward, and you grunt in surprise as you land on the rump of the horse, his hands sliding to your waist to steady you. Your hands fly to his shoulders for more support.
For a moment, everything was as it was. The back and forth, the playful name-calling. The blush rises on your cheeks as you feel his fingers curl ever so slightly against your waist.
And then you wince briefly, a shot of pain through your hips, and Arthur pulls back his hands as if they burned you.
“ Shit , I didn’t-” he stutters, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.
“Wasn’t you. Wasn’t you.” You reply quietly, your hands leaving his shoulders.
He frowns, his eyes moving from you to the ground, where the horse’s hooves stamp lightly; the mare irritated by Arthur’s jolting.
Arthur runs his hand down the mare’s neck, leaning in to whisper something in her ear, calming her. He takes another look at you, his mouth drawn in a tight line.
“Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
-
The return to camp is blessedly uneventful. You even manage to slip in without anyone noticing your bare feet. You are able to sneak into your small tent and at least throw an old pair of boots on before anyone notices you’ve returned.
Charles speaks to you first, having found your gelding making his way back to camp. You’re able to craft a story about being bucked outside of Valentine, and how it was fortunate for you to be marooned so close to town, where you hung around knowing someone with the gang was liable to swing by. It was believable, especially with Charles knowing that your horse could still be temperamental. He doesn’t push with any further questioning.
People don’t bother you. You’re able to settle into normalcy, or at least feign it.
The nights turn cold, and much like the spring blizzard that trapped the gang in the Grizzlies, cold winds blow down from the mountains. A day is spent hanging extra canvas on everyone’s tents to guard against the chill on the overlook.
And you find yourself staring at the pitch of your small tent in the small hours of the morning, as the campfires have burned down to embers and even the hardest drinkers have gone to bed.
You can’t sleep. Your bedroll against the ground gives you little solace as you sigh, rolling over for the umpteenth time. It’s not necessarily insomnia keeping you awake.
It’s fear. It’s been days since you returned to camp atop Arthur’s horse, and you’ve gotten sleep in fits and bursts, but one harrowing nightmare about green bandanas and a laughing voice and hands all over you has shaken your already winnowing psyche.
You roll fully to your stomach, pressing yourself up to your hands and knees. Tossing the woolen blanket you were under aside, you grab a dress from the pile of clothing and shrug it on over your chemise before crawling out of the tent.
Wrapping your arms around yourself against the cold, you quietly shuffle across the campsite toward a large wagon not far from the edge of the overlook.
Sighing, you run your hand through your hair to calm your nerves. The worst he could do would be to throw you out, right?
That would be pretty terrible, you muse as you snuck between the canvas flaps of the large tent.
“A-Arthur.” You whisper.
The outlaw shoots up in his cot, about to reach for his knife on the table next to him before he realizes it’s you.
“What is it, what’s wrong?” He grunts, his voice rough with sleep.
“I just- just… can I stay with you?”
“Sure- sure. Here,” he pulls the blanket off of him, making to stand up from his cot, “I’ll sleep on the ground.”
“N-no,” you step forward, placing your hand on his shoulder, preventing him from standing, “I-…”
You sit on the cot next to him, wringing your hands together. “It’s just… y’ make me feel safe, Arthur.”
Silence falls between you.
“I’m sorry, I should go. I shouldn’t have woken you up.”
He places a large hand over yours, stopping you from standing. He lays back down, lifting the blanket to allow you to slot yourself next to him.
“C’mere.”
You slowly ease yourself down next to his form, a tight squeeze on the cot. As you press against him, he pulls the blanket over both of you, leaving his arm to lay over you.
It makes you feel secure. You settle in, placing one of your hands on his chest. You don’t remember falling asleep.
-
Arthur awakens with a crick in his neck. Why the hell was he sleeping on his side? Blinking awake, it only takes him a moment to realize that you’re pulled tightly against him, your head tucked under his chin, your hand lightly over his chest.
You were so full of fire and energy and life before. Now, you're curled into him with a fear that kept you up at night.
He swears he’s gonna kill every O’Driscoll he ever comes across.
