I tried running it off, tried working my body until it was too tired and sore to feel anything. But just the memory of the alley, her lips around my cock, turned me rock hard. I ran twice as long the following morning hoping to ease the ache, but it didn't help. Thirteen years of wanting, when the lid came off that sexual geyser it was going to level cities. We weren't at a place where we could spend weeks or months in bed riding that wave, and I knew it would take weeks or months to sate us.
She was in the kitchen when I returned, sitting at the table as she had a habit of doing. She was looking over some tourist book. Fucking hell, don't tell me she wanted to play tourist. I was battling blue balls and she wanted to buy souvenirs and t-shirts.
"I'm visiting the gold mine today."
"What time?"
"There's a tour starting at one."
"I need a shower."
Her expressions were so transparent, every thought in her head showed on her face and right now I knew she was thinking about me in the shower, more specifically us in the shower and since that was where my head was at too, I walked away. Closing the bedroom door I walked right to the shower, stripping on my way. How the hell I managed to walk with the hard on I sported was a mystery. Stepping under the spray, I pressed a hand to the wall, lowered my head, closed my eyes, as my other hand moved up the length of my cock, fisting the shaft as Thea took over my thoughts-her tits, her ass, her hair, her laugh, her smile. I was yanking so hard the fucking thing should have ripped right off. And even after I came I still wasn't satisfied. We were going to need to bake a fuck load of cookies.
"We can pan for gold? Oh, I so want to do that. Do you want to do that?"
She asked but she wasn't really asking. She was doing it with or without me. I wouldn't allow her to go alone, so I was doing it whether I liked the idea or not.
"This is going to be so much fun."
I seriously did not understand how this woman was like a sister to Anton. Two more opposite people never existed. As we waited in line it was like she was at a starting line, her body primed and ready to go as soon as the gun sounded. She reminded me so much of Amelia-a way of looking at the world. Not innocently, neither of them had been sheltered, but like they could take the hits and keep coming back for more. Optimistic. Amelia had been too fucking young. She should have had a full, happy life before dying of old age in her bed at ninety. Instead, fucking cancer took her too damn young. My father had turned out to be no better a parent than my mother and just as shitty a human as her too. He had had a mistress for years while he was living with my mom, had even gotten his mistress pregnant only a year or so after he had gotten my mom pregnant with me. There was no way she knew that because she would have gone homicidal. The man had a short attention span with not only the women in his life, but also the offspring he brought into the world. Amelia hadn't known him any better than I had, but for a little while we had had each other. Watching her take her last breath, helpless to ease her pain … I would rather walk into a firefight unarmed than go through that again. And Janice. I'd set the ball in motion. Her world was about to collapse. She shouldn't have become greedy. She had a good thing going, but she pushed too far. It was time to push back.
"It is a real gold mine. Imagine the stories it could tell." Thea looked around all wide-eyed. I saw a rock depleted of whatever value it had and left as a reminder of the greed of people and their thirst to own more, to have more. And she thought of the lives of those who had mined it. I had no doubt she romanticized it too and not the grueling, early death, sweaty shit job it was.
Her voice turned a bit dreamy as her fingers ran along the walls. "I think I would have liked living back then. There were problems then too, but the simplicity of it. You worked and you loved. I would have liked that."
And it was because of the ease that I could imagine her with me in Amelia's cottage that I ignored her. That pissed her off. And I was clearly a masochist because I enjoyed getting a rise out of her, watching that fire spark in her eyes. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I know what you're doing, but there aren't enough cookies in the world to erase that moment in the alley. And it will happen again because you are just as addicted to me as I am to you. But I can wait because I know you're worth it."
An elderly couple was in front of us; she left me to walk with them, which was a good thing because we almost had our own reenactment of that alley scene right there in the gold mine. One thing was for sure. When this was all over I wasn't letting her out of my bed for a fucking year.
The man was impossible. If I didn't think I'd break every bone in my foot, I would kick him in the shins or maybe the nuts, but I suspected they were just as hard as the rest of him. He was more determined than ever to keep me at arm's-length, and considering our moment in the alley, I understood. Distracted wasn't strong enough of a word. I even agreed with what he was doing, but it didn't mean I had to like it.
He was running more, and I got a sick sense of satisfaction that his body wanted me to the point that he was trying to physically exhaust himself.
Madge had called and asked me to visit. She wanted to discuss the reenactment. Damian had dropped me off, but Madge was having a hankering for soup and since she was right down the street from the Tavern, I offered to pick her up some. I was on my way back to her house when a motorcycle pulled up alongside me. Razor.
"Hey, babe."
I was a little cool in my reply remembering what Damian had told me about him and his sexual appetites. "Razor."
"Want a ride, babe?"
"No thank you."
His face split into a smile.
Maybe I was getting rusty but I didn't get the rapist vibe from him. I wasn't willing to put that theory to the test though. "Madge is waiting for me."
We were now in front of Madge's house. He looked up at Madge before lifting a hand in greeting. What surprised me was she not only returned it, she called, "Join us, dear."
"You don't have to ask me twice."
Razor touched my arm as we ascended the steps up to Madge's porch. It was odd, a gentlemanly act like that from a man like him. Maybe I misunderstood what Damian had meant about Razor because he really didn't seem the type to hurt women.
"Razor, dear, you know where the cookies are. Could you please bring them out and put the kettle on for tea. Oh and take the soup from Thea."
"Sure thing, ma'am."
He didn't fit with Madge's floral décor in his faded jeans and leather jacket, the long hair and massive frame.
"He's a good boy."
"He is?"
She looked at me funny. "Of course. You can see it in his eyes."
Not according to Damian.
"Thanks for the soup."
"My pleasure. You wanted to talk about the reenactment."
"Yes. I need your measurements for the costume."
"Do you make the costumes every year?"
"I do. As one of the founding families of this town, I like to be involved."
"You had family who lived here back in the day."
"I did."
"I'd love to hear about it."
Razor returned, the cookie jar in one hand, a half eaten cookie in the other. He sat on the steps, leaning back against the railing and bending one leg. He looked to be settling in for a while. He looked at me and winked. I thought he was charming in a roughneck kind of way, which didn't jive with what I knew about him from Damian.
Madge put her knitting down and started to rock. "It's probably best to start when the town was founded."
And I understood why Razor had settled in because for the next two hours Madge told us everything there was to know about the town and it had been a wonderful way to pass the afternoon.
"You keep missing your mark. You need to walk from the saloon and end here." Dinky, owner of the saloon in town and director of the reenactment, said as he once again indicated the road where the x was located.
Reenactments were much harder than I had thought, particularly since the people I was doing this one with became thespians as soon as the figurative costumes went on.
"Sorry."
"Let's try this again."
I waited for my cue and hit my mark. I got a thumbs up and then he was off directing someone else.
Maureen walked over dressed as a gunfighter. "How did you get that role and I have to be some damsel?"
"Years of participating."
"I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. Why would a woman in full formal attire be standing in the middle of the street during a gunfight?"
"Drama. How are you enjoying Deadwood?"
"I like it very much. It's a great town and after talking with Madge, I know it's also a town rich with history."
"That it is."
"How's the nursery?"
"We're slowing down, people are preparing for winter, but I do sell trees and poinsettias so we'll be gearing up again after Thanksgiving."
"I'm sorry again that I accepted and then backed out."
"I really didn't have much for you to do with the season coming to an end, but anything is better than being Charlie."
She wasn't wrong about that.
"Thea, I need you to swoon," Dinky said as he came hurrying over to me. "Your hand to your forehead and then crumble, but daintily."