Chapter 4

Mrs. Mitchell kept Raleigh’s old bedroom as neat and fresh as ever, just like the rest of the house. She even put Raleigh’s clean clothes in here. Raleigh had to come and collect them when she wanted to change.

Raleigh strolled into the room, and the old shade of Bishop’s presence filled her the way it always did. He was still with her. He would never leave her alone. He overflowed out of her heart and soul so she couldn’t love him enough.

She meandered across the foot of the bed. She trailed her fingers over the satin coverlet. Weeks of washing and airing stripped Bishop’s smell from the sheets and pillow covers, but nothing could remove his essence from that bed. That bed would always breathe Bishop into her skin. He filled her up whenever she came near it.

She sensed again his smooth skin stretched over his muscles, his eyes studying her while they kissed, his love occupying her to her deepest limits. Those sheets caressed her skin the way his hands touched her.

She walked away from the bed and came to the side table under the window. A crystal vase sat on the table, and in the darkness around the window, a single rose glowed pink against the glass. Its petals radiated their soft light into the room, and its leaves glowed bright phosphorescent green.

She touched the petals. She couldn’t understand what made that rose so fresh and bright so many weeks after Bishop plucked it for her in the phosphorescent forest in Hinterland. She didn’t question it. She only thanked whatever magic worked inside it that she could still admire it and remember.

She backed away until her knees touched the bed, and she sat down. She kept her eyes on that rose, and the memories and emotions flooded back. They closed over her head and dragged her back to the days when Bishop still lived in this house. He made her so mad she hated him. He first took her to Hinterland and they fought side by side to accomplish their mission.

He was still here. He was still with her. She felt his hands and tasted his kiss and smelled his scent. He was everything she ever loved. She could never feel this way about Dax or anybody else. No one would ever consume her to the point of obsession.

She gazed at the rose. It sang her its song of the night she spent with Bishop in the cave lit up with glow worms. It told her the story she knew so well of Bishop kissing her bare skin and falling between his legs.

In front of her eyes, the bedroom door opened, and Bishop walked in the way he did so many times before. His black frock coat swished its tails around his knees. His shoulders stuck out square and strong under his clothes, and his gold watch chain swung with his movements from his waistcoat pockets.

His gun belts hugged his hips, and his black pants made a crisp straight line down his legs to his polished boots. His dark mustache curved down over his mouth. Just looking at him filled Raleigh’s heart to bursting.

He crossed the room the way he always did to stand with his back to the fireplace. He looked around the room, but he didn’t see her. He looked out the window and studied the rose. Raleigh sat on the bed and let the whole scene play out in her imagination. She memorized every detail so she would never lose one particle of him.

He took his notebook out of his pocket and rifled the pages. He scribbled notes on a blank page in the back before tucking the book into his coat pocket. Raleigh held her breath and waited for the moment she knew came next.

After several minutes, he cruised across the room to stand in front of her by the bed. His eyes settled on her face like he just noticed her there for the first time. He studied her face and her hair and her clothes, but he didn’t say anything.

Raleigh gazed up at him in loving awe. She would do anything for him. He had only to speak and command her, but she already knew what he wanted. He wanted her to love him, and she couldn’t love him any more than she already did.

He raised one hand. He pushed a stray curl off her forehead and dragged his fingertips down her cheek. His touch sent an electric thrill through her, but she didn’t move. She didn’t dare breath.

He traced the curve of her neck down to her shirt collar. Raleigh froze, but he never worked that fast in his life. He touched the first button but didn’t open it. He stroked back up her cheek to lay his warm palm against her head.

She rested her cheek in his hand. Her feelings overwhelmed her so much she turned her mouth aside and kissed his hand. His eyes glistened above her. She gasped out loud for breath against the sheer intensity of her love for him.

She pressed his hand to her mouth. She kissed up his palm to his wrist and over his knuckles. She adored him beyond comprehension, and he was here. He was all hers for one precious night.