-
You fall into a sense of normalcy. Days go by, you sew and do laundry on the cliff, you help Pearson with meals, and clean up after supper. You put on a cheery face and laugh and mask everything that you’re feeling inside, and by the time night falls, you are spent, bodily and emotionally.
The camp grows quiet in the night and you sneak to Arthur’s tent, into his waiting arms. After the first two days of waking him to ask to stay, he took to waiting until you crept in, pulling you into his embrace and somehow trying to make both of you comfortable on his cot, which was a lost cause half the time.
But you sleep. You actually sleep. Unlike the first few days of staring at the pitch of your tent, you get well-needed rest in this space.
Arthur’s turned the lantern down low, and sits in his cot clad in his union suit, sketching in his journal when you enter the tent, your long coat tight around your shoulders.
He quickly tosses the journal aside and stands up, moving toward you to help you slide the coat from your frame.
“Y’didnt need to s-stop.” You stutter, your teeth chattering.
“Was just waitin’ for you anyways.” He replies, placing your coat over the chest at the end of his cot. He pulls you toward the bed as he sits down, first moving to get himself comfortable, pulling the woolen blanket that was piled at the end of the bed over his frame. He lifts the blanket, motioning for you to crawl in.
It's a practiced movement at this point, for the past several nights, you and he have worked through awkward arms and elbows, sleeping positions that do not work, to what does.
You curl in next to him; your head laying on the curve of his shoulder.
“How did you know to find me?” You whisper, hand firmly on his chest. Your eyes can't meet his.
Arthur frowns. “I knew I shoulda just come wit’ you. I shoulda trusted my gut.”
One of his large hands moves to tuck an unruly strand of hair behind your ear. Finally, you're able to meet his eyes, those azure pools you would happily drown yourself in.
“Went to Valentine. Saw some O’Driscolls hauntin’ about. Figured I would go ruin their day. Heard ‘em talking about a new spot they had up in Cumberland.”
You swallow. You know how the story ends from here.
“ ‘M sorry, sweetheart. I shoulda been there for you.” His hand moves from behind your ear to cup your cheek, “I didn’t keep you safe.”
“Ain’t your fault.” You quietly reply back. Before he can retort back, you bury yourself in closer to him, pressing your forehead into the hollow of his neck.
“I promise, I’ll never let anythin’ happen to you again. I swear.” His rough voice whispers into your ear as he winds his arms tighter around you.
It’s a nice thought. Here, in his small cot, wrapped up in his large frame, you certainly do feel safe. But you know, you’re criminals, outlaws, robbers. There’s no way to keep that promise.
But you’ll allow it for now, at least.
-
He catches you staring out over the cliff, off into the distance, and the winding Dakota valley. It's still a cold and chilly place, and this morning, after you’ve crept away from his tent and redressed in your own.
Pushing a steaming cup of coffee into your hands, he tries to follow where your gaze goes, down the valley toward the cliffs on the other side of the river, in West Elizabeth.
“How would you feel ‘bout gettin’ outta camp? Just for a night.” Arthur postures. You don't look at him, taking a sip of coffee.
“Where?” Your voice is small after you swallow.
“Somewhere o’er there?” he motions toward the area you’re looking at, across the state line, “Just thought y’might need to get away.”
You look up at him, he’s always been a full head taller than you. “Alright, Arthur. When can we go?”
“Now, if you wanna. Already told Dutch I was gonna look up a lead over near the train station.”
Before you know it, you’re atop your gelding following Arthur down the trail toward the river, your repeater strapped to your back as if things were normal, you were heading out on a job. But you and he know, things have been anything but normal.
You travel for most of the day, down and up valleys and under the shadow of Mount Shann. There isn't much conversation, the plodding of the horse’s hooves taking up most of the air around.
As the afternoon sun begins to wane, Arthur brings his mare to a stop, “Let’s settle in here for the night.” he nods toward an open glen not far off the trail, obviously used as a campsite in the past, the charred remains of a fire in the middle of the clearing.
You bring your gelding toward the glen, and wordlessly, you two unpack and begin to set up a small camp. Arthur sets up a small tent while you gather kindling for the campfire.
