Blood and Iron Ch. 03

It seemed this was enough, for she swiftly smiled back, let out a softly joyous sniffle. Pushed herself in closer, flush against him; it was a struggle not to feel the sculpted, feminine perfection of her anatomy, soft in all the places she ought to be, and firm in all the others. An effort not to see how delectable her lips sat on that so-enchanting face, not to imagine sinful things in the spark of yearning that burned still in her eyes, looking up at him. He was her father, he reminded himself fiercely, repeatedly, as seconds snuck past in the timelessness of this embrace. This was just a comfort for her wounded heart. But still awareness pounded guilty in his mind, how much alike his dream it felt. Words of love, and her body next to his...it was too easy to pretend at something more. To let dark fantasies to wander in his mind, imagining desire in the slender arms thrown tight around his back. In the hopeful shimmer of her gaze as she pushed up to her toes, angelic features drawing close before his eyes. In the supple softness of her lips as they touched tentative to his...

There was no room for thought or for surprise. Only feeling, taste, sensation - the honeyed sweetness of her kiss caressed upon his consciousness, warm as summer as gentle as a cloud. Hesitant, her lips scarcely even parted; it could have been chaste, daughterly, were it not for the uncertain, artless hunger that carried from her motions, from the little curl of her fingers on his back and the insistent upward craning of her graceful, slender neck. Or, what was more, for her eagerness as he reacted, as the instincts of desire were awakened by the pleasure seeping down into his soul, as his arm tightened strong around her back, invigorated almost to health by the power of her kiss. His own lips returning ardor fiercer, rougher than that which they'd received, wrestling with hers as though to wring from them her essence, her very soul.

And how divine, the low whimper of delight which sounded from her throat as he crushed her body close against him, the satisfied shiver that trembled down her spine as his hand clamped firm at the back of her neck. Lust inside him demanding, possessive...and her so yielding in his arms, welcoming, responsive to each flicker of his fingers on her skin. So alive in this embrace, active, surging ravenously forward in the brief moments when his mouth would lift from hers. So alluring, the shape of the body he felt pressed against him, a pattern of sensation reaching below thought, down into the bowels of his mind, where primal urges lurk...she was a marvel. She was temptation itself. She was...

...his daughter. Reason returned with the suddenness of a thunderclap, struck him with the force of lightning. His gaze shocked open, staring at her stunning features just an inch away. At eyes still raptly shut, absorbed in concentration as she covered for his stillness by working ever harder. Her lips still sliding on his so wonderfully soft, sweet and slippery as syrup. Even as he tried to pull away, she clung desperate to his back, his neck, refusing utterly to part - he had to grab her shoulders, push her forcibly down, before the kiss at last was broken. Her breathing heavy and ragged as they parted, eyes wild and intense, glowing like iron taken from the forge. "What in blazes are you doin', Alice?"

His own breath came shallow, shaken. The words no more than half-considered, bafflement polluted with the churning of shame and self-loathing in his gut, his fingers digging painful into the tender flesh of her shoulders. It was plain to see their impact - the cherry warmth of joy in her expression dashed to pieces, frozen and destroyed, leaving in its place no more than ash. Anguish contorting at her face as she feebly shook her head, those perfect lips curving frantic, pleading around the rudiments of excuse. "Nothing. Nothin', I ain't..." Falling into silence, though her mouth still reached helplessly for words. Her gaze at last falling away, hiding now in the dirt behind him as she shrugged her shoulders in a wide, quick circle to break free of his grasp. Ducking, dodging, turning away; James was left to stand there stunned as she strode out into the bush without a moment's pause, into the deeper night that waited outside their camp. Her pace so quick she seemed about to break into a run - but stiff, tightly-wound, aching as though with a hurt that might at any moment snap her tendons and send her sprawling to the dirt.

"Alice!" He was slow to process what had happened - if even he yet had. Slow to respond, to step out after her into the darkness and the lumpy, bush-strewn earth. His uncertainty finding purchase in his voice, a cry that sought her out yet shied away.

Alice didn't stop, didn't even pause. "Just go!" Her voice returning stronger now, calling back across the gloom...but he could hear the tears behind, a river hastily dammed. "I ain't gonna kill you. I ain't gonna...I..." The words dissolving to a jumbled, agonized silence as she half-stumbled over a rock - but it little slowed her pace. "Just get on that damn mare of yours and leave!"