She laid his hand back against her cheek, and he held her there while he bent down to kiss her. His mustache tickled her nose when his lips touched her. He smelled of tobacco and cologne, but his lips collapsed soft and warm against her mouth.

That kiss washed over her, all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. It electrified every nerve to the breaking point. She lost focus on his face, but his kiss came stronger, more certain.

He eased closer. His legs prodded her knees apart and he stepped between them. Her pussy sobbed open when she spread her legs to let him in. She melted all over for him touching her whole body.

Her rough clothes no longer fit her. Her body luminesced under her cotton shirt and canvas pants. Her breasts tingled to touch the fabric. She wanted him to take her clothes off and touch her instead. She wanted him to find all the sensitive spots all over her and awaken them to new life.

How long had she lived without his touch? Three hours? Three days? Three years? She couldn’t remember. He just walked in the door, and now he was kissing her in the way that told her what he really intended to do.

She gave herself up to him with no reservations. Her mouth opened to let his tongue in. She matched that kiss with her own delicious desire. She slithered her tongue all around his, and she leaned her head back and wrapped her arms around his neck.

He fell forward on top of her, and they landed together across her bed. That bed swallowed Raleigh in the delirious pleasure of Bishop’s presence. His body tensed on top of her, and she softened even further to receive him. Her legs parted, and she clasped her ankles behind his back.

He rocked from side to side to drive his hard crotch between her legs. She moaned into his mouth. He caressed her hair out of her face, and his body rippled down her to his knees between her thighs.

Her wetness dampened her pants and excited her even more. His hard cock stuck through his pants to touch her raw pussy. The aching need of his absence burst its banks. She needed him now. She had to devour him while she had the chance.

He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. She gazed deep into the black depths, beyond the part of him she knew and loved to the blackness out of sight. She could study him forever and never learn everything that made him tick.

Did he see the same thing when he looked back at her? He stared in wide-eyed wonder to the bottom of her being. Did he understand her in ways she couldn’t understand herself, or did he find her mysterious and unfathomable the way she found him?

He delivered small pecks to her mouth, small circling kisses that drove her mad, while he wound his hips between her legs. He tormented her cunt with his hardness, but he would never hurry. He took his time with her. He nudged her higher with every move he made to drive her to her highest climaxes.

At last, he kissed down her jawline to her neck. He nibbled behind her ear and dragged his tongue down to her shirt collar. He propped himself up on his elbow and gazed into her eyes while he unbuttoned her shirt.

His eyes asked the questions, and she answered them with her adoring expression. Was she ready for this? Was she prepared for the places he would take her? He asked that when he first took her to Hinterland, but she never imagined he would bring her to this, to this panting, quivering ecstasy at his touch.

She gloried in every button he unfastened. Her breasts seethed under her shirt. She wanted his hands on them, his mouth sucking them. She wanted him kissing down her bare stomach to her crotch, his hot saliva joining her wetness to drive her insane.

He watched to gauge her reaction to his work. He unbuttoned her vest and her shirt, but he didn’t dive inside right away. He trailed his fingertips down her sternum to her navel until she shuddered and quaked in agony. Her eyes drifted closed, and she swallowed to moisten her parched throat. She needed him, but she couldn’t hurry him by wanting it. He had to take his time and enjoy her.

He tickled across her collarbone and eased the shirt back. It slithered over her bare nipple, and she thought she would die. He laid the shirt open to inspect her alabaster chest. He circled his expert fingers around her nipples until they stood to attention. They pointed up at him in all their erect need.

He bent over and kissed the heaving mound of flesh above her waistband. He buried his face in her stomach, and she embraced him against her warm skin. She combed her fingers through his hair. He knew exactly how much she wanted him.

He rested his ear against her navel, and one powerful hand glided up her thigh between her legs. He brought his fingers in hard against her crotch, and she heaved and writhed at the pressure. He rubbed her clit in quick circles through her pants, and the steamy juice gushed out to sting her lips.

She bucked her hips against his hand. His face infused its warmth from her belly into her crotch. God, if he would only take her, she would die of happiness.

