Blood and Iron Ch. 02

"One hundred and eighty five, it should be. Demand notes...but yes," he flashed a quixotic smile. "I am a man who takes seriously his debts, Señor Blake, however I may acquire them. Now, come, let me show you to a room."

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After repeated nights sleeping out on the cold earth, it proved a small heaven to be able to collapse upon a mattress, to strip off his rough trail outfit and lay under thin-threaded cotton sheets. His thoughts crowded, vague, there in the warm and dark - fuzzily considering the events of the day, cradled reflection on the unexpected interlude of warmth. Memory drifting into dream, as sleep came in to claim him.

A different evening, so many years ago. Rabbit stew digesting in his belly as he sat before their sturdy wooden table. Alice, just five or six now, sitting curled up in his lap, listening raptly to another invented tale of skill and bravery she had demanded be told. He could no longer even remember the details - the stories blurred together, so much the same as one another. A scattering of villains, a confrontation, and justice served with blood and iron. Only in the telling did they gain their meaning, in the wide-eyed admiration of her gaze, the worry of her hand grasping tight to his in suspenseful moments. The proud, satisfied smile she wore after the denoument, as she snuggled up against his chest.

It was a brief while later that the question came, her voice ringing out high and bright as birdsong. "Pa." Her little head at rest above his heart. "How come you ain't still out there, gettin' bad guys like that?"

"Who says I ain't?" His eye sparkled with a quiet humor.

"Don't be silly, pa," she scolded back, adorably didactic. "You're here with ma and me, mostly, so you can't be goin' all around to get them, too."

"Well, I reckon that's a good point you got there, little rose." He chuckled softly, meeting her bright and curious gaze. "Truth is...well, there's plenty reasons. Maybe number one is 'cause right here, I got two of the prettiest women the good lord ever decided to set down to earth." A grin quirking at the corner of his mouth to see her blushing smile, her eyes darting shyly away for just a moment. "But, top'a that..." And here the curve of his lips turned bittersweet, his voice taking on the quiet depth of meaning. "It ain't enough. Was excitin' out there, I can't deny. But runnin' round without a home, without a place to hang your hat...without even a soul who cares particular about you past how good an eye you got...it gets tiresome. Man gets to wantin' somethin' more." A wry smile, rubbing softly at her back. "Like maybe a daughter, to listen to his stories."

Her giggle was like the tinkling of golden bells. "You stopped havin' your adventures just so you could tell me about'm?"

There was a trace discomfort in this, the implied untruth feeling greater than that in the tales themselves. But he still managed a nod, a tiny smile. "Near enough, little rose. Near enough." His hand rising up to ruffle affectionately in her dark crimson hair as she pleasantly sighed, stretched out upon his chest. Draping her arms tenderly, possessively over his shoulders.

It was a whisper, a murmur into the rough fabric of his shirt. "I love you, pa." The words sounding like a secret, close and sweet - and in this moment, James felt not a shred of shame for the slight, unmanly sting of tears in is eye. His arms crossed at her back, holding her tight against him. A kind of heaven here, in the pride of fatherhood, the love he felt for this little girl singing in his soul. Joy, honest and pure, a feeling infinitely finer than any of the host of petty triumphs he'd had in his days with Miller, which had once seemed to him so vital. All the world paled before this moment.

And then a new sensation. The pressure of a pair of lips, soft and moist at the base of his neck. A kiss, slow and tender, but possessing of an urgent hunger. In the fuzz of dreaming, he felt barely a dull surprise to look down and see her now fully grown, aged in the space between two breaths to the woman who had found him once again. The modest country dress of her childhood exchanged for battered blue jeans and her dusty yellow shirt. The hands that held her now clasped on slender, tempting curves as she lay lithely stretched against him - the firmness of her thigh gently pressed into his lap, her head nestled in the crook of his neck.

"Pa," she breathed again, murmured, full lips brushing with an exhilarating tingle against his skin - the word had never held so powerful and intimate a feeling. The softer portions of her anatomy sliding exquisitely against him as she clambered up a trifle higher on his body. Emerald eyes rising into view, luminous and beautiful. Her gaze locked with his, deep and devout, as her lips hovered some minute fraction of an inch from the edge of his chin, close enough to feel the warmth, the moisture of her breath. Whispering there, low and fervent. "Touch me."

