Warning* Smut ahead! You have survived along side our girl, and think it is high time John made the dark journey worth it. Long chapter, Enjoy
The warm days bled into chilling nights and there wasn't a moment Lilah woke when John wasn't there with his arms wrapped protectively around her. Dutch had to make him leave to run even the smallest of jobs, with Lilah bound to his tent. He still walked with the slighted swagger from his injured leg and had even once or twice tried, to pull that excuse to keep from leaving her side. But Dutch would just grin at him, pat his broad shoulder, and shoo him off to pull in money for the camp. "We can't help your little princess if we can't provide for her Marston." He would tut and walk away, the smile still creeping beneath the dark mustache coloring his lips.
After several weeks, John had returned to camp tired, his shoulders drooping a little from the coach he and Arthur had scored from earlier. When he huffed into his tent, his eyes found Lilah and all the exhaustion seeped from his body. She was standing. Her small framed shoulders exposed in a white flowing sundress. Its rippling lace hugged her curves now plumped from John's pampering, and trailed like stardust at her ankles. Sharp black boots covered her small feet and a single thick black ribbon circled her waist contrasting her outfit into an hourglass of beauty. She turned at him as he stood in the doorway, her dark black curls rivering and shiny over porcelain skin.
John blinked, meeting her eyes, unable to speak. Her bow of a mouth, curved up in a small petal pink smirk that stretched to her glistening sea grass eyes. "Why Mr. Marston, you look like you've seen a ghost?" Her voice was clear and sultry. No cracks, no broken whispers. The song of a nightingale captured on the wind and carried to his hungry ears. "Lilah?" He barely breathed the word, afraid that she would disappear at the slightest sound.
She tilted her lovely head at him, her sculpted brows bunching worriedly at his shocked expression. "John, are you alright?" She had turned her whole body toward him now, her little hands raising to her chest in concern. He scanned her from the top of her head to the tips of her feet. No blood, No bruises. Her darkened eyes and broken lip were flush with color. Her cheeks pink with his penetrating gaze. John blinked twice again, shaking his head and noting her clasped hands. "Oh..no..I...I'm fine." He walked over finally tossing his satchel and gun and jacket and hell anything else that may restrict him from touching her, to the waiting wooden chair.
Gently, he took both her hands in one of his and pulled her to him by her shoulder with his other. "You look.... Lilah, you..." He was speechless. She gazed up at him standing over her looking down at her searching eyes. "John?" She still wore a mask of worry on her face. He let go of her hand and took her jaw in his palm, stroking his thumb over the cheek that was now free of the nasty bruise from before. "Beautiful. Lilah sweetheart, you are breathtaking." Her face relaxed, a broad smile stretching across her glorious lips.
She blushed under his thumbs. "Thank you. The girls thought, since I could stand that it may make me feel better to get out of that gown and dress up a bit." John was shaking his head in approval, looking her over for the slightest sign of pain as she stood. "Do you...Does it hurt? Are you hurting anywhere?" his voice trembled with worry.
She reached up circling his wrists with her slender fingers, as he still held her face and shook her head no. "I feel good, John. For the first time in so very very long, I feel good." And for the first time too, since he could remember, a huge smile spread across his weary face. Here she was, this little angel fell to earth. Her wings broken, her body destroyed and yet, she still stood despite it all. Warm and soft in his rough hands. Her sweet face just gazing up at him like he was the only thing in this world and all else around them had disappeared.
Here.
With him.
Could it even be real?
He looked down as she bit her little lip, looking at him anxiously, not quite sure what to do. His hungry eyes flit from her mouth, to the green orbs glowing beneath her dark lashes, and back again. "Lilah...may I? I mean... could I?" He tested gently. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her, or spook her into any pressure resulting from his desire.
She didn't answer. Instead, she lifted up on her toes and pressed her soft mouth to his. He held her face, snaking one hand through her hair and pulling her into his kiss. His eyes closed at the ecstasy of her taste. Gathering and releasing and gathering again the honey softness of her mouth, taking her again and again with his own. Finally...FINALLY..he thought, and turned his head deepening the kiss and pressing his arms around to the small of her back. He held her to him, her splayed hands pushed warm against his chest.
How long had she waited? How many nights had she kept this very thought in her head just to survive the horrors around her? His touch was so tender. Lips and tongue devouring her, but so sweetly, so slowly, like the peaches he had fed her, she too was a candied desert against his gentle attack.
