She Fought Back
Kitty awoke cold and shivering in the dark. Her thin, sleeveless gown was pushed up around her waist, and the dampness between her legs reminded her of what had happened earlier in the night. She pulled the gown down around her ankles and curled into a ball, her mind going over the incidents of the previous evening.
A slight snore turned her towards the other side of the bed, and her mind filled with wrath. She took a long look in the dim light from the window at the shadowed form lying next to her, wrapped in a cocoon of quilts. Kitty Russell was no coward and no quitter. With one sudden hard yank she pulled the covers away and laid both her icy feet on the firmly rounded posterior of the man lying next to her.
He woke with a shout. "Damn it, Kitty, you didn't have to do that!"
"I sure as hell did, Dillon. You just look at what you've done."
Matt sat up and examined the situation as best he could. "You threw the covers off again."
She was contemptuous. "Threw the covers off! I didn't have any covers to throw off, you pestilent toad. You had every one of them wrapped around you like a baby's bunting."
"Well, you could have just told me. I would have shared." His voice was still irritated, but just a touch embarrassed as well.
"It's my bed, fella, and if you have any intention of continuing to sleep in it, you better learn to share those quilts without being asked."
The big man scooted over to the center of the bed and unrolled the bedding from around him, wrapping both it and his arms around the shivering woman. "You really are cold, Kitty," he told her remorsefully. "I'm sorry, honey."
Kitty snuggled close to him, laying her cold nose against his chest and tangling her freezing feet between his warm legs. "It's not the first time, Matt," she scolded.
"Well, I'm used to wrapping the blankets around me when I'm sleeping out on the trail," he protested faintly.
"You sleep naked out on the trail, do ya?" she asked. "And you carry a couple of pillows in your saddlebag?"
"You know I don't." he grunted. He had been hogging both pillows –one under his head and one pulled against his chest.
She was beginning to warm up now, and to feel more forgiving. "Then you just remember it that way, Matt Dillon. If you're naked then you have to share the covers. If you've got your clothes on, then they're all yours."
"What if I'm naked in someone else's bed?" he asked, chuckling.
"Well, then at least she'll know I trained you right," Kitty replied, but added darkly, "But I better never find out about it, lawman, or there might be a murder, and it might just be yours."
"Aw, Kitty, you know I'm just teasin' you."
"You better be," she said with a scowl he couldn't see but could hear in her voice.
Choosing the better part of valor, he tucked the covers in behind her and rubbed his open hands over her back and bottom. "I'm sorry, Kitty," he told her contritely, "I'll try not to do that again."
She hummed softly into his shoulder, wiggling herself tighter against his warm skin. "Better now?" he asked low and tender a few minutes later.
Kitty nodded against him, and his hands cupped her bottom possessively. "You, uh, want to… ?"
It was her turn to laugh now, soft and throaty. "No, Matt. You just go back to sleep, and I'll lie here and defend my property."
"Your property?"
"The covers. What did you think I meant?"
She felt his lips against her hair. "You're a spunky little thing, aren't ya?"
"You ever seen me fight?"
"I've seen you fight. And we sure don't need any of that right now. Go to sleep, honey."
Warm and safe in his arms, she did just that.