The night darkened outside the window, and the rose shone brighter across the room. Raleigh’s staring eyes came to rest on it. It sang of her desire, of the fulfillment of her deepest longing in Bishop. Every time she saw that rose, she would remember this moment. She would relive it again and again, without end.

He inched his head to one side, just enough to guide his mouth to her breast. He closed around her nipple and sucked it between his teeth. Raleigh exploded into a frenzy of thrashing and whining. She crushed his head against her chest and shoved her breast into his mouth.

His arms closed around her, and all the calculated erotic slowness of a moment before fell away from him. He attacked her in ravenous possession. He flicked her pants open, and his hand plunged into the spongy vacuum.

Her nectar surrounded his fingers in silky lubrication, but his hard fingers found the soft places where her desire sprang to life. He buried his two thick fingers in her channel while his palm compressed her clit.

She bucked hard against that hand while his teeth tormented her nipple. She couldn’t get away, but she didn’t want to. She wanted more, and more again. She wanted a thousand times more than this.

She grabbed his shoulders and wrestled him this way and that, but she could never budge that iron frame. He could stand anything she threw at him. Far from shrinking from her desires, he spurred them to greater heights.

She needed him. She needed all of him. He wouldn’t stop what he was doing. She had no choice but to do it for him. She shucked her pants down and kicked them off the bed. She shrugged off her shirt and started on his coat, but he ripped himself away from her. He yanked his hand out of her pants and snatched her wrist away.

He pinned her wrist to the bed while he rose onto his knees. He held her hands out of the way and scooted down the bed to taste her heavenly cocktail moistening her slit. His tongue aroused her so much more than his hands. His tongue shot her full of mind-blowing heat. His saliva warmed her thighs until she couldn’t stand it.

She rode his face to ecstasy convulsions, and he drove her skyward with his fingers delving to her depths. He stirred her fruity honey to gush down her ass, and his knuckles banged her clit to a throbbing nub.

She fought against his hands, but he wouldn’t let her go until he brought her within a hair’s breadth of the biggest climax of her life. He buried his face in her snatch and watched her over her heaving body. She gasped and glared at him, but she couldn’t stop him.

All of a sudden, he reared back and got up on his knees. He kept his eyes locked on her writhing naked form stretched out on the bed. He ripped off his coat, his vest, and his shirt so his bare chest spread over her.

She put out her hands to touch him, but he stood too tall above her, just beyond her reach. He yanked his belt open, and she watched with wide eyes while he slipped his pants down his hips. His cock erupted out to jab the air.

She undulated over the bedspread while she waited for him. He was coming for her. She couldn’t deny that. She wanted him so bad, he electrified her beyond belief in all his grandeur.

He kicked his pants and boots away and came down on his hands and knees above her. Now, at last, she could touch him. She stroked down his chest to the washboard muscle of his stomach. She caressed farther down to the dangerous shaft sticking out of his dark hair.

Her hands closed around it, and she steered it between her legs, but he refused to descend into her. He knelt above her and kissed her while she stroked him up and down. She massaged his balls and ass, but she couldn’t induce him to come any closer.

He hovered above her, dropping by degrees until she just barely brushed her own hair with his cock. He hung so near and so hard and so enticing, she couldn’t stand it. He came a little closer, and she rubbed his cock over her engorged tissues.

She whined and contorted. She entreated him with her eyes to come closer, to slide into her and end her long misery, but he wouldn’t come. He observed the madness rising out of her soul.

She groaned in anguish. Oh, please, God, let him come. She almost burst into tears when he eased down the rest of the way. His chiseled bulk closed over her skin, and his cock glided through her wetness to the dripping cavern waiting for it.

She pushed it in and sighed in satisfaction. At last! She wrapped her whole self around him. She couldn’t get him close enough. She wanted to cover every part of him with her flesh.

