He that is not jealous is not in love. ~St. Augustine The barn door was slightly ajar as Kid approached to visit his favorite horse, Katy. The sound of Cody's voice mentioning Lou's name just inside the barn caused him to pause and, without thinking, listen. "Come on, Hickok, you can't drop a bombshell like that about you and Lou, and then leave us hangin'," Cody said, laughing. "I'm sorry I said anything. I ain't about to kiss and tell, so quit asking." Kid was frozen. That was Jimmy talking. Talking about his Lou. The two of them may have gone their separate ways and decided to be just friends, but Kid knew standing there listening to this, that just the same in his heart she was still "his". "So there was a kiss involved? That all, Jimmy? We all know she gave up a lot more to Kid, you telling me all you got was a little peck?" Cody jibed. Jimmy's voice, angry now, rose to a shout, over the sound of someone, likely Cody, being shoved backwards against the feed bin with a clatter. "That's enough, Cody. So help me, if I ever hear you say anything disrespectful about Lou again, it'll be the last words you say, you got it?" Buck's and Noah's voices joined in, trying to calm a furious Jimmy. Kid, feeling as if he were walking underwater, dizzily rounded the corner of the barn and leaned back against it, shutting his eyes and trying to calm down. Moments later, Jimmy stomped from the barn, mounted Sundancer, and thundered off into the distance. The rest of the riders emerged sheepishly from the door, not noticing Kid leaning silently against the barn. "What did I say?" Cody said, mystified. The other two riders looked at him in amazement. "You insulted Lou's virtue, that's what, Cody." "So what?" Cody said. "What should Jimmy care how we talk about her? And I didn't say anything that isn't true, anyway." "Maybe it bothers Jimmy a lot more than you realize that Lou was with Kid that way," Noah said. "Couple things he's let slip since I been here, I get the feeling that he wishes it was him and not Kid she'd picked to be with the first time. And I think he still has some feelings for her. You making light of that, well, you see how he reacted. I'd stay off the topic of what happened between him and Lou last week, if I was you." Kid heard Buck's voice next. "I think that's good advice for all of us. It isn't any business of ours anyway," he added. Just as Buck stopped speaking, Rachel shouted to them to come and take her in to town for supplies. The three groaned but obeyed, riding off beside Rachel's wagon in short order. Kid wasn't sure what exactly "happened" between Lou and Jimmy, but he glanced toward the bunkhouse, where all of them had left Lou behind. She had come in from a double run last night and was so tired she slept in her bunk through breakfast. Rachel had shooed all of them from the bunkhouse to let Lou sleep in, leaving the breakfast dishes still on the table. He stormed toward the bunkhouse, intending to get to the bottom of this, now. As Kid approached the bunkhouse, his anger and jealousy grew, consuming him, and by the time he reached the door, he was in an uncharacteristic rage. He flung open the door and saw Lou standing by the table in her long johns, sleepily starting to clear the breakfast dishes for Rachel. She turned, surprised at his crazed appearance. "Kid?" she said, perplexed. "What's wrong?" Kid slammed the door shut behind him, rattling the walls. "Why don't you tell me, Lou? Something happen between you and Jimmy last week I should know about?" he found himself shouting, the blood pounding in his head. She stared back, still confused, until realization dawned. "Who told you about that?" Lou asked, low. "Never mind who told me. What's important is, just how far did you let it go?" "What's that supposed to mean?" Lou snapped, getting angry now. "And for that matter, what business is it of yours?" "You letting him touch you is my business, because you're mine, understand?" Kid shouted again. "Is that so? Did you keep the bill of sale, Kid? Cause far as I know, I ain't ever been your property," she shouted back. "And in case you forgot, you walked away from me and started seeing other people first, so you got some nerve telling me who can touch me and who can't." "So this is payback, then? You went out of your way to pick the one person to hurt me the most, my best friend, to pay me back?" Lou was bristling with anger at Kid's outrageous words; but still the uncharacteristic sight of him, panting and red-faced with fury, yet with his hardened arousal readily visible in his pants, sent other sensations through her as well. To her astonishment, the angrier and more unreasonable and excited he became, the more aroused she felt in return. He still wanted her, still loved her beyond reason, that was clear, and she found herself growing wet and hot and tingling with desire for him, her hardened nipples pushing her thin long john shirt in sharp points, her own breath coming faster along with his. "Kid, no one was trying to hurt you, you idiot. It was nothing, a kiss, that's all." "Who stopped it from going further, you or him? Who stopped it?" She muttered sullenly, "We got interrupted." Lou had never seen Kid this angry at her before, hadn't thought the gentle soul had it in him. But at her defiant response, his rage incredibly seemed to double. Kid advanced on her, backing her against the table, growling