Seeking Shelter (by idmarryhoss)

Summary:  Inspired by a challenge prompt, ‘Seeking Shelter.’  

PG-13: mature situations, adult relationship. A Hoss story, of the desirable and desiring Hoss, the masculine Hoss some don’t see and others forget. Please note: description of passion, containing references to marital intimacy; sexual innuendo. For those who give space and respect to their imagination.  Rated: T (1,775 words)

 

                                          Seeking Shelter

 

Story Notes:

This Hoss story portrays the Hoss who is masculine and appealing, but not only because he is strong and yet stronger. It was inspired by the prompt in the FanFic Forum, where one person mentioned of the variety and spectrum of genres this one specific phrase, “seeking shelter,” was able to induce. The prompt helped to create stories of mystery, angst, comedy… Hence, I took the challenge and chose a genre and character which are not the most likely, not the most expected ones to pick and combine. These characters portray themselves also in my two stories Borderland and Borderdance, and this excerpt from the story is meant to respect the side of Hoss which the fan fiction and the series have left, from my point of view, underdeveloped and curt.

* * *

Drop.

Hoss sneered when he heard the first muffled thud of a raindrop on the rim of his hat, and when his creased nose turned upward and his brow furrowed to protest the upcoming weather, he pulled his coat tighter around him. The buckboard traveled over an uneven trail, wobbled under his weight and made him put one foot against the wood in front of his leg. When he tilted his head up again, another raindrop landed right next to the ridge of his nose, causing an annoyed murmuring voice escape from his throat.

“Dad burn it…”

Elin pressed closer against him, while her gray gaze swept over to the skies and her long arm stretched out to receive the droplets. As if she wished them welcome; her shawl fell a little from her shoulders, and the fold of her neck made her chignon untidy. She had a hat somewhere, but that somewhere could have been as well under all of the wagonload behind them. Her voice was clear and bubbling, for all the gathering gray clouds and thickening rain.

“It’s raining, Hoss.”

“Yeah, hon’, it’s as raining as a fair rain can rain right now.”

Hoss checked the reins and thought of the road ahead of them, thinking of seeking shelter at a grove, as he didn’t remember any line shacks or other suitable roofs to protect them from the weather.

A hand slipped under his coat sneakily, catching a supporting hold of his side while his wife’s body enforced itself under his other arm, causing the horse to toss his head when he felt a pull at the other rein.

“I thought I needed to find cover,” Elin spoke and squeezed against him to act as if the front of his coat was enough to cover her from the rain. Hoss released the reins and the horse slowed down, pushing his ears back and protesting for the weather, as well.

“Ailynn…?”

Swallowing caused a sound loud enough to be heard even in the increasing rain.

Elin wiggled on his thighs to sit tightly on his legs and got a hold of his shoulder under the coat, while the other hand clung to his side, to his belt. The chin passed under his eyes so close he saw a raindrop that had landed above her lips, traveling down the pale skin and searching the escape over the ridge of the teasing mouth. The moment was short, though, the movement of hers took another direction and he heard the lips murmuring under his ear, very close to the stubble that tickled against the brushing gestures of her face.

“Pull over.”

Dad… Burn it.

“R…”

Gasp.

She had opened her gray eyes, the familiar twinkle of the morning dew had gone away and the melting iron mixed to thick smoke and coal gray caught him by surprise.

“Right here, Ailynn?”

She pulled his hat on her own head, but it was all in vain, the rain brushed the hems of her dress and whipped both of their bodies from their shoulders and below, and the way she pushed the hat back on the crown of her head and turned aside made both their faces expose to the rain nakedly.

“When we go home, there are kids waiting,” she said and brought her head a bit lower, staying under his chin and whispering quietly to the collar of his shirt.

That collar was tight. Even if the highest few buttons were open, that dad burn collar knew how to be tight. Raindrops poured over his hair and tickled uncomfortably when they ran from the tips of the hair inside the collar, but the discomfort was nearly comfortable with the way she nudged the shirt from the front.

It did – or didn’t help that her lips left their marks over the Adam’s apple and the throat both sides of it, one set of fingers playing somewhere where the highest still closed button was waiting. In the first weeks when they were married, her lips had found a spot from his collar bone that made his whole body respond. Still today, no matter how long he would have been away or how tired he was when returning from the trail, she unmistakably found that exact same spot.

The imagination of his wife seemed to have no boundaries, even if Hoss himself could sometimes surprise her while inspiration ran strong.