Lilah could feel her heart begin to race. Her face was warm from the touch of his hands. Across her back and just at the hem of her waist, his touch glided against the fabric of the dress . Fingertips grazed around to the delicate bones of her hips, touching her like feathers against the thin veil of cotton.
She could feel him pressing her closer and closer to him. He reached from around her, taking her hands that pressed his chest and lifting them over his shoulders, around his neck, so he could move even closer to her. When she stumbled from the height of trying to reach him, he bent suddenly, swooping his long arm under the back of her knees and lifted her into his arms still kissing her feverishly and walked with her held against him to the bed.
His arms were reaching around her waist cradling her as he sat, his other hand splaying across her jaw cupping her cheek, forcing her lips to stay with his. He had swung himself sideways now, laying her gently to the cot, pulling the boots from her in one swift moment and settling her head back against the pillow while his hand under her head wrapped around the nape of her neck, holding her longer still to his ravaging mouth.
When he finally came away from her lips, it was only to pull his hands from beneath her to turn her neck to him where he could lean and graze a trail of hot branding kisses down to the sensitive spot just at the hinge of her shoulder. Lilah moaned softly into his ear. A sigh that pulled the fire from his groin up though his entire body. It spread through his chest, a warm flame, that beautiful coo that didn't reject him, but instead, welcomed his eager touch as he gripped her small shoulder.
He looked up at her, finally searching her sweet face until her eyes opened and met his again. "Lilah, I.." the hunger, the lust for her glowed deep in the dilated pools of brown. "I want you so badly. HAVE wanted, you. Can I?... Will you? Please... let me please you?" His voice was just above a raspy whisper.
She could see the need in his eyes. At that moment, the restraint from tearing the very fabric from her burned behind his questions. But she could also see the hindered fear there. He wanted to love her. Wanted her to allow him to love her, but after all that she had been through he didn't dare cross that boundary without her permission. The single most unselfish thing that a man in HER life had ever asked of her. Her permission.
She reached a hand up sweeping back the dark curtain of hair that hung over his shoulder. "I trust you, John. Just...don't hurt me." The immediate relief that washed over him was as brilliant as the sun. A smile curled the edge of his mouth, and he leaned kissing her forehead with a lingering plant of his lips. "Never." He breathed against her skin.
Almost timidly, he stood from her, removing the pocketed vest and dark shirt he wore, his eyes never leaving her. Between shedding his clothing, he would lean and kiss her. Kiss her face, kiss her neck, trail kisses sweet as kitten paws across her collar bone.
Sean peaked his head in the tent then, his red hair glowing around his silly grinning face. " Johnny, m'boy, wana come with me and Arthur to town and..." It was as far as he got before John turned, pulled his boot and threw it at the man. "Oww! Bloody hell! That's a no then...jesus" He moved away and Lilah couldn't help but laugh out loud at her handsome frustrated Outlaw.
His eyes turned back at her, the irritation melting away with her laughter. Marston's smile was brilliant. "Do it again." He said finishing his clothing and crawling in above her touching her face. She looked at him puzzled. "Laugh, that beautiful sound. Do it again Lilah." He trailed a thumb over her chin. She grinned up at him sheepishly. "You silly man, heh." He was undoing the long trail of buttons on her dress to open it up to him. She giggled at the goofy capturing smile he refused to relinquish until he heard the tinkling sound escape her lips again.
When it did, he kissed her three quick pecks on the mouth, his hands still separating the fabric beneath him. It was the sweetest kind of music to him. So long this smile was missing from her. This bubbling laughter stolen from her voice and hidden away so very far from the light that now shown in her eyes as he held her.
He lay open the dress slipping it off her arms so she lay beneath him naked and warm. Was he dreaming again? The dream had been so real before. He could almost envision the magnificent coy, trailing his fins up the length of her body. But only the white curling S of the scar met his fingertips. He traced it with his fingers. Circling around her breast and zigging down around the dip of her belly button. A tempting treasure trail, pointing to the precious prize below that awaited his touch. He measured her face, and he could see the worry staring to cloud her glimmering eyes.
She had moved to cross herself with her arms to hide the scar, but he stopped her gently, pressing her hands back to the bed with his own. He shook his head slowly. "No, you don't ever hide from me sweetheart. All of you, every bit, is beautiful. Don't you ever think I think otherwise." She relaxed under him again, her thankful eyes meeting his in resisting acceptance.
At first, she had tried to lift up to him. Her old instincts taking over to lead. You live a way so long; you forget what it is like to let someone carry you. No one had ever carried Lilah, not since she was 13. She hadn't even noticed her instincts controlling her until John gently stopped her pressing her again back to the bed. "No baby. Not this time. This time it's all about you."