He was already, of course - fingers splayed at the small of her back, one hand laid atop her shin. But this fact did not diminish his eagerness as he pulled her closer, his right hand round her waist feeling again the strength it had once possessed. His palm sliding up her leg, feeling the shape of it beneath the thick denim, the heat that wafted tantalizingly through. A pounding in his heart, faint hesitation stirred up like river dirt by the flood of hunger in his veins, the wave of primal satisfaction that washed through him as her tender lips crossed that final nothing of distance and touched themselves to his. Tasting of honey, slick and sweet...her mouth barely parted, soft and pliant, and his masculine desires rising up inside like a stampede.

He couldn't. He shouldn't - he knew that, somewhere. But just now he could not recall the reason, the why of it. She was here in his arms, as ready and as willing as ever a woman was. As desirable as ever a woman could be. It was only natural for his hand to slip along the flatness of her stomach, to grasp, squeeze at the deliciously rounded softness of her bosom...and to hear her sigh of satisfaction as he did. This wild rose, glorious and beautiful. Fingers fumbled on the buttons of her shirt, a slow unveiling of skin and private garments. The simple cloth corset tight around her chest, concealing still those trim, tempting breasts - but his passion grew just to see her shoulders bare, slipping into view, paler than the tan of her face and hands and lightly dusted yet with the freckles she had worn in childhood. A sight he would never have imagined could spark such lust.

He wanted her. Desire coarse, powerful, undeniable as he turned his head downward to kiss, to taste the damp and satiny skin at the base of her neck, exulting in the faintly sour taste of her sweat. He would take her, possess her, this divinity of woman. As any man would, given the chance.

The sound came sudden in his ear. Knocking, sharp, wooden - with puzzlement he glanced aside, and saw with blurry eyes an unfamiliar room, bathed with the pale light of morning. An endtable bearing an extinguished oil lamp. The warmth of heavy covers around him, and Alice mysteriously vanished; he pondered this in dull confusion for but another moment before the knocking came again to rouse him from sleep's remaining stupor, along with a voice from the hall outside. "Meestar Blake?"

A dream. Of course. No more...but his throat grew close with guilt, looking back on just what sort of visions his unconscious mind had conjured up. Recognizing his own arousal, still aching beneath his bedclothes, at the vision of Alice - of his daughter - in dishabille, at the imagining of her body against his, stripped for his wants. And as much as he wished now to cast it all aside as senseless fancy, as a mere symptom of the drink...he could not deny that he still felt the pull of it, even as his head throbbed distantly from his indulgence of the night before. The image of her lingering in his thoughts, fair and alluring. The wondering, his pulse quick and nervous, of how she truly looked beneath her heavy trail outfit...

"Meestar Blake, are you in there?" The knocking came again, irritatingly persistent; James rose to his feet, jaw tight with annoyance.

"What's all this hollerin' about?" Words sharp and surly on his tongue as he pulled the door open a crack. A short woman stood on the other side, plainly-dressed and slightly rotund in middle age. "Ain't a man entitled to a bit of rest?" Anger in his voice, inspired by the interruption of his dream.

"Pardon," the woman tried valiantly an apologetic smile. "Pardon, Meestar. I am taking clothes, for the washing. Señor Hernández, he says you have maybe need it. This robe, also." A small bundle of cloth in her hands, neatly folded - she raised it up respectfully on her palms, like a royal offering.

"Washing, huh?" His lips pursed with grudging acknowledgment, fingering briefly at the dark red fabric before taking it from her hands. Fair quality, thick and warm...and a passable fit, too, as he slipped it over his shoulders. "Fine. Fine." He pulled the door open the rest of the way, gesturing offhandedly to the clumping of his clothes unceremoniously dumped upon the door the previous night. "Suppose it can't hurt nothin', gettin'em cleaned."

"Thank you, Meestar Blake." If there was a trace of irony in her gratitude, the accent concealed it; she moved swiftly inside to gather up the laundry as James cinched the robe at his waist. "You maybe like to know, I drew a bath downstairs. The room beside the kitchen, if you also want to wash yourself."