By the time you return with a handful of kindling, Arthur is clearing out the ashes from the last fire. You place the branches on the ground next to him, and he takes pieces and arranges them before pulling a matchbook from his satchel, which he has tossed against a large overturned log.
In the silence, he gets the fire started and moves from a crouch to sit on the log, an arm’s length away from the growing flames.
You stand opposite him, unmoved since you returned to the camp.
“Can I ask you something?” You say, eyes still on the fire he’s stoking. It's the first you've spoken since leaving Horseshoe.
“Course,” he grunts, adding another piece of wood to the flames.
“Will you… touch me?”
A long exhale.
“Darlin’, I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”
“Oh- I… I’m sorry. I…”
He couldn’t want you, not anymore. The way he saw you. Of course he doesn’t want to touch you after seeing you like that. You’re damaged goods .
You hang your head in defeat, cheeks blazing red. A sense of shame crawled over you as your vision clouded over with unshed tears. Before all this, the teasing back and forth, the heated glances, the good-natured ribbing… it was all gone.
“Darlin’….I don’t want to hurt you. You…you’re hurtin’ sweetheart, I don’t want to be the one hurtin’ you more.”
“I don’t want him to be the last person who touched me!”
You clap a hand over your mouth, surprised at your outburst.
“ ‘M sorry, I-I’ll go now-”
“Darlin’. It ain’t- I ain’t… surely, you can have a better man than me touch you. I ain’t a good man.”
“But I want it to be you, Arthur. I- I feel safe with you. You’re… you’re… I… I choose you.”
He looks at you with a pained expression.
“Please, Arthur. I…want to forget. I want to forget … his hands on me….” You shudder, “I want this to be my choice.”
Silence.
“…And I want you to choose me too.” Your voice drops into a low murmur as you stare at the ground. You’ve bared the last thing you’re hiding from him. He’s now seen and heard everything. He’s seen you at your worst, your lowest.
“Darlin’ girl. You’ve always been my choice.”
From his spot sitting on the overturned log, he reaches for your hand, dwarfing it in his own. His rough and calloused fingers close around yours.
“I never want to be the one hurtin’ you. I don’t know if you’re ready for this.” His thumb runs over your knuckles gently. You finally meet his eyes.
“ Please.”
Something in Arthur breaks, it cracks like a piece of porcelain. He gently places his hands on your waist, pulling you toward him. “Tell me what it is you want.”
“ You, Arthur.”
“C’mere,” he says, guiding you down to his lap, where you perch on his thigh, “we’re gonna go slow. You tell me right away if you wanna stop.”
Your hand moves to his jaw, and you lean in and press your lips against his. One of his hands finds the back of your head, the other splayed out on your lower back, as he gently presses his tongue against your lips, urging them to open to him.
You open your lips with a contented sigh and allow him to pull you even closer into his embrace, his tongue pressing against yours insistently. You don't know how many times you had envisioned this, before the O’Driscoll, when things were a bit simpler.
His hand slowly moves from your lower back to your behind, and he tests the waters by giving it a gentle squeeze. You yelp happily into his mouth, your hips moving over his thigh of their own accord, shifting in his lap. He gives a grunt of approval and squeezes your rear again.
Your hands find purchase around his shoulders, digging into the leather of his jacket. In one roll of your hips over his lap, your thigh juts up against his growing erection, hard and hot under you. In response, he bucks his hips up, to press against your thighs, chasing some kind of relief for his burgeoning cock.
You moan, loudly, into his mouth. He pulls away from your lips, breathing heavily. You’re also panting, your eyes meeting.
A question lays unasked between you, the inches between your wet lips and his, the twitching of his fingers against your rear, the hardness of his cock under your thighs. The dampness blooming between your legs.
You push yourself up against his shoulders, standing from his lap. He looks at you, questioning, his hands moving up to your waist.
“Please.” You say, stepping back from him and his arms fall to rest on his knees. You move toward the tent he had set up and look back at him anxiously as you lower yourself to your knees in front of the opening.
He shoots up from his seat, assuaging your fears.