He took the back of her hand and kissed it, snuggling her knuckles against the fine scars of his face tenderly. She let him command her to be still, and watched as he moved himself between her legs comfortably, so that she lay under him, a content waiting jewel for his taking. It was hard for her to lay motionless. Her hands wanted to reach up and touch him, but each time she tried he would press his palms to her wrists and settle them back by her face.
He kissed her neck line, finally allowing her to lace her fingers through his long hair. He stayed there kissing his way down. Altering from one breast to the other, taking a hardened nipple in his mouth and sucking it gently as if to try and soften it under his tongue. His hands stroked her body, gently kneading her small breasts and sliding along her feverish skin as he traveled. Lilah could feel herself dampen against his loving caress. Feel him lengthen against the heat of her thigh. And he watched her the whole time. Eyes of a sniper, gauging her little face as she closed her eyes beneath his touch.
She felt as his hands reach below opening her legs to him, then trail one long finger along her warm slit. He stayed there a moment, his fingertip finding the swelling bud and circling it slowly. Lilah felt her hands cling to the furs around her, her head thrown back as the feeling blossomed inside her beginning to rumble under his touch. John smirked, satisfied by the sweet purrs he was pulling from her.
His hand traveled lower and Lilah felt herself gasp when he pushed a finger past her folds and thrust it deep inside her. He moved the digit in and out watching her squirm under him, loving the now cinching brows as her wings began to repair beneath the steady touch. "You, ok?" He whispered, kissing the inside of her thigh. She nodded, unable to speak. So, he pushed a second finger inside, still moving slowly allowing her to embrace the invasion.
Her mouth was slightly parted, her breathing increasing with his thrusting hand. "Such a sweet girl." He cooed against the top of her slit kissing her there. She could feel the stubble of his cheeks graze her sensitive skin as he turned his head sideways as if listening to his own thrusts as his hand moved inside her.
He turned his head, nuzzling his nose against her, opening her most sensitive pearl to him and took her into his mouth. There he began to suckle the little bundle, pulling it between his lips and swirling it under his flickering tongue. The speed of his fingers increased as he grazed, pulling the tornado that swirled inside her into a tumbling pitch. He could feel the release moving through her, wanting, needing to come out. She arched into his lips, pressing herself against his face unwillingly urging him to devour her. Dark dilated orbs looked up from below, watching her face twist in lovely concentration, as she rode the waves of pleasure he pulled from her with his mouth and fingers.
Lilah's legs begin to tremble. She felt John as he moved his hand free, and placed both palms on her hips holding her to him unable to escape his fierce tongue. The feeling circled inside her, spreading through her entire body. She reactively tried to buck away, but she felt his fingers press into her sides holding her against his mouth. "Mmm mm" He no'd at her as she slid back against the furs. He would take her to the end of it despite her body's protest.
The release burst through her like white light filling her up. She felt herself erupt against him, a burst of tingles, a blast of crashing blinding waves. Bliss that he drank down, pressing his mouth against her wet folds. His breath was hot as he ravaged her. Licking and lapping and suckling the little mound inside his mouth until she thought she would have to push his shoulders away from her. She called out, screaming his name behind a slur of prayers as the sensation rose her over the bed, over the tent, and beyond to the sky above. Only then did he stop, his breathing coming in short pants, gazing up at her as she found her sense.
Her half-lidded expression was his signal to move. He slid along her body kissing his way up, until he was over her again, his hands on either side of her face kissing the spill of her against her open lips. "I love you... I love you Lilah." He spoke against her mouth. "I love..." She tried to say back, but his kisses would not let her.
He was an animal now. The need for her so strong his forearms shook from holding himself back. "Please?" he begged her now, still kissing her face, tasting her tilted jaw. She nodded again, closing her hands around his shoulders.
John brought himself up, finding her entrance with the tip of him, and slid into her slowly. She arched her back against him, her soft moans whimpering again against his ear. It was like tiny silver bells ringing into his ear drum. She surrounded him. Closing his girth in a warm hug of flesh and silky sweet damp heat. John found himself moan out at the sensation of her all around him.
At last.
He allowed her to adjust to him, she was so tiny he feared the thought of actually breaking her once inside. When she didn't protest, and no pain reflected on her pretty face, he began to move. Slowly at first. Pulling back then filling her and pulling back again. His body rocked hers, the lullaby of their own sounds of ecstasy, circling them both as he moved inside her.