A quiet snort at that, snide and mildly amused. No doubt something else that Hernández had said he 'maybe needed' - it had been a fair while already since his last dip in the river. Perhaps he was becoming a trifle rank, at least for the perfumed sensibilities of a wealthy merchant.

Well. Not much harm in taking advantage of the hospitality, while it was on offer - warm baths were few and far between. If nothing else, it might be a distraction from the shameful dream that still lingered in his consciousness, the lushly flashing eyes and curve of freckled skin that sat warm and all too tempting in his imagination. He grunted out a quick farewell to the maid and wandered out into the sprawling villa, now vaguely thankful for the unending commentary of their host the night before, which even only half-remembered permitted him to find the bath-room with little trouble. A sturdy door of aging wood, adorned with a little bronze relief of a naiad at play; his hand was already on the latch when he abruptly froze, arrested by the sound of splashing from within.

Of course. With reflection, it was scarcely a surprise - the bath would not be drawn for him alone. But his heartbeat hastened to a sudden, painful swiftness as he realized who must be on the other side. Alice. He was certain of it, could almost feel her there through the door, a yearning in his bones. Imagining her laying in the bath, as naked as the Lord had made her, her form revealed to the air and to the eye. Her body wet and slippery with soap, womanly curves gleaming in the light...how close he'd come to seeing it, to seeing her in all her glory. If he'd only failed to catch the subtle sound of water, if he'd simply opened up the door. It would not have even been his fault. It was the maid's, giving him no suggestion of her presence, that he should wait for her to finish.

A whisper then of madness. His pulse thumping loud and strong, his fingers splayed upon the aging wood. He could do it still. Just step inside...there was no one there to see how he had stopped, no way that she would know it was not truly a mistake. If he but pretended at surprise when he saw her, when he let his eyes to roll and slip across her skin, taking his alloted instant to feast upon her image. Devouring every last detail, so that when next he dreamed he could have her almost in the flesh, so that he could conjure up her beauty in the darkest corners of his mind.

Conscience fired back, sharp and stinging. Was he so low a man as that, to think so blithely of spying on a woman in the bath - on his own child, no less, the daughter he'd wronged already so terribly? Whatever fascination there might be...this was not the petty sin of a wager on marked cards, or of a visit to a bordello. It was a vile thought, base and corrupt; he should be ashamed even to briefly entertain it.

But it was not such an easy thing to drive away. The murmurs of desire speaking down past conscious thought, to the animal in man. Enthralling, tantalizing, as he listened at the door for any scrap of sound, his imagination frantically translating every quiet splash to motion, to a cloth rubbed slow across the low elegance of her shoulder, or descending to the valley of her bosom. Beads of water trailing like tears down the delicate lines of her face, along the veins of her neck, tracing out the curve of her breast...he could almost see it. He would see it, if he just opened up the door, stepped inside...

No. It took an all-too-desperate surge of effort for him at last to step away, let go the door. Recriminations whirling in his mind, stern and sour judgement at how near to evil he had tread, while the deeper beast of lust growled at his failure to obey. Agitation thrumming in his nerves, tense and anxious with this momentary triumph of virtue over vice.

It was with no specific intention that he wandered through the opened door into the kitchen. Perhaps just to escape, to distract himself from the wicked fascination which still buzzed in his awareness like an angry wasp. Glancing around the wide and crouded room. Embers glowing hot in the large iron stove against the wall, no doubt where the water for the bath had been prepared. A long pine table scored and stained from years of meals prepared upon its surface. Pots and skillets wrought of iron, slightly browned with caked-in flavors. Still alone - another person might have been a blessing, to keep him on the narrow path. Especially as he saw how the smaller door from the kitchen to the washroom sat just ajar, carelessly closed after the last pot of water had been poured.

Oh, cruel irony. He might have laughed, if not for the fact that she would hear. If his mouth were not suddenly as dry as if he'd been trekking for hours in the desert heat. That tiny fissure caught at his attention like a fishhook in his mind, calling him forward. Tickling breathlessly at his desire, while his exhausted conscience only spat and cursed its luck. He could not find the will to look away...it was the smallest crack, perhaps half an inch wide. Circumspect glances, two feet from the door, showed just slices of the room beyond; a faint orange sheen of sculpted metal, a patchwork of colored tile, a shimmer of shifting water. A flash of milky skin...his heart skipped a beat, stepping close, peering through the gap. His breath coming slightly shallow as he looked inside.