"Alice, hold up already." He tried to sound reasonable, to be cajoling through the mass of worried contradiction that lodged solid in his throat. Following in her footsteps, though actually watching where he stepped ensured that he lost ground with every moment that passed. "We got to talk about this."

"Ain't nothin' to be said." She shot back, sharp and shaking, a tremble in the words. Still without pause, tromping forcefully forward through brush and bramble. "Nothin' to talk about. I...we ain't got no reason now to stick together, so you best just saddle up and go."

"Alice..." Plain to see how useless this was. She wasn't listening, didn't want to listen, driven onwards by the storm of shame and misery he heard poorly hidden in her voice. No telling how long he'd have to follow her into the night before she stopped...if she ever would. He needed something else, something that would break through to her, words that she would not ignore. And after tonight, he thought he might know what they were.

"Little rose." Sterner now, weighty and demanding. The voice of the patriach he'd sometimes had to be, so long ago - while deep inside, he prayed that this would help. "You got to stop."

She hesitated from the first two words. Froze in place, as her spine once more stiffened with the name - backlit by the waning moon, she was a silhouette of doleful beauty, of pain no man with feeling could ignore. Silent, now. She did not answer back, or even turn around...but neither did she continue on into the night, and this was enough for James to give thanks as he rushed across the remaining distance before the moment broke.

Uncertainty still, drawing up close - of what to say, of what to do, even of what had just transpired. The image of her stretched up on her toes to kiss him, the subtle savor of her lips...it already seemed more dream than memory, another fantasy concoted in the pit of his imagination. He could almost believe that it had never happened...if it were not for how she stood before him now, forlornly hugging herself against the growing chill. How she'd fled into the night. It was real. But what it meant, he did not trust himself to judge.

"Let's get one thing clear first." A murmur, firm, quiet, comforting. There was another place to start, a safer place. "I ain't goin' nowhere, hear? Truth is, right now you're just about the only thing in my life worth keepin' on for. Far as I'm concerned, there ain't no place else for me to go."

Did she breathe in a little deeper? It was difficult to say. Still no words, no motion - she stood there like a statue, exquisitely carved, a vision beautiful and tragic. So very slightly trembling as he dared a step closer, laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder. His voice probing, mild and soft. "What're you thinkin', Alice?"

A few more moments, frozen, before at last she moved. Her head dropping down towards her chest, and a sound, a breath, a whisper. Too low for him to hear, despite his ears strained against the quiet.

"How's that, now?" Half a step. Her back was an inch from his chest, her hair wild and unkempt just before his chin. The scent of it in his nose, dry and light and sweet, like jasmine and oil...he could kiss her there, at the back of her head, or her neck. Perhaps she would even like it. Perhaps she wanted it...dark tendrils of imagination threading through his thoughts.

"I'm sorry." Barely louder. Only just on the edge of hearing, whispered down into her chest. Riddled through with shame and bitter sorrow...her head shook as she repeated it, stronger still. "I'm sorry, I'm..." That slight silver flash again of dampness in her eyes as she turned, lifted her gaze up to his. The moonlight barely bright enough to see her jaw fixed tight, her lips thin and pleading. Her whisper a confession, miserable and scratchy as she stood just an inch or two away, arms still crossed protective at her chest. "I'm a damned fool. I shouldn'a done it, I knew I shouldn't, I just..."

Once more she shook her head, chin quivering so slightly and so beautifully. Her voice catching, coming again high and keening. Words that shivered to be said. "Pa, I got feelings in me that don't make no sense. And I know they don't, I know I oughtn't listen, but when you was holdin' me, I just, I thought...I felt like..."

"Hey, now." There was no choice but to comfort her, to let his arms sweep gladly round her again, pulling her gently closer as she whispered further apologies into his chest. "'ts all right, ain't no need for an apology." His hand stroking softly at the back of her neck, working to warm the frozen misery of her form. His mind, meanwhile, fairly whirling with her words - so little truly said, and yet his heart thumped deep and hungry at the suggestion carried, the secret they implied. A thrill of base desire grabbing at his tongue, so eager to know, to be sure... "What kind'a feelings do you mean?"