Long legs wound around his waist, allowing him in further and he entered her hungrily pushing deeper and deeper until she could feel his skin flush with hers. He moved faster, wrapping his strong arms under her small shoulders and pulling her into his chest. There he held her against him, rescuing her from the world that threatened to drown her.
She kissed his face, trailing her lips across the little lines that knifed through his jaw. Her mouth found his shoulder tasting it, biting down a little as he moved even faster now. Each thrust pushed her further into the fur. It shook the cot beneath them, the old metal legs raking deep grooves into the earth below.
Lilah felt him shift, raising his pelvis up and at an angle. He reached back, grabbing her thigh with his large hand and holding her body at a tilt so he could fill her more completely. And then, pounded into her.
The gentle slowness disappeared, and he was taking her, claiming her. He pushed hard against her cervix, the tip of him reaching in so far that he kissed it with his length. But not only that. The secret spot inside burst into life, and Lilah opened her eyes with a jolt.
What the hell? She had never felt anything like this before. With all the lovers in the past, even under the cruel touch she had endured, nothing had ever felt like this. The pleasure blanketed over her in a twist of complete euphoria. She saw him look down at her surprise, and a boyish wink reflected back at her. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly how to touch her, and his face was almost smug with the satisfaction that he knew she was his now no matter what her mind may have said. Her body was his alone.
He leaned down latching his lips onto her neck, suckling hard as he thrust into her. Lilah could feel the skin raise under his kiss. The sweet bastard was branding her. If her body hadn't been so lost to him, she would have laughed at his boyish act of claiming.
She could feel him now begin to shudder with the nearing of his own release, but he was holding back still. Why? He came up for air, his mouth just at her ear. Lilah could feel the hot breath on her face. The smell of him pushing into her nose, horses and earth and sweet sweat from their love making. "Come with me Lilah. Together. I want you there with me." His voice was a gentle plea that sent her body into total compliance.
He felt her shiver beneath him, and pushed again and again and again until, he felt her tense around him inside. The sweet spot ringing the pleasure through every cell of her being as he moved.
And they let go.
The intoxication of their dual release like thunder crashing down around them. John cried out, a mixture of grunt and moan. His voice the echo of his elation against her soft shoulder. Lilah too, was a calling cry in the wind, clawing at his back and hugging him into her for dear life as her body quaked below him.
John fell into her, spent. His body, a rapture of warmth and electricity, but he looked up quickly finding her face with his hands. "Are you ok?" He kissed her chin, trying to keep the worry out of his eyes but failing. She giggled, that beautiful laugh against his forehead in a kiss. "I'm more than ok." She said softly brushing the sweaty tendrils of hair from his eyes. His whole body relaxed, and he held her against him still pulsing inside her.
Behind them the tent flap opened again and they turned their heads to the painful light that poured in. There at the entrance stood Dutch. The cigar in his hand twisting ghostly trails up by his curling lips. In his other hand he held John's boot, which he tossed down to the floor at the foot of the cot. He stood there for a moment, the sun glinting off the chains on his black vest just tilting his capped head with a grin. "Well now. John. Miss Preston, "he nodded a greeting. "Seeing as you have taken it upon yourselves to be the camp's new human alarm clock, when you get a moment John, if you would son, come see me in my tent." The older man's eyes were glittering black onyx orbs against the morning light. "My dear." he tipped his head in a knowing goodbye and let the tent flap close back gently.
Lilah and John looked at one another and both chucked into each other's clinging embrace. He pulled from within her and slid beside her pulling her up and onto his chest. "Thank you." he said softly as he stroked her shoulder with a lazy finger. She peered up at him. "For what?" He traced the line of her jaw. "For letting me love you. I do love you Lilah. I think I have from the moment I held you." She buried herself against the soft curls of his chest. "I think I loved you before I even knew who you were, John Marston." she said quietly. "I just had to figure out how to let you love me." She gazed up at him again, and he kissed the little space between her brows. "You don't have to wonder any more. I'm yours. I was always yours. I'll always BE...yours. Don't ever doubt that." His rumbly voice washed over her with the promise filling her with a warmth she had never dreamed to feel. And despite Dutch's impatience which Lilah knew all to well, John was trying as he lay there, to stay with her. For a while at least, he would just hold her. Just cling to her, make sure she was real. Dutch would always be on the other side of that tent. But Lilah, she was a precious thing that not even Dutch could pull John away from. At least....not yet. And he sighed holding her, making up his mind. that this, this right here, was where he always wanted to be.