He enfolded her in his arms, and his mouth filled her with his kisses. His cock slotted all the way in to the hilt, and his nuts fitted into the crease of her ass. She split apart to receive him, and she rotated her hips to wind her juices into every crevice.

The moment he got inside, he rocked his hips to weasel his prick farther in. His bones thumped her quivering cunt, and her juices squished around his shaft. She wanted it so much she worked him in farther still. He matched her movements to begin a pulsing rhythm driving her onward.

Oh, that thickness filling her up answered all her prayers. She followed all the movements of his cock sliding out to niggle her entrance and then thrusting in to spread her apart once again.

She stared up at his blurry face, so close, so all-consuming, so passionate, but she saw the fiery intrusion of his meat into her depths. It pounded into her cervix, dragged over her G spot, and gooshed through her juices.

The faster he pumped, the quicker she met him coming down. They ascended to dizzying speed on that irresistible rhythm. She no longer saw anything in front of her but that rose burning in the night. It brought her orgasm closer. It was her orgasm.

Bishop pushed himself up on his powerful arms. He towered over her and glared down at her from his inscrutable height. His long hair swept around his face, and his teeth showed between his lips. His breath rasped at every pounding stroke of his cock into her.

She jammed her heels into the bed against those withering blasts, but every penetration pumped her full of Earth-shattering rapture. She inhaled her orgasm creeping closer with every beat.

His eyes blazed, and a feral roar broke from his tortured throat. All at once, he exploded out of his skin. His chest split apart so fast, the eruption flung Raleigh’s hands aside. His shoulders peeled back, and the shaggy, snarling wolf burst through the rent. It rose massive and disgusting above her.

Bishop’s head caved open, and a snout full of dripping fangs stretched out to snap and slash. Wild eyes swept the room, and clawed talons ripped the rest of Bishop away to nothing.

Raleigh cried out in horror and surprise, but the wolf already pounced on her with renewed energy. He lunged on top of her, and the cock slithering out of his middle wormed into her crotch. It found her wet and warm and inviting.

Before she could stop it, the wolf bent over her in all his rabid animal lust. He crouched on top of the bed. His legs crooked the wrong way, his spine arched, and his hips pumped his bestial prick through her insides. That dripping spike excited and horrified her all at the same time.

Through it all, her mind registered the one inexorable fact. This was Bishop. This was as much Bishop as the handsome gentleman who always came to her room. In the throes of his passion, he changed into a raging animal, and she craved him this way, too.

His hairy body scraped her sensitive skin. His fangs snarled in her face and threatened to rip her to shreds. His clawed paws held her down while he pumped her full of his animal meat. His sharp prick stabbed her harder than ever. It thrust so deep it hurt, but that pain only catapulted her to the stars.

She craned her head back to welcome the crushing orgasm rumbling over her. She caved her body asunder to take him as deep as he would go. The wolf howled into her ears, and his cock injected its burning cocktail through her insides.

She could barely fathom the enormity of the climax rushing at her a mile a minute. She did her best to brace herself, but she couldn’t contain it. It pressed against her skin from the inside to crack her shell apart.

At the last second before she tumbled over the breaking wave of that massive peak, the wolf threw back his head and let out a gut-wrenching shriek. His head whipped in every direction. At that moment, the window behind the rose burst open. The two panes slammed back against the wall, and a mighty wind sucked through the casement.

The wind yanked the wolf off her so fast his barbed prick tore out of her swollen pussy. The wolf crashed into the window casement before the hurricane wind sucked him through into the pitch black night.

Raleigh lay spread out on the bed stark naked and stared at the scene in stunned shock. Through it all, the rose never moved. The wind never even ruffled its leaves. The window panes slammed closed, and the latch slotted down into place to leave the room in peace.

Raleigh bolted off the bed. The room stood still and quiet, with no sign Bishop had ever been there. She wore her old clothes. Even her gun belts still rested in their places around her hips. The coverlet under her rumpled where she’d fallen asleep.

The whole room remained as it had been for the last seven weeks. Bishop wasn’t here, and he wasn’t coming back.