<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/e/e4/Natehunter.png/437px-Natehunter.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Nathan Hunter<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Senior Deputy (Law Dogs)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 3rd, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Morning<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Vigilance Ranch<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Margeurite, Closed<br/><hr/>Outside, Nathan lingered against the door of the shed for as long as his masochism could allow.  With the moment of integrity behind him, he felt a brief, pointed moment of righteous goodness, followed by a long spiral of doubt.  He worked over her smile, trying to determine if it had been amused, placating, or simply accepting it as his due.  More than anything, he found it impossible to ignore how he'd made her feel, when he'd pushed her down and slid into her.   He remembered the words on the horse.<em>“You.  Did. NOT.  Rape.  Me.”</em>He tried to sort through, sort out what it was this woman who claimed to be a whore and acted one moment like a society belle and next like Jezebel herself had on him.  What mystique she exerted, or why she made his gut tighten when he heard the bristles of the brush on her skin.<br/><br/>He had promised her a dress.  He remembered it belatedly, forcing himself out of his protective reverie.  For a moment, he wished for an unwashed mass of chinese  warriors to came riding up from the road, just to give him a more familiar sort of predicament.  Something besides the sway of those perfect breasts during a half-undressed curtsy.  He sighed and set off to the house.  He was stopped by the rancher's wife, who pressed a bag of trail rations into his hand, and an extra canteen to accompany the one he'd already filled.<br/><br/><strong>“Oh … you didn't have to do that,</strong>' he smiled.  But he didn't refuse the charity.  She just smiled and patted his shoulder.<strong>“It ain't much.  Just something to get you back to keeping the area peaceable.”</strong><br/><br/>He gave a blush and felt a stab of guilt at that.  He was pretty sure a hornet's nest had been good and kicked.<strong>“Thank you, ma'am.  If... if there's any trouble in these parts with Chinamen, you get on your horse and get your husband and your son to Gomorra,”</strong>he said.<strong>“Don't try to … make yourselves heroes.  There's hundreds of 'em, and only the three of you.”</strong><br/><br/>She nodded, taking the admonition seriously.<strong>“You don't worry.  I'll get old Jude up in the saddle and we'll be on our way first thing,”</strong>she promised.<br/><br/>He nodded, grateful, then headed to the room.  He set down the food and the canteen, taking a clean linen and the dress, only to turn and nearly bumped into Margeurite, wrapped in a towel, clean and fresh.<br/><br/><strong>“I... “</strong>He swallowed.  He extended his arms, with the dress and the linen, then realized his foolishness.  He pulled the arm with the linen back, offering her a smile and a dress, cursing his anatomy for surging hard at the sigh of her.  Somehow, it refused to be tamed by force of will or reason.<strong>“... your dress,”</strong>he finished weakly.<br/><br/>Did he want her.<em>Indeed.</em>