"I shouldn't say nothin' about it," she murmured dismal against him, giving her head another little shake. Her posture stiff with self-recrimination. "It's awful things, awful." And never had the word sounded so divine as the way she said it now, the faint flavor of guilt that promised at forbidden pleasures.

"All the same," he grasped at the side of her cheek, lifted her head up from his chest to look into her eye, her pupils meeting his for just the briefest moment before they hid away again at the fabric of his shirt. "I figure I'd like to know." His voice possessed by this ready, forceful urgency, thirsting to be certain of the impossibility that loomed before him. "Tell me what's goin' on in that heart of yours, little rose."

Long moments flowed past before she tried an answer, before her mouth parted to speak. A confession, whispering low and ashamed. "I just...I think about things." Her gaze still hid from his, staring down at the center button of his shirt. "Like about you holdin' me. Or kissin' me, the way I just done. Or about...about you touchin' me." She swallowed, and though it was too dark to see, James imagined he could hear the blush upon her cheeks. "Touchin' me all over, under my clothes...and I know it ain't right, thinkin' things like that about my own pa, I know I ain't supposed to. But every time I do, it makes me feel all hot and tingly on my skin. It - I get this itch, way down deep inside me, wantin' for it to be real. Wantin' that you could...could show me, could treat me like how a man treats a woman." The words were scarcely audible, reluctant and ashamed, intoned almost too thin to hear...but alongside the sound of humiliated revelation was a slight tinge of something like relief. Finally speaking a secret hidden too long. "Like how he'd treat his wife, when they was alone together."

Euphemism. Hesitation, abashed on her tongue; how strange to hear, from this brash and fearless girl. Even for so shocking an admission - James had been with women enough to know that some, at least, had lusts not unlike those of men, even if no one of breeding would admit it. But to feel such for her own father, for him...he could little imagine it, hardly believe it. His hands squeezing slightly at her shoulders, grasping and possessive, as he spoke with a burgeoning, breathless rasp of intrigue. "You been thinkin about me makin' love to you." His own desires sneaking smug and delighted into his tone, dreaming wickedly of what might be, now that this truth had been unveiled.

Wrapped up in her own shame, Alice little noticed - just sniffed, dropped her eyes down further to the shadowy earth. A pause for strength before she answered, whispered, "Yeah." Nodding just so slightly, and then pressing on, pleading, "But I ain't - it ain't what I want, not really. I swear. Ain't what I set out to find you for. It's just...I just..." Quiet. Her head shook, helpless and aching, her posture held tense and frozen against him, afraid to press closer yet unwilling to pull away. And just when he was about to say something more, perhaps let his hand descend to delight against her bottom, perhaps kiss her again with all the fire that blazed in his soul, in his loins...her gaze rose up again, touched to his, miserable and half-heartedly imploring. "D'ya hate me, now?" Spoken low and sorrowful, as though she believed the answer must be 'yes.'

In that single moment, his own lusts were shoved aside, scattered to the winds by the deep upwelling of fatherly concern that filled him as he saw the suffering painted so plain and wretched in her eyes. Her worries, her fears borne like a heavy load upon her brow. And the question - how mad it was that she could think such, that she should even care what he thought of her, after all he had done. After his selfishness even of these last few minutes, thinking only of his foul desires while she spilled out her heart for him to hear. "Alice..." The arrogant drawl of a man desired now was vanished from his tone, trying instead for a comforting softness. His words reaching out to her as he pulled her gently to his chest. Closed the distance that she was afraid to cross, rubbing once more tender at her back. "Don't you talk such nonsense. Course I don't. You're my own little girl - ain't nothin' you could do to make me hate you, hear?" A beat of silence, of reflection, girding his tongue for the words he'd been unable to speak before. "I love you, little rose. Ain't never stopped, even when I run off like a fool; you'd be the one ought to hate me, seein' what I done." Wry and quiet humor, sneaking slightly in. "I promise, ain't no man ever hated a pretty girl for givin' him a kiss."

She was slow to answer, leaning solidly against him. Her hands grasped fervent at the sides of his shirt as he felt relief flow slowly through her, gradually melt the stiffness of her pose. The minute, distinctive pressure of her ear against his chest, nestled amongst her beautifully ragged mess of hair. "But it's wrong. Thinkin' those things, wantin' them..." A murmur, still low and distraught - only at its end did her tones rise and somewhat tense with a note of wondering, the smallest glimmer of hope. "Ain't it?"