You scoot back into the tent and lay yourself on the bedroll, watching intently as Arthur shrugs off his jacket and leaves it on the ground just next to the campfire. His gun belt clatters to the ground, clinking as it falls. He drops his hat at the mouth of the tent as he sinks to his knees to enter.
Arthur moves into the tent, his large stature overtaking most of the room in the small tent. He pauses, on his knees, and doesn’t move any further.
“Y’ sure you want this?” He asks, his voice low, but sincerity shines through.
You balance yourself on one elbow and reach with your other arm toward him, beckoning him to crawl over you. You kick your boots off and toss them to the side of the tent. He takes his off as well, spurs clinking as they fall to the ground.
Almost hesitantly, he leans over you, his arms bracketing in your shoulders and his knees on either side of yours. You meet him halfway, pressing your lips to his while throwing your arm around his neck, guiding him down over you. You lay out on the bedroll as he trails his lips from yours, leaving kisses down your jaw.
He suckles gently at your earlobe, and you moan in response. One of his callused hands cups your breast through your shirt, kneading it gently. Your hand flies to his hair, carding through it as you begin to pant.
Arthur looks at you, waiting, patient, and you open your knees slowly, letting him trail his hand up your thigh. He watches for any sign of discomfort, any hesitance, any fear, or pain.
He finds none, and presses forward, trailing his hands up, up to dust your inner thighs. You give a pleased sigh as he moves toward your center, bucking your hips slightly when he presses against your clothed core. Your bloomers quickly become even more damp under his ministrations.
You push at his suspenders, peeling them down his arms as his hands work to untangle themselves from your skirts.
Arthur sits up, pulling at the buttons of his black shirt and shrugging it off, reaching his union suit underneath.
You let out a breath, watching him unbutton the waffle-knit long underwear, with each button, more and more of his skin is bared to your stare. Pale underneath his clothes, his chest is scarred and marked and covered in wiry dark hair.
By the time he has undone all of the buttons on his union suit to his waist and peeled his arms from the fabric, he notices that you have made no move to disrobe.
“Y’alright?”
You slowly nod, averting your eyes from his frame.
“You wanna stop?” Arthur reaches out to you, placing a finger under your chin, gently tipping your chin up to bring your eyes back to his.
“How could you want me after that?”
“Oh, sweetheart….”
You pull away from him, whipping your head toward the tent’s opening. You place a hand over your forehead and release a ragged breath.
“I wanted you when I taught you how to shoot. I wanted you when you kicked my ass at dominoes. I wanted you each and ev’ry time you shared my tent. I want you now, ain’t nothin’ gonna change that.” Arthur places his hands on his knees as he moves to sit next to the bedroll.
“Y’sure?” You ask, your previous confidence waning.
Arthur chuckles, motioning to his crotch. “You want me to prove it to ya?”
You blink - indeed, his cock swells against his work pants as he shucks his boots off. You’re staring, again, at the bulge in his pants, held back by a measly few buttons.
You look up to his eyes again, and there’s such kindness, such truth, such gentleness, that your fears and reservations are assuaged. You reach for the buttons of your blouse, threading them through their eyes as he returns to stand on his knees in front of you; undoing the buttons of his trousers, opening the fly.
“Lemme show you how much I want you, woman.” His voice is low, cut like rough-hewn stone, and the reverberations go straight to your cunt.
You shed your shirt, tossing it in a corner of the tent out of reach. You begin to unlace your skirt as you hear the rustling of fabrics together and glance up to see Arthur rid himself of his pants, leaving only his half-undone union suit on his body. The fabric clings to every inch of him, every carved muscle and tendon, every bit of sinew binding this man together. His cock strains against the cotton.
Your skirt is tossed toward the corner of the tent where your shirt is crumpled.
“C’n I help ya?” He whispers, chest heaving.
“Yeah…yeah.”
He reaches forward as you lean back, his hands finding your waist and working on the fastenings of your petticoats. They slide from your waist and you move your hips to let him pull them from your body.
You pull your chemise over your head, baring your breasts to him, clad only in your bloomers. You see him swallow, his eyes scanning your frame. He removes his hands from you and starts to undo the last three buttons of his union suit. You recline, watching him, letting him take the initiative to bare himself completely.