God, there she sat, stretched out in the fine bronze bathtub at the center of the room. Facing partially away - he gazed upon the back of her scalp, reddish-brown hair plasted wetly to her skin. Her neck, slim and elegant, flaring gently outward as it descended to the paler flesh of her upper back, shoulderblades pushing barely outwards like the vestige of an angel's wings.

Little more could be seen from this vantage point. The slight curve of her cheek, the portion of her right arm which sat above the lip of the tub. But still he stayed, watching rapt as she enjoyed a few moments more of luxury in the warm water, idly cupping handfuls to rinse through her hair, pour across her face. He scarcely breathed now, striving not to make a sound for fear that she should turn and see him looking. Guilt and worry, furtive and scurrying at the back of his mind...but they had little power beside the hunger of his eyes, the thrill in seeing even just this fraction of her body, this suggestion of her form.

Then she stirred, standing up in the water, and it was all he could manage to stifle an admiring gasp as she came further into view. The subtle ripple of muscle at her back, shifting slightly as she moved. Her waist, toned and slender from long hours in the saddle. Slim, delicious hips, the shape of them echoing in his mind with an aching need...and just below, the smooth, twinned arch of her derriére, soft and enticing before his eyes. Begging to be caressed, to be gripped tightly in his hands as her body pressed to his. He could all but feel it now, the flesh hot and supple between his fingers, slick with the water that still trickled down her skin. Need...still lower, her legs stretched long and vigorous to complete the picture, one upraised as she stepped gingerly from the bath. His gaze tracing slow and rapturous down the back of her leanly muscled thigh and to her foot, looking now small and delicate outside her heavy boots.

His heartbeat was a kettle drum, his eyes fastened to her form. But if this scene inflamed his passions, it was nothing to the moment that followed. She stepped now fully from the tub, a simple half-turn revealing suddenly the treasures of her womanhood. Her breasts sitting firm and proud before him, damply shining from her bath - no great and heavy bosom on her lithe, athletic frame, but the gentle few handfuls she possessed were as finely shaped as any his eyes had yet been graced to see. The demon of desire purring insistent in his ear, how delightful it would be to softly squeeze those creamy white teardrops of lightly freckled flesh, to drink with his tongue the drops of water that still clung to their upper surface. To suckle like a babe at the little nubs of pinkish brown which tipped them, tasting the perfection of her body.

Lower. His eyes tracked lustfully down across her stomach, trim muscle just evident at her abdomen. And at the juncture of her legs, a little thatch of reddish-brown hair, kinked and tangled, glittering with beads of water like tiny diamonds trapped within. The true flower of her womanhood, glorious in bloom - ardor throbbed exquisite and terrible at the back of his skull, dry and dizzy on his tongue. Oh, to have her...to lay with her on some hot summer night, run his fingers down along those curves he now beheld. To see her strong and shapely legs spread wide, the glistening pinkness of her jewel peeking into view. To feel himself push inside her, her taut and youthful body stretching around his manhood, slick and hot, hear her squeals and sighs of satisfaction. To partake of her in that primal, carnal connection, grind and thrust and growl until he found his own release, and spent himself within her...

Such thoughts, such fantasies - they spun mad and wanton in his mind as his hungry gaze traced back up across her form, flickered to her face...and held there, frozen. Desire turned to crystal as he looked again upon her features. She was beautiful. The fact already known still struck him like a revelation, his soul staggering backwards with its force. The clean lines of her face so long shaped by determination that they held it now even in repose. The firmness of her jaw, the strength spoken in her brow, her lips small and precise - she had the loveliness of divinity, of Minerva unclothed, purer and greater than man had any right to see.

And he...what small and wretched thing was he, to steal this vision. His qualms, his conscience roused again to life by the image of her face, storming forward with a scalding shame. A feeling of filth inside, of rot bitter and corrupt spreading swiftly through his veins. Even were she not his daughter, spying on her so would be grotesque, a deed base and contemptible. As it was - he had no words for the wrongness of it, for a father who would act in this way, who would think such things.