in her face. "So I was right about you all along. You always wanted him, not me, didn't you," he accused. "I was never unfaithful to you, Kid, never. Don't you dare accuse me of that," she screamed back, her face flushed with anger… and something else too. "You always have to have everything your way, don't you? It wasn't enough I gave myself to you, that I loved you. I had to change, be what you wanted, when you wanted, and when I couldn't you walked out and threw my love away. You can't have it both ways, Kid. You can't stop loving me and then expect me to stay faithful to your memory forever." "Damn it, Lou, I never wanted to change you, just keep you safe. And who ever said I stopped loving you? You wanted your freedom, I gave it to you. How do you think I've felt, seeing you every day, knowing I didn't make you happy? But if you think I'm going to stand by and watch you give yourself to another man, you're crazy. I won't have it, you hear me?" Kid grasped her by back of her neck and yanked her to him violently, forcing her mouth open with his, and kissed her hard, insistently, intimately. She found herself gasping for breath, but managed to pull her head away and snarl back, "What's the alternative, Kid? What do you want from me?" Kid's coarse, furious response both surprised and excited her. "I want to fuck you until you can't think about any other man, till you can't even think of anything except my name, that's what," he said through gritted teeth, reaching behind her with one hand and jerking the heavy table up, sending the dishes to the floor with a crash, and dropping it down again with a thud. In a rapid movement he hoisted her up on the table's edge. Lou hissed back, "Think you're man enough, Mr. Southern Gentleman?" while lifting her backside up off the table edge to wriggle out of her long john bottoms. She gripped the side of the table with one hand, and grabbed a fistful of his hair with the other, wrenching him down on top of her. "I never said I was a gentleman, Lou. I'm just poor white trash, maybe you need to see what that means for yourself," Kid said heatedly, unbuttoning his pants and freeing his erection, nearly purple with arousal and already glistening with semen oozing from the tip. "No more talking! No more, just show me who's the man here, you or me, will you? I want you to show me," she shrieked, even as he gripped her ankles and jerked her legs back and apart, before shoving himself into her. She suppressed a scream at his sudden but welcome entry, before shifting her weight slightly to better receive his powerful thrusts and meet them with her own wild, violent bucking against him. She felt waves of pleasure and excitement washing over her as they writhed and pounded at each other on the very table where their Express family had sat peacefully just that morning at breakfast. Somehow Lou managed to sit up and reach Kid with her hands as he continued to slam into her fast and hard, leaving her breathless. She clawed and even bit at him, finally reaching around to pull at his taught bottom and draw him with digging fingernails into herself greedily. But very soon sensations of pleasure took over, and as she climaxed, he rolled her onto her back and bent her legs to rest her feet over his shoulders. Gripping her on either side of her hips, he thrust into her deeply, over and over. Their lovemaking before breaking up had been passionate in its way, but Kid always seemed to hold back somehow, to focus on her pleasure almost too much. He always used to be almost eerily quiet until the moment of his own release. Today Lou was astonished and completely overcome, partly from the pleasurable feel of his forceful movements into her wet, willing body; but even more from the sight of him loudly grunting and moaning, focused for the first time on his own pleasure, his eyes glazed over with lust and jealousy and anger. His groans turned into shouting her name, as he drew close to his climax, slamming into her still harder and faster. With each powerful thrust the table moved several inches across the floor until it hit the wall, and started rocking upwards instead with each motion he made into her. Lou couldn't recognize the Kid she held between her legs, more animal than man, abandoning himself completely in seemingly uncontrollable emotions. She realized dimly through her own breathless orgasm, that he was close to climax, but that he was so out of control that he might not pull out like he always had when they made love before. At that moment, Lou herself was beyond caring even if they made a baby; insanely, all she wanted was to see his face as he came inside her, to feel his hot seed shooting through her. She dug her nails again into his buttocks and ground herself against him as close as she could, and was rewarded when he called her name a final time and released himself into her. A moment later, sweating and heaving for breath, Kid turned his head and gently kissed the inside of her ankle, rubbing his cheek against her tenderly, before his eyes moved slowly to hers. Both had tried their damnedest over the last weeks to pretend they could manage being "just friends"; now they stared, unmoving from their positions, into each others' widened, stunned eyes, neither knowing what on earth they should do or say… now that they had laid all their cards on the table. Email Ellie TYR EXPRESSions Home