He threads the buttons through their eyelets and pushes the fabric down from his waist. His eyes are on you, gauging your reaction, as he pushes the suit down, down over his hips, shoving the cotton down his thighs.
His large cock springs upward, framed by chestnut curls, his balls hanging heavy between his thighs. You look back up at his face, and your thumbs hook into the waistband of your bloomers and start sliding them down your thighs. You are both rid of the clothing in moments.
“God, yer beautiful,” Arthur murmurs, his hands tightly at his side, holding himself back.
“ Touch me. ” You whisper, laying down on his bedroll. Arthur leans forward, crawling on top of you, placing one forearm next to your head to balance himself. His other hand traces your jaw before he lowers his head to catch your lips.
It’s gentle, surprising you. Arthur Morgan is a man made of violence and brute strength. You’ve seen him tear men apart and beat them stupid. You’ve seen him kill and maim and shoot and stab, but now, here with you, his hand traces down your neck, your chest, across your breasts, down, down to the cradle of your hips. All as he slots his lips against yours, gently, so gently opening them so that his tongue can press against yours, a low rumble echoing from his chest.
You wrap your arms around his shoulders, moaning weakly into his mouth as his fingers snake between your thighs, gently pushing them apart. A single finger presses into the seam of your body, and you cry out in pleasure as he moves that finger up and down it. He grunts as he coats his fingers in your wetness, your eagerness for him.
It goes on for minutes, hours, years? You don’t know. But it’s so different, to be lost in pleasure instead of pain. Arthur presses into you and you touch him, wrapping your hand around his cock and pumping it slowly. Whispered, urgent words pour from your mouths, interspersed with moans of pleasure.
Settling between your hips, he braces his arms on either side of your head, and you feel the hot length of him press against your inner thigh. Wanting you. Needing you.
He leans in to kiss your brow. “Still alright?”
You nod, pressing your lips on his jaw quickly. He groans in response, pressing his hips forward.
The head of his cock nudges against your opening. Your eyes widen, and immediately, his hand finds your face, cupping your cheek gently. “We can stop, we don’t gotta do this.”
Your arms wrap around his shoulders, “I wanna be yours, Arthur.”
“You can be mine and we don’t have to do this, sweet girl.”
“ You still wanna do this…right?”
“More than anythin’.” He confesses, “but we do what you want. There’s plenty of time.”
“Please. Please , I want you, Arthur.”
He presses forward, gently as possible. He doesn’t force. He doesn’t buck. He leans heavily on one elbow and draws one hand down your frame, fingers tracing across a pebbled nipple, your soft belly, and the cradle of your hips. He raises his hips only slightly, snaking his hand right to where your bodies meet, to where you’re stretched taut around him. He finds the bundle of nerves of your pleasure, rubbing it in circles. You gasp, a high keening moan he has to immediately smother with his lips. He continues his ministrations, and your eyes flutter closed, your hands moving to his back, nails leaving crescent-shaped marks on his skin.
He groans, pulling back from your lips to breathe before laying his forehead against yours. Taking a breath, he pushes his hips down on you, fully sheathing his cock in your core. It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t burn. It’s not anything like before. You’re left with the sensation of being filled, warm, and secure underneath him.
“Y’okay?” He whispers, pressing his lips to your cheek briefly. One of his hands runs through your hair, brushing it back from your forehead.
“ Yes,” you breathe back, “you’re so good…”
He smiles, and you’re smitten by the way the wrinkles at the edge of his eyes move. Arthur rolls his hips, sliding his cock inside you, and thrusting back, a long, slow stroke. You both moan as Arthur presses his face into the balled-up blanket next to your head, trying to suffocate the whine he is unable to keep to himself. One of your hands works up his neck to the nape, carding your fingers through the hair there.
His arms move to brace on either side of your head, and you cross your ankles over his hips as he raises his head above yours again. His jaw hangs open as he rolls his hips, moving both of your bodies atop the bedroll. You arch your back, throwing your head back on the blanket, baring your neck to him, where he leans in and places open-mouthed kisses on your skin.