A minute prior, he might well have denied it, tossed away all sense and reason to listen to the lurking darkness in his soul. Now...it was only his good fortune that the image of her misery had reawakened his conscience, reminded him of what his duties were. He was her father. Whatever his own wants, he had to do right by her - if only to try and make up for all the years in which he hadn't. "I reckon it is." Gently, seriously. His thumb stroking soothing at the back of her neck. "Maybe not the thinkin', and maybe not even the wantin'. But the thing itself...that ain't somethin' we can do, little rose. A man don't lie down with his own child, not even if she somehow gets the notion that she maybe wants to." Nor if he wants to. A tugging at his tongue, of truth, of mirrored revelation - he could tell her the trouble of his own desires, let her know that she was not alone in this. Confess his sins, like a papist to his priest; how he'd dreamed of her, spied on her...instead, he stayed silent, the advice of circumspection better trusted than that of honesty. It would help no one for him to say too much.

She seemed a trifle better, all the same. Calmer, no longer rigid with shame or trembling with anxious sorrow. Quiet now against him, the corner of her lips just barely touched to his chest. She offered no resistance as he turned her carefully around, looped an arm firm and guiding around her back to lead her once more to their camp. Her muteness had the feeling almost of surrender, half-slumped upon his side, slack and silent. A chance at last for him to think, to reflect on what had transpired. He still could scarce believe it. His reactions like those in a dream, responding to each new fanciful impossibility with blind and thoughtless acceptance, practicality. Comforting his daughter, after she kissed him as would a woman in love...only now stopping to gape and wonder that such a thing should be.

Strange, perhaps, for him to be so shocked, when he felt so powerful and illicit a desire for her himself. But in him, it seemed a simple thing. Lust. Weakness...she had come to be so beautiful a girl. Perhaps not as clean of face and rarefied of fashion as the famous women he'd seen in prints and pictures from back east - but so pure and strong a spirit inhabited her features, shone from her skin. Every day more lovely, as he came to see her, to know her, the woman she'd become. Any man would want her. He was different only in that he should not, in the fact of fatherhood that ought to have closed off such feelings. Would have, no doubt, if he were more rightous a man.

Ah, but her...it made no sense. He was no one to desire. No thrilling figure of fame or infamy, no young and strapping buck. Not even a competent provider. A cripple, instead - near enough, anyway. A man with too many years, too many regrets, too many hairs gone grey. A broken man. And if that were not enough, there still was all the hurt he'd done her. Her abandonment, his great regret. Perhaps the stories...even if they were not precisely lies, it was not hard to see the pain that could come from long-cherished memories suddenly revealed false. And then the simple fact again that he was her father, and she a woman of most apparent virtue. It was nonsense thrice over for her to feel any such affection.

There was a shadow of relief, distraction from these thoughts, as he felt her stir again against him. Speaking, halfway back to the dying embers of their fire. "You remember," a questioning murmur, tentative and subtly imploring. "When I was real little, before you made me my own bed? How I slept next to you'n ma, how..." Hesitation. Her fingers fumbled, caught, rubbed absently exploring at the fabric of his shirt. A touch of thickness in her tone. "...how you'd sometimes hold me? When it was cold out, or just when I asked?"

His answer was a cautious nod. Words following slightly after, as he recalled that she could not see his face. "Believe I do." Reserved, despite the suggestion of the memory.

"You think..." He could hear her lick her lips, the moist pop and glissade of that alluring tongue emerging to briefly caress across her mouth. Her voice coming small, quiet, struggling as she glanced up to his face. "You reckon it'd be wrong, too, if we done that now?"

His expression he kept fixed, carefully noncommittal, unreflective of the little storm of conflicted feeling the words aroused inside him. "Alice, that ain't-"

"Since we done it before, I mean, and it weren't wrong then." She persisted, interrupted. Her tones low and lightly pleading, a hollowness that made him wish so badly to agree, to hold her tightly in his arms, to do whatever it would take to make her smile. Drawing up near now to their camp. "I figure there's room enough on my bedroll for two, if'n we squeeze up real close." She swallowed softly, slim fingers clutching briefly, pointlessly at his wrist. "And it ain't...I don't mean nothin' more than that. I just..."