Skip My Rounds Tonight

by Lilyjack

Chapter 2

or

"Underwear is Overrated"

Kitty quickly called, "Two beers, Red," uttering her thanks when he delivered them with a wink and a smile. Giving the polished wood a cursory swipe with his towel, Red then returned to his cigar-smoking friend at the end of the bar. Their conversation had become louder and more boisterous as time went on, and the smoker had increased his consumption of top shelf spirits. Evidently the man had greenbacks lining his pockets.

Matt and Kitty faced the bar, drinking their foamy brew, inhaling its yeasty scent. Very daringly but completely unable to resist, Matt unobtrusively reached out and casually lay his hand on Kitty's back again as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Tracing the curve gently, he slipped his big hand on around her small waist and gave it a little appreciative squeeze, feeling nothing there but smooth satin and 100 percent pure Kitty Russell, by golly.

She cut her eyes up at him, realizing that she'd been found out. Murmuring quietly so that Red and his customer couldn't hear, she offered, "Matt Dillon, it's hotter'n a firecracker on the Fourth of July. And there's hardly anybody in here to know I'm not wearing a buncha hot ladies' unmentionables." She shot him a little frown. "Leave it to a lawman to figure it out."

He gave her the smallest of crooked smiles as his voice raised a notch and cracked. "I didn't say a word." But he didn't remove his hand from her warm, yielding waist either. His blue eyes drank her in but it was with a new appreciation.

She cut her eyes up at him again. "You men just don't understand what with all the sweltering layers ladies have to wear…the shifts and the boned corsets and the corset covers and the petticoats and that bustle…"

Matt took a deep draw of his cool beer and swallowed, wiping the foam off his upper lip with the back of his hand. "None of that for you tonight, huh?" He never took his gaze off her.

"No," she answered grumpily, then looked at him in alarm. "You won't go telling Chester and Doc, will you?" She grabbed a pretzel from a nearby bowl on the bar and bit down hard, chewing as she exclaimed, "Heavens sakes, those two would—"

"What do you take me for, Kitty? I'm not a blabbermouth like Chester. Your secret's safe with me." He raised two dark brows and added conspiratorially, "A girl's gotta right to be cool now, doesn't she?"

"You bet she does. And don't get me started on pantaloons." Her blue eyes glittered as she continued chewing on her pretzel with zest. "Ain't that a pretty name for some long, uncomfortable, sticky…"

Matt choked on his beer and finished for her, sputtering "…drawers?"

"Nuh-uh, too damn hot…" She grabbed another pretzel. "You want another beer? I'm thirsty. Red, can we have another? The Marshal's buyin'."

The U.S. Marshal's ears turned pink at the tips at the implication of their enlightening conversation. He was mortified that his own body began to betray him and react to that particular news in a most distracting way. He removed his hat and casually held it in front of his button fly as Kitty continued her diatribe of women's fashion, completely unaware of his discomfort.

"How on earth are women supposed to work or simply exist comfortably—"

Matt shushed her by unceremoniously sticking another pretzel in her mouth when Red delivered their beers. They both said their thanks, watching him walk away over the tops of their mugs as they drank deeply.

When they heard the conversation at the end of the bar resume, Kitty licked the foam from her upper lip and picked up where she had left off. "…with all those clothes on, tell me that? Matt, do you have any idea what a corset does to a woman's insides? No wonder so many ladies are sickly or have always got the vapors, fainting dead away at the slightest little thing. Men have them all trussed up like chickens, baking in the heat."

Not even drawers…Matt sighed to himself, gazing at her, beautiful even when fit to be tied. That was one of the things he liked about her so awful much. Kitty was a pistol alright. She could handle most of the roughnecks who came through those swinging doors all by herself. She was no delicate flower. She had spirit and grit and determination and he admired her for that.

But right now, her brow damp with perspiration and a look of fire in her eyes as she gave society and their expectations of how women should dress a piece of her mind, all Matt could think about was the fact that Kitty Russell was not wearing drawers. Or a corset. Or much of anything presently. He nodded his head at her statements and murmured his agreement from time to time, but his eyes were captivated by a bead of sweat that languidly trickled down her chest and threatened to disappear between her breasts, although she caught it just in time with a dainty lace handkerchief. Her unbound breasts, Matt swallowed as he reminded himself, and he retrieved his handkerchief from his pocket to dab at his own sweat pooling in the hollow below his Adam's apple.

Kitty suddenly paused in her diatribe and took another long draw from her glass. She observed him mopping the wet skin at his throat and smiled, her face instantaneously changing from bad-tempered to sunny and perhaps a little impish. "I see it was a three-button day for you, Marshal."

"Three…?" Matt asked, perplexed and, truth be told, still utterly distracted with provocative thoughts of his companion. "Uh, button…?"

He watched, entranced as she leaned closer until he was witness to an intoxicating view of her distinctly untrussed, pillowy bosom. His extreme height held more than its share of advantages.

"Marshal Dillon, you're a very buttoned up kinda lawman, you know."

"I, uh…I am?" He heroically attempted to focus his eyes on her face while she was speaking to him, but his gaze kept mutinously drifting down to her lovely womanly attributes, a problem he frequently found himself confronted with whenever they were together. Her lavish figure was often a powerful personal distraction, albeit a thoroughly pleasurable one, if he were to be totally honest. He just couldn't help himself. He was only a flesh and blood man, after all.

