Page 37 of Moonshine Lullabies

“Now, Ms. Hettie,” he fretted.

I barked at him, “Go! There’re men dyin’ that need you a damn sight more ‘n me!”

He backed away, flustered, and Hal, the boy who helped me most of the time, said, “Doc was just tryin’ to help, Ms. Rogan. We all are… we’s worried.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You don’t look fine, Miss,” Georgina Robbins, a field nurse like myself, stammered out.

I looked up at them both and Georgina went on, “We ain’t seen nothing like that afore, Miss.” She indeed sounded scared, scared ofme…

“What are you talking about?” I asked wearily, adjusting my skirts. “Been doing it for weeks now.”

“N-n-not like that,” Hal countered, and I shook my head, my vision trying to waver on me.

“Not like what?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow and far away. I tried to stand, to walk it off, but I suddenly felt jerked left of center and then I was falling, falling for what felt like forever through clouds and gossamer curtains.

I swear, it was like I was falling through worlds… and I didn’t know what to make of that…

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

Collier…

I listened to her read and she was good at it. A little uncertain to start, but then the story caught her as much as it’d caught me and she read from the point of view of a civil war nurse with some kind of faith healing power to her. About how she’d healed Cain Golden but how it’d took too much out of her and she passed out cold. Of the dream she had of her dead husband, executed for bein’ a Union spy, but surprise, surprise! Hettie was too.

I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going, not fully, but this Philips woman knew how to spin a tale and I was genuinely lookin’ forward to finding out.

She finished Hettie’s short chapter. I picked up Cain’s and found it was the chapter from the first time I’d taken the book from her and I was glad to be caught up.

Seemed ol’ Cain had some kind of mystical powers of his own, but everyone – from us to the characters themselves – weren’t sure why for or what all was goin’ on. Not yet, anyway, but I was for sure lookin’ forward to findin’ out.

I only made it a little way into the chapter before recognizing she was deeply asleep against my chest, her breath soft and warm with its even cadence, the rise and fall of her back and ribs beneath my arm as telltale a sign as any. I hugged her a little tighter and pressed my lips to her hair, breathing her in and relishing the feel of the soft strands against my lips.

I closed my eyes after marking the book with my finger and let the sound of her soft breath lull me some. It was nice, but I couldn’t sleep sitting up like this. I mean, Icould, but I would pay for it like a motherfucker the next morning. She stirred when I marked the book proper, and took my arm from around her to set it aside, back on the table behind her.

“Shh, you’re good,” I murmured. “Everything’s all good.”

She went limp with relief against me and I strained a bit to reach behind her and switch off the lamp. She sat up and let me scoot down and adjust the pillows so they were beneath my head comfortably.

“Come on back now,” I whispered in the dark and pulled her down to lay her head and her hand back on my chest.

It was a sweet type of torture having her so close and yet not knowing if it was too soon or if it’d be alright to touch.

She threw one of her legs over mine, her thigh along my waist, and I couldn’t resist, dipping my free hand beneath the blankets to palm the outside of her thigh.

She moaned out softly, and I felt her push off of me, and then her petal soft lips were on mine.

Fuck,she tasted amazing – earthy and sweet from the tea with honey she’d drunk earlier. I gripped her thigh firmly with my hand and I knew that if it didn’t telegraph my desire for her to her, the fact that my cock jumped and filled with blood, pressing hard and hot through my sweats to the inside of her thigh certainly would.

I didn’t expect her to push up off of me, tearing her lips from mine, just so she could adjust and straddle me completely. My hands slipped along her hips, over her panties, beneath the hem of her tee. Her lips found mine in the dark again, only this time she kissed me with more intensity, her tongue flicking against my lips, begging for entry.

I let one hand leave her hip to cup her face and hold her long hair back from our faces on one side. I opened my mouth to her, and she boldly plunged her tongue past my lips and teeth into my mouth.

I thought I would lose my mind from that alone but then she ground her hips and I let out a shuddering groan that she swiftly swallowed, a sweet, answering moan of her own entering my mouth and causing me to rock my hips up to meet her next downward grind.

Fuck, she rendered me breathless with how lithely she moved in the dark above me and I was just about to make a move, my hand already sliding up under the back of her shirt and down the back of her panties to grip her ass, when across the hall and down, we both heard Tate’s bedroom door open.

It was like a bucket of cold water was thrown over her and she rolled off of me to one side just as the bathroom door shut.

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