Your breath becomes faster, high-pitched whines escaping your throat as he continuously rolls his hips into yours.
“A-Arthur…” you stutter, half whisper, half pleading.
He pushes himself up, looming over you with his hands planted firmly on the bedroll, on either side of your shoulders. He takes you in, your pupils blown, a red flush creeping down your neck and chest. Your breath devolves into panting.
“Oh sweet thing, gonna come for me?”
You squeeze your eyes shut as your hands move to clench his forearms. “Y-yes, yes - I’m gonna-”
A gasp tumbles from your lips when you feel him shift above you, a calloused thumb finding its way back to the hooded skin over your bundle of nerves, pressing in light circles on it as he continues thrusting into you at a clipped pace.
“I, oh god- keep goin’- don’t stop.” You cry, trying to keep the volume down as tears collect at the corners of your eyes. The stimulation of Arthur’s hand on your pleasure and the incessant roll of his hips sends you reeling.
“Tha’s it, come for me, darlin’…”
You thrust your hips upward, arching the small of your back as the wave hits you. Arthur covers your mouth with his own to stifle the keening cry you emit as every muscle fiber in your body clenches at once.
The glide of his cock as he rocks into you becomes even smoother as your slick covers it, warm and wet and cloying against his balls and all over your thighs.
Arthur groans into your mouth, pressing himself against you fully, crushing you into his chest, the entire length of his frame against yours.
He grunts out the syllables of your name as his thrusts become more erratic. He wants to spend inside you, so much , but that was a step too far, an irresponsible chasing of pleasure, an intimacy he has not earned with you. But the idea is planted in his mind, and as he courts that precipice, he can only think about how it would feel. Thrusting deep inside your warm body, feeling the constriction of your inner walls against his length. Maybe he’d be lucky enough and you’d come too, the spasming of your core drawing him over that edge, pouring himself into you.
“T-tell me where-” he grits out into your ear, panting.
You doom him with your reply. A death sentence, his life finally catching up with him. A merciless finality in high-pitched whispers.
“M-make me yours, Arthur-” you whine breathily.
He can feel the coil tightening low in his gut as he continues to thrust, grunting with exertion, trying not to plunge over that cliff just yet.
“Mine.” He grits out, pushing his hips deep into yours, and finally the rope snaps. Arthur doesn’t just fall off the precipice, he swan dives, “G-god, girl- fuck - you’re m-mine. ”
You whine, loudly , and he feels you flutter around him and he grinds himself hard against your pubic bone, releasing deep inside you, the warm spatter of him milked out by every clench of your cunt. An embarrassingly needy moan escapes him as he drapes himself over you, utterly and completely spent.
Arthur pants in your ear for a few moments, trying to catch his breath. A wet sheen of sweat has developed on your bodies, but now as the movement dies down and you both float down from your highs, you shiver slightly under him.
Arthur immediately pushes himself up, pulling his softening cock from you with a grunt, and repositioning himself to lay at your side. He draws a blanket over your nude forms, settling you in across his chest, his arm winding around your shoulder. You hum, satisfied, satiated, warm, and happy .
“You feelin’ okay, sweetheart?”
“Better now.” You sigh into his chest, your ear pressed over his heart, thrumming steadily in his chest.
“Didn’t hurt you, did I?”
You smile and nod your head against him, “Not at all.”
He places a kiss on the crown of your head.
“Good. I’d like to do that more often, if you’ll have me.”
You press your hand over his pectoral, lifting yourself to fully look at him, your hair a messy curtain over both of you.
“I am yours now, Mister Morgan. Said it yourself.” You whisper with a grin.
Arthur’s other hand lightly traces up the ridges of your spine, “Means I’m yours too, beautiful girl.”
The blooming soreness in your hips doesn’t burn, it doesn't hurt. Arthur's large hands press against your skin, warm and secure. His frame dwarves yours, but in his arms, you feel safe. Dare say it, loved.
For this moment, at least, the world does not exist outside the tent. For this moment, at least, you can chase the demons out of your mind and slowly start to heal from the experience.
You know you’ll have Arthur next to you.
You smile, tucking your head into the curve of his neck.
“I like the sound of that.”