"Yes, you certainly are, almost always buttoned near to the top." Her arresting blue eyes were twinkling mischievously at him, and between her disarming, beguiling smile that could tempt a preacher man and the creamy, curvy expanses of damp, fragrant skin disorienting him right here this very minute, Matt Dillon thought his head might explode. And he wasn't rightly sure which one would come first either, by golly.

"Maybe I notice when a handsome marshal leaves a couple extra shirt buttons undone." She winked at him playfully as she placed a slender index finger on a button right in the middle of his chest. "And when he leaves that damn vest off." Raising a meaningful eyebrow, she firmly nodded and had to lean her head back to look him in the eye. "I sure do like it when you leave that thing at home." Then she reached up and smoothed her gentle hands over his broad, vestless shoulders.

He held extra tight to the Stetson wedged firmly between them. "Now, Kitty," he began to quietly complain, but her hands were burning trails clear through his sweat-dampened shirt to the sensitized skin beneath and sending smoke signals straight to parts of his body best left alone here in the public eye. His voice rose a notch. "Don't you go teasin' me. I thought we were having a serious conversation."

"Don't you 'Now, Kitty' me. I am serious." She laid her palm on his chest and soothed, "A girl can admire a strong, handsome man, can't she?"

Matt's ears flushed pink once more. "There you go again…" The feel of her warm hand pressing against his chest made him think she must be able to feel his heart thumping like an Indian drum.

Kitty stopped smiling and looked up at him earnestly through thick lashes, not offering to remove her hand. "I'm sorry, Matt. I'm not teasing you, honestly. I meant what I just said."

Matt's mouth went dry. He was feeling a mite woozy. Maybe it was because he hadn't eaten a square meal since before he'd gone out on the prairie, but he also realized this feisty young woman could disarm him like no ordinary outlaw ever could. He was going to have to do his best never to let her realize that fact or else he thought he might be doomed. Doomed to what he wasn't quite sure, but the fleeting thought crossed his hazy consciousness that maybe sharing a fate with this stunning firebrand might actually not be so bad after all.

He glanced up quickly to make sure no one was watching them share their intimate moment, but the cowhand was still passed out cold on the table, damn the luck—something would have to be done about him—and Red and the cigar-smoking, fancy pants dresser were guffawing at a private joke, still deep in conversation, thankfully not paying the two of them any mind a'tall.

Kitty seemed to sense that he was tense. "I know what you need, Matt. You need a real drink. You're tired and you've been away on a long trip. This one's on me."

As she left him to get their drinks, Matt leaned on the bar, casual-like, relieved that she had put some space between them so he could catch his breath and calm his…uh, nerves. But he enjoyed viewing her unencumbered sashay as she walked away away—oh, what a vision—to retrieve from beneath the bar what she called her "special stash, a bottle of Woodford Reserve, Kentucky straight bourbon. It's mighty good corn."

"Kitty, you know I don't usually drink whiskey while I'm on duty…" But then he glanced down at the Stetson he was attempting to hold nonchalantly in front of his pants and amended, "…but maybe just this once."

"I knew you'd see it my way," she smiled. Kitty set out two shiny glasses, uncorked her bottle of sour mash and poured them both a generous measure. Raising her glass, she toasted, "Here's lookin' at ya'!"

Matt choked a little on his own spit. He raised his glass and echoed a mite guiltily, "Yeah, Kitty, here's lookin' at ya'…" He tossed back the 90-proof, aged bourbon in one fiery swallow, eyes watering, all the while thinking he could look at Kitty Russell all day long with that beautiful red hair and blue eyes, porcelain complexion, creamy shoulders, and those big, beautiful, voluptuous—"

Busting through the swinging doors, two young ranch hands made their presence known by whooping and hollering their way to the bar a few feet from Matt. He rolled his eyes heavenward. Oh hell, just what they needed. Between the strong whiskey and the uninvited guests, not to mention putting some distance between Kitty's warm, supple body and his own, his "enthusiasm" was quickly waning, he was happy to note. His death grip on the Stetson loosened and he felt himself relaxing, in more ways than one. He leaned forward on the bar, smiling good-naturedly at Kitty, doing his best to ignore the two young rascals chuckling and smacking each other over the head next to him.

"Whoa, whoa! Raefort, dammit, you 'bout knocked my ear clean off. I need me a drink— Woowee, wouldya' lookee what we got here? Sweetheart, come 'ere and give us a drink. Yer just 'bout the pertiest little thing I ever did see. What're you doin' back there? Come on out here with us."

Raefort whole-heartedly agreed, "Yep, li'l gal, you surely don't belong hidin' behind no bar. I want you at a table with us. How 'bout you, Lonnie? You think she'd set in my lap?"

Kitty opened her mouth to give them a piece of her mind, but Red quickly appeared to distract them. "What would you young gents prefer to wash the trail dust from your parched throats, eh? Beer? Whiskey? What'll you have?"

Kitty backed away unobtrusively as Red spoke with the men. She felt relieved the situation was quickly and efficiently diffused by the skillful barkeep and began to round the bar to rejoin Matt.

Lonnie spoke, "I'll take a whiskey with a beer chaser…" He smacked his money on the bar. "…and this li'l ol' gal right here!" With that, Lonnie quickly sidled up to Kitty, grabbing her by the waist and holding her tightly against him.

tbc

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