Page 34 of Coyote
His arm stayed steady against my teeth. His other hand returned to my face, moving the cloth along my jaw while I held him in my mouth.
The pressure helped. So did the heat of him against my tongue. His pulse beat beneath my lips, slow and alive. I closed my eyes and focused on that, and it soothed something in me I didn't know needed soothing.
He washed my throat. My shoulders. The blood from my hands.
When he reached my hair, he moved behind me and guided me down to sit on the floor between his legs. I kept my teeth in his arm while he poured warm water over my head. Blood ran out of my hair and down my chest. John worked his fingers against my scalp, untangling the strands without pulling, his big thighs bracketing my shoulders. I put one hand around his ankle and held on.
He kept washing me until the water ran clear. Then I opened my mouth and released him. The marks of my teeth stayed in his skin.
John rubbed his thumb across the marks. "Better?"
"Yes."
He set the cloth aside and gathered my wet hair at the back of my neck. I leaned my head against his thigh. For a while, neither of us moved.
"I left you," I said.
John's hand stopped in my hair.
"I rode off, and they came through the gate while I was gone."
"They gave you a trail because they knew you would follow it. You were checking the fence. That was your job."
I ran my thumb over the marks I'd left above his wrist. "I should've known."
"How?"
"I don't know."
John's hand slid from my hair to the back of my neck. "You didn't do anything wrong, Coyote. You were just doing your job, and you came for me as soon as you knew."
"After they had you."
"Before they killed anybody."
"They could've."
"They didn't."
"Because you stopped them."
I turned enough to look up at him. "You were supposed to be in the bunkhouse."
"I know."
"I went there first."
"I moved into the shed."
"Without telling me."
"Yes."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Cruz knew," he said. "I told myself that was enough. It wasn't. I should have told you directly."
"Why didn't you?"