“It’s all… wet, Ailynn.”

The buckboard had stopped from moving, although Hoss still had the reins in his other hand, mocking him with the problem of how to get them safely hitched to the hook. The other hand held tight around Elin’s body to stop her from falling; he had to shift his legs a bit to make room for her and help her balance slightly better. Her waistline softness was hardening for touch, it was preparing to expand, even if it was for nobody to see but her husband to feel, just yet. She hardly ever wore a corset, but it was good, he could tell if she was excited, angry, or in lack of something by the movement of her diaphragm in the pace of her breathing.

“It’s dry under the buckboard.”

Elin giggled, deep from her throat, her voice chiming like a voice of a child, while her hands tucked his vest in a way that was quite adult.

Hoss thought of her, how she had frowned under his weight the first time together, and how her soft moan had made him worried. ‘Do I hurt you?’ he had asked. ‘No, you do good,’ she answered, and later showed how pain could be pleasure, too, how love had teeth and claws and more.

Once he had snapped at her, at her tantrums and sassing Swedish that battered him for no reason, perhaps she’d burned all her buns or broken the eggs in the basket. She was lashing out at him, and started to collect his pillow and blankets from the bed to kick him out. For once, he had gotten angry and tucked her under his arm, and smacked a few times to make her quiet. Not harder than if she had been a child, but enough to tell her to mind her manners. When he released her and stared at her spitting angry face, she threw a pillow at him, she threw a pair of socks at him, she tried to throw a petticoat which didn’t fly and made her stomp her feet, until her bad mood made her cry hot tears and she ran away.

She disappeared for the whole day, avoiding him – until in the night, when he had been in the barn to see to the horses, a pair of hands had crawled to circle his chest from behind while her bozom’s soft figure pressed against his back, and soft lips had murmured to the scruff of his neck to ask for more.

The reins fell on his feet, the other hand rose up to stroke his wife’s soft brown hair that was waiting behind the ear to fall loose from the bun in the neck. She wasn’t made to be understood, but to be held in his hands, to be loved in spite.

“Not anymore, I’m afraid.”

He bent his head down to reach her face, to invite it upright again, to let him join the game, too. The hat fell off from her head, and landed next to his feet by the seat. The horse shifted, making the carriage behind him shift, and the bump shook the couple but didn’t separate them an inch.

“We could turn back to the trees,” he said into her mouth, to her nostrils that were too close. He let the grip of his hands loosen so that she answered the movement by leaning her back against his arms.

His own eyes examined her face, the mist in his own dreamy look making the corners of his wife’s eyes smile while he looked at her from the top of her head to the chin, and back, trying to memorize every quarter of a quarter of an inch under the raindrops that striped her face but glimmered like crystals. All his, she had said in the night after they were married; she had kept her promise.

Her leg snaked her body once more while it climbed over his thighs, the rain-soaked hems following with little elegance and sweeping over his knees and shins with their heavy shadow. His hand groped for a moment and found her leg, covered with the stocking and fitted into the buttoned shoe, and traveling higher he fixed her better on his thighs.

“Not anymore, I’m afraid.”

Yes, for having her, there was a price to pay.

He was hers, from head to toe, but at this end of the rope, that was a small price in the bargain.

The rain twirled around them and sheltered them from the rest of the world with its thick and oozing fall like a curtain; nobody would be out in this shower. They were all alone, the rain was washing all the trails away.

 

* * *

With huge thanks to the audience who saw beauty, not prejudice, before the story saw daylight.

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Author: idmarryhoss

I'm an ESL writer, who swore she'd never write anything unnecessary, especially not fanfic. Things turned out otherwise... and I'm awfully grateful for fellow fanfic writers, who proved, how writing (yes, also fanfic) is definitely necessary! I come from Finland and I'm trilingual in Finnish, English and Swedish, Finnish being my mother tongue. I also learn Russian every day, and my German is not the poorest even if totally out of practice. My literary heroes are Scandinavian, my all-time favourite "romance" is story of Ronia the Robber's Daughter and Birk, Son of Borka and my favourite book Brothers Lionheart, both written by Astrid Lindgren. I try to read versatilely both in English and in Finnish, a bit in other languages, too, and I find literature one of the elementary, most fundamental forces in the universe. ;-) I wrote in the now passed BonanzaWorld, and I hope my personality and stories will find new home here.

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